I received an advanced copy of Draw Down the Moon from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Draw Down the Moon lured me I received an advanced copy of Draw Down the Moon from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Draw Down the Moon lured me in with its beautiful cover and interesting premise, but ultimately fell short. I did not get far before realizing that this was not the book for me, which is disappointing because I've had a series of duds lately and was hoping that this would pull me out of the reading slump I've fallen into. I think it threw me further down.
When I don't like a book, I always ask myself, "Is it me? Am I the problem, and I just need to come back later? Or is it truly the book that I'm having issues with?" I asked myself these questions after every chapter I read, which eventually led me to the conclusion that it was the book.
The writing was for a far younger audience, and the forced slang and pop culture references could have had their purpose but were uncomfortable to read. The characters were flat, their personalities defined by a single aspect of themselves that held no real meaning. I felt no connection to them and didn't care about their supposed problems. On top of that, a massive pet peeve of mine is when there is an established rule to something (and a reason that it's supposed to be that way), but a character breaks it nearly immediately with seemingly no care for the reason it's in place. Why make it a rule if you're going to have characters break it willy-nilly for no reason at all? It's one thing if it's justified, but this felt silly.
Draw Down the Moon had potential, but it was not the book for me....more
I received an advanced copy of Once a Queen from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
I will begin this review by sayingI received an advanced copy of Once a Queen from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
I will begin this review by saying that I could not finish Once a Queen. Despite my efforts to continue, I couldn't get into the story or the characters enough to want to keep reading. Typically, when I don't finish a book, I will automatically give it one star. However, I don't think that Once a Queen deserves one star.
I went into this book believing the main character was a couple of years older than fourteen. For some reason, when I read the description, my brain didn't process that she was that young, and I didn't realize until I was reading that this was a middle-grade book. While some middle-grade (and young adult) books are made with any readers in mind, this was not that book. It was clearly written for a younger audience, and I believe that is part of the reason I could not finish. Since this is no fault of the book, it's getting the extra star.
Despite that setback, I was still excited to read this story. Portal fantasies have a special place in my heart (The Chronicles of Narnia are still some of my favorite books). However, I was not intrigued by the story. At the end of each chapter were tiny snippets of history for the other world, and I found those two or three paragraphs to be almost more interesting than the entire chapter I had just finished. The story's pacing felt very slow, and it honestly felt like nothing was happening. It wasn't pulling me in the way I wanted it to.
On top of that, the characters were frustrating. I can understand not wanting to tell the newcomer what was happening, but everyone was so close-lipped and closed-off that I didn't find them interesting. I didn't care what happened to them because we had next to no knowledge of anything going on. And I can understand that for a couple of chapters, but I was over 100 pages in and still had no information. There's only so long that I, as the reader, can deal with not knowing, and Once a Queen took me past that point.
I don't think Once a Queen was a bad book, but all of my issues left me feeling that it wasn't the book for me....more
I received an advanced copy of Shadows of the Dark Realm from the author and am leaving this review voluntarily.
I hate not finishing a book, and I espI received an advanced copy of Shadows of the Dark Realm from the author and am leaving this review voluntarily.
I hate not finishing a book, and I especially hate it when it's a book that I genuinely want to love. Though usually, if I don't finish a book, I only give it one star, I am giving Shadows of the Dark Realm two because of the massive potential I saw in the pages I did read.
This book has so much lore and world-building that it blew my mind. This is a perfect example of high fantasy. It is clear to me that the author spent countless time developing this world and its intricacies to firmly cement it in that category. The plot was a typical "we're going on a quest for a magical item" plot, but those are some of my favorite stories. Quests and traveling together are excellent character development opportunities, on top of all the character interactions and relationship growth we get to see. And I saw much of that in the more than 100 pages I read.
Unfortunately, despite all this, I could not finish Shadows of the Dark Realm. As interesting and exciting as the plot and characters were, I was having a hard time understanding why some things that happened were happening. Nearly every single significant event came out of nowhere. There was no lead-up, no indication that something big was about to go down, just BOOM, there it is. Obviously, there aren't always going to be indicators that something's about to happen, but when there's constantly nothing, it gets a little hard to believe. I don't want to give away any plot points, so I don't think I'll say much more about that. Still, it was to the point that I was getting a little frustrated because I didn't understand why all these big events kept happening while also trying to figure out how they furthered the plot because it didn't feel like they did.
