This is our brand new segment in which our delightful buddy Harry, from Temple Library Reviews will be joining us once a month to review paranormal romance from a guy’s perspective. But we will let him introduce himself, please let’s give a warm welcome to Harry!

*******

Harry: I’m the newest honorary addition to the Book Smugglers team [honest to God, I smuggle books home and then lie straight to my family's face about it]. I get the chance to play here at their blog once a month and my small spot will be called ‘A Dude Reads PNR’. The idea came to be in December, when I posted my Sherilyn Kenyon review and people were interested to see the male POV about Paranormal Romance. The public demands, the attention whore (that’s me) begs, and the smugglers comply.

*******

Title: Tempt Me Eternally [second part of Deep Kiss of Winter]

Author: Gena Showalter

Genre: PNR

Publisher: Pocket Books
Publication Date: October 2009
HC: 170 pages

Stand Alone or series: Stand alone, but a small part of an on-going story. The other story in the collection, Untouchable by Kresley Cole, has been reviewed by Ana here.

Aleaha Love can be anyone — literally. With only skin-to-skin contact, she can change her appearance, assume any identity. Her newest identity switch has made her an AIR (alien investigation and removal) agent and sends her on a mission to capture a group of otherworldly warriors. Only she becomes the captured. Breean, a golden-skinned commander known for his iron will who is at once dangerous and soul-shatteringly seductive, threatens her new life. Because for the first time, Aleaha only wants to be herself….

How did I get the book: Vortex during winter solstice. It’s the time, when bookstores align with the universe and expel the unneeded books from their warehouses. I bet you had no idea, did you?

Review:

When I received the opportunity to include a novel from my unread stash, I didn’t think as to which author to pick. Gena Showalter possesses an innate ability to balance action with romance, so that the reader is comfortable with both elements. What could possibly go wrong? Showalter has danger and sex. It seemed as a wise choice at the time. But surprise, surprise. Her 170 pages long Tempt Me Eternally left me so utterly bored and disgruntled that I considered sleep as a more productive alternative.

Yes, I am in the beheading move, so let’s proceed with the positive elements so that I can focus on what drove me to the brink of sanity as a reader. First, the whole story in this is a huge shoutout to Alien Huntress fans. They will feel in their waters knowing more than the regular reader. There are recurring characters and the plot is based on the central conflict of the series: arrival of an alien queen, who brings cannibalism as a STD. Gena Showalter ’s prose is solid, while her sex scenes are ever so inventive.

But “Tempt Me Eternally” is 90% sex or deals with thoughts or actions related to sex. It reads like a porn script, which can easily sell on the hentai market [I am referring to the bath tub scene, where Breean possesses Aleaha and gets her to masturbate for him, while he is inside her body]. I don’t mind the kink. I also am not against the sex, but what I am against is malnourishing the story to the point, where suspension of disbelief vanishes and the reader questions whether the book is going anywhere.

Gena Showalter allowed that to happen [as opposed to her earlier work] and decided to use Aleaha and Breean’s back stories in order to justify the instant sexual magnetism. Yes, Breean has not slept with a woman for more than two years and yes, Aleaha is starved, because she lacks the control over her shapeshifting, which makes sex dangerous for her. And yes, I’m aware that Breean emits heavy duty pheromones, but as far as priorities go sex goes dead last, when survival is at hand. Both characters need to survive.

Breean has set up a home on Earth, so until his new home is secured, this mission should come first, while Aleaha needs (1) to free herself as she is a captive and (2) preserve the truth about herself. You would think that both individuals would fight each other, until one dies, so that they achieve that goal. No, that would be wrong. What is most natural to happen is that both start dry humping from the get-go. Aliens invade Earth. You are the last standing member of resistance and the aliens desperately desire to be on your planet. I am more or less dumbfounded as to how both characters could not stand in character, especially when the author stresses how they should be focusing on their missions.

Yes, Gena Showalter is clever enough to add the pheromones as a catalyst to overpower all rational behavior. It’s part of the worldbuilding. But after that Aleaha does not really think about her duty, responsibility or the teammates, who are locked in a dungeon. She doesn’t act to free herself and the agents. Yes, Aleaha is said to do so, but I didn’t believe her. It just didn’t sound any bit convincing. When the big scene came, when she almost kills Breean in order to free her team, I was far from being emotionally involved. Because, (1) I’m far from convinced warring enemies could fall in love in the course of a week [imagine, you being held hostage and falling in love with your captor during war. Hey, the world is a funny place after all] and (2) it’s not really love, but Stockholm Syndrome.

I decided to consider it Stockholm Syndrome and attribute the mushiness to Aleaha being unstable. Fast-forward, the escape is far from a raging success and it’s time for Breean to punish Aleaha for her initiative to finally do something other than orgasm. What happens is more sex… At which point I am face-palming a lot. The ending lacks a climax that is jaw dropping, twisty or exciting. Instead, everything turns out okay. Everybody has forgiven everybody else. You can practically feel how AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER will write itself in pink.

Verdict: I wanted to be civil. But I couldn’t be. This was intolerable. Gena Showalter can do better as she is gifted and had the right material and elements to make this a spicy and adrenaline-filled read. But she wanted to do her thing in just 170 pages, which is simply not enough to work.

Rating: 4 Bad, but not without some merit

Reading next: Harry will be back in August with a review of THE BLOODGATE GUARDIAN by Joely Sue Burkhart

You can read all of Harry’s reviews here.

Title: Retribution Falls

Author: Chris Wooding

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Gollancz
Publication Date: April 8 2010
Paperback: 448 pages

Stand alone or series: First in the Tales of the Ketty Jay series.

Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy. With their trio of ragged fighter craft, they run contraband, rob airships and generally make a nuisance of themselves. So a hot tip on a cargo freighter loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck. Until the heist goes wrong, and the freighter explodes. Suddenly Frey isn’t just a nuisance anymore – he’s public enemy number one, with the Coalition Navy on his tail and contractors hired to take him down. But Frey knows something they don’t. That freighter was rigged to blow, and Frey has been framed to take the fall. If he wants to prove it, he’s going to have to catch the real culprit. He must face liars and lovers, dogfights and gunfights, Dukes and daemons. It’s going to take all his criminal talents to prove he’s not the criminal they think he is …

Why did I read this book: After many glowing reviews and being shortlisted for the Arthur Clarke award, I just had to. Plus look at the GORGEOUS cover.

How did I get this book: Bought

Review:

Retribution Falls has been on my radar for a while. Since its release last year, it has accumulated glowing reviews (including one in The Guardian) and was even shortlisted for the prestigious ARTHUR C. CLARKE award. When I received the ARC for its sequel Black Lung Captain which came with a line in the marketing material comparing the series to Joss Whedon’s fabulous Firefly TV Show, I felt it was about time I read it.

The story follows the dysfunctional crew of the battered freighter Ketty Jay, led by their captain Darian Frey as they cruise along from job to job, most of them of a questionable nature. When their latest commission goes terribly wrong and they are framed for the death of several people including a famous Heir, they decide to prove their innocence by any means necessary. Fleeing the law, escaping from pirates, getting immersed in political intrigue and facing former lovers as well as their own past, will the crew of the Ketty Jay come out of it, especially when their greatest challenge is to trust each other?

On the surface, Retribution Falls is an enjoyable, adventurous romp and it can present the reader with a few hours of fun read. I know I liked parts of the book, the adventure of it all especially given as how I am a sucker for the ragtag-crew-who-learns-to-like-each-other trope and I so wish I could take everything in this book as its face value and just accept it all and relax. But I find that I just can’t – damn you, brain! Why must you be so critical?

Ultimately Retribution Falls does not stand to scrutiny. For starters there is the world building which is merely glossed over. I have seen the book described as Steampunk but I simply do not have enough data about the world to be able to determine that, as dates, locations, details are all very fuzzy. I find that perhaps this is a conscious choice by the author in order to keep the furious pacing going. But oddly, that same fast and furious pacing is brought down by very clumsy exposition about the characters and an inordinate amount of telling, not showing.

For example, from the get go we are told how the characters feel about each other. Frey, the captain, loves the ship more than anything in the world and he doesn’t see his crew as a “crew”. I am told he doesn’t care for them over and over again, until I am told his feelings have changed. Crake, the one paying passenger thinks them all to be inferior (especially one of the pilots, whom he describes as an “idiot” many times over) and so on and so forth. This was repeated throughout the book but especially towards the ending in a way that it only served to telegraph what would happen next and what the story is really about. It became so predictable that I just knew what would happen to every single one of them. Forget adventure, piracy, and conspiracy, the true story being told here is that about the characters and the main arc is how they all become a real crew.

In principle that would have been awesome but the majority of the characters come across as stereotypes that are not truly fleshed out: here we have the “idiot” pilot; the “coward” second pilot, the “silent” mechanic, the “drunken” doctor. I mentioned exposition about the characters and this is what happens in this book: the story is building up then it will stop for a character to reminisce about his or her past, usually by internal monologue or by telling it to another character. Almost immediately something will happen that will bring up this very same past or its repercussions in a way that the character has to deal with it. I can’t begin to tell how much of a shame this is, because some of these characters have truly interesting pasts. Frey and Drake especially are flawed characters who made horrible decisions in life and now have to deal with them.

