The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) by Kody Keplinger

Posted on January 27, 2011 by janicu

Kody Keplinger

While I saw a lot of positive reviews for this book, I wasn’t in love with the premise — a girl begins a sexual relationship with a guy she pretty much hates? Hmm. What made me decide that I would give this book a try was this review from Debbie’s World of Books. I’m glad I did.

The Premise: Bianca Piper is a cynical high school girl who spends her time with her two best friends, Casey and Jessica. One night at the local teen hangout, Wesley Rush, the resident “man-slut”, who Bianca cannot stand, begins a conversation with her. His purpose? To get to Bianca’s friends via their weakest link — the Duff, aka the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Thoroughly disgusted by Wesley’s hurtful label and slimeball plans, Bianca throws her Cherry Coke in his face, gives him what for, and storms off. That probably would’ve been the end of that, except that soon after, Bianca discovers that her often absent mom wants a divorce. So Bianca seeks escape in a physical relationship with Wesley. What was meant to be a distraction has complications that Bianca never intended.

My Thoughts: It blows my mind that this author is 18 years old. Eighteen! The writing doesn’t suffer for it. I think that instead, her age is a strength — the teenage voice in The Duff was more honest and believable than many of the YA books I’ve read lately. Bianca, the narrator, is full of snark and bluster, particularly around her friends (and Wesley who she never holds back from), but she feels like a real teenager. Sure, not all teens are as free with their expletives or as sexually experienced as Bianca, but I could relate to his girl and where she was in her life.

OK. Sneaking around to have sex with the boy you hate is not the healthiest way to deal with your problems. In fact, it is the opposite of healthy. But I could believe Bianca’s need to be distracted from her personal problems (what is reading if not a distraction?), and Wesley is an easy distraction. Bianca manages to ignore what’s going on for a little while, but it all catches up with her. There’s a clear message that there are consequences for what she does: the distancing from her friends that she’s hiding things from, the emotional entanglements, and the possibility of pregnancy or disease (touched lightly, but it’s there). And Bianca isn’t not the only one who learns that you can’t run away forever.

On the other hand, Bianca is really lucky how things ultimately worked out. Wesley easily could have been the bastard she calls him, and the emotional repercussions of their numerous sexual encounters while messy, could have been much more messy. I liked Wesley by the end of this book, but a small (practical) part of me stayed resistant. I think this is where life experience colors the story, but I’m willing to see him as a character with flaws and I could let my disbelief go enough to enjoy the ending, particularly because I wanted these two to work things out. The chemistry between Bianca and Wesley was quite perfect, and I did love their semi-disfunctional, trading-insults relationship.

The secondary characters in this book all had what felt like realistic relationships with Bianca. Her relationship with her parents showed an awareness of their flaws but they do care about their daughter. Her father’s relapse may have been on the dramatic side, but Bianca’s reaction to it was believable. I also loved Bianca’s friendships with Casey and Jessica. The three girls have differing personalities but they each fit a role within their group. There’s a lot of love and loyalty amongst the three, and when Bianca realizes that she’s the Duff of the group, it doesn’t make her search for new, less attractive friends to make herself look better. And realistically, there is worry and hurt feelings when Bianca distances herself from them because of her problems.

The idea that you are not your label is probably the Big Message of this book, but I think it’s an important message, and one that really affects self-esteem. The fact that everyone feels like the Duff, and that one should look beyond a label is something I wish more girls would believe. I liked that Bianca’s choices lead her to these truths.

Overall: While I don’t agree with how the main character initially dealt with her problems, I liked the lessons she ultimately learned, and there was something refreshing in reading a book that embraced sexuality and expletives. I’d recommend this one if you feel like you can look past the idea of a teen’s using sex as an emotional outlet, because this story has a snarky teen voice that I loved because it felt real and honest.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
Debbie’s World of Books – positive
Karin’s Book Nook – 5 out of 5
Steph Su Reads – 4.5 out of 5
Book Fare Delights – 4 out of 5
Sophistikated Reviews – 4 out of 5
Pop Culture Junkie – 4.5 out of 5
The Story Siren – 5 out of 5
The Hiding Spot – A+
Book Crazy – 5 mushrooms (must read)

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Posted on January 21, 2011 by janicu

Across the Universe

Beth Revis

This is a review for an ARC I received from the publisher after requesting it.

My memory is going because I can’t remember the first blog that introduced me to this book. I might be Presenting Lenore when she had her Dystopian week. She highlighted Across the Universe as a dystopian YA book to look out for in this post, and she included a link to the excerpt of the first chapter. I know that reading the excerpt is what sold me, although I do admit that the pretty cover also helped (I am a sucker for a starry backdrop).

The Premise: From the blurb: “Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed. She expects to wake up on a new planet, 300 years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed’s scheduled landing, Amy’s cryo chamber is unplugged, and she is nearly killed. Now, Amy is caught inside an enclosed world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed‘s passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader, and Elder, his rebellious and brilliant teenage heir. Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she? All she knows is that she must race to unlock Godspeed‘s hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.”

My Thoughts: Across the Universe is about 400 pages long but it feels much less because of short alternating chapters written from Amy and Elder’s points of view, which is combined with a fast-paced plot. The story starts with a bang: Amy narrates the terrifying feeling of being frozen in preparation to join her parents on a 300 year journey across space to the planet Alpha Centauri. While Amy and her parents sleep along with other scientists and military personnel needed after the ship lands, a crew maintains the ship through generations. 250 years later, sixteen year old Elder is learning how to be the next leader of the ship under the supervision of his mentor, Eldest, and running into problems due to his ignorance of the ship. Improbably, the two teens meet. Through some accident or act of chaos, Amy is thawed 50 years ahead of schedule, almost dying in the process, and she has to adapt to a very different world than she is used to.

