Category Archives: Paranormal

Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (@Scholastic)

Posted on by

Read and reviewed as part of the Southern Book Bloggers ARC Tour

I’ll be honest. I had absolutely no idea what The Raven Boys was about when I requested to be part of the ARC tour. I just knew a bunch of other bloggers had been raving about how excited they were for it, and about what a great writer Maggie Stiefvater is, so I threw my hat in the ring. And then it arrived in the mail and it was thick, and I had just been in a mini-slump and thought “Oh no. I’ll never finish this in a week.”

And then I finished it in three days (which for some book bloggers is still slow, but with the way my life has been lately, let me assure you that three days is about as fast as it gets). If that tells you anything.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

My Thoughts

First of all, the synopsis is misleading. It implies that there is a romance in this book between Blue and Gansey, and there is not. There is a hint of romance between Blue and one of the other Raven Boys, but not Gansey. Now, I’m pretty sure that if all the foreshadowing is to be believed, the Blue-Gansey romance will come later in the series, but in this first book, there’s actually very little romance at all.

This book does really well on a few fronts. First, the story itself is really interesting. The complex relationships between the boys and Blue, the intricate supernatural element that they’re exploring, and the interwoven mysteries that play out all kept the narrative moving and my attention occupied.

I also really liked several of the characters, particularly Blue, Adam, and strangely enough, Ronan. I’m not even sure if I was supposed to like Ronan, but I did. Adam was definitely my favorite of the Raven Boys, and I thought the best developed. And Blue was feisty and quirky in a way that let me see how she would really fit in well with the odd group of friends.

Maggie Stiefvater’s prose is engaging and flows nicely. I can see why her books are so popular (and now I’m motivated to actually go read the Shiver trilogy, which has been sitting unread on my shelf for months).

One warning: This book asks some pretty big questions that are not answered in this book. One in particular that I thought for sure would be addressed before the end of the book, isn’t. It’s not a cliffhanger per se, just big questions that remain unresolved. Now I’m thinking that it will probably take the entire trilogy to get answers to some of these, but it took the entire book for me to realize the answers weren’t coming.  It didn’t really bother me, but I just want you to be aware.

I did have a few problems with the book that kept me from completely loving it. The first is the shifting POVs. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good multiple-POV book, when it’s done right. And for the most part, this book did it right, with one exception. The villain (of sorts) gets a voice, and while part of me loves the idea of a villain getting to tell his side of the story, I don’t think it worked in this book. It all comes back to my whole hangup with “is this voice necessary?” and his POV was used so infrequently, I didn’t think it was necessary. Interesting? Kinda. Necessary? Probably not. Yes, he lets us in on a few pieces of information we wouldn’t have had otherwise, but I don’t think the story would have suffered without them, or if we had learned them through another method.

Then there’s the fact that I just didn’t really feel connected to Noah or Gansey, and I’m not sure why, but this story really needed me to have a connection with both of those characters to fully succeed. This just might be a problem with my brain, because I haven’t heard of anyone else having this problem. But bottom line, I felt like I really should care about these characters, and I didn’t. Not too much. I didn’t dislike them; I was just sort of apathetic towards them.

Now, will that apathy keep me from picking up the sequel? Definitely not. As I mentioned before, I loved some of the other characters, and the story is fascinating. So while I may not have thought the book was perfect, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I will be eager to pick up the next one when it comes out to see what happens next with Blue and the Raven Boys.

Content Guide: Contains profanity and some violence

Review: Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Posted on by

Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard grabbed my attention when I first saw it. Looks pretty and Victorian and mysterious, right? But then I found out it was about zombies, and I’ll admit, I don’t read a lot of zombie books. I’m not opposed to them in theory — I like stories that incorporate magic and the supernatural and action and suspense, and zombie stories tend to have all of the above. I just often find zombie stories to lack the finesse and nuance of other paranormal creatures, and so I tend to gravitate towards fairies and vampires and demon-hunters and aliens and time-travelers.

However, something happened to make this book stand out: I saw the video of the Susan Dennard’s reaction to finally seeing her book in print, and my heart grew three sizes that day. It was just so sweet. And I thought to myself, “If the author is that cute about getting her book published, I kinda want to read it.” And then I was fortunate enough to snag an advance digital copy from the publisher, so I happily dug right in.

