Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Finally finished! This book was FANTASTIC by the end but so incredibly boring for such a long time. I wish like crazy this had a better first 2/3 but it really didn't get great until the last 100 pages or so. The end was heartbreaking and cathartic as we find out exactly what Kevin did and how he did it. Read it, but be prepared to hate a good chunk of it.

7/30/2012 - OK here's the real review after I've had some time to digest. There are spoilers in this post.

It took me FOUR MONTHS to finish this book. That is how badly I hated the first 300 pages. I was determined, after having it sit on my desk for so long with people asking me "Oh what's this about? It looks so interesting!" that I was going to finish it, come hell or high water. And I finally did, last night, as I lay in bed determined to get this book OFF of my "Currently Reading" list.

Review: Darkness Rising by Peter Koevari

Darkness Rising by Peter Koevari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

**Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book by the author to read and review**

A great continuation of the story begun in Prophecies Awakening, Darkness Rising is book two of the Legends of Marithia series. I actually enjoyed Darkness more than Prophecies, because the story seemed to flow a bit more coherently. It is clear that Mr. Koevari took into account the feedback from the first book and used it to his advantage in crafting a much more put-together story.

In Darkness, most of the book revolves around the characters getting ready for the upcoming mega-battle between Shindar and his vampires and skeleton warriors, and Vartan and the forces of elves, dragons and humans. While that can sound boring, it was actually done pretty well. The war was always in the back of my mind, because everything that was happening was based solely on that war. Vartan's training, and all of the information he received from the dragons, helped the reader see why and how this war is being fought.

I had only one major problem with this book: there were a LOT of grammatical errors. They were made the same way throughout, however, which suggests that it is just a misunderstanding of how exactly punctuation plays a major role in the structure of a sentence. I would suggest having a proofer go over and correct the manuscript, just for the sake of continuity and clarity.

After reading this book, I am definitely looking forward to seeing how the war ends, whether Vartan activates Talonsphere or someone else does, what happens to his marriage with Helenia, and the fate of the Marithian people and the world.

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Review: Prophecies Awakening by Peter Koevari

Prophecies Awakening by Peter Koevari
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

**Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book by the author to read and review.**

Prophecies Awakening is a great start to at least a duet of books. It had its ups and downs, but overall was an entertaining read.

There were some high points, such as the character of Tusdar. He provided the few moments of comic relief, which were welcome among such dark scenes and ideas. I also appreciated Vartan's character development, but wish there had been more to it. There is mention of him training with the dragons, but no expansion of it. In one chapter he is clueless to magic, in the next he knows how to do a ton of stuff. Magic is awesome, but how did he learn it?

Many such instances of skipping-over happened in the book, which I minded but not *too* much. A scene between the Elven Queen and one of her soldiers, in which she kisses him and then apologizes for it, struck me as odd considering she had just lost her husband, whom she had seemed to love so much. More interaction and development between the two characters would have been welcome there. Also, many things seemed to happen very quickly. I'm left wondering just how long it was between the night the prince killed the king, to the night of the climax battle. There was mention at one point that Kassina was days away from the elves' home, and yet it seems like only hours later her army is at their doorstep. Some time context would have been helpful. Dialogue was also a bit stilted and formal for some of the situations the characters were in. Just loosen up the tongues a little bit (use more contractions, add in some dialect) and it would have had a much better flow.

Sorry to start with the negatives - overall, I am left with a pretty positive feeling on the book. I enjoyed some of the character development but feel like I wasn't given enough time to "bond" with Aidan and Tusdar. The world building was pretty interesting and I'd like to see more of it in the next book. I wish I had a better picture of the cities in my head, though, because I'm left with images from Lord of the Rings movies to fill in the blanks, and they don't seem right. I also saw some parallels to Star Wars (at least with the market full of off-worlders - just rang bells in my head), and even to Katharine Kerr's Deverry series (considering how dragons can turn human and vice versa - in her books humans can turn into dragons through a very old and difficult spell). I could definitely tell that Mr. Koevari has thoroughly immersed himself into the fantasy genre in his reading, and that is appreciated.

This book was a quick read (I finished in one day) and, while it wasn't perfect (so little fantasy is these days), it was a good story, had a good amount of action, and kept me interested until the end. It also sets up very nicely for the sequel. Although I'm not usually interested in vampire fiction, this wasn't quite that. There was enough other fantasy that I could believe the vampires fit in it, and it was worked in in an interesting way. I would recommend this to other fantasy readers who aren't looking for high fantasy, but instead a good battle story with interesting characters and a complex world.

(On Goodreads I gave this 3 stars out of 5, because that is what "I liked it" represented. On Amazon, it gets 4 stars out of 5, because that is the equivalent of "I liked it.")

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