Life on the vast spaceship is fascinating. There are three levels: Keeper, Shipper, and Feeder, which correspond to the three types of people who live and work on it. Elder and Eldest are the Keepers, with access to all levels, Shippers work on the Shipper level where the research labs and the bridge are, but live on the Feeder level where a collection of small trailers house most of the ships residents. The Feeders are only allowed on the Feeder level where they farm and produce day-to-day products like textiles. All the lives are strictly regimented and controlled by Eldest, but his vicelike grip on the Godspeed begins to raise questions in Amy and Elder’s minds. Elder realizes that his education has glaring holes in it, and Amy sees a society with a disturbing lack of soul and a too-easy acceptance of authority. The only people who don’t seem mindless are those in the mental ward. The more time Amy spends on the ship, the more she and Elder realize that things on Godspeed are not right. All the while, some murderer is killing people in the cryo-chambers by turning them off so they are thawed improperly and die in agony.

All this is well and good. There’s a sense of urgency in the writing and an invitation to keep flipping pages to see the big picture, but at tlmes I felt like the focus on the twists came at the expense of introspection. The book brings up a lot of questions about right and wrong when survival in an enclosed environment is at stake. Eldest and those before him made certain choices that made sense to them at the time. When Elder and Amy find out about those decisions, instead of delving into their motivations and whether they had any merit, the book misses an opportunity in my opinion by making a provocative topic overly simplistic. Some of the big reveals were things I could easily guess, enough for me to feel impatient with the characters in not figuring things out earlier, so I wish that the space for these predictable puzzles was used instead on what science fiction does best: make the reader think. Across the Universe begins to take us there, but then abruptly does an about face, leaving me feeling somewhat unsatisfied. To top it off, I keep having moments of “but what about _____?” after finishing this book — several inconsistencies never explained. I’ve read online that Across the Universe is the first in a series, and maybe what seems inconsistent now will be fixed later, but I have a feeling it won’t be.

The book cover and the blurb suggest that this book has a certain amount of romance in it. It is there, but it is extremely low key and for the most part platonic with the suggestion that in time there will be more.

Overall: This is a really promising debut — science fiction, dystopia, a fast paced plot and really interesting world building. These are all good things and for that alone, I’d recommend the book, but it didn’t quite hit the mark in terms of substance — there was more focus on grabbing the readers attention through plot twists than on really making the reader think. It skirts this territory, then scurries off, and that doesn’t really satisfy my science fiction reader sensibilities.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
Calico Reaction – Buy the Paperback
Steph Su Reads – 4/5
La Femme Readers – 5/5
Fantastic Book Review – 5/5
Ellz Readz – positive review
Debbie’s World of Books – positive review
One Librarian’s Book reviews – 5/5
Book Reviews by Jess / The Cozy Reader – A

Links:
Across the Universe website (Really spiffy website I have to say, with goodies like wallpapers and an interactive map of the Godspeed)

~~I’m passing along my ARC copy of this book — to someone willing to review the book (on their blog, goodreads, wherever). Open to everyone but first come, first served!~~ Taken!

The Native Star by M. K. Hobson

Posted on January 17, 2011 by janicu

The Native Star

M. K. Hobson

I bought this book based purely off this review by calico_reaction over at Dreams and Speculation. Wild West setting with an alternative history involving Warlocks and Witches? I shall have to try some of that.

The Premise: It’s 1876, and Emily Edwards, the Witch of a small town called Lost Pine, is getting desperate for money in the face of competition from the fancy mail-order company, Baugh’s Patent Magicks. So she does a bad thing. She creates a love charm and uses it on Dag Hansen, the timber man who has brought jobs and prosperity to Lost Pine. When she does, she’s almost immediately called out for it by the town clairvoyant, Besim. Besim also reveals that the zombies working in the town mine are going to break free. Besim is ignored by everyone, since he’s made bad pronouncements before, but Emily knows he’s not lying about her use of bad magic, so she goes to check out the mine, along with irritating town newcomer, Warlock Dreadnought Stanton. One thing leads to another and suddenly Emily has a mysterious blue stone lodged in the palm of her right hand, she’s fleeing Lost Pine with Dreadnought Stanton, and evil Warlocks who want the stone are trying to kill them both.

My Thoughts: This reads very much like a Wild West cross-country adventure which just happens to be set in an alternative world where magic is an accepted part of life. I imagine Emily Edwards and Dreadnought Stanton are dressed up much like Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson in Maverick, (minus the confidence artist personalities), as they take horse, train, and a hybrid mechanical-magical flying machine from one destination to another, chased by various men bent on getting the blue stone embedded in Emily’s hand. The author has mentioned in guest posts a pulp novel influence, particularly Horatio Alger, and she eludes to the influence in The Native Star with characters who read pulp fiction from Mystic Truth Publishers, and magazines like Ladies’ Repository.

The world building goes along with the pulp fiction influence. There’s Wild West adventure staples mixed with Victorian era sensibilities. Emily has to deal with being a woman in a world where women were often expected to stay at home and act proper, but she’s grown up with a lenient father in a town where she is respected for her witchcraft. When she ventures outside of Lost Pine, the disparity between her rural upbringing and the straightlaced expectations of how she should act is a big one. There’s even a sort of woman’s suffrage movement in the form of a group called the Witches Friendly Society.

