I just want to start this off by asking if anyone reasonable, who isn't on "Team" anyone, can tell me if this series is even worth completing? I am approximately 3/4ths of the way through the The Iron Prince (Book 2) and I have seriously put it down and picked up another book or two, twice. This morning I went for shot number three and made it through about 4 pages before I had to stop and re-evaluate, and try to remember things I planned on reading next. Even though it is starting to happen more and more often recently, it takes a lot for me to put a book down… I mean… for crying out loud, I've completed the existing Celestra series because the first book was .99 cents!! Which was one of the worst series I have, literally, ever read. If not the worst.
Honestly the first book wasn't so terrible. You've got your protagonist, a one, Megan Chase. She really isn't awful from the start. She's in high school, from a poor family, and has worked for most things in life up to this point. Her father disappeared when she was younger, but she doesn't totally sulk over it all the time in an annoying manner. So really she's not half bad, with the exception of her initial, and way too middle school crush on the captain of the football team… really? And then she has her BFF "Robbie" who is clearly in love with her, but of course she is completely clueless to something so obvious. Surprise, Surprise!! She's not just any girl, but a half faerie half girl! And not just any half faerie half girl, but the half faerie half girl daughter of the Summer King, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Who saw that coming??! Anyway, turns out her BFF Robbie is actually a faerie as well, and not just any faerie, but the famed Robin Goodfellow AKA Puck of Shakespearean legend. I find this little piece of the puzzle a little awkward to take in at first, it didn't really seem necessary at the time, but I suppose she is trying to work together myths and legends about faeries into the story, but give it another spin, which I can admire.
Once they decide to go to the Nevernever to rescue her step brother, things start to get a little too Alice in Wonderland-y for my taste. She even meets up with what is pretty much the Cheshire Cat, who calls himself Grimalkin instead (cliché aside, this cat turns out to be probably the best character in the series so far) This style is something that I generally don't appreciate, however, eventually things slip away from the amazement and discovery, and get back to the actual problems at hand. Princess, as I will here to for refer to this Megan Chase, is brought to the Summer court by this cat, and ends up meeting the Winter Prince, Ash, who has seriously already tried to kill her and Puck once. Anyway she dances with this dude and all hell breaks lose in the form of dragons with multiple heads. Red flag anyone? Anyway… she escapes again with kitty to continue on her quest to find her little brother. Eventually they meet back up with Puck, and this Ash dude who has promised to help them find her brother, if she goes with him to the Winter court upon his return. Soooo… they keep hearing about this Iron King guy everywhere and decide that’s where they need to go. Apparently humans really fucked up when we started dreaming up computers and shit and inadvertently created this race of evil faeries that not only are immune to the effects of iron, but thrive on it instead. There we go screwing everything up again.
Overall once I got to the actual meat and potatoes of the first book I found that I did enjoy it quite a bit. It was well written, and did nice job of weaving in the legend and lore of faeries with present times, and turning it into an original story. The love story was quite a different thing altogether, but I was able to put it on the back burner through the first book. The second book however, has been just straight up terrible! If I were able to ignore for one second the ill-founded love story, it would be perfectly fine. But it has gotten to the point where Princess is soooo consumed with love, that it has become nearly unreadable. Seriously… every other thought is, "but I love him so much"… "I can't think without him" … "all I think of is him"… "I would die for him" … blah blah blah blah. This is terrible anyway, but even worse when the him in question has made it clear many times that he cannot make the sacrifice needed to be with her. I mean… ugh… just move on already and get the hell over it. So as I have said, 3/4ths of the way through the second book I have had to finally give up on it, unless someone can convince me that things are going to get better. I feel like perhaps if the first book had just been a stand alone novel and was wrapped up in the end, I may have enjoyed it better. But, you know, there is always the possibility that I am wrong. Ha!
