alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 26: Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy

Goodreads summary: “Trained since childhood in advanced biocyph seed technology by the all-powerful Crib empire, Edie’s mission is to terraform alien worlds while her masters bleed the outlawed Fringe populations dry. When renegade mercenaries kidnap Edie, she’s not entirely sure it’s a bad thing . . . until they leash her to a bodyguard, Finn—a former freedom fighter-turned-slave, beaten down but never broken. If Edie strays from Finn’s side, he dies. If she doesn’t cooperate, the pirates will kill them both.

But Edie’s abilities far surpass anything her enemies imagine. And now, with Finn as her only ally as the merciless Crib closes in, she’ll have to prove it or die on the site of her only failure . . . a world called Scarabaeus.”

Last month’s alt-pick for the Vaginal Fantasy Hangout, I enjoyed this a lot and immediately downloaded the sequel for Kindle. I mean — space pirates! Slow-burn romance! Terraforming! A consolidated extra-terrestrial Empire vs. “Fringe” outer planets! Also, the heroine is an alien! Cool!

Edie, our protagonist, is a highly-skilled — possibly the best in her field — “cypherteck,” so she’s something of a hacker/repairperson/creator when it comes to data interfaces between hard technology and biological lifeforms. Creasy does not shy away from sci-fi technobabble, and it assists in drawing you into the world immediately, but readers who aren’t regular readers of sci-fi may find the instant onslaught of jargon a little off-putting. Even as a fan of the genre, I did have to re-read some sections to further engrain what the terms all meant in my head. I ended up not having much of an issue doing this, in terms of enjoying the book and moving along at a good pace, but I do wish there was a little more backstory given to some of these things. There are many mentions of the Evil Empire (so to speak) and a very abbreviated story about a war between said Empire and the Fringe planets, but there isn’t any information at all as to how the Empire was formed, or who or what it actually consists of. Similarly, though we are kind of able to piece together what all of the technology is through in media res descriptions of what Edie is doing, at no point is there any kind of background exposition of the history of this technology. I know that for some people this may not be necessary, but personally I enjoy a bit of history in my world-building.

The above is my main gripe with this book. Otherwise, I enjoyed the characterization and pacing in this novel, as well as the developing relationship between Edie and Finn. Their romance struck me as the right combination of respect and attraction, and I’ll be interested to see where it goes in the sequel. I expect, based on the way things were here, that the two of them may take on an “us against the world” mentality, but if they don’t, I’d like to see more development of Cat’s character. Here, we learned that she’s a good pilot, but that she can be fairly easily bought, even if she knows she isn’t exactly doing the right thing. I’d like to know a little more about her, since Edie did show signs of interest in a friendship with her in the first book.

There are a lot of directions Creasy can take this series, and I’ll definitely be following along.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 25: Fragments by Dan Wells

Goodreads summary with spoilers for Partials removed: “Kira has left East Meadow in a desperate search for clues to who she is… Her companions are Afa Demoux, an unhinged drifter and former employee of ParaGen, and Samm and Heron… the only ones who know her secret. But can she trust them?

Meanwhile, back on Long Island, what’s left of humanity is gearing up for war with the Partials, and Marcus knows his only hope is to delay them until Kira returns. But Kira’s journey will take her deep into the overgrown wasteland of postapocalyptic America, and Kira and Marcus both will discover that their greatest enemy may be one they didn’t even know existed.

The second installment in the pulse-pounding Partials saga is the story of the eleventh hour of humanity’s time on Earth, a journey deep into places unknown to discover the means–and even more important, a reason–for our survival.”

In case it wasn’t clear, this is the sequel to Partials, a book which I reviewed here for CBR4 and quite liked. I read Fragments fairly quickly, like I did Partials, but it was a little less engaging than the first. It suffers a bit from the sophomore slump: stuck between the opening novel that piques the imagination by introducing the world, characters, and story; and the finale, with its climax and resolution.

