Tagged: david

Eternal Neverland: Steps Before the Fall by Natasha Rogue

Eternal Neverland; Steps Before the Fall by Natasha Rogue(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Helena K. Sharpe was raised by a man who had sympathy for supernatural creatures, for the vampires his bloodline hunted for centuries. She was too young to understand how he tried to help them, but she knew it was important. Her father made her promise never to hunt them and she would do anything to keep that promise.

Until he is murdered by the very things he dedicated so much of his life to.

Orphaned and alone, Helena takes to the street, afraid for whatever’s left of her life. Without her family, she doesn’t know how–or even if–she can go on. Until a vagrant takes her under his wing and gives her a purpose. Revenge.

For six years she learns about the monsters, studies their habits, until, at 15 years old, she feels she’s ready to find the ones responsible for her parent’s death. All she has to do is become one of them. She’s cute, young, innocent…

They’ll never see her coming.

[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

I really had high expectations for this book when I started it because of the blurb.  A girl who has trained for years to hunt vampires becoming a vampire to seek vengeance for her family’s murder?  That sounds pretty darn cool, especially when she’s only 15 years old.

The problem was that the main character, Helena, was totally uninteresting in addition to being unsympathetic.  Things start out pretty good with her becoming a vampire, albeit with two sires.  Then she gets into the heart of a vampire coven and starts adjusting to vampire life, learning to go by the name Kitt because apparently vampires can read minds if they know your real name.  I could get past that weird world-building if Kitt was actually interesting, but she’s not.  Throughout the novel she’s supposed to be this master Machiavellian manipulator but all I really saw was a smart mouthed 15-year-old who screwed up pretty much every single thing she tried to do.  And yet every single man in this book is attracted to her.  Yep, I can totally see all of these decades old vampires being attracted to a naive if beautiful fifteen year old who seems intent on manipulating them all (unsuccessfully).  It just makes absolutely no sense and Kitt never really gets past her initial awfulness.  In fact, she seems to get worse as the book goes on.

As you’ve probably guessed, the world-building was pretty weak when you take a good look at it.  I can believe fantasy stories where knowing someone’s ‘true’ name gives you power over them, but just their first name?  That doesn’t really make any sense and Natasha Rogue never really explains it adequately.  The vampire hierarchy within the city, however, was actually pretty good.  I like the idea of different covens having different territories but ultimately being interested in keeping the general peace in the city for fear of discovery.  However, it’s not really explained why/how Kitt suddenly breaks the peace.  She does a bunch of really, really stupid stuff but why David (one of her sires) never lets her go to Charlie (another of her sires who actually wants to take care of her) is just left out.  So it somehow starts a war between the covens and other factions get involved.  It had a lot of potential but never really lived up to the promise in the blurb.

While the world-building was weak and the characters were generally intolerable, the strength of Rogue’s novel was in the plotting and the pacing.  Even though the plot doesn’t always make sense it is fairly interesting in the beginning and the whole novel is actually well paced to keep readers turning the pages.  She can do suspenseful scenes fairly well and her writing style isn’t actually all that bad but the different elements of the plot like the world-building and characters really did sink this novel.  It was a big disappointment and yet I have to say that I didn’t actually ‘hate’ the book.  The little intrigues were well written and with a little work, the characters could have been fantastic.  To be honest, it just felt like the whole book didn’t reach its potential.  Disappointing to be sure, but not a completely unenjoyable book.

I give this book 2/5 stars.

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Best Seller by Martha Reynolds

kindle cover(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Set in New England at the time of the American Bicentennial, Best Seller is the poignant story of a displaced young woman struggling to figure out who she is within the context of her hometown and the carefully masked dysfunction of her family. “Everything can be fixed by writing a check.” Words to live by for Robin Fortune’s wealthy father, until he can’t buy her way back into college after she’s expelled for dealing pot. Now he chooses not to speak to her anymore, but that’s just one of the out-of-whack situations Robin’s facing. At nineteen, she feels rudderless, working in a diner by day and sleeping with a buddy from high school by night – all so strange for her because she was always the one with the plan. While her college friends plotted how to ensnare husbands, she plotted a novel, which she scratched out into a series of spiral-bound notebooks she hides in the closet. But now, there’s nothing. No vision, no future, no point. In fact, the only thing she feels she has to look forward to is that her favorite author, Maryana Capture, is paying a visit to the local Thousand Words bookstore. Robin surmises that if she can convince Maryana to help her get her novel published, she’ll finally get herself back on track. Except that life never takes a straight path in this intensely satisfying coming-of-age novel.

[Full disclosure: I received a free paperback in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]

I have to say that for all of my hesitation about Best Seller, it actually isn’t a bad book.  It’ll never be a great book but Martha Reynolds is a pretty solid writer.

Her main strength is her characters because although I hate people like Robin in real life (naive, unambitious sorts of people who have never done a thing for themselves) I actually didn’t mind her in fiction.  Do I like every decision she makes?  Of course not, particularly when it concerns her love life.  However, it’s a testament to the strength of Reynolds’ writing that I didn’t throw the book at the wall like I normally would with a character like this.  In some ways I enjoyed Robin’s journey from pretty darn naive for a 20 year old to an almost adult by the end, and in some ways I was a little frustrated at the same time.

