Reviews

26 November, 2014

End of November Update

What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly themed post for readers and writers, so y’all know what I’ve been up to and I find out what you’ve been working on! It was created by created by Jaime and Erin.

Wanna join in? Leave a link to your What’s Up Wednesday post in the widget on Jaime´s blog.

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What I’m Reading

Finished LOVE LETTERS TO THE DEAD last week, and I’ve moved on to FEED, which I’m LOVING. Bloggers and zombies! It’s awesome!

As for LOVE LETTERS? Man, it’s a hard story to review…. it gets points for getting a reaction out of me, though it wasn’t always a positive one. loveletters

To begin with, I loved the PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER innocence of the book. The style felt honest in its teenage angst and passiveness.

I also adored Skylar — he’s a rarity among YA love interests in that he cares about Laurel’s wellbeing, and looks after her, in a way that goes above and beyond young love. He was an A+ dude all round, not beyond making mistakes but he always had a good reason for them.

But the second half of the book… damn, you guys. It got DARK. PERKS did the same thing, but this is a lot more graphic. It actually feels gratuitous: there’s so much of it, flooding in all at once with no real foreshadowing. It makes sense for the story but it was so unexpected…

I really didn’t pick up this book expecting graphic depictions of sexual abuse, and I feel like the level of detail was too much for a YA audience and far, far too triggering.

Laurel never really changes as a character, which is a shame: they mention this anger within her, and you occasionally see flashes of it in her thoughts, but she never acts on it and remains a massively passive lassie.

PROS: The book is well crafted, it’s beautifully written at points and the voice is strong.

CONS: I don’t think the passive, unchanging main character and graphic abuse fits a YA audience. It’s a very triggering novel, taking an unexpected swing from depression and loss to abuse

What I’m Writing

Still editing. I’ve been out for the count with illness, so it’s slow going, but I haven’t stopped moving forward so yaaay. :D

My writing goal for the week → Edit 50 pages.

What Works For Me

Not too much to babble about today, just a reminder than slow progress is better than no progress.

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Also, FILM CRITIC HULK’S dissection of The Hero’s Journey plot template and the flaws in how it’s use is amazing, and it’s my recommended reading for writers this week.

What Else I’ve Been Up To

Not very much at all, just recovering from being sick. It’s very boring. I suggest you just scroll back up to that adorable turtle GIF.

15 November, 2014

EMMA REVIEWS: HALF A KING

How long has it been since I did a proper review of a book? A long time, ‘cos I’m pretty much retired from that game, but sometimes nice publishers send me cool books to read and I’m drawn to them like a moth to a flame. HALF A KING was one of those.

Book: HALF A KING by Joe Abercrombie

Series: Shattered Sea, Book #1 | Genre: YA Fantasy Half-a-King-Quotes-Staggered

“I swore an oath to be avenged on the killers of my father. I may be half a man, but I swore a whole oath”

Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea itself. And he must do it all with only one good hand.

The deceived will become the deceiver

Born a weakling in the eyes of his father, Yarvi is alone in a world where a strong arm and a cold heart rule. He cannot grip a shield or swing an axe, so he must sharpen his mind to a deadly edge.

The betrayed will become the betrayer

Gathering a strange fellowship of the outcast and the lost, he finds they can do more to help him become the man he needs to be than any court of nobles could.

Will the usurped become the usurper?

But even with loyal friends at his side, Yarvi’s path may end as it began – in twists, and traps and tragedy…

This is the first Joe Abercrombie book I’ve read — I’m not much of a grimdark fantasy reader, and well, he’s Lord Grimdark himself. Honestly I’m not much of an epic fantasy reader at all… or I wasn’t. But last week I finished The Lies of Locke Lamora, which has re-ignited my taste for a good epic fantasy, and Half a King felt like a good way to keep that flame burning.

And it is. It’s a nice mix of Game of Thrones and your more traditional quest narrative, with a chilly snowsept cover that well represents some of the novel’s most chilling scenes (look, I couldn’t resist that pun). With Christmas just around the corner, it’s the perfect time of year to be reading about adventurers struggling through snowy tundras.

In a lot of ways, Half a King follows a familiar path; a revenge quest, a band of ragtag adventurers, loyalty and friendship and fighting. But it also brings in a lot of fresher elements: a bitter, sarcastic disabled protagonist who’s not a strong fighter, women in powerful roles and with detailed, flaws characters, and a detailed pantheon of gods that’s quite different from the norm. halfakingd

This is a YA (teen) fantasy, rather than Abercrombie’s standard adult fantasy, but he moves into the style well and it’s a well-written and easy read. I would have preferred more world-building detail, but apart from that the only other problem that caught my attention was the timeline: the chapters are fast-paced, but there’s a lot of skipped weeks and months that are clearly signposted, and by the end of the story it felt like a lot more time had passed than “months” as mentioned towards the end.

