3 star

Review: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

by Stefani

the 19th wifeThe 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

Published June 2nd, 2009 by Random House

Synopsis and cover image from the Goodreads book page

Buy this book at: Book Depository / Amazon / B&N

Synopsis:

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of her family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how both she and her mother became plural wives. Yet soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death. And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love, family, and faith

 

Rating: 3 star

 

Review:

For anyone who doesn’t know, I used to belong to the Mormon church.  I was born into it (4th generation actually) and lived it until I was around 18 and then removed myself from church membership at 19.  So, in a sense, I can identify with Ann Eliza and her apostasy from the church.  I may have left for different reasons but I was surprised how many were the same.  This also left with me a rather biased view of the church and their teachings.  I was still interested in this book for the story it presented and tried very hard not to let my own biases color this review.  But I feel a tiny disclaimer is warranted just in case I didn’t quite succeed.

This book attempts to tell two stories simultaneously.  First is the story of Ann Eliza, 19th wife to the 2nd prophet of the LDS church Brigham Young.  It tells the story of her disenchantment with the church and later her divorce from Brigham and apostasy over the issue of polygamy.  She later goes on a personal crusade to end polygamy in the United States for good.  The second story is the story of Jordan Scott.  His mother is the 19th wife of a polygamist man in a fringe branch of the LDS church, which branched off over the issue of polygamy, and she is arrested and accused of murdering her husband.

Now, I found both of these stories interesting but I wasn’t entirely happy with the way they were handled in the book.  Ann Eliza’s narrative overtook the large majority of the pages and quite frankly it wasn’t the most interesting thing going on.  Anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge of Mormon history knows how Ann Eliza’s crusade ends.  They know that the church banned polygamy from practice in order to coincide with US law.  We know that her crusade was only partially effective since fringe elements in the church branched off from the main church and still practice polygamy to this day.  These are all things we KNOW happened, so Ann Eliza’s story is not surprising but only mildly interesting.  What was surprising was Jordan Scott, a young man cast out of this fringe group (called the Firsts) for holding hands with his stepsister.  His mother drives him to the highway and puts him out on the road to fend for himself at 15.  He is then pulled back into the sect when his mother is arrested for murdering his father year later, and he finds that he believes her to be innocent.  We follow Jordan on his quest to discover the truth of his father’s demise.

Although I felt that Ann Eliza’s story got far more coverage than it needed to, I can’t say that I disliked what I read.  The only part that got on my nerves was when we read something from her memoir and then a chapter or so later are told the SAME THING as someone tells Jordan Scott about it.  I felt like this was a forced attempt to connect the two stories when it wasn’t necessary.  We already had the connection of polygamy, the Firsts being founded by Ann’s brother, and both being the 19th wife.  We didn’t need anything else to be intrigued so it felt forced to put all these connections between the stories in there.  The other part of Ann’s narrative that I had issue with was that it got repetitive all by itself.  We hear her talk about her lecturing on multiple occasions, we hear about her marriage from not only her but her former husband AND her son.  It got cumbersome and took up way too many pages, meanwhile I was frothing at the mouth to hear about what Jordan was doing!

Jordan’s story, unfortunately, got neglected.  We kind of think he has a boyfriend (Roland) who is kind of an asshole, but he so readily hooks up with goody goody Tom that I wasn’t quite sure what was going on.  Johnny was a delightful character who added some much needed levity to this otherwise very heavy story.  All of the other characters in Jordan’s narrative I really had no feelings for because none of them were fleshed out very much, so I couldn’t have any feelings toward them one way or the other.  I feel like the author relied too much on the reputation of sects like The Firsts and that the reader just automatically understood the interactions.  Here’s a hint, we didn’t and we wanted to!  The ending of Jordan’s narrative took me by surprise.  I honestly never saw it coming, mostly because I never had enough information to see it coming.

Also SPOILER!!!!

Minor grip about the title.  Neither of these women was actually the 19th wife.  Popularly they were known as the 19th wives, but neither actually were in reality.  I don’t know why that bugged me, but it did.  Overall, it was an interesting story and the ending saved it for me on many accounts. A good investment of my time, but it could have done with a few hundred pages less.

 

Review: Poison Princess by Kresley Cole

by Stefani

poison princessPoison Princess by Kresley Cole

Published October 2nd, 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Synopsis and cover photo from the Goodreads book page

Buy this book at: Book Depository / Amazon / B&N

Synopsis:

She could save the world—or destroy it.

Sixteen year old Evangeline “Evie” Greene leads a charmed life, until she begins experiencing horrifying hallucinations. When an apocalyptic event decimates her Louisiana hometown, Evie realizes her hallucinations were actually visions of the future—and they’re still happening. Fighting for her life and desperate for answers, she must turn to her wrong-side-of-the-bayou classmate: Jack Deveaux.

But she can’t do either alone.

With his mile-long rap sheet, wicked grin, and bad attitude, Jack is like no boy Evie has ever known. Even though he once scorned her and everything she represented, he agrees to protect Evie on her quest. She knows she can’t totally depend on Jack. If he ever cast that wicked grin her way, could she possibly resist him?

Who can Evie trust?

As Jack and Evie race to find the source of her visions, they meet others who have gotten the same call. An ancient prophesy is being played out, and Evie is not the only one with special powers. A group of twenty-two teens has been chosen to reenact the ultimate battle between good and evil. But it’s not always clear who is on which side….

Rating (out of 5): 3 star

Review:

This book and I had a love/hate relationship throughout the course of it and it disappointed me.  But let me back up a second.  I haven’t read a Kresley Cole book before.  I have heard a lot of really great things about the books and have several of them on my TBR list, but just haven’t gotten to them yet.  Then I saw this book and I fell in love.  The cover on this book is simply amazing.  It is so gorgeous that I can hardly stand it.  Since the premise sounded interesting too, I pre-ordered it sight unseen.  Then I noticed that it had a blurb on it from PC Cast and I thought “Oh God, what have I done!”  This is the woman whose book I had to put away because it made me want to vomit so much, and she’s recommending this!?  I considered that perhaps I had made a very serious mistake.  But I persevered and overall I am happy about that, but not entirely.

I liked Evie for the most part.  I found her to be kind, sweet, plucky, and determined when she needed to be.  But typical YA heroine stuff started leaking into her personality and I didn’t like that.  As soon as Jack got into the picture she was whiny, annoying, dependent, and stupid to the point of being suicidal.  I shouldn’t agree when another character calls her useless, but I did…often.  I got so angry with her for fawning over this stupid boy so much that I wanted to shake her.  However, her character redeemed herself in the end by finishing the book in a serious kick ass fashion.  If only we didn’t have this stupid, silly little love triangle in the book it would have easily been 5 stars.

Now let’s turn to Jack.  Was I supposed to like him?  Was I supposed to see him as a sweet and romantic love interest for Evie?  Was I supposed to giggle at his cuteness?  Because I didn’t, not to any of that.  I found him to be an absolute asshole.  I’m really hoping that at some point YA will figure out that “bad boys” are NOT SEXY!  Someone going to jail and being suspended from school and leering at girls is not cute or romantic or sexy or sweet!  It is creepy and the pinnacle of douchebaggery.  Jack is a drunk, I can’t even call him an alcoholic because he doesn’t think there’s a problem.  There isn’t a single time he’s mentioned where he’s not knocking back the booze.  He is crude and sexually inappropriate constantly.  He sexually pressures Evie on multiple occasions, several of which were while she had a boyfriend.  He leers at girls constantly and makes inappropriate comments when he hardly knows them.  And he is just downright horrible to Evie so often that I stopped keeping track.  He calls her names all the time, he puts her down, he belittles her opinions or feelings, he is passive aggressive to the extreme, and is a complete man slut.  I mean, for God’s sake, at one point he threatens to throw Evie onto any available horizontal surface and bang the living daylights out of her…for touching his stomach while riding on his motorcycle!  Apparently that means he can’t control himself anymore.  How is any of this romantic?!  I wanted to take a long hot shower with liberal use of bleach and then file a restraining order against this creeper!  But the other love interest, Brandon, isn’t much better.  He tries to pressure Evie into having sex as a reward for what a good and faithful boyfriend he’s been and he deserves it.  Yet at the same time as trying to get in her pants, he shows a total disregard for her feelings and is much more interested in leering at other girls in her presence.  Luckily he wasn’t around long enough to enrage me as much as Jack.  I just have no more words for any of this.  Do I have to get out the signs of domestic abuse again?  I REALLY think I do.

Let’s move on to the plot now, shall we?  I was fascinated by this plot, as much as the characters infuriated me it was the plot that kept my interest alive.  I LOVED the idea of these people representing the Major Arcana of the Tarot.  Now, as a pagan, I am fairly well versed in the Tarot and so I was acutely aware of what everyone’s role was and what their presence probably meant once I learned what their card was.  It is such a unique idea and I loved it very much.  I also was enthralled with the way this plot started out with Arthur because he was royally creepy.  I wanted so badly to know more about Arthur and how Evie got to be in his presence.  The one big downside to the plot was how much time we spent on Evie’s issues with Brandon and Jack at school prior to the end of the world happening.  How exactly were Evie’s text messages relevant to the overall plot? Why did any of these people matter at all since most of them ended up dead by the middle of the book?  We spent way too much time on that and it frustrated me, I wanted to get on with things.  Once we did move on with the plot I loved every page.  I didn’t know what was coming next and I adored the twists and turns to the plot.  Then I reached the end and was left with my mouth hanging open and the only words I could muster were, “Holy fuck, I didn’t see that coming.”

I would recommend this book to almost any fantasy or post-apocalypse fan.  It is a worthy edition to the genre once you get passed the annoying stereotypical YA parts.  The plot alone is worth the investment.

Blog Tour: The Protectors by Bernard DeLeo

by Stefani

TheProtectorsbannerThe Protectors by Bernard DeLeo

Published July 24th, 2012 by RJ Parker Publishing

Banner and synopsis provided by the author.

Buy this book at: Amazon

Synopsis:

Connor Bradwick and Ellie James enforce the law in one of the perennially most dangerous cities in the country: Oakland, CA. Bradwick snaps when he and James bust in on a kidnapping ring, enslaving children for pornography. He brutally executes the three kidnappers, stunning James. He sets up the scene to pass for self-defense with Ellie James cooperation. Their ruse succeeds, triggering a two cop crackdown on crime the city of Oakland’s leaders scurry to stop. Dedicated to end ‘look the other way’ crime suppression tactics, ending in destruction and death for the common people in Oakland, Bradwick and James decide it’s time to go on offense.

Connor explains it this way after they rescue the kidnapped children, “The kids made me start thinking about how I want folks to look at us. I don’t care anymore to visit someone to tell them we found the people who broke into their business or house and robbed them blind. I want them to wave at us from their house or business as we go by because we prevent the gangbangers, drug dealers and thugs from terrorizing them.”

The crime war takes on different meaning when they bust an MS-13 El Salvadoran gangster’s illegal alien processing center. Connor and Ellie run headlong into a corrupt politician on the gangster’s payroll, and the terrorists behind him. Soon, everyday crime fighting busts become a fond memory.

Rating (out of 5): 3 star

Review:

This is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.”  Except I’m not sure that’s accurate.  Either this book just hit me in the midst of a slump and I didn’t like it but it’s an otherwise great book, or my mood was perfect for it but the book just wasn’t that great.  I am not sure which it is, but I do know that it’s one of the two.

This was pitched to me as resembling a “buddy cop” drama and I was looking forward to that.  On that front I was not disappointed.  The interactions between Ellie and Connor were really great.  I loved their banter.  Even though I initially thought that surely real cops were occasionally serious and not joking around all the time, but I still enjoyed them.  It made me laugh.  I also was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Connor.  In the beginning, I hated him.  He murdered three people in front of children and then asked them not to tell!  Yes they were criminals, but do cops go around executing people now with no due process?  I was prepared not to like Connor, but I ended up enjoying his character a lot.  He was not quite the vigilante that he seemed at the beginning.

I was also prepared not to like Ellie either.  Her first line was “Do I look fat?”  I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking, great another one of THOSE stereotypical females.  To a certain extent I still feel that way because she was frequently overly sensitive, too emotional, and irrational but I grew to like her.  She has a good sense of humor and knows how to get a good dig at Connor’s expense.

Even the plot started to grow on me, though I don’t think I ever truly enjoyed it.  This is where my biggest problem with the book lies.  Books require that you suspend reality for a little bit for the sake of the story.  This required me to just abandon reality completely and I didn’t like that.  On every page I had a hard time taking it seriously.  I don’t care what dangerous city you’re in, you are NOT tasing, shooting, or macing people on every call!  I have been to the “bad” parts of Oakland (where this is set), and seen cops on calls and never seen a gun drawn once.  I also had a hard time believing that a police Sargeant would say “Yeah sure, make arrests on your off time, no big deal!  It’ll be great actually!”  Um, nope I can’t get there either.  And if all cops have this many anger management issues, I might want to rethink calling 911.  So that got to me a lot.  Good for the story but not good for me.  So if you are a fan of cop drama type books then give this one a try, you might like it more than I did.  This book does have its merits and I enjoyed a lot of it!  But if you are reading my review and nodding your head and thinking “she makes a lot of good points” then perhaps this isn’t the book for you.

Many thanks to the author, who provided me a copy of this book and a spot on the blog tour!  The book was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Terminal Island by Walter Greatshell

by Stefani

terminal islandTerminal Island by Walter Greatshell

Published December 4th, 2012 by Night Shade Books

Cover and synopsis provided by the publisher.

Buy this book at: B&N / Amazon / Book Depository

Synopsis:

Henry Cadmus grew up on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry’s experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams is one he associates with his childhood… and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals… and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

But Henry is returning to Catalina Island. At his wife Ruby’s insistence, Henry, Ruby, and their infant daughter are coming to Avalon, so that Henry can face his fears, exorcise his demons, and reconcile with the one he fears most… his mother.

From Walter Greatshell, author of Xombies comes Terminal Island, a novel of cosmic horror.

Rating (out of 5): 3 star

Review:

This book was…strange, there really is no other word for it.  I have postponed writing this review for a few days to find a better word to describe it but I can’t find one.  Parts of this story had me clutching my ereader in a death grip with fear for the characters.  Parts of this story just left me scratching my head as I thought “Wait, what?”  The basic premise is that Henry lived the life of a wanderer when he was growing up, his mother moving him from place to place with regularity.  When his mother decided to move him to Catalina Island he fell in love with the place.  Shortly after, however, he begs his mother to leave and she complies.  Now that he is married and has a child, his mother has dropped off the map.  They were never close, but now he hears that she has moved to Catalina Island and is returning his letters. His wife, Ruby, suggests that they go find his mother and sort this out.  Henry is overcome with apprehension at returning to the place of his childhood nightmares but agrees.

This novel jumps between Henry’s perspective of the island in the present and flashbacks of his time on the island as a child.  This is very disconcerting and pulls the reader out of their comfort zone, I thought this was a very good tactic.  This is supposed to be a horror type novel, I shouldn’t have a comfort zone!  And with this novel I never did and I liked it.  While reading, you are never quite sure what is real and what isn’t.  Henry has memories of the girls at his school chasing him down and trying to kill him and stumbling into a butcher shop where the butcher is wearing the head of a pig and brandishing a cleaver.  He has dreams about nearly drowning and finding himself face to face with a monster that lived under the ocean and tried to hold him underwater.  Part of me wanted these things to be real because the descriptions were fascinating.

The writing of this book and the plot were all very good.  The pacing was also good but it got a big slow at the end.  As the pieces of this story began to unravel I found myself growing more intrigued with this story than I was at the beginning.  But I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled with everything.  There was a large section of time when I kept thinking to myself “Wait, is X in on this or not?  And if they are, how long has this been going on?”  Then there is a part when Henry is trying to protect his daughter, who was just barely yelling and calling for him, and the ending of that part was just weird and it didn’t feel genuine to me.  Similarly the occult ritual that takes place was very long and I started to skim it to get to the interesting parts.  I was still not totally aware at the end what was real and what wasn’t and that annoyed me.  But also at the end it just started to get cheesy.  For example, this line: “They killed the sheriff.  But they did not kill the deputy.”  I swear to God that’s actually in there.  That was so corny and dumb it just pulled me right out of the story.  When we reached the ending I was so ready for it to just be over that I started skimming again.  Because of that, there was never a big monumental moment of “Oh my God!” about the ending.  It was just over.

This was a good book in its entirety.  It was intriguing and entertaining but I felt like the unraveling of the mystery could have been done better.  And the ending was pretty lengthy and it started to drag which effected my enjoyment of the conclusion of the plot.  If you are a big fan of mysteries and horror novels then this is one that you should give a read.  But if you are not deeply interested in these genres then I would suggest you give this one a miss.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest and thoughtful review.  Thank you Night Shade Books!

 

Review: The Sum of Her Parts by Alan Dean Foster

by Stefani

the sum of her partsThe Sum of Her Parts by Alan Dean Foster

Published November 27th, 2012 by Del Rey (a subsidiary of Random House Publishing Group)

Buy this book at: B&N / Amazon / Book Depository

Cover image and synopsis provided by the publisher.

Synopsis:

In this thrilling science fiction adventure-the triumphant conclusion to the Tipping Point trilogy-New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster returns to a near future in which genetic manipulation and extreme body modification have changed profoundly what it means to be human.

Dr. Ingrid Seastrom was once a respected American physician. Whispr, whose body has been transformed to preternatural thinness, was once a streetwise thief. Now, in a world on the edge of catastrophe from centuries of environmental exploitation, they are allies-thrust together by fate to unravel an impossible mystery-even as they are stalked by a relentless killer.

Ingrid and Whispr are hunted fugitives bound together by a thread: a data-storage thread made of a material that cannot exist, yet somehow does. Their quest to learn its secrets-and, in Whispr’s case, sell them to the highest bidder-has brought them to South Africa’s treacherous Namib desert. Beyond its dangers waits a heavily guarded research facility that promises answers, if they can survive long enough to get there. But that won’t be easy, not with Napun Molé on their trail. They’ve already escaped the assassin twice, and as far as Molé is concerned, finishing them off isn’t just a job anymore . . . it’s personal.

Rating (out of 5): 3 star

Review:

This has been a difficult book to rate.  Once again I find myself torn in between a not so good two stars and a very good four stars, which ultimately leads to the conclusion that three stars is the most accurate.  I had an interesting journey with this book and it made it difficult to form my thoughts on this.  Now I will share that journey with you.  Now, to start, I do want to point out that this is the conclusion to a trilogy.  I did not know this when I received the book for review and I have not read the previous two books.

Not reading the prior books led me to my first problem with this book.  In the entirety of the novel there is literally no recap of the major characters or plot points in the previous books.  For dedicated readers that might not be a big deal, but for a reader who may have forgotten or a new reader to the book this is vital.  I was thrust into a world with its own language, its own geography, its own rules and I had nothing to guide me in that world.  When a character would say something like, “Remember what happened in X?”  And all I could think was, no I don’t please tell me.  But I never got told.  Certain things I stumbled through and figured out, like that manip meant a body modification procedure.  Or gengineering was genetic engineering.  But all I knew of the plot was that Whispr got his hands on a data thread and went to Ingrid for help deciphering it.  This led them on a journey to a very dangerous place to try to find out what was on the data thread, and for some reason an assassin was hired to get the thread back and eliminate them.  The why, how, and when of all this I have no idea.

However, even without any recap of the prior books, I found myself drawn in.  The characters were very well crafted and enjoyable to read.  Whispr made me laugh and quite frankly was often the voice of reason when Ingrid had me rolling my eyes at her naivety.  I was drawn into their journey and even though I didn’t know why this data thread was important I was rooting for them to figure it out successfully.  I loved this story!  I was so enthralled with it that I no longer cared about my initial confusion.  I loved this world and the people in it.  I got shivers when the bad guys showed up, and I laughed at the absurdity of some of the happenings.  I mean, come on, how can you not giggle at murderous genetically modified sentient meerkats? That’s hilariously creative!  I fact, I think the meerkats might have been my favorite characters!  I enjoyed this story so much that I was preparing my purchase of the first two books so that I could read the entire journey.  And then I got to the ending and I was no longer sure that I wanted to read the entire journey.

The ending of this book made me feel incredibly ripped off and like I wasted my time.  At first it was alright because it was just Ingrid being an idiot, Whispr had always been my favorite anyway and he still kept his brains about him.  I was so angry that they figure out this mystery they have risked their lives for and then….just threw their hands in the air and went “okay, we’ll go with that.”  No, no and no!  Then Whispr fell into it too!  I was so angry and I felt like I had just read all this for nothing.  If I was a dedicated reader of the entire trilogy I would have been severely disappointed that it all ended that way. So for that reason, I don’t think I want to read the rest of the trilogy knowing that it ends so badly.  Luckily this book had enough good things in the middle to keep me relatively happy with the story in general.  And so I write this review torn, disappointed, and yet still vaguely amused by those meerkats.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Net Galley  in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you Del Rey!

Review: Red Island by Lorne Oliver

by Stefani

Red IslandRed Island by Lorne Oliver

Published May 23rd, 2012 by the author

Synopsis and cover image from the Goodreads book page

Buy this book at Smashwords / B&N / Amazon

Synopsis:

Was it the nightmare that woke him or the late night phone ringing that brought on the dream? Sgt. Reid of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police brought his family to Prince Edward Island, “The Gentle Island,” to get away from crime and homicides. He had to get away from the nightmares and concentrate on his family. PEI is a lovely place to live. The sound of the ocean crashing against sandy beaches, sand dunes covered in tufts of dancing green grass…

…And then there was the young woman hanging from a tree. It wasn’t a gentle island any more.

Rating (out of 5): 3 star

Review:

***WARNING: This review may contain spoilers, stop reading now if you wish to remain unspoiled.***

This book is a hard one for me to put my finger on and say I liked it or I didn’t like it.  In the end, I really liked some of it and I really didn’t like some of it.  I liked the story, it was decent and well constructed.  I really disliked Sgt. Reid, he annoyed me on nearly every page.  And I absolutely loved Ben the serial killer, he was the shining star of this entire book!

Let’s begin with the story.  Like I said, it was decent and well constructed.  Sgt. Reid is still recovering from an emotional case involving young girls being murdered and brings his family to Prince Edward Island, where things like that just don’t happen.  But no sooner does he get there then that kind of thing starts to happen.  Bodies of young women are turning up, proudly displayed in public, and Reid must face everything all over again.  I thought that things progressed at a fairly good pace as far as the progression of the killings went.  It was logical and made a lot of sense.  All that was good.  But I really didn’t like the police work in this.  I give the author big props for doing so much research into police procedure and keeping it so real to life.  However, there is a big reason that TV shows and movies make police work so fantastical…it makes it interesting.  Reading scene after scene of the police scratching their heads and going “I dunno what to do?  What should we do?  Wait for another killing?  Go talk to more people?  I dunno.”, might be true to life but it’s also not very interesting.  I was sitting there screaming, “SHE SAID HE WAS A PHOTOGRAPHER!!!  YOU ALREADY TALKED TO HIM AND HE TOLD YOU THAT!!!  WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!!!??”  Maybe it was because Reid was too focused on his partner’s ass..ets, but more on that in a minute.  I was mildly perturbed about knowing the name and identity of the serial killer right off the bat, but since his scenes were so good I stopped caring at all.

Now let’s talk about Reid, and yes I have to call him Reid because we never learn his first name.  At first that was kind of amusing as people guessed and never got told, but it got old fast.  And when it was used as a cliffhanger at the end, I was just over it.  The woman says, “Do me a favor, tell me your first name.”, end of book.  I didn’t care anymore at that point, it wasn’t amusing anymore, so I didn’t mind that I don’t know his name.  I also firmly believe that Reid has a medical condition.  This man has the most tingly, twitchy groin that I have ever heard of.  Sees the dead mangled body of a girl, he thinks about her nice body and tingly groin!  Sees his partner walking around, twitchy groin!  Looks at pictures of the murdered girls before they died, tingly groin!!  Looks at a butterfly, twitchy groin!  About the only time there is no tingly, twitchy groin is when he’s with his wife.  I think he should see a doctor, he has a serious problem.  I also think Reid couldn’t solve the murders faster because his every single thought is about cheating on his wife.  The wife who is at home, calling to make sure he was safe and had dinner while you working his case, that controlling dirtbag!  She didn’t do a single thing except love him and support him and he’s thinking about screwing around on her constantly.  Even at crime scenes and during interviews.  No wonder you couldn’t find the killer bud, you were too busy thinking about your twitchy groin than the case.  Needless to say, I despised Reid very much.

So far all of this is mixed, liked some and hated some, but then we get to Ben the serial killer.  If this book had been Ben only, it would have been five stars all the way.  I loved watching him as a young boy killing small animals, to progressing and refining his skills as a rapist and then finally as a killer.  The look into this psychopath’s mind was fascinating and I loved every page of it. I never did quite figure out why Ben decided to taunt Reid which ultimately got him caught though.  Until then, the cops had figured out nothing and were waiting for him to tell them how to catch him.  If he hadn’t done that he could have gone on forever because they cops had nothing that he didn’t hand them.  I think this was supposed to be part of Ben’s de-evolution and descent into madness.  But it didn’t feel totally genuine to me.  He’d been completely stable until that point and then just jumped off the deep end.  I still liked it, but it felt rushed.  At the end of this book I have to take what I hated and take what I loved and I come away with one conclusion:  It was good and I would choose to read it again if given the chance, but I probably won’t reread it now that I have already done so once.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest and thoughtful review.  Thanks to the author for providing this book!

Other Systems by Elizabeth Guizzetti

by Stefani

Other Systems by Elizabeth Guizzetti

Published by 48Fourteen on April 1st, 2012

Synopsis and cover image from the Goodreads book page

Buy this ebook at: B&N / Amazon

Synopsis:

Ten large ships race toward Earth, broadcasting in every language: “Brothers and sisters, we come in peace and in need. We have found our way home.” The fear of a coming invasion begins the worldwide riots of 3062.

Yet, not all Earthlings fear attack. The newcomers, long lost descendants of Earth, speak of a paradise ninety-four light years away. Kipos is a land of plenty where there has never been hunger, murder, or war. However, they need more healthy young immigrants for the colony to thrive.

Many accept their offer to be tested. After assessment, Abby Boyd Lei is among the chosen. She leaves the protection of her family with dreams of higher education, a good job, and a kind-hearted spouse.

Will Kipos be everything she imagined? Abby is about to discover the cost of utopia.

Rating (out of 5):

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author free of charge in exchange for an honest, thoughtful review.  No other compensation or promise of a positive review was given.

Review: Don’t let a three star rating fool you, I enjoyed this book a lot.  The story was good, the characters were solid, the structuring was all good.  Unfortunately, the book had some issues that I couldn’t quite get past and this effected the overall rating that I gave it.  So let’s go through this point by point.

When I look back on the synopsis of this book in hindsight, it confuses me a little.  Yes, this book was about Abby and her journey to Kipos and a new life in this “utopia” she was presented.  The synopsis would have you believe that this was the whole of the story.  But in reality this discovery and journey was really only about 1/3 of the book.  The rest hardly touched on this at all and so the synopsis didn’t apply that much to the majority of the book.  The story I got was good, but it was far different than the story I expected.  What I got was a story of perseverance, daring, courage, and having the strength to make something better out of your circumstances.  This was a great story and I wish it was closer to what I had been pitched!

Now, the rest of this may be a bit spoiler heavy, so consider yourself warned. There was an event that takes place on Kipos that was supposed to be heavily emotional and increase my empathy for Abby.  Mostly it horrified me, but then confused me.  So basically Abby is raped in order to have her conceive a child.  Now, this is awful and horrifying.  But Abby’s reaction to this event really puzzled me.  She displayed no knowledge or understanding of her body or sex at all.  When her hymen is perforated, she thinks they are performing surgery on her.  She seems to have no idea what’s going on with her body or how sex functions.  But then later she starts having sexual fantasies about her guards and masturbating.  Um, that doesn’t really make sense to me.  Yes, I realize some girls become sexually promiscuous after a rape to take their power back, but she had never masturbated before and didn’t seem to understand sex at all so this move was confusing.  She also shows extreme naivety about her pregnancy, such as thinking that she is going to be raising this baby and allowed to be a mother to it.  Also, she doesn’t seem to have any ambivalence about the baby which is very common for babies conceived through rape.
Alright, enough about that, let’s move on to the next part.  I really loved Abby’s interaction with the crew of the Revelation.  I loved that she found her place and discovered something that she really enjoyed doing.  The characters were excellent and their interactions made me really interested to see what would happen.  The only thing that bothered me about this whole section was Abby.  She never thought to talk to anyone about anything before she came to a conclusion about their behavior and instead just decided that her conclusion was right and acted accordingly.  This alienated her from her companions and served to alienate me from them as well.

My last tiny little gripes, I promise.  Some of the more scientific aspects of this book confused the hell out of me.  I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, but 2 relative weeks, 3 relative months, tachyon engine this, it just made my eyes cross.  The only way I knew how much time had passed is by looking at the dates at the beginning of the chapters.  Otherwise, I was clueless.  Also the ending of the book was rather anti-climactic.  The author built up some amazing tension in the plot for many chapters, and then when we got to that moment it was just…..over.  There was minimal drama and it was resolved within a few pages.  That was a bit disappointing.  But the ending after that was excellent and well planned out.  Abby may not have found her utopia on Kipos, but she did find it by the end of the book.  Overall I enjoyed this book a lot but there were a handful of things that prevented me from truly loving it as much as I could have.  But it is a fun read and I would encourage anyone who’s a fan of the sci-fi genre to read it, and new fans to the genre should give it a try.