I will also say that I have never had characters say so little with so many words. All of their conversations felt forced, and they constantly talked about the same things because every time they got to an important point, they would get interrupted by something or someone. Then, the next time they had a conversation, they would have to go over all the stuff they already said. Again, I'm okay with that happening occasionally, but this tactic was used every time they had a meaningful conversation. They don't get interrupted while explaining backstory and world-building but get to the meat of the conversation, and suddenly, they can't talk anymore. In essence, all of their conversations felt like small talk. (As an aside, it was also hard to tell whose head we were in sometimes, and I think it switched mid-sentence occasionally.)
I see so much potential in Shadows of the Dark Realm, and I think I wasn't vibing with the writing style. I wanted to love it because I found the world this author created fascinating. However, I couldn't get past the confusing events and frustrating dialogue....more
I received an ARC of Unholy Terrors from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Unholy Terrors is a book that, in trying to make itself sounI received an ARC of Unholy Terrors from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Unholy Terrors is a book that, in trying to make itself sound poetic and gothic, it ended up sounding pretentious and uncomfortable. There was no world-building, no character-building/development, the plot made no sense because the characters made no sense, and the writing was hard to read. I got about halfway through before I couldn't read it anymore, and I'm surprised that I made it that far.
There was absolutely no world-building in this book besides trying to make everything dark. All I know is that these wardens lived in a place with a church surrounded by a wall of bones. Beyond the bone wall was a vast wasteland of nothing but "gorse and heather," which I remember because it was said nearly every time the place was described. Oh, and it rains a lot. That's all. We don't meet any other people besides the main few. How many wardens are there? I have no idea. Are there any other towns? I have no idea. Is there literally anything else out there besides this one town and the gorse and heather-covered wasteland? I have no idea. Where are all of the vespertines that supposedly roam these wastelands where the main characters go and yet encounter a grand total of one who becomes part of the team? I have no idea. I just ... there's nothing. I know absolutely nothing about this world and have many unanswered questions.
The characters were just as bad. All of the decisions they made were entirely out of left field. I have no proper understanding of why anyone did what they did. Everline wants to figure out what happened to her mom. Okay, that's a great motivator. However, the decisions that she made were bonkers. The fact that there were little to no consequences for her horrible decisions blew my mind. And to top it off, even though the warden characters had these strict rules they were supposed to follow, they all broke them constantly just because they were following Everline around. And no one did anything about it. I cannot believe that these rules that were so near and dear to all of their hearts could just be thrown out the window without a care in the world by not one, not two, but three people just because Everline wanted some answers. It was bad.
And the writing. I'm all for writing in a way that conveys atmosphere, for example, using darker words for a darker tone. But. It was overdone. There were so many similes and metaphors that nothing was its own thing. And everything was repeated, so those similes and metaphors felt like they meant nothing because I read them so many times, even in comparison to different things. On top of that, the book reads like a thesaurus. It felt like the author refused to use any basic words if there was something even remotely "fancier" to use.
I had such high hopes for Unholy Terrors because it sounded like a dark, atmospheric, and creepy read. It was all of those things, but not in a good way. (On an off note, I'll also state that the story felt too similar to Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto, but it wasn't done nearly as well.)...more
I received an ARC of The Night Hunt from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
The Night Hunt was shaping up to be an epic adventure of murI received an ARC of The Night Hunt from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
The Night Hunt was shaping up to be an epic adventure of murder and fun based on the synopsis. What I got was indistinguishable characters, little to no world-building, and a rushed story. I ended up putting this book down around the halfway mark. Nothing was keeping me reading, which was unfortunate.
Everything in this book happened so fast. By the time I processed the scene and the consequences of what happened, we were already three scenes away. I felt like I was keeping a nice, steady jogging pace, but the story was doing sprints. I was left in the proverbial dust, trying to understand why it felt the need to leave me behind.
The world-building left things to be desired. I don't understand this world. I don't understand the power structure. I don't understand what the point of the gods and monsters are. I don't understand where we were, how we were getting around, or how close everything was together. It almost felt like because this is a standalone, the author decided to go for plot over substance. However, that made for a very confusing story. The plot wanted us to be somewhere, and so we were there, regardless of how it happened. I don't need, or usually want, pages upon pages of travel, but I did need something. Something to show me the layout of where we are. Give me anything at this point.