Along with this mixed attitude about women, is a mixed attitude about magic. It’s something everyone knows exists, but whether magic is a natural part of life and can be explained scientifically or as the work of the devil depends on who you are talking to. This world is on a cusp of change, and I think that whether Progress comes at a price is a big question. Some advancements are for the better, but some come at a cost that people are only beginning to discover.

Of course, it’s often the bad guys of the story with the condescending attitude towards women or who want to eradicate all Witches and Warlocks. Her companion on the road, Dreadnought, clashes with Emily over other things. The two have a bickering sort of relationship and although this sort of thing suggests a romance is on it’s way (which is correct), the romance is a very low key one — the adventure and magic are in the forefront of the story most of the time, and the banter gave me a little chuckle or two as a bonus. This is not one of those stories where there’s a lot of sexual tension in my opinion, maybe because the focus on the book is more on the plot than it is on character development.

I enjoyed the way that magic was explained in this story. There are three forms of magic – animancy (spirit magic), sangrimancy (blood magic), and credomancy (belief magic). Emily Edwards, who with her Pap, the local magic practitioners of Lone Pine, California, practice animancy. Dreadnought Stanton is a credomancer, and his magic comes from belief. The use of blood magic (sangrimancy) has been outlawed with a notable exception. Hobson takes the idea of magic and a natural explanation for it a bit further when she introduces an ecological component — magic, once used is absorbed by the Earth and recycled, and the process creates waste in the form of a sticky black tar-like substance known as Black Exchunge. This has some significance in the story and I enjoyed learning as the Emily and Dreadnought did, the significance of Emily’s blue stone in relation to magic.

I’m looking forward to the next book, The Hidden Goddess, out this April.

Overall: A very fun story that combines pulp fiction, magic, Wild West adventure, a bit of steampunk and romance in a seamless way. I enjoyed the alternative history and how magic fit into the Victorian mindset where Progress and Tradition often butted heads. This is very much a plot-driven story, and I liked how the world-building felt effortless. The only thing that I personally would have liked was more room to really delve into the two main characters, but the second book promises to give us more, so I’m looking forward to it.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews
The Book Pushers – 5/5
Dreams and Speculation (guest review by Calico_reaction) – 7/10
All Things Urban Fantasy – 4/5
The Book Smugglers – 8/10

Links:
Guest Post at The Book Pushers

Double Cross by Carolyn Crane

Posted on January 11, 2011 by janicu

Double Cross

Carolyn Crane

This is a book I’ve held back on buying until I decided that the self-inflicted torturing to hold back the TBR had to stop. I’m glad I bought it but Holy Shizz, I need the third book now!

My review for Book 1:

Mind Games –

The Premise: Justine Jones continues her work as a disillusionist for Packard, and her newest target is Ez, a dangerous highcap who can manipulate a person through their dreams. It seems like business as usual, until Justine starts wondering if Ez is really responsible for the murders she was imprisoned for. Meanwhile, a new band of killers is hitting Midcity – the Dorks. These unknown people have been shooting at seemingly random Midcity dwellers, who are later identified by Packard’s men as highcaps. No one can figure out how the Dorks can tell that their victims are highcaps or how they are impervious to highcap abilities, including precognitivity. Justine fears for the safety of the highcaps in her life: her paramour Otto Sanchez, and her enigmatic leader, Packard.

**** There are spoilers for the first book in this review, so if you haven’t already read book 1, you may want to avert your eyes and skip to the ‘Overall’ section ****

Read an excerpt of Chapter one of Double Cross here

My Thoughts: One of the things that I love about this series is the comic-book, fight-between-good-and-evil feel. In Midcity, a sprawling metropolis with a comic book name, live highcaps, people who have superhero-like powers hidden behind ordinary facades. Among the highcaps are two powerful men: Sterling Packard and Otto Sanchez. While Otto thrives under the glowing approval of his fair city as their Golden-Boy mayor, Packard is a criminal mastermind who is content to manipulate Midcity in obscurity. Each is the other’s greatest enemy.

The good guys have a little tarnish on their armor and the bad guys believe that they’re White Knights protecting the city at all costs. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who is who. Especially if you are our books narrator, Justine Jones. In the first book, Mind Games, she trusted Packard until she found out that disillusioning people comes with a price — total reliance on Packard or becoming a mindless vegetable. Similarly, she distrusted Otto (he was her target for disillusionment), until she discovered his past with Packard and the real reason Packard wanted him disillusioned. This reader is firmly in the Packard camp, but that doesn’t mean the way things ended in Mind Games left me despairing. The relationship between Justine and these two different men is a work in progress, and I’ve been having a great time trying to pick up on the author’s hints about what’s coming next (and nodding to myself when I realize things set up in the first book. This includes the first person present narration — ha, I see what you did there, Ms. Carolyn Crane). I said this in my review of the first book, and I’ll say it again: it’s been a treat to revel in the GREY! And while Justine doesn’t seem to be asking this question, I am: who is the real hero and the real villain? I think Double Cross steps us closer to the answer.

