Magic Gifts by Ilona Andrews (Novella)

Posted on February 6, 2012 by janicu

Ilona Andrews

This is a novella from the Kate Daniels universe that was a free gift for fans over the Christmas holidays. It was a limited time only download, so I don’t think it’s up anymore, but word is that it will be published with the upcoming Gunmetal Magic if you missed it. In the timeline of the series, this fits right after the last Kate Daniels book (Magic Slays, which is book 5).

The order so far:
Book 1: Magic Bites –
Book 2: Magic Burns –
Book 3: Magic Strikes –
Novella – Magic Mourns in Must Love Hellhounds anthology –
Book 4: Magic Bleeds –
Book 5: Magic Slays –
Novella – Magic Gifts

**** Magic Gifts probably has major spoilers of the relationship variety and minor spoilers of the plot variety for anyone who hasn’t read the first five books. ****

The Premise: Kate and Curran are out for a nice dinner at a local restaurant when a gift of a necklace at a nearby table ends in death and mayhem. Tracing the origin of the necklace before its latest victim, a seven-year old boy, can die, while also dealing with owning a business, being the Beast Lord’s consort, her grumpy best friend, and the politics of the Mercenary Guild, and you have your typical week in the life of Kate Daniels.

My Thoughts: At 97 pages (how long the pdf was on my nook with small text), this felt like a nice long novella, and fit much of the style of the previous books. As usual, Kate has her hands full in all aspects of her life. First, there is her struggling business at Cutting Edge Investigations. Her best friend Andrea is handing a big case and is off the page much of the time, but there is clearly something going on there that will be expanded in Gunmetal Magic. Then, there is the Mercenary Guild. They want Kate to settle a dispute about Guild leadership, and Kate isn’t eager to be the deciding vote.

While those distractions are going on (the Guild business takes up a lot of Kate’s time), the meat of the story is about the necklace. This is a series that does not stick to one set of mythologies — we’ve seen Celtic deities, Indian demons, and Russian witches. This time, the mythology is of a Nordic flavor, which made me think I was seeing nods to Tolkien, but now I think it’s the Norse mythology he used in his books. Kate has to consult the Neo-Vikings for their expertise, and we get to see another new monster as part of the investigation. As creepy-crawlies in the Kate Daniels universe goes, I found this one quite nightmarish, thank you, but other than that, the impediments to solving the case were relatively minor, and this felt like a condensed but still substantial, version of the full-length books.

Overall: Quite satisfying and met my expectations of what a Kate Daniels story should be. If you are already a fan, you won’t be disappointed by this one. If you are not, I suggest you begin with the first book and work your way through the series before you get to this novella.

calico_reaction – 6 (worth reading, with reservations)
Chachic’s Book Nook – positive
One More Page – 5 stars (out of 5)

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Posted on February 3, 2012 by janicu

Anna and the French Kiss

Stephanie Perkins

The Premise: Anna doesn’t want to go to France for her senior year, but her parents don’t give her a choice. She’s enrolled in a boarding school: The School of America in Paris, and it’s good-bye to her best friend Bridgette and good-bye to Toph, the guy she may have had something with. Instead, Anna is the new girl in a place where all the other students seem so much cooler and more Parisian than her. Then Anna meets Étienne St. Claire, the cute boy with a French name and an English accent — the boy that everyone likes, but who has a girlfriend. Anna and Étienne become good friends, but maybe they could be more, if both of them didn’t appear to be already involved.

My Thoughts: This book made me feel very nostalgic for my youth. Anna and the French Kiss is very much about those first experiences – living in a new place, meeting interesting new people, seeing the world, all for the first time. When you’re seventeen and thrust into the world by yourself, everything is new and terrifying and glorious. I was actually amused that Anna cried as soon as she was alone in her new room in the dorms. Why? Because that is a real and believable reaction and I could relate to it.

At first, Anna is just awkward and self-conscious. Luckily, her next door neighbor, Meredith, takes Anna under her wing and introduces Anna to Josh, Rashmi, and St. Claire. Anna starts off as total newbie about Paris (I was cringing a bit), but she eventually relaxes and settles into the group and is is eating French food, walking to Paris landmarks and enjoying the Paris cinema scene. Despite Anna’s initial hang-ups about being an American and what Parisians must think of her, she’s a cool girl in her own right. She has a quick sense of humor and an interest in film, and while she thinks St. Claire is really hot, she always maintains her dignity around him. I loved that she is a girl who doesn’t have her brains turn to mush just because the guy she likes is looking at her.

The kids at SOAP that Anna falls in with are a self-assured, independent crowd. Their days consist of easy friendships, hanging out in Paris and their dorms, relaxed in each other’s company. Before long, she and Étienne are close friends, but their relationship is fraught with their unvoiced attraction. Étienne is really good looking with the charm (and accent) to match. Even if he’s not very tall, there are several girls interested in him, including Meredith. Anna isn’t about to go after a boy her friend likes, besides, Étienne has a girlfriend, and Anna likes a boy back home named Toph.

