Review: If Darkness Takes Us by Brenda Marie Smith

If Darkness Takes Us by Brenda Marie Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book frustrated me so much. There was so much that could have been done with this story, but it really just ended up as the inner monologue from a self-loathing bitter old woman. The one thing I thought the book got right was that there was mention at one point about all the post-apocalyptic stories that Bea had read, and how none of them really covered the grieving process for losing your entire life and having to start over. This book certainly focused on that aspect of it...to the point that nothing *really* happens. Sure, a few people die, someone gets knocked up, vagrants start coming to town trying to steal stuff, the usual perils when the world goes off the rails. But the vast majority of the book was about Bea painting herself as the town's savior, trying to fix everything, and screwing it all up horribly.

I'm sure there was something in here that was supposed to make me feel like Bea redeemed herself by the end, but I really just did not feel that way at all. There was no conclusion, there was no progress, it was just (view spoiler)["Welp, had a stroke, my family's home and everyone's pissed at me, bye now!" (hide spoiler)]

Sorry, this seems dismissive. I know that there must have been some deep research into what it would take to grow food after the apocalypse, and how long batteries would last, and how to put bees into the walls of a house, and dig a cistern that would hold thousands of gallons of water, etc. It's just that...beyond the few upheavals, that's *all* that happened. They learned to live without refrigeration and electricity. They taught themselves how to build sheds and other things they'd need. They planted crops and harvested them. They screwed and buried and fought and that's it. I guess I'm just not sure where the actual story was supposed to be. And I really couldn't stand any of the people in it, especially Bea and her insufferable husband and children. (The grandkids, especially Keno, were ok.)

There are a lot of 4- and 5-star reviews out there, so it looks like I'm in the minority. I just found it a bit of a bore and not interesting. Thank you to Book Sirens for the opportunity to read and review this book for free. My opinions are my own.

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Review: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The first "chapter" of this was so promising, interesting, and confusing, that I was really excited to get the book. The very first letter from Blue to Red was surprising, a mystery, I wanted to know what happened next. Unfortunately, it was not the book I expected, and I just really did not understand what the heck was happening here. I'm sure there's a lot of praise to be had for these two writers, but it will not be coming from me. The letters were so damn flowery, I couldn't get a single sense of place out of any of it, the characters were essentially blank slates, and nothing made any sense.

I guess this kind of sci-fi is just not for me.

Thanks to Bookish First and the publisher for the free review copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

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Review: The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

The Girl in Red by Christina Henry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Guys. Go out and buy this book. It was freaking fantastic.

I can't remember the last time a fairy tale retelling really blew my mind. This one was so well done it was almost unrecognizable from the original - except for the wolves, Red herself, and her grandma. There are a lot of dangers for a young woman traveling alone in the woods after a sickness wipes out huge numbers of the population. But it turns out that Red can handle herself - she's spent years reading apocalyptic sci-fi and studying horror movies. She knows where everything always goes wrong, and is determined to not make those same mistakes. Rule number one: Stay Together or Something Will Happen.

If only it were that simple.

Red's plan is to leave home with both of her parents and her brother. It's too bad that fate had different plans for them. When we first meet Red she is alone, no family left. We find out what happened to them over the course of several chapters labeled "Before," where we get the story leading up to the start of the book, interspersed with the story of what is going on "now." I really enjoyed the way the book was split back and forth, for once. This isn't a style I always love and isn't always done well, but Christina Henry did a great job. The story itself is gruesome - she doesn't pull any punches when talking about what Red does and sees, what she's afraid of and what she thinks may happen.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, though I know those questions are essentially just tangents to the main story. The journey itself is the story here, while everything that happens on the sidelines just serves to propel Red forward. Red repeats over and over that she's not a "Chosen One," that she's not here to wonder what happened and figure it out and rescue humanity from what is happening. She's not here to protect anyone or stop anyone or any of that nonsense. She is here to make a journey to her grandmother's house. And no one is going to stop her.

The only thing I did not like was the ending. We've spent so much time with Red on the journey that it feels like the rest of the journey was cut. When the story is about that journey, and you jump forward 25 days with no further discussion, it feels like you're cutting your story off. I'm sure there are only so many ways that Red can get waylaid and put in danger, and I bet if Henry had told those 25 extra days she may have been tempted to steer the story away from the journey and focus more on the things happening around Red so I get the impulse to not rehash the same stuff over again. But it still felt rushed. I wanted so much more! But I am happy that it actually had an ending instead of just leaving things up in the air for possible sequels.

I see that Henry has written several other fairy tale retellings, which I am apparently going to need to read now, so thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this one!

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Review: Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are apparently 800 pages in this book. I've read books that long (and longer) many times before. That wasn't a stumbling block for me, but damn were those a long 800 pages.

First, let me say how happy I am that this is NOT a series and that the story is wrapped up (mostly) in just the one book. I didn't have to wait for ten more sequels to come out to figure out what was happening. I didn't have to slog through thousands of pages of bullshit just so someone could drag out the story.

A lot of other people have talked about the themes of this book and all the issues it explores in much more detail and probably better than I can. We have the fundamentalist Christian pastor who gets into bed with neo-Nazis, a female president who apparently most of the country hates, a kind of strange look at homosexuality, there's even a pretty brutal male-male rape scene that I was...seriously disturbed by. The sickness itself is disgusting, frankly. And there is a lot going on that is left up in the air as mystery for a very long time.

And I'll admit it - Wendig got me. I'm usually sitting here reading and picking out the "twists" that are supposedly so hidden but are actually pretty plain. Not with this one. At first I couldn't figure out the purpose of the walkers. When that was revealed, awesome, I was surprised (although looking back it's probably pretty easy to spot and I just missed it in all the science talk). There was a lot of blatant commentary on the people who weren't getting sick, so I figured that one out early enough. But the ending - I always suspected Black Swan of being more than just the "benevolent AI who wants to save the human race," and while I wasn't surprised about what happened, I can say I didn't see that exact scenario playing out. And Shana's part in the end of it all was definitely unexpected.

There were a few characters I grew "close" to - Marcy, Pete, and Benji. Once Pete got over his rockstar status and became an actual human I liked him very much. Benji was always just trying to do the best he could for everyone else. And Marcy was such a good-hearted person that it wasn't hard to love her. I do still wish we had been told exactly what had happened between her and the "glow" - Sadie mentioned that Marcy was a receiver because of the metal plates in her head, but how that made her more functional is beyond me.

There are two reasons this does not get a 5 star review - first, I am not one to shy away from swearing in books, but I feel like it was over the top in this one. There were a lot of random fucks interjected into conversations, thoughts, revelations, etc. It was too much for me to even feel like it was realistic. Second, the ending wasn't quite satisfying after all we went through to get where we were going. It came too quickly after all of that, and it felt cut off (although very sinister - good job at upping the creep factor at the end there).

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book. My opinions are my own.

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Review: The Book of Flora by Meg Elison

The Book of Flora by Meg Elison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was going to say that this book must have been the shortest of the three, but it turns out it's actually the longest. I'm actually sad it's over. I *loved* it, I mean, as much as one can love such a brutal world. The series as a whole is so original and so well-written. I was reading through in this book and noticing (for the first time - how is this possible??) how the city and state names were all bastardizations of actual cities. Estiel - STL - St. Louis. Niyak - New York? Demons - Des Moines. Iwa - Iowa. I am guessing that Shy is Chicago (Chi-Town). And it keeps going and going and I was amazed at the sheer number of cities these people were able to make it to and through in their journeys. Also: No magical Mormons as many people feared!

The exploration of gender was very interesting. And the idea that humans were evolving so rapidly - literally in a generation or two - was a really compelling take. I think my main problem with the story line was what was happening with this army, and why. I guess I didn't understand the motivations of the army's leader, even though it seemed like it was explored and laid out in quite a bit of detail. It just didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Overall I loved the book, and I loved the entire series. I wish that this book had been longer! Even a little extra at the end with the army's arrival, and a longer epilogue with more detail would have been fantastic. But what a fitting end to the series. I'm looking forward to more Meg Elison in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

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Review: Back to the Vara by John Kerry

Back to the Vara by John Kerry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Daaaaaaaaaaamn! This book was even better than the first. It was so full of twists and turns, I never knew who to trust and what to think. Sammy's determination to stay in Perseopia conflicted with Hami's resolve to get her home, Mehrak and Hami's feelings for Sammy, the plan to get rid of the Ahriman, disaster and action at every turn. I loved it! Now I'm dying for book 3!

Thank you to the author for providing a copy for review.

EDIT: I wrote the above on my phone and really wanted to finish up on a computer so here goes.

While Sammy has grown up by two years since the last book, she is still a troubled young woman who makes rash decisions and doesn't listen to anyone. She's also becoming more complex, because she comes from an abusive household and now and then we see the darkness coming through - when she kills the rabbit, when she uses an animal up for her own purposes, and even regarding Mehrak/Gisouie. The thing that redeemed her was that she almost always recognized her dark feelings, and resolved to do better, to BE better. I loved her development, even if she was still a stubborn girl at heart.

Gisouie was completely opposite of how I expected her. I'm curious to see what role she plays in the next book, because there's a very complicated love triangle (quadrangle?) going on by the end of this and I honestly don't know who would be better partners.

I read the last few chapters with a lot of excitement and apprehension. Soooo much is left open-ended, and I don't know what Sammy is going to do. I'm seriously looking forward to the finale in book 3 to see how this all wraps up.

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Review: Eden at the Edge of Midnight by John Kerry

Eden at the Edge of Midnight by John Kerry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*****This review is from 2013.  I did a re-read in January 2019 and my review still stands.  I am re-posting it because I also read and reviewed the second book today.*****

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Eden at the Edge of Midnight is an adventure story about a teen girl named Sammy who desperately wants to be noticed, and her inadvertent foray into the former garden of Eden, now called Perseopia. When a mysterious old woman asks her to hold onto a bracelet she claims is magic, Sammy thinks she's weird but doesn't believe her. At first.

When Sammy is transported to Perseopia, she meets with danger almost at every turn. But a chance encounter with a dinosaur-like creature named Louis and the man who lives in a house on his back, Mehrak, seems to be her only hope. Can Sammy make it back home to what Mehrak keeps calling the Mother World? Or will she be stuck in Perseopia forever? And is she really the chosen one that the old woman spoke of? Or just another teenager?

I had a great time reading this book, not only for the story but for Sammy's personality. She reminds me so much of myself, and she's completely geeky for science fiction and movies and video games. The pop culture references spattered throughout the book were welcome reminders that there is another world to which Sammy belongs, and that she is a normal teenager who just happens to mean something to someone.

Mehrak's age is never made clear, nor is Hami's, the mage who inserts himself into the journey. But they must have been close enough in age to Sammy for her to be "interested" in both of them. It's never really clear just how much she feels for them, although that kiss at the end (I'm not saying with whom ;)) was pretty nifty. Mehrak is married, but his wife was taken by crabmen and he's on the hunt for her. Hami is convinced Sammy is the chosen child, but his plotting takes so many twists and turns it's always hard to tell whether he truly cares for her or just wants to use her to achieve his own ends.

The end of the book sets it up nicely for book 2, and I wonder what role Sammy will play in the next installment. It looks like the magi are in danger and maybe Sammy will be able to help.

Highly recommended for people who love humor and suspense, with a teen heroine who isn't annoying (for once), and is as big a geek as we fantasy readers tend to be ;)

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Review: Glow by Aubrey Hadley

Glow: Book I, Potency by Aubrey Hadley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

NetGalley provided me with a free e-copy of this book to review.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 since GR doesn't do half stars.

The concept was interesting. Finding out you're a human-alien hybrid has to be disorienting. Trying to figure out who in your life is telling you the truth sounds even more difficult, when both sides are telling wildly different (and completely unbelievable) stories. Poor Harper has to do both of these things, and her confusion definitely reigns in this book.

The thing is, I really just didn't love it. I can't say I've read it before, because I haven't, and can't think of anything else I've heard of that's similar. But for some reason it just didn't elicit any real emotions from me. I was disconnected from just about all of the characters. I worried more about the people left on earth than I did the hybrids in the Base of Ki. From the moment Harper's human body was dissolved and she became more Ancient than anything else, I had a general sense of unease about the Ancients that never went away. Everything was creepy, all of the Ancients' interactions with the hybrids were strange and condescending, and I just could not get past it all. Of course this was intentional, we were supposed to question the Ancients, but I just felt weird about it.

One thing I noticed (and mentioned in my reading notes) was that one of the hybrids who told his tragic story mentioned that his pregnant wife was executed right in front of him. But a big deal was made previously about the fact that hybrids were sterile. Was this an oversight, an error that was meant to be written out? Or were the Ancients lying about that, too?

The ending wasn't a satisfying ending, not even a cliffhanger. It was like the book just stopped, like there was supposed to be more but it got left out. After the however many pages (seriously it felt like 1000 pages), I think there could have been a couple more devoted to Harper thinking about what was going to happen next. Or at least something to make me clamor for book 2.

I have no idea where this is going to end, but I'm not sure I'll pick up the next book to find out. 2.5 stars because it wasn't a bad book and it was an OK read, I rounded up to 3 because I didn't feel like 2 was enough. But again, no spark for me. I guess it just wasn't the right book for me.

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