As you can see from the plot description, much of this novel is the main character and her companions traveling across the country, and though the landscape is fraught with peril and all that, stories just about journeys need to really be done well to be extremely compelling. This one wasn’t badly done, but it did lose steam and feel repetitive at times. Wells’ writing is sometimes a bit clinical, so even though I’m invested in the characters’ journeys simply because I find the plotline interesting, I haven’t really connected with any of them much emotionally, even after two books. The tepid emotional connection is especially apparent when Wells dances around the love triangle between Samm, Kira, and Marcus — I gathered that Kira and Samm were feeling increasing tension between each other not necessarily because it was written to express that tension, but, frankly, just because I expected it from the circumstances.

I think that the slight flatness of the writing may be what has prevented this series from being as well known as some of the other YA dystopias, but even with that said, I still do like the characters well enough as people and the world Wells has built well enough to finish the series. I also would like to give credit where it’s due to Wells for what I see as being pretty egalitarian writing when it comes to gender and race. The protagonist is a woman of color, and she’s not a token — there are lots of other important women and POC in the story. Overall, I think YA dystopia fans will enjoy this series, and I’ll be looking forward to the third novel.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 23-24: Pandemonium and Requiem by Lauren Oliver

The very short, spoiler-free version of this review is: you will want to read the sequels if you’ve read Delirium, because you’ll want to know how the story ends. For this reason, they are probably both worth reading. A lot of what made Delirium such a strong novel, though, is lost in Pandemonium and Requiem: the pacing gets kind of uneven, and Oliver’s prose — which I have praised before and is still very lush and almost musical — starts to overwhelm itself sometimes, especially in the scenes in the Wilds. Some of the scene-setting is abstract and convoluted, and I ended up having to re-read sections a couple of times to figure out what she was talking about.

Pandemonium has these issues, but at the end of the day I still ended up giving it four stars on Goodreads, which is clearly not a “bad” score. We got some nice development on Lena, our protagonist, as she learns to cope with her new situation, and there is a lot of fun action and twisted revelations. The end, though, was telegraphed a mile away, which took me out of my enjoyment (my reaction at the end: “Come on, really? I was expecting this and I wish you didn’t prove me right!”) After the jump is the rest of the review, because that exasperation that began at the end of Pandemonium and continued into Requiem is spoilery. So – henceforth, THERE BE SPOILERS.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 22: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Goodreads: “They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever.

And I’ve always believed them.

Until now.

Now everything has changed.

Now, I’d rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.

Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love.”

I wanted to review Delirium, the first book of its trilogy, separately from the other two because I felt that this is a much stronger book than its sequels, so it deserves to be reviewed on its own merit.

There is a pretty implausible premise, here, that you just have to accept and move on if you’re going to enjoy this book. I’m pretty good at willing suspension of disbelief, so I dove right in and took Oliver at her word that in the future, we’ve decided that love — and the litter of hot-blooded emotions it inspires — is a disease that we can cure. The cure has resulted in a society that seems to be on its surface much more peaceful, efficient, productive, and obedient. Of course, we know that this can’t be true, because this is a dystopian novel, so early on we also learn that there are Uncureds and Invalids, or people who have been literally “invalidated” in society by refusing the cure. Furthermore, administration of the cure has been demonstrated to be unsafe before the age of 18, but anyone who has ever met a teenager knows that they are pretty good at falling in love or something like it before the age of 18. As such, there are many small acts of rebellion among the as-yet-uncured youth that need to be discovered and squashed by violent patrol groups of cured adults called Regulators. In case it’s not perfectly clear, the violence that these groups employ is evidence that simply “curing” love doesn’t stamp out our most base tendencies.

At its bare bones, this is a story about forbidden love: forbidden because love itself is, and because the boy Lena falls in love with is an Uncured, and the only way they could be together is if Lena rejects her arranged match and flees to the Wilds, territory that has been given up by the regulated society. The story is elevated, in my mind, firstly by Oliver’s prose, which is really beautiful and descriptive and appropriately fraught with teen anxiety (though it doesn’t come off as too whiny or excessively dramatic, just urgent.) She has a way of drawing me right into Lena’s thoughts such that I don’t feel like I’m just observing the action, but that I’m actually in it. Secondly, I think Oliver has written a love interest who is actually compelling beyond just being attractive: there is that tantalizing hint of danger to him, but Alex is also clever, respectful, and protective of Lena without being overbearing. He understands her and the peril she puts herself in simply by being with him, so he never tries to push her too far. He actually seems to love her back, rather than just trying to seduce her into his way of life. While in many other tortured love YA stories I’m just supposed to accept that this is deep, epic love for some reason, having Lena’s love seem real, justified, and reciprocated makes the decisions she makes more relate-able. Taken with Oliver’s engrossing prose, it really does have the effect of making you feel like you are the one falling in love.