In awkward denial-slash-avoidance, Anna and Étienne maintain that they are just friends, even though they share moments filled with unvoiced feelings. Reading the story from Anna’s point of view made everything so much more immediate. You could cut the tension with a knife. This is where the story can be frustrating. When I was reading this, I felt exasperated by the way both Anna and Étienne were acting, but at the same time, I couldn’t fault either of them for it (OK, I wanted to fault Étienne, but I couldn’t really do it). There were very good reasons on both sides not to be the first one to admit anything or change anything. Plus they are young, and they have other people to consider. This is a character driven story, and Anna relationships with her old and new friends and her issues with her Nicholas-Sparks-alike father, and Étienne’s own issues with his friends and parents, are all part of the big picture. Luckily, there’s a whole school year to figure things out.

Overall: Anna and the French Kiss is one of those books that stands apart from the pack. I think it’s because it captures this little phase of life (when you’re out of the house, but not quite on your own), in a way that feels so real and relatable. Anna’s life made me nostalgic for my college days, the Parisian backdrop made me want to fly off somewhere, and the romance made me happy that I’m past the limbo of “I wonder if he likes me”. I like you for these things, dear book.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
One More Page – 5 stars (out of 5)
Giraffe Days – 5 giraffes (out of 5)
My Favourite Books – positive
Charlotte’s Library – “good reading, but it wasn’t a perfect book”
In which a girl reads – 8.25/10 (and with some interesting observations on Étienne)
The Book Pushers – A+
Chachic’s Book Nook – “deserves all the hype that it’s been getting in the blogosphere”
Life After Jane – positive
The Book Harbinger – “An incredibly sweet story”
Book Fare Delights – 5 strawberries (out of 5)
intoyourlungs – “seriously one of the best novels I’ve read this year”
christina_reads – positive
Guy Gone Geek – 4 stars (out f 6)

Conjure Oils: Toby Daye Scent Collection sampler

Posted on February 1, 2012 by janicu

For a while now, I’ve been curious about the Toby Daye collection from Conjure Oils. This is a collection of scented oils where the fragrances are inspired by the characters and writing of Seanan McGuire. If you read the Toby Daye series, it’s pretty common to read about the scent of a character’s magic, and there are some pretty out-there combinations. The collection at Conjure Oils consists of 21 scents, from “Makeshift Morgue” and “Garden of Glass Roses” to “Toby Daye” and “May Daye”. It’s $20 for a 5ml bottle, and $35 for a pip selection of 7. I’ve always wondered what pennyroyal and civet musk smelled like…and this is totally book related… so might as well buy..

After checking out the selections and reading the comments on the collection in the forum, I decided to try a pip selection with:

(Each of the links above go to the forum post about that scent).

About a week later I got this small package:

And inside it was:

And inside that was:

My seven choices:

Plus two extra:

I am not really a perfume person (actually some can trigger migraines for me), but let me try to give you my impressions of these scents so far!

The Queen of the Mists – “Madness and the monarch by the sea. The scent of frozen salt, as cold and unforgiving as the deep. “
Has a floral, soapy sort of scent. Fresh out of the bottle, it reminded me of green grass and the longer it was on my skin the more I smelled like.. the smell of the outdoors after rain, and soap.

Tybalt – “A cat may look at a King. A King may look at anything he likes. Pennyroyal, civet musk, leather and wild honey. “
I found this a strong smelling scent. A small dab goes a long way. But not a smell I liked really. Very spicy, patchouli/sandlewood/incense range of scent. Lingers for a long time.

Quentin – “The knight in waiting: noble wood, sweet blooming heather and the metallic tang of steel. “
Well this is another strong one. Has a sharp scent. Chemical. Then a floral mixed in there. Unfortunately, the combo of the two smells like mothballs to me.

Maye Daye – “The Fetchingly sweet smell of burnt sugar and ashes, like a bonfire on the carnival midway. Have your ticket ready at the door. “
At first the smell reminded me of a coffee shop and then a smell I couldn’t place, then I realized that it was the burnt sugar. I’m not sure I smell ashes – I smell lighter fluid. Maybe that’s the smell of something burning. The combination makes me think of the smell of dessert flambéd at the table.

Dare: “Dangerous black amber and Pippin apples, still unspoiled. “
I smelled green apple jellybeans. Sort of a yummy apply smell, but it’s under this is other odor which is sort of musky and sour – it might be the black amber. Kind of an interesting scent. Unfortunately smells sort of musty on me after a while, like old dusty building smell.

