I picked up this book due to Avon's aggressive marketing campaign. I get emails from the publisher, and they were pushing this title pretty heavily. After reading the summary, I was intrigued, and since I felt like rewarding myself with a fun romance, I bought it.
The cover copy tells the bare bones of the plot. A few years ago, Autumn and Sam had a fling in Vegas which ended badly--and she's hated him for years because of what happened. When they run into each other at a wedding, they find themselves talking and being civil, and Sam volunteers to help Autumn with a situation that brings him back into her life.
The cover copy also obscures several key facts about the story, and I'm not going to spoil them here. I think they make the story richer and complicate the relationship. What I can say is that when Sam and Autumn run into each other, neither one is looking to resume their fling. However, their increased contact leads them to remember just what drew them to each other in the first place, and as they come to know each other better, sparks begin to fly anew.
When I picked up the book, I had no idea that it was in a series, or that the series was based around a fictional Seattle hockey team. Both facts were delightful. I work in Detroit, and I come from a hockey family. Passages like this one just made me smile:
Sam stood in the tunnel of the Joe Louis Arena and waited to hit the ice. He hated playing in Detroit. Hated the stinking octopus.
He stood behind Logan Dumont and in front of Blake Conte. Captain Walker Brooks hit the ice first admist a wall of booing Red Wings fans. Sam had always found jeering crowds amusing. He fed off all that passion, and no one was more passionate about a sport than hockey fans. When it was his turn to step on the ice, he stuck his glove under one arm and skated across the ice, waving like he was a conquering hero. He looked up at the filled seats and laughed. He might hate playing at the Joe Louis, but he loved playing hockey. He'd been on the road for over a week and was exhausted and jet lagged, but the second the puck dropped, that all went away. Adrenaline pounded through his veins and rushed across his skin. He dominated behind the blue line, using his body to agitate and intimidate. He closed firing lanes and spent four minutes in the sin bin for cross-checking and hooking. The latter was complete bullshit. It wasn't his fault that Zetterberg got tangled up in Sam's stick. He should go back to Sweden and learn how to skate like a big boy.
Pansy ass.
I will add that any Red Wings fan wouldn't call the arena "the Joe Louis." We call it "the Joe" and leave it at that. But, since Sam isn't a Red Wing, I'm willing to forgive his lapse. I'm also willing to forgive his hatred of octopus. While I adore the tradition and cheer whenever I see a squid hit the ice, I'm sure it's disgusting to other teams. (Thankfully, we only throw squid, not rats like some fans!)
--back to the review--
Sam and Autumn felt real to me. They each had their reasons for behaving so recklessly in Vegas, and the wounds and regrets they carry from that meeting are lifelike. They are not always likeable, but they're also believably flawed.
The sex was fairly graphic at times, but that's also in character. Neither or these characters does anything by half--once they've mad a decision, they throw all their energy into it. Once they decide to have sex, they aren't tame about it.
Overall, I liked this novel enough to read it in one night. (I finished it after midnight, hence the two-day spread in my dates.) It was fast paced and fun, and exactly what I wanted at the time.
Wow, this book was a lot better when I skimmed it!
I originally checked this book out of the library on March 28, and I started reading it almost immediately. However, I stalled out on page 53. For those of you that have read the series, you know what happened at the end of Dreamfever. Mac spent the first 50 some odd pages of this book whining about the choice she'd made at the end of the last. While I do understand the emotional trauma involved, and I would not have liked to see Mac brush off the event, Moning's treatment of it left much to be desired. It felt as if Moning want to convince her readers of Mac's trauma through sheer repetition. It was too much for me, and I had to put the book down.
Today, April 25, I picked up the book again. I wanted to know how this series ends, dammit, and the book was due back to the library today. So I decided to skim. I avoided any long passages of exposition as they uniformly seemed to be of Mac whining. Instead, I looked for scenes with conversation. I was quickly able to skim through the book, getting the jist of the plot while running from Mac's thoughts. With that method, I read this nearly 600 page book in four hours. And I liked it.
Apart from Mac's near-constant whining, the book provided a satisfying ending to the series. I liked the choices Moning made regarding the change in the world. A few of the revelations were moderately surprising, but they did not come from left field. They had been foreshadowed--as pretty much everything in this series was foreshadowed--but Mac hadn't given enough hints to truly lay bare her entire plot.
I'm glad I didn't spend money on this book. Heck, the only one that I ever owned was the first book (originally as a mass market paperback, but I gave that away in the swap when the publisher offered it as a free ebook). I do think this series is inventive and reasonably brave. Not many writers have the courage to torture a character as thoroughly as Mac was tortured. But that's also part of the reason that I don't want to return to this series. Bad things happen in this world--and bad things happen to Mac. I did not enjoy following her on her journey from Mac 1.0 to Mac 5.0. While I do think these books are good, they're not fun in the way I like my books to be fun.
Before I get into this review, I need to explain a few things. I don't like to read books about endangered children. Right now, I don't like to read books about missing people. They hit too close to home for me, and I cannot vicariously enjoy the tension created by these situations. My reasons are simple: these situations are too real. When I was a teenager, two girls in my hometown were killed by a serial killer. I did not know Michelle and Melissa Urbin, the sisters he kidnapped and killed from Fenton. I went to a neighboring school. The facts of their disappearance and deaths shaped my personality and reading taste, though. I do not enjoy reading books from the point of view of a rapist or killer. And the tension created by endangered children sickens me. I've only recently begun to avoid books about missing people, and I don't know how long that will last. In December, one of the professors in my department was reported missing. Her disappearance is considered a possible suicide, but without any clear evidence of her fate, the case remains open.
I didn't want to burden this review with this information in order to seek sympathy. Instead, I want you to understand that this book was so amazing that I was able to enjoy it despite the baggage I brought with me.