The hardest thing about writing a review for this book is that I would really highly recommend it, except that you really can’t just read it on its own. It was written with the sequels in mind, and the sequels are, well, not bad, but just unsatisfying. I don’t want to doom anyone to that frustration, so I guess the best thing I can say is that for me, it was still worth it. If, even knowing how I would feel by the end of book 3, I got to go back and choose whether or not to read the Delirium series again, I would still do it for the thrall of this first book.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 18-21: Dark-Hunter 1-4 by Sherrilyn Kenyon

I’ve given mostly positive reviews so far for this Cannonball, so I’m rubbing my hands together with glee to finally be able to write a “critical” one.

The Dark-Hunter books 1-4 in order are:

1. Fantasy Lover
2. Night Pleasures
3. Night Embrace
4. Dance With the Devil

I borrowed these from a friend after we’d discussed how I had started to read romance and romance-adjacent books, namely, the Fever series; then, after enjoying Fever so much, I started perusing Mrs. Julien’s infamous “Shameful Tally” with piqued interest and started with one of her highest recommendations: Courtney Milan.

After finding Milan’s books and novellas to be pretty good as well, I wondered to myself: “Have I been unfairly biased against romance?” Maybe I just am a fan of fromage, after all! Well… now I can say, having mainlined this selection of Dark-Hunter (why the hyphen?) like a fifth-grader pretending Pop Rocks are cocaine, I surely did spoil myself beginning my foray into romance with the likes of Milan, because there is some true crap out there and this is it.

These books are apparently bestsellers and pretty highly rated on Goodreads. The Fifty Shades phenomenon has reminded me to take public opinion with a grain of salt, but I still feel like kind of an ass for shitting on what is obviously a well-loved series. Fortunately, I’ve accepted occasional assholery as one of my charming personality tics awhile ago, so I’m going to move forward with this review. I gave the first two books two stars as opposed to one on Goodreads, but I’m going to retcon myself a bit because frankly, they aren’t really much better than the third and fourth; I just wasn’t bored of the plug-and-play plot yet.

So: this is the plot of all four books (and I’m assuming probably all twenty-four — twenty four!!! — in the series.) The heroine, either by some mishap or lucky accident, encounters the hero, who is an ancient immortal of Greek or Roman ancestry. He is cursed somehow, and despite their smoldering sexual chemistry and his deep, inexplicable feelings for the heroine — feelings he has felt for NO OTHER WOMAN, ever (and really, I can’t emphasize enough how often the “only her” or “never anyone but her” line is used in these books) — he pushes her away because he is CURSED! She finds some way to help him become uncursed, though, and they live happily and sexily ever after.

Aside from the rote plot, there are also a bunch of really silly details in the novels that had me pretty consistently rolling my eyes. One thing that isn’t necessarily too egregious, but still had me giggling, were the technological references that were surely intended to make the book seem very “now.” But of course when “now” is 2002 (when the first book was published) and your character is dutifully punching away on her Palm Pilot, it comes across as very instantly dated to a reader in 2013. The second thing, related to the first, though it seems pretty laughable even by 2002 standards, is the author’s shameless plugging of her website in the text of the books. She spends at least a page in each of the books describing how the characters log onto “the Dark-Hunter.com website”, and in the context of the books it’s supposed to be the totally secret administrative message board for the Dark-Hunters (seriously, that hyphen just kills me,) while obviously in real life it’s the promotional website for the series. So, LOL Sherrilyn Kenyon, I see what you did there!