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Rant
You know what I am straight up sick and fucking tired of? Even more than I am sick and tired of entirely this whole played out love triangle business, I am sick to death of the "intelligent", independent, and generally quick witted heroine choosing the asshole over the caring person that loves her and would do anything for her. I mean, occasionally I get it, everyone wants to find the bad boy, and bring out the good in them with your love etc etc blah blah blah. Okay… well I don't really, but I can see the allure, I suppose. However, sometimes a bad guy is just a bad guy, and there is no point in trying, and an intelligent, independent heroine should immediately recognize something like this, rather than even consider the asshole a viable romantic interest. Not to mention that as many books as I have read where this ends up being how the series ends, I am soooooo sick of it. It has now become completely predictable, instead of the twist that clearly some writers still think that it is. I'm looking at you Cassandra Clare. I assumed that you of all people would know, that when writing a spin off series that exists within in the same universe as a previous series, it would be best not to go with the same general sequence of events within the romantic storyline. So far, Will is an even bigger asshole than Jace was, which I didn't even think was possible. I can say that I hated Jace for most of the Mortal Instruments Series, and still never really came around to liking him. The emo/teen angst thing is played, and I have trouble feeling sorry for a character continuously comes back to how tormented they are, I instead end up hating most things about them and scenes involving them. The only reason at all that I came around to the Clary/ Jace relationship is because I rather started to dislike Clary in the same vein, and cared more about what was going on with the Simon or even the Alex and Magnus parts of the storyline. And although I am only 80% of the way through book one of Infernal Devices, things seem to be shaping up in much the same way. I will be soo, soo, sooooo disappointed if this turns out to be the case, and I really had higher hopes for Clare as well. With one successful series already under her belt, and a universe that has already been created and well defined, I was expecting more creativity and variance, within the romance especially. I plan on reviewing the book itself separately, but I needed to vent about that specific aspect. My agitation is furthered even more by the occurrences in the other series I am currently working on, The Iron Fey, which I will also review at a later time. But mostly I am disappointed, I thought that Cassandra Clare specifically was going to bring more to the table, not the same thing that she has already given us. Hopefully she will prove me wrong, but as I am almost never wrong where these kinds of things are concerned, I tend to doubt it. I realize this sounds really cocky, haha, however I usually have a sixth sense for when series are not going to end the way that I would like.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Wicked Lovely.... Not the Fever Series
I've had a hard time the past couple of weeks, really getting settled into a series, thus my absence from blogging about them. I know that all of my tens of readers (or less) have been sitting on the edge of their seats awaiting my next exciting move. Generally, I have been trying to complete the available series, or at least come close, before going ahead with my review. However, I have been so discontent recently, that I have read the first book or so of a series and moved on to something different. Questing for something I like better. So perhaps I will go out on a limb and review the first books of these series, and perhaps this will lead me to a conclusion about why I haven't been able to invest fully in either. I will also say that lately, with all of the movie hype for The Hunger Games, more and more friends are reading it and getting me all excited, which consequently is making me long for something better rounded and a little bit deeper, rather than the superficial, supernatural love triangles, or love squares as the case may be.
First up to the plate - Wicked Lovely
Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before. Sidhe-seer chick with powers that she isn't even aware of, is wary of trusting a Faery Prince. Okay, so maybe it isn't an exact match, but it does feel strikingly close to a small piece of the plot line in the Fever Series. Which, even just the first book of, is so drastically better than this one, perhaps that can explain my lack of commitment to this series thus far. Here we have our protagonist, Aislinn. She is descendant from a long line of sidhe-seers, and has been beaten over the head with strict rules of how to act regarding the fae by her grandmother (who of course raised her, because no one is raised by their real parents anymore, duh!) her whole life. For those of you who don't know what a sidhe-seer is, and failed to pick on context clues, a sidhe-seer is one who can see the sidhe or fae or faeries or any of that kind of shit. It is generally assumed that faeries are hidden from the general publics eyes by glamour, but sidhe-seers can see through all that like (insert awesome simile for seeing through things here) Aislinn has spent her whole life closing herself off from things to avoid being found out by the fae… translation - she's pretty fucking boring. She's all like, "wah, I see things, but I'm afraid to tell anyone or let on that I do because faeries will kidnap me if they know, wah, I am extremely closed minded for someone who sees things others can't, wah, I only trust my best friend, who is a dude, and who I will inevitably do it with but am going to try to push it off as long as possible just to make it abundantly clear how boring I am beforehand."