As the cover copy makes clear, this novel opens with a traffic accident. A woman is involved the accident and drives away; when the police find her walking down the road a few miles away, she is unable to provide identification. In an attempt to distract the police officer from her role in the accident, she tells him that she is one of the "Bethany girls," referring to an unsolved case of missing sisters from 30 years before.
The police immediately suspect that this woman is not telling the full story. She explains that she's been living under an assumed name for years and does not want to endanger her privacy, so she refuses to give them her current name. She does not want publicity. She knows facts of the girls' lives, but most of that information is available to a dedicated internet searcher. The police do not know what to believe, but they do know they have a mess on their hands. Detective Kevin Infante is assigned to investigate the woman and determine the truth--if such a thing exists.
The novel unfolds slowly, moving between multiple narrators to tell the story of the missing girls, their family, and the investigation. From memory, I would say that there may have been as many as eight narrators. The chapters move back and forth between the narrators and back and forth between the present and the past. Thankfully, Lippman is a powerful writer, and the switches between different points of view were rarely jarring. Instead, we as readers get to see the tapestry of lives woven around the missing girls. We see how their loss devastates their parents, Miriam and Frank. We see the relationship between the girls as we learn of their childhood. We see the frustration of the detectives as they seek to discover the threads that tie this unnamed woman to the Bethany girls.
This is not a novel that delights in pain. Despite the emotional pain of the girls' loss, this novel never becomes voyeuristic. This is not a book about what happens to the girls after they disappear from the mall. This is a book about what happens to everyone else. The woman who claims to be a Bethany girl forces the police to reopen the case and reevaluate their investigation. She claims that her captor was a cop, further complicating the matter.
What is the truth? Who is this woman? That's something that, for the time being at least, only the dead know for certain.
It's up to Kevin Infante and the Baltimore PD to discover if there are any answers available.
As the fact that I'm reviewing an audiobook should make clearn, I listened to the audio edition of this novel. Eerily enough, I started this book on March 29, the same day the girls disappear. Linda Emond narrated the book, and she was remarkable. Lippman's writing changed with each shift in point of view, and Emond's voice changed with it. Despite the tricky nature of the narration, I never found myself confused as to which character was the viewpoint character at any time. For those of you that enjoy audibooks, I recommend this edition highly.
Overall, I found this book compelling. I could not wait to drive to work and listen to the next installment. While I was able to anticipate some of the answers, I did not see everything coming.
Lippman is a brilliant writer, and I look forward to exploring the rest of her works.
There are some things in life that are guaranteed. The end of the semester is always a good day. (yay!) Taxes will always irritate a large portion of the population. Detroit will always have attitude (if nothing else). And I will always enjoy a Jennifer Crusie novel.
I listened to this title as an audiobook and enjoyed it immensely. It was my companion as I drove to and from the D for the last two weeks of classes, and I don't think I've ever blushed so much while driving. :-)
This is the story of Sophie Dempsey and her little sister Amy. The two sisters have come to Temptation, Ohio, to film an audition clip for their acquaintance Clea. The sisters normally film weddings, but Amy is ambitious and sees this as her opportunity to break into something better as they help Cleo restart her film career. Neither of them realize that Clea had done porn before her marriage and this audition tape is an attempt to reopen that part of her life. Their very arrival in town creates problems. As Amy films the drive into the city, Sophie gets into an accident with Stephen and Virginia Garvey--two upstanding members of the town council.
Phin Tucker is the local mayor, and he's caught in a reelection fight against that same Stephen Garvey. Phin's family has held the office for years, and he doesn't want it all that much. But he doesn't want Garvey to have it either, and when Garvey tries to use the "film people" as a wedge issue in the election, Phin realizes that he has to know what's happening at Clea's farm.
Sophie has spent her youth traveling all throughout the country; she comes from a family of confidence men (& women), and she's innately suspicious of "town boys." With is fourth generation mayoral office, Phin is the definition of a town boy. He, in turn, is wary of her. His father had warned him long ago about women he called the Devil's Candy, and Phin can recognize that Sophie is a danger to him and his way of life.
Their wariness is not enough to keep them apart, but their attraction may not be enough to keep them together, either. As the filming continues, and the election nears, the town will throw every obstacle possible in their way. They can only have a future together if they fight for it--but they're not used to fighting for themselves. Are they up to the challenge?
Oh, and who is the murderer terrorizing the town?
(OK, I admit it, that last line is not fair. But there is a murder, and it's important, and I don't want to tell you any more. So deal.)
This novel was utterly amazing and fantastic. Vaughn clearly knows superhero literature, and her fondness for the genre allows her to write in it with respect while analyzing the tensions at the heart of superhero mythology.
Celia West is the famous daughter of Commerce City's two most famous superheros--Captain Olympus and Spark, the founding members of the Olympiad. They were not the city's first superheros--a masked man called Hawk fought crime before they did. Hawk had no powers, and he retired just as the Captain and Spark became proficient at their calling. Celia has very little contact with her parents. She cut all ties with them when she was a teenager. They always placed the welfare of the city before their daughter, and while she could understand their priorities, she also found it difficult to bear. Villains always assumed that Celia was a priority in her parents' lives, and she was kidnapped several times (six and counting . . .) in an attempt to control her parents. It never worked.
Part of the distance between Celia and her parents stems from the fact that she's normal. She has no powers and no common ground to share with them. This distance--as well as her relative fragility--makes it difficult for them to relate to one another.
This is the situation as After the Golden Age opens. Celia is working as a forensic accountant in a firm that consults for the DA. After her most recent kidnapping attempt, the DA asks specifically for her to be assigned to what may be the case of the century--a tax fraud prosecution of the Destructor, a notorious villain and her parents' arch nemesis. As Celia digs into the case, her complicated history resurfaces in such a way to cast doubt on her reliability. Celia cannot bear the thought of being judged for her prior acts, and she digs deeper into the Destructor case to prove her worth. She's also concerned because several new gangs are attempting to take control of Commerce City. It's clear that there's a mastermind behind the recent attacks, but it's not clear just who that might be. The Destructor is locked away, and someone new seems to have stepped up to fill the vacuum.