The other major groaner, for me, is how the characters are all on a first-name basis with the Greek gods, so we’re given HILARIOUS characterization and nicknames for said gods. Like, Aphrodite and Artemis are both self-centered and bitchy (because of course they are,) especially compared to the heroines, who are just not like other women. They’re different! Special! Artemis in particular is portrayed as pretty awful, which is bizarre because I never picked up on that from any of the mythology I’m familiar with, but then again I’m not sure that this series is meant to fit right into the Pantheon canon, so…

Let’s see, what else. The Dark-Hunters themselves are kind of like vampires, except that they don’t drink human blood to survive. They can, but it’s kind of looked down upon. But they definitely have fangs, and die in the sunlight, and they have supernatural strength and special abilities. They’re meant to hunt Daimons, which are a species with a convoluted backstory, but the point is that they kill humans. So the Dark-Hunters are basically vampires who don’t act like vampires and hunt the creatures who do act like vampires. If this sounds confusing and stupid, that’s because it is.

I could go on, and I know I’m reading way too much into what is meant to be a fluffy series, but as a fan of paranormal entertainment, if your paranormal shit doesn’t make sense, I’m not going to give it a pass just because it’s supposed to be mostly romance. The romance itself is fine, I guess, outside of being extremely formulaic. For readers of Pajiba’s caliber, I can’t recommend this series at all, unless you are really into unintentional comedy and want to practice decaying your own grey matter for sport.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 17: Caliban’s War by James S. A. Corey

Goodreads: “We are not alone.

The alien protomolecule is clear evidence of an intelligence beyond human reckoning. No one knows what exactly is being built on Venus, but whatever it is, it is vast, powerful, and terrifying.

When a creature of unknown origin and seemingly impossible physiology attacks soldiers on Ganymede, the fragile balance of power in the Solar System shatters. Now, the race is on to discover if the protomolecule has escaped Venus, or if someone is building an army of super-soldiers.
Jim Holden is the center of it all. In spite of everything, he’s still the best man for the job to find out what happened on Ganymede. Either way, the protomolecule is loose and Holden must find a way to stop it before war engulfs the entire system.”

This sequel to Leviathan Wakes picks up some time after that book leaves off, following the same central characters and adding a few new ones. I had really enjoyed the first book, and I have to say, I think I like this one even better. Any criticisms I have of this book are essentially the same as those that I had of the first: namely, that it could have benefited from a bit of editing for length and that the dialogue was sometimes a bit pedestrian. Otherwise, I think that the story here moves even more quickly than it did in Leviathan Wakes, even considering the addition of  three more character POVs. Part of the improvement in pacing, I think, comes from the fact that the interspersed character stories, though starting out in different places, were more apparently related right off the bat and converged more quickly.

Our new friends are Prax, a biologist, Avasarala, a UN bigwig, and Bobbie, a Martian foot soldier. Avasarala and Bobbie, particularly, provide insight into the upper levels of the political drama and intrigue of the “inner planets” (Earth and Mars) that was only hinted at in the former novel. These perspectives added complexity to the overall galactic drama by indicating that there are more opposing factions than just inner vs. outer planets; rather, as one might expect, there are groups within the governments on Earth and Mars with their own secretive agendas.

I don’t know that I have too much else to say about this one, because despite it being great, it is a sequel, so I probably have to sell you on Leviathan Wakes first. And then if you like it, definitely pick this one up!

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 16: Ghost Planet by Sharon Fisher

Goodreads summary: Psychologist Elizabeth Cole prepared for the worst when she accepted a job on a newly discovered world—a world where every colonist is tethered to an alien who manifests in the form of a dead loved one. But she never expected she’d struggle with the requirement to shun these “ghosts.” She never expected to be so attracted to the charming Irishman assigned as her supervisor. And she certainly never expected to discover she died in a transport crash en route to the planet. 

As a ghost, Elizabeth is symbiotically linked to her supervisor, Murphy—creator of the Ghost Protocol, which forbids him to acknowledge or interact with her. Confused and alone—oppressed by her ghost status and tormented by forbidden love—Elizabeth works to unlock the secrets of her own existence. 