The comparisons with Firefly that were inevitably drawn (similar set up, world, premise, etc), are in my opinion, to the detriment of Retribution Falls. As unfair as this comparison may be the characters are nowhere near as cool as those of Firefly and Frey is certainly no Mal. But above all, one particular aspect stands out in this comparison: if there is one thing that Joss Whedon does really well, is to write awesome female characters. Out of Serenity’s crew, 4 are strong, interesting female characters who stand on their own.

And here lies my main issue with Retribution Falls which perhaps serves as a window into the world of Speculative Fiction and its known problem with female representation and characterisation. The majority of women in this novel are either faceless whores who the characters indulge their free time with or women who have been doomed by their love for the male protagonist.

The two main secondary characters are Frey’s former lovers: one has been sent to a convent after he ditched her and still sort of loves him; the other is the “villain” of the novel, a fearless pirate Trinica Dracken who could have been so cool; but she turns out to be a former lover, someone whom cowardly Frey left at the altar years and years ago and the pain of being left was so much, she tried to kill self, lost their child, left home to join a ship where she is of course, raped several times. She then hardens herself, goes through a transformation as a result of her love for this guy – becomes UGLY – and this otherwise very capable pirate is of course, thwarted by the hero of the piece at every turn. The problem with this is that both these characters exist only in relation to the lame male character.

What about the crew of Ketty Jay? Out of 7, one is female ( I am not counting the other one, Bess, because she is, surprise! A Golem who is used as brute force). And Jez is quite possibly my favourite character of the piece: she is clever, strong, interesting. But I have a problem with how others see her. Right in the beginning of the novel when she is being recruited to join the crew, this is how Frey decides that she is the one:

Her features were petite and appealing but she was rather plain, boyish and very pale. That was also good. An overly attractive woman was fatal on a craft full of men. They were distracting and tended to substitute charm and flirtatiousness for doing any actual work. Besides, Frey would feel obligated to sleep with her, and that never worked out well.

This is very, very problematic. A female character needs to be plain or boyish (see how being “male” is better?) or else she is a sexual distraction?

When one is writing a review like this one, one must consider whether these are written with intentional self-awareness. Are there repercussions for such characterisations? These may be “in character” but do the male characters learn the “errors of their way” or at the very least do the female characters regain respect by being generally made of awesome even if the male characters do not see it?

No, I would say not in this particular example. In fact towards the very end of the novel Jez saves the day and it is implied that she does so by doing sexual favours even though, up until that point, she was the cleverer character in the entire piece, perfecly capable of saving the day without having to use her vagina.

Am I alone in reading the misogyny – by number and by characterisation – present in this novel? No, thankfully, I am not.

I have to say: I am completely astonished by the award nomination – I can’t think how Retribution Falls can be representative of the best in the genre. Fun, yes. But it can’t be top of the line and it certainly can’t, shouldn’t be that, when it represents female characters like that. I am sure most will think of me as a party pooper but these things need to be brought up and discussed more often because after all, characters do not exist in a vacuum, they are CREATED by their writers and are therefore a matter of choice. Frey could have remained a despicable, coward, misogynistic, flawed character without the female characters being depicted the way they were.

In the end, the experience of reading Retribution Falls was like eating a mixed bag of Turkish Delight blindfolded. Sometimes I would get the pistachio flavoured ones (yay) but the majority of them were rose-flavoured (yuck!) .

Notable Quotes/Parts: There is this once scene I thought was pretty cool and super tense – when they are navigating towards Retribution Falls.

Verdict: Retribution Falls has a good premise and is a potentially fun read but it is brought down by clumsy writing and poor characterisations – especially the female ones.

Rating:4 – Bad but not without some merit

Reading Next: A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin.

Title: The Line

Author: Teri Hall

Genre: Dystopia, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult

Publisher: Dial
Publication Date: March 2010
Hardcover: 224 Pages

An invisible, uncrossable physical barrier encloses the Unified States. The Line is the part of the border that lopped off part of the country, dooming the inhabitants to an unknown fate when the enemy used a banned weapon. It’s said that bizarre creatures and superhumans live on the other side, in Away. Nobody except tough old Ms. Moore would ever live next to the Line.

Nobody but Rachel and her mother, who went to live there after Rachel’s dad died in the last war. It’s a safe, quiet life. Until Rachel finds a mysterious recorded message that can only have come from Away. The voice is asking for help.

Who sent the message? Why is her mother so protective? And to what lengths is Rachel willing to go in order to do what she thinks is right?

Stand alone or series: Book one of a planned series

How did I get this book: Bought (at The Strand in New York over BEA week!)

Why did I read this book: I have been looking forward to The Line ever since I first heard about it last year – seriously, it was one of my most highly anticipated debut novels of 2010 – and as a review copy remained elusive, when I saw it at The Strand I knew I had to buy it.

Review:

Well, you know that saying about not buying into the hype? I really should have kept that in mind when reading The Line – a book that went from one of my most highly anticipated reads of 2010…to the most disappointing read of the year.

Young Rachel lives on The Property with her mother, employed at the will of the home’s owner, Ms. Moore. During the day, Rachel completes chores in the greenhouse, and by night she studies under the watchful, shrewd eye of her mother. But Rachel is young and, as the young are wont to be, curious. While her mother teaches Rachel everything she needs to know about the Unified States, separated by an invisible, un-crossable Line from a wild terrifying realm known simply as “Away,” Rachel hungers to explore, especially since The Property lies right inside the mysterious Line itself. Ignoring the warnings and cautionary lessons from her mother, Rachel is fascinated by the Line, and when she finds a communication device and then meets a young man on the other side of the invisible barrier, she knows that there must be more to Away than she has been told.

Sounds good, right? So what, then, was so disappointing with The Line, you may be asking? I loved the concept of the book, as told in the blurb, but the story (and its execution) was…well, not good. I’ll be frank: the problem with The Line is fundamental. The book TELLS instead of SHOWS.

Allow me to elaborate: while The Line is (ostensibly) Rachel’s story, the book is weighed down by an incredible amount of exposition (in the unimaginative form of “history lessons” and lengthy discussions between mother, daughter and patron Ms. Moore) – and even worse, the most interesting parts of the story are those of mother and her employer Ms. Moore, related entirely in conversation to Rachel. The direction of the book is stilted; the worldbuilding revealed only through dry, uninspired, ridiculously contrived history lessons. That’s not a metaphor, by the way – every detail about the world in which The Line is set in is related literally in history lessons, from mother to daughter. You can imagine this becomes grating after a while. The most infuriating thing about the book, however, is how there are some truly awesome ideas and plot seeds in this book – the story of Rachel’s mother as a resistance member fighting against the Big Brother-like oppression of the government and the tragic love story of Ms. Moore and her lost love, come to mind. These ideas were so intriguing that I found myself wishing that instead of Rachel’s tepid story was her mothers or Ms. Moore’s instead. We learn about these other women, and I couldn’t help but wish we got to experience these stories firsthand, instead of having been told about them in long, uninspired (and, frankly, contrived) conversations. Even when Rachel’s adventure picks up a little steam, the book ends abruptly before any serious momentum is gained.

The characters are marginally better – but again, I wish the book followed the adventures of Rachel’s mother and Ms. Moore, living through them instead of being related to Rachel in long, boring monologues. This writing method didn’t allow anyone to truly gain dimension as a character, and even Rachel herself is a bit off – she’s supposed to be somewhere around 14 years old, but based on her reactions and mentality, it seems she seems more like someone in the 10-12 age group.

The writing is simplistic, and while the ideas in the book (the genesis of the Line, the concept of “Away” and the controlling nature of the government) sound great, they are never taken any further than that surface-grazing level.

There are a number of other failings with the book (the unimpressive, thinly veiled choice of replacement nouns – “Unified States” for the United States, “digims” for photographs, etc). And, well, I’m kind of out of things to say simply because I don’t really care. That’s it. Maybe this will work for readers looking for a brief, simplistic, exposition-laden dystopian novel. But given the sophisticated, exceptionally well-written YA dystopian books out there (The Hunger Games, Chaos Walking, etc, etc) – The Line is utterly insignificant and undeniably forgettable.

Notable Quotes/Parts:

It seemed to Rachel that she had always lived on The Property, though this wasn’t true. Her mother, Vivian, said they moved there when she was three years old, but Rachel didn’t remember. To her, The Property was home. She felt as comfortable there as she did in her own skin. But she knew that for most people, The Property was too close to the section of the National Border Defense System known
as the Line.

The National Border Defense System enclosed the entire Unified States. The section called the Line was only a small part of it, but because of its history it was infamous, at least locally. Strange things were supposed to happen near the Line; dangerous things. Even though there hadn’t been a Crossing Storm in over forty years, people still thought of the Line as a bad place to be near. There were whispers about Away—the territory on the other side of the Line.

There were whispers about the Others.

To read the first chapter of The Line, go HERE.

Additional Thoughts: If you’re a newbie to the dystopian YA genre, seriously, please check out these novels first:

The Book Smugglers’ Guide to Dystopian & (Post-)Apocalyptic YA

Verdict: If you’re looking for a story rife with exposition; if you’re looking for characters content to tell a story rather than experiencing one; if you’re looking for compelling plot seeds that never come anywhere close to fruition; if you’re looking for a simplistic, bland dystopian Young Adult novel, look no further. The Line is for you.

If you want depth, sophistication, or a book that provides a wholly and truly immersive reading experience…well, look elsewhere.

Rating: 4 – Bad, but not without some merit

Reading Next: Crossing Over by Anna Kendall

Title: Claire de Lune

Author: Christine Johnson

Genre: YA/UF

Torn between two destinies?

Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and gorgeous Matthew keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she’s the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: she’s a werewolf.

As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she must deal not only with her changing identity, but also with a rogue werewolf who is putting everyone she knows in danger. Claire’s new life threatens her blossoming romance with Matthew, whose father is leading the werewolf hunt. Now burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, Claire is struggling to feel comfortable in either skin. With her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart, she will make a choice that will change her forever?

Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster Children’s
Publication Date: May 18 2010/ July 1 2010
Hardcover: 256 pages/Paperback:352 pages

Stand alone or series: First in a new series

Why did I read the book: What made me want to read this book? The cover and the title (which I think is a great play with Clair de Lune). Yes, I can be shallow.

How did I get this book: I received an ARC from Simon Pulse

Review:

I will go straight to the point and summarise the book’s proposition: Claire de Lune is a book about a girl who finds out that she is a werewolf (in a world that despises and fears werewolves) and who struggles between being human and being a werewolf. I find that, as conflicts go, this one could potentially be interesting depending on how one executes it. But Claire de Lune bugged me to no end because it is a book whose main conflict stems from a very flawed, counterintuitive, inorganic premise. But I am way ahead of myself.

On her 16th birthday, Claire finds out that she is a werewolf.

Hold on. I think that sentence lacks a certain flair. Let me rephrase this:

On her 16th birthday, Claire develops a rash.

It covers her hands and ears and it itches and it itches and….no one does anything about it. Claire goes around for a few hours, scratching, hiding her hands and covering her ears and never once considers going to a doctor. She is then informed point blank by her mother, that she is a werewolf. That she belongs to a local pack.That werewolves are female only, who don’t consider themselves human – at all – whose identities MUST at all cost be kept a secret, hence why girls are only told they are werewolves a few days before their first transformation. And then they have to just deal with it. With the fact that they are not humans; that they are, what most people consider, killing machines; that they are not supposed to have lasting relationships with any humans, because they can never know they are werewolves; who in order to reproduce, must find a human partner but should not fall in love or remain too close.

Let’s take a step back for a moment and examine this premise. It just….doesn’t make ANY sense to me. It sounds, as I said before, very counterintuitive: from a biological point of view and from a cultural point of view.

With regards to the former, one of the most important biological imperatives of any species is reproduction. Correct me if I am wrong, but a female-only species does not sound like the way to go especially if you consider minor things like you know, GENES. Wouldn’t having babies ONLY with male humans be the perfect way to weaken the lycanthrope genetic signature? Granted that all I have here to guide me is my High School Biology and my love for David Attenborough. I may be wrong but this was sufficient to pull me out of the story. And don’t think I don’t appreciate the attempt at making a “girl-power” story with strong female characters who are in charge, because I do. But there’s gotta be a reasonable explanation for this.

Then there is the cultural significance. According to this specific lore, packs have existed forever, created by a Goddess and they find that the best way to be safe is to keep it all a secret. Again, correct me if I am wrong: I think the chances of someone freaking out and letting out the secret to the world are FAR greater when you are told out of the blue, that you are a creature of nightmares, that all your life to that point has been a lie, that you must break away from your friends, that you can’t have a boyfriend (unless you want to reproduce), that you must lie to everybody you know, that you can’t say “oh my God” anymore and instead you MUST say “oh my Goddess”. Wouldn’t it be simpler, safer, to grow up knowing who you are and being prepared for the transformation with more than a few weeks’ notice? But then again, if any different, there would be no cause for this book.

Because of these issues, because the resulting conflict sounds very artificial, it was extremely hard for me to carry on reading, yet I did finish the book and that is saying something. Part of what made it reasonably readable was the fact that Claire did react to these changes in an appropriate manner: railing against her mother, freaking out, considering different aspects of her new reality. I also liked her romantic relationship with a nice, wholesome boy named Matthew. It is definitely refreshing to have a paranormal romance minus the whole “falling for a dark, brooding boy who might just kill me” thing.

Unfortunately that is as positive as I can be. Even if I had no issues with the premise and world-building, the rest of the book, the characters and the plot were unremarkable.Even though Claire was sort of likable when dealing with her mother and werewolf issues, her constant whinny “why do you like me, I am not popular” mantra was tiresome. Matthew’s reply to this, is that he considers her the most interesting person he knows and yet not a single scene between them has in-depth dialogue that could actually SHOW instead of TELLING me why he thought so.

There is also a storyline in which a rogue werewolf is killing humans and public opinion is that werewolves are BAD and EVIL (led by Matthew’s father by the way, who is almost a psycho villain). Again, I ask: if the werewolves were not as secretive – I mean, the entire world already knows they exist, so what is the point? – and came out to say ”hey, we are not all evil, you know”, possibly these problems would not exist. Furthermore, the revelation of who the culprit is, doesn’t ring true, considering the heightened senses that the werewolves supposedly have. Surely one of them would have SMELLED this person since they all knew her.

Even with the overall blandness what really prevented me from enjoying the novel was its lack of intrinsic logic. I am fully aware that this might not deter other people from enjoying it but I would still say: proceed with caution. On my side, I prefer my fiction with a bit more of salt, pepper and a better rationale on the side, thank you very much.

Notable Quotes/Parts: I read the book three days ago and I can’t remember a scene I truly liked.

Verdict: Bland, uninspired YA novel based on I what consider to be a flawed premise. Regardless, this will probably appeal for those looking for “more of the same” rather than something new and unique.

Rating:4 – Bad but not without some merit

Reading Next: The Demon’s Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: Year of the Horse

Author: Justin Allen

Genre: Young Adult, Western, Adventure, Fantasy

Publisher: The Overlook Press
Publication Date: October 2009
Hardcover: 352 pages

A thrill-ride adventure novel capturing the adventure, mystery, legend, and lore of America

Year of the Horse is literary fantasy at its very best‹a novel that delves into our myths, legends, hopes, and fears; a coming-of-age fable set in our fondly remembered (if often fictional) past‹an adventure more than capable of setting your hair on end.

Year of the Horse tells the story of Yen Tzu-lu, a child of Chinese immigrants unwillingly pressed into service by a gang of roughnecks bent on stealing a gold mine from a shadowy villain deep in the western wilderness. With Tzu-lu as our guide, we experience a landscape of legend, stand toe-to-toe with those larger-than- life heroes and villains of our shared American mythos, and learn the inescapable facts that have both enriched and plagued our nation from its inception.

Resonating with echoes of Mark Twain, Larry McMurtry, and J. K. Rowling, this is a book of fabulous adventure and deep resonance. Allen gives readers a picture of how America sees itself, and in so doing he offers up both a heroic vision of the past and hope for the future.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did we get this book: Review Copies from the author

Why did we read this book: Actually, we were contacted by author out of the blue a few months back – after our review of The Left Hand of Darkness, Justin Allen thought we might be interested in his book…and he couldn’t be more right. After reading the synopsis for this book (diverse cast! Western setting – and y’all know how much we love Westerns! Fantasy-style quest/adventure!) and seeing it appear on “Most Underrated YA” lists, both of us were hooked.

REVIEW:

First Impressions:

Ana: I was tremendously excited about reading this book.The author’s pitch to introduce his novel to us was quite frankly, made of awesome. And, in theory Year of the Horse sounds great. A western with fantasy elements with an all-inclusive cast of characters sounded just like the book Thea and I would love. And it starts well enough with the right amount of mystery, a writing style that appealed to me all against the backdrop of Old West. But as the pages pile on, the story, the characters, never truly progress beyond the first impression. Although I enjoyed some aspects of it, I can’t say I truly enjoyed the novel and that is a shame because the potential is right there.

Thea: I agree with Ana. I’d like to start out by saying that, on paper, Year of the Horse has everything that I could ask for in a novel. A historically detailed western setting, a multiracial cast, a traveling supernatural-tinged adventure tale in pursuit of the devil…it’s all good stuff. Except that it doesn’t quite work. There’s a lot to like in Year of the Horse, but it never truly comes together and lives up to the potential. Though the setting is beautifully and lovingly drawn, its characters never gain life beyond their token labels, and the supernatural element is sketchy at best. I still enjoyed the novel, but can’t help feeling disappointed.

On the Plot:

Ana: Tzu-lu lives with his mother and grandfather who together run their shop. One day, a famous gunslinger named Jack Straw walks into the shop and has a mysterious conversation with Lu’s grandfather. The result is that Lu is to accompany Jack on a cross country expedition to the West. Their aim is to take repossession of a Gold fortune stolen from its rightful owner, a man called MacLemore, who is paying for the expedition. Together with Jack, MacLemore and his daughter, a former Slave called Henry, a Mexican called Chino, Lu travels to the other side of his world and on the way, comes across adventure, perils, Indian and cowboys, Mormons and even perhaps, the Devil himself.