Double Cross begins shortly after Mind Games left off. Packard works with Otto’s people in an uneasy alliance in return for his continued freedom. His group of disillusionists, which includes Justine, are still working, but now their targets are those highcaps imprisoned by Otto over the years. Justine, as is her nature, wonders if Disillusioning these people is the right thing to do: would they prefer imprisonment over being rebooted? She doesn’t feel free herself because she has to keep ‘zinging’ people with medical fears to stay alive; she doesn’t want to do something that gives herself relief at the expense of others. This leads her to be dismayed when Packard remarks that Ez, her newest target, doesn’t seem to have the right personality to have done her crimes. Unfortunately for Justine, circumstances allow Ez a way to worm into her and Packard’s dreams, which means she has to disillusion her or be a victim of Ez herself.

With Justine’s involvement with both men, she’s yet another reason for them to be rivals. Justine is relieved to be back in the good graces of the charismatic Otto, whom she thinks is the perfect man, and stays wary yet drawn to Packard. Packard warns Justine about Otto’s character, but Justine sees manipulation in everything Packard says. Underneath it all, Packard and Otto’s past is simmering under the surface. I’m happy to say that Double Cross settles some questions about that past and what started their rift. It also settles which man Justine really loves, but it’s not quite time for an HEA yet. Anyway, there were hints made in Mind Games that finally make sense, and I was happy with the story I got. For extra points Packard and Otto’s past neatly dovetails into the present. Perhaps a little perfectly, but I liked the way things went, and I liked how their past informs their current journeys (one towards redemption, another towards moral ruin).

I think that Double Cross is the book that has me more obsessed about the three main characters and their relationships, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say that it furthered my understanding of a couple of favorite side characters as well. The two I felt I got to know a little better were Shelby, the eternal pessimist, and Simon, the gambler. Shelby surprises us with a little bit of optimism in this story, and it was rather delightful to see her character grow. Simon is his usual self but he and Justine have an understanding . Although Simon keeps doing risky things, and Justine sometimes has to stop him, they have a friendship of sorts.

So. The ending. It was a bit of a cliffhanger and I’m not sure what to say about this. I won’t say anything about what the cliffhanger was about, just my reaction to it: I am surprisingly OK. I usually hate a cliffhanger, but you guys, this one was a little bit awesome. Although I would like to know WHY there is no information online about WHEN the next book is out EXACTLY(?!?!! Why?!?!) I’m not feeling so totally sideswiped that I will go out on a killing rampage. I warn you though: you will want to read book 3 really badly after reading Double Cross, so this may be something you want to take into account when deciding when to read this book.

Overall: I’m loving this urban fantasy series and despite the cliffhanger ending (really, when is book 3 out?), I think this installment is as good if not better than the last. As usual, there’s an excellent balance of imperfect characters with a well thought out plot. The three core characters (heroine, and two men whose roles haven’t been solidified yet), show us a little bit more who they really are in each book, but I still can’t predict their next move. I’m very satisfied so far with where things are going, but I’m relieved that this is a planned trilogy — the final book can’t come soon enough.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
Karissa’s Reading Review – gave it 4/5 but called it bleak and warns you’ll be left feeling angry (I think this is because of the cliffhanger)
Read, React, Review – positive
My world.. in words and pages – positive
Ellz Readz – positive
Babbling about Books, and More – B+
Smexy Books – 5/5
The Book Smugglers – 8/10 (check out the “Smuggled” videos posted there – hilarious)
Fiction Vixen – 5/5

Black Wings by Christina Henry

Posted on January 4, 2011 by janicu

Black Wings

Christina Henry

This book is one that just came out recently (November 2010) and I got a copy through another blogger – this is a review of an ARC copy.

The Premise: Madeline (Maddy) Black has been fending for herself (with the help of her building’s gargoyle, Beezle), since the death of her mother when Maddy was 11. She’s also an Agent of Death, whose job it is to usher newly dead souls to the Door (to the afterlife or something else, Agents never know). To supplement her income, Maddy writes recipes and rents out an apartment in the building she owns in Chicago. Life is busy and there’s no time for a social life, until Maddy becomes the focus of power struggles among supernatural beings. She gains a really good-looking tenant, Gabriel Angeloscuro, around the same time that demons and a shadowy, terrifying beast appear to attack her.

Read the first chapter of Black Wings here

My Thoughts: This books world building started off quite promisingly with the details of Maddy’s job as a Agent, trying to coax an unwilling soul into being untethered from her body and going to the Door. The description of the powers that come with Maddy’s job – the wings, the ability to speak to souls, invisibility (to most people), and how she does it felt like a fresh new take on the idea of reapers, shinigami and psychopomps. I think that if this book had been just about that aspect of Maddy’s life I would be interested, but Black Wings takes it further by introducing us to the world of angels and demons because of Maddy’s unique heritage. She never knew who her father was, assuming he was either dead or abandoned her, but most of her problems are from being his offspring. First there is an attack by a monster that almost gets Maddy, then demons appear at her front door trying to do the same. Her new tenant, Gabriel, is linked to all of it but can only tell Maddy so much. All of this is affecting Maddy’s ability to do her job and her boss J.B., another good-looker who Maddy constantly clashes with, is not happy, and neither is Beezle, who feels responsible for her protection.

Maddy spends much of the book ping-ponging from one surprised revelation to the next — from who she is to who Gabriel and the other players in the whole mess are. Interspersed among the narrative told from Maddy’s first person point of view, are flashbacks in which Maddy relives part of the life of someone named Evangeline, a peasant girl who fell in love with Lucifer and had his children. There is a lot of fallen angels and their offspring world building here.