But her quest for answers lands her in a tug-of-war between powerful interests, and she soon finds herself a pawn in the struggle for control of the planet…a struggle that could separate her forever from the man that she loves.

This book was the April selection for the Vaginal Fantasy Hangout, so I picked it up expectantly… and literally didn’t put it down until about 9 hours later once I’d read it completely. Thank god I work in an isolated space, because I am ashamed to admit that I took a holiday at my desk yesterday and was completely absorbed in this book. Sharon Fisher, I blame you for rising workplace delinquency! Kind of.

Anyway, let me get a few nitpicks out of the way, with the acknowledgement that for some people who have been discussing Ghost Planet on Goodreads, they are more than minor nitpicks. I did feel that the worldbuilding was a little lacking — the planet is described as having taken on ecological characteristics similar to Earth in order to be pretty recognizable to the colonists. In one sense, this is a nice shorthand, since we can fairly easily imagine a less populated, less polluted Earth. On the other hand, it functions to deprive us of what could have been some more thoughtful descriptions of the planet and the process of that adaptation, and more detail about the settlements that the colonists live in. Another related issue, which may be more due to its ‘sci-fi lite’ status than to a unique deficiency of this book, is that outside of the special attention paid to Elizabeth’s particular research (which I’ll get to later,) the futuristic technology which enables the colonization of this planet (e.g. space travel, any terraforming concerns?) and that which is used by the colonists (flat-reader) is given no description practically at all. If I had to guess, a “flat-reader” is a tablet computer, but why not just call it a tablet, unless it’s actually a futuristic descendent of a tablet? In which case, what makes it so? Anyway, little things like that make the sci-fi geek in me wish there was a little more in the way of techie detail.

At the end of the day, though, if an original concept and a well-paced plot that do that concept justice are set in front of me, I am going to completely forget about other minor concerns and just love the shit out of a book. And that’s basically what happened. I loved the main character, both as a personality and as a scientist. I read a lot of doom-and-gloom dystopia that tends to paint scientists as misanthropic megalomaniacs with unethical aspirations toward human purity or genetic cleansing, so it was refreshing to have a protagonist who is as empathetic as she is pragmatic. She actually explicitly employs the scientific method, which is pretty darn cool: she has a hypothesis, gathers data to support it, but also considers other possibilities and doesn’t reject them until she has absolutely enough evidence to do so. Not surprisingly, a character like this reasons well with others and builds a totally believable team of support, both from secondary characters and from me, who really wanted her to succeed in love and life!

I really highly recommend this. It was addictive and a great mix of psycho-biological drama and romance, and a really promising debut novel from this author.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 15: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Not much of a plot summary to provide for this one, since it’s a re-telling of classic Arthurian legend, but from the perspective of the women. And if you’re unfamiliar with Arthurian legend, get thee to Wikipedia, or Cliff’s Notes, or something.

The three main perspectives we get in the novel are that of Igraine, wife of Uther Pendragon and Arthur’s mother; Morgaine, known more commonly as Morgan le Fay and half-sister of Arthur; and Gwenhyfar, more commonly known by the non-Welsh spelling of her name, Guinevere. Igraine’s narrative provides the first part of the book, where we learn how she was more or less manipulated by her sister, Viviane, into marrying first Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, and then Uther Pendragon, destined to be High King. Though it doesn’t take long for Igraine to feel what she believes is love for Uther, she is still suspect that she has been spelled into her feelings. This first section sets up two recurring themes that are of chief importance in the novel: first, much of what the traditional narrative frames as masculine conquest and male power is actually equally influenced by the machinations of women (particularly those at Avalon); secondly, much of this influence goes unrecognized by the world outside of Avalon, so the primary importance of women still seems to be, to most people, producing an heir.

