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Book Review: Dark Life by Kat Falls (Series, #1) (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Ty was the first person born subsea. His family are settlers on the bottom of the ocean, a new venture after global warming caused the Rising of the seas. Ty loves his life subsea and hates Topside. One day while adventuring around in the dark level of subsea, he stumbles upon a submarine and a Topside girl looking for her long-lost older brother. Helping her challenges everything Ty believes in.
Review:
This is one of those rare YA books that gives me renewed hope for the genre. There are no stupid love triangles. The adults are intelligent and good parents. There are bigger worries than who you’re taking to prom. There’s adventure but no gratuitous violence. Romance but in a healthy way. Basically, it’s everything you’d hope for in a YA book. I’d gladly hand this to any teen or preteen looking for a good read and feel happy in doing so too.
The post-apocalyptic setting is unique, intelligent, well thought-out, and supported by science. Creating a new American frontier under the ocean is delightful, and Falls draws on the American pioneer experience in cute, tongue-in-cheek ways. For instance, the settler kids call their parents “Ma” and “Pa.” They earn their acres by successfully farming them for 5 years (a common time-frame in the old west). Plus, the world is different beyond subsea as well, reflecting drastic changes that would occur with such a huge change in the world. There are people called “floaters” who live in houseboats. Those who still live on land live in huge skyscrapers, and everyone sends their kids to boarding schools. Perhaps most interestingly is the fact that ever since the falling of the land into the ocean the US has been under “emergency law.” A harrowing possibility to any astute YA reader today.
Ty and Gemma are adventurous and intelligent yet still flawed in their own ways. Gemma can be too impulsive, Ty too cautious. This is naturally part of what makes them a good potential couple. They balance each other. Similarly, Ty’s parents are smart and caring, yet still capable of being wrong sometimes, even though well-intentioned. They’re an example of the type of parent we hope most kids will have. In contrast, Gemma is an orphan with an evil boarding school mistress to provide an adult for kid to hate.
The plot is deliciously complex and for once I actually did not guess the ending. It left me surprised and happy simultaneously. Falls does not take the easy way, but she also doesn’t use any lame deus ex machinas.
I feel my review is not doing this book justice. Suffice to say it is a richly complex world she has created, filled with characters that are worthy of being looked up to but with interesting scifi elements to keep the interest level high. I found myself never wanting to leave the subsea world and sort of wishing living subsea was an option in real life.
Overall, I recommend this to fans of YA scifi, but also to anyone with a curiosity about what it might be like to live on the bottom of the ocean as a new pioneer.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Book Review: Beast Saves the Brothers and Sisters of the Cosmic I Am by G. W. Davies
Summary:
Lisa Miller can’t believe she’s off chasing after her fraternal twin sister, Millie, yet again. After her sister ran away to join the hippie commune, Lovestock, she thought it was out of her system. But a hippie named Beast from Millie’s past shows up in town, and together they head off for Montana following The Two who claim to be in contact with the Twellorasians who will soon arrive to whisk away their followers. Along the way, they pick up a junkie jazz trumpeter and his drummer and get tailed by the drug dealer the junkie stole heroin from.
Review:
I kept reading this book thinking, “I should be finding this funny. I should be enjoying this story. I should be lost in this world,” but I never once laughed and glanced at the clock more times than I can count. I think I’m really just not the intended audience for this book.
The storyline is definitely unique and zany without being unbelievable. The split of the camp into the hippies who follow The Two and the hippies who follow the jazz trumpeter was a great move and added depth to the story. The characters are easily differentiated and fairly well-rounded. There are two bisexual characters presented in a positive light, which was nice. The dialogue is snappy.
There is a serial rapist element to the story that some might find triggering. I, personally, don’t think it’s played for laughs and Davies handles both male and female rape well. But readers wary of that content should be aware it is in the book.