Aislinn, as it turns out, is also being pursued by the literal faery king, who is having quite a rough go of it as she, of course, knows he is a faery, and therefore does not trust him. This guy's name is Keenan. For real. Clearly someone did not watch All That, or the instant cinema classic Good Burger. Aside from having a hard time imagining him as something other than a chubby black dude in a bubble bath speaking bad French, Keenan, to me, was actually the most interesting character in the book. He's the King of the Summer fae, but the majority of his power is being withheld by his bitch of a mother who happens to be the Queen of Winter. The deal is Keenan can't access his powers until he finds his true Queen. So pretty much he's just been going around for centuries banging everything he can get his hands on and trying to convince them to touch some special winter stick (that's what he likes to call it, ha.) to see if they are the Queen. Clearly, up to this point, none of the girls he has convinced to "touch his stick" have been the true queen. Did I mention there's a catch? No? Well there is a catch. When a girl touches said stick, and isn't the Summer Queen she gets the chill of winter or some shit like that and has to live as an ice bitch until the next girl touches the thingy. Keenan thinks that Aislinn is his queen however, he's thought the same about all of his other conquests. Is she indeed the one? Will she become his next ice bitch? Or will she simply refuse to do anything and continue living her boring ass life?
Oh, I almost forgot about Seth, the best friend that wants to be more than just besties. Oh that’s right... I forgot about him because he is forgetful. Blah blah blah, I was bored with him. And was so disturbed by the idea that he had a naval ring that anytime he was mentioned in a romantic manner I cringed in disgust. Eww. In fact, I am cringing in disgust at this exact moment, just at the mere thought. There is also Keenan's previous muse, Donia, who was the most recent to touch the winter thingy and is now a frigid winter lady person. She's also still clearly in love with Keenan, against all odds, which thus completes our love square. There you go folks. We're you sick of reading about love triangles? Well we have just the thing for you! Its new! Its improved! Its… a love… square? That's right folks! All of the angst and drama of a love triangle with the added bonus of a 4th side! Call now to get yours!! BUT WAIT! There's more! Act now and we'll throw in a irritatingly wrapped up conclusion and the inability to shake the image of a dude with a naval piercing!
Anyway, overall it was just alright. My lack of excitement for it, combined with the fact that the other books in the series move on to follow different characters within the same world, led me to move on to another series before moving forward with this one. Perhaps one day I shall return.
First up to the plate - Wicked Lovely
Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before. Sidhe-seer chick with powers that she isn't even aware of, is wary of trusting a Faery Prince. Okay, so maybe it isn't an exact match, but it does feel strikingly close to a small piece of the plot line in the Fever Series. Which, even just the first book of, is so drastically better than this one, perhaps that can explain my lack of commitment to this series thus far. Here we have our protagonist, Aislinn. She is descendant from a long line of sidhe-seers, and has been beaten over the head with strict rules of how to act regarding the fae by her grandmother (who of course raised her, because no one is raised by their real parents anymore, duh!) her whole life. For those of you who don't know what a sidhe-seer is, and failed to pick on context clues, a sidhe-seer is one who can see the sidhe or fae or faeries or any of that kind of shit. It is generally assumed that faeries are hidden from the general publics eyes by glamour, but sidhe-seers can see through all that like (insert awesome simile for seeing through things here) Aislinn has spent her whole life closing herself off from things to avoid being found out by the fae… translation - she's pretty fucking boring. She's all like, "wah, I see things, but I'm afraid to tell anyone or let on that I do because faeries will kidnap me if they know, wah, I am extremely closed minded for someone who sees things others can't, wah, I only trust my best friend, who is a dude, and who I will inevitably do it with but am going to try to push it off as long as possible just to make it abundantly clear how boring I am beforehand."
Aislinn, as it turns out, is also being pursued by the literal faery king, who is having quite a rough go of it as she, of course, knows he is a faery, and therefore does not trust him. This guy's name is Keenan. For real. Clearly someone did not watch All That, or the instant cinema classic Good Burger. Aside from having a hard time imagining him as something other than a chubby black dude in a bubble bath speaking bad French, Keenan, to me, was actually the most interesting character in the book. He's the King of the Summer fae, but the majority of his power is being withheld by his bitch of a mother who happens to be the Queen of Winter. The deal is Keenan can't access his powers until he finds his true Queen. So pretty much he's just been going around for centuries banging everything he can get his hands on and trying to convince them to touch some special winter stick (that's what he likes to call it, ha.) to see if they are the Queen. Clearly, up to this point, none of the girls he has convinced to "touch his stick" have been the true queen. Did I mention there's a catch? No? Well there is a catch. When a girl touches said stick, and isn't the Summer Queen she gets the chill of winter or some shit like that and has to live as an ice bitch until the next girl touches the thingy. Keenan thinks that Aislinn is his queen however, he's thought the same about all of his other conquests. Is she indeed the one? Will she become his next ice bitch? Or will she simply refuse to do anything and continue living her boring ass life?