Alternately funny and shocking and heart-rending, After the Golden Age questions one city's reliance on its heroes as saviors. Moving between Celia's past and present, the novel explores the complicated relationship between our childhood and our adulthood as the parents we both love and despise shape us to become like them.
Vaughn is not a stylist. Her prose is clean and serviceable, establishing the points she's making with a minimum of description or purple prose. All the same, her quiet observations of characters make this novel the powerful story that it is. When I first heard about this book, I knew that I wanted to read it. Once it was available, I bought it almost immediately and read it almost all the way through in one day. This is a fast-paced story, one that gets you to care about characters and the City where they live.
I believe I said this about Carrie Vaughn's other standalone novel, Discord's Apple, and I'll repeat myself here. I do not want Vaughn to write a sequel to this book. After the Golden Age is a fantastic story from beginning to end, and I don't want to see that perfection weakened in a series.
I bought this book largely because the author was in the store doing a signing while I was there. I thought the premise sounded fun, and I decided to give the book a shot. The fact that it had won a RITA for best debut novel helped, too.
Overall, this was a fun, light read. It took a while for me to get into it, as the male lead was extremely irritating as the book opened.
The story is this: Eva, the daughter of a courtesan, runs a school teaching courtesans how to properly behave so that they can be matched with husbands. The women come to her willingly, having realized that their time as a courtesan is coming to an end (basically, they've "aged out") or their experiences have been unpleasant. None of her students know her true name or her mother's history. One day, a duke shows up, furious that his Arabella had left him. He tracked her to Eva's school, and talks of the woman as if she were a possession. Eva is pleased to tell him that Arabella is out of his reach--she's married and an expectant mother. (It had taken some time for our duke to find Eva.)
Irrationally irritated, the duke decides to research Eva and punish her. He does this by buying her debt and explaining that the debts could be waived if she supplies him with another courtesan. Unwilling to pimp her students, Eva finally decides to take on the role herself.
The consent issues in the book are murky. Smith would like to play with the idea of forced consent, but she also works very hard to explain that Eva desires the duke and makes the choice of her own free will.
The setting is murky as well. There are no clear recognitions of time; the cover would indicate that the book takes place in the Regency period, but the social work with Fallen Women movement is a later Victorian attitude. In Smith's London, every well born man seems to keep a mistress--or courtesan, I should say--in addition to his wife. Few people object to the practice, and our duke is even able to talk with his mother about his missing courtesan, Arabella. Obviously, many of the wives hate the practice, and Eva's father's widow is especially vitriolic. However, it's an accepted social practice, and no men are shunned for keeping a courtesan. Women actually seem to compete for the role, which also complicates the issue.
This book is the first in a trilogy, and I'm not sure that I'll continue with it. While the sex was fun, the ahistorical nature of this historical romance bugs me. I also don't like the idea that Smith is trying to invoke the old fashioned rape fantasy without addressing its baggage. Overall, this is a fun read but not one that you'll want to think about deeply.
My husband and I went to see Sucker Punch the weekend it debuted, and we enjoyed it greatly. However, I was disturbed by the fact that of approximately 30 people in the audience, only six of them were women (including myself). For all that this movie was an attempt to cash in on the vision of violent women, it was not a movie that sought to show them as empowered. Instead, it was a film about watching women and the power women hold when they are observed by others. In this case, the "others" were clearly men. The subtext of the movie was clearly visible even in its commercials, which would explain why so few women wanted to see it.
In a related note, Sucker Punch was referenced in a recent skit on Saturday Night Live. You can see the skit below:
And then there was this sketch "The Silver Screen," the premise of which, as far as I could tell, is that it's funny when old queens give each other pet names. Every time Taran Killam and Elton kissed, the audience hooted.
This was not to say "The Silver Screen" wasn't funny. It was very funny. And there is definitely room for gay humor on TV. But not if it's being used as the only thing making a sketch funny: the concept for "Silver Screens" couldn't have been more than "Two gay men spend more time making googly eyes at each other while dressed like Christopher Guest from 'Waiting for Guffman' than paying attention to Vanessa Hudgens." (To be fair, a lot of things are better than paying attention to Vanessa Hudgens.)
As I read what Salon had to say and rewatched the skit, I can't help but think that Drew Grant missed one of the vital points of it. He also participated in one of the things that made me truly angry about this episode of SNL: the casual sexism.
In my reading of the skit, I do see the focus as being upon the gay movie reviewers, but it is not insignificant that they're reviewing Sucker Punch. They're pointing out to viewers a fact that should be obvious but hasn't been talked about nearly enough: this movie has a very limited audience. It's aimed primarily at heterosexual men and boys--especially those with an interest in s/f, steampunk, or manga. Despite the growing influence of the geek market, that's a rather small niche. The shocked faces of Tarran Killam and Elton John (I love the delayed shock in John's case) indicate just how appalled they are by this spectacle of women's bodies and violence. Their disinterest in Vanessa Hudgins (which Drew Grant endorses) becomes less a dismissal of the movie--about which they have no interest--than a dismissal of modern women altogether. The only woman they admire in the course of the skit is Claudette Colbert--about whom Killam's character says, "They don't make them like they used to," before adding that her "bangs scream sex!" John's character, not to be outdone, adds "Now that's a muff I'd put my hand in."