I think three elements really made the book a miss for me. The humor is not my style. It’s composed of a lot of similes and tongue-in-cheek references to 1960s culture (like the Beatles and stoners) that I just personally don’t find funny. Second, the story is set in the 1960s in the middle of hippie culture, and that’s the sort of setting that takes an amazing storyline to leave me satisfied. Third, I disliked the ending, but I know some people will love it.
Overall, although this book didn’t do it for me, it is well-written, and I believe it will appeal to those with a vested interest in the 1960s and hippie culture.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Anne Burden has been living alone in her family’s farming valley ever since nuclear war left everything around the edges dead. She’s created a quiet, calm life for herself and the animals left alive until one day she sees smoke on the horizon. A man enters the valley in a radiation-proof suit. At first Anne is cautious but then happy to no longer be alone. Soon, however, the man’s sinister side starts to show.
Review:
This is a complex, thought-provoking with a surprise ending that is a bit….off-putting.
Anne Burden is a surprisingly pulled together gal for someone who just lost everyone and everything she knew to nuclear holocaust. She has a surprising amount of faith and is accepting of her fate. Her buddhist-like nature is admirable, but does seem a touch unrealistic.
There are many complexities in the plot that have no easy answers and keep the reader thinking. Is the man a bad guy or has the radiation poisoning simply addled his brains? Is it best to stay put where you are temporarily safe or take a risk and seek out other survivors? What things are ok to do to survive and what things are not? These deep questions, questions that have nothing to do with the school dance or which boy to choose are refreshing to see in YA. Putting the main character into extreme situations allows O’Brien to bring up more serious life questions. Although I don’t always agree with Anne’s decisions, I do respect her thought process.
The ending came kind of out of left field for me, and I am still dissatisfied with it. Anne’s decision to run instead of to stay and fight is an odd choice for a YA book. In fact the book reads very pacifistic, almost dangerously so. Running is not always an option. Sometimes you have to stand and fight. Hold your ground. Similarly, I do not believe the man would have given Anne any genuine tips on which direction to go out of sudden remorse. It seems out of character and done simply to give a more eloquent couple of closing paragraphs.
Thus, the book is a fast-paced read with important life questions. The main character makes some questionable decisions, though, and I am not entirely comfortable with the ultimate message it contains. I recommend it to fans of YA or post-apocalyptic fiction capable of taking the message with a grain of salt.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Book Review: Cursed by S. A. Archer (Series, #1)
Summary:
London works for hire doing investigations mostly for parahumans, and her best friend is a vampire who keeps hoping she’ll consent to being turned. Her life isn’t run-of-the-mill, but it isn’t too bad either, until one day she gets Touched by a Sidhe and finds herself sucked into the Fey world bubbling just beneath the surface of the regular one.
Review:
This is a fast-paced urban fantasy novella, ideal for fans of the genre who can catch onto tropes without needing everything explained to them in detail.
London is a typical kick-ass heroine. Her problem of having been Touched is achieved quickly, though, lending her the uniqueness of aching for a Fey. Anybody who’s been a while without getting laid can relate to that. ;-)
The paranormal world Archer has created uses the urban fantasy tropes but is still unique. The shapeshifters are Changelings. The Fey can look grotesque or beautiful (similar to a demon). The vampires are what we have all come to expect from vampires. Silver is still a force against the paranormals.
What bumped this novella up from average to highly enjoyable for me was the use of the paranormal world to comment on the relationship between Ireland the UK. The UK consists of Wizards, and Ireland contains the Fey. The Fey have been persecuted by the Wizards for generations, and it is this battle that London finds herself in the middle of. This whole concept could really go places, and I like the freedom that urban fantasy gives Archer to comment on a touchy area of international relations.
My two quips with the novella are relatively minor. I can’t stand the main heroine’s name. It’s rather confusing to read about a London in the setting of the UK and Ireland. I also was a bit disappointed to find no sex scene, but I suppose that’s what makes this urban fantasy and not paranormal romance.