Green potion – “The treatment is sometimes just as bad as the disease, but smells a lot sweeter. Pennyroyal, cowslips, and wisteria.“
Smells very flowery but my favorite. Has that high note you get when you smell jasmine or honeysuckle. Lovely.

Toby Daye – “Our heroine herself: the sweetness of newly-cut grass mingled with the bloody sharpness of copper, a changeling blend “
Something fresh & greenish (I guess this is the grass smell) and something that reminds me of bandages! Like the smell of the adhesive of a band-aid. Very interesting. Another favorite I think, although if I smell it too closely it’s a bit too chemical/sharp – but from afar it smells flowery and nice. The longer it’s on my skin, the more it smells floral instead of sharp.

** EXTRAS **

Gears of Imagination – “Stoke the boilers and get ready to take flight! A bold and adventurous blend of red amber, oak leaf, steeped black tea, amber musk, aged leather and a dusting of cacao powder. “
First smell – chocolate!!! Then a sort of smell of Boy (OK, “masculine scent”), which I think comes from the leather and black tea. The leather is there the most. Like it, but smells more like a man’s scent than a woman’s.

A Strychnine Kiss – “Sparkling pomegranate wine, white patchouli, vanilla musk, pink gardenia and amber incense “
I smell something very sweet in this, like a fruity smell, not quite apple. And a lot of amber. I think it actually smells a lot like sandalwood on my hand. Just incense-y. Diffuses quickly. Not very strong.

At $35, this is on the high end for sample selections, but I think if you are a scented oil person it would be worth trying out the scents before buying the $20 5ml bottle. I was surprised by what ended up being my favorite (Green Potion) and least favorite (Tybalt and Quentin). I would buy Green Potion in a bigger bottle. These scents diffused quickly so I didn’t have problems with headaches for most of them. I had a headache on the day I tried Dare and Maye Daye but I couldn’t say if either of the scents were a trigger.

Cinder audiobook winner

Posted on January 28, 2012 by janicu

image from cuteoverload.com

Congratulations to Charlotte, who won the Cinder audiobook! Macmillian Audio will be sending that out to you ASAP!

For those who did not win, this cute puppy is here to virtually hug you.

The Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

Posted on January 28, 2012 by janicu

The Book of a Thousand Days

Shannon Hale

This is a retelling of a lesser-known fairytale (Maid Maleen) that I have been meaning to get my hands on for some time. I finally found a copy while perusing a new used bookstore in Sedona, AZ (where the parents and in-laws live) and read it over the end of last year.

The Premise: Dashti is a mucker girl who gets a job as a lady’s maid on the very day that her lady is imprisoned in a tower for seven years. This is because Lady Saren refuses to marry Lord Khasar, claiming a prior engagement with another nobleman – Khan Tegus. While Lady Saren’s father shouts and the other maids run away, Dashti vows to stay beside her lady. The two girls are holed up in a small tower, and Dashti begins a journal detailing their days. Both Lady Saren’s suitors come by: Lord Khasar to taunt and torment them, and Khan Tegus to speak, but Lady Saren commands Dashti to impersonate her with Khan Tegus. As months go by and turn into years, the food supply dwindles and Lady Saren settles into a dark depression. Only Dashti’s no nonsense attitude and faith in her gods keeps her from losing all hope herself.

My Thoughts: This is a epistolary novel told through Dashti’s entries in her journal, which she names “The Book of A Thousand Days”. From the get go, Dashti proves to be a heroine familiar with having to persevere when times are tough. She is a mucker – used to a nomadic lifestyle that depends on things beyond human control. She’s weathered a few hardships before selling her last animal for a job in Lady Saren’s household. When Lady Saren, a young girl like Dashti herself, is put in a tower by her own father, Dashti is the only servant willing to take care of her lady.

My lady was squeezing my arm so tightly now, my fingers felt cold. One of her cheeks was pink from his slap, her brown eyes red from crying. She reminded me of a lamb just tumbled out, wet all over, unsure of her feet and suspicious of the sun.
She’d be alone in that tower, I thought, and I remembered our tent when Mama died, how the air seemed to have gone out of it, how the walls leaned in, like to bury me dead. When Mama left, what had been home became just a heap of sticks and felt. It’s not good being alone like that. Not good.
Besides, I’d sworn to serve my mistress. And now that her hair was fixed and her face washed, I saw just how lovely she was, the glory of the Ancestors shining through her. I felt certain that Lady Saren would never disobey her father lightly. Surely she had a wise and profound reason for stubbornness, one blessed by the Ancestors.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll stay with my lady.”
Then her father up and slapped me across my mouth. It almost made me laugh.

