Goodbye... for now

So this is going to be my last blog.  I just haven't been able to keep up with writing reviews here, but I'll still be around on tumblr and goodreads.  Come June I'll be starting a new blog, and if you're interested in blogging with me, contact me.  I'll leave the link here when it comes up.

Goodbye, dear readers.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Book Review: Gilded

Sixteen-year-old Jae Hwa Lee is a Korean-American girl with a black belt, a deadly proclivity with steel-tipped arrows, and a chip on her shoulder the size of Korea itself. When her widowed dad uproots her to Seoul from her home in L.A., Jae thinks her biggest challenges will be fitting in to a new school and dealing with her dismissive Korean grandfather. Then she discovers that a Korean demi-god, Haemosu, has been stealing the soul of the oldest daughter of each generation in her family for centuries. And she's next.

But that’s not Jae’s only problem.

There's also Marc. Irresistible and charming, Marc threatens to break the barriers around Jae's heart. As the two grow closer, Jae must decide if she can trust him. But Marc has a secret of his own—one that could help Jae overturn the curse on her family for good. It turns out that Jae's been wrong about a lot of things: her grandfather is her greatest ally, even the tough girl can fall in love, and Korea might just be the home she's always been looking for.

Rating: 1 ½ stars

This was the kindlefirst for last month and I was psyched because the last book I read this way I absolutely loved!  This one sounded better than the other had, too.  I did a little research and saw both good and bad reviews and went into it expecting a good story, just nothing special.  The idea was original and I love mythology, so by all means I should have liked this one.

I really, really didn’t, though.  At first, for like five chapters, I liked it.  Do not be fooled by the back, it’s much cooler from the little blurb on the back then it is reading the whole entire thing.

The big problem, I believe is the writing.  It’s mediocre at best, childish at worst.  The words don’t always flow, the story makes sense on a very basic level, and there is absolutely no character growth.  This book takes place in Korea and so I expected to get some culture, but the few parts there are don’t really seem that different from America.  And there’s absolutely no “show” to the storytelling.  It’s all “tell”.  We don’t get to experience this ourselves at all, we just have to go along for the ride and let Jae tell us everything.  Looking back on it now, if written a little better and with a few scenes tweaked around, it would be great middlegrade storytelling (and I don’t mean to demean other MG writers, I’m just saying the way that it was written felt more like it was aimed at younger readers in that it wasn’t as mature as some YA and NA writers write).

The characters were all dry.  Jae, the protagonist, should have been freaking awesome, but she fell flat.  Plus, she’s also some amazing warrior already in all these AP and IB classes at school, and you don’t get into those unless you’re smart.  The whole time, though, she can’t seem to pick up on simple concepts or understand that her plans are atrocious.  She just accepts she’s not good at planning and moves on.  An AP student doesn’t act like that, I mean, come on.  Another problem was that, being an awesome warrior and all, there was no room to grow in that section.  She was already freaking perfect and so, oh no, no way for her to learn at all.  Where’s the character growth?  Just a little?  Oh, wait, there is a little.  For half a chapter she learns this awesome new trick that’s supposed to be mind bending or something.  Yeah, she learns it in half a chapter.  Really?

And the romance.  Marc could have been dreamy, but he was too… nonexistent.  He’s there for her all the time, ready to do anything for her, and should have been your regular prince charming.  Nah, for me he was just blah.  Not particularly romantic or anything.  And the chemistry between the two?  None.  They share a few kisses that are described as being explosive, but um, there was no description to actually show us how great they were.  She was happy, he was happy, it was a good kiss, done.

The consequences in this book are totally off-kilter, too.  Here’s a spoiler to explain what I mean, so read the following paragraph at your own risk:

Jae and Marc are arrested by the police for stealing from a museum.  Her dad’s just mad she was talking to her grandfather.  They’re fined a little.  No court date.  No nothing.  They spend a couple hours in jail and are grounded.  Which, by being grounded, I mean she just can’t… or wait?  There’s really nothing she can’t do.  It’s just a word: grounded.  The police aren’t even super mad.  That doesn’t happen in real life no matter where you are.  Stuff like this just kept the world an arms-length away and totally unbelievable on every level.  End spoiler.

Really, there wasn’t much good about this book except the originality of the concept.  I’d say don’t bother picking it up.

What's Up, March

So last month I really did plan on doing a bunch of reviews.  What happened, though, was that I decided to binge-read Riyria.  If it wasn’t my favorite series before, it totally is now, and I recommend you go check it out immediately.  It’s really, really amazing fantasy.  I would review them, but it wouldn’t be very fair because I would just be gushing the entire time.

So here’s my TBR for the month, stars next to them means there will be a review for sure, otherwise, probably not:

• ·        *Gilded by Christina Farley (It was last month’s kindle first and I’m almost done)
• ·        Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief (a re-read)
• ·        Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters (a re-read)
• ·        Torment by Lauren Kate (a re-read)
• ·        *The Archived by Victoria Schwabb
• ·        *Cinder by Marissa Meyer
• ·        *Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
• ·        *Unbreakable by Kami Garcia
• ·        Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (a re-read)
• ·        *Charming by James Elliott
• ·        *Embrace by Jessica Shirvington

And the book of the month is: MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner.  Check out the goodreads page to keep up on that discussion.

I’ve been doing some writing, setting really good goals for myself that help move the pace along, so I have a good feeling about this one.  Trick is coming along well and if I can get five chapters done this month I’ll post one for you guys to read, if you’re interested.  It’s technically an adult urban fantasy/sci-fi book, but I think YA readers will like it, too.

As for TV, well… I’m still behind on just about everything.  When I get caught up I’ll try to start reviewing things again.  Until then, I’m sorry.

Movie-wise I want to see a couple this weekend and things have been slow, so it looks like I’ll get 

to at least one.  Fingers crossed.  If I do, I plan on reviewing it.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave a little something below.  I love hearing from people!

Book of the Month: Poison Princess

She could save the world—or destroy it.
Sixteen-year-old Evangeline "Evie" Greene leads a charmed life, until she begins experiencing horrifying hallucinations. When an apocalyptic event decimates her Louisiana hometown, Evie realizes her hallucinations were actually visions of the future—and they're still happening. Fighting for her life and desperate for answers, she must turn to her wrong-side-of-the-bayou classmate: Jack Deveaux.
But she can't do either alone.
With his mile-long rap sheet, wicked grin, and bad attitude, Jack is like no boy Evie has ever known. Even though he once scorned her and everything she represented, he agrees to protect Evie on her quest. She knows she can't totally depend on Jack. If he ever cast that wicked grin her way, could she possibly resist him?
Who can Evie trust?
As Jack and Evie race to find the source of her visions, they meet others who have gotten the same call. An ancient prophesy is being played out, and Evie is not the only one with special powers. A group of twenty-two teens has been chosen to reenact the ultimate battle between good and evil. But it's not always clear who is on which side.

It’s got a gorgeous cover, so there’s something going for it, at least.

That sounded really harsh, and I hate being mean when I know someone puts a lot of work into something and is extremely proud of it… but I feel like there was absolutely no heart in this book. I felt like the author just slapped stuff together because she wanted a bestselling YA novel she knew she could achieve. The characters are boring and stereotypical, the world used up and, while being a depressing dystopian world filled with horrors, seemingly easy to survive, compared to other ones. Let’s break it down:

Plot- I knew who the bad guy was the second it was mentioned. There isn’t really a “bad guy” I should say, but the figure haunting Evie’s dreams is who I’m talking about. It was obvious with a capital O. And the matters of sex. The whole book tries to be steamy, but it’s not really. There was very little chemistry between Jack and Evie, even less between him and Selena. Plus, Evie’s pretty much worried about who to give her V-Card away to, and it was rather uncomfortable reading that when the world was ending around her.

Characters- Boring and barely there. Evie is that girl I would hate in school. Very popular, super smart, and a “friend” to everyone. What little perfect world does she live in that that can all happen? I can see by the end why characterizing her so extremely (it’s a case of telling rather than showing, btw) is important, but I also feel like it was totally unrealistic. And annoying, because no one can be that perfect. And her major character flaw? She might be crazy. Come on, we know she’s not. It’s the oldest trick in the book. So really, she’s not crazy, she’s just a super important person. She’s not a mean person, though. Not bratty or whiny, which was nice and comfortable reading about, but also totally unrealistic. Who doesn’t complain when the world just ended? No one’s that perfect. Then there’s Jack. His accent- Cajun- really got on my nerves. I couldn’t pinpoint it through the writing. It sounded a little like he just had a lisp or something because he didn’t say every word with an accent, really. Just a few, most particularly, “goan” instead of “going” and “doan” instead of “doing”. It didn’t work and it was very frustrating. When there’s a character with an accent I like it to fly off the page so I can hear it. He’s also supposed to be really Catholic, but he never really acts that way.

World- Dystopia is all the rage, and while it’s not my favorite genre (I prefer fantasy), I can appreciate a well written one. At first I thought it might be a pretty cool world. Bag men, militia’s, cannibals, slavers, etc. They’ve been seen before, but I’ve never really seen them together. Guess what? I still didn’t. They kept saying all these things existed, but, I don’t really believe it until I “see” it, and we never “see” half of them. So, it wasn’t just a plain world, where they were somehow managing to survive, but it was a really boring one, too.

The Good- Tarot cards! I love tarot cards, I think they’re so pretty and fun, which is part of the reason I was attracted to this story. That portion of it didn’t let me down. Each tarot had its own personality and alliance and I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED that aspect of the story.

So overall, I’m giving this a three star rating. I may read the next book. I may not. Really, it depends on whether my library has it or not. So, we’ll see.

Movie Review: Vampire Academy

It's been a while since I've done one of these, hasn't it?  Well, I went to go see the newest YA novel to become a major motion picture and the vote's in: it sucked.

Okay, I just had to use that line.  Let's be fair, it could have been a lot worse.  In the rankings of recent YA failures, it was better than Beautiful Creatures but worse than Mortal Instruments.  I would be very surprised to see a sequel made, although I wish it would just so they could cast Adrian.

For the most part it follows the story in the book, but it pulls out everything that makes the book good and turns the movie shallow.  I took my mom to see it with me and she could guess who the villain was from the very start.  She also thought it was confusing, which I would understand.  For someone not so familiar with the books, it would be hard to just stop in and see this film.  They sort of talk about the different kinds of vamps but pretty much leave out how Strigoi can occur.  They also completely disregard the fact that Dhampir can't have children with other Dhampir, which would have helped the movie along a lot.

The actors were all pretty decent (although there were some who just really, really were bad (we're all looking at you, Kirova)) but I would say the choices for Rose and Dmitri were the best.  Easily thought they were who they were pretending to be.

I think if there were any problems here, it was with the writing- while the adaption wasn't bad, it wasn't great- and with the editing.  The scenes felt thrown together and incomprehensible sometimes.  Really, it needed a little more TLC and it would have been much better.

Overall, I'm giving it 3 stars.  If you're a fan, see it because it's definitely worth the watch.  It actually made me think of the books again since it's been a while since I read them and made me want to write some more, so I'm giving it props for sticking to the source material.

Book Review: Croak

Fed up with her wild behavior, sixteen-year-old Lex's parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape.
But Uncle Mort's true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He's a Grim Reaper. And he's going to teach Lex the family business.
She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. But Lex can't stop her desire for justice - or is it vengeance? - whenever she encounters a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again.
Will she ditch Croak and go rogue with her reaper skills?

I picked this one up from the library a while ago and just left it sitting on my shelf.  I had seen it in stores when it first came out and had been interested, but not enough to actually pick it up.  So seeing it in the library with that amazing cover I couldn't resist.

And it was great.  Reading it was like taking a breath of fresh air in a sense.  It's not a very heavy book- actually a rather quick read- and the writing, while a bit shaky at the beginning, was easy to fall into.  The story is very life and death, seeing as the main character is a Grim Reaper, after all, and there are parts where some of the squeamish readers may want to look away.  There wasn't much of a plot compared to other things I've been reading and watching (I've been binge watching Doctor Who so anything compared to that is pretty much a puny plot) but it was enjoyable.

The characters were... interesting.  But not in bad ways!  No, not in bad ways at all.  It takes about a chapter before you fall in love with Lex, and while I never really became attached to her family, through her I was able to like them enough that they mattered.  Mort was also another that I couldn't really connect with because I felt like we were missing a vital piece of information about him, that will hopefully be revealed later on in the series.  Driggs didn't take long to like, but I wouldn't say he's exactly swoon worthy, either.  All the junior reapers were likeable enough.  I must say while I was able to guess who the villain was (because there were really only two possibilities), figuring out how they did it was a surprise of sorts.

The mythology in the series isn't super new or exciting, but it's fun and an expansion on an idea that normally has to play second fiddle to a vampire or werewolf storyline.

Overall, I was very happy with this book, so I'm giving it 4 stars.

What's Up: February

I know I still haven't been around that much, life has been... hard.  But it's getting better, for sure.  About 34 hours of my week have just been cleared up (I kid you not) so you can plan on seeing me some more.  Like I said before, I have a tumblr account now, so if you want more up to date goings on, check that out.

Writing wise I've been very slow, not doing much, but this month will, hopefully, turn that around.  I want to work more on Trick, and maybe next month I'll post an excerpt and tell you all what it's about.

Release wise this month is The Selection Stories by Kiera Cass, which I plan on getting, but not anytime soon.  I like short stories, but I'm just not in the mood.

I didn't get as many books read last month as I would like, so this month will be me trying to get back up on that horse.  Books with an asterisk next to them are ones you can expect reviews for (if I get to them) while all the other's are just maybes.

• Finish up Mockingjay (a re-read)
• *Poison Princess by Kresley Cole- this is the book of the month, so please join in at goodreads!
• *Gilded by Christina Farley- this is the YA kindle first this month and I'm soooo excited to dive right in
• *Croak by Gina Domico
• Emerald Storm (Ryria Revelations #4) by Michael J Sullivan
• Torment (Fallen #2) by Lauren Kate- another re-read, but it's been so long I can't even remember what happened
• *The Archived by Victoria Schwab
• Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
• *Unbreakable by Kami Garcia
• *a secret, surprise novel I really, really, really want to read; but it's a surprise because... you'll see
• Unearthly by Cynthia Hand- a re-read because I loved it the first time and want to finish the trilogy
• Death Masks (Dresden Files #5)
• *Embrace by Jessica Shirvington

So yeah, there they are.  We'll see how many I actually read.  If you have an recommendations or questions, comment below!