Oh, I almost forgot about Seth, the best friend that wants to be more than just besties. Oh that’s right... I forgot about him because he is forgetful. Blah blah blah, I was bored with him. And was so disturbed by the idea that he had a naval ring that anytime he was mentioned in a romantic manner I cringed in disgust. Eww. In fact, I am cringing in disgust at this exact moment, just at the mere thought. There is also Keenan's previous muse, Donia, who was the most recent to touch the winter thingy and is now a frigid winter lady person. She's also still clearly in love with Keenan, against all odds, which thus completes our love square. There you go folks. We're you sick of reading about love triangles? Well we have just the thing for you! Its new! Its improved! Its… a love… square? That's right folks! All of the angst and drama of a love triangle with the added bonus of a 4th side! Call now to get yours!! BUT WAIT! There's more! Act now and we'll throw in a irritatingly wrapped up conclusion and the inability to shake the image of a dude with a naval piercing!
Anyway, overall it was just alright. My lack of excitement for it, combined with the fact that the other books in the series move on to follow different characters within the same world, led me to move on to another series before moving forward with this one. Perhaps one day I shall return.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Divergent -- Oh yes, there will be badassery
Future dystopian Chicago. Not so hard to imagine. The world officially sucked, but then decided to think things over and try to get its shit together. So they formed 5 factions of people each representing a different quality that they hold above all others: Amity for peace, Erudite for knowledge, Candor for truth, Abnegation for selflessness, and Dauntless for bravery. Things have been going okay for a while, so we all know the shit is going to hit the fan anytime now. And of course, timing it perfectly in the shit fan hitting equation is our protagonist, Beatrice or "Tris".
Children are born and raised within their parent's faction, but rather than a Sorting Hat deciding their fate, during their 16th year a choosing ceremony takes place in which they are able to choose which faction they want to belong to. If they choose a faction different from their parents, they are expected to disassociate themselves from their family and hold their faction above all else. So naturally choosing a faction outside of the one in which you were raised is not very common. But Beatrice, Beatrice doesn't give a fuuuck. She throws caution to the wind and chooses outside of her faction (+ 10 Badassness) But surviving her new faction's initiation process may be easier said than done. Dun dun DUUUUUN.
After wading through the steaming pile that was the Celestra series, which wrapped up the most recent book with a magnificent flourish of shit, I was quite ready to move on to something better. And although almost anything would have seemed better than that, I would not have been disappointed with Divergent either way. Strong female protagonist that isn't stupid, shallow, or irritatingly self sacraficing… check. No sign of super irritating continuous love triangle plot… check. Love interest that is not a douche bag, and is independently important to the plot… check. Actual definable conflicts and resolutions are happening here… check. These most definitely aren't the only things that make Divergent one of my favorites that I have read in the past year, but they are definitely a contributing factor. I am beginning to see a trend of the dystopian future societies in Young Adult books now, and I have to say that I'm for it! What its able to do is take the things that I love about Young Adult novels (a quickly propelled plot, generally a romance etc etc) and combine it with something deeper that sucks you into the characters and the story even more. Aaand also allows you to ask yourself questions of philosophy and ethics, rather than the same hum drum, silly questions like "What if faeries really are real?" …… but seriously guys… what if faeries really are real? Anyway, my point is that Divergent was an actual really great book, that you should probably read at some point. It looks like it is going to be a trilogy, and so far only the first of the series has been released. The second is set to come out on April 30, 2012, at which point I will begin the painstaking process of waiting for the 3rd book to come out, because there is no doubt in my mind that the 2nd of the series will not wrap up so nicely as the first book does. Be prepared.
Children are born and raised within their parent's faction, but rather than a Sorting Hat deciding their fate, during their 16th year a choosing ceremony takes place in which they are able to choose which faction they want to belong to. If they choose a faction different from their parents, they are expected to disassociate themselves from their family and hold their faction above all else. So naturally choosing a faction outside of the one in which you were raised is not very common. But Beatrice, Beatrice doesn't give a fuuuck. She throws caution to the wind and chooses outside of her faction (+ 10 Badassness) But surviving her new faction's initiation process may be easier said than done. Dun dun DUUUUUN.
