Category Archives: Review

Review: The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson (@raecarson @harperteen)

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[WARNING: Spoilers for The Girl of Fire and Thorns ahead]

I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC for The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson shortly after finishing The Girl of Fire and Thorns. And while I really liked Girl of Fire and Thorns, I didn’t LOVE it. It wasn’t one of my favorite books ever. It was simply “really good.”

However after reading Crown of Embers, I would now recommend Girl of Fire and Thorns JUST so that you could read its sequel. Even if Girl of Fire and Thorns wasn’t good. Because Crown of Embers is THAT good.

The Plot

Crown of Embers picks up shortly after the conclusion of Girl of Fire and Thorns. After months of leading a desert resistance,  and after defeating the overwhelming army that threatened to destroy her husband’s kingdom, Godstone-bearer Elisa now finds herself a widowed queen, in charge of a nation still threatened by dark and mysterious forces.

As Elisa tries to determine how to govern her kingdom and keep her people safe, she finds there’s few she can trust: only her personal maids, Ximena and Mara, and her personal guard, Lord Hector, seem to be fully on her side.

Elisa’s advisers believe that she should form a strategic alliance with one of the northern nobility through marriage, a possibility that Elisa reluctantly agrees to consider. But as she entertains various suitors, she must also worry about several recent attempts on her life. And through it all, the Godstone that she bears still gives her the feeling that she has not yet fulfilled her act of service.

My Thoughts

Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. The reason I didn’t like Girl of Fire and Thorns as much as I wanted to was because Lord Hector quickly became my favorite character, and then he was absent for most of the book. It’s hard to LOVE a book when your favorite character isn’t there for most of it.

However, in Crown of Embers, Hector is front and center from beginning to end, and he doesn’t disappoint. He’s now sitting comfortably near the top of my mental list of favorite male book characters, and I don’t see him getting displaced any time soon. He’s everything I love in a male fantasy character — noble, brave, honorable, kind. If Rae Carson ever decides to give Hector his own spin-off series, I wouldn’t argue with that.

But never fear, Hector is certainly not the only thing that Crown of Embers has going for it. I thought the plot for this book was a lot tighter and more cohesive than Girl of Fire and Thorns. It’s not that the first book didn’t make sense — it did — it’s that this one just seemed to flow more naturally, and the details threaded together more easily in my brain.

I was still left with a few questions at the end, but nothing huge. More along the lines of, “Why didn’t it ever occur to this character to do that?” And the answer may simply be that sometimes ideas don’t occur to people, even if they should be obvious. There were no questions that hurt the plot or the believability of the story.

The religious aspect that was so dominant in Girl of Fire and Thorns is still present, but not quite as front-and-center this time. There’s still talk of religious texts and doctrine, but it’s not as prevalent. I thought that in this book, Elisa seemed to mature in her faith and find a better balance between her duties as queen and her religion. She wasn’t as hesitant, although she was still questioning. I liked the growth of her character, and thought the tone of the book really reflected how she had changed.

As far as flaws with the book, there’s a very large trial that the characters go through, with very little payoff. I think it worked for the story and for Elisa’s character, but sometimes it’s disappointing in books when there’s a ton of buildup and then not a lot happens.

Also, the ending made me want to punch someone, just a little bit. It manages to have some good resolution, while still ending on a huge cliffhanger. It’s weird to simultaneously feel so satisfied and so unsatisfied. So be warned, people. When the ending comes, you may want to have a pillow or a stress ball handy. Just sayin’.

Overall, I loved this book. The pacing was excellent, the characters were amazingly well-developed, and the world building was, again, exquisite. If you’re looking for a YA fantasy series that you can really sink your teeth into, I can’t recommend this series highly enough.