The Plot

Something strange and deadly is afoot in 19th century Philadelphia. 16-year-old Eleanor Fitt goes to the train station to pick up her brother, Elijah, but instead of meeting Elijah at the station, the Dead have arrived. No one knows what has caused the recent rising of the Dead from their coffins; the only thing the citizens of Philadelphia know is that the Dead are dangerous. After hiding from the Dead, Eleanor finally finds a note from her brother, saying he has been delayed — and the note has been hand-delivered by a corpse.

Avoiding the subject of the Dead, Eleanor simply tells their mother that Elijah has been delayed. Her mother then decides to change the welcome-home party she had planned into a seance to summon the spirit of Eleanor’s dead father. This wouldn’t be the first seance her mother has hosted, and they are always a farce, so Eleanor agrees to play along. However this time something goes horribly wrong — a spirit appears, and it is most certainly not Eleanor’s father.

Nervous for her brother and terrified of the malicious spirit her mother has conjured, Eleanor seeks the help of the Spirit-Hunters, a Ghostbusters-esque group that has arrived in Philadelphia to hunt down and put a stop to the necromancer that has been animating and controlling the Dead. And while the Spirit-Hunters are initially hesitant to trust Eleanor or allow her to help, they ultimately are forced to join forces as the necromancer gains power, and Eleanor may hold the key to stopping him.

My Thoughts

I want to say first off that I found this book action-packed and entertaining. I really enjoyed Eleanor, even if she did seem a tad too liberated for 1876. She was fun and feisty and tried her very best to be useful instead of just reporting on what she knew and then waiting for the Big Strong Men to save her. Yes, she probably would have been better off on several occasions if she had let other people handle certain situations, but I admired that she wanted to be helpful and contribute.

I also really enjoyed all of the Spirit-Hunters. They were an interesting and assorted group of personalities, each with their own intriguing backstory that wound up being crucial to the plot. It was nice to have such a varied group of characters in a setting as restrictive as 19th century Philadelphia.

As a bonus, none of the villains (save one) were actually all bad. Each had some redeeming qualities that allowed me to understand them, and even sympathize to a degree, even if I totally disagreed with their actions. I liked that none of the zombie shenanigans was as simple as evil for evil’s sake.

And as far as zombie shenanigans goes, there was plenty. It was exciting and fast-paced, with the requisite amount of grossness that any book dealing with zombies has. It was almost reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, in that it blended the nasty violence of zombies together with the refined etiquette and culture of earlier times.

So those were all the things I liked. Unfortunately, they were counterbalanced by a lot of things I wasn’t so fond of.

The main problem I had in this book was the predictability. By the first chapter, I had figured out the identity of the main villain, and by the fourth, I had also figured out most of the villain’s motivations. It took the entire book to confirm my suspicions, and when it finally did, there weren’t any surprises thrown into the mix. I could pretty much have stopped reading at chapter 4 and still been able to give an accurate synopsis of the entire book. And that was disappointing.

Also, in spite of the fact that I was able to figure everything out really early on, I thought that the characters in the book — especially Eleanor — made some decisions based on giant leaps of conjecture that had huge holes in their logic. Eleanor would suddenly remember something from her childhood, apply it loosely to something that happened recently, and firmly decide that not only were the events related, but that they suddenly explained  everything. The fact that she was prone to wild conjecture wasn’t the problem. The problem was that her assumptions almost always proved to be correct, whereas in real life, “logic” like hers normally proves faulty. And meanwhile, while she was Sherlock Holmes-ing her way through a convoluted backstory, she was missing tons of painfully obvious clues right in front of her face. Either the girl is remarkably perceptive and intuitive or she’s not. It seemed really odd for her to be both.

So while I enjoyed the premise of the story, the characters, and the feel of the storytelling, the execution came off a bit clunky to me. It just didn’t gel as cohesively as I wanted it to, especially since this was, underneath all the zombies and supernatural elements, a mystery. I like mysteries to be tight and smart, and this one felt weak.

