Category: Book Review
Thirst No. 1 by Christopher Pike
(Cover picture courtesy of The Book on the Hill.)
Alisa has been in control of her urges for the five thousand years she has been a vampire. She feeds but does not kill, and she lives her life on the fringe to maintain her secret. But when her creator returns to hunt her, she must break her own rules in order to survive.
Her quest leads her to Ray. He is the only person who can help her; he also has every reason to fear her. Alisa must get closer to him to ensure her immortality. But as she begins to fall in love with Ray, suddenly there is more at stake than her own life.
Oh no! Christopher Pike had a female vampire as his main character, but guess what? She was a real vampire. Yes, a blood-sucking, cold-blooded killing machine who has almost no regrets about murdering people in order to survive. Not only is Sita a real vampire, she has an amazing backstory and, in the context of urban fantasy vampires, it is a believable one. No, it’s not a science origins vampire story, but it is interesting and Christopher Pike created an interesting world around it.
I think Sita is proof of Loren Estleman’s statement in his book on writing that characters don’t have to be sympathetic, but they have to be interesting. She’s hardly sympathetic in the beginning, but at least she is interesting. As she grows throughout the three books that make up Thirst No. 1 (which were originally published separately), we begin to see an almost human side of her. Sita falls in love, confronts her past and begins to look to her future and even though it’s a slow character arc, it’s believable.
The plot moves along pretty quickly because the three books that make up the volume are less than 200 pages each. However, being a book about real vampires, Thirst No. 1 is extremely gory. I would not recommend it for young audiences, especially because of the gore and sexual content. But despite gore that seems almost unnecessary, Thirst No. 1 is a good book that overall, I enjoyed.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Sondok: Princess of the Moon and Stars by Sheri Holman
(Cover picture courtesy of Fantastic Fiction.)
10th day of the 1st moon,
17th year of King Chinp’yong
It is the Hour of the Pig when the whole palace is settling down to sleep and only the watchmen and astronomers are awake. I have not had a chance during the festival season to sit at my favourite stargazing spot. It is here where I feel most alive. Here inside the grand mystery of the stars…
How can I help myself, Grandmother? During the day, everything is chaotic in Kumsong. Men rush around the palace, merchants hawk their wares. The city is a jumble of oxen and horses and children and slaves, all bellowing and laughing and tripping over one another to get where they are going. But at night, all is still and peaceful. I can look up into the heavens and find order…
My roots are here, Grandmother. My roots are in the stars.
Say what you want about The Royal Diaries, but I’ve just discovered another awesome female ruler that I never knew existed before. Sondok was the first woman in Eastern Asia to rule in her own right, having ascended the throne in 632 AD. The ridiculous amount of sexism Sondok chronicles in her writings to her dead Grandmother as a girl are a sort of precursor to what she would face when she took the throne.
But of course that doesn’t deter her and although it takes a while, Sondok realizes her true potential—and it isn’t to be an obedient little female either. Her struggle against the societal norms in Korea is fascinating and reveals a lot about not only the religious turmoil in the court at the time, but also the cultural turmoil. The best part is that Sheri Holman presents all of this information without being too obvious about telling the reader. Sondok describes the times and makes some observations, but Holman believes enough in the intelligence of the reader to let us make our own assumptions.
In contrast to some of the other Royal Diary books, there are actually interesting events going on at the time in Korea and Sondok is a part of them, not just an idle observer. That makes the plot both fast and exciting and also makes Princess of the Moon and Stars one of my favourite books in the entire series.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
*Only available as a used book.
Starlet’s Web by Carla J. Hanna
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
A-list actress, 17-year-old Liana Marie Michael struggles to find herself when Hollywood’s obsession with youth and power threatens to destroy her future.
Liana is dating Hollywood’s hottest heartthrob while filming her seventh motion picture with sexy co-star Byron. Surrounded by a culture of casual sex and adult responsibilities, Lia feels lost and confused. With her film soon to wrap, her acting contracts up for renewal, her high school graduation looming and growing tension between her and smart, religious jock, Manuel, life feels overwhelming. Will Lia find the courage to share her love for Manuel, a guy unimpressed with Hollywood? In the eternal quest for youth, what life-shattering secrets has Lia’s mom been keeping from her? Can Manuel accept Lia’s role in Hollywood’s web of lies?
STARLET’S WEB is not only a love story. With fast-paced narrative that reflects Hollywood’s hyper-drive lifestyle, Ms. Hanna transports the reader into an actor’s daily life and demonstrates how difficult it is for young adults to break free from a path created by someone else – even when it is a successful one.
[Full disclosure: Carla J. Hanna’s agent contacted me and gave me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
This is not the sort of book I’d normally read, but I’m glad I did, even if it was a little rough around the edges. What I mean by that is Starlet’s Web had great characters, a decent plot and a good message, but fell flat when it came to dialogue and having a believable ending.
Marie is a child actress who got her start at age 14 and is now 17 going on 18. And although it looks like she has everything she could ever want, Marie is far from happy. She’s in love with her best friend and thoroughly disgusted with the Hollywood lifestyle that promotes drinking, drugs and sex, even to minors. In addition to her hectic filming and publicity schedule, she also attends high school, which just adds to the stress. Some people might criticize Carla Hanna for making Marie drop dead gorgeous and being fully aware of it, but that’s not the most important part of her characterization. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say that Marie, quite understandably, is not ‘whole’ in the beginning because of what she has gone through in Hollywood.
For a book with ‘spiritual elements’, Starlet’s Web never really degenerated into Preachy Mode. Marie’s journey of self-actualization and recovery feels real and the conclusions she comes to make sense in the context of the story. The only thing I really had a problem with was that this self-actualization was realized in the form of long speeches to other characters. I don’t know about you, but most people aren’t Greek orators and don’t give page long speeches without using a single contraction or any slang at all. There were times the dialogue was painful, but considering the rest of the story is very good, I suppose I can forgive Carla Hanna for that.
Near the end there’s a huge plot twist that actually explains a lot of Marie’s problems throughout the novel. It’s terrifying and definitely adds a lot of drama, but you’ll enjoy it if you’re the sort of person that likes generally happy endings. I felt that things were wrapped up a little too well considering the relatively dark tone of the novel, but that’s more of a personal preference than anything. Overall, Starlet’s Web was a great book that had me cheering for Marie the whole way.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
(Cover picture courtesy of Fic Talk.)
Benny Imura couldn’t hold a job, so he took to killing.
In the zombie-infested world Benny has grown up in, teenagers must work once they turn fifteen—or they’ll lose their food rations. Benny isn’t interested in taking on the family business, but he reluctantly agrees to train as a zombie killer with his boring big brother, Tom. He expects a dull job, whacking zombies for cash. What he discovers is a vocation that will teach him what it really means to be human.
As his worldview is challenged again and again by the lessons he learns from Tom, Benny is forced to confront another horrifying reality: Sometimes the most terrible monsters are human.
Critically acclaimed author Jonathon Maberry crafts a terrifying future vision of a zombie apocalypse, brought to life through the rich emotional struggles of a teenager trying to find his place in a tumultuous new world.
At first, it seemed like Rot & Ruin was going to be a lot like The Return Man. It was in some ways, but Jonathan Maberry focused more on the human aspect and how people would deal with the dead suddenly rising rather than a huge conspiracy for a cure. I smell conspiracy in the future books, but Rot & Ruin was a surprisingly human take on a zombie apocalypse.
For the first half of the book I wanted to punch Benny for calling his brother Tom a coward and hating him. It was such a relief when Tom took on Benny as a reluctant apprentice and brought him out into the Rot & Ruin beyond the safe fence of the community. The wastelands beyond the community are an interesting take on what would happen to humanity in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Benny meets people who believe zombies are divine and people who treat them sadistically and has to reconcile his burning hatred for zombies. It’s an interesting character arc that I really can’t complain about.
The plot took a couple of interesting twists, but one thing I didn’t like was the Deus ex Machina at the end. Yes, it was nice because the character in question was the best character of the novel, but I would have liked something a little less cliché. Either way, it was still great to see Benny’s relationship with Tom improve and for him to realize his growing feelings for Nix, his best friend.
Overall, Rot & Ruin was a great book that had a fresh perspective on how people would deal with a zombie apocalypse. I can’t wait to read the sequel: Dust & Decay.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess by Carolyn Meyer
(Cover picture courtesy of Beauty and the Armageddon.)
25 April 1914—Livadia
Papa took us on another long walk. Mama and Alexei joined us later for a picnic, although Mama was feeling weak and needed her wheelchair. An odd thing happened. My sisters and I were picking wildflowers in a meadow, and Alexei was lying on a blanket nearby staring up at the clear blue sky, when suddenly he said, “I wonder what’s going to happen to us?”
We asked him what he meant, and he couldn’t explain it—just that he had a strange feeling something was going to happen, and that next year we wouldn’t be here.
“Nonsense,” Mama said, but I wasn’t at all sure that he was speaking nonsense. Alexei has a way of sensing things.
There are very few books in The Royal Diaries series that I hate, but this is one of them. That is surprising because this one was written by Carolyn Meyer, a normally very good writer of young adult/tweens historical fiction.
What was my main reason for hating Anastasia:The Last Grand Duchess? Anastasia. Sure, I can tolerate some whining when a situation is truly bad, but oh my word does this girl ever whine! Life is horrible: her sisters are terrible, she never gets to do anything, her father is always gone, etc. I’m sure the real Grand Duchess Anastasia was spoiled to a certain extent, but the whining of Carolyn Meyer’s Anastasia could not compare to even the most spoiled princess. Yes, this is obviously aimed at a younger audience than myself, but even at that age I would have liked to reach into the book and slap Anastasia.
Part of my problem with The Last Grand Duchess is that Carolyn Meyer tried to cover too long a period in too short a book. She covers the time from 1914 until 1917, when the Romanovs are placed under house arrest in Siberia. That’s a lot of time to cover in less than 200 pages and it makes Anastasia’s diary really jumpy, meaning there are no entries for months at a time and Carolyn Meyer does a lot of telling rather than showing to help readers catch up.
However, my main gripe with the book was Anastasia herself and in diary format, if you hate the writer, you’re going to hate the rest of the book. Everything is told in the writer’s perspective, so if that writer is a whiny, angsty preteen, things are going to go very badly. And they certainly did in this book.
I give this book 1/5 stars.
*Only available as used.