Content Guide: Contains violence, sexual situations

Blog Tour: The Dark Unwinding – Interview with author Sharon Cameron (@CameronSharonE @Scholastic)

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I’m excited to be participating in the blog tour, hosted by The Book Vortex, to help launch debut author Sharon Cameron’s new book, The Dark Unwinding! Sharon is a lovely person who I had the pleasure to meet earlier this week at her launch party. Sadly, she was the only person I “knew” at the party, and she was — understandably — completely swamped with adoring fans, so I wound up wallflowering it up in the YA section most of the evening. (Fortunately, I spotted Kat Zhang — who I hadn’t met before, but who is also a lovely person — doing pretty much the same thing, so we wallflowered together.)

But in my few precious moments with Sharon, she ingratiated herself to me permanently by being the only other person I have ever met (who is not related to me) to have seen and loved the movie Raising Arizona. We are now BFFs.

So today, I am excited to bring you an interview with Sharon! I kind of got carried away with my questions and sent her quadruple the amount I was supposed to. Oops. But she was, again, awesome and picked her favorites to answer. I think her answers are pretty spiffy, myself.

Oh, and at the end, there’s a chance to win pretty and shiny swag!

1) How long did it take to write The Dark Unwinding?

From first word to sale to final copy edits, almost three years. To get my first completed
draft, about thirteen months.

2) Is The Dark Unwinding the first novel you’ve written? And if not, what was the first
one about?

Oh, my beloved first novel! It’s about a young man’s sacrifice and impossible choice
when his adopted Scottish clan commits treason against the King of England in 1745. I
hope to shake the dust off it someday!

3) Avoiding spoilers (so you can be really vague if you need to be), what is your
favorite scene in The Dark Unwinding?

I have such a soft spot for the scene where Katharine spends the afternoon sliding down
the hill. It’s a glimpse at everything she would want from her life, and yet believes she
will never have. It was also one of the most difficult scenes to write, probably because I
loved it so much!

4) What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

This came from my agent, Kelly Sonnack, at Andrea Brown Literary. She told me that
whenever she suggested a change in my manuscript, that instead of thinking about the
exact change she suggested, I should focus on why she felt there needed to be a change
in the first place. By focusing on “what” was making a reader feel a certain way, rather
than “how” I was being asked to revise, I think I’ve been able to get to the heart of
the problem during the revision process, rather than focusing on specific changes that
weren’t resonating with me. It made me much more perceptive as a writer.

5) What’s next for you as an author?

The Dark Unwinding the sequel! Look for more info coming soon!

6) Top 5 favorite villains (movies, TV or books – anything goes)

Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes (especially in the new BBC Sherlock television series, SO
awesome!)
Gollum in Lord of the Rings (poor Gollum!)
The Winter in The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Snape in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier

7) Top 5 favorite heroes (same as above)

Sam in Lord of the Rings and Eowyn in Lord of the Rings (I can’t possibly choose
between them)
Eugenides in The Queen of Atollia and The King of Atollia (Sigh!)
Jane in Jane Eyre
Snape in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The Luggage in The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

8) Best book you’ve read in the past 12 months.

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

9) Most recent movie, TV show or book that made you cry.

Oh, gee. The unfortunate truth is, they all do. Happy or sad. It’s humiliating, really.

THCW: I pressed her on Twitter for a REAL answer to this one, and turns out it was a Publix commercial. I feel ya, Sharon. Those things are brutal. Seriously.

10) Reality show you’d have the best chance of winning.

The Amazing Race. I am positive I would rock that and win a million bucks.

11) Ideal vacation spot.

The West Highlands of Scotland. THE most beautiful place on the planet and where I feel
incredibly at home.

Thanks so much for joining me on my blog today, Sharon! I’m so happy I could be part of your tour, and I wish you and The Dark Unwinding oodles of success!

More about Sharon:

Sharon Cameron was awarded the 2009 Sue Alexander Most Promising New Work Award by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for her debut novel, The Dark Unwinding. When not writing Sharon can be found thumbing dusty tomes, shooting her longbow, or indulging in her lifelong search for secret passages.