SNL bothered me so much that week because this sort of humor was used throughout the night. It was as if the writers could not imagine a gay friendly joke that was also friendly to women. Instead, the jokes that night focused solely on Elton John's sexuality and presented women as disinteresting at best, disgusting at worst. I know Rachel Dratch isn't on the show any more, but that night would have been a great night to bring back the infamous skit "The Woman with No Gaydar." Dratch's character always looked silly when she'd find herself in a gay bar and think that it was a great place to find men, but the humor was never mean spirited--unlike "The Old West" skit that night, wherein Kristen Wiig, as a old West prostitute, continually throws herself at Elton John's cowboy character, only to be repeatedly insulted as he pursued a local cowboy.
Warning: movie spoilers ahead.
I loved Sucker Punch. I thought it was inventive and visually stunning. It's the story of a seemingly unnamed young woman (supposedly 22 years old). After the death of her mother, the young woman tries to protect her younger sister from their stepfather (whether he's threatening the child with violence or with specifically sexual violence remains uncertain). In the struggle, the younger girl dies, and the stepfather decides to have our heroine committed rather than make her available to police questioning. This scene is quick and scored to the Eurthymic's "Sweet Dreams," in one of the better uses of the song I've ever seen. In addition to the song, the opening sequence features voice-over narration talking about guardian angels and their ability to save you. At the institution, the stepfather signs up our girl for a lobotomy. The doctor will be there in five days. In the meantime, she'll participate in the theatrical therapy endorsed by the Polish doctor in charge of the facility.
Once at the institution, the sense of reality--odd though it may have been--rapidly breaks down. The evil orderly (who seemingly runs the place) seems to be using it as a dance hall/brothel. The other patients--who are all attractive young women--perform on stage and in the bedroom for the local influential men. When the doctor gets our girl--now called Babydoll--to dance for the first time, everyone around her is stunned. They stare at her, open eyed and open mouthed, as if she was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. The audience doesn't see the dance--instead, we see a story of Babydoll talking to a mentor and asking for the tools to achieve power and escape. He tells her that she needs a map, fire, a knife, and a key. Back at the dance hall, the orderly decides to give Babydoll to the High Roller--a man that will arrive in the clinic in five days. Babydoll convinces her fellow inmates to seek the items with her in order to escape. Each time they seek an item, they use Babydoll's dancing to distract their mark. As with the first dance, the audience never sees what Babydoll does and instead sees a mission that becomes a metaphor for their task.
Throughout the movie, Babydoll is seeking independence and power. She wants to use the tools of her oppressors to set herself and the other women free. The way she entrances her marks with her dancing is much the same way in which we viewers are stunned by the movie. As the tagline claims, we are unprepared. But more than that, we viewers are implicated in the crimes against women portrayed in the movie. We are the audience being silenced and controlled by Babydoll's metaphorical dancing. This is a movie that wants to empower women but at the same time uses them as objects of consumption.
This mixed message comes through loud and clear, and it's no wonder why women stayed away from the movie. We've seen enough misogyny. We don't need more fed to us as a metaphor for empowerment. But at the same time, this film is not misogynistic. It's confused, and that confusion hits the heart of our culture's relationship to women more accurately than any parable of hate or power. Just like our culture, it can't decide if it's best to be a doll or a real girl.
When SNL used Sucker Punch as a passing mention in their skit, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that this is not a movie for gay men--or for anyone other than a certain portion of the geek community. They knew what they were saying when they glamorized Claudette Colbert to the detriment of living women. Normally, I love SNL, but that week, I simply could not look beyond the misogyny.
What does it say about me that I loved Sucker Punch? Well, the simple facts of the matter are:
I'm a geek.
I like action movies.
I like steampunk.
I'm an academic with interests in gender studies, so the indeterminacy of the film's potential for misogyny and for empowerment gives me plenty to think about.
Basically, except for the fact that I'm female, I am part of this film's target audience and I enjoyed the complexity and layered nature of the film.
Now that a year has passed since everything changed, the world is trying to adapt. It's still a constant struggle to find food. Miranda's family is increasingly isolated in their house, only venturing out once a week for food. Remarkably, though, they have survived this year. With the coming of a wet and rainy Spring, their lives continue to change in unexpected ways.
First, they get a new family member. Miranda's brothers go to the Delaware to catch fish while the shad are running, and Matt meets Syl. They are married quickly, and the young woman upsets the balance of the household. She's been out in the world since the disaster, and while she doesn't talk about it much, her very presence forces Miranda to realize just how sheltered they've been.
Then, surprisingly, Miranda's father arrives. He and his pregnant wife, Lisa, had tried to find her family out west and failed. They've returned to be close to his older children, which is especially important to them now that Gabriel has been born. In addition to the three of them, they also bring three strangers: a large friendly man named Charlie and Alex & Julie Morales (of the dead the gone). Alex has a plan. He wants to take Julie to the convent/farm where he'd sent Brianna in the past, and after that, he wants to join a monastery.
But he didn't count on meeting Miranda and her fierce desire for life. In his desire to protect his sister, he can't see that families are reshaping themselves to include everyone beloved, not just kin.
Also, having survived a year in this new world doesn't mean that Miranda and Alex have mastered it. Surprises continue to await them, and some will be terrifying.
Pfeffer recently asked in her blog if readers would be like to read a fourth "Moon" book. I answered yes. This is a dark, dystopian world, and the characters make difficult choices. I want to know more about their survival. While I don't always like Alex & Miranda, I care about them and I want a future for them and their families. So, yes, I want a fourth Moon book!
I have a problem with this book. According to Goodreads, the ebook is 240 pages long. That seems like a decent length, comparable to McMann's other's titles. However, when I read this book on my nook, it was 159 pages--including several pages of copyright information at the front of the book. It's possible that I read this book in a smaller font than the one it's paginated by, but that usually doesn't alter the number of pages listed. And, it would seem that my edition was the full book, as had a solid conclusion to the story.
