Reviewing in a Sentence (#1)

So I’ve let my “to-review” pile get out of control again.  It’s not like this is new.  However, there are a couple books in it that a review is simply not going to happen.  I have nothing to really contribute or just not enough feelings about the book.  But I thought I should say something, and the result is this: the first in (hopefully) a series of one sentence reviews complete with a toadstool rating.  I’m going to pull five books out of the massive pile of “to-review,” dedicate a sentence to them, and send them on their way to my “done” bookshelf.  And the first group is:

For Darkness Shows the Stars

By Diana Peterfreund

A tender Jane Austen love story with mashed in bits of post apocalyptic science fiction -- how could it be bad?

Final Thought: 500 out of 525 toadstools

Across the Universe

By Beth Revis

I just… I don’t even know; this book was super.

Final Thought: 7 out of 8 toadstools

Legend

By Marie Lu

An intense and wonderful addition to the YA dystopian genre, Legend combines a great cast  of characters and a complex plot to form an exciting and unforgettable story.

Final Thought: 4 out of 5 toadstools

Of Triton

By Anna Banks

Ugh.

Final Thought: 6 out of 35 toadstools

 

Strands of Bronze and Gold

By Jane Nickerson

This one was highly anticipated for me and did not let me down, but did get a little slow and drawn out at times.

Final Thought: 16 out of 23 toadstools

Ahhh I feel so accomplished even though I didn't really do much.  So what do you think?  Want to make your own list of one sentence reviews to lower your pile?  Send me a link if you do your own!  Maybe this will become a monthly thing for me and whoever else needs to lighten their “to-review” stack.

Happy Reading,

Review: Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter

Kate Winters has won immortality.

But if she wants a life with Henry in the Underworld, she'll have to fight for it.

Becoming immortal wasn't supposed to be the easy part. Though Kate is about to be crowned Queen of the Underworld, she's as isolated as ever. And despite her growing love for Henry, ruler of the Underworld, he's becoming ever more distant and secretive. Then, in the midst of Kate's coronation, Henry is abducted by the only being powerful enough to kill him: the King of the Titans.

As the other gods prepare for a war that could end them all, it is up to Kate to save Henry from the depths of Tartarus. But in order to navigate the endless caverns of the Underworld, Kate must enlist the help of the one person who is the greatest threat to her future.

Henry's first wife, Persephone.

Paperback, 304 pages

Published March 27th 2012 by Harlequin Tee

(info grabbed from GoodReads)

This review contains spoilers if you haven’t read The Goddess Test.

So from where we left off in The Goddess Test, everyone is a God, Kate and Henry are happily married, and all should be good, right?  Not so much.  Calliope is crazy and wants to destroy the world by releasing the Titans.  The strongest of the Gods go off to combat Calliope, leaving Kate to another dangerous quest.  This quest is even more challenging than the deadly test from the first book: Kate has to deal with Henry’s ex-wife Persephone!  *gasp* THE HORROR.

Okay, seriously, this is the real thing that did make me adore this book.  Kate has to deal with REAL marriage issues all the while in a very unreal setting.  The way the author crossed real life into the world a paranormal romance book was pure genius in my humble opinion.  I loved the way we got to see Kate struggle with emotions of being cut off from her husband and the jealousy attached to not being the first wife.  The way the novel was set up made the ending all the more heartwarming.

Goddess Interrupted proved itself to be more than The Goddess Test: there was more drama, more action, and more intrigue.  The stakes are higher as Kate is defending the world instead of just her own life.  The Goddess Test almost seems like a prequel with how it shows how Kate ended up from being a normal teenager to now being a Goddess with the real story starting with Goddess Interrupted and concluding with The Goddess Inheritance.  The one thing that did make me want to pull out my hair was the devious cliff hanging ending.  WHY AIMEE CARTER?  …I’ll forgive you this time, but only if The Goddess Inheritance holds up to the standard of the previous books.

