Review: Switched by Amanda Hocking December 30, 2016

Although I’ve read far better books than Amanda Hocking’s Switched I choose to do a review on it because it’s a supernatural book without vampires! This series is about Trolls or the Trylle. Another interesting element to this book is that there are changelings. Children switched at birth.

Wendy Everly’s Mother tried to kill her on her 6th birthday calling her a monster. Wendy lives with her aunt Maggie and brother Matt. Matt acts a bit creepy towards her, very overprotective almost to the point of abuse but I think this may be a plot line later in the book.

Wendy has never fit in until a mysterious good looking boy (aren’t they all?) Finn treats her poorly and then wins her over. Finn tells her that she is a Troll and that she is also a changeling, they switched her at birth. She runs off with Finn when she is attacked by the Vittra

It is a very short book (less than 200 pages) so I do not want to go into the plot in too much detail. There are some new supernatural elements that make the story interesting. Wendy is an average protagonist  but I really hate how she think she’s in love and acts really irrational.

There is  a lot of teenage angst but I find this book is refreshing from the other YA supernatural books. There’s also more depth to this book than initially thought, there a lot of abuse at play, emotional and physical and I am hoping that this gets played out later in the plot. In the version of the book I read, there was a short story called “The Vittra Attacks” and it’s about the Vittra’s point of view, in the story it indicates that the Vittra Queen is in an abusive relationship.  For  those who enjoy psychoanalysis, this book will be very interesting to read. This would be a perfect beach read.

3/5

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Am I Sick of Series? November 20, 2016

I am having a problem lately. I read the first book of a series and I LOVE it. When I finally get my hands on the much anticipated second book, I lose interest. I can’t get into it.

Is it just me?

• The 2nd books that I did not enjoy:
  A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2)
• A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2)
• Glass Sword (Red Queen #2) – DNF

I would be interested in knowing your thoughts.

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Review: The Beautiful Pretender By Melanie Dickerson July 9, 2016

I received a free copy of this book in exchange to for an honest review.

The Beautiful Pretender by Melanie Dickerson is a medieval fairy tale with  Christian undertones. What I liked about this book is that Christianity is embedded throughout the book so it is not out of nowhere the characters become Christians.

Avelina is the lady servant to Lady Dorothea of Plimmwald. At the beginning of the book, Lady Dorothea is running away because she is with child with one of her  father’s knights. Avelina did not notify Dorothea’s father, the Earl of Plimmwald so when they receive an invitation to the Margrave of Thornbeck Reinhart’s bride selection process the Earl has no choice but to send Avelina in his daughter’s place. All Avelina has to do is pretend to be Lady Dorothea and to strength their relationship so that Plimmwald would have an ally in case they’re attacked by the Duke Geitbart who believes that Plimmwald is rightfully his. Despite the danger, Avelina had to choice but to go to protect everyone in Plimmwald, including her family. If she succeeds, she will receive a dowry so she can marry and small provisions monthly for her family.

Avelina is sent to Thornbeck castle with another servant, Irma who has to pretend to be Avelina’s maidservant. When Avelina arrives to Thornbeck, she finds out that Duke Geitbart’s daughter, Fronicka is one of the noble ladies in the bride selection process. The margrave is very handsome although he is crippled due to an accident. Despite Avelina doing her best to not stand out, she starts to fall in love with the margrave and attracts his attention. She does her best to divert the attention to her friend, Lady Magdalen but the margrave is still enthralled with her and Avelina is afraid that he will find out she is only a lowly servant. As Avelina attracts more attention from the margrave, Fronicka notices and tries her best to sabotage Avelina.To make matters worse Irma becomes very resentful of Avelina and constantly reminds Avelina of her true place.

I really enjoyed this book. Although Avelina needed to be saved quite a bit, she was clever and never sat idle while the people she loved were in trouble. I thought that the margrave being crippled was a nice change from the standard “handsome and dashing” prince in most fairy tales.  Avelina was also a good example of a good Christian UNTIL she accused guards of doing something to her which I felt to be really out of place and frankly, ruined my enjoyment of the book. I would recommend this book to more mature Christian preteens or teens. I think some of the issues such as premarital sex and antisemitism may be too intense for some younger Christian readers.

Overall, it was a great fairy tale and I did enjoy reading it. I would have given it a higher rating but due to Avelina’s accusations I am giving this a

3.5/5

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Review: DarkFever by Karen Marie Moning March 5, 2016

This recommendation for DarkFever was given to me by my fellow blogger, Cari at Cozy Bear Book Review when she commented on my blog post about Series Vs. Standalone Books. We both tend to gravitate towards series. I was very excited to read this book.

The Prologue caught my attention right away, “…any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book.” The Prologue provided the reader with the background info of the current situation with the fae. I quickly forgot about the Prologue at the first chapter because you’re introduced to a very different version of the protagonist, MacKayla Lane from a year ago.