The reason I'm going into such detail about this is very simple: I do not think Cryer's Cross was long enough to be sold as a hardcover novel. While I can't do a word count to verify my impression, this seems like a novella, and I'm not very pleased that the publisher decided to sell it for $16.99. While it is a good story, and I did find it deliciously creepy in at least one spot, I would have felt cheated if I had paid $16.99 for it. Thankfully, the nookbook version is selling for $4.99 at bn.com. That's how much I paid, and I do feel like I got my money's worth. However, I would have resented the book if I had paid full price for the hardcover.
Overall, this is a solid novella about a haunting. It fits into the classic parameters of the genre. As an adult reader of YA, I can't say if a teen would find it scary, but the climax of the novel did disturb me. McMann's typical narrative structure--present tense, third person omniscient narration, short sentences--worked nicely to highlight the manner in which Kendall's brain works. Kendall has OCD, and McMann presents a sympathetic and realistic portrait of a girl working to control her anxiety disorder in a town filled with anxiety. My husband has OCD, and it was refreshing to read about a character that has it and is not crippled by it.
I do have one final note to make about this novella: I'm deeply amused by the setting. I live in South Central Michigan (very near Ohio), a little west of the setting for the Wake trilogy. Nearly two years ago, my uncle's family moved from Michigan to Belgrade, Montana, outside Bozeman. Cryer's Cross is also set outside Bozeman. The coincidence of these settings gives me a small chuckle.
This book was so not my cup of tea, and, as a student of the Gothic and fan of Stoker's Dracula, that's saying something.
As I listened to the narration of this abridged audibook, I came to several conclusions. First, I was happy with the abridgment, although I occasionally found myself asking "and why did they have to go here again?" Second, it was nice to hear the Eastern European locations and names pronounced properly. That's the extent of the good things I have to say about the audiobook. It was narrated by several people, and while their voices were pleasant to listen to, I found myself having a hard time emotionally engaging in the reading. For a relatively dramatic text, their readings were rather flat.
As for the book itself, I was not all that impressed. It started rather strong, but by the end, I found myself thinking that this was the Da Vinci Code of vampire novels. Our two main protagonists spend most of the novel shuttling around Europe, traveling from location to location, always searching for a rare text or work of art that would help them locate Dracula's tomb. I do understand what they hoped to find at the tomb, but the search itself is based on several assumptions that just didn't make that much sense in the audiobook (I will recognize that the explanatory passages may have been abridged and not present in my copy). Their entire search seemed contingent on one scrap of paper--and a refusal to consider that a nearly thirty year old scribble might not have been the clue they sought.
I was incredibly frustrated with the narrative structure. Normally, I would appreciate the intertwined narratives, but I got annoyed when Paul and Helen kept having to explain their recent history to every scholar they met--while at the same time making certain that no communists overheard . . . If this were a movie, that repetition alone could be used as a drinking game. How many times must they share these dangerous facts . . . and why does everyone believe them?
Of course, it would be remiss of me to neglect a mention of the Keystone Kops, sorry, the communists. While some of them did appear dangerous, for the most part, they were ineffectual and merely irritating. Rather than add danger to the plot, the communists seemed to exist only to make travel through Eastern Europe more difficult.
Finally, I must talk about Dracula. This was the most toothless portrayal of the vampire that I have ever read. <spoiler>I was angry, really angry, when all it took was one bullet (in all probabilities, silver) to kill this ancient evil. The final confrontation is no more than three pages long. After all the build-up and mounting suspense of the novel, the confrontation failed to deliver an emotional payoff. Also, this whole mess took place because Dracula wanted a personal librarian? Lame.</spoiler>
I did think that the end of the book worked well, but it was simply too little, too late.
This book was not my cup of tea. Based on its rating and sales numbers, I know that I am one of the few to dislike it so intensely.
Thank you, Jasmine, for allowing me to borrow your copy of this book!
This is another solid entry in the Mercy Thompson series. I enjoyed the story as well as the character development. I don't want to reveal secrets and provide spoilers, so I will simply say that this book finally explores some of the mysteries of Mercy's heritage. The answers we are given here are both surprising and believable. Briggs continues to use the landscape of the Columbia Basin to enrich her story, and her deep grounding in the setting adds weight to the novel.
I would have liked to see more development for some of the new characters, and the novel does seem to resolve itself quickly. But that could be because this is a fast novel and took me roughly five hours to read.
Overall, each Mercy Thompson book reminds me why I enjoy them so much and leaves me eager to follow her further adventures.
This book was exactly what I wanted at exactly the right time. I was suffering from a migraine yesterday when I started it, and this light and fluffy concoction was enough to distract me from my pain while still being light enough not to add to my strain.
This book is entirely predictable, but that's part of the reason you'll want to turn to it. As much as we readers know how the narrative will end, it's a delight getting there. The characters are lively and often filled with joy. Love of music fills each page. Even the villainess in this book is forgivable.
I did find the historical moment of this text fascinating. It's set in that lost period after the First World War, when Austria was trying re-stabilize itself after the crushing disaster of a lost war and lost empire. Each of the characters often yearns for the past they knew and lost while at the same time looking forward to the world they are creating. They want to create a Vienna that is free from the sins of the past (read: reliance on titled nobility--this is a republic, now), but at the same time celebrate their heritage (oh, the music of this city!). My German prof used to say that it was obvious Vienna was the heart of an empire, and you can see that in this book, too.
I'll easily add this title to my list of comfort reads. If it can get me through a migraine, I know this book is a keeper.
There is no easy way to review the ninth book in a series. If you're reading this review, odds are that you fall into one of three camps. You're my friend on Goodreads, and you read all of the reviews that show up on your update screen. You've read books in the series, and you want to see how the later books compare to the first few (people in this camp may either enjoy or despise the series--they're doing the equivalent of looking into the last chapter to see if the book is worth reading). The third camp is composed of fans, and nothing I can say will stop you from reading this book. The only relevant question for the third camp is hardcover or paperback?