As much as promise as the book holds, a promise of high adventure and of coming of age for Lu, the plot never really takes flight. The story is episodic at best, with many encounters with potentially interesting people coming and going without much consequence. Even though the setting is quite vivid and there is a certain flair to Allen’s old Western, details – especially of the Fantastic variety are often lacking and nothing is really, truly explored. As I read, I was continuously met with boredom and I will admit to grievous sin of skimming when it became clear I would not be missing a lot if I did.

I would describe it thus: a two-dimensional view of America circa 19th Century that at first glance provide an interesting even imaginative panorama. However it lacks the most important thing in the world to make it three dimensional and truly engaging story: depth. The characters are stereotypes (but more on that below), the story lacks action and pacing and it ends with a patronising, patriotic “message” that shows that the author might have been more interested in preaching than telling a good story. Which, as I said is a shame because the story had potential and so does the author: the prose is quite good actually.

Thea: Unfortunately, I have to agree with Ana. Year of the Horse has the elements of a good story – as we’ve both said above, it sounds good in theory. But in practice? It just doesn’t quite gel together. The adventure of this band of travelers across a changing American landscape is episodic in nature – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I actually kind of liked how each chapter felt like a new short story, meeting different characters and locales before moving on and leaving them behind. The scenery and history of the novel are textured and rich, and there’s no denying that Mr. Allen has the setting down pat. Everything from bridling horses to burning coffee to learning how to fire a gun and kill deer is covered in genuine detail.

But…all this also meant that the story overall felt like it had little direction or purpose. Yes, we know that this band of heroes is out to reclaim a fortune in gold, but that goal feels hollow. I found myself drifting off when reading, asking myself what’s the point? These episodic adventures do not really work to do anything, and while the setting is great, it reads like so much filler. The fantasy/supernatural element feels tacked on with vague details and skimpy literary allusions (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, for example). And, I have to agree with Ana – the ending makes an uncomfortable stab at patriotism (what it means to be an “American”) that doesn’t sit well with me, and likely will alienate other readers – especially non-American ones. Year of the Horse had some good ideas, ingredients that separately sound like they’d make a good dish, but tossed together are strangely bland and unsatisfying.

On the Characters:

Ana: This is really where the book commits its more serious offense. And again, it is all about theory and execution. In theory the idea of a multi-ethnic cast of character is awesome. I am all for that – it is both great and interesting to see Hispanic, Black, Chinese, White characters all together plus also, a Woman all sharing the pages in harmony. It is beautiful when it is not trite. Because the execution fails the idea entirely. By trying too much to have every single race and genre represented the author ended up doing what I am sure he was trying to avoid: because none of them have really any depth whatsoever they all became stereotypes. Here you have the Chinese Boy, there you have The Gunslinger, The Mexican Dude, The Former Slave, and The Spunky girl. All of the characters are non-entities most of all the main character, Lu. He is bland and blank, functioning merely as the eyes of the narrator from which to see this world.

Lu never really came alive to me probably he is the epitome of a re-active character (as opposed to an active one). He never asked questions: why is he told to leave with Jack? Why must HE go? Later on he is told he is to be the explosive expert and never thinks twice about it. It is pointed that he is so because of his father whose life seems to have been interesting by the amount of people all over the world who knows his name and yet THAT is never truly explored either. For a coming of age story, Lu doesn’t really change that much or learn a lot (expect if you count the lessons on cooking, shooting, riding, etc – this is the kind of “learning” he does).

Thea: As much as it pains me to say it, I again have to agree with Ana. The biggest problem with the book did not lie with its stilted plotting, but with its stock, cardboard characters. One of the things that excited me about Year of the Horse – the main thing, in fact – was its cast. I wanted to read a western novel from the perspective of a Chinese immigrant. But Tzu-Lu (or rather, Lu) is flat, uninspired, and besides the initial introduction to him and the occasional conversation in Chinese, might as well have been Irish or Native American or a martian. He’s the epitome of the “blank narrator” – without much in the way of personality, inner dialogue of any sort, and he neither questions nor grows over the course of the book. His status as a Chinese immigrant and his culture play a negligible role in the story (and when his ethnicity does show up as a point in the book, it’s awkward and forced). He never felt like a real, genuine, flesh and blood character.

The same can be said for the other characters in the book; they are all mere caricatures. Gunslinger, tomboy, evil Yankee, token Mexican, token Black character. These are stereotypes, two-dimensioned renderings that verge dangerously into uncomfortable territory (unintentional though it may be).

Final Thoughts, Observations and Rating:

Ana: I wish I could say I enjoyed the novel but the lack of strong, in-depth characters and the boring, episodic plot made this one a total miss for me. I also need to mention that the ending and its message just did not sit well with me at all. Not because I disagree with it, because I obviously don’t but because it sounded to me like I was reading something that had a “and the moral of the story is…” and I just do not appreciate being preached at.

Thea: Year of the Horse is wonderfully detailed in terms of physical and historical landscaping, but deeply marred by simplistic, stock characters and a jolted plot. I enjoyed parts of this novel, but not nearly so much as I wish I could have enjoyed it. It’s not a terrible book, but it’s not a good one either.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the official excerpt:

“A Bill Comes Due”

The storm must have blown itself out some­time dur­ing the night, because when Lu woke up the next morn­ing all was bright and beau­ti­ful once more.

At first he didn’t know where he was, or how he’d got there. It took a minute for him to recall the pre­vi­ous night’s light­ning storm, and the flight down through the steep­est, deep­est and most vertigo-inducing canyon in all the Ter­ri­to­ries. They sure didn’t call it the Hell Mouth for noth­ing. See­ing the canyon from above, under the mid-afternoon sun, had been a rev­e­la­tion. Who­ever knew rocks could be so gor­geous? But being inside it at night, when a storm hit, had been ter­ri­fy­ing. In the rain and wind, Lu had quickly fallen behind his group. It was darn scary being out there all alone. So when he found what he’d thought was a short cut, he took it. Remem­ber­ing back on that moment near choked him with guilt. They’d all said he was just a boy, not yet ready to shoul­der a man’s respon­si­bil­i­ties, and now he’d gone and proved them right.

Lu felt stiff and groggy as he pushed between his horse, Crash, and his mule, Lucky, and stum­bled out of the lit­tle cave. The sun was just begin­ning to peak over the walls of the canyon but already it was hot. He splashed through the pud­dles that had col­lected on the nar­row piece of ledge sur­round­ing the cave entrance, right to the edge of the precipice, and was shocked to see the river not even a hun­dred feet below. He was even more sur­prised when he glanced to his left and saw the very same red and burnt-orange nat­ural stone bridge he’d mar­veled at the morn­ing before, and with a path lead­ing up to it as surely as if it were the fin­ger of god point­ing out, with no uncer­tainty what-so-ever, exactly where he needed to go.

As he chewed a bit of pem­mi­can, Lu con­cocted a plan. He’d cross that bridge — if such a thing were even pos­si­ble — and then head north along the oppo­site wall of the canyon until he found his miss­ing friends. He laughed out loud as he imag­ined the looks on their faces. They’d be hun­gry, he guessed. Unless one of them had thought to squir­rel some­thing away in a sad­dle­bag, Lu had all the remain­ing food. Henry would bless the day he’d first met Lu. Chino would swear up a storm of hap­pi­ness. And Sadie would want to shower him with kisses. Even Jack Straw would for­give him for get­ting lost.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Rating:

Ana: 4 – bad but not without some merit

Thea: 5 – Take it or leave it

Reading Next: Girl Genius (Omnibus Vol. 1) by Phil and Kaja Foglio

Howdy! We were supposed to post a review of Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep today but unfortunately, we will be unable to do so because the book has yet to reach me in the UK even though Thea has shipped it over three weeks ago. At the moment we suspect that the UPS and the Royal Mail have come together in a Conspiracy to Drive Us Mental. (It is working.) We plan to post the review as soon as we possibly can.

Meanwhile, we decided I should post my review of New Blood instead – as an introduction to our upcoming Steampunk Week.

Title: New Blood

Author: Gail Dayton

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Tor
Publication Date: March 2009
MMP: 512 pages

Stand alone or series: Part of a series but the romance is stand alone

In 1636, the last blood sorceress was burned at the stake. More than two hundred years later, her blood servant Jax has found her successor. Amanusa at first turns down the opportunity to learn what she perceives as an evil art. But she craves justice, and innocent blood cries out for justice.

When Amanusa looses magic on those who’ve harmed her, she must flee for her life across a devastated Europe with Jax, who is inescapably bound to her by blood and magic. Their journey takes them through zones where everything—including magic—has died, zones populated with strange creatures cobbled together of things left behind by the dead.

Needing each other for their very survival, Amanusa and Jax grow ever closer on their journey to discover answers – about magic, blood sorcery, the dead zones, and even love.

How did I get this book: I Bought my copy (but the author sent a copy to Thea when she sent us ARCs of the second book.)

Why did I read this book: I bought this book as soon as it came out. I loved the cover and the reviews have been mostly positive. I kept it aside for a Steampunk week all this time. Yes, I did.

Review:

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

New Blood is a book I have long desired to read and had great expectations for. I bought it as soon as it came out last year and because I saw it described as Steampunk in a few places (including the author’s blog), I set it aside as a Must Read for an eventual Steampunk Appreciation Week, an event we had been planning for a long time. As we finally set the date for the event ( shameless plug: March 7th – 13th) , New Blood was the first, out of a long list of books, I read for the event. Why then, you must be asking yourself, do I review it before Steampunk Week?

Because this book is many, many things – a Paranormal Romance / Fantasy and a giant mess of frustrating disappointment but not, and I cannot stress this enough, Steampunk.

Because it is not enough to set a book in the 19th century and to have a couple of machines that go clankety clank around and that’s it, let’s call it Steampunk! Woohoo! Not when the book is first and foremost about magic, when the characters know nothing about the aforementioned machines, which means that the technology, if we can even call it that, is not an elementary part of their world – it is something that scares and befuddles the characters because it is something that is anti-magic and unnatural to the point that the book almost reads like an example of anti-Steampunk.

Now that I got this off my chest, what is the book about?

Magic. And truth be told, it starts well enough. It’s Europe, 19th century and there are four types of magic: alchemy, wizardry, conjury, and sorcery and only men are allowed to practice them. The first three are the most commonly used and sorcery, or Blood Magic, has been lost to the world ever since the last known sorceress Yvaine has been murdered. Turns out, Blood Magic has only ever been practiced by women because well, women are used to bleed every month and therefore are less squeamish about it. (Yes, seriously.) A Blood sorceress uses blood magic (by using blood fluids – any of them) to practice magic. They can cure people by riding the blood (it involves making them drink a bit of her blood so is able see inside their bodies for injuries) for example. But Blood magic can also be used to bring justice as the sorceress can ride their blood to see the crimes they committed.

As the book opens, Yvaine’s (the last known sorceress) blood servant Jax – who had been tasked to find her successor – finally finds the woman worthy of the position. And that is our heroine Amanusa. Living all by her lone self, deep in the woods of Romania, Amanusa is a healer who uses the little magic she knows she possesses to cure villagers and is happy to stay where she is. When a man comes out of the woods telling her that she is a Blood Sorceress and he is her servant, her first reaction is to freak out. For starters, women are not allowed to practice magic and the Inquisition might kill her for it. Secondly, everybody knows that blood magic is Teh Eviiiil, blood magicians kill children for their blood; plus, all men are brute rapists, and she can never ever trust Jax, because she fears and loathes men because she has been gang raped and abused for years by the band of anarchists who live in the woods who are also the band of people who killed her entire family.

But soon Amanusa realises that there isn’t much she can do about Jax – he can’t leave. Once he has found her, he is connected to her. If he tries to leave, he ends up always coming back to her door. Then, she decides to hear what he has to say and learns that Blood Magic does not involve killing anyone, much less babies – it is mostly done with her own blood or with blood freely given (and magically stored by Jax, who is like, a familiar) and all of a sudden the prospect of being a Blood Sorceress doesn’t sound that bad especially when she thinks she might get justice after all. Then, the anarchists show up: Amanusa has a deal with them – whereupon they will leave her alone if she concedes to visit their camp when someone is sick. She and Jax have to make a trip and at their camp, she starts to learn about Blood Magic. But first Amanusa needs to ride Jax’s blood so that he can be bound to her as a servant. Please bear in mind, that this has been only a few days after they have met. Amanusa is supposed to be a deeply scarred woman, who fears men and sex, who always thought Blood Magic to be evil, who just met this bloke out of nowhere. So she not only trusts his words but also, she finds that she has to link herself to him by way of blood and the way to do that is to have him drinking a bit of her blood so she can ride it. Now. I can think of a gazillion ways of having someone drinking someone else’s blood and here is a novel thought, it doesn’t even have to involve touching. How about, gasp, a glass? For someone who fears to be touched it looks like Amanusa got over her deep seated scars and trauma very quickly. Behold:

“She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could only watch as he squeezed a bit more blood from her finger and curled his tongue around it, caressing long after the blood was gone. He trailed his tongue down the length of her finger and probed the crease where it joined her hand. She shivered, whether from his touch or his gaze, she didn’t know.
Jax sent his tongue swirling across her palm where blood had never touched and Amanusa let him, lost in the blue of his eye and the shivery sensation of his teasing caress. With one last pulse of his tongue, he pressed a kiss to her palm, curving her hand around his face as if she caressed him in return”.

That was just about the place where things started to get downhill and I still had oh, 400 pages left?

They spend a few weeks in the camp, but they guys want her for a plaything again, she kills most of them (Justice!) and they have to flee. They carry with them a machine that one of the anarchists found (a spider thingy who feels like anti-magic to Amanusa). They are captured by the Inquisition, they escape and end up in Paris where they need to convince the Council to allow Amanusa in – but they don’t want to because all women are horrible, and magic is not something they can do, and Blood Magic is Teh Evil. Meanwhile, the Council is conferring in Paris because evil dead patches that are related to the mechanical insect they have found in Romania and which are spreading to Europe and might well bring the end of the world.

I mentioned that the start of the novel was good enough and it was. The two characters and the setting pulled me right into the book and I thought the two protagonists were very compelling to start with – both being damaged and broken. Their complex relationship of master/servant only serving to extrapolate those problems until they were able to overcome them. But. By God, soon it becomes clear that there is lack of a cohesive character development for both protagonists. Amanusa is too quick to trust Jax, to overcome her sexual trauma and to accept the Blood Magic; and their repetitive internal monologue was almost enough to drive me insane – cut 1/3 of those and 100 pages of the book could have been removed and the book would have been better. There is no reason for the numerous:

Amanusa: “men are evil. I don’t trust them. But I trust Jax. Why? “
Jax: “I am a servant. But she sees me as a man. Did she truly see me as a man?”

And so on and so forth.

My other main problem with the novel was the lack of inherent logic regarding the magic system which in all honesty, made no sense to me. Why only women would do Blood Magic?

The inference that men are squeamish when it comes to blood doesn’t compute – aren’t men the ones to go to war, or to fight in duels and carry out death sentences? Why did it take Jax 200 years to find a successor to Yvaine, more to the point, if Blood Magic was so important to the balance of magic why didn’t she have apprentices? Although the misogynistic view of women with half of the characters in the book running around like lunatics yelling that women are Evil grew tiresome and was ridiculous I do have to wonder if they didn’t have a point when it came to Blood Magic since the last known Sorceress did use to torture Jax and made him be raped to collect Sex Magic (yes, seriously ). So yes, I can sort of see how people would think that Blood Magic was not that good. Since we mention Jax – what is the point of blood servants? If the blood needed is mostly of the sorceress , she is the one with the power, she is the one with the blood, I don’t really see the point of a blood servant, but then again…there would be no book without one.

Then, there was this silly coincidence in which Jax, who did not know his true name for most of the book (he was so old, he suffered of memory loss) suddenly remembers it and realises he has a relative sitting right next to him. Yes, seriously. The ending is a pure melodrama: there is a kidnapping, the villains run around like girls screaming women are evil, only to when faced with one of them, believe her word when she tells them she will do something they ask. Why would they? And then it all ends with the amazing discovery that the bond of luuurve is more powerful than any other bond and then the two protagonists decide to go traipsing to Scotland leaving their friends behind even though she is the only known Blood Sorceress and THE WORLD MIGHT BE ABOUT TO END.

With all this being said, you might be asking yourself why in the world did I keep reading. I have read worse, but much worse in my life and I sustain that the characters are rather likeable so I kept reading in the hope for a good pay off. And it was downright frustrating that their story was not better developed. Alas, you win some, you lose some.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: In spite of the repetitive internal monologuing I quite liked most of Jax and Amanusa’s interactions.

Verdict: A magic system that does not make sense, a romance that had the potential to be awesome but fell flat. Unfortunately, this one misses the mark.

Rating: 4 – Bad but not without some merit

Reading Next: The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock

Title: Untouchable (one of two stories in the Deep Kiss of Winter anthology with Gena Showalter)

Author: Kresley Cole

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Pocket
Publishing Date: October, 2009
Hardcover 436 pages (the novella has about 240 pages)

Stand Alone or series: Part of the Immortals After Dark series but can be read as stand alone

Why did I read the book: This series is my literary crack

How did I get the book: review copy from publisher

Summary: Murdoch Wroth will stop at nothing to claim Daniela the Ice Maiden — the delicate Valkyrie who makes his heart beat for the first time in three hundred years. Yet the exquisite Danii is part ice fey, and her freezing skin can’t be touched by anyone but her own kind without inflicting pain beyond measure. Soon desperate for closeness, in an agony of frustration, Murdoch and Danii will do anything to have each other. Together, can they find the key that will finally allow them to slake the overwhelming desire burning between them?

Review: Kresley Cole’s Untouchable is one of two stories in the anthology Deep Kiss of Winter (the other story is Gena Showalter’s Tempt Me Eternally which I did not read as I am not acquainted with that series) and is set in the Immortals After Dark world. Kresley Cole’s books are my literary crack and I have read all of the novels and novellas in the series. I have enjoyed the first few very much but I am starting to feel a certain boredom and dissatisfaction with the series with the latest instalments. Untouchable has just cemented this feeling.

For all intents and purposes , I should have loved the story. This is the romance between the last of the Wroth brothers, Murdoch and the Valkyrie Daniela known as the Ice Maiden for her Icere (Ice Fey) half and at its heart it is a “Reformed Rake” story, my favourite romance trope. Murdoch was quite the ladies men, never attached to any woman until he became a vampire. One of the things he fears the most is to find his Bride (the vampire’s version of a life-mate) as he can’t think of anything worse than to be shackled to someone for eternity. That makes him absolutely unique in the world they inhabit (for all vampires want to find their Brides) but also amongst the heroes we have seen so far. It also provides some entertainment in itself as he asks those questions I am sure we all have asked at some point about the very idea of “mating”: Is he supposed to feel okay about being mated FOREVER with someone he hardly knows?

Even worse for Murdoch is the fact that Danii, as part Icere , is very sensitive to warm temperatures and is literally, untouchable or else she feels pain. She is hiding in New Orleans with her Valkirye coven because she is the rightful queen of the Icere, whose crown has been stolen and she has been a fugitive for about 2000 years. She has been unable to have any relationships and is very lonely – her reaction to being Murdoch’s Bride is one of relief until she realizes that he is not happy, at all.

And here is where I reach a problematic part of the review, with a conundrum.

Kresley Cole’s books are known for the oversexed characters and plot. Her books follow a recognizable pattern (loads of foreplay, and some conflict, then loads of sex) and that becomes part of the comfort in reading them. You always know what you going to get, in a very predictable manner. This book is no different, the sexing is scorching hot as usual, and is pretty good at that.

BUT, I find myself, as I said above, bored. Although each of Kresley Cole’s characters has individual traits that differentiate them from the characters from the previous books, the journey they make towards the happy ending is a very repetitive one. Without a strong world building in which to set the romance, the books are starting to read the same, every single time. Especially when I compare them to other paranormal romance series such as Nalini Singh’s and Meljean Brook’s; both these series have strong world building and stories that go far, far beyond the sexing. I had hoped Kresley Cole’s would go the same route (what with the Ascension and the Lore) but I lost that hope with the latest instalments.

Even though the conflicts, both internal and external, in this story are interesting to begin with, they come to a resolution, far too easy and fast. For all that Murdoch resists the pull of his Bride still he falls in that predictable pattern: endless pages of foreplay, displays of jealousy-possessiveness and his doubts being pushed aside because hey LOOK , her sex is glistening. Similarly Danii’s storyline with the Icere is solved ridiculously fast especially if you think this has been going on for two thousand years. In a matter of seconds, all that comes to a resolution with a Deus Ex Machina in the shape of an Icere guy who has “I am a future protagonist” written all over his hawt, tormented self.

The “conundrum” and “problematic” comes from the fact that there is nothing NEW here. All of the above happened in previous books which brings me to my point. If the books remain the same, it is I who have come to a crossroads – do I keep reading or do I part ways with the series? I read Romance books for more than the sex, and I think that the Immortal After Dark series, after that initial novelty feel, is not really for me. I do intend to read the next one, Pleasure of a Dark Prince because I have been waiting for that story since book one, but I have the strongest suspicion that that will be my last one.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: I thought his passage was funny – like an inside joke about these books’ tropes:

“Obviously, I need to leave,” she said while thinking, tell me I’m your Bride, and that I WILL be staying. Be an arrogant, possessive Neanderthal vampire! She wanted him to simply inform her that he would never let her go and she would just have to accept that, or whatever domineering misguided trip these manly men always said.

Verdict: If you read this series you know exactly what to expect. All left for you to decide is: is it worth paying Hardcover price to read another similar story that does not progress the main plot at all?

Rating: Well. If you are looking for good romance and hot sex, the story is effective – I would give it a 6. Overall plot is quite weak though – and that is a 4.

Reading next: The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick

Title: The Magicians

Author: Lev Grossman

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher:William Heinemann Ltd (UK) / Viking (US)
Publishing Date: May 2009 / August 2009
Paperback/ Hardcover: 416 pages

Stand Alone or series: Stand alone with rumours of a sequel

Why did I read the book: I have wanted to read the book since it first came out and after so many positive reviews. A lot of reviewers mention this as one of the best of the year.

How did I get the book: Bought it.

Summary: Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. He’s a senior in high school, and a certifiable genius, but he’s still secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Compared to that, anything in his real life just seems gray and colorless.

Everything changes when Quentin finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the practice of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. But something is still missing. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he thought it would.

Then, after graduation, he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real.

Review: I have wanted to read this book for months now. We were supposed to write a joint review and I keep sending weekly emails to Thea asking “so, when can we read The Magicians” – but other reading commitments kept us from finally getting to it. With the end of the year upon us, I felt the urgency even more so I just went ahead and read it. I kind of expected The Magicians to knock my socks off and maybe even make my top 10 of 2009.

Boy, was I wrong. Delusional. The experience of reading this book turned out to be one of the strangest experiences of my reading life. From the very first pages, I felt a mix of anger and downright revulsion towards the book and its main character Quentin; I had the weirdest, most negative reaction and the only reason I kept reading till the end was so that I could have all the information necessary to write this review.

The easiest route to summarise The Magicians is perhaps to say what a lot of reviews already said: this is what Harry Potter or Narnia would be like if their characters were on drugs , or drunk or both. But I would go further: The Magicians is like every Fantasy novel if they were stripped of any warmth, sense of wonder, heroism and replacing it all with what can be interpreted as a dose of “reality”.

Basically, the plot follows the main character, a depressed (god only knows why) guy called Quentin who is a smart, handsome, 17 year old, as he learns that there is real magic in world, just like in the books he loves. Instead of going to Princeton as he was supposed to, he is invited to attend a school of magic, ‘Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy’ and the story follows his days at the school until he graduates, then has to go back to the real world and then to Fillory, an alternate world out of children’s books.

“Real” is very much the key word here and the fundamental theme of the book: what would happen if there was magic but not a “big bad” to fight? What if there was a hidden world of wonders, of people who had these abilities? What would be the point?

Well, obviously, people would get drunk, take drugs and have sex. Duh. Because there is NOTHING else in the entire wide world that you could possibly do. Because you see, magic is HARD.

The clear attempt of taking the Fantasy and making it less fantastic by adding an element of “reality” to it, in order to tell us that hey, “life is in shades of grey people, there is no black and white” is as trite and lacking subtlety as if the author was trying to do just the opposite. In trying, too hard in my opinion, to infuse this Fantasy with bleakness and edginess, the author removes any and all chance of me, ever connecting with his characters or with the plot.

Going even further with that, I am left wondering about certain aspects of the story. For example: in order to enter the school, all these kids, are taken from their world, without a moment’s notice, to take a test, and should they pass, they get to attend this school which is hidden from the regular world. None of them even blinks when that happens. Later down the road, they get to visit Fillory, a world which up to that point they thought was fictional but they take that in stride and are ready to jump into it and live the stories they read as children.

The assumption made is that since they all like to read Fantasy novels, this new reality comes so easily to them because they are used to the idea of Fantasy – and that to me, was so freaking insulting as a Fantasy reader, I can’t even express myself coherently. It is as though, Fantasy readers can’t tell reality from fantasy and are so immersed in their escapism that well, if ever confronted with the imaginary world, turned real, not one would ever think about it for two seconds. I am left with a very sour taste in my mouth, one that comes from feeling like I was being mocked by the author. Maybe that was not his intent. Maybe he tried to criticise the genre and I am totally missing the point. Given the universal praise this book received it might well be. I do know that it didn’t work for me.

That this book has a “message” is clear to me, though. Even more so when every single aspect of the Fantasy world is unoriginal and lifted from other Fantasy novels. The school is Harry Potter’s Hogwarts; Fillory and its mythology is Narnia down to a “t”. It is as though Lev Grossman didn’t even try to come up with a Fantasy world of his own because he was more interested in a message than in storytelling. This message is more important than everything else that some things are completely glossed over: there is a student who dies in the middle of a lesson and nothing ever comes out of it. The students are at one point transformed into geese and foxes but again, very little comes from this experience; they are completely pointless and there for shocking effect, especially their time as foxes .

The bottom line is this: I absolutely HATE to read books that try this hard to tell me something. Especially when they try to tell me that life is hard. I am alive. I KNOW that. Tell me a story in shades of grey but do so in a less blatant way, please.

Regarding the characters: Taking it a step further from the questions asked above, if a young man is unhappy in his life, what would it take to make him happy? Would living his dream do it? Would discovering that the world he thought was fictional was actually real make any difference? The answer according to The Magicians is, no.

And this is essentially IT: Quentin is a depressed guy, a guy who struggles to find a place in the world, a guy who is full of resentment but who has a sense of entitlement; who is granted his heart’s desire and still, he can’t be happy. And so page after page, we read about this guy in school, with his friends, with his girlfriend whining about how miserable he is. Even when he finds out that the world of Fillory, the world from the books he loves to read is REAL and THERE for him, still he manages to make a mess out of it. Does that make him a flawed, real character? Yes, it does. Do I want to read about him? Hell, noes. He is a total tool.

Because frankly, there is nothing I hate more than to read about a privileged kid (rich, handsome, ultra smart and powerful. Hey, Marty Sue!) constantly whining about his life.

And THIS, THIS is what made me so repulsed. Quentin is my worst nightmare coming to haunt me: he is Holden Caulfield all over again. I have no sympathy for Holden as I have no sympathy for Quentin. From the moment I realised that, The Magicians had no chance with me – this review is every bit a reflection about me as a reader and what I like or don’t like. Catcher in the Rye is one of my least favourite books ever. And The Magicians reminds me a lot of it.