More about The Dark Unwinding:

The Dark Unwinding begins when seventeen year old Katharine Tulman is sent to her uncle’s remote and bizarre estate to have him committed to an asylum. But instead of a lunatic, she finds a child-like, genius inventor with his own set of rules, employing a village of nine hundred people rescued from the workhouses of London. Katharine is torn between protecting her own inheritance and preserving her uncle’s peculiar world that she has come to care for deeply, a choice made even more complicated by a gray-eyed apprentice, and the strange visions and nightmares that have her secretly fearing for her own sanity.

Find Sharon on the Interwebs:

Her website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Visit the other stops on the Blog Tour!

Buy The Dark Unwinding (releasing September 1)

Amazon               Barns & Noble              The Book Depository

And now for some fun swag! Sharon is going to send 10 lucky winners a beautiful ribbon bookmark, perfectly tailored to match your copy of The Dark Unwinding. There’s a key at one end and a metal disk with the title and gears at the other, tied with either a satin or organdy ribbon in light blue (to match the cover model’s dress, of course).

I used my copy of the book to model the bookmark for you. But don’t get excited. It’s my book. You can get your own.

The ribbon is light blue. I swear.

It fits the book perfectly! You know you want one.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore (@harperteen)

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Received an advance digital review copy from Edelweiss

The Rise of Nine is Book #3 in Pittacus Lore’s Lorien Legacies series (the first two are I am Number Four and The Power of Six), about teenage aliens with superpowers destined to save the world. If you have read my blog for more than about five minutes, you know that this concept holds massive appeal for me. Teen aliens with superpowers are awesome (as an aside, if you agree with that statement and haven’t watched Roswell yet, you need to get on that, stat). And while I think the Lorien Legacies are kind of cheesily written and won’t be touted as Great Literature anytime soon (or ever), they’re still a high-energy series of books that completely succeed in keeping me thoroughly entertained. And honestly, in a series about teen aliens with superpowers that’s ghostwritten by an alien, I’m pretty sure entertainment is the sole purpose.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

Until the day I met John Smith, Number Four, I’d been on the run alone, hiding and fighting to stay alive.

Together, we are much more powerful. But it could only last so long before we had to separate to find the others. . . .

I went to Spain to find Seven, and I found even more, including a tenth member of the Garde who escaped from Lorien alive. Ella is younger than the rest of us, but just as brave. Now we’re looking for the others–including John.

But so are they.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They caught me in New York–but I escaped.
I am Number Six.
They want to finish what they started.
But they’ll have to fight us first.

My Thoughts

Although the synopsis is written from the POV of Number Six, The Rise of Nine actually shifts between three POVs: John Smith (Number Four), Number Six, and Marina (Number Seven). I’m wondering if this is going to become a thing with this series. Book #1 had one POV, Book #2 had two, and now Book #3 has three. But because all of the POVs are written in the first-person and the voices really aren’t that different, it can start to get confusing. I kind of hope Book #4 reins it in and doesn’t add yet another POV to the mix.

Speaking of which, I totally thought this was a trilogy until I realized I was at the last chapter and there was no way things were going to resolve by the end of the book. Which is mostly fine, but there’s a couple plot points I can’t believe are still dangling, including the whereabouts of my favorite character. In case anyone wonders, apparently there are going to be six books. Which you probably already knew, but I didn’t.

But anyway, moving away from that, let’s talk about the book. So as I said, there are three POVs. And I’m not entirely sure they were necessary. Marina and Number Six’s voices were kind of interchangeable, until they get split up and you can tell who’s speaking based on the setting. However, that’s a pretty late-stage development, and I don’t think we needed to stick with Marina through it. Probably just John and Six’s voices would have sufficed and been less confusing. It wasn’t really a bad thing, just sometimes hard to figure out who was talking. I had to back up a page on several occasions to double-check the narrator.

