Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I am apparently in the minority here but this book did absolutely nothing for me. Since so many people have given it rave reviews I was expecting a well written, thought provoking mystery and I got a fairly well written but far too wordy and pretentious book full of non-likeable and annoying as hell types of characters. When I don’t care about people is when I don’t read a book which made this especially difficult for me to get through. I only slogged through it in hopes that one or both of the protagonists would end up dead. Harsh, I know but hell even the Song of Ice and Fire series has more redeemable characters and that’s saying something.

So the setup for the story is that Nick Dunne’s wife, Amy, is missing from their home where it looks like an abduction/assault has taken place. Over the course of the first half of the book, where readers see a real time Nick chapter followed by past Amy diary chapters, the police decide that all evidence points to Nick killing his wife. Now let’s stop here for a minute. The fact that the Amy entries are supposed to be real past diary entries is crap. No one writes like that unless they want their entries to be read, aka someone who is writing their memoirs/wanting someone to read too much into them. Everything was so precise, so well detailed and grammatically correct (almost like what someone would say if they memorized an alibi they’d use with the police) that it doesn’t make any sense at all.  

By the time the second half of the book rolls around I know that what I feared to be true is true, that nobody in this story is redeemable and that I don’t want to root for anyone to win. That’s my main problem with the book. When I read something I want to like somebody. I want a person to root for. And in the real world people are not black and white, they are all shades of gray. But not in the world of Gone Girl. In Gone Girl every character except for maybe one of the officers is a horrible despicable person.

The only interesting thing I found when I read this, and it was perfectly crafted, was the realization of how incredibly sick and twisted both Nick and Amy were. Seriously both individuals are so crazy and manipulative I’m glad they found each other and didn’t screw even more people up along the way. Jeeze. Unfortunately that also meant I didn’t really care about either one of them which is where Gillian Flynn lost me especially with where the book ended (with absolutely no justice and the continuation of something toxic).

Camelot Burning by Kathryn Rose

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

I wanted to like this book I really did but there was just something about it that fell flat for me. I was originally intrigued by the blurb for this book because it was advertised to be a retelling of the legend of King Arthur. I generally like retellings of fairy tales and legends because I like to see how an author changes a classic story to make it their own so reading a steampunk version of King Arthur’s Camelot seemed very original and interesting.

The protagonist is Vivienne who is a handmaid to Guinevere who becomes queen very early on in the story. But Vivienne has a secret: when she’s not fulfilling her duties for the queen she is out in the tower with Merlin, who in this story is a recovering magician who chooses to focus his abilities on alchemy since magic seems to be a slippery slope that can turn even the most well meaning person into a horror. (Although I’m a little uncertain on this because throughout the series a few characters meet with another magical person and she doesn’t appear to suffer for the use of magic but I don’t know). I liked Vivienne. She is a very strong female character with a good head on her shoulders and a sense of honor.

Merlin. Oh dear Merlin he was interesting in this book. This is a world where sorcerers can only (I think) use magic if they steal it (not sure if they are technically only borrowing or if they’re stealing the powers from each other’s minds or what. This was never explained as far as I could tell.) And Merlin is covered in tattoos which are actually spells inked into his skin. But then a spell is cast upon him and he starts to disappear/fade away/his skin peels off or something until by the end he’s something else entirely.

Arthur is crazy. Lancelot and Guinevere have a flirtation that may or not have been created by Morgan Le Fay who by the way is even crazier than Arthur. Oh the family dynamics are creepy and weird. But the saving graces are Vivienne’s forbidden love interest Marcus, a squire with a hidden agenda but one of the truest hearts, and the blacksmith who we never really meet but is always in the background doing good things that help Vivienne to no end. (Like I really want to know who the blacksmith is! That’s probably the only reason I’d read a sequel!)

And the part that I didn’t like…the steampunk part. I just don’t think I handle that well. I’ve read a few things that are light on the steampunk elements and I enjoyed them but this was all about the mechanics of everything from metal flying birds to a giant weapon. There was just so much description of how the pieces were meshing together (what it took to unlock a series of doors, what it takes to put together the flying birds and the dragon-like weapon) with so much detail to the pieces that I just couldn’t picture it in my head.  So I think from here on out I’ll stick to steampunk type stories with less mechanical descriptions which means the sequel to this book will not be going on my “to read” list.

The writing and pacing was pretty good and I do think Kathryn Rose created what could very well be a really interesting world for other readers to immerse themselves. It’s just not my cup of tea.