I feel so strongly about Quentin that I almost wished that he was actually suffering from medical depression in which case he could be treated with anti-depressants. I almost wished that everything in this book was happening inside his head. Almost, because really, I couldn’t.Care.Less .

As for the secondary characters, I only really liked Alice, Quentin’s love interest; in fact she might be my favourite character in the book. Flawed, strong, driven Alice, she is ironically, the only one to have called Quentin on his bullshit.

The rest was only there to fill pages with required stereotypes. And I have a huge problem with Elliot, one of Quentin’s friends. You see, Elliot is gay. So then, obviously, he likes to dress up really well, loves to cook and has S/M tendencies and I find that insulting as hell. Not to mention, lazy characterisation.

Having said that: the book is completely readable; I did enjoy his writing and there were turns of phrase that I did really like. And I am happy that I stuck to it and finished the book because toward the end, there is a revelation that makes the story, at least, bearable. Just. But ultimately, and rather unfortunately, The Magicians did not live up to my expectations, and that is to put it very mildly.

Notable Quotes/ Parts:

He had done it. Magic was real, and he could do it.

And now that he could, my God, there was so much of it to do. The glass marble would be Quentin’s constant companion for the rest of the semester. It was the cold, pitiless glass heart of Professor March’s approach to magical pedagoy. Every lecture, every exercise, every demonstrantion was concerned with how to manipulate and transform it using magic. For the next four months Quentin was required to carry his marble everywhere. He fingered his marble under the table at dinner. It nestled in the inside pockets of his Brakebills jacket. When he showered, he tucked it in the soap dish. He took it to bed with him, and on those rare occasions when he slept he dreamed about it.

Verdict: The good writing is not enough to make me like a book that comes with such a blatant, bleak message. The Fantasy world is unoriginal and the main character is unappealing.

Rating: 4 – Bad but not without some merit

Reading next: Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Directed by Chris Weitz
Written by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer
Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Anna Kendrick
Running time: 130 minutes
Rated: PG-13 (violence and action)

Well, folks, it’s finally here. The movie that ravenous Twilight fans, Robert Pattinson-aholics, teenage girls and apparently suburban moms alike have been awaiting with bated breath.

It’s time for New Moon.

The Twilight Saga has become a full-fledged, international phenomenon. Kind of like the Backstreet Boys or the Macarena. Twilight is massively popular and raked in the most money in terms of dvd sales this year, but it’s also one of those phenomena that lack the universal appeal of, say, Harry Potter. Despite the limited demographic and even though substantial mockage has been made of the Twilight Phenom (check out the awesome SNL Parody starring a brunette Taylor Swift in “Firelight“), it’s an international blockbuster – and the legions of fans busting down doors at midnight tonight and all day tomorrow care not what the cynical critics say! It’s New Moon! Shirtless underage boys on steroids! Chalky emo vampires with bad contact lenses, sparklies, and pixie hair! Cheesetastic lines about endearing, all consuming love!

Now while I’m obviously not a huge fan (Breaking Dawn was amazingly terrible), I’ll grant that Twilight has its own appeal. It’s one of those guilty pleasure, silly, I-probably-shouldn’t-be-watching-this-but-I-can’t-look-away films. So far as adolescent vampire love story films go, Twilight is an entertaining as they come. When I was lucky enough to get invited to watch an early screening of New Moon, I experienced a strange mixture of emotions. My hopes weren’t high by any stretch of the imagination – but I was expecting to be entertained, even if it was on a guilty pleasure level.

Sadly, New Moon just isn’t a very good movie. On any level.

At just over a draggy two hours, New Moon has some moments of intentional humor and genuine sweetness, but these are far and few between – not to mention, they are overshadowed by poor pacing, shoddy direction, and an abundance of unintentionally hilarity.

After a comically bugeyed Jasper (audiences burst into laughter at his “serious face” – no joke):

attacks Bella when she cuts herself opening a birthday present at the Cullens’, Edward decides that woah woah woah, this relationship is waaaaay too dangerous, so he tells Bella that this will be the last time she ever sees him. He lies and says that he’s bored with her and that he’s moving on without her (psh). Bella goes catatonic after the love of her life (at all of eighteen years old!) leaves her, and she has weird bouts of screaming in her sleep, gasping, sighing, morosely staring out her french windows as Chris Weitz decides to use awkwardly dizzying 360 camera techniques to illustrate the passage of time.

Doormat Bella never really gets over Edward leaving – though she does come to rely on best friend Jacob (a ridiculously ripped Taylor Lautner). After he helps Bella to feel human again, promising that he’ll never hurt her the way Edward did, OMG he turns into a werewolf (the curse of his clan, charged with protecting the innocent humans of Forks from the vampires that prey upon them). Jacob’s refusal to talk to Bella leads her to relapse into her funk – and she soon discovers that by taking idiotic, suicidal risks, she’s “gifted” with misty apparitions of her beloved Edward (giving her the very helpful advice “BE SAFE,” and other insipid cautionary remarks before dissolving into inky swirls of poorly CGI’d smoke). Bella eventually takes it too far, jumping off a cliff (for the ultimate rush, ya know), and via Alice’s visions, Edward thinks Bella has died, and decides to go off on a half cocked plan to reveal himself to humans in Italy, provoking the Volturi (a big bad association of vampire granddaddies) to kill him too. Only, Bella didn’t die when she jumped off the cliff, so she and Alice rush to Italy to stop Edward before it is TOO LATE.

Where do I begin with the problems New Moon had? Should I start with the hollow performances, even from the lovely Kristen Stewart (who is a fine actress, but feels sadly drab in this film)? The laugh-inducing choices for certain special effects (did you know that when Misty!Edward appears, his sweet Volvo does too)? The sloppy transitions and hilarious slomo scenes of characters running through the forest (yes, this really happens. Multiple times.)? There’s not a lot that’s very good with this film.

So far as writing goes, the script for New Moon is intensely loyal to the book, and in all fairness does a good job, weaving Bella’s depression with her growing friendship/romance with Jacob, ending in a dramatic encounter at Volturi headquarters. Though, one can’t help but think that one of the film’s greatest weaknesses – especially so far as the Edward fandom is concerned – is how absent Edward is from the film. A welcome surprise, however, is Taylor Lautner’s undeniably brawny Jacob Black, lending a warmth and humanity, an endearing, dogged (hardy har!) love interest for a decidedly wooden Bella.

The interactions between Jacob and Bella are alternately funny and touching, and comprise the best of the films few high notes – a scene where Jacob, Bella and Mike watch a movie on an awkward triple date, a ride home in Bella’s truck with Jacob driving, an almost kiss in the Swan kitchen. Too, the members of the Quileute tribe (or rather, pride) are decently entertaining in their shirtless uniform.

In contrast to the warmth of the werewolves of the Pacific Northwest, the vampires feel trite and, frankly, lame. Something happens with redhead vampire Victoria (who has it out for Bella because…Edward killed her mate and so she must kill Edward’s mate to MAKE HIM PAY!) and dreadhead Laurent because he’s helping Victoria…but that fizzles out into so much boring background noise. Though, I will say Rachelle Lefevre’s red hair looks pretty as it whips around in the forest. Robert Pattinson’s mopey Edward with his stupid hair and scrawny, (sporadically hairy) pale torso emerges late in the movie, giving the impression that he’s hollowly disinterested in the role.

The Volturi (for all five minutes they are in the film – all of which have basically been revealed already in the previews), with their blood red contacts and ornate hair and styling, feel ridiculously silly. In the age old vampires versus werewolves showdown, reimagined in New Moon, werewolves clearly win.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about New Moon and the Twilight Saga in general is how insipid a message it projects – especially to teenage girls. It is not cool for you to go catatonic, severing all ties to your friends and family when a boy decides to break up with you. It is not cool to try to kill yourself repeatedly just so you can experience hallucinations of said boy, warning you to “be safe.” I understand that first love is intense, scary, and passionate. And experiencing those highs and lows are all part of growing up. But it is kind of ridiculous that the prevalent female role model right now is a doormat – a bland, no-personality girl whose idea of a good time is to jump into life-threatening situations in order to feel closer to the boyfriend that left her behind.

Leaving New Moon, I felt as though a literal lunar month had passed since the start of the film. If you’re a Twilight fan, you’re probably going to watch this anyway, regardless of what some reviewer has to say. If you’re on the fence, I’d recommend waiting for this one on rental.

Rating: 4 – Pretty Bad (Although I’m pretty damn sure the box office sales and Twilight fandom will disagree with this assessment)

Title: The Dust of 100 Dogs

Author: A. S. King

Genre: YA (and a mish-mash of Romance! Pirates! History! Reincarnation!)

Publisher: Flux
Publishing Date: January 2009
Paperback: 336 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand Alone

Why did I read the book: The premise sounded awesome and different; the cover and title are amazing; and it generated some positive reviews.

How did I get the book: I bought it.

Summary: In the late 17th century, famed pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with the dust of 100 dogs, dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body—with her memories intact. Now she’s a contemporary American teenager, and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica.

Review: Warning: this review contains spoilers as I don’t think I can address the issues I had with the book without them.