Overall, I recommend this fast-paced novella to urban fantasy fans with an hour or so to kill and a kindle or other ereader handy.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: The Cause by Clint Stoker
Summary:
In an overpopulated future, a city stands where there are not familial or close relationships, but everyone celebrates every night. Air was recently relocated to a new position as a purger, and he slowly discovers the sinister side of the city.
Review:
This is an interesting concept that is poorly executed, badly edited, and takes a turn for the worse at the end.
Anyone who follows this blog knows that I love an overpopulation scifi story. Stoker has an interesting take on it–the world is overpopulated so constantly at war. A city arises where the residents can stay young forever but must follow a series of articles that removes the true joy of living from them. The problem is that I just stated that more succinctly than Stoker does at any point in the novel.
What we have here is the classic example of a good idea poorly executed. The basic concept is great. But the main character’s flashbacks and current thoughts are difficult to read. I found myself constantly skimming the flashbacks, because they were so confusing to read and lent so little to the story.
More upsetting though were the constant errors that had less to do with typos or difficult grammar and more to do with poor understanding of the English language. Examples:
A golden metal sat at the top of his desk. (location 2879)
Won’t even know your there (location 3148)
I thought we we’re in this together (location 4225)
He put Air to sleep so he could remain innocent in the cities eyes (location 4509)
A transport past by (location 4588)
You can’t bring people back once their dead. (location 5050)
I am ti sro and you are the villain. (location 5083)
Anybody, understandably, would be frustrated with this amount of errors.
Perhaps more distressing is the “surprise” ending, which to me was just confusing. Essentially, five infants are killed every 50 years to keep the city of 30 million people alive, yet the science of that is never explained. The key to scifi is plausible science, yet Stoker ignores that entirely. It’s a good idea, but without plausible explanations and good writing, it falls flat. I’d recommend he gets a solid editor before his next attempt.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: Timeless Trilogy, Book One, Fate by Tallulah Grace (Series, #1)
Summary:
Kris is a successful video editor in Charleston, South Carolina with two best friends she’s made her own family with. She has a beautiful beach house and a loving fluffy cat named Pegasus. She also just so happens to be precognitive. Her visions have never been about herself until she starts sensing that she is being watched, receiving late night phone calls, and finding flowers left at her house and on her car. Increasingly, she realizes she is in danger, and right then her old college flame moves in next door.
Review:
This is an interesting mix of suspense, romance, and paranormal that keeps the reader guessing and interested and shows promise in the writer.
Kris’s life prior to the stalking is relatable to the modern female reader. She has a core group of good friends, a pet she loves, a career that is solid but not yet stellar, and her dream home. All that she is missing is the man. The added touch of her visions gives her that extra something special, but her visions are not over the top. She can’t control when they come or what they’ll show her, so she treats them more as an odd talent. This keeps the heroine from being over-inflated, which is nice. The love interest, Nick, is cute without being a god and kind without being perfect. He’s a good guy with flaws, ie, the ideal love interest in a romance that we’ve, alas, been seeing less and less of lately.
The plot is this book’s strong point. It is scary and suspenseful, but still believable. No characters make obvious stupid mistakes that would make the reader scream at them, and let’s just say, Kris is no Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she also isn’t a weak, quivering Disney princess. Kris is neither a super-hero nor incredibly weak, which is just the kind of heroine we need more of in literature.
All of that said, Grace shows promise as a writer, but she still needs to work on her craft. Her plot structure is excellent, but she frequently shows instead of tells. Similarly, she struggles a bit when first introducing a character, often falling back on the beginner writer’s method of explaining hair and eye color before anything else. Similarly, the book needs more editing for simple grammar, spelling, and typos. The book does not read like a strong author’s work, but it also is still enjoyable. I am left wanting to find out about the romances of Kris’s friends Cassie and Roni, but I am also hoping that the writing that goes along with creative plots improves in the next two books.