I liked Dashti a lot. Not only does she have skills for survival, but she also knows how to write and how to sing mucker healing songs. She’s self-sufficient, unlike her lady, who falls apart inside the tower. Dashti is the one looking at how much food they have and rationing it, worrying about the mice, cleaning, fetching water, and going about the day to day tasks of survival. Faced with a problem, Dashti doesn’t sit around – she does something. She’s just as worried as Lady Saren is that they may not survive, and yes, every so often she cries and despairs, but she picks herself up and carries on.

Day 528
Today I thought I would like to die, so I went into the cellar and smacked a few rats with the broom. It helped some.

As much as Dashti has skills that her lady does not, Dashti considers herself a servant and of a lower class than her lady. The class boundaries are very clear in her mind, and while others would think ill of Lady Saren for her uselessness in the tower, Dashti does not. Dashti believes in the gods and that the gentry have the mark of the Ancestors on them. It is Dashti’s job as a servant to obey and make her lady’s life easier. In many ways, Dashti’s unwavering belief make her something of an innocent, but I found her faith and heart endearing. It made her character very pure of heart, which fit well within the fairytale structure of this story.

When Lady Saren’s suitors pay them a visit at their tower, Dashti begins to realize why Saren refuses to marry Lord Khasar and prefers Khan Tegus. While Khan Tegus is likable, Lord Khasar is terrifying. Lord Khasar is a power hungry ruler who wants to take over all the Eight Realms. In this fairytale retelling, Lord Khasar is very clearly the bad guy while Khan Tegus is the Prince Charming of the tale, but the story puts a little twist to both the concepts. There is both a romance and a vanquishing in this story, and I don’t want to go into it and spoil anyone’s fun, but I have to say that both had me cheering. I think that the structure of the story, as a series of journal entries, forces the narrative to sometimes focus on the mundane details over action, but I never found myself bored. Instead I was charmed by Dashti’s voice and her evolution from an ordinary lady’s maid into someone who could be the Hero of the story. I couldn’t predict what way the story was going to go, but I loved the way it unraveled.

I also loved that this story had a Mongolian influence. The Eight Realms and the Gods as Dashti knows them are clearly from Hale’s imagination, but the clothing, the animals and landscape, and many other details are very Asian. There are also a lot of charming drawings that pepper the text which underline that these characters have Asian features. I really enjoyed reading a story that was so steeped in this sense of place.

Overall: This could be my favorite Shannon Hale story. I like a lot of Shannon Hale’s stories, but The Book of a Thousand Days had such an endearing heroine: a maid with a big heart who is determined to take care of her lady. It was heartwarming to see such a good character get her happy ending. This hit the right “fairytale” note while mixing in fantasy and Mongolian inspired story elements. I’m calling it a keeper.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Stephanie’s Written Word – positive
SFF Chat – positive
My Favourite Books – positive
need_tea – B
christina-reads – positive
temporaryworlds – 5 out of 5 stars

Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey

Posted on January 23, 2012 by janicu

Exclusively Yours

Shannon Stacey

Shannon Stacey has gotten a bit of buzz online amongst the romance reviewing community since she debuted with Exclusively Yours, which was published as an ebook by Carina Press, Harlequin’s e-only imprint. Now, her books are going to be in print too (from HQN). I stumbled on Exclusively Yours on netgalley a few months ago and requested it based on the good reviews. I’m always on the lookout for good contemporary romances and this seemed to have a great premise.

The Premise: Keri Daniels is a journalist, who unfortunately, has a boss obsessed with the reclusive author Joe Kowalski. Joe Kowalski happens to be Keri’s high school boyfriend – the guy she dumped when high school ended. Keri would like nothing more than to never see Joe again, but when her boss finds out Keri’s long held secret, it’s either get an interview or lose her job. Now Keri is back in her hometown and living her worst nightmare. Joe says he will answer her questions, but for a price. All she has to do is join him on the Kowalski family camping trip, and for every day she survives with his siblings, their spouses, his parents and a rowdy bunch of Kowaski offspring, she can ask one question. Keri was never a camping sort of girl, but now she has to spend time with a family that has every cause to dislike her, especially Joe’s twin sister, Terry, her one time best friend who now holds a monumental grudge.

Read an excerpt of Exclusively Yours here

My Thoughts: With the premise of Keri’s ex-boyfriend being in the position to make Keri really suffer on the camping trip, I was expecting a lot of back-and-forth friction between the ex-lovers, but this story surprised me. Other than his idea of the camping trip, Joe seems rather forgiving of his ex-girlfriend that broke his heart and sent him into such a dark depression that he took to drinking. In fact, he looks at Keri with much the same appreciation as he used to in high school and is pretty much a nice guy about the whole breakup. The rest of the Kowalski’s are pretty zen as well. Except for Terry, who has her own reasons to be angry at Keri, no one seems to hold a grudge. This was a little weird, as I was expecting SOME resistance to Keri, and maybe some hurt feelings on Joe’s part, but it was also refreshing to have a not-so-predictable plot.