I still think that fans of zombie stories, especially zombie-historical mashups, will enjoy this book. It’s fun and fast and chock-full of zombie craziness. It just fell flat as the intelligent mystery I wanted it to be.

Content Guide: Contains oodles of zombie violence and some profanity

Guest Post: Kfir Luzzatto: What Inspired You To Write “The Evelyn Project?” (@KfirLuzzatto)

Posted on by

Today I have a guest post from author Kfir Luzzatto, author of the new paranormal thriller The Evelyn Project. I was approached by Kfir’s publicist asking if I’d like to partake in the blog tour by posting a guest post on why he decided to write The Evelyn Project. While I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, so I can’t give my opinion on the book one way or the other, I always think it’s interesting what inspires authors to write.

So below is the post from Kfir, along with information on The Evelyn Project. I hope you enjoy it!

Guest Post:

“I am always taken by surprise when a story line somehow finds its way into my consciousness and, once settled there, demands to be written. Then I’m stuck with it, whether I like it or not. And, unfortunately, those story ideas don’t come equipped with a well thought-out plot; instead, you get this rather fuzzy but nagging image that won’t go away until the story is fully developed. This is what happened to me with The Evelyn Project.

Photo provided courtesy of
Kfir Luzzatto

Evelyn (or, rather Evelina, as she was named in my native Italy) was my great aunt. She died of tuberculosis in 1894. She was only 26 years old. My great-grandfather was an influential politician who left no stone unturned to try to save his daughter and got her the best medical care that was available at the turn-of-the-century, among which praying was probably the most effective measure.

Evelyn’s studio portrait, which I used in the book cover, hangs on the wall beside my writing desk. My second daughter, Lilach, is her living image and her 26th birthday is approaching fast. That might have been a catalyst for me to write the book, although the sad story of Evelyn’s death was always a part of my family’s ethos; I must’ve sucked it in with my milk because I can’t remember the first time her name was mentioned. When my parents died I was left with the responsibility to make sure that my family history would not be forgotten. That entailed a lot of reading in books, documents and letters, which brought Evelyn’s figure increasingly to life for me. I learned of her warm relation with her father through letters she had written to him, and I discovered more than I already knew about my great-grandfather’s devotion to her.

Throughout my reading and learning one persistent thought kept popping up in my head: today her death would have been an unnecessary tragedy; with readily-available antibiotics an otherwise healthy young woman would not have succumbed to her illness. So what if it was possible to go back in time and save her using medical technology commonly available today? It is probable that saving Evelyn’s life would not have changed the course of history (contrary to what many science fiction books would predict), but even if it did, preventing her father’s private hell would have been well worth the price.

Having got emotionally involved in her story I realized that I had to do more than just sit there and shake my head in sorrow. I couldn’t just let Evelyn fade away in those yellowing papers. I had to do right by her (whatever that meant). My investigation of Evelyn’s misfortune allowed me to put myself in my great-grandfather’s shoes, to feel the emotions that he must have felt (he was approximately my age when Evelyn died) and to test the length to which a father would go in an attempt, no matter how futile, to save his child.

Overall, writing this book turned out to be an exceptionally emotional journey for me. Sometimes I felt ashamed that I was enjoying writing it. Instead of dishing out a uniformly gloomy piece I was writing a fast-paced thriller that, beside the suspense, also has its hilarious moments.

This is not the first time that inspiration has come to me like an assignment from above without any real control from my side. I have learned not to fight the impulse and, instead, to embrace it and to allow myself to be taken on an emotional roller coaster ride without a clear vision of where the journey is likely to end.

I don’t believe in stereotyping ghosts, so I won’t say that I recognize Evelyn’s hand or my great-grandfather’s stick behind my urge to write the story. It is true, however, that now I feel much closer to them than I did before; they have assumed characters and a presence so real that at times it feels as if we had actually met. I often wondered whether they would have grudged me the use I made of their characters in a commercial book, but something tells me that if they can see us they understand that this is my way to give Evelyn some of the life she has been denied, even if only on paper.

But this is not only about Evelyn. My great-grandfather was no less of a victim to her disease than she was. The Evelyn Project is my tribute to them both.”