Overall, if you are a fan of suspenseful romance with a dash of the paranormal and don’t mind a bit of showing instead of telling, this book is a fun way to pass a few hours, particularly for the low cost of 99cents.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: The Walking Dead, Book 2 by Robert Kirkman (Series, #2) (Graphic Novel)
Summary:
The rag-tag group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse stumble upon a prison with two circles of fences just in time. With the warm weather more zombies are active now that they’re no longer frozen. Of course they also discover locked in the cafeteria three surviving inmates. Attempts to make the odd mix of original survivors, inmates, and the farmers into one group might be a task too huge to overcome. Especially when you add in a mysterious woman who arrives with two pet zombies she leads by chains.
Review:
Now that Kirkman has the post-apocalyptic zombie world firmly established, he is more free to move his characters around within it, seeing how different personalities and mores react to an entirely reordered society. This leads to some interesting storylines, such as the May/December romance, suicide pacts, and the idea of a fresh start for the living inmates. It does, however, also lead to some….overly dramatic speeches, let’s say. One in particular reminded me of the infamous “Live together, die alone” speech from Lost, only this one goes, “You kill; you die!” I had to stop reading for a minute to giggle. The close-up of the sheriff’s overly dramatic face had me in stitches, and I”m pretty sure that wasn’t the intended reaction, lol.
That said, though, all of the drama and death and zombies is exactly what one is looking for in a zombie graphic novel. If anything gives a writer an excuse to be overly dramatic, it’s a rag-tag bunch of survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Death and chaos are what we’re looking for here, while also addressing survival issues like farming and people having nervous break-downs. There’s also a creative zombie lore twist that I won’t spoil for you, but that is highly enjoyable.
Overall, Kirkman finds more stable footing in this second entry in the series. It’s chaotic, high-speed disasters, violence, and sex. If that’s what you look for in your graphic novels, I highly recommend this one.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Previous Books in Series:
The Walking Dead, Book 1 
Book Review: For a Dancer: The Memoir by Emma J. Stephens
Summary:
Emma recounts her childhood growing up with an outgoing older sister, a permissive father, and an addict stepfather in rural America. She then relates attending college as a single mother, her failed marriage, and studying abroad in Paris.
Review:
Imagine the most whiny, entitled, immature person you know. Now imagine that person perceives herself as simultaneously awesome, intelligent, and put-upon. Now imagine that person wrote a memoir and couldn’t even maintain the same tense throughout. That’s Stephens’ memoir. To a T.
Yes, a few things in Emma’s childhood weren’t perfect, but most people don’t have life handed to them on a silver platter. Her sister overshadowed her a bit. Her stepfather was an addict who had to go to rehab. Interestingly, though, Emma and her sister were unaware of his addiction until her mother and stepfather sat them down to explain why he was going into rehab. It seemed to me that they actually handled the situation quite well. When Emma’s stepfather returns from rehab, he and her sister clash a bit in the typical teenage angst style, but since the girls also have a father, Emma’s sister moves in with him and their stepmother. It is at this point that Emma starts making the series of dumb decisions that really mess up her life for….well for forever.
Emma ditches her mother and stepfather who had just made over her room for her and goes to live with her absentee father and stepmother who really aren’t behaving like parents at all. Emma proceeds to whine about this situation, when she did it to herself. She whines about everything about living there, when all she had to do was go back to the healthy household with her mom and stepfather. Why didn’t she? Dare I to suggest that she actually liked the freedom, no responsibilities, slacking off in school, getting drunk, having sex, etc…? Why, yes I do. She then proceeds to run away from home multiple times, scaring the crap out of her mother, who appears to be the only one who goes looking for her. It’s the typical what do we do with this horrible out of control teenager story only told from the teenager’s perspective. Aka, it’s terrible. It’s horrible to read about. There is no remorse, no chagrin. Everyone else is always at fault but Emma.