Books, Cooks, and Crooks by Lucy Arlington

I love reading and books so reading a series about a literary agent sounded good and the first book in the Novel Ideal Mystery series, Buried in a Book, was cute and interesting. I liked the protagonist Lila and her bookish sleuthing ways. Plus it was kind of nice to read a light cozy mystery which is never too violent and usually set in a too good to be true (except for the occasional murder) kind of setting. For the first book the quaint little town with its book themed shops and literary names was cute.

Unfortunately the second time around (actually the third time around because the library I got the books from didn’t have the second in the series) the little town and its people just did not work for me. The good characters were too goody goody to the point of being annoying. Even the love mystery, which was supposed to be all cute and was in a way, was way too over the top. Personally I think one or two secret admirer notes would be cute but a half dozen over the course of a few weeks is bordering on creepy.

All of the possible murder suspects, which included a dozen visiting chefs/writers, were all so flawed and painted to look like they were capable of murder. The literary agents were stereotyped to high heaven. The all business all the time boss. The swarmy agent who always talks about himself in third person (would someone like that really have people who want him to represent them). It was all just too much.

And Lila changed. I remember her being a smart intuitive woman in the first book, kept jumping to conclusions except for when it really mattered. I mean early on in the story somebody says something in a kind of emotional way and Lila automatically suspects that person of the murders and continues thinking they’re suspicious for the rest of the book. Then when she finally has a conversation with a person who sounds super shady Lila becomes suspicious for all of two seconds before she changes her mind and invites the person over to her house. That action does not fit in with Lila’s character at all.

Although the book kind of ended in a cliff hanger, not so much the mystery, but the relationship between two characters I really don’t think I’ll be picking up any of the other books in this series because the characters and the setting are all just trying too hard.

Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski

Note: I received a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

So when I go to NetGalley to find books to be sent in exchange for reviews I always read the blurb first or else why would I request something? But I usually request a few on the same day, get accepted to read them in at different times and then read other things in between so when I finally get around to something I’m in for a surprise because I don’t remember what the book was about. That’s what happened with Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski. All I was remembering was that it was about a group of high school students and it turned out to be so much more.

Since I hadn’t refreshed myself on the plot I was a little confused when it started out with a narrator who defined themselves as “we” and the reader was taken directly into the lives of nearly two dozen characters. But once I hit the meat of the story, that the students in question all received flu shots with some interesting side effects (including, and most importantly, telepathy) the reason behind the “we” narrator was made very clear and I ended up enjoying it. Makes sense for there to be a collective narrator when each and every main character knows exactly what’s going on in any other character’s lives, minds, etc.

It made for some really interesting reading. Yes the issues that each character were very typical (cheating parents, struggle to be the best, preoccupation with sex) but it was interesting to see how each character used their telepathic abilities to help themselves.

No it wasn’t a very thought provoking book. It was very much a quick fun read but I don’t see why that is really a problem. The author certainly could have made it a deep mystery/sci fi story perhaps with someone discovering a major international secret and having it evolve into some of the teenagers becoming spies or something but that’s clearly not the kind of story Sarah was going for. I think (I hope) she was just aiming for a cute, quirky little story about teenagers with a supernatural power who, instead of deciding that they’re super heroes, just deal with their problems (with just a little bit of help from an extra ability).

Teardrop by Lauren Kate

I have to admit that I am very torn on this book. The setup for what I think is supposed to be the first book in a trilogy was actually very interesting. The story goes that the main girl, Eureka who we first see almost drown in what she thinks is an accident that took the life of her mother. Right away the reader knows it was no accident so that was good (in these kinds of situations I like it when the reader gets to know things the main character does not. It’s suspenseful to keep reading and waiting for the main character to catch up). And what her mother has left her with are a locket, a letter, an oddly shaped stone, and a promise that she never cry.

Then a whole slew of strange things start happening. Her best guy friend is behaving very oddly. She’s being followed around by a strange guy named Ander who she happens to feel a very close affinity to. And the woman who starts translating her book reveals a story of love, loss, and what happened to the mysterious island of Atlantis.

This story had so much potential but it feel flat in quite a few places. Eureka’s parents divorced when she was young, her mother dies just a few pages into the book, she became suicidal and yet she is so naïve and you’d think her life experiences would make her more open to bad or potentially bad situations. She doesn’t see anything wrong when her friend becomes verbally abusive and puts her twin siblings in danger even though she supposedly cares about them more than anyone else in the world. She is attracted to and not really very suspicious of the strange guy following her around. I mean I know there are plenty of teenage girls like that in the world but I wish more authors would write strong female characters (which Eureka does kind of turn into but not until the last little bit of the story).

The other issue that I had was the writing in general. There were so many cheesy comparisons and inflated passages on things that didn’t matter. I distinctly remember a vivid five sentence paragraph describing what was growing on the surface of a marsh when the marsh in question was a location for one scene in the book and then never touched upon again. It just got to be too much sometimes.

So all in all I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to bother finishing the series whenever the rest of the books comes out. It may be a case where I won’t add them to my “to read” lists but I might check the books out at the library if I see it.

Blackout by Robison Wells

I’m just not even sure how I feel about Blackout by Robison Wells. The premise was very intriguing because it reminded me of X-men only the powers are supposedly caused by a virus and not a mutation. The setup is that this so called virus only manifests in teenagers between the ages of thirteen and twenty so not long after the story starts the teenagers are rounded up for testing and decontamination.

I enjoyed how the story switched back and forth between two different groups of teenagers. The first is a trio of teenagers with some pretty strong and well practiced powers and from bits and pieces it seems as though they were purposefully injected with the virus that causes the powers to manifest. The other group is teenagers that know about their powers but don’t understand them/don’t want to admit they exist or who don’t even realize they have powers until later in the game. And reading about all the different powers was interesting though I’m glad Wells didn’t try to focus on all of them. In no particular order of importance there was: limited invisibility, telepathy, super strength, powers of persuasion, and laser vision. You can see how this could be a very interesting world but…

Four hundred pages later and I’m still not sure what the point of this was. I mean it was interesting in the scheme of things and yes I understood that the whole reason the military went all crazy (forcefully relocating them, torturing them, keeping them in the dark news wise) was because there was a group of the teenage terrorists who were taking out American bridges, malls, landmarks and killing soldiers.

But there was never an explanation of why the terrorists were doing this and why some of the teenagers were apparently infected on purpose while others were accidental. I’m assuming that these questions will be answered in the later books but I wish those plot points would have been explained now because it made things seem pointless, disjointed and a little confusing. (Especially when the reader learns that while two of the terrorists we read about are very vicious and want to destroy as many people and things as they can while the third is being blackmailed into it).

I get that a writer wants to make sure the readers will pick up the next book in the series (or two books because I think the author plans on turning this into a trilogy) but you can’t just not answer the really BIG questions. You know, the questions that are the very reason for why this whole thing started in the first place. Yeah, they should have been answered in this book. It wouldn’t have been that hard for Wells to answer those questions in this book and still keep the following books interesting. The part where the good teenagers realize they’re unwittingly helping the bad ones could have waited for a later book, what’s going on with the other countries could be touched upon in the other books.

There were just so many different ways it could have been handled better which is sad because the story was a really interesting read. I do plan on reading the rest of this series when it comes out but I’d be a bit more happy about it if the first book was more cohesive.

Cleopatra's Daugther by Michelle Moran

I had actually had Cleopatra's Daughter on my 'to read' list for quite some time before I picked it up. My motivation for finally doing so was when I did a little research on Cleopatra and Mark Antony for a library presentation.

But this story really had little to do with Cleopatra (who according to the narrator was actually Kleopatra with a K which makes me curious why the author used the C version in the title but the K one throughout the story). Instead the focus is on her twins Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios which was interesting because there's not a whole heck of a lot of history about them at least not as much information as was known about their mother.

I was worried when I began reading and was faced with a pretty huge historical inaccuracy right away. In everything I've read Marc did not get a chance to see his wife and daughters before his death but this change certainly did add drama and emotion to the scene which made the twins, who were 10 at this point, very vulnerable and sympathetic characters.

Even though there were likely inaccuracies and definitely things that were made up I liked how Moran presented the twins who, even though they were taken by their father's conquerer and didn't know their fate, they were still willing to speak their minds and act like normal children. They just weren't like children as we know them now because of their maturity and good sense (I kept being surprised by reminders that all the main characters were under the age of 15) but I think that accurately reflected the time. Cleopatra Selene's world was one where marriage at 15 or younger was normal and death was just around the corned so I can see why one would have to grow up real fast.

The only other complaint I have is that the dialogue was very modern only with random Roman words and terms thrown in. I read it easily enough and it didn't bug me enough to throw me out of the setting but if was odd.

All in all I really liked this novel and actually wouldn't have minded if it had been longer and had followed more of Cleopatra Selene's life.

Grim

Note: I received a free copy of Grim from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am going to start off this review by admitting that I apparently didn’t read the book description very well when I requested this from NetGalley because I started it without realizing it was a collection of short stories. Not sure how that happened but it did. Once I finally looked into why there were so many authors listed (I’m guessing I must have been tired to not automatically assume it was a book of short stories when I saw like fifteen authors listed but whatever) I was kind of disappointed because the first short story was really good and I wanted to read more! Which I guess can’t be anything but a good thing, right? And that leads to the one conundrum of short stories, be they all written by the same author or by dozens of authors, the whole fact that some stories leave you wanting more while others can just kind of be blah.

Now I’ll go into a tiny bit of detail into each story but not enough to spoil anything too badly. So I’ll tell you the short story title, the author and which fairy tale the story was loosely based on and then a sentence or two about my thoughts on the story.

The Key by Rachel Hawkins (Bluebeard)

But this was the story that I read and was hoping it would be a fully fleshed book because the characters were interesting and the big reveal of the story was very suspenseful. I was so sad when it ended before we found out what happened to the girl once she found out the truth!

Figment by Jeri Smith-Ready (Puss-in-Boots)

This story was a little slow going but  slightly interesting and I was glad that instead of ending with a cliffhanger like I thought it was going to it ended up tagging on an extra little scene that gave the reader hope and closure.

The Twelfth-Girl by Malinda Lo (Twelve Dancing Princesses)

 It seemed a bit rushed and forced on the magic scenes and the relationships and I was very confused by the end of it because there were a lot of unanswered questions.

The Raven Princess by Jon Skovron (The Raven)

This was a more traditional fairytale and one not in a more modern setting. There are a few twists and turns but nothing really out of the ordinary. I did like how sympathetic of a character the male lead was but it wasn’t a very memorable read.

Thinner than Water by Saundra Mitchell (Cat-Skin, Deerskin, DonkeySkin)

Just a warning that this story contains incest and rape. It’s not very graphic but I still wanted everyone to know that.

I liked this version because even though it contains some very disturbing themes the daughter was actually a very kick ass woman and the ending was very gratifying.

Before the Rose Bloomed by Ellen Hopkins (The Snow Queen)

I liked this story because the girl is the one who ends up going on a quest to save him and actually ends up saving more people than she set out to in the first place.

Beast/Beast by Tessa Gratton (Beauty and the Beast)

Even though this was a short story I felt as though the author was able to make it seem as though the relationship between Beauty and the Beast was a very natural slow growing thing and not some case of Stockholm syndrome.

The Brothers Piggett by Julie Kagawa (The Three Little Pigs)

This retelling had the three pigs as humans and instead of dealing with a wolf per say it’s more of a situation of a naïve little brother and his older siblings who are very prejudiced against the local witch/witches. The twist was a little surprising but the story didn’t hold my attention like some of the others.

Untethered by Sonia Gensler (The Shroud)

I really ended up loving this story and even had to reread through bits and pieces because I didn’t recognize the twist before it happened. I liked that it through me off and it was a sad and sweet little ghost story.

Better by Shaun David Hutchinson (The Pied Piper)

Just a warning that Better did contain a brief scene of rape.

This was one of the two stories which took a more science fiction take on the traditional story and it ended up being a very interesting read but I kind of wanted to read more!

Light it Up by Kimberly Derting (Hansel and Gretel)

As I was reading this retelling, where two teens are left out in the woods by their conniving stepmother, I kept picturing the recent Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters movie because the teens seemed a little rough around the edges and weren’t afraid to fight back. It was a little gross and a little weird.

Sharper than a Serpent's Tongue by Christine Johnson (Diamonds and Toads)

This story just didn’t do much for me. It was nicely written but it didn’t really go anywhere. Not all of these stories had a resolution I liked but this one had no resolution at all. It was just kind of there.

A Real Boy by Claudia Gray (Pinocchio)

The other science fiction take on an original and I actually really liked how the characters learned new things along the way.

Skin Trade by Myra McEntire (The Robber Bridegroom)

Whoa violence! This got a little gross in the details (maybe not gross compared to some Grimms tales but gross compared to the rest of the books in this anthology). It must moved too fast for me.

Beauty and the Chad by Sarah Rees Brennan (Beauty and the Beast)

This definitely falls into my top three favorite stories from this anthology. I thought it was a cute way to change up the story and the miscommunications were laugh out loud funny!

The Pink by Amanda Hocking (The Carnation)

This wasn’t the best of the bunch mainly because it had a character that was supposed to be an antagonist. But, with the powers the prince abducts, the antagonist shouldn’t have had any powers to control the boy. It didn’t make sense.

Sell Out by Jackson Pearce (Snow White)

This was a retelling but not really. Imagine Snow White being poisoned and instead of being woken by true love’s kiss she’s actually just awoken by some random guy who has the power to wake the dead by kissing them. That’s what is going on and though it’s interesting there wasn’t enough detail to really get into the story.