Author:   Kfir Luzzatto

Book:  “The Evelyn Project”

Tour Dates:  July 2nd thru August 31st

Summary of Book:

Evelyn’s father did everything in his power to save his dying daughter, black magic included. But when a century later his plea for help gets into the wrong hands, all hell breaks loose.

Caught in the slippery battlefield between the Vatican and a cult that wants to change the past, a young Italian professor and a beautiful French actress are too busy running away from murder and conspiracy to let physical attraction develop into love.

And it further complicates things when Her Majesty’s Secret Service decides to take an interest in what everyone else is doing to pull some strings of its own.

Love that lasts through the veils of time, a mystery, and a race to end a conspiracy, “The Evelyn Project” is a story that will stir both your heart and your intellect.

Author’s Bio: Kfir Luzzatto was born and raised in Italy, and moved to Israel as a teenager. He acquired the love for the English language from his father, a former U.S. soldier, a voracious reader and a prolific writer. Kfir has a PhD in chemical engineering and works as a patent attorney.

He lives in Omer, Israel, with his full-time partner, Esther, their four children, Michal, Lilach, Tamar and Yonatan, and the dog Elvis. He has won numerous awards for his writing.

Contact him:

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Review: Clarity by Kim Harrington (@Scholastic)

Posted on by

Received from Scholastic for review purposes.

I’ve had Clarity by Kim Harrington sitting on my shelf for a few months now. Scholastic was awesome and sent it to me, along with its sequel, Perception, very shortly after I started blogging. While I was intrigued by the summary and the covers are gorgeous*, I hadn’t gotten around to reading them yet. I like mysteries, but I need to be in the right mindset. However, I finally got “there” recently, and read them both back-to-back.

It was a lot of fun.

The Plot

Clarity “Clare” Fern has always been different. She is a psychic, and through touch, she can sometimes pick up on memories associated with objects. Her gift wasn’t a big shock – her mother is a telepath (can read people’s thoughts), and her brother Periwinkle, “Perry”, is a medium (can speak to  the dead). Their supernatural gifts are just something inherited through their genes, and they use them to make a living in the family business: doing “readings” in the tourist town of Eastport, Massachusetts.

Clare has always been a bit of an outcast because of her gift, but one day she gets thrust into the spotlight when a teenage tourist is killed, and the police reluctantly enlist her help to solve the crime. Now Clare finds herself at the center of a mysterious and dangerous web of secrets, while forced to work alongside her ex-boyfriend, Justin, and Gabriel, the skeptical son of the new town detective.

My Thoughts

Clarity was kind of like Veronica Mars, if Veronica was raised by her mom instead of her dad, wasn’t actually a trained detective, and was psychic. Which kind of sounds not at all like Veronica Mars, but just bear with me here. They’re both social outcasts, sassy and sarcastic, and solve crimes by tying lots of seemingly insignificant details together (although Veronica uses her razor-sharp intelligence to do this, while Clare mostly uses her psychic powers). And although both have significant trouble fitting in at school, they seem to have absolutely no problems getting all the town’s most eligible bachelors to go gaga over them.

So that said, this book appealed to the part of me that loves (loves) Veronica Mars. I enjoy reading about a sassy teen girl solving crimes, and I even enjoy the far-fetched lovey-dovey angst (normally I am heavily anti-love-triangle, but I felt like it worked in this book, even though I still fail to see how the town outcast gets all the most desirable boys in town swooning over her).

I liked how the mystery was presented. Clues were dropped throughout the narrative, making it possible (but difficult) for me to guess who the killer was, and what their motives were. I had it narrowed down to a couple options by the time the book hit its culmination, and while I can smugly say “I was right,” I was also wrong. And I definitely changed my mind a few times throughout the course of the story. I felt like the story had great pacing and the momentum built nicely all the way through to the climax. And while the ending was certainly open to sequels, it was satisfying.

The characters were enjoyable, and I liked how most of them actually served a purpose. There were very few filler characters, which means if someone was mentioned, it was relevant (at least in a minor way). I really enjoyed Clare’s brother Perry, as well as her mom, even though both characters had major flaws. And although there was a love triangle, it wasn’t terrible, and you could actually see why she would be conflicted over these two guys (as opposed to many books where one choice is obviously wrong).