Instead of the expected drama of Keri’s inclusion to the Kowalski camping trip, much of the story focuses on the personal dramas of Joe’s siblings amongst the woods and ATVing. His sister Terry is dealing with hurt feelings because her husband moved out. She can’t help herself from reliving her husband’s departure and wondering what went wrong. She’s in no mood to deal with Keri, her once best friend that phased her out, then broke her brother’s heart. You can’t help but feel like Terry is taking out all her pain on Keri, just because she is a convenient scapegoat, and this would be right. Terry’s complicated situation and the way she acts out was well done. I didn’t particularly like Terry, but I understood why she acted the way she did, and I liked the secondary story of her marriage woes (I had quibbles with how this was resolved, but nothing major). While Terry has her problems, Joe’s brothers also have theirs. Kevin is a bachelor and bar owner who just got out of a bad divorce. Mike is a family man with four boys and who doesn’t want any more kids, but his wife Lisa, wants one more. This leads to some spectacular spats.

Compared to the drama going on among the people around them, the drama between Keri and Joe feels relatively tame. The biggest issue starts off as the conflict between Joe keeping his secrets (a mysterious engagement, his subsequent shunning of the limelight), and Keri needing a juicy story. But as the story continues Keri realizes that she has the same choice to make as before: whether she should choose Joe and her hometown, her career and L.A. Along the way of course, there is also the sexual tension they have to contend with, and much of the camping trip involves the dance between two obviously attracted people. Joe sees Keri and feels just like he felt about her in high school, and Keri feels like getting involved with Joe again would just be a big mistake. I liked the relaxed banter and the adult way that the hero and heroine acted throughout the book, and their obstacle to a happy ending felt more realistic than some of the others I’ve read in contemporary romance.

Overall: An enjoyable contemporary romance with humor and likable protagonists. I would say that it was a nice romance but the sense of family (their shenanigans and tribulations) and the well developed secondary characters brought Exclusively Yours up a notch from the average ‘fun romance read’. I’m interested in reading the next in the Kowalski series – this time about bar owner brother Kevin.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Buy ebook: Amazon (kindle) | B&N (eBook)

Other reviews:
Monkey Bear Reviews – B-
One Good Book Deserves Another – 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Dear Author – B-
Pearl’s World of Romance – 10 out of 10

Cinder Audiobook Giveaway (U.S. only)

Posted on January 19, 2012 by janicu

Thanks to the folks at Macmillan Audio I have a copy of the Cinder audiobook to give away to one lucky winner!

Sample of Cinder audiobook

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

To enter, click this link and enter the google form (I just need a name and an email)

Rules:

Sorry, this contest is for U.S. addresses this time
One entry per person please
Contest ends Thursday the 26th (midnight EST)

Books, so many books! Recent buys and books to be reviewed

Posted on January 18, 2012 by janicu

Inspired by this post by need-tea with all its pretty pictures of books, I thought I’d show you pictures of books I have bought in the past month.. Some of these I have posted on twitter, but not here.

Crown Duel and Court Duel by Sherwood Smith: I have read (and own) this duology (I also have the eBook!), but I don’t ever see the hard cover versions of the books where they are actually separate. Plus they were $1 each at a library sale in Kennebunkport, ME. Soo… I have rescued them. Consider this post as evidence of my book addiction!

Speaking of library sales and books I’ve already read.. there was a 5 paperbacks for a dollar sale at my local library, and I couldn’t resist getting copies of old-school versions of books I already own: Beauty by Robin McKinley (with $1 B&N sticker still on it!), War For the Oaks by Emma Bull, and Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones. Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge was an impulse buy based on its cover. I actually can’t remember what I got as book #5..

.. but I think it was this Kristan Higgins book, Fools Rush In. In another used bookstore I got me some Jennifer Crusie since I haven’t read anything but Bet Me. I bought Charlie All Night and Manhunting there.

Speaking of used bookstores, I got the above in AZ used bookstores. Gentleman Takes a Chance by Sarah Hoyt, The Goblin Wood by Hilari Bell, Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti, and Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale.

And then I just bought stuff online, like these two British Chick Lit books, From Notting Hill With Love.. Actually by Ali McNamara and Chasing Daisy by Paige Toon (unfortunately I am not loving them now that I started them, but that’s another post).

And more stuff bought online. Oh Bookcloseouts and your sales! Feeling Sorry For Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty, Hero by Perry Moore, The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting, Need by Carrie Jones, Mistwood by Leah Cypress, Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor (not included because I’m reading it and forgot to put it on the pile is Coronets and Steel by Sherwood Smith).

And even more stuff bought online. Kitty Goes to War by Carrie Vaughn, Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott, Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty, As You Wish by Jackson Pearce, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride, Dull Boy by Sarah Cross, and Pink by Lili Wilkinson. Hmm, I’ve been buying lot more YA than I used to!

These pictures do not include the few ebooks I have also downloaded.. *shifty eyes*.

Oh so my to-be-reviewed list is long now. It’s killing meeee. Yes, I don’t have to review everything I read. But! I want to.

I am also considering reviewing these but they didn’t leave much of an impression, so I might not:

Novella reviews: Fairy Tale Fail & Love Your Frenemies by Mina V. Esguerra

Posted on January 17, 2012 by janicu

I first heard of Mina V. Esguerra on Chachic’s blog when she reviewed Fairy Tale Fail. This is a Filipino author who writes chick lit set in Manila. I always love a book NOT set in the usual places, and filed it away for future reference. At 99 cents each, I didn’t think I could go wrong with either Fairy Tale Fail or Love Your Frenemies, the two options I found at the Barnes & Noble ebookstore. Of course, I went with the one with “Fairy Tale” in the title first. 🙂 Since these are each about 200 pages, I thought I would review both of them in the same post.

Fairy Tale Fail

Mina V. Esguerra

The Premise: Ellie Manuel is a young twenty-something working girl and free spirit. She enjoys her job in Marketing, but work is not the end-all and be-all of her life. Travel is her real passion, and can spend hours constructing her next vacation. From what to eat to where to stay, the options are limitless. Ellie is a dreamer for sure, and she is convinced that life is like a fairytale. There are only seven types of stories, but in Ellie’s life, she is the Hero, and eventually, she will get her happily ever after. That is why, when her boyfriend Don dumps her because they aren’t “in sync”, Ellie is sure it’s all just a part of her Hero’s Journey. Don will come back if she stays true. Then months pass, and Ellie isn’t so sure. She gets promoted, makes friends with the cute guy of the office, and begins to feel happy, without Don. Wasn’t Don her True Love? Or was she mistaken?

My Thoughts: It was very interesting to read about life in the corporate world that’s so different from mine. Not only do I know nothing about Marketing or Client Services, but the corporate culture in Ellie’s life sounds so different. Just the fact that there were a lot of young people in Ellie’s office blew me away (there is a serious dearth of people my age where I work), but that there is a social life among them? I’m jealous. I loved the concept of the barkadas – circles of friends and how they tied into the story. How social the work culture seems! I also enjoyed the glimpses of life in Manila like the food and the torrential rain that are a part of life there. Peppered throughout the story are Filipino words that I usually could guess the meanings of within the context. I wish there was a glossary, but I didn’t *need* it.

Ellie and Don belonged to the same barkada at work before they started dating. When Don breaks up with Ellie, it’s very painful for her, and it’s made more so because Don is still within her circle of friends, and he was there first. With Ellie’s feelings on her sleeve, things are very awkward with Don, Ellie, and their work barkada. I really felt for Ellie during the breakup and it’s aftermath. I think most people have experience with a bad break up. The fallout amongst friends and the little dramas that play out afterwards felt very realistic (the dialogue felt particularly spot on as well). Ellie’s situation conjures up those feelings of denial, depression, and bargaining that are part of the grief process, although I wondered and worried about Ellie. She just wouldn’t get angry at Don nor would she accept her relationship with him was completely over, but this is obviously the crux of the story.

Ellie has to get herself out of her post-breakup rut and regain control. So she makes some changes like moving to a job in Client Services. She takes some trips alone, and makes friends with Lucas, the cute guy with Rock Star hair. Lucas at first doesn’t seem like Ellie’s type. He’s tattooed, a smoker, and agnostic, and office gossip has him dating one pretty girl after another and fathering a lovechild. For a nice Catholic girl, he hits everything on Ellie’s no-no list, but the more she gets to know Lucas, the more she realizes that her first impressions were wrong. They have a charming relationship with the sort of easy conversations you only have with your very best friends. A year later and Ellie is more like her original self:

“Ellie the Free Spirit was the girl [Don] fell in love with, the kind of person he kept comparing Ellie the Girlfriend to, and apparently by being away from him I was restoring myself to that state.”

It isn’t exactly a surprise where the story goes from here, but it is nice and satisfying the way it does.

Overall: This was a short and sweet chick lit that charmed me with it’s whimsical main character, easy dialogue, and feel-good romance. As a bonus, the Manila setting gave me a glimpse of another culture, and I’m always hungry to learn about places I haven’t been.

Buy: Amazon (kindle) | B&N (eBook)

*****

Love Your Frenemies

Mina V. Esguerra

The Premise: Kimberly Domingo grew up in privilege. A fixture of the Country Club, she was raised alongside two daughters of her mother’s college circle, Chesca and Isabel, who became her closest friends. In high school, she got what she wanted by being direct (and intimidating), and at work, she got ahead easily with the same directness and ambition. She was the girl people loved to hate. The only person that can trip up Kimmy is Manolo, an on-again, off-again fling she’s had since she was fifteen. Unfortunately, Manolo’s M.O. seems to be: make Kimmy melt, then disappear. Then Kimmy met Zack. They were supposed to get married, but Zack broke off the engagement, leaving Kimmy the object of scorn and rumor. Unable to deal with it anymore, Kimmy left the country. Now, many months later, she’s back for her her best friend’s wedding. This time though, Kimmy thinks she knows how to get her life back in order – by cutting off the toxic friends that put her in the position she found herself in months ago.

My Thoughts: This story is told in alternating chapters that tell the story of what’s going on now that Kimmy is home, and what happened months ago, before her failed wedding. There were times, reading about Kimmy’s past, that I just didn’t understand her, particularly at the start this story. Compared to the dreamer main character Fairy Tale Fail, Kimmy was a much harder character to love. She’s a girl who is incredibly confident that what she thinks is how things are, who doesn’t seem to have any regrets being a Mean Girl growing up.

“If you went to school with us, you would think that Chesca and I had a lot of friends — but really, it was just us. We let one girl join our “group” because she had a driver and her own car. Another because she was good at math and she let Chesca copy off her once. We also kicked people out of our group fairly regularly, if and when they stopped being useful, so yeah, we weren’t very nice.
And this is how we did it: Chesca invited the girl into the group, and I eventually did something to kick her out. But we made decisions together, and just played different roles. She was always the angel, and I was always the witch.”

Kimmy is self-aware about who she is. This is the story about the not-nice girl – the girl who is actually the villain from the point of view of another Esguerra book (My Imaginary Ex), much like Darcy of Something Blue by Emily Giffin. She’s not so nice, but at the same time, it’s obvious that she’s still going through something and she hasn’t figured out her life yet. It takes some time, but slowly the reader begins to realize that Kimmy could be harder on herself and her friends than they all deserve. How she sees things colors what really happened, and people change as they grow up. I really liked the way Kimmy’s relationships were portrayed in this book. They were a little dysfunctional but realistic. It was refreshing to have a story with the dramatic best friend that demonstrates her love in a different way.

Love Your Frenemies felt like an internal story. We’re in Kimmy’s head a lot, and a lot of history and back story is implied. She grew up with Isabel and Chesca and Manolo and they are such a huge part of her life she will always feel their impact. It takes a little time to get into that part of the story, but it feels very organic the way Kimmy narrates as things happen and as she remembers the past. I really enjoyed the perspective from a more messed up, less happy heroine. If I were to have a complaint, it would be that I wanted more of a connection to the romance. I could tell that it was the kind of romance that devastates a person, but I felt like I was seeing it through the lens of time, and I wanted to understand Manolo’s perspective better.

Overall: The trials and tribulations of the not-nice girl was a refreshing perspective in this chick lit novella and I liked the depth and development that went into the story in such small space.

Buy: Amazon (kindle) | B&N (eBook)

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Posted on January 14, 2012 by janicu

Cinder

Marissa Meyer

As a fairytale retelling with a cyborg Cinderella, and set in “New Beijing”, Cinderpromised to deliver a story containing some of my favorite themes. I’ve had high hopes for this one so when I saw a contest for an ARC, I made sure I signed up. This review is based on an ARC copy I won from the publisher.

The Premise: It’s now 126 T.E. and in the teeming city of New Beijing, Linh Cinder is a talented mechanic who works out of her stall at the Weekly Market. While she’s a teen-aged girl, not your typical store owner, she’s also a cyborg, and thus the property of her stepmother Adri, who uses Cinder’s income to run the household and keep her two daughter’s Pearl and Peony in relative comfort. Adri has no love for Cinder, and the feeling is mutual. Cinder’s life is not easy, but even the limited peace she has is gone when the plague comes to her home. While things are at their lowest point with her step-family, Cinder finds herself entangled in international politics and in the life of Prince Kai, heir to the Eastern Commonwealth. Somehow this is all tied to her own past and the ruthless Lunarians poised to take over the planet.

Download the first 5 chapters in Kindle format here
Download the first 5 chapters in eBook (nook) format here

My Thoughts: This story starts off very well. It begins with Cinder at her usual stall in the market, a space that is obviously her own. I loved the way Cinder’s skill as a mechanic and her ostracization as a cyborg are incorporated with the sights and sounds of the New Beijing marketplace. When Prince Kai arrives, incognito and carrying an android for Cinder to work on, he has no idea that Cinder is part machine. Cinder, faced with a cute boy that every girl in the city has a crush on, isn’t eager to reveal something that she’s vilified for on a constant basis. It was a great opening scene and the tension of secrets between the two characters added something to the whole meeting. Another great dose of drama is added when there is an outbreak of letumosis nearby, and the reader is made aware of this deadly and horrifying disease and how its victims are treated.

That was all on the first chapter. I was happy with just the thought of a story that contained Cinder, the prince, and letumosis, but the story becomes much larger in scope. Beyond Cinder and her step-family (whom we are introduced to soon after Cinder and the prince), are world-wide machinations. It isn’t long before Cinder’s world is upended and she is involved in a frantic see-saw between trying to save a loved one from letumosis and trips to the palace where she continues to run into Prince Kai and discovers surprising things about both herself and the Lunarians. All the while, Kai has his own problems. His father has the plague too, and the diabolically evil Queen Levana wants the seize power through marriage to an inexperienced young monarch.

I really liked Cinder’s character. She is a girl who doesn’t have many supporters but she makes the best of what she has. She knows how to fix things, she has a realistic attitude, and she’s rather scrappy when things go south. I adored all the little reminders of her cyborg status like readouts and her leg compartment that liberally peppered the story. Kai struck me as a generally nice guy trying to do the right thing under trying circumstances. There are brief sections of this book told from his point of view. Overall, he’s not as well fleshed out as Cinder, but his frustration at his father’s sickness and the way the Lunarians are exploiting the situation is palpable.

There’s an obvious intent for there to be a romance between the two characters but the romance is not quite there yet. I had the impression that there was an instant like between Kai and Cinder, but that’s as far as it goes. With the weight of the world on their shoulders and with moments in each other’s company, it was a stretch to believe Kai would have any interest in Cinder being at his ball. Thankfully, the book didn’t try to sell me on a full-blown love between the two, which saves things somewhat, but it does skirt on the edges of disbelief without really going over. I think that the real romantic development is being saved for later books. I hope that the characters can spend more time with each other before the romance really happens.

Actually, a lot of this story felt like it was set up for later books. There are several ongoing threads that deal with Cinder’s past and her true identity which obviously won’t be resolved in this book. Unfortunately, there was a bit of frustration with having Cinder kept ignorant until the book’s climax. I could see where the story was manipulated there. I think that with the intent for this to be the series, it also necessitated that the Cinderella formula wasn’t adhered to in Cinder and the introduction of the ultimate bad guys – the Lunarians, in particular their evil queen. As bad guys go, I much preferred Cinder’s stepmother, who misdirects her anger and grief at her losses toward Cinder. Andi was a villainess with a motivation I understood. The Lunarian queen is just felt evil for no reason. Yes, fairy-tale bad guys are usually like that, and taken from that perspective, she is typical, but I wish Cinder could have stuck more to the original than it did.

I also was hoping to have a better sense of place in this story than I did. Other than the marketplace introduced all the way at the start of the book, there was little to show that the story was set in New Beijing. The only thing to indicate where everyone lived was their names. Even while preparing for the ball, the ballgowns sounded western: satin and tulle, big and fluffy, rather than silk and embroidered. I felt like the author had a missed opportunity in not making New Beijing a presence in the narrative.

Okay, so I have my complaints about this story, but none of them were deal breakers. There were things that I think affected my enjoyment of the middle part of the story, even though Cinder is well written and flowed well. I just found the middle part of the story not as compelling as the beginning and the end. There were parts that dragged because I felt like I could see what was going on behind the curtain. The ending was a good one though – it sealed my like of Cinder’s character and I enjoyed how the fairytale elements showed up. We’re left with plenty to look forward to in the sequels. Cinder continues with Scarlet (inspired by Little Red Riding Hood), Cress (Rapunzel), and Winter (Snow White). I will be interesting to see how the series plans to keep Cinder’s story within the frame of stories meant to be about other characters.

Overall: I loved the premise of a cyborg Cinderella so much that I wanted this story to really wow and excite me the way the premise did. The execution was good, but it didn’t thrill me like I wanted to be thrilled. The beginning and the end were great, but the middle suffered under the weight of being set up for a series and I had several qualms with the setting, romance, and antagonists. In the end, I liked Cinder, but it wasn’t a home run. I’d recommend this with reservations.

Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository

Other reviews:
The Book Smugglers – 6 (Good, recommended with reservations)
Good Books and Good Wine – loved it
Books and Things – 3 and a half stars (out of 5)
Pirate Penguin reads – positive
Giraffe Days – 4 giraffes (out of 5)
The Cozy Reader – a perfect score
On the Nightstand – “highly readable blend of science fiction and fairytales”
The Canary Review – 3 canaries (out of 5)
The Book Pushers – C+
Inkcrush – “It would have sucked me in big time when I was a teenager. I liked it as an adult.”

Other links:
“Glitches” — a short story that prequels Merissa Meyer’s CINDER