All of these things make for a fascinating world, and the writing is paced well to keep the pages turning, but I’m afraid I had some nits along the way. One of them is that although this is definitely an urban fantasy, I have this weird associative feeling between Black Wings and young adult paranormals, and I think that the timing of this read is why. First of all, fallen angels are very popular in young adult fiction right now. Secondly, I’ve just read Almost to Die For by Tate Hallaway and Glimmerglass by Jenna Black (two YA paranormals), so the idea of a girl discovering she’s the daughter of someone supernaturally powerful puts to mind those books. The idea is familiar, and so is falling in love with someone put by her side by her father, which Maddy does with Gabriel.

Then there’s Maddy’s voice. Maddy is supposed to be 30 in this story, but she often acted a lot younger and used phrases that felt more appropriate from someone in high school. She says things like “Knock much?”– is this the influence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? That’s fine, but Buffy was high school/college age, not 30. Maddy mouths off at really inopportune times, not unusual in a UF heroine, but a couple of times she pushes it and ends up looking more immature than spunky. Her virginity and impetuousness with Gabriel underline her youthfulness.

I also found myself unable to connect to the relationships Maddy had with other characters in the book. They don’t feel quite real. Although Gabriel is gorgeous and a little broken, the lack of lead up to their attraction made their relationship feel superficial, and when Maddy’s friend dies early in the book, she seemed to barely mourn. It felt like I was reading someone going through the required motions with no thought behind them. Basically: I wanted more.

Those problems with Maddy aside, when she wasn’t speaking or making eyes at Gabriel, she seemed a lot more like the UF heroine I’d expect – she tries to help innocent people from the demons and monsters on the street, she wants to figure out what’s going on before more people die, and she wants to do her job. Sometimes she stumbles in these goals but she’s determined and that makes her endearing. And she’s not a pushover — she figures out quickly when someone is trying to use her. When she does figure out what’s going on at the end of the book, she makes some very smart moves, and that makes the last part of the book, the strongest part of the book for me.

I’m not sure what to make of J.B. He seems set up as a third in a love triangle but it feels half-hearted. I feel like we’re going to see a twist that involves him in the next book. I hope he gets to play a bigger role. There’s a few players and story arcs set up in Black Wings that look promising for book 2, Black Night, which comes out Autumn, 2011.

Overall: Black Wings is a fairly good read that I’d recommend with reservations. The biggest issues I had was Maddy’s sometimes inappropriately irreverent voice and the lack of depth in her relationships, but on the other hand, I did like the way the story ended and how Maddy ultimately handled things. There’s plenty of set up here for to encourage me to read the second book, but I haven’t decided yet if I’ll continue. I think this is a book a lot of people have liked, so not everyone will not have the problems with it that I did.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
Book Binge – 4/5
The Geeky Bookworm – 4/5
Fiction Vixen – 4.5/5
All Things Urban Fantasy – 4/5
Smexy Books – C- (this was the review I found most similar in opinion to mine..)

Draw One in the Dark by Sarah A. Hoyt

Posted on December 30, 2010 by janicu

Draw One in the Dark

Sarah A. Hoyt

As soon as I could, I picked up the first book in Sarah A. Hoyt’s urban fantasy duology, Draw One In the Dark, based on my enjoyment of Darkship Thieves and on the promising blurb on the Baen website. Yeach though, this is a book cover that screams “I probably also own a howling wolf t-shirt” ..you do this on purpose Baen, you have to.

The Premise: Kyrie Smith and Tom Ormson both work at a the Athens Diner, in Goldport, Colorado, but they don’t really interact with one another. Then one night Kyrie goes out to the back parking lot of the diner to investigate a noise. She discovers Tom in dragon form, standing over a corpse. When he changes back to human form, he has no idea what happened, and Kyrie decides to help him until she can figure out what is going on. Kyrie is a shape-shifter too (her other form is a panther), and she understands the turmoil and loss of memory sometimes caused by the inner beast. The two find out that this is not the only body in recent weeks, and that Tom’s past is catching up with him: people he stole something from are looking for him.

Read an excerpt of the first six chapters of Draw One in the Dark here

My Thoughts: Tom is confused about what’s going on at first, particularly since he can’t remember why he’s standing over a dead body and is covered in it’s blood. Kyrie is the one who has it together and tells him what to do so he’s not caught naked and covered in blood. When they realize that they’re both shifters, the whole situation creates a sort of tenous bond even though Kyrie’s initial impression of Tom hasn’t been favorable. They get to know each other along the way, although after the scene at the restaurant they find themselves leaving a dangerous situation only to find themselves in another one before they begin to figure out what’s going on. Their two problems are the dead bodies that keep showing up, and the dangerous people chasing after Tom. Along the way, they are helped by other characters – Officer Trall, who is investigating the recent deaths, Keith, a college student who is Tom’s next door neighbor, and Tom’s father, who has connections to Tom’s pursuers.

This series has a completely different voice from the last Sarah Hoyt book I read, Darkship Thieves. Instead of first person, which is common in urban fantasy, Draw One in the Dark is in third person and jumps between Kyrie and Tom, and later, to a lesser extent, to Tom’s father, Edward Ormson. There is no kick-ass female heroine with special abilities. Instead we have a ragtag group of everyday, ordinary, people for which shifting has often been a burden. This book definitely does not romanticize the ability to shift or the shifters who can do so.