Final Thought: 22 out of 25 toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads

Notes From My Desk: After the Ball by Sarah Cross

After the Ball is a short story set in the same world as Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross that is totally free to read and is posted on the author's blog here.  You can also download the ePub version there as well.  I highly recommend anything Sarah Cross has touched, and will shamlessly promote anything and everything she has written.  What I think is great about After the Ball is that it introduces what Kill Me Softly has to offer as a novel while still being an amazing short on it's own.  After the Ball shares the same backwards city, showcases Sarah Cross's writing style, and (while having a unique story) has the same creepy twists on Grimm faerie tales that I personally adored. 

So if you were looking at Kill Me Softly, but weren't sure because of mixed reviews or whatever, read After the Ball.  Make your own conclusion free of charge.  Or if you have no idea what Kill Me Softly is, never even heard about it, read After the Ball anyway.  I found it braintastically delicious, and I think you will too. 

Happy reading!

P. S. :   If you need another reason to read After the Ball, there's also really cool artwork like the one at the top of this post to go along with the story.  So there.

P. S. S. :  You can find my review of Kill Me Softly here, if you'd like

Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

Hardcover, 292 pages

Published July 3rd 2012 by HarperTeen 

 

(info grabbed from GoodReads)

Tiger Lily was enchanting, brilliant, and all those wonderful things you want in a story, but it was slooooow.  It is not a fast paced adventure, it is not a heart flipping romance.  Tiger Lily's tale is, in many ways, heart wrenching and realistic.  The world does not always deal out a charmed life or a happy ending, and Tiger Lily is no exception in the world of Neverland.  These are all things not so often seen in YA -- usually good conquers evil and true love wins above all odds in this genre.  I don't remember what expectations I had for the book, but Tiger Lily surpassed and differed from it at the same time; Tiger Lily is not your typical YA retelling. 

I was very surprised to find that Tiger Lily was actually told from the eyes of the most famous pixie of all time: Tinkerbell.  In this version (and most versions) Tinkerbell cannot talk, but she has a lot of voice for a mute faerie.  I thought an interesting choice of narrator and was pretty geeked over it.  For me, however, the reflective voice of Tinkerbell was more somber than I was expecting, and, at times, was off-putting.  It also would occasionally become confusing as it was easy to forget who was narrating.  But overall, I think Tinkerbell telling the story is part of what made Tiger Lily so special.  Through Tinkerbell’s eyes we could see different sides and objective views of the main characters.

It was wickedly more sophisticated than I was expecting.  There is no absurd happy ending or insta-love.  Actually, there isn’t a whole lot of happy period - there was an overwhelming amount of sadness lingering throughout the air of Neverland.  It was depressing and without hope since most of us know who Peter Pan eventually ends up with, which is stated on the cover: Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . . 

In addition to Jodi Lynn Anderson’s sad Neverland, her version of Peter was simply of a young and magnetic boy.  No flying.  Just leader of the Lost Boys.  This lack of magic added to the somber realism of the author’s version of Neverland.  However, the book is worth reading for this very different world of Neverland. 

I found that because of the book's more relaxed story telling it was harder to get into.  Some books you almost literally feel yourself fall into effortlessly, with others it may be a dive.  With Tiger Lily, at times I felt I was struggling to break the surface and descend into the story.  I think this is one of those books that if and when you decide to read it, make sure you have nothing to do for the day and won't be interrupted.  Just curl up in a chair with a blanket, maybe its raining/snowing outside, and turn off your phone.  Probably would make for an extremely peaceful afternoon.

Final Thought: 4 out of 5 un-flying toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads.

Review: Feed by Mira Grant

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives - the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will get out, even if it kills them.

Paperback, 571 pages

Published May 1st 2010 by Orbit 

(summary grabbed from GoodReads)

Oh dear lord, the feels.

Feed was spectacular.  It was way more than I was expecting and everything that I've ever wanted in a zombie book.  I'm not really a zombie-book aficionado, with the only zombie book I think I've read was Alice in Zombieland, which didn't even have zombies, it had ghost zombies.  Which if you think about it, kind of just makes them ghosts and not zombies at all.  I think a more appropriate title would have been Alice in Ghost-Land -- DON'T PROMISE ME ZOMBIES AND NOT GIVE ME ZOMBIES! 