All in all, this is a very strong fantasy novel that’s easy-to-read and enjoyable, though perhaps a bit truer to tropes than the hype led me to believe. It’s a really fun read, and a great starting point for epic fantasy fans interested in exploring YA fiction.

Thanks to Harper Voyager for providing me with a review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

BUY THE BOOK: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Hive UK (Indie)

16 June, 2013

Emma Maree Reviews: What’s Left Of Me

Book: What’s Left Of Me by Kat Zhang

Series: The Hybrid Chronicles, Book 1

Genre: Fiction/Young Adult/Sci-Fi

I should not exist. But I do.

Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything

I’ve been aware of this book for a long time. It’s eye-catching cover has been a regular on my ‘favourite YA covers’ lists, and I only loved it more when I realised there were two faces hidden in the cover.

(To some readers, this may be obvious. For others, here’s an explaination: there’s the face staring at the camera, and the way that image has been cut makes a silhoutte of a girl on the right, head tilted to stare up at the top-left)

I got the chance to read it after winning a copy from Joanne over at Once Upon a Bookcase. She said it was one of her favourites, and I can definitely see why.

“What’s Left Of Me” feels a lot more like traditional sci-fi (like the works of Phillip K Dick, for example) rather than modern dystopian YAs. It takes a high-concept idea — a world where everyone is born with two souls, and one soul had to die when they hit their teenage years — and takes time to explore it.

The plot isn’t the point here. Sure, it’s still got action, adventure and speedy YA pacing, but that isn’t the aim of the story. It’s an exploration of the concept, and secondly an exploration of the characters. I loved that. It goes against YA genre tropes in a very subtle way, and this makes it one of the most thought-provoking YA sci-fi novels I’ve ever read.

First line: Addie and I were born into the same body, our souls’ ghostly fingers entwined before we gasped out very first breath.

This review was originally posted at Emma Maree Reviews.

12 February, 2013

Emma Maree Reviews: Teeth

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Book: Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz

Genre: Fiction/Young Adult/Fantasy

Be careful what you believe in.

Rudy’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves to a remote island in a last attempt to save his sick younger brother. With nothing to do but worry, Rudy sinks deeper and deeper into loneliness and lies awake at night listening to the screams of the ocean beneath his family’s rickety house.

Then he meets Diana, who makes him wonder what he even knows about love, and Teeth, who makes him question what he knows about anything. Rudy can’t remember the last time he felt so connected to someone, but being friends with Teeth is more than a little bit complicated. He soon learns that Teeth has terrible secrets. Violent secrets. Secrets that will force Rudy to choose between his own happiness and his brother’s life..

I’ve never read Hannah Moskowitz’s work before, though I’d heard great things about her contemporary writing. She’s also a regular contributor to the AbsoluteWrite forum’s YA sections (and an advocate of never holding back when it comes to language or content in YA — her post on ‘edgy YA’ is well worth a read).

So when I heard she had a fantasy novel coming out nicknamed the “magic gay fish” story, I added it straight onto my preorder list. I wanted to try out her work, and that nickname sounded like it would be strange, shameless and right up my street.

Hannah’s style is easy to read, dialogue-heavy and snappily paced. The dialogue feels very honest, which means very profane, and while some readers may find that off-putting I enjoy it. It makes for the most realistic teenage male narrator I’ve read in YA fiction.

There’s only a small cast of main characters in this story, and they’re all flawed and dysfunctional in one way or another. Rudy is a lonely boy, worrying about his future and his little brother, and Teeth is an ugly, angry fishboy who learned most of his words from the local fishermen and can barely construct a sentence without a f-bomb in it.

The secondary characters are less fleshed-out, which is a shame as I’d like to know more about some of the parents struggling on the island.

Trigger warning: There’s also some very frank, bleak scenes of repetitive sexual abuse. This whole book is dark to the extreme, and though the abuse is portrayed extremely negatively I think it would be just too difficult and depressing for some readers.

The ending really caught me off-guard. The twist that led to it was brilliant, completely shocking me, but the actual closing chapter left me feeling disappointed. I wanted more of a sense of closure, and instead I got quite an abrupt cut-off.