The reason I was frustrated was the plot.  I love a good character novel but I do feel that a book has to have some sort of overarching plot or theme that the main character struggles with.  That wasn’t necessarily so in Best Seller.  There’s a lot of inter-character conflict but the main point of the novel (Robin is an aspiring young writer) gets wrapped up in just a couple of pages at the end.  Just like every other conflict Robin faces, it gets wrapped up in a pretty little bow at the end with not even a little ambiguity anywhere.  It’s just too perfect, really, especially when you consider characters like David who do a total 180 by the end.

I haven’t exactly lived through 1976 so I’m not going to talk about any historical accuracy in the novel.  But, at the same time, Martha Reynolds’ writing made me feel like I was there with the characters: breathing in the smoke before smoking indoors in public places was illegal (which I do actually remember), tasting the breakfast at the diner and so much more.  She has a very descriptive writing style and yet she never crosses into boring territory.

So when a writer can make me like the sort of person I’d rather slap in real life and can bring me back to an era I’ve never lived through, I can definitely appreciate their efforts and their talent.  I just wish that Best Seller had more of a plot/point.

I give this book 3/5 stars.

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*Not available

Deadlocked by A. R. Wise

Deadlocked by A. R. Wise(Cover picture courtesy of Orisi’s Blah Blah Blah.)

David was caught in the middle of the city when the zombie outbreak started. His wife and daughters were at home, stranded on the roof as zombies waited below. He would have to fight through hordes of undead, merciless other survivors, and a series of death defying stunts to get home. However, even if he makes it there, how can he be sure they’re safe?

Deadlocked puts you into David’s head as he struggles to get home. Then a final confrontation occurs that will guarantee his family’s survival, but at what cost?

I picked up Deadlocked for free through the Amazon Kindle store (a wondrous place that I’m loving more and more since purchasing a Kindle for myself) and read through it in one sitting.  It’s only 53 pages or so but A. R. Wise’s story sure does pack a punch.  For being free I was pleasantly surprised that there were no blatant grammatical or spelling errors.  In fact, it was a pretty good story overall.

David is the type of character that I love.  He’s just your ordinary guy whose first instinct during a disaster is to get home and protect his family.  Obviously he loves his wife and children and absolutely nothing is going to get between him and his beloved family.  Not even a city full of zombies.  I know this sounds pretty stereotypical but David is quite a dynamic, well-fleshed out character and it’s worth picking up Deadlocked for that alone.

The plot was very fast-paced being a novella but it also made sense.  Wise covered a lot of ground within those 53 pages and I have a lot of respect for an author that can keep the pacing that fast and still tell a relatively coherent story.  There were times the writing was a little choppy and confusing, but it was a fairly good read overall.  The descriptions are very graphic so this is not for the faint of heart, but if you love zombies in general you’ll love this novella.

I give this novella 4/5 stars.

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The Fire Within by Chris d’Lacey

(Cover picture courtesy of National Geographic Kids.)

When David moves in with Elizabeth Pennykettle and her eleven-year-old daughter, Lucy, he discovers a collection of clay dragons that come to life.  David’s own special dragon inspires him to write a story, which reveals the secrets behind a mystery.  In order to solve the mystery and save his dragon, David must master the magic of the fire within—not only with his hands but also with his heart.

The Fire Within is definitely a book for ages 8-12, but I still love reading it.  The whole premise behind Chris d’Lacey’s book is unique, highly creative and very intriguing.  I won’t give anything away, but the clay dragons of the eccentric Pennykettles aren’t all that they seem.  David will discover the truth, but will the college student believe it?

Since this is written for a much younger audience, David, the main character, is less mature than most college students.  The characters are not developed as well as they could have been, but they do get better as the novel progresses.  It is more of a character-driven novel than a plot-driven novel and as such, it is not what I would call a fast-paced novel.  Still, it moves along at a decent pace that will keep its young readers riveted.

The writing style is simplistic, which makes it a great book to transition from shorter “chapter books” for children into more complex novels for tweens.  While the story is written from a male perspective, female readers will not be turned away because they can identify with the young Lucy Pennykettle.  I have only one warning about this novel (one that my mother insists I should have told her when I made her read it): the ending is a bit sad for a children’s novel.  I was eleven or twelve when I first read this and I must admit that I shed a few tears, despite my best efforts at self-control.

I give this book 3.5/5 stars.

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

(Cover picture courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous.  What could be wrong with that?

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can’t wait.  Not for her license—for turning pretty.  In Tally’s world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time.  In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally’s new friend Shay isn’t sure she wants to be pretty.  She’d rather risk life on the outside.  When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world—and it isn’t very pretty.  The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all.  The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Tally is a character that many young teens can identify with.  She just wants to fit in, be with her friend Paris and otherwise live a happy, normal life without drama.  But everything changes when she meets Shay, a spunky rule-breaker who doesn’t want to fit in and turn pretty.  In the beginning, Tally’s world seems great until Shay points out that the authorities manipulate people into thinking they’re worthless so they conform and want to turn pretty.

Uglies is one of those novels that truly deserves to be among the YA greats.  Like Harry Potter, it has many different messages and means something different to each reader.  On one hand, it is a commentary on our society’s obsession with beauty, but on the other hand, it is a tale of love and friendship.  It’s also a dystopian science fiction novel with many elements that will be familiar to YA readers: a love triangle, a long and dangerous journey, the realization that not everything was as good as it seemed and a tough choice that sets the gears of change in motion.

Uglies is a well-written book that explores many issues teens (especially younger teens) face every day.  It is a book that makes you think and I highly recommend it to people ages 12+ who love to question the status quo.  Scott Westerfeld really has written one of the great novels of our generation.

I give this book 4.5/5 stars.

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