The characters were also a product of the rushed story. I didn't feel that any of them had real personalities, and though the point of view changed between Atia and Silas, there was no real difference between them. It got to the point where I had to continually flip to the beginning of the chapter to remind myself of who I was supposed to be with. On top of that, the few side characters I met felt completely unimportant, even the ones that Atia and Silas were traveling with. They were conveniently ignored during key scenes as if they weren't there in the first place, and honestly, it probably wouldn't have made any difference if they were never there. It felt like they were there just to be there and put words on the page. There was no real substance to them or Atia and Silas.
Unfortunately, The Night Hunt was not for me....more
I received an ARC of The Phoenix King from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Well, it's not the first book I've left unfinisheI received an ARC of The Phoenix King from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Well, it's not the first book I've left unfinished, and it won't be the last, but The Phoenix King has unfortunately been added to that list, and I am genuinely upset about it. I believe I made it through four chapters before deciding it was not the book for me. "But Jess, that's so fast," is probably what you'll say, to which I reply, "When you know, you know."
I had such high hopes. I haven't read many books based on Indian mythology or about Indian culture in general, so getting to read something I don't know much about is always fascinating. What I was not prepared for was the complete overload of information I received in those four chapters.
Fantasy is tricky because you have to make people believe that everything you're making up is real. Same with science fiction. I went into The Phoenix King assuming this was a fantasy story. I was completely unprepared when they started shooting laser guns and using holopads (I believe that's what they were called, but don't quote me on that). I didn't know this had science-fiction elements. Okay, cool. No issue with that. My problem was that I was getting so much information but not the information I needed. All these words and new terms were coming at me, and I had no idea what they meant and were. Context clues are essential for introducing people to the things you've created, and I didn't get that. I got loads of information about the world and places (there were so many names, though, that I wouldn't have been able to tell you who was where, when, or even where that place was in general), but little to none about the new things of this world that were being introduced to me. There was backstory and descriptions of everything else, though, which is excellent. But these new things completely removed me from the story because I was so confused about what they were. Cultural words are one thing. I am aware enough to realize that I won't understand all of the cultural references. It's the brand-new things that were stopping me.
Maybe that's just me being super particular, but considering the amount of description of everything else, I didn't understand why there just wasn't any for this.
I'm not sure what else I can honestly comment on since I didn't get very far into the book, but I will also say that I was not captivated by the story, and that's mainly why I put it down. Yes, the descriptions (and lack thereof) played a part, but I wasn't connecting to the characters or what was happening. I didn't, for lack of a better word, care. I hate saying that, but I wasn't invested in the story or the characters. I needed the story to pull me in, and it just wasn't.
I am disappointed that I put The Phoenix King down, and perhaps someday I will return to it, but for now, this will grace the top of my unfinished list....more
I received an ARC of Court of Claws from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
...wow. I'm not going to lie, my head hurts from thI received an ARC of Court of Claws from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
...wow. I'm not going to lie, my head hurts from this one.
Let me begin by saying that I did not finish Court of Claws. I tried my best, but it just wasn't meant to be.
It's been a while since I've read A Court of Thorns and Roses, but when you see it everywhere, it's hard to forget about it. And it's everywhere. I can hardly open up Instagram without seeing something about the series or anything else that Sarah J. Maas has written. The reason I mention this is because it's one thing to take a generalized plot and make it your own. That's literally what a writer has to do. It's another thing entirely to take a plot and redo it but perhaps forget to make changes and make it your own. There are some books I've read that are clearly inspired by Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses series. That's fine. What's not fine is to plop her ideas and themes into your book, change some names, and mix up the setting and the magic a bit but leave all of the important details practically the same. I wouldn't have had a problem if this had been labeled fanfiction. But it's not, and so to take scenes, literal scenes, from a different series feels a lot like plagiarism to me. But maybe I'm reading too much into it. I'm not going to point out all of the similarities because that would take far too long, and I don't want to spoil the other series for those who haven't read it, but I was having a hard time reading Court of Claws as its own thing rather than fanfiction. (I noticed the similarities in the first book, but I thought I was reading too much into it at the time. This just took it too far.)