As for the plot, it had all the crazy action I’ve come to expect from this series. I loved the addition of Number Nine and Number Eight to the mix. They provided some fun new powers and personalities, and I got excited every time another member of the Garde joined the group. We didn’t really learn much more about Lorien’s history in this book, which was kind of sad (I love learning about Lorien), but the increased action made up for it for the most part. I am a sucker for awesome new superpowers and gadgets and giant explosions, and there are plenty of all of the above. The best thing about this series is the action, and this book really played to its strengths.

Getting to the writing, even on the sliding scale that I use to judge writing (I’m not going to hold an action book about teen aliens to the same standard as high fantasy), I had one major gripe about the writing. Actually, it’s not major. In the grand scheme of things, it’s minor. But it irked the heck out of me. And that is the phrase “with my telekinesis”  and all its variations.

“I used my telekinesis to push the plane”

“I’m able to deflect [the sticks] with my telekinesis”

“I use my telekinesis to pull on the tail of one of the helicopters”

And about a thousand other mentions of the Garde using their telekinesis to move, lift, throw, tear, float, and otherwise manipulate their surroundings.

I have absolutely no problem with the fact that all of the members of the Garde have telekinetic powers and that they use them all the time. I would too, if I had telekinesis. But since this is a thing that all of them can do, and they all use it like another extension of their body, constantly reminding us that they’re doing it with their telekinesis is redundant. If you’re ripping a helicopter from the sky, and I know you have telekinesis, I’m pretty sure you’re not doing it with your nose. It’s like saying “I kicked the ball with my foot” or “I picked up the book with my hand.” You don’t need to tell us what part of your body you used to do something. It’s assumed. Stop telling me that you are doing things in the only practical way you could do them.

Okay. Rant about telekinesis over.

Aside from that, the writing flows well, the pacing is good, and the action scenes (which are a good chunk of the book) were exciting. I enjoy this series with the same part of my brain that enjoys Michael Bay movies (admit it. Transformers was super fun). I still don’t really understand the title (we found out in Power of Six that there are actually ten Garde members, three of which died at the beginning of I am Number Four, and we met Number Nine at the end of the last book and he doesn’t do much “rising” in this one. It’s a mystery), but I don’t care too much. This isn’t a big “thinking” series. It’s about superpowers and explosions and adrenaline, and I highly enjoy it.

Content guide: Contains violence and profanity

Feature & Follow (August 24) – Worst Cover on a Great Book

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Welcome to the Feature & Follow Hop, hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read!

If you’re here for the first time, I’d love if you could follow via email, RSS, LinkyFollowers or Networked Blogs. Just let me know your follow method of choice in the comments, and I’ll be happy to return the favor.

And if you’re not new, welcome back! Repeat visitors are better than a Snuggie on a cold night. (Come on. You know Snuggies are awesome.)

This week’s question:

Q: Worst cover? What is the worst cover of a book that you’ve read and loved?

Oh good, this one’s easy. I really, really loved this book. I hate the cover. So much that I will never buy a physical copy of this book, even though I am all about physical copies, because I don’t want it on my shelves. Digital only for me.

1. I understand that the tear of blood is actually very  relevant to the plot, but ewwwww.

2. WHY IS SHE WHITE? NO. Unacceptable. (If you haven’t read it, the main character is Asian.)

(Seriously though, it’s an awesome book).

 

Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry (@KatieMcGarry @HarlequinTeen)

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Received an advance digital copy from the publisher via NetGalley

If I’m not careful, I’m going to have to admit I like reading Contemporaries. Which just seems weird. I mean, I’m a fantasy/sci-fi gal. I like when things blow up and shoot lasers and travel through time and battle monsters. What is up with me liking books lately that are all about relatively normal high school students? I’m having a bookish identity crisis, people.

But with Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry, I found yet another well-written and riveting contemporary that I simply could not put down. Really. I tried.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

“No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with “freaky” scars on her arms. Even Echo can’t remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo’s world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.

Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she’ll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.”