...moving on.  However, I have probably watched nearly every zombie movie in existence.  Even the B movies.  I may spend over half the movie hiding my head from the inevitable and astronomical amount of gore, but I still stay in the room and listen (which should count for something).  Anyway, Feed went with a more traditional take on zombies and the problem I usually have with traditional zombie movies is that there's not a lot of back-story or explanation about the zombies (and no one seems too curious, but I don't know if I would care how zombies ticked if the threat of being eaten was imminent).  A reason or explanation is something I'm always craving in zombie stories, and every little craving was satisfied with Feed.

The first thing that made Feed stand out to me as more than “just another book” was the thoroughness of its zombie-science.  Without ever throwing an info dump on the reader, Mira Grant explains her zombie lore, which although based a lot on George Romero’s movies, had a lot of originality.  For example, the zombies in Feed grew smarter in groups and could form a pack mentality.  That aspect of the zombies wasn’t very explored, but it is just an example of how well thought out the zombies of Feed were.  Also, the author makes note of how her zombies are like George Romero's zombies, and thus in the book, George Romero is seen as a national hero for educating the world on zombies through his movies.  Hence, our main character’s name is Georgia.  I thought that was genius.

The book begins over twenty years after the zombie apocalypse with our main characters having lived their entire lives under the threat of zombie attacks.  It was clear from the beginning that the author had put some serious though into what kind of people would grow out of this kind of world.  She explores how more people have turned to religion, others live in fear, and then there are others.  Georgia and Shaun are in the others category.  Both are bloggers/reporters, but they go about blogging in different ways.  Georgia wants to shower the world with truth while being the world’s greatest action hero at the same time.  The opening of the book involves her gunning her motorcycle up a ramp and flying over a hungry hoard of zombies to safety.  Shaun on the other hand likes to bait zombie in Jackass related stunts for entertainment.  Their differences combined with their co-dependence as siblings made Feed extra special.

  

Feed honestly felt like a realistic possibility of the future.  You could get lost in the book, which is the thing I love about reading the most.  I would call it more of a mature read, but not because it has mature content (it doesn’t).  It was a bit dry, dealt with politics and reporting a lot, and lacked a romance.  Feed focused on the characters and how they did their reporting in this zombie filled world, not the zombies themselves.  Like I said before, there wasn’t a romance, and though some people will enjoy that, that could be a turn off for some.  I absolutely adored it and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction or thrillers.  Which I guess is odd since Feed isn’t particularly science-fiction-y or ultra thrilling, but I think that is who it would appeal to the most.

Final Thought: 10 out of 10 undead toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads

Me thinks I should read more zombie books and watch less zombie movies.

Review: Renegade by J. A. Soulders

Since the age of three, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters has been trained to be Daughter of the People in the underwater utopia known as Elysium. Selected from hundreds of children for her ideal genes, all her life she’s thought that everything was perfect; her world. Her people. The Law.

But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into their secluded little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie.
 
Her memories have been altered.

Her mind and body aren’t under her own control.

And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.

Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb... and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.

Hardcover, 364 pages

Published November 13th 2012 by Tor Teen

(info bomb grabbed from GoodReads)

Renegade is a great new addition to the YA dystopian genre.  Lately I had been feeling that most dystopian novels were just redoing ideas that had been done before, but I didn’t feel that way with Renegade at all.  It was not quite like anything I've read yet, but still had all the right points that make dystopian one of my favorite genres to read; it is exciting, it is creepy, and it made me question humanity.  It also kind of reminds Bioshock for Xbox 360 -- and by “kind-of-reminds-me,” I really mean Renegade could have been a prequel to the game.  They both take place in an underwater society, have little girl assassins, and a bunch of other things that might be spoilers for the book.

Renegade pulls you right into the shoes of Evelyn, daughter of the people in the underwater world of Elysium with the reader waking up in her princess bed and going about her princess duties.  Even in those mundane morning activities, the reader is already going “What…?” with the crazy eyes.  I, for one, absolutely love pulling my hair out and screaming "WHAT IS GOING ON???" at books.  LOVE.  IT.  And that happened a lot with Renegade and really formed a layer of creeptastic-ness all over Evelyn's home of Elysium.  It wasn't messy -- it was deliberate and planned and amazing.  Basically, if normal books have plot twists, Renegade was a plot contortionist.