There were parts of the plot that were far-fetched. For some reason, although Clare can’t seem to make friends to save her life because of her psychic ability, her brother (the medium) is described as being popular. There were times when the police allowed her and her family to do things and go places that I don’t think would ever be allowed by the real police. And as far as I know, “son of a detective” isn’t actually anything, and would not entitle Gabriel to any rights or privileges whatsoever in real life; but in the book, he seems to have been practically deputized. So if it’s going to bother you that stuff happens in this book that would not happen in real life (supernatural abilities aside), then you may want to skip this one. A healthy suspension of disbelief is necessary.

However, as far as I’m concerned, Clarity was a fun, exciting, entertaining read that kept me guessing until the end and left me satisfied once it was over. And that’s really all I wanted, so I was happy.

Content guide: Contains violence, some talk of sex, and occasional profanity

*Disclaimer: The original cover art for Clarity, which is what I have, is actually this. But I’ve shown the updated cover on this post, because it matches the sequel cover art, and because I think it matches the story better.

Feature & Follow Giveaway Hop!

Posted on by

Giveaway Hop

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

This week is a little different than usual, because this is the 100th week of Feature & Follow! Huzzah! So to celebrate, the rules have been changed up a bit. First, all the participants will be doing our own features, picking a blog that we want to highlight.

I’m featuring Sarah at Breaking the Binding, because she is awesome and we’re pretty sure we would be best friends if we ever actually met.

Sarah is new to the Feature & Follow, so she wasn’t entirely sure what she was getting into when she agreed to be featured. I decided to ask her the typical F&F questions, so that you can all get to know her a bit!

1. When did you start blogging?

I started blogging in late 2010 (but I think I lost the posts prior to starting my WordPress blog in January 2011). I was finishing up my Children’s and Young Adult lit class for my Masters degree and I had been driving my boyfriend and roommates crazy rambling on about all of the books I was reading. So, after a while of rambling to my boyfriends rather deaf ears, I decided to start a blog as a way to share my thoughts with people who may actually care! I think that boyfriend was rather relieved, as he was not a fan of fiction and didn’t really care to listen to me go on and on about the characters and the authors I adored.

2. What is your favorite part of book blogging?

My favorite part is simply sharing my thoughts, reactions, and emotions from the books that I read. I mean, it’s so incredible to know that there are people out there who are interested to know why I think Neville Longbottom is the true hero of Harry Potter or why I’m confused by all of the Instalove in YA. Even more so to know that have their own opinions to share on the same topic and it starts a discussion or debate! It’s also so great to know I’m not the only adult who gets lost in a YA novel and wants to gush about how fantastic the characters are.

3. What is your favorite book(s)?

Oh there are so many that it’s so hard to choose! So here are the top few that come to mind when I think of children’s or YA books. The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley has long been one of my favorite fantasy novels, I’ve read it so many times that I’ve lost count. The Harry Potter series is definitely up there as well and I’ve long been a fan of the Little House on the Prairie series. If there’s on book that defines my childhood that’s it.

4. What has been the best thing that has happened to you because of book blogging?

Honestly, I think the best thing has come from Armchair BEA! For the first year and a half of my blogging life I’ve been kinda hovering on the fringes and haven’t really gotten too involved. But participating in this event this really pushed me to meet more bloggers and become more active with commenting on the blogs that I do read regularly. Hopefully these connections will continue on beyond this week and ‘ll have made some new blogging buddies to keep in touch with!

So everyone wave hi to Sarah! Be sure to go check out her blog and let her know you’re following.

And last but not least, what’s a birthday without presents?

So this week is a giveaway hop! All of the feature host blogs will also be hosting giveaways. And mine is two SIGNED bookmarks from Amy Plum, author of Die For Me and Until I Die. One winner will win BOTH bookmarks, which will come in handy if you find yourself reading more than one book at once, like I always end up doing.

Just fill out the Rafflecopter below! Since this is the Feature & Follow, you will be required to follow my blog and Breaking the Binding to enter this giveaway.

Both bookmarks are signed, although for some reason I only flipped one over to show you. I’m a bit of a flake.

Giveaway will run through June 13. U.S. only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway