Saturday, November 29, 2014

Imitation by Heather Hildenbrand

Note: I received a free copy of Imitation by Heather Hildenbrand from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I chose Imitation, the story of Ven who is an Imitation/clone, of a privileged young woman because it reminded me of the movie The Island. And in a way it was very similar. There is a whole building, called Twig City, where the Imitations are shown footage of the Authentic they have been created to look like. They keep their figures in shape according to what their Authentic looks like and they know little of the outside world beyond what they must do to help their Authentic. That includes being around if their Authentic needs an organ transplant or if they need to stand in for their Authenics during dangerous situations.

The latter (going undercover) is the case for Ven, an Imitation of Raven Rogen, the daughter of a man very important to the science world. Only she finds that the world as she knows it is not what she expected when she realizes her best interests don't matter to most anyone and in fact, society as a whole,does not even see the Imitations as real people.

So, in the realm of most futuristic/slightly dystopian, a rebellion is spoken of and begun though not much more than basic planning is started in the first novel. That's why I gave it only three stars, because this is definitely not a stand alone novel in any sense of the term. The story isn't complete and I don't like that. Even if there are more books to come in a series there should be some type of resolution and Ven finding out more about the rebellion is not a good enough one.

One complaint though: in the clone training center they are shown some footage of their Authentic's lives. But they aren't allowed to really experience any of the stuff for themselves. How are you supposed to act natural when riding in cars and elevators or talking to boys when you've never done any of that? That does not make any sense!


But other than that I really liked the book and will likely buy the second one when it comes out next month.

Monday, November 17, 2014

The Thirteenth Tower by Sara Snider

Note: I received a NetGalley affiliated free copy of The Thirteenth Tower by Sara Snider earlier in the year (though I'm a little confused because even when I got it a few months ago it wouldn't have been an advanced copy and I'm used to having advanced copies but oh well, moving on).

I went into this book having read the blurb about it quite some time go. I remembered there was a female as a main character and that the story was about magic. What I had forgotten, and quickly found out while I was reading, was that The Thirteenth Tower was very much a "discovery of self" "coming of age" type of novel. Only coming of age with magic, which is always something I find interesting.

The story is about Emelyn, a supposedly orphaned housemaid from the village of Fallow. Throughout the story she travels far and wide and discovers quite a bit about herself, magic, and the world around her. And boy is it an interesting tale of travel.

I loved The Thirteenth Tower. The writing was tight and interesting. The characters were fairly well-developed and it kept me on my toes, especially as to what exactly a few of the characters were up to throughout the novel.

 And, even better, the story ended very nicely. It tied up enough strings to feel like a complete story but enough was left open that I could see Snider deciding to make it the first of a series if she so chose.

The only complaint I had was that some of the scenes with magic may have been handled a little better. I've read plenty of fantasy/magic stories and magic is something that can be hard to describe and that seemed like the case here. Descriptions of how the magic in this world works were long winded and slightly confusing. The magic battle at the end was VERY confusing.

But I still enjoyed what was going on. So as long as you're not afraid to be a little confused (because even if you do get confused, by the end of it you will know what happened) it's definitely a worthwhile read for fantasy fans.