The ordinariness of the characters bring to mind the Kitty series by Carrie Vaughn so I think I’d recommend this book for readers who enjoyed that one. The world building here is much like that of Vaughn’s as well – it’s not necessarily a place where people understand magic and they react to it within what they can fathom. Kyrie and Tom for instance have no idea why they can change. It’s something that began to happen in puberty and upset their already-stressful teen lives. They’re still trying to figure out how it all works – how to tell other shifters, what affects their shifts, and how to have an ordinary life while keeping this side hidden. I liked that there’s enough complexity in the lives of the characters (not just in Kyrie and Tom’s) that we see missteps and flaws in all of what they do, even though ultimately these are the good guys. This is particularly true of Tom’s father Edward, who comes to Goldport thinking he has to clean up after his screw-up son again, only to realize that he may have failed his son as a father in the first place.

Before Draw One in the Dark starts, Kyrie didn’t think much of Tom, and wrote him off as a junkie who will eventually disappoint everyone, even if she has never seen him act high in the six months he’s been working at Athens. When she spends more time with him, she realizes that this impression was a self-defense mechanism. She’s actually attracted to him, but years in the foster system has made her wary. As for Tom, he’s always thought Kyrie was pretty but way out of his league. These observations about each other are often peppered throughout the story, and there’s a sort of puppy-dog eying of each other throughout with neither really doing much about it. Their fledgling romance is further complicated by Rafiel Trall – police officer and lion shifter who has an interest in Kyrie, particularly since she’s another cat shifter.

Overall: Quite a solid contemporary/urban fantasy, with a rather thoughtful perspective on shape-shifting and how it may affect a person’s life. It puts to mind books by Charles de Lint or Carrie Vaughn, mostly because the characters are ordinary and unvarnished. I thought that Tom and Kyrie’s awkward steps towards a courtship was sweet but romance here is not really of the searing kind. It’s more of an everyday, two kids you like who end up liking each other kind. I’d read the next book, Gentleman Takes a Chance, to see these characters grow. It also makes me realize how versatile this author is because the voice in this story is so very different from the other book I’ve read that was written by her.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | Baen ebook

Other reviews:
I couldn’t find one through google’s social search, but I may have missed you. Let me know, and I’ll link the review!

Darkship Thieves by Sarah A. Hoyt

Posted on December 28, 2010 by janicu

Darkship Thieves

Sarah A. Hoyt

I’ve been lusting after this book for a while, so long in fact, that I forgot exactly where I first learned of it’s existence and my need to own it, but I vaguely remembered it was an author’s blog on my friend’s list. Turns out that was Ilona Andrews, who had a guest post by Sarah A. Hoyt about Darkship Thieves in January last year (now that’s a long time to want a book, but not really my longest stretch – sad isn’t it?) In her post she talked about this space opera where a bad-girl socialite heroine with Daddy issues meets a bio-engineered hero with calico-hair and issues on top of other issues. Anyway, I not-so-subtly asked for it for Christmas – and lo, it is mine.

The Premise: Athena Hera Sinistra was sleeping in her father’s space cruiser in a return trip to Earth, when she wakes up to find someone in her room. Although Athena is a socialite, she’s also been put in to, and escaped from, several boarding schools and institutions, and she has the ability to sometimes move at speeds that others cannot match. One thing leads to another, and Athena flees in a life pod, her father’s goons in hot pursuit. In desperation, she flies into dangerous territory and stumbles upon Kit Klaavil, a prickly man who surprises her by having even faster reflexes than her own super-speed.

Read a three chapter excerpt of Darkship Thieves here

My Thoughts: I was pretty happy to begin this book and have it match my expectations of page-turning action and space opera goodness. Racing through the bowels of a space ship and beating up thugs along the way, followed by a pursuit in space, and a surprising rescue — it’s good stuff. The reaction of Kit and Athena to each other was hilarious — even though Athena is over-matched, she uses all the dirty tricks at her disposal, and Kit’s reaction to this is fun to follow. Once the dust settled, I was glued to the pages, wondering where things would go next.

The story doesn’t disappoint in it’s exploration of Kit’s character, and in turn Athena’s when Kit takes Athena back to his home — an asteroid home to people very different from Earth, but whose very existence and beliefs are due to Athena’s home world. As Athena struggles to figure out Kit’s world and it’s rules, we’re introduced to ideas about the ethics of genetic manipulation, cloning, societal laws, and bureaucracy. These ideas were very provocative, but I was most drawn to the characters in this story, and into the odd courtship that takes place between Kit and Athena. Darkship Thieves isn’t quite a science fiction romance because a lot of the story deals with things like technology and morality, and there isn’t a focus on romance, but there is a quiet progress towards a relationship. I think that Kit, who lives with the world at arm’s length, is now a favorite hero although I also quite like Athena’s tough, unloved, rich girl voice.

Of course, being a girl who likes the falling-in-love bits, after the relationship hit a particular point and the story gets back to the conspiracy that led to why Athena had to flee her father’s spaceship, I think I lost a little interest. I don’t know if it was the pacing, or my just wanting more of Kit and Athena together, but the last part of the book didn’t have quite the zing I felt in the first. The more I think about it, the more I think it may have been the latter for me, but I think this is the only real problem I had with this book. The other was minor: when I first started reading Darkship Thieves, I thought Athena was in her mid-twenties and Kit was over thirty, when they were supposed to be 19 and 22. There was something in Athena’s been-there-seen-everything tone that made her seem older to me.

A note on the cover: Ug, I know. Half-naked women on covers does not draw in a female audience. All I can say in defense is that this scene does happen early on in the book and it does make sense in context.