There are a few things I would say negatively about Renegade, and one is that it was very tell and not show.  Even so, it was well done and not an issue -- just something I noticed.  I still had a clear picture of everything that was going on, it just could have been a little better.  Showing vs. telling paints a picture in the readers mind rather than explicitly telling the reader exactly what is going on.  It's the difference between: The sun beat down on me and sweat began to trickle down my cheek vs. It was hot.  That's an extreme example, and Renegade was definitely not anywhere near the craptasticness of my second sentence.

The only other criticism was that it felt like the characters were reacting and reacting and new situation and reaction... and it made me tired.  It got a little old, and thus I lost some steam at the end of the novel, much to my own dismay.  Because other than that, Renegade was one of the most fun books I have read all year.  I highly recommend it to anyone who loves dystopian and/or sci-fi, or books that mess with your head a bit.

I think I may have a panic attack if I hear Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid.

Final Thought: 18 out of 20 toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads

I’m going to continue my little video game plug here: if you read Renegade and liked it, I highly recommend playing Bioshock.  Even if you don’t like video games (or think you don’t like video games), borrow your brother’s Xbox 360 and humor me.  I would find it hard to believe if the author was not inspired by this game since they have so much in common.  Also, Bioshock is one of many games where the story is just as important as the game play, proving that video games are becoming another type of storytelling media. 

TEotWaWKI Tour Stop!

Oh good, the world didn't end yesterday!  YAY!  The End of the World as We Know It will be referred to as TEotWaWKI from here on out. 

Review Time, but first a blurb:

They wanted to party like it was their last night on earth. They just might get their wish….

Meet the four most unlikely heroes ever:

Teena McAuley: Queen Bee, first-class problem solver, resident heartbreaker.

Leo Starnick: UFO conspirator, pizza delivery boy, all-around slacker.

Evan Brighton: Baseball all-star, extreme virgin, Teena-worshipper.

Sarabeth Lewis: Straight-A student, weekend hermit, enemy of the color pink.

When Teena locks Leo, Evan, and Sarabeth in the basement during her biggest party of the year, she doesn’t plan on getting trapped in the Loser Dungeon herself. She can barely imagine a night with these dweebs—let alone a lifetime. But when an alien invasion destroys their entire Midwestern suburb, it looks like these unlikely friends are the last people on earth. Now, it’s up to them to save the world….

 Published July 17th 2012 by Alloy Entertainment

On the surface, TEotWaWKI seems like a mash up of a lot of stories that have been done and redone.  We have a group of teens who wouldn’t normally be seen with each other thrown together in to faceoff with invading aliens.  So basically, The Breakfast Club meets The War of the Worlds.  To me, just that combination was intriguing and had me interested, but I was honestly surprised by how much I grew to love this book.  I thought it was brilliant how the author took two very different ideas, threw them together and created something that was completely her own.  

The book was in a lot of ways a demonstration on how extreme circumstances can lead to character transformations.  What first appeared to be shallow and selfish characters turn into a team full of depth that grow to genuinely care about each other.  At the beginning we are introduced to these characters that appear to be simple archetypes: the Queen Bee, the smart girl, the stoner, and the jock.  I thought it was really interesting how the author played with the archetypes and gradually added layers to each character.  But it wasn’t just the reader who these layers were being exposed to; it was also the other characters.  Each character discovered not only things about themselves, but also depth to each other that they never knew was there. 

What I was surprised by was how by the end of the book, I found some characters endearing where at the beginning I loved to hate them.  Teena in particular, who is our resident Queen Bee, starts out very typical: self-absorbed, catty, and mean.  Not a nice girl.  However, it’s not that she makes a 180 with her character; it’s that you start to see her from a different perspective and form sympathy for her because you begin to know her as a person and not as a simple archetype.  This also happens with the other characters in their own way.

Is TEotWaWKI a realistic interpretation of an alien invasion?  Who knows!  What seems to be the overall point is that we don’t know who we are going to be in extreme circumstances.  So who is to say that a group of teenagers thrown together from a party mishap couldn’t save their town from an alien invasion?  I personally loved the message and how it was humorously explored, but I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone.  Drugs and sex are casually talked about in the book, along with some swearing.  I didn’t think it was gratuitous, but if you’re sensitive to those things, I thought you might want a heads up.