Last year, I was lucky enough to see Kim Harrison while she was on tour for Black Magic Sanction. At the time, she said that the Rachel Morgan books were heading toward a finale, and that she didn't envision that many more of them. Once again, I was able to see Harrison on tour. This time, she said that she sees this series ending with book 12 or 13. She knows Rachel is heading for her Happy Ever After, and once she arrives at it, the series will end. Since this is book nine, we're not that far away from the end.
As I look back on the series, I am consistently amazed by the character development. Each of the major characters--as well as a few of the minor ones--have grown and changed throughout the series, sometimes in surprising ways. Much of that growth becomes evident in this book. Rachel, Jenks, Ivy, and Trent go on a road trip to San Francisco for the Annual Witch's Convention. Rachel, as readers understood from the last book, will be speaking and trying to mitigate the damage of her past deeds. Jenks and Ivy are there for support. Trent, on the other hand, is riding with Rachel as a part of an "elf quest." His security, Quent, can't leave Cincinnati for family reasons, and the only person that Quent trusts to get Trent to the West Coast is Rachel. He's not heading for SF, but he's also not willing to tell Rachel much about his final destination. He can't hide the fact that others of his kind are out to kill him, though. Throughout their time stuck together in a small vehicle, the changing nature of their relationships becomes clear. While Trent doesn't fully fit in, he gradually becomes part of the Vampiric Charms family while on his quest.
Nothing is quite as it seems. Rachel's trip to SF will have far-reaching, messy implications for the future. Trent's quest will change everything readers know about him. And no one will walk away from these events unmarked.
As I was reading this book, I kept thinking back to a line from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock." Prufock questions if he has "the strength to force the moment to its crisis?" The characters in this series--Rachel, Ivy, Jenks, Trent, even Al & Newt--find themselves at a moment where they have to decided if they have that strength.
I could not have enjoyed this book more thoroughly. Harrison says that it's her favorite to date, and I can see why. Pale Demon is the work of one the best in urban fantasy at the top of her game. I simply cannot wait to read what happens next.
I won't go into great detail about how badly this book sucked, because if you're drawn to it, you'll probably have to find out on your own. But suck it did.
Derting's book has an interesting premise; her main character, Violet, can sense the location of murder victims. Her gift is hereditary, and she inherited it from her grandmother. Everyone in her family, and her best friend Jay, know about the gift. As a small child, she found the location of a murdered girl. For some time after the discovery, she was distraught, but once the girl was buried, she recovered.
This set the pattern for her life to this point. Violet can sense any murdered body--including those killed by animals. Once she discovers the body, she buries it, and then she finds peace. Until that time, the body radiates a sound, scent, or taste that overwhelms her other senses. Unfortunately, her family owns a cat that does kill birds, so this feeling happens often. She's managed to get by so far by having a small graveyard in the backyard.
Sounds promising, no? Trust me, the "no" is the right word.
When Violet returns to school for her junior year, she's troubled by her attraction to Jay. He's been her friend for years, but he matured greatly over the summer, and he's now the object of desire for nearly every girl in the school and apparently the tri-city area.
When she's not obsessing over Jay, Violet is disturbed by the reports of missing girls in her community, but the disappearances only become real once she finds a body.
At this point, the novel takes a nose dive.
Here, as readers, we are introduced to a random chapter from the point of view of the killer. He's hunting these girls and gets off on the chase. Oddly, he likes girls that surrender meekly; if they struggle, it ruins his mood. His sections of text are always in Italics--you know, in case we mistake his thoughts for those of Violet. We have to have that extra visual to make certain that we understand that Violet would never consider a girl her age "delectable." (I could be wrong about the word there, but it's the sort of word he would have used. I'm too lazy to flip through my nook and find a real quote.)
Personally, I hate mysteries that include chapters from the point-of-view of the killer. The viewpoint hopping disturbs me simply because I'm not a fan of splitting a book between two characters, for one reason. For another, in this book it seems like a sloppy attempt to imitate adult mysteries or television shows. In a show like Criminal Minds, it makes sense to show the killer's POV. This gives viewers a chance to compare his/her behavior with what the profilers recognize and to build suspense. However, in a novel, it doesn't work so well. In this case, the killer is used to build suspense and cause readers to constantly fear that this time he's got Violet in his sights . . . but he doesn't. The cheap trick of having Violet and the victim act alike gets old, and quickly. Even more annoying, I have to admit that I don't think this trick belongs in a YA novel. I have no problems with YA novels about murder. However, I don't think it's a good idea for a YA to be from the POV of the killer. Asking teens to read those thoughts seems inappropriate.
Add to this the fact that the novel was boringly predictable. When I realized the timing of the end of the novel, I bet my husband $5 how and when the novel would end. He didn't take the bet, which is just as well. I would have won.
I found this book to be a terrible waste of my time. I will not read the second book, and I doubt that I'll read anything else by Kimberly Derting. I understand that this is a young adult novel; I read YA novels more than almost any other genre, so I'm familiar with its tropes. Just because it's YA doesn't mean that it has to be bad, and this one is very, very bad. In fact, it sucked.
This is the first Jenna Black novel I've read. While I don't know yet if I want to try her adult books yet, I will definitely pick up a copy of the next book in the Faeriewalker series.
Dana Hathaway is fed up with her mother. They've been moving frequently throughout her childhood and teen years in order to stay off Dana's father's radar, and the moves have made life extremely unpleasant for Dana. Whenever she becomes close to someone, it's time to move again. In addition to the moves, her mother is an alcoholic, and Dana is ashamed of her. Since they move so often, Dana doesn't have a friend or support network to help her deal with the situation. When her mom drives herself to Dana's voice recital--falling down drunk--she's had enough.