Perhaps teenage angst can be forgivable, but what occurs later was simply horrifying to read about, partially because at first it seems that Emma is straightening her life out. She gets pregnant, keeps the baby, and still completes her pre-med courses and graduates with her BS. This is admirable. I’m sure it was difficult, and she seems to be focused on providing a good life for her son. That all quickly ceases though when she gives up on becoming a doctor, gets married, moves to LA, gets a boob job, and then starts shopping herself and her son around for movie roles. You claim you want to give your son a better life, so you throw him to the wolves in Hollywood? Really?
Naturally, the marriage doesn’t work out, and we then see a series of men coming into and out of her son, Gabriel’s, life. He is routinely left with friends or family so Emma can gallyvant around with these various men, oh, not to mention go do a semester abroad in France without her son when he’s only 11 years old. All she can seem to think about or focus on is money. Not creating satisfying relationships. Not broadening her horizons. Not anything but money. Think I’m exaggerating? She ends up ditching her son for weekends so she can fly across the country to be a high-class hooker. Meanwhile, her mother has settled in the mountains and become an addiction specialist. If you’ve ever needed proof goodness isn’t genetic, there it is. In fact, I’d love to read her mother’s memoir. I bet she has a lot more valuable things to say.
Perhaps all of that could be bearable if she simply wrote well, but she doesn’t. She talks in circles and constantly changes tenses to the point where following the story is incredibly difficult.
Overall, this is a badly written memoir by a person who is a bad daughter and irresponsible mother who has seemingly learned nothing from her mistakes. I cannot in good faith recommend it to anyone.
1 out of 5 stars
Source: Print copy via LibraryThing’s EarlyReviewers
Book Review: King of Paine by Larry Kahn
Summary:
Frank Paine was a Hollywood A-list leading man until he let the woman he loved deal with a BDSM scandal in the news on her own, thereby destroying her career and saving his. The guilt got to him, so he ended up leaving Hollywood and joining the FBI in an effort to bring justice to the world. His first case in the Rainbow Squad, however, involves not child rape or molestation but adult, BDSM style rape-by-proxy, and his ex-girlfriend is a suspect. Meanwhile, a former Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who’s been drowning his sorrows in alcohol finds himself swept up into the life of Angela del Rio and and discovering rumors of a place called The River.
Review:
I’m of two minds about this book. I felt the need to find out what happened in the end, but I also didn’t enjoy the meat of the story very much. It’s kind of like when you find yourself watching a marathon of The Biggest Loser and wondering why, exactly, it matters to you who gets voted off when the show get so many nutrition and exercise facts wrong and why exactly are the competitors cut off from their family anyway? Actually, it’s exactly like that.
Kahn builds suspense well. He’s clearly paid attention to just how much and how often to ramp up the violence and intrigue to keep a reader reading. I also appreciated the two separate story-lines that then intertwined. Of course, the reader knows they’re going to intertwine, but how is not immediately obvious. That was a nice touch.
Kahn also moves smoothly between real life dialogue and the chats on an online BDSM website that are a key part of the investigation. It was definitely crucial to a modern story to include the internet, and he switches between real life and the internet quite well.
That said, other crucial parts of telling a story fell flat for me. Kahn does not write women well. On looking back, it is evident that women in his story are divided into the classic dichotomy of angel or whore. There is no real room for three-dimensional characterization, making mistakes, or understandable motivations. For instance, Paine’s ex goes from calling her brother to threaten to kill him to getting back together within a week. That’s, um, fast? Similarly, although Kahn slips back and forth easily between Paine’s and Roger’s perspective, he never shows any of the women’s perspectives, even though they are the ones being raped, beaten, tricked, used, and abused. I can understand using the perspective of an FBI agent, but why couldn’t the second perspective have been Angela instead of Roger? Or why couldn’t he have made the reporter a woman? Regardless, none of the women in the story were believable, real characters.