I think the ending is supposed to tie into the underlying metaphors and hidden meanings in the story, but I wasn’t reading this book for the metaphors about the environment or government — they were nice elements, but not what drove me to pick this book up. Also (and I fully acknowledge that this is an issue with my personal tastes and expectations as a reader, not the writer’s fault) I really wanted things to turn out differently.

Despite my dissatisfaction with the ending, I really loved Moskowitz’s style and her way with describing characters. I hope to check out her contemporary YA very soon.

This book was a personal purchase. I have no connection to the writer or publishers involved.

7 February, 2013

Emma Maree Reviews: Seraphina

Book: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Series: Seraphina, Book 1

Genre: Fiction/Young Adult/Fantasy

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty’s anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen’s Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

Why is it that the books I really loved are always the hardest to review?

I usually try to keep my reviews balanced with the good and the bad, but it’s so difficult for books like “Seraphina” when there really isn’t anything to fault with it.

The dialogue was snappy, true-to-life and very quotable. The plot twists were great. The usual issues I get twitchy about (gender equality and representation of different sexualities and races) were comfortingly absent. As for the world building… oh boy, I could gush about the world building for hours. Every aspect of this book is richly written, from the background religions and cultures to the draconian species.

“Seraphina” is set in a world where, after a massive war between humans and dragons, a shaky treaty has brought peace and dragons now walk among humans in almost-human bodies. But when a member of the royal family is murdered in a draconic style, Seraphina (court musician, secret half-dragon, and generally awesome young lady) decides to help the young Prince investigate and find the murderer before the treaty falls apart.

It’s no secret that I love dragons, and this book handles dragons with style and grace. You won’t ever mix up a dragon character with a human one. They’re inhuman even in their human disguises, lovers of maths, and they avoid our confusing human emotions at all costs along with pointless niceties like saying “hello” or “goodbye”.

If you like dragons, pick this book up. If you like flawless high fantasy, pick this up. This is definitely one of the best YA books to come out of 2012.

A review copy of this novel was provided by Random House in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Random House!

6 February, 2013

Emma Maree Reviews: Pandemonium

Book: Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver

Series: Delirium, Book #2

Genre: Fiction/Young Adult/Sci Fi/Dystopian/Romance

I’m pushing aside
the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts of Hana
and my old school,
push,
push,
push,
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and fame.

Lauren Oliver delivers an electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Delirium. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.

I love that title, even though I always feel like it needs an exclamation. Pandemonium! It’s such a great word:

pandemonium [ˌpændɪˈməʊnɪəm]

1. wild confusion; uproar

2. a place of uproar and chaos

[coined by Milton to designate the capital of hell in Paradise Lost, from pan- + Greek daimōn demon]

pandemoniac , pandemonic [ˌpændɪˈmɒnɪk] adj

I’ve had a complicated relationship so far with Lauren Oliver. While I loved her debut, “Before I Fall”, and the concept of “Delirium”, the actual book left me flat due to it’s confusing ending. I also get grumpy about the UK cover redesigns, though “Pandemonium” and upcoming final book “Requiem” have much nicer covers and I’ve actually grown to like them and how they fit in with the “Before I Fall” cover.

Thankfully, “Pandemonium” was full of pleasant surprises. It’s a much tighter-written and ambitious book than “Delirium” was, alternating between the past and the present as Lena adjusts to a hard, scraping-for-survival life in the unregulated Wilds outside the city (‘before’) and sneaks into New York City to tail the son of the president of Deliria-Free America, an organisation that viciously promotes the idea that love is a disease and the only safe humans are those ‘cured’ by a lobotomy-like procedure (‘after’).

Lena is a stronger person, even as she deals with her grief over “Delirium”‘s events realistically, and she’s a much more enjoyable character to follow this time round. Oliver also expands the world laid out in the previous novel, taken it from a sketched-out dystopia into a realistic future society with a lot of moral grey areas.

The scenery descriptions are nicely done, though occasionally repetitive (snow seems to crackle a lot in the Wilds), and the new characters introduced are varied and feel like they have a lot of depth to them. The two story lines also alternated nicely, with very little opportunity for confusion, up until the merging point which felt a bit unclearly defined.

I’m very happy with how “Pandemonium” turned out. While a lot of middle trilogy books can be weak and plotless, “Pandemonium” is miles stronger than “Delirium” and restored my faith in Lauren Oliver’s writing. I’ll be looking forward to reading and reviewing “Requiem” closer to its March release date.

I bought a copy of this novel myself for personal reading, but I’ll note that Hodder & Stoughton have previously provided me with review copies of “Delirium” and “Requiem” in exchange for honest reviews.