The majority of the book is a third-person narrative that focuses on Morgaine, though we do get periodic chapters from Gwenhyfar’s angle. Because Morgaine/Morgan le Fay is usually classically portrayed as an evil sorceress, Bradley’s take on her here is an attempt to fill in the second side of the story. Usually, the motivation ascribed to Morgan is that she wants to dethrone Arthur and torment Guinevere; here, we see that her struggle is less about who the High King and Queen are, and more about preserving the Celtic paganism that is being increasingly eradicated in the face of a seemingly militant and oppressive Christianity. The paganism is friendly to and inclusive of women and, indeed, worships a Goddess, while Christianity appears how we’re familiar with it in that time: overly pious, concerned with sin, and overtly patriarchal. Given Morgaine’s view of how Christianity treats women, it makes sense that she would be wary of a High King that increasingly allows this religion to dominate the land and cause Avalon, one of the last remaining vestiges of pagan worship, to disappear into the mists.

Gwenhyfar is the counterpoint to Morgaine’s perspective, as the Christian Queen who grew up first with a negligent/borderline emotionally abuse father and then was placed in a convent. Exceedingly pious, she struggles against what she feels are sinful thoughts and desires. She is chiefly instrumental in the slow but eventual conversion of Arthur and his Court to Christianity, despite his loyalties being previously pledged to Avalon.

From what I saw on Goodreads, it seems like people either love or hate this book. Personally, I liked it a lot, but I won’t say that it was easy or quick to get through. It was kind of a daunting assignment to give myself during a speed read — I had to pick up several shorter books while in the midst of reading this to re-energize my mind. It’s a long (~900 pages) and rather disheartening account, since giving the women back their voices doesn’t, unfortunately, give them happy lives. I liked the humanization of Morgaine and the real talk about how oppressive Christian doctrine can be, so even though I knew it was coming, it was still depressing when Avalon eventually receded out of consciousness, taking its paganism with it.

The Mists of Avalon is basically considered a modern classic at this point. I highly recommend it if you’re a fan of Arthurian legend and/or feminist literature. I’ve seen some weird discussions on whether or not this is actually feminist because the female characters aren’t all exactly liberated and don’t have a ton of agency, but to me those criticisms miss the point. Though Bradley takes some liberties with the myth, I don’t feel that the point was to write a whole new story were Morgaine, Igraine, and Gwenhyfar were, like, the Warrior Women of the Round Table, or something. It just seems like a nice shift of the conversation to actually engage the women, rather than have them as cheerful background baby-makers and off-set seductive sorceresses.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 13-14: Daughter of Smoke and Bone + Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Goodreads summary of “Daughter of Smoke and Bone”: Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”; she speaks many languages–not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When one of the strangers–beautiful, haunted Akiva–fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

I’m not going to summarize the plot at all for the second book, “Days of Blood and Starlight,” because that gets into spoiler territory, and this is one of those YA series where if you read the first book and like it, you’re probably going to read the whole series. So up there is the hook for “Smoke and Bone,” and I’ll just more generally opine on concepts and themes across the two for the rest of the review.

One of the first things I found myself quickly enjoying was the female friendship between Karou and Zuzana. There was an authenticity to it that struck me as somewhat unique for the genre. In my experience, a lot of the female protagonists from the ‘high-concept’ YA of late (I’m thinking about the various urban fantasy, dystopian, etc series that are ubiquitous now) are either lone-wolf types or their closest friend is a guy. And that shouldn’t be notable, except that it’s essentially a trope now that the closest-guy-friend is inevitably one of the points in the coming love triangle. Anyway, Karou is a would-be lone wolf: she literally leads a double-life, and since the hidden part of her life revolves around things of a supernatural nature, she isn’t exactly forthcoming to anyone, at first, with personal information. However, her strong-willed best friend Zuzana eventually becomes familiar with Karou’s secret life, and though Zuzana isn’t equipped to be an active participant in that world the way Karou is, she’s a great tether for Karou to the human world. These girls have a friendship based out of genuine mutual respect and fondness for each other, so their dialogue and banter seemed strikingly real and not always forced by a requirement to advance the plot.

As far as Karou herself: I like her, but I wouldn’t say she’s my new best friend. There’s no concrete reason for that, really. She’s got the qualities I like for a female protagonist in this genre: among other things, she’s capable, pragmatic, creative, thoughtful, brave, and a little sassy. It’s possible that how she develops as a character becomes a little too fantastical for me to relate to her, directly, but that’s fine. I don’t need to be drinking buddies with every heroine of every book.