Overall: Finding this space opera with a dash of romance has put me in a happy mood. Sarah Hoyt’s space opera has the edginess of Ann Aguirre’s minus (so far) the heartbreak. I’m eager to try other books by this author and I’m looking forward to the second book, Darkship Renegade, out sometime in 2011.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

The Big Idea: Sarah A. Hoyt

Other reviews:
Bookdaze – positive review (“an entertaining adventure-packed romp”)
If I missed your review, let me know and I’ll link to it!

The Kiss Test by Shannon McKelden

Posted on December 22, 2010 by janicu

The Kiss Test

Shannon McKelden

I requested and received an eARC of this book through Netgalley

The Premise: Margo Gentry is happy with her life as a award-winning DJ of Manhattan’s only Country Music station, and her relationship with Kevin, a man who doesn’t want to take things to the next level. Then everything falls apart – Margo is laid off when her station changes format to Korean radio, and Kevin wants to get married. When she balks at marriage, Kevin reveals that he doesn’t think much of her job or collection of weird Elvis memorabilia. With no where else to go, Margo moves in with her best friend Chris Treem, a known womanizer. To top it all off, Margo’s mother is getting married for the 11th time, and wants Margo to be her maid of honor — the last thing Margo wants to do, but without a job, she has no excuse to skip it, particularly when Chris wants to drive cross-country to be there.

Read an excerpt of The Kiss Test here

My Thoughts: I read this book in one sitting on the plane trip from NY to AZ (visiting the family for the holidays). I’ve always liked romances in which long time friends realize they feel more for each other than friendship, and with the promise in the blurb for a long road trip between Margo and Chris, kept me glued to the pages in anticipation of their relationship heating up.

Margo seems like the last person I’d expect to fall in love. She’s the narrator, and she makes it very clear that she’s happy to never get married and to make the same mistakes her mother did. In fact, she has been known to break up with a guy just for falling in love with her. Then we have Chris. An extreme sports enthusiast and store owner, he’s good looking, dangerous, and a magnet to females. He often administers his “Kiss Test”, not minding if Margo is nearby, and has been Margo’s best friend since she was eleven. It didn’t seem like these two were anything but really good buddies, and neither is saving themselves for the other by any means (on the contrary), but as the book continued, I began to see that Chris may be the perfect guy for Margo and that she may have been in love with Chris, and vice versa, all along. With his willingness to let her indulge in a trip as an homage to Elvis, despite not being a fan, and forgiving and taking care of Margo when she repeatedly gets herself in (very funny) trouble throughout the trip, Chris showed his acceptance of Margo as she was. In the meantime, the trip teaches Margo that honesty may be the best policy, and when she’s finally honest with herself, she makes some rather scary discoveries.

I liked that the story delves into Margo and Chris’s past to explain who they are today, although the explanation comes a little after the fact. I found myself judging Margo based on her actions, then learning the details behind those actions afterward. For the most part, the past history does explain a lot of things, even if I wish some of these revelations were explained earlier. The ending however, had one minor story element that felt a little tacked on, but maybe that’s just me.

There’s lots of sexual tension but only one sex scene in this story, so this fell into what I look for in romance – slow burn and not all about the lust.

Overall: This felt like a modern-day contemporary romance — where the hero and heroine are both flawed and no one is an angel. Even if I disagreed with how these two conducted their relationships (which could be a problem for other readers), I wanted an HEA for both of them. The relaxed chemistry between best friends that becomes surprisingly more is rather refreshing and sometimes funny, and if this book came out in print form, I’d buy it to have a hard copy.

Buy: Amazon | Carina Press

Other reviews:
Smexy Books – 3 out of 5

Beastly by Alex Flinn

Posted on December 20, 2010 by janicu

Beastly

Alex Flinn

Beastly, a modern day retelling of Beauty and the Beast told from the point of view of the beast, has gotten a lot of positive reviews, so I’m happy that thanks to my Secret Santa from the Book Blogger Holiday swap I finally had a chance to read it.

The Premise: Kyle Kingsbury is handsome, popular, and, a big superficial jerk. His father is a famous newscaster and taught Kyle that people who did things out of friendship or love are suckers, so Kyle lives only for himself. Life is good: he goes to an elite school in Manhattan where he’s ultra popular and has a lock on being voted king of the ninth grade spring dance. Then Kyle decides to humiliate a strange new girl at the dance, and is rewarded with his comeuppance – cursed to be a beast unless he can love and be loved in return. He has two years to learn and to become someone worth loving or he will stay a beast forever.

Read and excerpt of Beastly here

My Thoughts: Kyle is incredibly unlikable in the first few pages of this book. Before his world is rocked by the curse, he really turned me off. In fact, I read a few pages of Beastly through Amazon’s Look Inside program a year or so ago and I was worried I wouldn’t like the book because of him. But once I got a chapter or two in, I empathized with Kyle despite my first impressions. Kyle’s growth from the snobby pretty-boy with negligent parents into a man of character doesn’t happen overnight. It took much of the two years he’s allocated and it’s not an easy road, but I believed and hoped he could make it eventually.

Kyle (who renames himself Adrian), is exiled by his father to a house in Brooklyn when it becomes clear that nothing can fix his appearance. All he has is his faithful housekeeper Magda, and after he asks for it – a blind tutor named Will. Adrian watches the world through a magic mirror. The forced isolation produced by becoming a beast gives him plenty of time for introspection, and he uses the time productively. He starts to appreciate things he thought of as unimportant before, and I enjoyed his discovery of less superficial interests, although he continues to despair of really breaking his curse. That is until circumstances allow Lindy, the “Beauty” of the story to enter the picture.