 

 

Collapse by Richard Stephenson

by Stefani

Collapse by Richard Stephenson

Published July 5th, 2012 by Stephenson & Powers Publishing House

Picture and synopsis from the Goodreads book page

Author’s Website: http://rastephensonauthor.blogspot.com/

Book can be purchased at: Amazon (I also found a listing at B&N, put it was just for the paperback and at like $40.00 so I decided not to list it here)

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  No compensation or promise of good review was promised in exchange or the book.

Synopsis:

America is falling, ready to join the Roman Empire as a distant memory in the annals of history. The year is 2027. Tired and desperate, the American people are deep in the middle of The Second Great Depression. The Florida coastline is in ruins from the most powerful hurricane on record; a second just like it is bearing down on the state of Texas. For the first time in history, the Middle East has united as one and amassed the most formidable army the world has seen since the Third Reich. A hidden army of terrorists is on American soil. This is the story of three men: Howard Beck, the world’s richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict. Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned out Chief of Police of a small Texas town. At first they must fight for their own survival against impossible odds. Finally, the three men must band together to save their beloved country from collapse.
Rating:

Review:

I was not really sure what I would end up rating this from the beginning until the very end, I still am not entirely sure that’s the right rating.  This one was difficult for me since I honestly did enjoy the book very much.  But even though I enjoyed it, I didn’t (and still don’t) feel it was as good as my usual 4 or 5 star book.  So this is somewhere between a 3 and 3.5 star book.

Collapse is a story about the demise of the United States.  Debt is ever mounting, the country is in a never-ending war with the Empire of Iran, a hurricane has devastated Florida and killed millions, wildfires rage across much of California, and that’s just the beginning.  The novel follows several characters on their individual journeys through the tumult all over the country.  There is Richard DuPree, a former Navy SEAL who is currently imprisoned for murder in California.  There is Malcom Powers the current President of the United States. Maxwell Harris is the Chief of Police in a small town in Texas who has spent most of his career crippled and addicted to painkillers.  And finally we have Howard Beck, the wealthiest man in the world and creator of the world’s very first true artificial intelligence program. The story is told alternately from all of their points of view as events unfold until finally the circumstances bring all of the together.

I really enjoyed all of the individual characters.  We didn’t see Malcolm Powers as much as I might have liked, but he was a good character when we got him.  Max Harris was my least favorite of the characters and I can’t really say why.  There was nothing wrong with the character, I just found him boring. Richard was fascinating, I looked forward to every single one of his chapters so that we could learn more of his story.  My favorite character however was Howard Beck.  He was funny, witty, and really just took the story to another level.  His interactions with his AI program (Hal) were priceless and Hal became a character in his own right as a result.
The plot of the novel was also very good.  Everything that happens in the book was something that you can read safely because it seems like it would be so far away if it ever happened.  But at the same time, looking around this country, you could see the possibility for all of it to actually happen.  To me, that is what makes a good dystopian novel. A plot that seems far away but entirely plausible given the current state of events in the world.  I really loved seeing the individual plots moving forward and wondering how it would all come together and bring these people into the same sphere of reality.

So all of these things sound really excellent right?  What could possibly be giving this a 3 star rating?  Well, here it is.  There was a lot of jumping around in this novel, both in timeline and narrators.  While I liked the narrators, we jumped around in the plot timeline so much that it made me feel like I was reading through 6 months worth of plot even though it all takes place in a few days.  Because we jump around narrators so often, a lot of things get repeated.  I think I heard about the impending hurricane in Texas probably 6 times before it actually happened and about 8 times after.  Every time we switched narrators, we got told a lot of the same things that we’d just been told by the last one.  This got a bit tedious and made it harder to engage with the plot.  It also got predictable and tiresome to have EVERY chapter end in a cliffhanger.  I spent a lot of time wondering what the cliffhanger for that chapter would be rather than focusing on the plot, not a good thing.  I think the right editor could tighten up the storytelling a bit and really make this sing even more than it does right now.

The final shining star for this novel is the ending.  While we had cliffhangers through the entire book, I didn’t feel like we ended on that big of cliffhanger.  Maybe a little one, but nothing major.  If the story was over and no other story was forthcoming I would have been completely satisfied with the ending.  With another story coming, it intrigued me enough to make me want to know.  It was the perfect way to end this book and I loved it.

Blank Confession by Pete Hautman

by Stefani

Blank Confession by Pete Hautman

Published November 16th, 2010 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Author’s website: http://www.petehautman.com/

Photo and synopsis from the Goodreads book page

This can be bought at B&N and Amazon

Synopsis:

Shayne Blank is the new kid in town–but that doesn’t stop him from getting into a lot of trouble very quickly. The other kids don’t understand him. He’s not afraid of anything. He seems too smart. And his background doesn’t add up. But when he walks into the police department to confess to a murder, it quickly becomes apparent that nothing is as it seems. There’s more to Shayne–and his story–than meets the eye. As the details begin to fill in, the only thing that becomes clear is that nothing about Shayne’s story is clear at all.
Rating (out of 5):

Review:

Having never read a book by Pete Hautman before I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  I had read a review from someone I know who loved it, and it sounded intriguing so I picked up a copy to see if my first impression was correct.  Initially I was excited by this book.  It was being told through the POV of a friend of Shayne’s who knew the story that he was telling to the cops.  This was interesting but not fascinating.  I didn’t really connect with the character and I feel that it made it VERY obvious what was going to happen based on who was narrating and what he said.  But even though I had the horrible feeling it was going to end up exactly like I suspected by chapter 2, I carried on.

I don’t really feel like all that much happened in this book.  The tension level was set at 10 from the beginning of the book, but then nothing really happens and we’re hearing all these extraneous details that I didn’t really care about.  I wanted to know who Shayne killed and why, I didn’t want to know about his friend who wears second-hand suits to school to stand out or the friend’s sister who’s got a penchant for bad boys.  I wanted to know about things relevant to the plot, and the only time I got that was when they were referring to the person who he claims he killed, which didn’t really make it that hard to figure out.  The only way it was ever going to be anyone else is if Shayne is a complete psychopath, which is not what he was portrayed to be.

And it did end up being exactly who I suspected it was going to be, and so the tension in the book never really ramped up again after the first few pages.  One thing I did like about this book was the part about  Shayne’s past and his history.  That was interesting and I really enjoyed it.  Unfortunately that was, quite literally, the very last chapter.  In the end I can’t say that I particularly loved the book, but it was decent enough.  If you are looking for a mystery, this is probably not the book for you since the predictability levels are off the charts.  However, I did find it to be a very poignant statement about bullying which seems to be so prevalent in the youth of this world today.  For that reason I am rating this a 3, not great but decent enough that I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it.

Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

by Stefani

Insurgent by Veronica Roth (book 2 of the Divergent Trilogy)

Published May 1st, 2012 by Harper Collins

Picture and Synopsis from Goodreads

Purchase this book at: B&N and Amazon

Synopsis:

One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

Rating (out of 5):

Review:

Don’t let a 3 star rating fool you, I really liked this book!  There was nothing essentially wrong with it, but it certainly was not a home run like Divergent was.  I enjoyed the plot overall but also didn’t feel that a whole lot happened.  We begin the book moments after the first book began, so we should be filled with action from the very first chapter.  And it wasn’t, not really.  The surviving group is headed for Amity, hoping that the faction will provide them shelter while they decide what to do next.  I liked this, it was a logical step in the plot.  Let’s go through this point by point….

Too much teenage angst and drama!  The first book was so enthralling from the very start, Tris is a strong female lead character, and there was minimal teenage angst.  Since it is YA, the angst is to be expected to an extent so I was so pleased when there was not much of it the first time around.  This time we couldn’t seem to get away from it.  Tris and Tobias (Four) are bickering at every turn it seemed and spent most of the book not really talking to each other.  NO!  This is not where we left that relationship!  It was just starting to bloom and form and it was awesome, a love forged in fire and war!  But they are at each other’s throats ALL THE TIME and it bugged me.  So as a consequence we spend a lot of time in Tris’ head as she goes over the drama and how to avoid it or fix it.

The plot just moved too slow and waited too long to get good.  Most of the time was spent plotting what to do instead of actually doing it.  However, once things actually got moving it was fantastic!  I loved the different side to Amity that we haven’t seen before and we gained a lot more insight into their faction and other factions as a result.  Then we have the teaser from Marcus, of information that Jeanine wants to keep secret when everyone else should know.  That was interesting since we don’t know what it is, just that it seems really important.  During this time we also get more views into Tobias’ relationships with his parents.  This gives us a view of his character that was very needed and I lapped it up.   Overall I would say that I enjoyed the progression of all the plot points and characters in the book, except Tris.  I dunno what happened to her, she went from smart, witty, inventive, and strong to being stupidly self-sacrificing for no reason other than guilt.  I can understand where it came from, but it started to get annoying with her constantly running off to get herself killed and forcing the others to focus on saving her from herself.

I loved the glimpses and progression we saw of Jeanine.  She was such a great villain.  You wanted to hate her so much and with such good reason, that other insidious (though less blatantly so) characters flew beneath your notice.  I pride myself on seeing things coming, Jeanine clouded my view of the plot and I was blindsided by several things.  Jeanine holding Tris captive to experiment on her was really interesting and I couldn’t put the book down during that part at all.  The mission to raid Erudite headquarters and get the information was also fantastic.

The ending of this book left me slack-jawed and thinking “What the hell just happened?”.  I also liked the fact that it wasn’t really even a cliffhanger.  If this were the end of the series, I would be content with how it ended.  But knowing that there is another book coming makes me anxious to find out what’s next RIGHT NOW.  I look forward to reading the last book, hopefully with less angsty moments.