Taylor’s writing is really descriptive and beautiful, so her world-building is pretty top notch. I liked that she used an unusual location like Prague as the backdrop for her story, as opposed to a more commonly selected city like London or New York. I’m definitely interested to check out other books of hers based on what I’ve read here. I think the weakest aspect of the story, for me, was actually the romance. It’s partly my bias as a reader, because I don’t always respond well to the star-crossed lovers narrative, and that’s what is happening here (with characters explicitly referencing “Romeo and Juliet” in case it wasn’t already obvious enough.) I like to read about love being built on something a little more than “He saw her across the square, and she was beautiful, and he was drawn to her in a cosmic way.” (That’s just me, not a quote from the book. Taylor did it better than that, I promise.) Even across two books, not much of a foundation for their One True Love is built, though at least in the second it’s arguable that they both influence the other’s actions for the better, so that’s something.

All together, this is another very fun YA urban fantasy series, and I’m looking forward to the next book/books. I have no idea how many books it’s going to be by the end, but it’s certainly not done at the end of Blood and Starlight. So overall this is recommended, especially if you are a high-concept YA lover like me.

alwaysanswerb’s #CBR5 Review 12: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Goodreads summary: What if you only had one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all: looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it turns out to be her last.

The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. Living the last day of her life seven times during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death–and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.

There is another blog I read, Forever Young Adult, that is aimed at a crowd they call “a little more A than Y” and serves up (among other things) reviews of YA books. Despite their site slogan, they still have a category for books that fall into the inverse: “a little more Y than A.” That category is where I’d place Before I Fall.

This is not a bad book by any means. In fact, technically speaking, it’s pretty great; but, despite its Groundhog Day conceit and superb character arc, it was difficult for me to enjoy. This is, in part, due to the authenticity with which Oliver captures the adolescent voice, which is one of those technically-speaking “good things” I was talking about. To read such a voice now, though, without any of the trappings of dystopia or paranormal fantasy that so much of popular YA these days revels in, feels uncomfortable and un-relateable. At the beginning of the book, Sam is one of the Mean Girls. She and her three best friends aren’t Mary Sue popular girls who are pretty and smart and also nice — they’re bullies, and they lie, cheat, and steal. We aren’t supposed to like these girls, and Oliver candidly lays their nasty qualities out without any hint of apologia. It’s risky, because she risks alienating readers by giving us a purposefully shallow, vain, and unsympathetic protagonist. And I almost was alienated. Not only was I struggling through the earnestly presented “typical teen issues,” but I was also given a lead who was the kind of person I wouldn’t have cared to befriend, even as a teenager.

But then, somehow, throughout the book, she helps us understand the Mean Girls better. She doesn’t redeem them, per se, but Sam comes to see herself and her friends as others do (“I am a bitch,” she tells one of the girls they bullied, not looking for sympathy or forgiveness, just stating it as a fact.) Another interesting choice that gives the girls dimension is that Oliver fleshes out the quality of their friendships. Many times in the Mean Girls narrative (and indeed, in Mean Girls itself) there is the suggestion that the popular girls wouldn’t even be friends if they weren’t bound by their popularity. Oliver turns that on its head a bit and gives us some moments to suggest that there is real friendship there. Even at the end, when Sam is attempting to fix some of went wrong by way of her being a bitch, she doesn’t disavow her shallow, popular friends; rather, she states things she loves about them, but that she now sees the bad that comes with the good.

All of that is to say: I commend Lauren Oliver’s work here. Reading this was literally like tripping and falling back into high school. The characters and angst felt real, and the conclusion of the book was pretty emotional (I won’t admit to crying, but I was misty for sure.) The question for you, would-be reader, is: do you want to go back to high school? I was neither bullied horribly nor a textbook popular girl, and this was already a difficult enough mindset to get back into, so I can only imagine how it could be to relate to anyone on the extreme ends of the popularity spectrum as described here. The book is a quick read, but it’s an emotional investment.