I really enjoyed how Moning set the scene of the story, MacKayla  was a simple girl from Georgia with no real ambition. Her sister, Alina Lane was more ambitious she she was currently in Ireland completing her studies. In the first scene, MacKayla was lounging in the pool at home. MacKayla drops her cellphone in the pool and so she has been using the land line. When a call comes she expects its her parents who were away on vacation, instead she finds out that her sister has been murdered. After a brief grieving period she decides to go to Ireland to find out what happened to her sister.When McKayla finally replaces her phone, she founds she found some very eerie and cryptic messages from her sister before she died.

When MacKayla first arrives in Ireland, the scene plays out like a horror story. Naive American girl goes to a foreign country and stays in a creepy inn. MacKayla has a really rough time in Ireland, and I feel the sense of hopelessness as she tries with very little clues about the death of her sister. After getting lost in a creepy part of town, MacKayla stumbles into a bookstore where she meets Jericho Barrons. At this point, MacKayla is still painfully ignorant and she gets herself into a lot of trouble because she has no idea what she is getting into. Although we know very little about Jericho in this book, I am hoping he’s not her romantic interest because he seems like an abusive asshole.

Writing about fae is hard to do because so many books have good ideas about the fea but poor execution.  Moning does a decent job of painting a realistic fae world that interacts with the human world. Moning’s writing is easy to read, but sometimes I do get lost because she does go on and on. One of the interesting things that Moning does in her writing is that she foreshadows the story. As a reader, you know that MacKayla will survive past the current book. You can also see the gradual shift in MacKayla’s personality and maturity.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was an easy read and it was full of action. I really liked that the story was set in Ireland because it made it more interesting with the historical aspects. There were some parts that were a little bit unbelievable, but I think it was because we are discovering the story through the eyes of MacKaya, i think there is potential that she will grow and perhaps the world that we are immersed in will be more believable. I will probably read the second book in the stories. Thanks Cari for a good recommendation!

3/5

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Review: Dancers in the Dark by Charlaine Harris February 19, 2016

Disclaimer: This book describes very disturbing situations.

I love Charlaine Harris and I love most of her books and series. The only series that I did not continue ready was Lily Bard, and that is because it was too disturbing. Some of you may know that Harris was a sexual assault survivor and very often so are the characters of Harris’ such as Lily Bard and Sookie Stackhouse. Harris is a wonderful writer, but when she writes about sexual assault survivors or scenes, it is very real and raw and can makes the reader very anxious.

Dancers in the Dark is a Novella that is set in the same  Sookie Stackhouse universe. It is about a dancer name Rue. Rue answered an ad for a dancer that would be willing to work with vampires and get bitten. Although she has some reservations, she needs the money. I was immediately hooked.

Rue used to be a beauty queen but she wears a disguise that downplays her beauty. Rue has a secret, she was an abuse victim of someone she dated, she lives in constant fear that he will find her. I think Harris paints the fear in this book very well, at times I find myself tense or scared for Rue. I think what really got to me was when Rue looked at herself as a battered woman, it was a very powerful statement that blatantly told the reader what Rue was.

After a successful audition, Sean is her chosen vampire dancer partner. I love the vampires in the Sookieverse but I did not find Sean very interesting. I did like that he was not the traditional hot Adonis because Harris’ description of Sean painted him as a short, average redhead with a slight Irish accent.

What I did not like about Sean was that although he did not hurt Rue, he was still abusive and possessive. He would do things that she did not want and pry into her life. Rue was always initially mad but then found herself glad that he was there for her. I understand that vampires are possessive and territorial in this universe but it annoyed me because Rue was falling into the same trap. I would love to see another book to this series, one were Rue realizes Sean was just as bad as her ex.

This book was probably one of the sexiest Harris books I’ve read. It almost read like a light erotica, there was a lot of sexiness for such a short book. Harris did a great job contrasting between sex and sexual assault.

Overall, this book was a good and easy read. The ending was very powerful and I think it shines a harsh light on assault.

4/5

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Review: Soundless by Richelle Mead February 7, 2016

I am a big fan of Richelle Mead, my favorite series that she has written of course is the Vampire Academy with the Dark Swan series coming as a close second.  I found out about this book coming out months ago so I have been waiting to get my hands on it for a long time. I tried not to spoil it so I went in with not knowing much.

One of the things that excited me about this book was that the protagonist was Asian and she actually looks Asian on the cover. There are a few books with (half) Asian as the protagonist but the cover shows a Caucasian, such as the Reborn series and  The Immortal Rules.

This story takes place in a small village on top of treacherous mountains. The villagers are trapped up there because of ancient avalanches, and it is impossible for them to make the treacherous journey down the mountain. Everyone in the village is deaf and communicate by sign language.  The village is not suitable for growing food or animals, and their only way of surviving is via a zipline that ferries away the precious metals from the village to the kingdom of Beiguo. In exchange for the metals, the villagers receive food.

The village has a caste system. The Artists/Academics are the highest caste, then the servants, the miners and then finally, the homeless, people who can no longer contribute to society. Fei is an apprentice Artist, her job is to record what happens in the village daily. Her sister Zhang Jing is also an apprentice but she has started losing her eyesight, Fei tries to correct her work before the masters see.  Fei notices that many of the villagers start to lose their eyesight, mainly the miners. The miners are an important part of the village even though they are looked down upon because they collect the precious metals that are exchanged for food. When their supply of metals lessen, they get less food, people start to starve.

