Sadie Hawkins Sunday Review #30: The Grass Dancer

The Grass Dancer

Author: Susan Power
Pages: 300
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Read: August 11-13, 2013
Source: Library
Recommended by: Ann Kristin

Description from Goodreads:
Set on a Sioux reservation in North Dakota, this novel recounts a story about the connections among generations and how the actions of our ancestors affect contemporary life. The author weaves a myriad of folk motifs into the fabric of present-day reality.

First Sentence: "When Harley saw his father, Calvin Wind Soldier, and his brother, Duane, in his dreams, they were wearing crowns of glass."

Review:
Right from the beginning, I knew that Susan Power's The Grass Dancer was a book I never would have picked up on my own. Though I'm generally up for reading about any culture, I've been burned by a couple about Native Americans, so I'm hesitant to read them. Still, that's not something I'm proud of and is certainly no reason to write off all of those books, so, when this showed up in Sadie Hawkins, I figured I'd give it a try. While I didn't precisely dislike The Grass Dancer, I didn't really like it either, and I definitely did not understand it.

The Grass Dancer is a strange novel from a narrative perspective. Power uses multiple perspectives, varying from chapter to long chapter. Some of the perspectives are in third person and others in first. Since I read the book in chunks by chapter (seriously, they're long), I can't say for sure how unique the voices are in the first person chapters, but it pretty much all read like the same narrator to me. As such, I found the shifts in narration confusing.

Shifting from third to first person isn't all that weird though. Plenty of books do that. What not as many books do is jump around in time while switching perspectives. The book opens (with no year ascribed, then goes to 1981. From there, the narrative keeps jumping backwards years at a time, all the way to 1935, at which point it finally hops back to the early 1980s. WHUT.

Each chapter is a somewhat self-contained narrative and, taken individually, some of them were quite interesting and would have made decent books if built out more. Both the 1981 story, involving Pumpkin, one of the only female grass dancers and one of the best regardless of gender, and the 1964 story about Crystal Thunder, which is about her falling in love with a white man. Race and culture and identity and romance are the main themes, and I'm totally all for that. Some of the other narratives, the one of Red Dress most especially, bored me.

Taken as a whole, though, I have no freaking clue what to make of this book. Why did it go backward? Why make it so difficult for me to piece together how everyone's related? To follow this, I would have had to build out a family tree and keep track of names. As it is, I think I got the broad strokes, but missed the more subtle impacts the earlier timelines had on the later. Having finished, I really have no clue what I was meant to get out of this novel. What I consider the main plot, the frame story, seems, to me, unresolved and unsatisfying. Basically, I just don't get it.

So there you go. I don't think this was a book for me, and I don't think I did it justice because I am baffled.

Ann Kristin, if you have insights, I'd be happy to hear them. Either way, thanks for taking part in Sadie Hawkins Sunday!

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote:

"'You can't help who you love, Unci,' she had protested.
     'Yes you can. You love yourself, you love your family, and you don't let your feelings run around and jump into someone else's hand.' Mercury made a fist. 'You grab on to your own life and push it around where you want it to go.'"

---

Up Next:

The next Sadie Hawkins Sunday book will be Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff. Make sure to stop by for that if you want to see my heart served up on a platter.

Want to tell me what to read? Fill out the following form with a suggestion! For more details, check this post.

Review: False Sight

False Sight
False Memory, Book 2

Author: Dan Krokos
Pages: 336
Publisher: Hyperion Book CH
Publication Date: August 13, 2013
Read: August 4-6, 2013
Source: ARC from publisher at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
All Miranda wants is a normal life. She's determined to move past the horrible truth of her origin as a clone so she can enjoy time with her boyfriend, Peter, and the rest of her friends at school. But Miranda quickly learns that there's no such thing as normal - not for a girl who was raised to be a weapon. When one of her teammates turns rogue, it begins a war that puts the world in jeopardy. Now Miranda must follow her instincts - not her heart - in order to save everything she's fought so hard to keep. with the image of a terrible future seared into her mind, what will she have to sacrifice to protect the people she loves?

Dan Krokos's sequel to the tour de force False Memory is a mind-blowing thriller with high-octane action that will leave readers begging for the final book in this bold and powerful trilogy.

Previous Book in Series:
1: False Memory

First Sentence: "Thomas David asks me about my eyes."

Review:

*sighs heavily*

Well, this is one of those times. Ever since I read False Memory, I have been SO READY for the sequel. When I read and enjoyed Krokos' second novel to be released, the middle grade The Planet Thieves, I was even more sure that I would love this book. Would that that were the case. Sadly, False Sight took the series in a wholly different direction, and these changes just did not work for me one bit. Though I would not call False Sight a bad book, I urge those of you who loved False Memory to expect something rather different from the sequel.

False Memory did action really well, but what really rang true for me were the emotions and the voice, made all the more impressive by the fact that Krokos is a male author writing a female heroine. To give props where they are due, I still got a female vibe from the narration. At no point was I thrown out of the story thinking that something was gendered incorrectly. He put a lot of work into the narrative voice and it definitely continues to pay off.

Unfortunately, for me, I'm all about emotions and really getting into the characters heads and motivations. In False Memory, I was especially captivated by the disconnect between Miranda's memories and Miranda's present. The way she struggled with being two different people with different desires all at once was captivating and emotionally resonant. The resulting love triangle, the emotions of the past warring with the current ones, made it onto my mental list of love triangles I actually approve of. Needless to say, I hoped for more of such dynamics, thought-provoking and philosophical. I did not get them.

False Sight is all about twists, action, and world building, in roughly that order, with characterization almost entirely left out to pasture. For the sort of reader that I am, this was a disastrous change, because I didn't have enough emotional investment after the gap of a year since I read the prior book to be able to care about the crazy twists and deaths. My main reaction to False Sight was one of intense boredom, despite the back to back fight scenes and huge surprises.

Aside from that style just not being my personal preference, I just generally found the sheer amount of information overwhelming. Krokos adds so much to the world building, and, as such, there are a bunch of infodumps. Also, with that many twists, things basically go batshit. I really don't know what to say about everything that happens other than just going "WHUH?" and staring at the book in befuddlement. Basically, when it comes to the large twist, I think you're either going to be really into it or you're going to be frustrated all the way through.

Now, I don't know for certain that this is true, but I gather that Dan Krokos is a Joss Whedon fan, and maybe also a Mira Grant fan. There were some definite shades of Serenity and some of the events from Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy in there. This means I should have been all over this, but I was just so disconnected and more bored than I've been in a long time.

Honestly, I'm not sure what else to say about what happened here. Maybe I was just not in the mood. Maybe the direction just was not what I was expecting or what works for me as reader. Either way, I'm bidding adieu to this series. I still really like the first book, but I'm leaving it at that and pretending it stands alone.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: None.

Review: Shadowcry

Shadowcry
Wintercraft, Book 1

Author: Jenna Burtenshaw
Pages: 320
Publisher: Greenwillow
Read: June 19-22, 2013
Source: Library

Description from Goodreads:
The Night of Souls—when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest—is only days away.

Albion is at war . . . and losing.

The wardens have descended, kidnapping innocent citizens for their army, but looking for one in particular.

And fifteen-year-old Kate Winters has just raised a blackbird from the dead.

As her home is torn apart by the wardens, Kate's discovery that she is one of the Skilled—the rare people who can cross the veil between life and death—makes her the most hunted person in all of Albion. Only she can unlock the secrets of Wintercraft, the ancient book of dangerous knowledge. Captured and taken to the graveyard city of Fume—with its secret tunnels and underground villages, and where her own parents met their deaths ten years ago—Kate must harness her extraordinary powers to save herself, her country, and the two men she cares for most. And she'll make a pact with a murderer to do it.

Those who wish to see the dark, be ready to pay your price.

First Sentence: "At the southern edge of a moonlit city, a woman stood over an open grave."

Review:

Jenna Burtenshaw's Shadowcry has been on my radar for quite some time, ever since a friend read it and loved it. With a review copy of book three in hand, I've embarked on the full series, always a risky venture, yet one that I can't resist. Obviously, I have will power issues. Shadowcry stands unique from the bulk of young adult fiction, but, thus far, isn't the ideal read for me personally.

As I say over and over again, what really makes me interested in a book are the characters. Whether I love them or not, I almost always need to connect to them in some way, to feel that they're in some measure real to really get involved in the book. World building and writing for their own sake get me only so far. Shadowcry definitely focuses more on those aspects than on character, so I had a lot of trouble maintaining interest, even though, objectively, I can appreciate a lot of what Burtenshaw has done here.

Shadowcry starts dramatically with Kate and her uncle Artemis preparing to flee before the Wardens, the men who killed her mother and father, arrive in town. They do not make it out of the bookshop Artemis owns in time however. Blackbirds, the precursors to the Wardens, have arrived, pecking madly and dying on the streets. The scene is eerie and horrifying.

The Wardens are looking for the Skilled, people with the ability to bridge the veil, the space between life and death. If one of these dead birds is touched by someone Skilled, the bird will return to life. In the process of rescuing Ethan, who works for Artemis, from the barrage of dying birds, Kate touches one and it comes back to life in her hands. The blackbird flaps up the chimney, alerting Silas, the head collector of the Skilled to her existence.

Kate and Ethan are on the run, pursued by Silas. They don't know who to trust, and have no idea what they can do. The concept of the Skilled is fascinating, and I like the complex nature of Silas' character. He is not entirely good or evil, and not entirely human either. Kate is a great heroine, too, full of fire and strength. She never crumples in the face of adversity, and constantly tries to rescue Ethan and Artemis. There's a definite sense in the book that the female characters are the strongest ones and that's awesome. Also, I know some folks are really sick of books dominated by romance, so, just fyi, there's absolutely no romance in Shadowcry.

Despite all that good stuff, my main reaction to Shadowcry was boredom. Since there wasn't any focus on character development really, I just wasn't all that engaged. Before I can care much about the world or the dramatic events, I need to care about the characters.

So far, the Wintercraft series has not proved the ideal read for me. I do think Shadowcry is a good book, but just not what I was hoping for or what works for me personally.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: Didn't have one

Review: Solstice

Solstice

Author: P. J. Hoover
Pages: 384
Publisher: Tor Teen
Publication Date: June 18, 2013
Read: June 17-19, 2013
Source: ARC from publisher for review

Description from Goodreads:
Piper's world is dying.

Each day brings hotter temperatures and heat bubbles that threaten to destroy the earth. Amid this global heating crisis, Piper lives under the oppressive rule of her mother, who suffocates her even more than the weather does. Everything changes on her eighteenth birthday, when her mother is called away on a mysterious errand and Piper seizes her first opportunity for freedom.

Piper discovers a universe she never knew existed—a sphere of gods and monsters—and realizes that her world is not the only one in crisis. While gods battle for control of the Underworld, Piper’s life spirals out of control as she struggles to find the answer to the secret that has been kept from her since birth.

An imaginative melding of mythology and dystopia, Solstice is the first YA novel by talented newcomer P. J. Hoover.

First Sentence: "Mom says, 'Watch the heat today.'"

Review:

There's a special kind of sadness reserved for a book that starts out well, that you think you're going to be best friends with, but which, instead, goes somewhere that your heart and mind can't embrace. For me, Solstice is one such book. For the first hundred pages, Solstice was heading for a 3.5-4 star rating, but then the twist and the romance happened. Though not for me, Solstice does have good qualities and will no doubt be pleasing to a slew of other readers.

The first hundred pages of Solstice are solid post-apocalyptic, though I wouldn't really call the book dystopian myself, though really what a dystopia is has really lost all meaning for me by this point. The world Hoover has created is an eerily possible future earth, one beset by global warming. In Piper's world, one hundred degrees Fahrenheit is a cool day in Austin, TX. Going outside requires sunscreen pills and cool misting sprays at all times. Water comes in two temperatures: warm and hot. Air conditioning is used to cool buildings down to the upper 80s or 90s - any more than that is illegal. Governments around the world try to fix the heat with science, but the attempts are not proving promising.

In these opening chapters, Piper is cool-headed, thoughtful, and obedient to her overbearing mother. Other students look to her for advice and instructions during crises. Because of her mother's restrictions, she does feel a bit lonely, and wishes she were allowed to date like the other kids, especially since she's legally an adult at 18. For this reason, I wasn't bothered by her intense immediate attraction to the hot new boy at school who just happened to sit next to her in class and want to talk to her OR to the hot boy who came by her house claiming to be the son of one of her mother's colleagues. The girl has been toeing her mother's line for so long she was bound to crack eventually; she's entered her rebellious phase, as evidenced by the tattoo she gets with her best friend. That was all fine.

At this point, if you're concerned about spoilers, you may want to step away. I can't review this one without spoiling the big twist, because I have things I need to talk about to explain why my opinion changed about Solstice. The twist is discussed in the blurb above, but I generally ignore those and didn't know myself, so up to you.

Right around the one hundred page mark, Solstice becomes an entirely different book, a fantasy about Greek mythology. Unfortunately, the transition is marked with excruciatingly instalove-ridden romance, rather than action or good mythology. Hoover does bring the mythological elements to an interesting conclusion, but there was too much unfortunate romance before that got going that kept me from liking this book.

The romance elements have the unfortunate gender dynamics present in other young adult Persephone adaptations, like Abandon and The Goddess Test. Reese (Ares) and Shayne (Hades) are fighting for Piper's love, though she cannot figure out why (even though she's OBVIOUSLY Persephone from when the Greek myth stuff first starts, she won't figure that out until page 290). She instaloves (one week, people!) with Shayne, who refers to her as the "spoils" of his position in the Underworld and refuses to tell her anything, though, to be fair, there does end up being a reason for that later (though my opinion was set by the time I learned that). Whenever Piper gets near Reese, though, his intoxicating scent fills her with memories of their time together, fictional ones, and she cannot help making out with him. Only at the very end does she actually make any sort of informed choice about romance, mostly being led about by the men. The logical, thoughtful heroine of the beginning of the book disappears never to be seen again. Neither love interest ever gets personified beyond on nice strong guy and evil strong guy respectively.

Much as I can't personally get past the romance, I can appreciate the way that Hoover resolved everything. She does put an interesting twist on the relationship dynamics of the myth. Piper's relationship with her mother echoes the original tale, but puts a different spin on Demeter's desire to keep Persephone with her.

I'm torn on the resolution to the whole global warming plot of the beginning. Hoover does come back to that and deftly ties it into the mythology by explaining that it's always summer when Persephone's with her mother. That's pretty awesome on one level, but also really annoys me on a couple of others. From a mythology standpoint, I just don't think that her mother being happy would equal an increasingly hot summer, because it's not like the world was an arid desert until Persephone started spending six months in the Underworld every year. Also, I find the idea that global warming has been turned into a side effect of the squabbles of the gods, rather than of humans completely fucking up the planet, distasteful. I know it's just been done for the fictional value, but I still can't get completely behind it.

If, like me, you're not a fan of poorly characterized instalove romances, you may want to give Solstice a pass. However, if you're curious and not as easily frustrated by such things, there are a lot of cool things in Solstice for you to appreciate. I really like what Hoover did in theory, and I do think that she shows a lot of promise as an author; her writing is good and the concept is fantastic. Though Solstice didn't work for me, I'll be open to reading more of Hoover's books in the future.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote:

"'So you missed me?' He tilts his head and waits for my answer.
     I move my hand, scratching a different head. 'I missed your dog.'"

Review: Invisibility

Invisibility

Author: Andrea Cremer & David Levithan
Pages: 358
Publisher: Philomel
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Source: Publisher for review

Description from Goodreads:
Stephen has been invisible for practically his whole life — because of a curse his grandfather, a powerful cursecaster, bestowed on Stephen’s mother before Stephen was born. So when Elizabeth moves to Stephen’s NYC apartment building from Minnesota, no one is more surprised than he is that she can see him. A budding romance ensues, and when Stephen confides in Elizabeth about his predicament, the two of them decide to dive headfirst into the secret world of cursecasters and spellseekers to figure out a way to break the curse. But things don’t go as planned, especially when Stephen’s grandfather arrives in town, taking his anger out on everyone he sees. In the end, Elizabeth and Stephen must decide how big of a sacrifice they’re willing to make for Stephen to become visible — because the answer could mean the difference between life and death. At least for Elizabeth.

First Sentence: "I was born invisible."

Review:

Oh, expectations, you turncoats. Always there when I start out, and off who the fuck knows where as I suffer through an uninspired book. Before you start telling me I shouldn't have finished this book, believe me, I know that was an option. However, by the time I was sure I wouldn't like it, I was too far into the book to DNF. Once I've read twenty percent or so, it's happening, and that's all there is to it. Invisibility isn't necessarily a bad book, but it's certainly not what I was hoping for, and will likely only please those who have not yet tired of the standard paranormal romance formula and tropes. Warning: this review will contain some spoilers.

My mistake, and I will admit it was mine alone, was that I assumed Invisibility would be something like Levithan's Every Day. Admittedly, I have yet to read that book, but the premise blows my mind, and, based on friends' reviews and recommendation, I will love it. In that book, I understand that Levithan takes a sort of metaphysical and philosophical look at a unique way of existing, and uses that to reflect on sexuality and love. With Invisibility, I hoped for something similar. What I wanted was the tale of an invisible boy, born that way for no rhyme or reason, and how he comes to find meaning in his existence. Again, this was solely my mental creation. If you had similar hopes, quash them, because Invisibility is just a paranormal romance of magic and curses.

This is why I'm honest.

To give Cremer and Levithan their dues, the world building for the magic is unique, if strange. They did at least expend the effort to come up with something a bit out of the box. The curses, especially, are very cool, and some of them legitimately freaked me out, so that was well done. Unfortunately, their hearts weren't in that aspect of the book, so the world is uncovered and explained through a series of chapter-long infodumps. The teens go to an adult, ask for information, and receive and infodump. Then they go to another adult and repeat the process. It's a dulling way to receive information.

All of that could easily have been saved with well-done characters, though, since characters are where my true love lies as a reader anyway. Sadly, Stephen and Elizabeth are static, with no motivations except the ones given to them by their romance. Elizabeth does have a second motivation in protecting her mother and brother, but, when push comes to shove, she always chooses Stephen over them, so that hardly counts to me.

When two authors team up to write a novel in dual perspectives, I generally assume that they both take a perspective to write. Thus, I'm excited to read books composed in this way, because I love dual perspective done well, and it should be so easy for two separate authors to create two distinct perspectives. Somehow, though, I found that I had a lot of trouble distinguishing whether I was reading an Elizabeth chapter or a Stephen chapter until one of their names was said.

Perhaps, though, Elizabeth and Stephen are so indistinguishable because they lack individual interests and personalities. Very little effort is expended to make them feel like real people. Stephen, for example, has been on his own since his mother's death, but he apparently does nothing but order food to eat, angst, and people-watch. Though he has absolutely no one to talk to, he has no solitary hobbies to do while alone in his apartment. Um, Stephen, may I suggest the internet? I'm in my home alone right now, but, if I break from writing this review, I can go on Twitter and talk to any number of friends. Though no one can see him, he could make a network on the internet, where no one can see your physical form anyway, unless you choose to share a photo. Or, Stephen, how about reading? No wonder he's so miserable, since he doesn't ever do anything.

Then there's Elizabeth, who Cremer and Levithan really tried to make cool and nerdy. Her dream in life is to be a comic book writer and illustrator, both because doing just one is lame to her. Awesome, right? I should totally love this girl. And yet. For all her supposed love of comics, her interest in comic books has been added solely as a plot device by which she can realize her own special powers, which she has been secretly using to create the world in her comic book. When her brother, Laurie, introduces her to another comic book fan, she shows no interest in ever talking to him about them. When the group ends up going several times to a really bitching comic book shop with tons of special editions, Elizabeth never once stops to peruse the selection. Yeah, she's dealing with some serious stuff, but there is no universe where I would be able to walk through a bookstore without noting titles as I walked through or trailing my fingers along the spines. Don't try to connect to nerds with such a shallow attempt, because we do see through that.

The only characters I liked and cared about at all were Laurie, Elizabeth's brother, and Sean, a boy in the building Laurie is crushing on. After her parents' divorce, their mother moved the three of them to New York City to escape homophobia so severe that Laurie was hospitalized with multiple broken bones. The father basically blamed Laurie for provoking the attack, so the dad's obviously scum. Briefly, Laurie is a real plot point with a burgeoning romance, but we never get to find out how that's going for him, and he becomes just a pawn to be manipulated by the bad guy. Even then, Laurie's still more useful than Stephen. Laurie gets shit done.

Worst of all is the romance. First off, we have the invisible, personality-less boy and the pretending-to-be-a-nerd girl. Shock of shocks, she is the only person in the whole wide world who can see him! They touch and feel things. Their connection is made of magic and wondrousness and they fall in love in an unclear amount of time. However, their romance cannot have gone on for long, since she's still a ways from school starting and summer is not that long. Hello, instalove.

It gets better, though! Without establishing any real emotional connection between these two, which would be difficult, since they don't actually have personalities, they declare their love and begin arguing about who gets to die for the other one. Is anyone else sick of reading books about teens who are desperate to sacrifice themselves for someone they've only known for a month? Going back to what I mentioned earlier, Elizabeth is already willing to save Stephen's life over that of her brother's when forced to choose, though, obviously, she'll manage to save both. No, bitch, your brother comes first, not the invisible kid you've known for a month or less. Also, and here's where things really crossed the line, Cremer and Levithan never offer a convincing excuse for why Laurie can see Stephen, since her own powers don't explain shit. It was a convenient way to make them feel like they must have some mystical connection.

The ending did manage to surprise me just a bit, so I will give some credit for that. Cremer and Levithan didn't go for the obvious, easy ending that I'd predicted, so I will applaud them for finally stepping outside of the box, though I would have been grateful if it had happened 340 pages sooner.

If paranormal romances relying heavily on baseless instalove still work for you, by all means procure a copy of Invisibility. If, on the other hand, you were hoping for something deep and meaningful along the lines of Levithan's Every Day, you might want to spare yourself the disappointment. For some samples of the writing and further insights, you can check my status updates on Goodreads, which include a sampling of quotes.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: "'Lovebirds?' Laurie interjects. 'Can we put off the mating call for a sex? Methinks we have some bigger issues on the table.'"

Review: A Corner of White

A Corner of White
The Colors of Madeleine, Book 1

Author: Jaclyn Moriarty
Pages: 384
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine
Source: For review from YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
The first in a rousing, funny, genre-busting trilogy from bestseller Jaclyn Moriarty!

This is a tale of missing persons. Madeleine and her mother have run away from their former life, under mysterious circumstances, and settled in a rainy corner of Cambridge (in our world).

Elliot, on the other hand, is in search of his father, who disappeared on the night his uncle was found dead. The talk in the town of Bonfire (in the Kingdom of Cello) is that Elliot's dad may have killed his brother and run away with the Physics teacher. But Elliot refuses to believe it. And he is determined to find both his dad and the truth.

As Madeleine and Elliot move closer to unraveling their mysteries, they begin to exchange messages across worlds -- through an accidental gap that hasn't appeared in centuries. But even greater mysteries are unfolding on both sides of the gap: dangerous weather phenomena called "color storms;" a strange fascination with Isaac Newton; the myth of the "Butterfly Child," whose appearance could end the droughts of Cello; and some unexpected kisses...

First Sentence: "Madeleine Tully turned fourteen yesterday, but today she did not turn anything."

Review:

A Corner of White is one of those stories that either is going to work for you or it's not. I don't really see there being too much of a middle ground on that. Either Moriarty's world, storytelling and characters will entrance you or you'll be bored and confused. Now, sadly, I fell into that latter camp of readers, but I really don't want to tell anyone not to pick up this book, because I can see where it will work really well for other people.

The world building in A Corner of White is seriously kooky, and well-matched to the vary unique narrative style that Moriarty employs. The story concerns alternate universes, the world we know and a magical kingdom called Cello. A sort of hole opens up between the two allowing teens Elliot and Madeleine to communicate by means of parking meter (on her side) and broken TV (on his side in Cello). The story has a fairy tale vibe to it, and I could see A Corner of White pleasing readers who enjoyed Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted, another very popular fairy tale that never worked for me personally. It's just not the kind of quirky that works for me personally.

My biggest problem is that I read primarily for characters. I can put up with a lot for vibrant characters, but I always felt very distanced from Madeleine, Elliot and the others. I think partly this stems from Moriarty's cinematic narrative style, in which she always sets the scene before focusing on the characters. Moriarty describes the characters over and over as she zooms in on them during scene changes. Other readers, though, really liked the characters, so I suspect this may have to do with how well the writing sits with you personally.

Without that connection to the characters, I was bored all the way through this 373 page book. My reading slowed down a lot because I found myself not wanting to go back to it. I just didn't care about the people involved, so I couldn't get invested in their goings on. At the end, a character might have died but I'm not sure and don't care enough to find out for sure. Every single time I picked this book up, I would go from alert to exhausted. Within seconds of beginning to read, I would be yawning up a storm.

As I said, I think this book will be very hit-or-miss with readers. If you're curious about it, give it a try. If Moriarty's writing makes you laugh and comes alive like the technicolor explosion that it is, then the book is for you. If, like me, you feel like maybe Moriarty was trying a bit too hard, then it might not be for you.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote:

"Your guess is as good as mine.
     Well, no, I doubt that actually. My guess would probably be better than yours."

Review: Fade to Black

Fade to Black
Rojan Dizon, Book 1

Author: Francis Knight
Pages: 384
Publisher: Orbit
Source: Publisher

Description from Goodreads:
From the depths of a valley rises the city of Mahala.

It’s a city built upwards, not across—where streets are built upon streets, buildings upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from the sunlit summit, and where the forsaken lurk in the darkness of Under.

Rojan Dizon doesn’t mind staying in the shadows, because he’s got things to hide. Things like being a pain-mage, with the forbidden power to draw magic from pain. But he can’t hide for ever.

Because when Rojan stumbles upon the secrets lurking in the depths of the Pit, the fate of Mahala will depend on him using his magic. And unlucky for Rojan—this is going to hurt.

First Sentence: "I forced the door, nice and quiet, with my ever-so-slightly-illegal pulse pistol at the ready."

Review:

Alright, I have a lot of fairly unpleasant things to say about Fade to Black, so I want to stress first and foremost that I don't think this is a bad book. For some people, it's probably even an incredibly delightful book, but I am not one of those people. Francis Knight's Fade to Black is very much a "dude" book. Much as I don't like to subscribe to gendered reading, this book will have more appeal with men, largely due to the portrayal of women.

Let's start off with what I did like, because there was one thing. The world Knight created is dark, eerie, and fascinating. It's a dystopian world, which, while obviously not a utopia in the beginning, has even blacker secrets underneath. The idea of this world thrusting high up into the sky, where people commute by shaking bridges, creates a strong mental image. It's like nothing I've read before, though I've seen a couple of similar ones none were quite like Knight's.

Knight also had an interesting concept with the pain mages. I both did and didn't like this. The idea that they can convert the pain of themselves or others into magic is admittedly cool. I also thought the fact that the magic would corrupt the user was neat too, especially given the dark nature of the magic. Rojan's struggles against using his magic are compelling, and pretty much the one sign that he might not be an asshat of a man.

On the other hand, though, the pain mages thing also allowed Knight to get pretty gruesome. I'm not usually easily grossed out by fiction because I'm not a visual reader. Where horror or gore on a television screen freaks me out instantly, I can read gory horror novels without a problem. Knight revels in the painful stuff, perhaps she even had to, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I could not handle the descriptions of Rojan breaking his hand and then continuing to abuse it all through the book. I feel sympathetic twinges in my own hands now even as I type this. Whiles she obviously has writing talent to make me feel this way, I still found the whole ordeal highly unpleasant.

As mentioned previously, my biggest issue with Fade to Black is Rojan Dizon and his sexism. I would say Fade to Black reads a bit like an old school noir, where women are solely seen as sexual objects. Rojan has a firm belief that any woman will sleep with him and regularly has a number of women at any one time, all of whom seem to have been unaware that that was the case, based on their reaction at the beginning of the book. If he wants to sleep around, fine, but don't lie to women about what you want from them. That's so not cool. His attitude and the way he thinks about every single woman he meets made me want to kick him in his manparts with steel-toed boots.

There is one powerful woman, the fighter Jake, the only female who seems strong enough to have any sway in the world. She's been dominating the underground fighting circuit. That sounds good, right? Well, not so much. Turns out she's the only woman who's not interested in him, so obviously it must be love. Insert eyeroll here. Then, later, we find out that the reason that Jake has no interest in Rojan or any of the other men is because she was sexually abused when she was younger, so the touch of a man turns her into a weak-willed, fearful creature just like every other woman. Fan-freaking-tastic. The strongest female character was actually a whore, who escaped from sexual abuse to open a whorehouse, which pretty much sums up what Knight thinks about women.

Fade to Black might be for you if you do not mind reading about men who are rampant sexists and enjoy gory descriptions, perhaps those who enjoy the exploits of James Bond. Sadly (or happily), that is not me.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: "'You and, and - everyone's cruel, life's cruel, and so is death and so am I, and I intend to find out just how cruel I can be. So fuck you, Rojan, fuck you.'"

Review + Giveaway: The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow

Author: Rita Leganski
Pages: 400
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours

Description from Goodreads:
Bonaventure Arrow didn’t make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. But he was only listening, placing sound inside quiet and gaining his bearings. By the time he is five, he can hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. One day, Bonaventure’s world is shaken by anguished voices he’s never heard before–voices that trace back to a note written by his mother, Dancy, and to a peculiar relic owned by his Grand-mère Letice. When Bonaventure removes the note and the relic from where they’ve been hidden, he opens two doors to the past and finds the key to a web of secrets that both hold his family together, and threaten to tear them apart. Set against the background of 1950s New Orleans and the fictional town of Bayou Cymbaline, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow is rich with the character of a culture that overflows with conjured charms and sanctified spirits. It takes readers from a gumbo joint on Atchafaylaya Road to a sinister house in New Orleans to the interior of the Arrow family crypt. A magical debut novel about the lost art of listening and a wondrous little boy who brings healing to the souls of all who love him in this story of forgiveness and redemption.

First Sentence: "Bonaventure Arrow didn't make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead."

Review:

Okay book, I'm pretty sure it was me and not you. Listen, I saw you and you were beautiful, and I wanted you right away. I couldn't resist your allure, your magical realism. I had to have you in my life. Now, though, I realize that I should have gotten to know you better first, before we committed to one another in any meaningful way. You really are beautiful inside and out, but just not in a way I can fully appreciate.

What I can say is that the writing in The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow is beautiful. Simply lovely. Leganski's writing style plays into the feeling of magical realism perfectly, and the way she puts together sentences has a magic all its own. Her debut proves her writing chops, and I would be willing to consider reading whatever her next novel is, solely on the strength of her prose.

The book's opening captured me immediately, reminding me a good deal of Fitzgerald's short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" mixed with the southern charm of Sarah Addison Allen. The idea of a child, mute but intended for some big purpose, seems fraught with possibility. Unfortunately, the story then jumps back and spends almost the whole of the novel in the backstory of his mother and grandmothers. I never did find myself especially interested in any character but Bonaventure Arrow himself, and he didn't turn out to be much of a focus in the novel.

Bonaventure, in addition to being silent, has super hearing. He can hear everything, from falling stars to his father's ghost. Supposedly, this will allow him to do something quite special and live up to his saintly name. His counterpart of sorts, in the sense that they both have special abilities, is Trinidad, a much older black woman. She sees visions, Knowings, and practices hoodoo, which allows her to help people with natural herbs. Her hoodoo is remarkably similar to the effects of Vianne's chocolates in Chocolat. These elements are fantastic, but I don't feel like they served any actual purpose to the plot whatsoever. They seem merely to be there to make the setting more vibrant.

Actually, the only real plot seems to involve Bonaventure's father. William dies before Bonaventure's birth, shot by a mysterious, insane man. His mother and wife are trying to allay their guilt, the former by trying to figure out the identity of his killer. Meanwhile, William, in some sort of purgatory, watches over his family, and communicates with his son. The whole book seems mostly to be about him moving on to the next world. Rather than magical realism, this is much more of a ghost story.

What lost me, most heartily though, was all of the Christianity in the novel. No, it's not preachy, but it's incredibly boring. As I said, I couldn't be bothered about the backstory of the grandmothers, and their pasts are all wrapped up in their fervent religious beliefs. Every character isn't Christian, and it doesn't seem like Leganski's trying to say anything about it, but I just had no fucks to give about any of it. Like so much else in the novel, I just don't see why I had to sit through all of that when it doesn't seem to have had a big impact on the plot overall.

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow is a gorgeously-written novel, but suffers from a weak plot that tries to do too many things without tying them together. I might read more Leganski someday, but this one did not work for me.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: "'It's part of reaching the age of reason. As you get older, you figure out a lot of things with your mind, and you get better and better at it. But one day you realize that some things can't be figured out at all, no matter how old you are or how much you use your mind, and then you just have to listen to your heart.'"

Giveaway:
Though TSoBA didn't work for me, you still might love it (and what better way to try than a free copy). Harper sent me two copies, so I'm passing one along to a reader (and one to a friend). US/CAN only. Fill out the Rafflecopter to enter.

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Review: The Darkest Minds

The Darkest Minds
The Darkest Minds, Book 1

Author: Alexandra Bracken
Pages: 496
Publisher: Hyperion Book CH
Source: ARC from BEA

Description from Goodreads:
When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.

First Sentence: "When the White Noise went off, we were in the Garden, pulling weeds"

Review:

For whatever reason this book just did not work for me. All of my reviewer friends with similar taste enjoyed it a lot, like Great Imaginations, Cuddlebuggery, and Xpresso Reads. Perhaps I was not in the right mood, or maybe this falls under the category of books that mean that the readers most similar to me only agree with me on three out of four books.

This really should be a book that I love, and I'm not entirely sure where everything went wrong. I mean, it sounds so perfect for me: dystopian fiction about kids with powers. Obviously, I love dystopias, and I also will read anything I can get my hands on about people evolving powers ala X-Men. Some of the problem might have been my mood, but, whatever the case, this story fell entirely flat.

The writing, while not awful, did not stand out for me in any way. Within this book's pages, I saw several of those overused, annoying sentences, including one where the heroine doesn't realize she's not breathing and another where she hears a scream that she then figures out is hers. Of course, the fact that the font size, in the ARC at least, is so large exacerbates the childish feel to the writing. Take, for example, the very first sentence: the needless capitalization irks, as does the comma after "Garden." Again, it's certainly passable YA writing, but did not work for me at all.

What really kept me from engaging with this story is my lack of connection to Ruby. In a first person narrative, having a compelling, well-drawn MC is crucial, and Ruby is not that. She never really coalesced into a realistic person. At different points in the novel, she seems to be entirely different in terms of her personality. In the camp, for example, she allows her friend to be punished in her stead, unwilling or unable to leap to the friend's defense. Later on, she regularly joins the fray to protect friends, and is considered strong and trustworthy, ready to fight. While, yes, I can see that she might have been operating under different rules in the camp than on the run, I never got any sense of her going through a change. She doesn't evolve; she's just suddenly different, without any sort of "well, I'm free from camp now, so I can be me again!" and it makes her feel very uneven.

The other characters are better, and the story becomes much more readable when she joined up with Chubs, Zu, and Liam. Chubs and Liam are definitely my favorite parts of the book, particularly the book-obsessed Chubs. Then again, one of the books Chubs has is Watership Down, which Ruby read before entering the camp, and then feels the need to quote obsessively throughout the book, because apparently she still remembers exact lines. Sure. Are you getting the sense I didn't like Ruby by the way I sidetracked my discussion of the others to complain about her?

The plot moves in stereotypical dystopian directions. Insert dramatic chase here. Insert cookie cutter bad guys around every corner. Add false sense of safety here. Begin separating the friends. Throw in a surprise bad guy, but make it entirely obvious he's bad so the reader can indulge in some dramatic irony! Now, for increased drama, add a love triangle into the mix and bake at 350 degrees. Finally, remove plot from oven and cut slices out of the main character's heart. AND DONE.

A couple of times, I thought maybe Bracken had done something to catch me off guard, but those would turn out to be fake out twists, followed by the totally predictable things I was expecting all along. She writes using the Chekhov rule. If something gets mentioned more than once, it will be used before the book is finished. This rule helps, of course, but it was so heavy-handed that I knew precisely where the story was headed.

There's a lot of potentially good things in this story, and it wasn't terrible, though I know my ranting might make it seem that I hated it. It just bored me pretty much all the way through. For a book about kids with powers like telepathy and telekinesis, there sure is not too much done with the powers. Stupid kids, if you all just use your powers against the grown ups, this is all over! Also, if all of the kids either died from that disease or developed these powers, why has the government not developed a proactive plan? All they're doing is slowly killing off the remaining kids when they should be turning this to their advantage on the global scale. The reaction to the crisis does not seem believable.

Listen, ranting aside, lots of people have loved this book, and I urge you to check out those reviews I linked to before taking this book off of your to-read list. Sometimes I just do not agree with anyone, and this could be that time.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: "'Maybe nothing will ever change for us,' he said. 'But don't you want to be around just in case it does?'"

Review: The Next Forever

The Next Forever
Pretty Amy, Book 1.5

Author: Lisa Burstein
Pages: 74
Publisher: Ever After
Source: e-galley for review

Description from Goodreads:
One night in college can change everything…

Away at college, Amy just wants one night alone without her high school sweetheart, Joe. So when he invites her to go to the library, she heads off on her own instead. How she ended up at a house party with the mysterious bad-boy Trevor is another story…

Joe so isn’t going to the library. He needs space from Amy, too, so he’s decided to rush a fraternity, to get back the swagger he had in high school. But it doesn’t take long for the brothers to invite him to the real rush here the beer is flowing and one particular girl has set her eyes on Joe.

Over the course of one wild night, both Amy and Joe will have to decide if their futures belong with two new people, or whether the next forever will have their first loves in it.

Prior Books in Series:
1: Pretty Amy (Review|Goodreads)

First Sentence: "'So is that a yes or a no?' Joe asked, a smile struggling to come to his lips—sunshine fighting through heavy gray clouds."

Review:

I actually really enjoyed Pretty Amy, the story of a girl heavily lacking self-confidence who ends up making some really bad choices to fit in. I mean, who didn't do some stupid things in high school in order to feel like they belonged? This novella picks up with Amy and her boyfriend, Joe, now in college. Honestly, I'm torn on this novella, mostly because I think it's very much aimed at pleasing the stereotypical new adult audience. Like, yes, I loved Easy, but most of the NA books anger me just from reading the blurb.

On the one hand, I definitely think it's awesome getting to check in with those characters now that they're in college. They get together at the end of Pretty Amy, so now we can see what their relationship is actually like. They've grown pretty codependent in college, and they're both suffocating a little. Joe even asks her to get a place with him, which panics Amy and, honestly, himself.

I really like that, much as he was depicted as Mr. Perfect in Pretty Amy, the reader can see that things aren't perfect in their relationship, that, if they want to make it last, they'll have to work some things out. Amy and Joe still suffer from temptation, and staying together is a choice. Being in love doesn't make everything easy or guarantee that you'll only be attracted to one another for all of time.

On the other hand, the way this is shown irritated me a lot. Freaked out by Joe's question, Amy decides to attend a party with a hot bad boy to see whether she'll cheat or not, basically to test her devotion to Joe. Meanwhile, Joe told her he would be studying in the library, but instead went to rush a frat, keeping it a secret because of Amy's disgust for the Greek system. At the party, he is, of course, confronted with big-boobed bimbos willing to get it on with any dude in pre-law, because they're digging for future gold. Basically, everything they do in this book makes me despise characters that I liked and sympathized with previously.

The Next Forever is well-written; I just don't happen to like most of what it says. Those who like new adult more than I do will surely love this novella addition to Amy's story.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote:

"I guess moving in with Joe was something I had to test if I really wanted. Being with him had been an easy decision, but being in an apartment with him next year was something else. It wasn't that I didn't want to be, but I felt like I'd gone from the shadow of Lila and Cassie to the shadow of Joe. Not that Joe ever made me feel like I was in his shadow.
     He made me feel like the sun.
     But I was still measuring my significance because he was in my orbit. If I said yes to him, would I ever stand on my own?"

Review: Mind Games

Mind Games
Mind Games, Book 1

Author: Kiersten White
Pages: 256
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: February 19, 2013
Source: For review from YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
Fia was born with flawless instincts. Her first impulse, her gut feeling, is always exactly right. Her sister, Annie, is blind to the world around her—except when her mind is gripped by strange visions of the future.

Trapped in a school that uses girls with extraordinary powers as tools for corporate espionage, Annie and Fia are forced to choose over and over between using their abilities in twisted, unthinkable ways… or risking each other’s lives by refusing to obey.

In a stunning departure from her New York Times bestselling Paranormalcy trilogy, Kiersten White delivers a slick, edgy, heartstoppingly intense psychological thriller about two sisters determined to protect each other—no matter the cost.

First Sentence: "My dress is black and itchy and I hate it."

Review:
Ugh, you guys. I was so excited for this pretty much until I started reading it. I mean, that cover! Also, I enjoyed the first two Paranormalcy books, though in Endlessly Lend and Evie went way over my sap-tolerance. Here's the thing: the best part of Paranormalcy is the humor; it may not be good literature or amazing writing, but Evie is funny. Neither Fia nor Annie has a sense of humor, and, without it, the book relies heavily on White's writing and plotting, which turns out not to be a great thing.

Sometimes when a book disappoints me, I leave feeling angry. I am pissed off for days that the marketing tricked me into reading something so awful. In this case, I really do not have any bad feelings towards Mind Games at all. This may be, in fact, the most meh I have ever felt upon finishing a book. I can almost feel the novel draining out of my head as I type this, so I should probably type with alacrity. Basically, this book bored me, from beginning to end (with brief breaks to annoy me). Despite its brevity, it took three days for me to finish because any distraction would be more interesting.

Blame Bekka of Pretty Deadly Reviews for the random GIFs - she triple dog dared me.

On the plus side, Mind Games starts off with a bang. Fia is an assassin, sent to complete a mission. Unfortunately, her mission turns out to be a cute guy who likes puppies, so she cannot follow through. This would be cheesy, except that saving him writes a death warrant for herself and her blind sister, Annie, with her employers. Even worse, three goons are chasing her and the guy, Adam. The opening scene catches the readers attention and creates a lot of curiosity about what precisely is going on.

Honestly, I'm torn on the writing. Personally, I really do not like it, because repetition and simplistic sentences bother me. However, I do give Kiersten White full credit for writing two disparate, easily-distinguished two person narratives. What really irritates me about the writing, primarily Fia's narrative, is the repetition. This done stylistically, though, so, if this does not bother you, then I suspect you will enjoy the writing. Here are a couple of samples from the ARC, so you can see what I mean, though note that they could be changed before publication:

"He's still helping the puppy, untangling the leash from a tree its owner tied it to outside the bar. And he's not only setting it free, he's talking to it. I can't hear the words but I can see in the puppy's tail that, however he's talking, he's talking just right, all tender sweet cheerful comfort as his long fingers deftly untwist and unwind and undo my entire day, my entire life."

"Oh no. Oh no, oh no. I didn't do it. I didn't kill Adam. He's sitting next to me, driving (I let him drive? Why did I let him drive?) and very much alive."

The plotting and world building confound me at many points, which is not something I say often. Two main things I really do not get: the school and the seers. First off, we've got these people with powers (like seers and readers), and some evil dude is collecting them into this school so he can use them for his nefarious purposes. We learn nothing about how this school started or where the powers came from. Perhaps more frustrating, Fia has a unique power, perfect instincts, but we never learn if there are other rare powers or if she's just that special.

Throughout the novel, much is made of the seers and how Fia is the only one who can possibly do anything they cannot see in advance. She has this capability because she acts on her perfect instincts. Since she acts impulsively, they cannot ever see her future, since it is not set. That sort of makes sense, except that she makes longer-range plans all the time. Maybe one instinctual decision in the middle prevents the seers from picking up on her endgame? I mean, in the, admittedly surprising, conclusion, she had a plan and they would have seen it; that was not instinct. This whole thing reminds me a lot of Minority Report. All of this might not bother people who do not feel the need to focus so much on nitty gritty details. For me, nothing made any sense, though I may be trying to apply logic where it's not meant to be.

Mind Games would benefit from characterization. Fia is the only one I know too much about, and the only one to really receive any back story, despite the fact that the flashbacks should give a lot more of a view into Annie and James, too. Fia never coalesces into a distinct person. She does a lot of things and feels a lot of things that never really seem to add up the way one might expect. Her motivations are often unclear, such as why a certain incident made her start tap tap tapping. I do like Fia's love of dancing, and that no one ever shames her for loving that or wearing sexy clothes. However, I do not care for Fia's desire to belong to James, like a pair of headphones or something; this seems both out of character and really backward. Everyone else is one-note. James is sexy and dangerous. Annie is blind and helpless. Cole has stubble. Eden is awful. Adam is sweet and loves puppies.

The portrayal of Annie upsets me the most. For all that the book should be equally about her (the UK version is even titled Sister Assassins), she has no role in the novel but to be the albatross around Fia's neck. Every single horrible thing in Fia's life happens because she has to watch out for Annie. Both of them feel this. Annie never does anything; even when she makes up her mind to make a change, her role in that change is entirely passive. Her visions of the future, too, should give her some power, but she always messes up, never leverages them properly. Characters should not exist solely to be a burden. The portrayal of Annie's character depresses me.

Much as this book bores me, I have no doubt that other readers will squee all over it. If you like the writing samples above and will not be digging around looking for plot holes, you can probably sit back and be entertained. If you're more like me, read a sample before spending your hard-earned money.

Rating: 2/5

Favorite Quote: "'Ah, but that's the glory of not being Eden. She can feel bad all she wants and we never have to feel it!'"

Audiobook Review: One Breath Away

One Breath Away

Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Narrators: Joyce Bean, Susan Ericksen, Laural Merlington, Kate Rudd, Buck Schirner
Duration: 9 hrs, 20 mins
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Source: Own

Description from Goodreads:
In the midst of a sudden spring snowstorm, an unknown man armed with a gun walks into an elementary school classroom. Outside the school, the town of Broken Branch watches and waits. Officer Meg Barrett holds the responsibility for the town's children in her hands. Will Thwaite, reluctantly entrusted with the care of his two grandchildren by the daughter who left home years earlier, stands by helplessly and wonders if he has failed his child again. Trapped in her classroom, Evelyn Oliver watches for an opportunity to rescue the children in her care. And thirteen-year-old Augie Baker, already struggling with the aftermath of a terrible accident that has brought her to Broken Branch, will risk her own safety to protect her little brother. As tension mounts with each passing minute, the hidden fears and grudges of the small town are revealed as the people of Broken Branch race to uncover the identity of the stranger who holds their children hostage.

Review:

For those of you who don't know, some audiobooks include a bit of music. Not all the way through or anything, but at the very beginning and end. One Breath Away actually has music at the opening and closing of each disc. The music has a creepy sound, and seems like theme music for some sort of crime drama program. This fits One Breath Away perfectly, because it definitely felt more like a made for television movie than a serious consideration of a gunman taking over a school.

The topic, of course, inherently involves a lot of drama, fear and creepiness. The fact that a man with a gun would decide that the best way to make whatever point he has to make is to enter a school and take some children as hostages really freaks me out, mostly because it doesn't necessarily have to do with the children at all; they are merely innocent victims of a madman. Basically, this subject matter has plenty of natural intensity and shock value without adding additional sob stories into the mix.

Gudenkauf tells this story using multiple third person limited narratives. The first is a mother, Holly, recuperating slowly in a hospital. In the meantime, her children, Augie and PJ have been sent to live with her estranged her father, while her mother sits at her bedside. How was she injured? In a grease fire, and she was injured to an insane degree. Not only that, but the fire was inadvertently caused by Augie, who never apologized before this incident.

The second perspective is Augie's. Because of the guilt over her accidentally wounding her mother, when the school gets locked down, Augie decides she won't leave without PJ. Her class escapes early on, but she decides to stay and look for PJ, who's in the classroom with the gunman. Holly's perspective existed solely to add an extra level of sadness to this story, which really was not necessary. Why not make her any other mother, waiting outside the school? No matter the family situation, any relatively caring mother will be frozen with fear until she finds out her kids are safe; other than pure melodrama value, there's no reason to have her be gravely injured, at risk of ruining her skin grafts. Maybe that wasn't Gudenkauf's intention, but it detracted from the believability of the book for me.

The third perspective, and the only male one, is Will, Holly's father. He and Holly have not talked since she left home as a teen, sick of the farm and of Iowa and of her dad who cared more about cows than his child. Will spends his time worrying about everyone, rightly so, but also stumbling into crucial information regarding the case and saving people. Again, this had a sort of cinematic feel to it, more than might necessarily be going down in real life. Oh, also, there was a crazy snow storm too.

Our fourth perspective is Meg, a police officer. Her daughter would have been in the school, but she left before the last day to spend the weekend with her father, from whom Meg is divorced. Both Meg and Holly have a very powerful feminist attitude towards sex, though they seem to look down on themselves for it a bit, which is unfortunate. Their lives parallel somewhat, but more could have been made of that.

Rounding out the story is Mrs. Oliver, the so-close-to-retiring teacher of the hostage class. She does try very hard for the kids, but I had trouble accepting that a no-nonsense teacher like she is described to be would confront the gunman in some of the highly stupid ways she does. The reader also gets a lot of back story on Mrs. Oliver that, I personally did not find useful to the plot or interesting.

The audiobook version should have made their characters come more alive for me, but, sadly, that was not the case. I really did not like any of the narrators voices, though Meg was better than the rest. For one thing, they all had a really annoying accent, which I guess must be an Iowan accent for authenticity, but, whatever it is, I would have been happier without it. The worst performance has to be the one for Augie, as the narrator used a really obnoxious trying-to-sound-like-a-child voice, which skewed too young for eighth grader Augie and made her sound incredibly dumb.

Looking at Goodreads, I can see that there are 3000 plus ratings for this, most of them four and five stars. Listening to an audio can be a very different experience, so, perhaps, had I read this I would have liked it more. I really cannot say. If you're curious, look at some other reviews or try the book yourself, preferably in print unless you love the Iowa accent, before writing it off.

Overall Rating: 2/5

Review: Red Rain

Red Rain

Author: R.L. Stine
Pages: 384
Publisher: Touchstone
Source: Publisher for Review

Description from Goodreads:
R.L. Stine, New York Times bestselling author of the Goosebumps and Fear Street series—the biggest selling children’s books of all time—delivers a terrifying new adult horror novel centered on a town in the grip of a sinister revolt.

Before there was J.K. Rowling, before there was Stephenie Meyer or Suzanne Collins, there was R.L. Stine. Witty, creepy, and compulsively readable, he defined horror for a generation of young readers—readers who have now come of age.

Travel writer Lea Sutter finds herself on a small island off the coast of South Carolina, the wrong place at the wrong time. A merciless, unanticipated hurricane cuts a path of destruction and Lea barely escapes with her life. In the storm’s aftermath, she discovers orphaned twin boys and impulsively decides to adopt them. The boys, Samuel and Daniel, seem amiable and immensely grateful; Lea’s family back on Long Island—husband Mark and their two children, Ira and Elena—aren’t quite so pleased. But even they can’t anticipate the twins’ true nature—or predict that, within a few weeks’ time, Mark will wind up implicated in two brutal murders, with the police narrowing in.

For the millions of readers who grew up on Goosebumps, and for every fan of deviously inventive horror, this is a must-read from a beloved master of the genre.

First Sentence: "By morning, the hurricane had passed."

Review:

Like most kids of my generation, Goosebumps books were part of my formation as a reader. What elementary school kid didn't pick up at least a few of them on library trips. R. L. Stine was a freaking genius of horror to my childhood self. In fact, his books terrified me to the degree that I could only handle reading the Choose Your Own Adventure books, which, ironically, scared me less even though it was purportedly me dying over and over again, since I invariably made all the wrong choices. The other ones, though, I just did not have the mettle for at the time.

Because of my childhood fear of his books, I just could not pass up the opportunity to review his adult horror novel when the opportunity appeared in my inbox. Even at the time, I knew it was probably a bad idea, back before I started to see the negative reviews rolling in, but my inner child just had to see for itself what frightened me so much back in the day. As feared, Red Rain was not a good book, however it was thankfully bad enough to be highly entertaining in parts, which was pretty much its only saving grace.

For one thing, Stine's bread and butter has been writing for children, young ones, and he's been doing it since the 1980s. I remember the children's books of those days, because I read them for a while, before shifting to adult novels pretty young. The standards for children's literature were just not as high writing-wise as I feel they are today. I found the writing in Red Rain rather juvenile, though certainly there are plenty of successful authors of adult novels who make good careers on that. This style of writing does not appeal to me, however.

The biggest issue with the way he chose to write this novel, though, was that he set a lot of the action off-screen. He would be ramping up to something scary and would then the chapter would end and we would be stuck again with the mundane family drama. He did this to build suspense I think, as to who was committing the series of brutal murders, but, unfortunately, this was insanely obvious all along, so all that it did was take away a possibly terrifying scene. All told, there are only a few horror scenes in the whole book, and they take place in the last hundred pages or so.

Rather than giving the audience any actual action, he tries to keep them on the edge of their seats with suspense by constantly foreshadowing the horrors to come. This method can work, but its handled here with the subtlety of a brick through a window. For instance, Lea, a travel blogger, decides to go to the mysterious and creepy island off the coast of South Carolina, Cape Le Chat Noir. Oooh, the Cape of the Black Cat. Oh no, black cats are bad luck! Ahhhhhh! 

There are also comments like this one from Lea in regards to the island ritual where people are purportedly killed and brought back to life: "'I always think these rituals are a hoot, don't you? They're almost always like from a bad horror movie. Hope I don't burst out laughing'" (17). That deftly sums up the whole book, and, spoiler alert, I totally did bust out laughing.

For those of you that fear spoilers, now is probably about the time to duck out; you have been warned.

During all those other pages where you're waiting for Stine to finally admit to the insanely obvious twist about what precisely is occurring here, you get to enjoy a lot of time with the characters. Sadly, the characters lack depth and a lot of things happen for no apparent reason. Mark, the father of the family, cheats on his wife with his assistant, but nothing ever comes of this at all. Lea never finds out, so this apparently happens only to add one more cliché to the book.

As the blurb mentions, the family adopts blond twins from Cape Le Chat Noir. Let's disregard the fact that the adoption process does not take just a couple of days and focus on the twins, Daniel and Samuel. Yes, these kids are rather creepy, and I am terrified by creepy children. They could have been super scary, I imagine, but I wanted to kill them not so much for being evil but for being incredibly annoying. These kids, though they're from an island off the coast of South Carolina, speak in some weird accent that seems like some combination of Irish and Cockney English, constantly calling people 'bruvver' and 'boyo.'

Even worse than their obnoxious way of speaking is their evil plan, which definitely reveals Stine's experience in writing horror for children and not for adults. Daniel and Samuel aim to take over the world middle school. Yup, that's their grand evil aim: "to rule the school." Pardon me while I shiver in my boots. I mean, damn, middle school is like the worst part of life and they are welcome to it. Also, their scheme for domination involves painting blue arrows on the cheeks of themselves and their comrades, like demented Avatar rejects.

Then there's the big showdown, which is where I totally lost it. Seriously, I was sitting in my house, reading about the cops arriving to confront the kids that had taken over the middle school and I was cackling like a mad woman. Inside, the kids have gotten the kitchen staff to cook for them, bacon and eggs, because school food is so incredibly delicious. The boys then go outside and totally dominate the police force with their powers (though Daniel's power is merely making Samuel use his really). Also, Sam's power? He shoots laser beams out of his eyes. He's a poor kid's Cyclops, basically.

Despite the superiority of laser eyes, the kids are taken out by the supremely lame action moves of Mark. Right. Then there's the tear-inducingly hilarious reveal of the final twist and the final destruction of the twins. Now, since this is running through classic horror territory, it can't just end that way, so there has to be one more final twist, leaving room for another hilariously awful book: the powers have moved to someone else, even though it makes no sense whatsoever even by the book's own logic. Hurrah!

Probably I should rate this lower than I have, but I'm giving it bonus points for giving me some good laughter. I didn't have enjoy it in the way I was supposed to, but I did get entertainment from it. If only I could believe this was intended to be a parody.

Rating: 2/5