Similarly, I was ultimately disappointed with who the perpetrator of the crime ultimately is. Without spoiling it, suffice to say the choice is stereotypical, bordering on racist. It was a choice lacking in creativity or sensitivity.
Overall, although the suspense reeled me in, the content of the story left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I suppose if you want a junk food style suspense, or if the negatives I pointed out wouldn’t bother you, you may enjoy this book. Those looking for thought-provoking, realistic suspense should look elsewhere, however.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review
Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees (BAND): December Discussion: Truth in Nonfiction
BAND is a monthly discussion group of book bloggers who love nonfiction! If you’d like to join us, check out our tumblr page.
This month Erin of Erin Reads asks us: How do you determine truth in nonfiction?
I feel like the quest for truth has been one of my primary activities since I was a very young child. I’ve never been the type to just believe something because someone in authority tells me it’s so or because it’s the widely accepted belief or….well, you get the picture.
Everything I’ve pursued in my career and education has gone to back up this aspect of my personality. My first chosen major in undergrad was History, which is largely focused on determining the truth and not just the accepted cultural myths. Lessons I learned from my wonderful, intelligent professors stick with me to this day in reading nonfiction:
- Are there multiple accounts or scientific studies that come to the same conclusion or provide the same information?
- Does the conclusion the document or observer draw make sense based on known facts about the world?
- Does the document address opposing viewpoints and provide valid, factual rebuttals to them? A piece of nonfiction that ignores opposing viewpoints is generally one that cannot be trusted.
So those are the basics I use when I investigate a belief system and proceed to draw my conclusions. It was this method that I learned in undergrad that led to me deconverting from the religion I was raised in. (I’m currently an agnostic). It was this same method that proved to me that eating meat is wrong, so I don’t do it anymore.
Now that I’m older and have a few firm beliefs that I’ve vetted with research, the first question I ask when approaching a piece of nonfiction is: Does this go against what I know to be true? If it does, I may read it anyway just to help me understand where someone with a different viewpoint is coming from. But I take everything in it “with a grain of salt.” These books usually take me a while to finish since anything I can’t disprove immediately, I go out and do research on. Sometimes this leads to me adjusting my viewpoint, but generally not for things I’ve already researched.
If the nonfiction work I am reading is about something I just really haven’t researched much before then I approach it differently. I look to see how well-documented and carefully researched the book is. Did the author cite primary sources in her bibliography? Are these primary sources from well-respected journals or archives or scientific studies? I am going to trust a book with 10 pages of bibliography much more than one with 2. If the author is saying something that doesn’t make sense to me, then I hunt down what she’s cited and read it for myself. I think through the facts, consider the author’s possible biases (her own race, gender, economic group, educational background), and consider my own known biases before drawing conclusions from the material presented. If it’s something I can try out for myself like a new recipe, a budgeting system, or an exercise move, I try it and see if it works!
I know that probably all sounds like a lot of work, and IT IS. Being an educated citizen of the world is really hard work. But that’s our job. We’re supposed to constantly be educating ourselves, questioning ourselves, seeking to understand the world and those around us. How can we ever expect to improve things if we just take everything at face value as handed down to us? And once you’ve studied something once you can’t just stop studying it. Science has shown us that. New evidence comes into play, and we need to reevaluate. There’s nothing wrong with saying I once thought this was so but now I know I was wrong. That’s all a part of growing and learning, a part that is, unfortunately, not as encouraged in the American education system as it should be. It’s part of why I became a librarian. I want everyone to do this throughout their life. Because it’s not just truth in nonfiction that we need to question and determine for ourselves. It’s truth about the world around us.
Check out the nonfiction books I’ve read and reviewed since the October discussion:
- The Sum of My Parts
by Olga Trujillo, JD (review)
- From This Moment On
by Shania Twain (review)
- Born Wild
by Tony Fitzjohn (review)
- Out of the House of Bondage
by Thavolia Glymph (review)
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 