Final Thought: 4 out of 5 toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads

But no, there's more goodies:

Top Ten Books You Should Read Before the End of the World by Iva-Marie Palmer

So, when I initially set out to write my top ten for Where the Mome Raths Outgrabe, I had in my mixed-up head that it was to be a list of my favorite books. Which freaked me out a little because I feel like choosing a limited number of favorite books is like choosing which body parts I’d most like to lose. (Yes, I’m alluding a Neil Gaiman quote.) But really, my Top Ten Books You Should Read Before the End of the World is a little different than that, no? With this list, I want to share some must-read books that might be new to some of you, I hope.  Nine are not-YA picks and one is a YA that I feel was somewhat under-read. I think they’re all good to have under your belt should the world bite it. (And yes, I know it didn’t happen yesterday or anything, but one never knows, really.)

I hope you find something new to check out, and in turn know that I’m always scouting book recs so please friend me on GoodReads and recommend away!

American Gods – If you haven’t read Neil Gaiman yet, it’s time you did. In this book, I felt like he exposed the cracks in the world and found magic in them. 

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart – I feel like I need to tell everyone I know about this book because I don’t feel like it blew up in the YA world the way it should have. Frankie’s not just a girl, she’s the girl. This has an awesome feminist, girl power message without seeming at all preachy. 

The Secret History by Donna Tartt – Even though I’d read other adult books before this one, this was the first book I read that made me feel like a grown-up. There’s something so seductive about Tartt’s storytelling. It seeps right into your blood. Okay, now I want to read this one again.

L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy – World-building is a skill attributed to fantasy and sci-fi writers, but I don’t understand why James Ellroy doesn’t get credit for being excellent at it, as well. No one does grimy, gritty, old Los Angeles quite the way he does, and you feel like you’re part of the action when you read him.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach – I read this this year, and yes, it’s a bestseller, but it might not be a natural pick-up for YA fans. But you should pick it up, because Harbach is amazing at his craft. Every character matters. Every word matters. But the cool thing is, Harbach’s so skilled he doesn’t draw attention to how much it all matters, which is something only the best writers manage.

Vurt/Pollen by Jeff Noon – I am making clear how old I am, but I read these books right when the Internet was becoming a thing, and they’ve stuck with me. Really great science fiction makes us think not just about the future, but where we are now, and Vurt and its companion, Pollen – about the blurred lines between reality and virtual reality do just that. 

Automated Alice by Jeff Noon – A lot of people try to retell Alice in Wonderland (one of my favorite books), but Noon does it best, I think. In his version of things, Alice travels to the future (which, since this book is older, is now the past: 1998, to be exact.) I like digging this one up to reread every now and again. (Momo, I think you’ll like it, too.)

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby – Four people show up on the same rooftop on New Year’s Eve all with the same idea: To jump off. Sounds cheery, right? Told in alternating points of view, something I’ve been wont to do in my writing (and in End of the World), every character feels unique and important. Plus, reading this makes me think Nick Hronby has as many voices in his head as I do.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – Atwood was doing dystopian YA before that was even a thing. I’m forever grateful to the hip sociology instructor who assigned this to me. If you haven’t read it, do so soon. 

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – This one is on here for me. I confess to never having read it but I always keep meaning to. Supposed to be a stellar example of first-person storytelling (my favorite, often), I’m putting this on my 2013 to-read list. Hold me to it.

Iva-Marie Palmer is the author of The End of the World as We Know It, a sci-fi action comedy from Alloy Entertainment (creators of Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries).  Find her online on Twitter (@ivamarie), on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ivamariebooks) and at her website (www.ivamariepalmer.com).

Palmer lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son and lots of (filled) bookshelves.

The books are each linked for easy GoodReads access!  Go forth and read!  I think it's a stellar list and am definitely adding them to my TBR pile (especially Automated Alice -- I think I'll like it too).  Think the Iva-Marie Palmer seems pretty cool?  Stalk her by checking out these links:


Iva-Marie Palmer's Website
Author's Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads Author Page

These links are for TEotWaWKI:
Goodreads
Amazon
Facebook