I honestly don't know what else to say. I didn't enjoy the characters. Morgan is ridiculous and has no agency still. Draven's just a jerk. And not a good jerk like everyone wants in their morally grey heroes. Just a plain old jerk. I wasn't invested enough in the rest of the characters to understand their part in the story or their motivations. I'm honestly surprised I read it for as long as I did. Perhaps 70%? I got pretty far. But the culmination of everything that was happening just wasn't doing it for me.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but unfortunately, Court of Claws was not my cup of tea....more
I received an ARC of Ensnared from Netgalley for free (like six years ago. Oops.) and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Ensnared was one of those booI received an ARC of Ensnared from Netgalley for free (like six years ago. Oops.) and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Ensnared was one of those books that got stuck on my Netgalley shelf years upon years ago, and I'm finally getting around to them. This is long overdue. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish it.
A sci-fi retelling of Beauty and the Beast? Intriguing. Honestly, there aren't many retellings I've found that take place in the future instead of the past or a fantastical setting, so I'm always willing to try something new and different. And this was definitely new and different. Our main character ends up replacing a robot that her family was supposed to send to our "Beast" because the robot isn't finished yet. Now, this should make for an exciting love story as our "Beast" is under the assumption that our "Beauty" is a robot.
It was actually supremely uncomfortable.
I couldn't get behind this romance. There was so much that could have been done with the use of artificial intelligence and robots, and of course, the whole theme that makes Beauty and the Beast, which is that looks don't matter, it's what's on the inside that counts, blah blah blah. This could have been so interesting and new. I just ended up being extremely uncomfortable with how the story was progressing and made it around halfway through before I had to put it down.
The idea was exciting, and if it had been developed more instead of focusing on the uncomfortable romance, I think I would've been able to enjoy it....more
I received an advanced copy of Sun of Blood and Ruin from the publisher through Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Sun of Blood and RuinI received an advanced copy of Sun of Blood and Ruin from the publisher through Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Sun of Blood and Ruin had the makings of a great novel. I've never read a Zorro retelling, but I loved the movies when I was younger and was excited to start this book. Unfortunately, I did not get far beyond the start. I won't lie; by the end of the first chapter, I had a feeling that I wasn't going to make it to the end, but since I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately, I did try to push through thinking that it was me and not the book I was having issues with. However, when I kept finishing chapters with more complaints, I knew that it was time to give up. I'm not in the business of spending more time on things I'm not enjoying.
Ultimately, it was the writing, the execution, that turned me away from Sun of Blood and Ruin. It was choppy. We flipped between past and present with no warning, and it would take me paragraphs, sometimes a whole page, to realize that we had switched. The dialogue didn't feel like it flowed naturally, with forced jokes peppering the pages that left me cringing. On top of that, there would be pages upon pages of history lessons that didn't add anything to the story.
I love world-building. It is one of my favorite parts about fantasy stories because the authors are so amazingly creative regarding the history. I want to know everything. Just ... not everything all at once. I want it gradually, my knowledge of the world deepening as I connect with the characters. I got this story's history like being smacked in the face by one of those dodgeballs in middle school that are supposed to be soft, but the boys hurl them at mock Jesus, so soft isn't a word that ends up describing them at all, wearing glasses. It hurts. And this info dump hurt my brain. I would read the paragraphs over and over, trying to understand what it had to do with the current place in the story, and when it didn't make sense, I would read it again for good measure, thinking I had missed something. I couldn't keep it all straight because there was so much. And because there was so much, I knew that when the information did become relevant, I would either need to reread those sections to remember why it was important, or the author would need to tell me all over again because there was no way I would remember.
Overall, Sun of Blood and Ruin was not for me. Many reviews say that the second half is significantly better, but I couldn't get that far....more
I received an advanced copy of The City of Stardust from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
I've read a lot of books lI received an advanced copy of The City of Stardust from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
I've read a lot of books lately that haven't piqued my interest the way I thought they would, and The City of Stardust is one of them. Unfortunately, this is another book that will be crowding the pile of book disappointments, AKA the unfinished pile.
Don't get me wrong, I believe some people will really like this book, but I wasn't one of them. The plot was confusing, the characters lacked depth, the world-building was vague at best, and the writing was overindulgent. Ultimately, it felt like the author was keeping information from me for the sake of keeping information. Nothing made sense because so many key details were missing.
The characters were utterly lackluster. I couldn't have cared less about any of them, which in turn made me not care about the story. Though I feel I'm being overly harsh, The City of Stardust wasn't doing what the summary said it did. I didn't feel that "seductive" pull it says I would. I was left confused by the world and not seduced, although Violet seemed seduced very quickly, though I have no idea why since I had no grasp of her motivations or personality.