Lindy is probably the opposite of what Adrian used to be when he was Kyle – not popular, not good looking, and not rich. She lives in a poor neighborhood with an addict father. Despite being rather plain and not particularly noticeable, there’s something that draws Adrian to her. Adrian’s feelings for her were rather sweet – wanting her to like him, and realizing he can’t buy or bargain for her affections. His loneliness and yearning at this point made their tentative friendship something to root for. While I found Lindy to be a nice person, but not particularly compelling compared to Adrian, I wholeheartedly believed the feelings Adrian had for her. And I believed this version’s explanation of why her family so easily let her go to the Beast.

As a bonus, I loved that Beastly was based on the version of Beauty and the Beast in which Beauty is a reader. Reading books like Jane Eyre, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and The Picture of Dorian Grey are all part of the story, and I loved the parallels, which were not lost on Adrian/Kyle. I also enjoyed the “transformation” chat room conversations that Adrian joined. It was hilarious to see the little mermaid, the frog prince and others kvetching online.

Overall: A very pleasing modern-day Beauty and the Beast. I really liked this spin on my favorite fairy tale: told from the first person point of view of a spoiled Manhattan teen who does become a better person and has to win the girl the hard way. If you’d like to read a YA with a sweet romance, and you like the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, I recommend this one.

I’m looking forward to reading the other books in this series – A Kiss in Time, and Cloaked. And I’ll probably look for the DVD of Beastly the movie whenever it comes out (it’s been suspiciously delayed in it’s release).

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
Steph Su Reads – 3.5 out of 5
My Favourite Books – positive review
Chachic’s Book Nook – positive review
All Things Urban Fantasy – 2/5
The Book Smugglers – 6/10
Angieville – positive review
See Michelle Read – positive review

Almost to Die For by Tate Hallaway

Posted on December 15, 2010 by janicu

Almost to Die For

Tate Hallaway

I won this book over at The Book Pushers blog. I’d read a couple of books in the Garnet Lacey series (still plan to get around to the rest one day), and was interested in seeing what this new YA series would be like.

The Premise: Anastasija (Ana) Parker has just turned sixteen, which is the day she becomes a full witch in the coven which she and her mom belongs. Ana dreads the ritual which will prove that she has no magic: although she can feel spells, she can’t cast any herself. Her birthday turns out to be even more of a disaster when her father, a man Ana never met, turns up. And he’s the vampire king. Ana discovers she’s a dhampyr, and each parent wants her to reject the other and embrace their particular heritage.

My Thoughts: At 241 pages, this is a really fast read. Ana is a typical high school student, albeit one who has been put into the “weird” crowd because of her different colored eyes, and odd friends (Bea is witchy, Taylor is one-of-a-kind). Besides a jock trading barbs with her at school, and interactions with the coven, she’s nothing very special. This all suddenly changes overnight on her birthday when her vampire father shows up and the cat is out of the bag. Her mother flips out and begins throwing spells like crazy. Ana has no idea why and her mother refuses to explain anything. Things get worse at the ritual, but Ana seems to be catching the eye of both Nicolai – a witch her age with a family tradition of vampire hunting, and Elias, the captain of her father’s guard. Ana finds herself ping-ponging between parents and trying to decide what she should do.

There are a few things that I liked about this book, but I think I had more problems than I had positive reactions. The main issue was the feeling like this was very well-trodden territory – there were too many things in this book that I’ve read before. This in itself is I suppose OK, but it wasn’t balanced by enough original ideas to keep me connected to the story:

Teen girl discovers that her parents have been hiding information about herself
Teen girl discovers she’s the daughter of a king and is therefore a princess
Teen girl gets a bodyguard of supernatural origin who is immediately interested in her
Teen girl must choose between new hot guy and hot guy she’s known for a while. Cannot decide. Dates both.
Teen girl likes boy who is basically a hunter of whatever she is, but makes exception for her
Teen girl has unique special powers no one else has and has some special Destiny

The fact that I didn’t really like her mother (who kept Ana’s half-vampire status hidden when a lot of the coven knew about it, and then puts spells on Ana which basically enslave her) did not help. I had a lot of questions about why her mother was like this that didn’t feel explained. I didn’t quite believe her explanation for keeping Ana in the dark either. Maybe that’s for another book, but it frustrated me in this one. The beginnings of the love triangle in this story was another issue. I think both guys were interesting, but I couldn’t buy their attraction to Ana because it almost seemed like both guys liked a concept of her, but didn’t really knew her. Perhaps this is something else that gets addressed in a sequel.

What I did like was Ana’s friendships with Bea and Taylor. I liked that Bea was someone Ana didn’t always like, but there was love there – I was interested in what their history was and I wished there was more room in this book to explore their friendship. Taylor has an even smaller role – she’s basically a friend with a lot of interesting (if a bit geeky) interests, who wears a hijab with jeans to school. She doesn’t know what’s going on with Ana’s supernatural life, but when she’s on the page, I loved her. I also liked the particular spin on the origins of vampires and the world building there. The explanation behind the enmity between witches and vampires was a good one. Finally – I thought that the way cell phones/communication in this story was well thought out.

Overall: An average read. I wanted to like this book, but there was a lack of freshness to the story that left me feeling underwhelmed. Maybe this would work better as an introduction to paranormal YA genre than someone who has read a lot of these.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
I couldn’t find other reviews yet. Let me know if you have one and I’ll link it here.