Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Title: Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1)
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publication Date: 3 January 2012
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Source: Library
Summary (courtesy of goodreads.com):

A forbidden romance. A deadly plague. Earth’s fate hinges on one girl...

Cinder, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She’s reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen—and a dangerous temptation.

From the very first page, Cinder and I had a big problem. You see, someone, somewhere decided that Cinder needed its own special typeface. A typeface that, from page one, I did not like. You want to use a fancy font for your chapter numbers and titles? That's cool. But for the whole book? Yeah, not so much. There's a reason most things with lots of words are written in the same style of font. We're used to it, so it's easy. So for me personally, Cinder had a lot to make up for. If it was going to use its special typeface, there had better be a good reason, or it had better be a damn good story. Unfortunately, I don't think it ever got good enough to overcome my prejudice against it. And now I have invented a new category of low: judging a book by its font.

Cinder reminds me of a lot of things. Cinderella, obviously. Antastasia. Battlestar Galactica. A little bit of Doctor Who. Maybe even some Graceling. As I read, I kept being reminded of all these other stories, and I never felt that Cinder stood on its own and set itself apart. In my opinion there was nothing that made it special or distinct, which is an odd thing to say because I think a lot of people love this book because they feel that it is so different. But for me, nothing was unexpected, nothing was surprising, and nothing made Cinder stand out.

My further problem with the book was that I genuinely did not like Cinder as a character. She is a cyborg, yes. She brings it up constantly. But she is also trying to convince us that she is still a human, still capable of feeling the same emotions as anyone else, even if she can't express them physically. So she sat there telling everyone that of course she knew how they felt, but I never really got the sense that she did. I found Cinder to be very cold and unfeeling, even when she was trying to convince everyone otherwise, and there was nothing in her personality that made me feel any sort of...well, anything for her.

Something I did enjoy while reading Cinder was the character of Prince Kai. It was almost as if Marissa Meyer had taken all the emotion and appeal that she'd intended for Cinder and gave it to Kai instead. He was sweet, he was funny, he was handsome, and he was willing to do what he had to do for his people. I loved reading about him. Another bright spot was Doctor Erland, whose character I also enjoyed throughly.

I think Marissa Meyer had a great idea, but it just didn't come to fruition well enough. There are parts of the story, parts of the history to this society, that I am still wondering about. Some characters were well thought out, while others were unable to convince me of who they were supposed to be. At this point I am unsure if will continue to read the Lunar Chronicles series as the later books are released, because as much as I thought the story had potential, I don't think it panned out successfully and am unsure that future stories will be any different.

Rating:

Review: The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker

Title: The Queen of Kentucky
Author: Alecia Whitaker
Publication Date: 2 January 2012
Publisher: Little, Brown BYR
Source: Library
Summary (courtesy of goodreads.com):

Fourteen-year-old Kentucky girl Ricki Jo Winstead, who would prefer to be called Ericka, thank you very much, is eager to shed her farmer's daughter roots and become part of the popular crowd at her small town high school. She trades her Bible for Seventeen magazine, buys new "sophisticated" clothes and somehow manages to secure a tenuous spot at the cool kids table. She's on top of the world, even though her best friend and the boy next door Luke says he misses "plain old Ricki Jo."

Caught between being a country girl and wannabe country club girl, Ricki Jo begins to forget who she truly is: someone who doesn't care what people think and who wouldn't let a good-looking guy walk all over her. It takes a serious incident out on Luke's farm for Ricki Jo to realize that being a true friend is more important than being popular.

I have very mixed feelings about The Queen of Kentucky. Sometimes I think about it, and it makes me happy and other times it makes me really mad. I think that can always be a problem with these types of "transformation" novels: you love one part of the character, and you hate the other. The problem with The Queen of Kentucky is that it can be hard to tell if the way the main character is acting is because of who she is trying to become, or if that is just how she really is.

My first thoughts about the novel were that I absolutely loved Ricki Jo. Here we have this adorable little Kentucky girl and she was just too much - TOO MUCH CUTENESS - and I wanted to take her in and put her in my pocket and keep her like a little kitten. Which is really weird and I'm sure sounds creepy, but I promise that it was a totally happy, non-creepy thought. Then she started this journey down the road to popularity and Ericka-ness, and I think the change in her was a little too drastic, a little too sudden, for me to believe that her behavior was completely out of character. Alecia Whitaker presents us with this adorbs character that we can't help but love, and without much warning turns her into a blubbering, helpless, excuse-my-French bitch. Obviously we're not supposed to like this new Ricki Jo I mean Ericka, but I couldn't believe that she would become so senseless so quickly. I went from wanting to tuck her in my pocket to wanting to stuff her somewhere much less pleasant.

That said, I really enjoyed the setting of the novel. I'm from California, and the lifestyle and environment of the South are really intriguing to me. I loved reading about the rural Kentucky area where the story took place. I think one of the best parts of reading is that feeling of escape, and getting to learn and experience things I might otherwise never see.

Overall, The Queen of Kentucky had its ups and downs. The setting is beautiful, and when she's not trying so hard, Ricki Jo can be a wonderful character. It was a quick read, and I loved the ending. I definitely had my problems with it, but still think it was a good read.

Rating:

Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

Title: May B.
Author: Caroline Starr Rose
Publication Date: 10 January 2012
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade
Source: Won from Born Bookish
Summary (courtesy of goodreads.com):

I've known it since last night:
It's been too long to expect them to return.
Something's happened.

May is helping out on a neighbor's Kansas prairie homestead—just until Christmas, says Pa. She wants to contribute, but it's hard to be separated from her family by 15 long, unfamiliar miles. Then the unthinkable happens: May is abandoned. Trapped in a tiny snow-covered sod house, isolated from family and neighbors, May must prepare for the oncoming winter. While fighting to survive, May's memories of her struggles with reading at school come back to haunt her. But she's determined to find her way home again. Caroline Starr Rose's fast-paced novel, written in beautiful and riveting verse, gives readers a strong new heroine to love.

May B. is the first novel written in verse that I have read in a number of years. I don't really have a standard to judge it against, because I don't think it would be fair to compare it to the prose fiction that I normally read. Truthfully, the two cannot be compared, as the storytelling and effect on the reader are completely different. Since the reading experience was so new to me, I'm just going to wing it while writing this review, and hope that I can get across how much I enjoyed the story.

The few novels in verse that I have read have all been pretty quick reads, and May B. is no exception. Sure, the book is 300 pages, but those pages aren't as full as with a regular fiction novel. I think this is what bothered me for so long about verse writing. I always thought it was kind of cheating your way into having written a WHOLE BOOK instead of just a story. But reading May B. I can see how much more effective it can be at telling certain stories and conveying certain feelings to the reader. May's story was well told in this format, and I'm not sure her emotions and feelings of dismay at her situation would have come across as well in a more traditional format.

The downside to this way of storytelling is that things happen so quickly it can be difficult to connect. As I was reading, events were occurring in such a succinct manner that I didn't think I felt invested in the story at all. But 3/4 of the way through I found myself gasping out loud, telling my cat, "She wouldn't!" I don't normally talk to my cats about the books I read, mostly because they prefer to sit on them rather than read them, and then there's that whole thing about them being cats and not being able to talk back (tragic). So if I'm so moved by something that I just have to talk about it - even if it is after midnight and the only one to talk to is my poor, unknowing cat - that's pretty great. The emotional connection to the story kind of snuck up on me, and I didn't even know how invested I was until that moment.

I also don't think I would have enjoyed May B. as much if it hadn't been written in verse. While I do enjoy a good historical fiction novel every now and again, this is not a time period I would normally be interested in. But because of the way it was written, the focus was on May and her story, and less on building the setting and filling in the details that prose fiction requires. And for me, and I think for many of the readers in the age group May B. was written for, that was perfectly alright.

Rating:

Review: The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges

Title: The Gathering Storm (Katerina Trilogy #1)
Author: Robin Bridges
Publication Date: 10 January 2012
Publisher: Delacorte BYR
Source: Library
Summary (courtesy of goodreads.com):

St. Petersburg, Russia, 1888. As she attends a whirl of glittering balls, royal debutante Katerina Alexandrovna, Duchess of Oldenburg, tries to hide a dark secret: she can raise the dead. No one knows. Not her family. Not the girls at her finishing school. Not the tsar or anyone in her aristocratic circle. Katerina considers her talent a curse, not a gift. But when she uses her special skill to protect a member of the Imperial Family, she finds herself caught in a web of intrigue.

An evil presence is growing within Europe's royal bloodlines—and those aligned with the darkness threaten to topple the tsar. Suddenly Katerina's strength as a necromancer attracts attention from unwelcome sources . . . including two young men—George Alexandrovich, the tsar's standoffish middle son, who needs Katerina's help to safeguard Russia, even if he's repelled by her secret, and the dashing Prince Danilo, heir to the throne of Montenegro, to whom Katerina feels inexplicably drawn.

The time has come for Katerina to embrace her power, but which side will she choose—and to whom will she give her heart? 

From the start, I had a lot of problems with this book.  The writing seems a little off - like sometimes the narrator speaks like she is in 1888 St. Petersburg and sometimes she reads more like my annoying 14-year-old neighbor.  Also, the blurb says that Katerina, "uses her special skill to protect a member of the Imperial Family," which sounds horribly ominous and terrifying and scary.  She brings someone back from the dead!  WHO COULD IT BE?!  Yeah, don't get too excited about that.  It's a bug.

The idea that magic is ooooooh-super-bad is kind of ridiculous.  In one paragraph, Katerina is telling us how horribly secretive every must be about anything supernatural.  Two paragraphs later, she explains that the Empress and the...someone else (we'll get to THAT in a minute) are faeries.  And their children?  Faeries.  And there's a Light Court and a Dark Court and you must choose who to align with.  Or something.  And EVERYONE KNOWS THIS.  But we can't talk about it.  I don't get it.

Another problem I had with The Gathering Storm is that there is an excessive number of characters, and I could never remember who was who.  It's probably a good thing the story is written in the first person, because I may not have been able to remember who the main character was if she wasn't telling her own story.  Seriously, that is how confused I was.  She'd mention her cousin this, or the Duchess that, and Prince so-and-so, and don't forget that Countess blah-diddi-blah was there too.  And then there were these vampires and those vampires.  These revenants and those revenants.  These evil creature people and those evil creature people.  Were all these people truly necessary to the story? No.  They were just there to confuse me.

And now that I have convinced you that I hated this book, I have a but to throw at you.  And it's a big but.  So I was confused and annoyed and frustrated throughout most of The Gathering Storm, BUT overall, I actually really enjoyed it.  The story, no matter how lost I was, was really intriguing.  Once Katerina stopped bringing insects back to life and real horrible-awful-supernatural things were happening, I was hooked.  I needed to know what happened.  It took me almost a week to read the first 150 pages of this book, and a-day-and-a-half to finish the rest.  And now I'm completely anxious for the second book, The Unfailing Light, which will be out this October.

Also, there's something kind of fun about reading historical fiction, and that's finding out that all these people the author is writing about were totally real.  I'm pretty sure Katerina is a completely fictional character, but everyone else - her friends, her mentors, her arch nemesis - was totally a real person who lived back then.  Let's see some of them, shall we?

Isn't this exciting?!  There's more characters that were, you know, real, but I get the feeling I'm boring some people here.

So anyway, I'm not sure I can recommend The Gathering Storm, or at least I don't know how to recommend it, because a part of me loved it and a great majority of me hated it.  But...I don't know.  I JUST DON'T KNOW, OKAY?!

Rating:

Or something.

Have you read The Gathering Storm?  If so, what were your thoughts?  If not, have you ever read a book that made you feel this confused?

Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Title: Everneath (Everneath #1)
Author: Brodi Ashton
Publication Date: 24 January 2012
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Source: Purchased
Summary (courtesy of goodreads.com):

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's...

Okay, so...this is awkward.  I loved this book, I really did.  So at least I can agree with the masses on that.  But something happened when I was reading Everneath that I don't think was supposed to happen.  It's the same thing that happens when I watch Labyrinth - I started rooting for the bad guy.

I know, it's awful.  I sat there and read and read and read, and I couldn't WAIT for Nikki to go back to the Everneath with Cole.  Because he has this attitude and just general way about him that is bad-ass and SO HOT.  I was like, "Forget Jack!  Who needs someone caring and supportive when you can have this piece of immortal meat?!"  Yeah, like I said, awful.

Anyway, since talking about how hot Cole is doesn't really constitute a review, I will try to gather some other thoughts about this book.

For the first hundred or so pages, I wasn't really feeling Everneath.  I was kind of bored and kind of over Nikki.  She came back for Jack, yet every time she sees him she just sits there and bemoans his presence.  It was maybe just a little bit annoying, and I thought, "Great, I bought this book and had it signed and I'm going to HATE IT!"  But, because I bought this book and had it signed, I decided to just carry on reading, and I'm so, so, so glad that I did.

Once Nikki stops feeling sorry for herself, Everneath gets good.  I mean, set-an-alarm-to-remind-yourself-to-eat-sleep-etc. good.  I had to drag myself away from the book more than once to do a lap around the house and grab something to eat, because otherwise I would have sat in that one spot all day and never moved except to turn the page.  Once things are truly set in motion, and Nikki realizes her time on the Surface is almost over, and she starts to feel something other than self-loathing, this book is un-put-down-able.  Like I always say, there's nothing better than a race against time to get things moving along.  (I never say that.)

If you haven't read Everneath (I feel like the last person in the world who hasn't, so maybe just ignore me), you probably should.  Like right now.  Seriously.  And no matter how sexy you may find Cole to be, just remember: HE IS THE BAD GUY.  *swoon*

Rating:

Mini Reviews: Picture the Dead, Wisdom's Kiss, Trafficked

Mini Reviews are my thoughts on books I've recently read, in three sentences or less.

Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown

Picture the Dead is a fun, somewhat creepy read that wasn't quite as ghostly as I'd hoped.  The illustrations are pretty cool, though, and the story is very well told, if not a little predictable.  Still an enjoyable read for fans of historical quasi-ghost stories.

 

Wisdom's Kiss by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I'll be honest and admit I only got this book because of the cat...and maybe that's not the best reason to read a book.  There is a lot going on in the narration of this novel, including about six billion different perspectives.  But not a whole lot actually happens plot-wise, and Wisdom's Kiss went back to the library unfinished.

 

Trafficked by Kim Purcell

Trafficked is deserving of so much more than just a mini review, but I can't find the words to say how shocking and horrifying it is, other than to just say so.  It's appalling to know that this kind of thing goes on today, in the United States, and I think that makes it an important read.  I only wish we had been able to see more of Hannah's life after her experience.