Fei goes to bed one night and she is disturbed by a weird sensation, the next day she figures out that she has hearing. She scours the records but did not find any record of this happening to anyone else in the village. One of the miners Li Wei’s father gets into an accident due to his eyesight and there is less food coming from the zipline, Li Wei decides to go down the mountain and talk to the line keeper and Fei offers him her help since her hearing could help them hear of any impending avalanches.

As a fluent Cantonese speaker,I can tell the book draws from the Mandarin language. It does not follow the traditional Chinese folklore but creates its own. The book talks about the pixius which are a bird/dragon/lion hybrid. According to legend, they made the villagers deaf so they could have some peace and quiet while they slept.

The story drew me in right away, I really liked that Fei was a strong character but  not strong where she could physically fight her own battles. She realizes that she is not strong but she makes it up in other ways. I felt that the other characters such as her sister and Li Wei were a little bit one dimensional. there was no depth to any of the other characters besides Fei. I think Zhang Jing would have been more interesting if she shown some resentment towards her sister. After all, her sister was more talented and she was not going blind.

The story also shifted, at first it was a normal story with pixius as legends, and then the theme of the story shifted, and it became more mystical. There was almost an internal struggle between reality and fantasy.The story felt very short, it could have used an additional 100 pages, especially when they arrive at the Beiguo, the plot could have been expanded. The story felt like it ended abruptly, and Mead used an epilogue to cram in more details. I was surprised to find out that this was a standalone novel and not a series because I think it could have easily been a series.

Overall, I thought the story was interesting and t Fei was an interesting character. It would have been better if it was longer and Mead expanded more on the plot and characters. Technically 3.5/5 but since I enjoyed it I will give it a

4/5

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Series vs. Standalone Books January 11, 2016

When I was doing my Goodread’s Reading Challenge in 2015, I pledged to read 100 books. I would get very excited when I found a series that I really enjoyed because that meant I could read a few more of the same kind of book. I felt that ever since Twilight, trilogies or series books got really popular. Notable trilogies include of course Hunger Games and Divergent. Lately I’ve found that trilogies were coming less common, and series books (more than 3 books) were also becoming more popular. Sometimes I felt really excited when I found out there was a 4th book and other times, there were so many books in the series that I had to give up. At times I felt that the publishers were just trying to milk the story as much as possible with multiple books and novellas. Sometimes I felt the novellas were very forced.

One of the series that I gave up partway through, is P.C Cast’s House of Night Series. I think somewhere around book 7 (there are 12 books in total) I was starting to get tired of the characters (the main character is an idiot) and plot which got more and more ridiculous. I have 2 more books to read through before I finish the series but I had to take a long break. Even if I really liked the books sometimes I would not read them and read other books in between because I felt that I needed a different type of writing style.

Series that I could not get enough of was Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy (7 books) and C.C. Hunter’s Shadow Falls (5 books). I could not get enough of these two series. I liked how the authors would continue to have character development (this was especially good in Vampire Academy) and the plots were fresh.

One of the books that I felt could have been a series was Naomi Novak’s Uprooted. This book had a really interesting concept with interesting characters. I felt that one long book (over 400 pages) was too much, I think it could have been diluted into 3 books (about 250 pages each). I just felt it was too much to take in one book.

What do you prefer? Series or standalone books?

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100 books in 365 Days January 4, 2016

One of my favorite sites to visit is Goodreads. I love browsing my next book and looking at what my friends are reading. For Goodread’s 2015 Reading Challenge, I decided to read 100 books. The easy part was pledging, the hard (but enjoyable part was reading all the books. I started off the year strong reading 17 books by the end of February, then I started reading George R. R. Martin‘s A Game of Thrones. This book slowed me down significantly. I realized at this point that I could not spend the simple luxury of lingering over a good book.

I’m one of those people who abandoned books if it does not draw my interest, due to this challenge I forced myself to muddle through an uninteresting book in order to keep my reading pace. Although I did feel a sense of satisfaction with finishing a book , I usually did not enjoy the read. I probably won’t ever do this again.

Page numbers started being important when starting a new book. Overall, the majority of the books I read were YA novels, I love YA novels but sometimes I wanted to read more in-depth novels, but I did not have this simple luxury. I also had to pad my numbers with reading 3 novellas. I am not a fan of novellas because I usually find them too short to draw me in. I do not mind shorter books such as Lois Lowry‘s Giver Quartet or Tamora Pierce‘s Song of the Lioness series.

Finding a new series to read was one of the joys of this challenge. My top 3 authors/series that I discovered were:

3. Maria V. Synder‘s Study

2. Jennifer Estep‘s Mythos Academy

1. Anne Bishop‘s The Others

For Goodreads‘s 2016 Reading Challenge I decided to choose read 52 books, a book a week. I think this luxurious pace is all I need this year.

My 2015 Reading Challenge Book List.

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