The City of Stardust is a book I thought I would like. Unfortunately, I can't recommend it as the "spellbinding" story it was supposed to be....more
I received an advanced copy of The Hurricane Wars from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
The Hurricane Wars was one of my more anticipaI received an advanced copy of The Hurricane Wars from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
The Hurricane Wars was one of my more anticipated reads this year, so when I tell you that I didn't enjoy or finish it, it is with a heavy heart. This book did not live up to the expectations I had for it, and I am genuinely disappointed. I got around a third of the way through before deciding that I needed to put it down.
My biggest problem with The Hurricane Wars is that I was frustrated. I didn't understand the decisions being made. I have no problem suspending my disbelief for a lot of things that happen in fantasy novels. I mean, they're fantasy novels, so not everything will make sense. But it does still need to be plausible. Essentially, I want to believe that this pretty much impossible thing might be possible because of how the author explains it if that makes any sense. But I didn't believe really anything that happened here.
Talasyn was not the character for me. This is probably my own bias here, but as someone who was in the military for five years, I have never and would never talk to my superiors the way that Talasyn spoke to hers. She wasn't saying horrible things, but it almost felt like she was trying to run the show. That, and the amount of snark she threw at them was crazy to me. I would've done push-ups for days with those comments. Now, maybe this is just their dynamic, but if that's the case, it would have been nice if that was stated. Why did Talasyn get special treatment? Why did no one talk about it? Talasyn has these fancy light powers, but no one knows until later, so why was no one saying anything about how she interacted with her superiors? I don't think I've ever read a novel where there are military members and the subordinates just do whatever they want because they feel like it. Now, if everyone knew that Talasyn was special, that's one thing. But nothing like that was ever stated, and when people finally find out, there's little to no reaction. She's literally the last of her kind (that we know of), and no one seems to care.
Also, who is in charge of this war? Why are they fighting? Why has it taken ten years? What are the other people with magic doing? Are they fighting? On whose side? I had way more questions, and none of them were being answered. We got a lot of information in the first couple of chapters, but after that, it completely dropped off in favor of throwing our main characters together and ignoring everything else about the plot. It seems this book is supposed to be more heavily romance than fantasy, but how can I believe the romance if I can't believe anything else?
There's so much that I want to talk about but can't because of spoilers. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone. The Hurricane Wars was not for me despite my best efforts to push through....more
I received a copy of What the River Knows from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
This will likely be a short review, as I was I received a copy of What the River Knows from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
This will likely be a short review, as I was supposed to write this a while back when I put the book down, but here we are. I am genuinely disappointed that I could not finish What the River Knows. I had heard such great things about it, and from all appearances, it seemed like something I would love. And I did enjoy (kind of) this book up to the point where I put it down, which was over halfway through. I don't think that there was anything glaringly wrong that made me put it down. The problem I had was with the story and the fact that it just wasn't pulling me in.
I wanted to be invested. I wanted to be there for these characters and this story because it sounded fascinating. But there was just something about it. I wasn't drawn in. I wasn't as fascinated as I thought I was going to be. The story was interesting, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't interesting enough to keep me coming back. I felt like it lacked the stakes I was looking for despite all of the things that were happening. It was, unfortunately, and to sum all this up, boring.
I probably should have just said that instead of talking in circles, but I didn't not like the book. That's the problem. I wanted to read it. I was just really bored and couldn't get through it. And the characters weren't interesting enough to drag me through the plot. However, I'll be honest and say that I'm not really sure what the overall plot was besides Inez trying to figure out what happened to her parents, and then it becomes a whole thing, which, again, is an interesting plotline, but it wasn't interesting here.
All this is to say, What the River Knows wasn't for me, which I've noticed puts me on the short list of people who didn't really enjoy it, which is okay. I might return to it at some point, but it was time for me to move on....more
I received an advanced copy of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
One of my least favoriI received an advanced copy of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.
One of my least favorite things to do is write one-star reviews, especially for a book I was so excited about. I want to love everything I read, but I also have to remember that not everything is for everyone, and To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods was one of those books. I will also note that I did not finish this book, so all opinions are based on the first half since that's how far I got before I had to put it down.