Dana has always known that her father was Fae. Her mother (when sober) claimed that he was a bad, bad, man and she fled Avalon with Dana to keep them safe. When drunk, she admitted that he was a good guy but that being near him would turn Dana into a pawn in the politics of the Fae. Unable to bear her mother's drinking any longer, Dana contacts her father and arranges to run away to Avalon.
Avalon is a unique city, and one of the most interesting parts of Black's created world. Avalon is the one place that's both within the borders of Faerie and the mortal world. Both technology and magic work in Avalon. Upon her arrival there, Dana quickly becomes enmeshed in the power struggles between people and Fae that she never knew existed. She's kidnapped, and rescued by other kidnappers . . . Everyone wants her in their custody, as her very presence is enough to change the balance of power completely. As the cover copy explains, Dana is a Faeriewalker--the only living person that can cross between Faerie and the mortal realm at will. She can bring magic to the mortal realm and technology to Faerie. As one character explains, she's the equivalent of a nuclear missile.
Through all of this, one thing quickly becomes clear to Dana: she must become capable of securing her own safety. And she needs to learn who she can trust.
I read this novel in less than four hours. As soon as I picked it up, I did not want to put it down, and I'm sure that I read it again before the summer's out. Black has an excellent sense of pacing, and she constantly ratchets up the tension in the book. This book is not literature, but Black's prose is smooth and fits the narrative well. Dana doesn't always make good decisions in the course of the book, but Black does make those choices believable. The secondary characters are interesting, and while most of them want to use Dana for their own ends, their motives are often complicated.
I've been disappointed by many of the YA paranormals in recent years, and this book has many of the tropes that are so often overused (flirting with real social problems like alcohol, a willingness to discuss sex & sexuality, magic on the edges of everyday life, and the mysterious heritage of our otherwise desperate-to-be-normal heroine . . .). However, that said, Black's Avalon and Dana's character are both interesting enough to move beyond the realm of stereotype and into the realm of good storytelling.
I look forward to book two. (The Erl-King? How awesome will he be?!)
Edit: on my second read, I can say that I still really enjoy this book. This time through, I noticed just how much Dana's mother's addiction shapes Dana. Very well done.
I've had Laura Lippman in my sights ever since Ellen Emerson White spoke highly of her in an online posting. This month, BN is offering the first book in Lippman's Tess Monaghan series for 99 cents, so I thought I should give her a chance. And I'm glad that I did.
I can't say that this book excelled beyond my wildest imagination or any of that sort of hyperbole. What it does, it does well. It's the story of how Tess, underemployed and working free lance since she was laid off as a reporter, starts working as a detective. A friend asks her to investigate his fiance, and this one request has a large number of consequences for everyone involved in their lives.
What I liked most about this book was Baltimore. I haven't been to Charm City, and I'm sure Baltimore of today is different from the time when they had almost a murder-a-day. However, I do work in Detroit, and I dearly love that city. What I saw in this book was almost a love letter to Baltimore. The city, with its crime and its neighborhoods and its impossible map and local businesses, lives and breathes on the pages of Lippman's book. I don't know if the locations she writes about are real. But I can believe they are. And, when reading a book with such a power setting as Baltimore, that's all that matters.
I've had this book on my to-read shelf for a year. I bought it during the clearance sales when my bookstore was closing, and it got a bit lost in the sheer quantity of books I was buying at that time. The first time I picked it up, a few months after I bought it, I couldn't get into the story very easily.
This time, I got pulled right in.
Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the ride as much as I wished I would.
This is the story of Ayla and Malachi. Alya is half Fae, half human, and works as an Assassin for the Fae court. It's her job to go into the Darkworld and kill those that would endanger the Fae. Malachi is a Death Angel, and when he attacks Alya, he makes the mistake of touching her. Since she's part human, the touch of her skin is enough to cause him to Fall and become mortal.
Ayla, to obey her vows to the Fae court, should kill this Darkling. Malachi, out of revenge for his Fall, wants nothing more than to kill the girl. But neither one can do it--instead they find themselves drawn together by a much different emotion.
Queene of Light is the first in a trilogy, and I'm not sure that I will read the rest of them. This book was OK, but it tried to be too many things, and it wound up being unable to be any of them. It wanted to be an urban fantasy, but since humans are almost completely absent, that didn't work. It wanted to be a fantasy focusing on fairy politics, but the characters' motivations were always obvious. It wanted to be the romance of Ayla and Malachi, but neither one had enough character to truly drive a story, and their attraction to each other made very little sense.
While I would not say this was a bad book, it did fall flat for me. I might change my mind about it if I choose to read the later two books, but right now, I don't recommend this book.
I had high hopes for this book, but it unexpectedly fell flat for me. As the cover copy explains, this is the story of the five Faust children and their governess Nicola Vileroy. Each of the children has a special gift, but only three of them know why. They sold their souls to Miss Vileroy, and now she's raising them to achieve their dreams. Two of the children don't understand what's happening; they believe that all of them were adopted by Miss Vileroy as babies. Vileroy plays them against each other constantly, because so long as they fight each other, they can't bother to consider the nature of their own lives. They've just started at the Marlowe School of Manhattan, and they intend to use their gifts to rule the school. Their gifts are: <spoiler>
Victoria cheats. She can read the mind of anyone and find the answers she needs.
Christian steals. He can steal the athletic talents of anyone he touches and use it to enhance his own.
Valentin lies. He can warp and rewind time, reliving events over and over until they turn out the way he wants.
Belle also lies. She's beautiful, but her face is a mask that cannot hide the awful stench that surrounds her. Some poor souls find the stench addictive.