For a brief period time that went from the amazing prologue and lasted for about 100 pages, I thought I was reading a truly spectacular book:

It opens in the 17th century, with a pirate, Emer Morrisey, who is about to kill (and remove the right eyeball of) the Frenchman who has just murdered Seanie, the man Emer loved – just when they were about to end their life of piracy. There is a treasure buried nearby but Emer only cares about the end of her dreams. She did not know that she was about to be killed and cursed by the Frenchman’s lover to live one hundred lives as a dog, before she is able to inhabit a human body again.

Cue more than 300 years later and Emer is reborn as Saffron Adams, a member of a poor family with a mother who has a sad past of poverty and misery in Ireland; a deadbeat father; brother and sister long gone and a younger brother who is a drug addict. Saffron, who carries the last 300 years of memories intact, was incapable to keep her memories and knowledge a secret when she was little which end up making her the girl genius of the family and the one to carry their hopes for a better life. But Saffron, cares NOTHING about it, about this family’s wishes and all she wants is to turn 18 so that she can go away to Tortuga and get her treasure back.

The story alternates between present (Saffron’s narration in first person) and past (Emer’s life, in third person), between Saffron’s struggle to get by and her impatience at her family’s heavy expectations about her and Emer’s horrible, tragic life. Needless to say, the more interesting one is Emer: from her childhood in a small village in Ireland at the time of Cromwell’s invasion when her parents and brother were killed in front of her eyes to being rescued by an uncle who was a bully and who hated her. From meeting her childhood sweetheart – Seanie – and losing him when her uncle sold her to an old French man in marriage to escaping this fate, from living in the streets of Paris to boarding a ship to Tortuga where she is greeted by the Frenchman of the prologue and raped; to eventually turning to a life of infamous piracy complete with a signature move and everything (that would be the eyeball removing alluded to in the prologue). And this is only the beginning.

The Dust of 100 Dogs is a gritty and tragic tale of one girl who is an honest-to-God pirate who kills and maims and steals. The author doesn’t pull any punches and provides much food for thought about the theme of reincarnation. The line between Saffron and Emer is a very thin one, sometimes if actually felt nonexistent, and the issue of “memory” and how much would that influence one’s attempt of a new life is one that kept me thinking for hours after reading the novel.

Thus, the premise is undeniably original and also, extremely ambitious. There is an epic feel to the story but unfortunately that amount of “Epic” cannot possibly fit within the 300 pages of this book. My feeling is that the author tried to embrace the world with very short arms and the execution proved to be also epic as in an epic mess of titanic proportions.

Because, on top of Saffron and Emer’s point of views, we also get others as the author jumped heads: there was a dog, and also sometimes Seanie, and then David (Emer’s First mate) and several chapters from the point of view of a very crazy character, one Fred Livingstone. Plus, interludes with Dogs Facts that present lessons that Emer (or Saffron?) learnt living as a dog, and although most of these lessons are in theory quite interesting and could be applied to humans (which I think was the point of the dog facts) I hardly ever saw Saffron/Emer actually applying those to her life.

And that brings me to another HUGE problem I had with the book; let’s call it the two “M”’s: characters’ Motivations and the exact Mechanics of certain events. For example, the evil uncle. He hated Emer. Why? He was obviously a coward and a bully who mistreated his children and his wife but he had a certain something else for Emer. Again, why? Why did he have to sell her in marriage (M # 1 = Motivation) but most importantly why did it have to be to a French guy? Why did a rich French had to buy a bride from the interior of a war-stricken Ireland? Surely he could find a (willing or unwilling) bride in France? Furthermore, how exactly did an illiterate, poor Irish man find a connection to a rich, French from across the channel? (M # 2= Mechanics). Why couldn’t he marry Emer off to someone close, in Ireland itself? Plot contrivance to separate Emer and Seanie?

Similarly Frenchman number 2, the one in Tortuga, fell in love/obsession with Emer at first sight and spent his life searching for her after she escapes. He then finds her when she is arrested for piracy because he wants to marry her but he needs to teach her a lesson first and leaves her to rot – literally rot (she loses two toes to gangrene) – in prison for ONE YEAR. WHY? Then when he comes for her (what kept him away for so long? I don’t know) he is surprised that she does not look good. Really? What is the point of the entire sting in prison? Another unnecessary plot contrivance to add another layer of “tragic” to Emer’s life?

Finally, there are Saffron’s motivations. I never really got the feeling that Saffron was someone new. She was always “Emer” to me. Quite possibly because every single interaction with her parents were punctuated with her imagining she was hitting, maiming, torturing these people whom she thought were pathetic losers she needed to get away from. There is not a shred of sympathy for her parents even though her mother has had a very similar life to her own in Ireland. Which is ok, if you think that this is pirate EMER. Then close to the ending, when she finds out that her brother sold all of her stuff, and she feels bad and she muses about yearbooks, pictures, books, jewellery with sadness. Then she says she is surprised she didn’t care more – but when did she ever??? I was told that but I was never ever showed that. Never once did I feel that Saffron cared about her life as Saffron…which in turn ended up making me not to care about either.

Plus, I feel the book needed some heavy editing. The beginning, where we read about Emer’s childhood is very richly detailed and quite interesting and it lasts and it lasts, page after page, after page. The ending, the eventual confluence of all the storylines, past and present coming together, the explanation of who Fred Livingstone is, Emer and Saffron uniting, the return of Seanie? Two/three pages, not nearly enough as resolution. I am not even going to mention problems I had with certain parts of dialogue or the preachy nature of Saffron’s thoughts about her brother’s drug addition, as I think it is enough already.

I ended up, unfortunately, very disappointed with The Dust of 100 Dogs. There were quite a few things I really did enjoy about the story but sometimes it is not enough to have a damn good idea, you also have to know what to do with it.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: The Amazing Prologue:

Prologue – The Dust of One Hundred Dogs

With one last, almighty roar, the Frenchman fell to his knees and died. When the smoke cleared, Emer kicked him to make sure he was dead. Bent on one knee in the moonlight, holding his head with her left hand, she took a marlinspike and removed his right eyeball with relative ease. She rolled it in the sand next to his head and shoved the spike deep into his empty socket.

Placing her pistol gently into her waistband, she looked toward the sea.

“I curse you!” she screamed at the dark water. “I curse you for all you gave me and for all you pilfered! I curse you for the journeys you begin and the journeys you end! I curse you until I can’t hate you anymore! And I scarcely think I will ever hate you more than on this wretched day!” Her fair hair stuck to her face, wet with sorrow and surf, and her hand-embroidered cotton blouse clung to her, stained with her lover’s blood.

Turning again to the two dead bodies, she retrieved the shovel from underneath Seanie—Seanie, her first and only love. She limped back to the clearing. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, she sat down on the edge of the hole and talked to herself.

“There was only one reason to stop all of this poxy business.” She turned and looked at the distant dead. “What worth is a precious jewel now? Damn it! In all these years, over all this water! And I end up a fool with a lap full of precious nothing.”

She dragged the two crates into the hole and began to cover them quickly, concerned that the Frenchman’s reinforcements would arrive at any minute. She buried the shovel last, on top, and used her hands to fill the remaining depression, covering the sand with sticks and dead leaves.

Returning to the scene of the dead men, she lay down beside Seanie, placed her head on his chest and sobbed.

“It’s like two different lives in the same bloody day.”

Through her sobs, Emer heard footsteps. A voice boomed from the darkness, making her jump. She scrambled to her feet and reloaded her pistol.

“Foul bitch!” he began, in island-accented English. “You have meddled in my life for too many years! I’m sure you didn’t know every whore in these islands heard him scream your name a thousand times! And me, too! Now look at him! Dead!”

Emer saw the man emerging from the tree line, his hands hidden. She had seen him before, on Tortuga, and on board the Chester. It was the Frenchman’s first mate.

“You will see!” he yelled, jumping from the brush. “You will see how true love lasts! You will see how real love spans time and distance we know nothing of!”

He rushed forward, then, shaking a small purse toward her. From it came a fine powder that covered Emer’s hair and face. She reached up and wiped her eyes clear, confused.

“What are you at?” she asked, spitting dust from her lips.

He stood with his arms and face raised to the night sky. “I curse you with the power of every spirit who ever knew love!” he screamed. “I curse you to one hundred lives as the bitch you are, and hope wild dogs tear your heart into the state you’ve left mine!” He began chanting in a frightful foreign language.

Still brushing the dust from her hair, Emer took aim with her gun and fired.

As she watched the man fall, she felt a burning prod in her back and stumbled sideways—long enough to see that the Frenchman had miraculously not been all dead, and long enough to see that he was covered in stray pieces of the strange dust his first mate had thrown at her.

She tried to fall as near to Seanie as possible, and managed to get close enough to reach out and grab his cold hand. She took her dying breath lying halfway between her lover and her killer, covered in the dust of one hundred dogs, knowing she was the only person on the planet who knew what was buried beneath the chilly sand ten yards away.

Additional Thoughts: I REALLY like the book trailler for this one:

Verdict: The premise is amazing but the execution left a lot to be desired which I think could be explained by the author’s inexperience with novels (she has published short stories before that). There are very, very good ideas here and I would love to see what she writes next.This one though, is quite the mess.

Rating: 4 – Bad but not without some merit

Reading Next: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson