Review: The Boleyn King

The Boleyn King by Laura Andersen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

[DISCLAIMER: I RECEIVED AN ADVANCED READER'S EDITION OF THIS BOOK FROM THE GOODREADS GIVEAWAY]

There were some parts of the ARC that I received that I hope have been fixed in the final edition of the book. For example, halfway through the book extra "u"s started showing up in words like "for" and "more" and "tomorrow." If the author was going for authenticity, the "u"s were completely out of place because (a) there wouldn't have been a "u" in "for" or "more" or "tomorrow", and (b) "tomorrow" back then used to be written as "to-morrow" not "tomourrow." There were also some glaring typos towards the end, not so many in the beginning. It was a distraction which I hope has been taken care of since the book was published formally on 6/4/2013.

Anyway, to the story.

I was expecting an historical fiction novel but this was more of a romance/mystery. The way the book was set up was that there would be breaks in the text when it was switching POVs from one character to another, but this could have been better accomplished by telling one person's story first, then in another chapter moving to another character. I've found several authors are doing this now, and it becomes confusing and muddles the story.

There are also sections of the story written as a diary, but they aren't signed. Sometimes the author finishes the diary entries and says something like "Minuette closed her diary," which tells us they were Minuette's entries, but again, this would have been better accomplished with a header saying something to the effect of "Entries from Minuette's diary." There was one section where Dominic is writing dispatches to William, and there is a header on those. Some consistency would have been nice.

The book read too much like a mystery novel to me, sort of a "whodunnit" that bothered me since that's not what I signed up to read. There is a plot afoot to discredit William as Henry VIII's son and most of the book is spent trying to figure out who it was, as well as who killed Alyce de Clare, a young woman who supposedly throws herself down a flight of stairs because she's pregnant. None of this is resolved by the end of the book, and no one seems to wonder or care. The reader gets closure in the Interlude at the end of the novel, and it's pretty much what I had expected.

The romance was also strange and forced. I knew Minuette and Dominic would be in love right from the start, because that made the most sense. But the other men who fall in love with her don't seem to work right. Especially the one at the end. That one is too quick happening, and the end leaves it unresolved and pretty much ridiculously laid-out. I didn't enjoy it at all.

Overall, I'm giving it two stars because I did end up finishing it, but it wasn't a great book and wasn't at all like what the description made me think it was. I didn't really enjoy it, especially as a "what-if" type book. It just didn't read as a sincere re-imagining of what the world would have been like had Henry VIII fathered a living son.

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Review: Masque of the Red Death

Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed, but didn't LOVE, this book. The writing style isn't amazing, but the story is interesting enough to keep me reading. It was definitely written for teens, although the main characters act like they are older than they are. I didn't realize Araby was only 17 at first, she was acting like a 21-year-old.

This book is a steampunk-meets-post-apocalyptic/dystopian-future kind of thing. A plague has wiped out a huge number of the population, and it's still killing people daily. Infection is a risk if you don't wear a specially-made mask, invented by Araby's father. Once you breathe through it, it won't work on anyone else, so stealing one from a dead person does you no good.

Araby's twin brother died when she was younger, presumably from the infection (later you find out exactly how it happened), and she blames herself because he didn't want to try on the mask made for him, so she put it on and breathed through it. She makes a silly vow never to experience anything he would not get to experience. This makes her immediately ridiculous to me, but that's how the author wrote it, so that's how I'm going to proceed. I mean, she got to experience growing up, a great depression, having friends, and all sorts of things. But when it comes to boys and love and even sword-fighting, she doesn't want to do it because Finn will never get to. Whatever you say, Miss Araby.

But she's in love with Will, the bouncer at the club her friend April is always dragging her along to. She barely speaks to him at the club, so she knows nothing about him (not even his name at first), until she wakes up in his bed after passing out from a bad high. He "rescued" her, and instead of taking her to the hospital, he brings her home. There she meets his little brother and sister, whom he takes care of because their parents are dead. Neither of them have a mask, and Araby is instantly upset and determines that she is no longer suicidal and must get them masks. Believable, I guess, but it was a bit too quick for me.

Then she meets April's brother Elliott, who convinces her to act like they're madly in love and to join a resistance movement. He asks her to steal her father's blueprints for the mask so that production can begin in a separate warehouse where they can be handed out to the lower classes who can't afford the ones made by Prince Prospero (April and Elliott's uncle who supposedly murdered their father). Elliott wants revenge for the murder of his father, as well as to turn the city around and start to rebuild. Meanwhile, Elliott decides he's actually in love with Araby, and Araby, obviously, can't figure out how she feels about him compared to how she feels about Will. Love triangle, here we come.

The love interests aren't quite believable - Araby falls for Will but has never truly spoken to him aside from in the test room. He rescues her and brings her home with him, and suddenly she's hooked, but what does she really know about him? Next to nothing. Even by the end they're still practically strangers, they each know almost nothing except what happened to Araby's twin brother and what happened to Will's parents. And Elliott is practically abusive to her, and yet she still can't say "Oh I hate your guts you sociopathic moron!"

3/5 stars because I got through it quickly, it was interesting, and I want to read the next book. If the writing had been better and the characters more believable and less like "Oh hi, you're Will, I love you," it would have been 4 stars.

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Review: Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts

Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts by Claire LaZebnik
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

[DISCLAIMER - I WON A COPY OF THIS BOOK IN THE GOODREADS GIVEAWAY.]

Actually, I rather enjoyed this book. It was well-written, funny, sad, pretty much everything you could want in a contemporary-style book. I knew right from the start that Jacob had a crush on Keats, simply because of the way they interacted and the way she seemed oblivious to his adoration. Later on she admits she's known about it forever, but I never got that feeling. Oh well.

Getting to know her sister Hopkins via phone and e-mail conversations was interesting, but then when she shows up in person at the end it was kind of surprising just what her character was actually like outside of a thirty-second window.

I recognized a lot of stuff in this book as being similar to my own family and myself, and pretty much understood everything Keats was feeling (especially as she feels trapped and stagnant).

Overall, a good light read. Not my normal type of book, but it was a nice trip down the sidewalk anyway.

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Review: The Swan Kingdom

The Swan Kingdom by Zoë Marriott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A solid 4/5 because it was wonderfully written. There were a few story problems, such as the very quick ending, but overall it was a fast and fun read. Also, it is a STAND-ALONE!! Hallelujah!

Good for middle- and high school kids, and even adults who are young at heart. It took a while to really get going, but it was nice when things finally started to happen and it wasn't just an overview of what the main character's life was like.

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Review: How Blended are Dust and Fire

How Blended are Dust and Fire by Kieran McKendrick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received an e-copy of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

It's really more 3.5 stars instead of just 3, but I didn't want to give it 4. My main reason for this rating is because there were so many made-up words the people used, and most were not explained. In any given sentence there could be anywhere from two to five words of in the language, and half of them I had to figure out for myself. If an author is going to go to the trouble of creating new terms for things, they should not be left to the readers' imaginations. Be specific and explain without truly explaining. I got so lost between all the words that started with "dher" or whatever that it became difficult to tell what the story was trying to tell me.

That language issue aside, the book was a wonderful fantasy novel, a prequel from what I read in the end-note, which sets up nicely for the rest of the series (which I will have to seek out and read now). It was a rather quick read at only 105 pages in the e-edition.

Setting it apart from many other novels is the chapter set-up. Each "chapter" is actually just a character's name, followed by either a few paragraphs or up to a few pages of a character's experience. At times, some characters were introduced out of the blue with these sections, which was a bit confusing. But I actually liked it this way, because the reader gets to experience the chaos of the festival that all the characters are experiencing. It also made for a swifter read. I'm curious how the rest of the series is set up - whether it's like this book, or in normal chapter set-ups.

Recommended for fantasy lovers, over 18 because of violence and sex. If you are capable of diving into a new language and adjusting your vocabulary to it, all the better.

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Quick Deal Alert

Please take the time out of your day to read this blog post by John Kerry, author of Eden at the Edge of Midnight.  If you remember, I gave this a pretty good review and I still feel that it's a great book.  If you want to get a copy of your own, now is the time, as it's only 99¢ for the Kindle, through today only!

Both the author and I would appreciate it if you would write a review, positive or negative, after you've read it.  Like I said, it's a good book and I think some of you may enjoy it.

Plus, it's only 99¢!  Who could say no to that?

(Sorry for the white background on the text, I can't for the life of me make it go away!  Gotta love technology, right?)

Piles and piles everywhere

Image from tumblr.com - I have a feeling that my middle room
would have looked like this eventually.

The to-read piles were growing by leaps and bounds.  Instead of shelving them, I was putting stacks of books on top of my shelved books, weighing down the top two shelves of the open bookcase.  There were also stacks on the floor, on my Aunt Mary chair, and all over the living room.  It was out of control.

But first, let me back-track.  Chris and I have stopped calling the middle room "the library" or "the reading room," as it will eventually be neither.  The basement will become a library-slash-family room, and the plan is floor-to-ceiling bookcases along one wall to house all of our books and other media.  In the meantime, we are attempting to ready the middle room for potential guests and a future nursery for children who have not yet been conceived.

And so it happens that we were in the room one night last week, attempting to clear out the clutter that had inevitably built up over the last year as we threw things in there that we could "find a home for later."  Later never quite came, did it?  Of course not.  But finally boxes were cleared out, piles of books were thrown haphazardly on shelves, and there was eventually an empty space in the middle of the floor in which people could walk, sit, stand, what have you.

Only one problem remained: my books had been put on shelves.  There were no piles anymore.  The open bookcase was no longer leaning forward, shelves buckling under the weight of simply too many pages.  How would I know what I was supposed to read next?  So I created a pile.

Yes, one last pile.  A pile of to-read books, and I would be stuck with that pile until it is finished.  And when that pile is gone and the books have been shelved or given away, I will create a new pile.  And maybe in the next ten years I will finally be allowed to buy new books again, or take books out of the library, because I will be caught up on my to-read pile and will have read every book I own.

Wishful thinking, I'm sure.  But it's the thought that counts.

Review: The Iron King

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was so disappointed in this book it's ridiculous. It has a lot of good reviews, and I know that at least one person I know liked it, but I did not enjoy it much at all. The two stars are essentially for Grimm (the cat), who was the most believable of all the characters, and Ethan (the little brother) who was just so adorable according to my imagination.

Meghan Chase (the extra "h" in the name "Meghan" trips me up because to me, that's just the wrong way to spell it, but of course I'm biased) is the daughter of Oberon and her human mother, who she paints to be totally nuts and bitch-tastic but doesn't seem to be much worse than any normal mother. After the man she believes to be her father (her mother's first husband) disappears, they move to another city, her mother re-marries a man who barely notices Meghan, and they have a son named Ethan who gets all the attention. Meghan is a typical whiny teenager who thinks her life is terrible when she really has it easy (aside from the horrible bully, but really, she was dumb to fall for his apology anyway). Then she finds out she's really half fairy and THAT HER WHOLE LIFE WAS A LIE, and everything changes. And formula from here.

She never actually *does* anything until we get to the end of the book.  Up until that point, everyone does everything for her.  We see Puck helping her in the woods, as well as Grimm, and Ash, and anyone else she manages to blunder into who doesn't immediately try to eat her.  Another reviewer mentioned Damsel in Distress Syndrome - that's exactly it.

[Spoilers after this point]

Review: Third Willow

Third Willow by Lenore Skomal
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

****There are minor spoilers in this post****

I still have no idea why this was on my to-read list. I think I must have entered a giveaway and put it on there, but didn't win, and forgot about it. And the only reason I started reading it was because it was available to read in its entirety from the website.

The book was problematic for me, mostly because nothing actually happens while you're reading. All the action is told in retrospect, in memory, in "thinking back to that moment so many hours ago", which after a few instances can become bothersome but through the entirety of the book is irritating. You get the story in bits and pieces, in all sorts of orders, and through the eyes of the kids who, lord knows if they're even telling it right. Because how far can you trust a child narrator?

Much of the action also seems disconnected from the rest of the story. For example, the stranger in town that the children are scared of, his side story has nothing to do with the rest of what happens, especially since the children all keep silent about what they witnessed and nothing ever comes of it.

Beah's flirtation with being a lesbian doesn't seem to fit either, and neither does her discovery that she's adopted. I suppose the adoption could explain her relationship with her mother, but even that wasn't delved into too deeply. The children's parents show up in the background, without truly affecting the children's points of view. Patsy becomes really good at lying to her parents, who just sit back and take it. No punishment for anything ever gets in the way. And Raz, a background character who has almost no development outside of being smart and gorgeous, simply defers to her father's judgment in everything except one.

The ending was too dramatic for the rest of the story, and I'm not sure I agree with how Hap's situation was handled.

A semantics issue but still bothersome: every now and then the author would slip a little bit of Midwestern drawl into the narration, such as "t'other". It was rare and randomly done, which ended up pulling me out of the story and into a "huh?" type moment. If it were written that way all the way through, it wouldn't have been so glaringly obvious. But it seemed that the author was trying too hard to get the Midwestern dialect into the story.

2/5 stars because I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't terrible. Just not for me, I guess.

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Review: The White Hawk

The White Hawk by David Pilling
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I guess you could say this book was good, if you like gory descriptions and lots of battle with little plot in between. I am not that person.

I was mostly bored, kind of grossed out, and confused by all the different names. I took a few days off from reading and had forgotten who all the characters were. The copy I read was a proof, so obviously there were errors, but at points there were wrong names which confused me even more.

Not a very enjoyable read, and while I realize it's rooted in history, I wish there had been more story and less description of battles.

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The To-Read Pile Just Keeps Growing

Image from readinghorizons.com

The To-Read pile of books in my library is growing by leaps and bounds.  I feel like that little girl to the left when I look at it, wondering what I'm going to read next.  I have oft touted the awesomeness of the website that is BooksFreeSwap, because I can sometimes get relatively new books, in mostly new-ish condition, for super cheap.  It's how I managed to get the three books in the Chemical Garden series, and now I'm just waiting for The Lunar Chronicles to actually come through (I had a copy of Cinder in swap, but apparently the sender cancelled or didn't respond in time.  Oh well).  I also bought a bunch of books from Amazon (pictured here), and a few from the Goodwill, and now and then Chris will come home with books for me...

On top of all of that, I'm addicted to the Goodreads Giveaways page and enter to win like a crapload of books every week.  Of course, I never win (and haven't for over a year, but that's another rant).  But in the meantime, my To-Read list keeps growing and growing (I am at 1019 and counting).

So there are genuinely piles and piles of books in my library room just waiting to be read.  I'd shelve them, but then I'd forget about them.  If they're in a pile, I know I'm supposed to do something with them.  This has been my logic my whole life - if it's out, I can see it and know where it is and that it needs to be read.  (This philosophy has, however, contributed to the loss of many books over the years, as they tended to get "misplaced" before I could read them.  I've been missing a couple of my Katharine Kerr books since I moved out of Dunkirk, and the hardback of Ilium, and The Golden Compass was misplaced sometime in undergrad.)

While I figure out what to read next, I've forbidden myself from checking books out from the library (*gasp*) because I have so many at home to read.  This means that I'll have to wait to read some books I've been anticipating for months, and other books I've been trying to win, and maybe even stuff that has gone out of print.  But hey, at least I'll never run out of reading material, right?

Review: Code Name: Atlas

Code Name: Atlas by Tony Evans
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book for free by the author in exchange for an honest review.

It's hard to know where to begin with a book like this. I was intrigued by the storyline, pulled in by the quick pacing, but also confused by the end and unable to reconcile the entire book with the very last few pages.

The book begins almost at the end - the main character (were we ever given his real name? I don't remember it being mentioned before he's given his code name) is being held prisoner, among his "men," for something the reader is apparently left to figure out. This kind of tactic, revealing the near-end of a book in order to start a story, doesn't always sit well with me. Primarily, it's because we're told what's going to happen, and then told the story of how it happened. I would rather have the story build to the climax, and have it happen in order, so that I don't sit reading the entire book going "Yeah but..."

There are spoilers after this point so... Click here to read the rest of the review

While I didn't love the book, I did like the story and the ideas it proposed. I wasn't attached to the characters, though, and was almost happy when *spoiler - click the link above to read* and if there is a sequel I really hope that it delves further into character development. If you can look past spelling/grammar errors, and don't so much care about writing style as much as plot, then this book is a good read and an interesting and semi-original sci-fi plot. I appreciated the military and scientific background that came through, as the author mentions in the afterword, and it wasn't too much that the average layperson couldn't follow (Kim Stanley Robinson has the problem of being too high-minded for the average person to follow, this book was much more on equal footing with people who aren't versed in science).

Overall, 3 out of 5 stars for the experience, the story, and Atlas. Get rid of the plot holes, the format errors, and such and it would have been 4.

An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer

Image credit: Kimberly Butler

This past weekend, I dragged my husband along down to Bard College to spend an evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer (his wife - and what a cute couple they are!).  It was a lovely night with a pretty full crowd, made up of college students and the general public.  I noticed a few children, which was an odd sight to me.  I'm wondering, did those parents realize that Neil Gaiman isn't exactly a children's author?  I mean, I know he's written books for kids, like The Graveyard Book, but his adult stuff is about sex and monsters and there's a lot of the f-word involved.  I'm curious if the children went home saying "What a fucking awesome time, Mommy!  Thank's for fucking bringing us to this fucking reading!"  As much as I advocate for free reading and giving children the opportunity to see great writers in person, I don't know that I would have taken kids under 10 to this kind of thing.

Anyway...

I had such a great time hearing Amanda's music for the first time, experiencing the two of them as newlyweds, and experiencing several readings from works Neil has never read out loud to an audience before.  It felt intimate, and special, even though we weren't that close to the stage.  Neil's personality certainly came through in his readings, his conversations with Amanda, and even the songs he sang (yes, he sang for us!).

Review: Scapemaker

Scapemaker by Steve V. Cypert
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I feel terrible leaving this book only one star. Absolutely terrible. I wanted to like this so badly. But it was not a good book. I don't know if I downloaded an un-proofed copy, or if everyone else was able to look past all the mistakes, but the whole thing was just a mess.

I was able to download this for free from Smashwords with a code - otherwise the book is $2.99. And if I had paid $2.99 for this book, I'd want a refund. I'd actually be mad if I paid money for this. Again, I feel terrible saying this, but it's true.

Mr. Cypert could have used a serious proofer before publishing this and charging money for it. Unfortunately, I think there's just too much wrong with it to be considered "good" even if I liked the concept (which I did). The concept is something I haven't read or heard of too much, and it is an interesting way of portraying the dream world. However, the copy I downloaded from Smashwords reads more like a first draft than a finished product. I sincerely urge Mr. Cypert, if he is dead set on making this into a profitable series, to hire and pay for a professional proof-reader before continuing with selling the second book (and if he did hire one before publishing this one, he should get a refund). I wish him the best, but at this point I wouldn't consider this anywhere close to finished.

In list format I will discuss my problems (and I really hope that the author takes this as constructive criticism because that's how it's meant - I am sorry if it comes off as harsh, but I really think this needs a lot of help):

A note on comments

Just a quick note to let you all know that I've had to disable anonymous comments because of the high number of spam comments this blog has been getting.  If you have a Google account, or any of the accounts listed in the comment box, please feel free to use those to comment.  If you do not have one but do wish to comment in the future, please create one or use the OpenID option.

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Feedback is welcome, as always.

<3