While I thought the book was extraordinarily well-written, I still found it hard to enjoy. The literary allusions were tasteful, and they did enhance the story. However, the book could be enjoyed even if you were completely unaware of the connections the Nayeri siblings are making.
The problem I had with this book is related to its genre; it's awfully hard to sympathize with the sort of person that willingly sells his or her soul. The Faust children are often repellent, and I had to push myself at times to keep going with the book.
I do think I'll give the next book in this series a shot, but I don't think I'll bother to reread this one.
Once again, I fall victim to my Jude Deveraux addiction. While few of Deveraux's books ever land on my favorites shelf, I always consistently return to her when I need a good read. A few of her books (Holly, Sweetbriar, and the Forever and Always trilogy, for example) fall flat for me, but I'm always willing to give her books a chance. This time, I'm glad I did. The Scent of Jasmine is a new favorite of mine.
So far, there are four books in the Edilean series, and only one has truly disappointed me--Days of Gold. The rest of the series has been fun and inventive. Deveraux's task in this series--telling the history of a town through it's romances--has given her writing a much needed boost. The unique format of the series plays to Deveraux's strengths--her ability to write in both modern and historical settings, her lighthearted humor, excellent research skills, and her ability to create a rich texture of interconnected narratives. This book tells the story of Cay and Alex in 1799 South Carolina. Alex has been convicted of murder and scheduled to hang. Cay's godfather convinces her to assist Alex in his escape from prison, but nothing goes as planned. Cay is recognized, and she and Alex are soon fugitives. Thrown together by chance, the pair bond over their flight and find themselves struggling to create a future while running from the past.
The Scent of Jasmine was just what I wanted it to be, lighthearted and sweet. I recommend it for fans of Deveraux and those seeking a simple historical romance.
Normally, I don't like the idea of making fun of religious beliefs. I'm largely an agnostic; being raised within a deeply divided family helped to push me away from any sort of faith. And, while I don't have a strong faith of my own, I learned that I really didn't like it when people criticized religion. To an outsider, any religion can appear ridiculous, and throwing potshots at other faiths does nothing to advance your own, I decided. However, there are some times when I find myself unable to avoid commenting.
Some of those entrants are probably what one might consider a collector; they'll enter any giveaway for the sheer delight of winning something free, never mind what it might be. However, some people are undoubtedly interested in the book itself. The one review on Goodreads at the time that I'm composing this blog, takes this book to task pretty seriously. Greg states that novels of this type are "the next step in the prosperity gospel continuum," and explains that
After years of giving these snake-oil con-men at least 10 percent of their earnings, over-drawing on credit cards with the hope of god ejaculating riches on you as a reward for fiscal stupidity, and being a dope that after not finding results in Joel Olsteen's first book Your Best Life Now keeps shelling out money for the follow ups (which shouldn't need to exist, how can you have a better than a best life?) and finding that their life still fucking sucks and maybe it could be because life is unfair and sucks, or because the decisions one made are shitty, or maybe it is because all the giving and praying to Dr. Dollar, or TD Jakes or Joyce Meyer or to that douche bag who looks like Tom Cruise in Magnolia, maybe I'm just not seeing results because there are demons living in my fucking house! Or even worse it was an ancestor who was a sinner and demons are still lurking around!!!!
While Greg's language is a bit much, I have to admit that I do understand his point. The prosperity gospel teaches that, so long as you believe correctly, your life will be good. This may (and they would like to imply, does) often take the shape of wealth, but it can also be peace and tranquility within the family. The prosperity gospel teachings try their best to ignore that capitalism is not a Christian philosophy. Instead, capitalism is based in the idea of profit and that some will succeed while others fail. The prosperity gospel would like to claim that those that fail--the poor, the infirm, the bankrupt--made bad moral choices and are therefore being punished. In that concept, the wealthy must then be very moral, as they have been rewarded with earthly goods.
A book like this reaches out to those that feel left out by the prosperity gospel, as Greg claims above. This sort of book is for the true believer that followed the tenants of the prosperity gospel only to see prosperity pass him or her by. These people fail to understand that capitalism must have its victims, and the morality of those victims means nothing in comparison to other factors such as their education, skill set, location, and the demand for laborers with their skills. Instead of seeing their failure as a function of capitalism and of our society, this book would have them look for demons.
The books cover copy does indicate that much of its title is a metaphor, as it explains
Purging your house involves removing spiritual, emotional, and mental hindrances from three houses: spiritual, physical, and emotional. The author teaches readers the 3-step process of removing the leprosy (laying aside the weights or sins), rebuilding a fresh foundation (replacing old thoughts with new thoughts), and restoring the house (new friends, relations, directions). Pruning your family tree involves a process called redemptive alteration, which positively impacts your future when the Word of God defeats the sin habits and overcomes the carnal nature through regeneration.
So many of the claims here are weasel words--what precisely is "redemptive alteration," for instance? Perhaps I would understand if I read the book, but with sort of cover copy, I don't intend to ever even allow it in my house. I don't like the way the author connects leprosy with "weights or sins." At the end of the cover copy, the author apparently connects the dangers that can harm families with the dangers that destroy trees. By my count, he's got three metaphors running:
The house as a person
Sins as disease
Modern life as the dangers that harm trees
Nowhere in this list does the author even attempt to explain what he means by demons or "generational depression."
I have not read this book, and I have no intention of reading it. Not only does it mix metaphors dreadfully in its cover copy, it seems to further an argument that I find repellent--the concept that morality is rewarded with a good life. As Americans, we live in a capitalist society, and capitalism does not care about your morals. In fact, if you really want to succeed as a capitalist, it would be best if you abandoned your morals straightaway. (See J.R. Ewing from the 80s nighttime soap Dallas for an illustration of this concept.)
Until we accept that religion and capitalism are not friendly concepts, books like this will attempt to cash in on the discontent of believers.
Any Man of Mine by Rachel Gibson