I have no idea who the audience for this book is. Young adult? Adult? It's marketed one way in some places and then completely differently in others (in genre and content, but that's an entirely different discussion). It becomes incredibly confusing because I have different expectations of adult and young adult books. That's not to say I don't expect both to be good stories; I just hope for more complexity and depth in adult books. I would categorize To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods as a young adult, but that's only after reading what I did and going into it thinking it was an adult book. And that's where most of my issues stem from, as I was unprepared for what I was about to read.
The writing could have been more precise. There was lots of repetition, awkward phrasing, and odd style choices that would have been okay once or twice but not every other page. I usually have no issue with purple prose, but the flowery language made everything overcomplicated. It left me confused and wondering what I was supposed to understand from the statement. And again, having that as an occasional style choice is no big deal, but it was everything from descriptions to dialogue between characters. Paragraphs upon paragraphs were used when one would have sufficed. Reading became almost tedious as I dreaded flipping the page to see more convoluted words.
Unfortunately, the characters were unremarkable. Ruying makes many questionable choices that feel wishy-washy with her characterization. I understand we can't know what choices we would make if we've never been in those situations. However, she was so inconsistent that it was hard to believe her motivations. I've seen some discourse on the romance aspect of this novel. I won't be speaking on it because I didn't get far enough to understand the characters' relationship.
The world-building was also lacking. What I got was interesting, but there wasn't enough to fully understand the world's complexities. Hopefully, there was more in the book's second half, but I feel it would be too little, too late by that point. If I'm to believe that there's no way Pangu can win against Rome, I need to understand why exactly their magic isn't stronger than Rome's science. I also need to understand why Pangu hasn't learned a little about how the science works after twenty or so years. I can get that Ruying might not know as she doesn't have much, if any, interaction with it, but to believe that the country as a whole has no way around it is a little far-fetched.
I hoped to love To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, but the unclear genre, odd writing, unremarkable characters, and lack of understanding of the world left me disappointed and unable to finish. Many have and will love this book, but it wasn't for me....more
I received an ARC of House of Marionne from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Here I sit, again, filing another book away as one I willI received an ARC of House of Marionne from Netgalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Here I sit, again, filing another book away as one I will not be finishing, and the reason is that I am so utterly confused.
House of Marionne has an intriguing premise. I mean, okay, if it didn't, I wouldn't have picked it up. A magical society of debutantes? It's a curious mix. The execution, however, was not doing it for me. I'm honestly unsure of how far I made it into this book because I kept going back and rereading paragraphs of information, trying to understand what in the world was going on. There was so much telling happening but no showing, leaving me utterly confused. There are people with masks that fade into their faces. What kind of mask? I don't know. What in the world does "fade into their face" mean? I don't know. The scene when Quell finally shows up at the gate at her grandmother's house was ... I don't even know how to describe it, and I think I read those paragraphs four or five times just trying to understand.
I genuinely don't know what else to say. Tell me why Quell and her mother have been running for years, and Quell only decides now that she wants to understand why. Or why her mother calls the bad guys chasing them "Draguns" once, and then, for some reason, every single male after that is a "Dragun" in Quell's mind. Is that right? Is that what all of them are called? How does she know that if her mother only talked about it once? The mask thing. The magic. I thought this was high fantasy, but we start our story in the good old US of A. Wouldn't this be urban fantasy, then? No? It's not high fantasy, so I'm not sure why it's being called such. The logic wasn't logic-ing for me, and that nearly always ends up bothering me, as you can probably see.
I know I didn't get particularly far into the story, and perhaps all of these issues will be resolved later. Or things are explained better. I can ignore some things if the story pulls me along enough to get me to the point where things are explained. But I wasn't interested in what was going on, nor was I interested in these characters, which unfortunately means the book was a "no" for me....more
I received an ARC of Zhara from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Unfortunately, Zhara has been added to the list of books I'vI received an ARC of Zhara from Netgalley for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Unfortunately, Zhara has been added to the list of books I've been unable to finish. While the idea and synopsis are promising, the execution is lacking. Perhaps because I'm older than the usual YA demographic, it wasn't clicking, but I felt that the writing was more childish than I'm used to. YA fantasy is one of my favorite genres, always has been, but this felt too young, almost. The female main character, Zhara, had this constant habit of giggling and blushing around attractive boys, which is all fine and dandy, but it was mentioned so many times that it became less of a quirk and more of an annoyance. Hans, the male main character, I don't even want to get into. I did not enjoy him as a character.