My Thoughts

Okay, the synopsis sounds hokey. Maybe you don’t think so, but I do. Bad boy reaches out to the popular girl so that she can learn to love again? Um, no. Truth be told, I’m not exactly sure why I requested this book, because I think the synopsis sounds hokey. But I’m glad I overcame that (for whatever reason), because it is not hokey.

From the first page, a counseling session between Echo, her father and stepmother, and her therapist, Mrs. Collins (who I LOVE, by the way), I was completely engrossed in this story. Echo is a complex and well-developed character, and we find out right from the beginning that she suffers from traumatic memory loss, that she deals with tremendous grief over the death of her brother, that she has all sorts of authority issues and trust issues, and that she’s smart. And unlike a lot of books that claim the main character is smart but the character never actually talks or thinks or acts like a smart person, Echo actually thinks intelligently. She’s logical. She’s quick. She’s witty. She made me like her, despite her myriad of issues and struggles.

Then you meet Noah, another case of Mrs. Collins. Noah has been in the foster system ever since his parents died in a fire after his freshman year of high school. Since then, he’s been labeled a “bad influence” and cut off from his young brothers. And while Noah is also a smart cookie, he reacts understandably — he decides to become the bad influence everyone thinks him to be, without really thinking through the consequences. As a reader, I could see that he wasn’t really doing himself any favors there, but Katie McGarry does a fantastic job getting inside Noah’s head so you can really understand how he became the way he is.

Partially through the interference of Mrs. Collins, Echo and Noah wind up thrown together, and although they aren’t each others’ biggest fans at first, they slowly grow to see all that they have in common, and ultimately get together (which I don’t consider a spoiler, since it’s on the cover).

However, unlike many other contemporary teen romances, the romance in Pushing the Limits is not the central focus of the book (Echo and Noah actually get together around the 50% point). Although my emotions were pulled every which way by the romance, the main focus is trying to get Echo and Noah to both cope with the trauma in their lives and move past it. Echo needs to remember what happened on that night two years ago when her mother senselessly attacked her. Noah has to come to terms with how he fits into the lives of his brothers, who he is only allowed to see rarely, and how to determine what is best for them. Both stories tackle difficult subject matter admirably (Noah’s scenes with his brothers made me cry on more than one occasion), and both resolved in a satisfying and realistic manner.

There’s a lot of secondary characters in the book, and while none are developed as thoroughly as Echo and Noah, they all had their own voices and personalities, and I loved reading about how the different relationships worked. My favorites were Noah’s foster brother Isaiah, and the aforementioned Mrs. Collins, who Katie McGarry somehow made me love even while viewing her through the eyes of Echo and Noah, neither of whom really liked her.

The narrative uses the alternating POVs of both Echo and Noah, and each had their own distinct voice. They thought completely differently, and even if their names were never mentioned in the narrative, I would have been able to follow who was speaking when. I thought it was a great use of dual POV, and I was fully invested in both characters.

There were times when some of the dialogue felt a bit forced, or some of the descriptions were a bit unrealistic. For example, according to Noah, Echo smells like hot cinnamon rolls all the time, and tastes like warm sugar. I get that maybe she’s really into the “Warm Vanilla Sugar” scent at Bath & Body Works (because seriously, it smells so good), but unless she’s constantly licking frosting (which she isn’t), I’m not sure how that scent is translating to taste for him.

And then there was Noah constantly referring to Echo as “my siren.” I get that he thought she was irresistible, but I kind of doubt a tattooed, stoner “bad boy” would actually think the words “my siren” every time he sees this girl. They’re minor things, but they took me out of the story just a tad.

That aside, I still really enjoyed this book. I didn’t intend to devour it the way I did, but I couldn’t stop reading. I only got 4 hours of sleep the night I finished it because my bedtime came and went and I couldn’t put the book down. If you’re a fan of contemporary romances that tackle some serious issues, I highly recommend Pushing the Limits.

Content guide: Contains profanity, mentions of child abuse, drug and alcohol use by minors, sexual situations