What I find more odd, is that although the characters felt underdeveloped with a focus on one specific thing about themselves that ended up becoming their whole identity, they were still quite mature. For as young as the writing felt, the characters still felt mature enough. Does it make any sense? Not particularly. But here we are.
I really wanted to like Zhara. The idea behind it (and the Cinderella retelling, of course) are right up my alley of enjoyment. However, because of the writing, I couldn't continue. I'm sure there are people who will really like this story, but it wasn't for me....more
I received an ARC of The Last Huntress from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
I hate not finishing advanced copies of the books I requested. I received an ARC of The Last Huntress from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
I hate not finishing advanced copies of the books I requested. It feels like I'm doing a disservice to the author and the book itself because I initially wanted to read it. But I got 50% of the way done with The Last Huntress, and I couldn't do it anymore.
Let me start by saying that the premise was intriguing. I believe the story was very original and well thought out, and I liked the use of Greek mythology as a basis for the magic and reasons for things happening. However, I felt that the execution was what was lacking. This book read like a middle-grade story, but its characters were 17-18 years old and graduating high school. The writing was very simple and straightforward, more tell than show. I guess I was expecting it to be more mature than it was.
Next, the characters themselves didn't feel like they had much depth. We don't know anything about most of their backgrounds; they all felt interchangeable. There were differences between them here and there, but nothing that really made them stick out from the others. It also liked to throw in a mention of Alice's parents occasionally, but the other characters just don't have parents or something because almost all other parental figures were left out of the picture. I get that it's not super fun to read about teenagers' interactions with their parents, but a passing mention would've helped the believability immensely.
My biggest issue, and it's an unfortunately common one for me, was the romance. Whoa, baby, does The Last Huntress have a severe case of insta-love. Probably thirty pages in, Alice has talked to this guy on the side of the road for half a second, and he's the greatest thing to have ever happened to her. I'm going to be honest, in the half of the book I read, Colin treated her like garbage. I did not like him, and that made it even harder for me to want to root for them to be together. I have no issue with romance, but it has to be done well and be mostly believable. This romance was neither of those things. It made me cringe.
I really wanted to like The Last Huntress because the premise was intriguing, and I love a good Greek mythology retelling. But I had more things stopping me from reading than convincing me to continue, and I had to put it down....more
I received an ARC of Thistlefoot from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
I wanted to like this book so bad. I really did. The premise was intrI received an ARC of Thistlefoot from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
I wanted to like this book so bad. I really did. The premise was intriguing, and I love a good retelling. And a Baba Yaga retelling? I haven't read one of those in who knows how long, so I was excited to dig into Thistlefoot.
Let me start by saying that I did not finish this book. I tried so hard. But there are some books you just have to put down no matter how badly you think you should complete them. Thistlefoot was one of those books for me. I made it 60% of the way through. But whenever I picked up my phone to start another reading session, I didn't want to. It was at that point that I decided I needed to stop. Maybe the book wasn't for me if I was forcing myself to get through it.
I think the biggest turn-off was how the story was written. There was a lot of stuff happening. But at the same time, there wasn't. Which I know doesn't really make sense, but it was all in the way that it was written. The reason that it seemed like there was so much stuff happening was that the author was so descriptive. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, but it becomes slightly tedious when you read a different description for the same thing five other times. And then another couple of times because we started a new paragraph. There were just so many words.
Don't get me wrong, the descriptions were very well done, and I would have had no issue with them ... if I was reading poetry. The 60% that I read felt like one insanely long poem. And I really just couldn't get past it. It felt like trying to run in a pool, and that dragging, motionless sensation was what I was getting while reading. I just wasn't going anywhere. Obviously, the story was moving along, but an entire chapter would be dedicated to describing how Bellatine's hands feel. I'd get through it and go, "So nothing actually happened?"
And on the topic of Bellatine's hands, the magic system in Thistlefoot was sort of confusing. Apparently, magic has always been a thing, which is fantastic, but nothing is actually described. Crazy, I know, with the amount of description everything else gets. I don't know how this magic system works, and I know even less about how Isaac and Bellatine's magic works. Granted, that may have been explained more if I had gotten further, but again, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
I know I'm in the minority opinion about this book because everyone seems to love it. It is beautifully written, yes. And I liked the mysterious, magical feel surrounding the setting and the characters. But it just wasn't for me, unfortunately....more
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