After wading through the steaming pile that was the Celestra series, which wrapped up the most recent book with a magnificent flourish of shit, I was quite ready to move on to something better. And although almost anything would have seemed better than that, I would not have been disappointed with Divergent either way. Strong female protagonist that isn't stupid, shallow, or irritatingly self sacraficing… check. No sign of super irritating continuous love triangle plot… check. Love interest that is not a douche bag, and is independently important to the plot… check. Actual definable conflicts and resolutions are happening here… check. These most definitely aren't the only things that make Divergent one of my favorites that I have read in the past year, but they are definitely a contributing factor. I am beginning to see a trend of the dystopian future societies in Young Adult books now, and I have to say that I'm for it! What its able to do is take the things that I love about Young Adult novels (a quickly propelled plot, generally a romance etc etc) and combine it with something deeper that sucks you into the characters and the story even more. Aaand also allows you to ask yourself questions of philosophy and ethics, rather than the same hum drum, silly questions like "What if faeries really are real?" …… but seriously guys… what if faeries really are real? Anyway, my point is that Divergent was an actual really great book, that you should probably read at some point. It looks like it is going to be a trilogy, and so far only the first of the series has been released. The second is set to come out on April 30, 2012, at which point I will begin the painstaking process of waiting for the 3rd book to come out, because there is no doubt in my mind that the 2nd of the series will not wrap up so nicely as the first book does. Be prepared.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Celestra Series -- A Discourse in Torture through "Literature"
This is yet another series that I have been coaxed into beginning based on one of Amazon's .99 cent Kindle book deals. I even read a few reviews on Good Reads first, but did not heed the warnings, thinking "But its only .99 cents! How bad could it be for a buck?" Little did I know I was sealing my own fate, and forcing my hand to embark on a 5 book journey of frustration and annoyance. My first mistake was thinking that if I read the first book, and found it shitty, I would have the power to say to myself "I did not like this, I will not buy the next books, I do not need to know what happens, because I know that I am not going to like it and I am just going to be 12 bucks poorer and even more pissed off." I have no such will power.
I read in someone's review of the first book of the series, Ethereal, that it was written like bad fan fiction. I find this to be an accurate description. The main character and narrator, Skyla, is possibly one of the most irredeemable characters in the series. She is shallow and entirely selfish, and lacks any sort of understanding for the consequences to her own actions. Yet somehow the 2 most gorgeous guys in school are in love with her. Go figure.
I found the initial love interest storyline irritatingly straight forward in the beginning. Moore offers no build up whatsoever with the love story, and suddenly they're just making out. Realistic in a teenage world? Yes. Builds an intriguing and well developed storyline? No. Anyway, that is the least of my worries as the story plummets into a gross (and I mean that both ways) amount of lovey dovey, insanely jealous, getting his name tattooed on your butt cheek, writing your name out with his last name and all kinds of heart doodles and shit, teenage musings. Which I wouldn't usually find so irritating if there wasn't a way more awesome and redeeming love interest. Gage, the one that seems to keep getting shit on, is probably the only character that seems to be an actual good person. Not to mention his undying and unconditional love for Skyla makes him even more endearing. I am currently half way through book 4 of the 5 books so far, and Skyla has continuously just been… kind of a ball of shit to him. Although things are starting to mildly look up, I am reading into some foreshadowing that I am not going to be pleased with if it rolls out that way. I cannot stand for this! I promise, I will throw my Kindle across the room if that is how it ends up. For real. Okay… I won't really throw my Kindle… but I will throw something less expensive and important. Perhaps a pillow… or a ball or something. I get to vent my frustration, and the dogs get to have fun… its a win, win. Like I said, it has been a brutal back and forth with the one character I actually like continually being dumped on, so the series has been really difficult to make it through, even though I can't stop myself from reading, because I must know what happens. Also time travel ends up coming into play… and almost anything that involves time travel becomes immediately convoluted. I feel as if this is sucking the life out of me. Usually I would wait to review until I finished all of the available books, but I had to vent some frustration here asap.
I will say though that it does seem like the writing and story line are getting better as the series progresses (either that or I have become accustomed to the awfulness and don't even notice anymore, hopefully not). That being said… I really don't know if I could recommend this series to anyone or not. It is a dilemma. Part of me feels like if I could stop being pissed about how the story is going for one particular aspect, that it may not be that bad. I mean… something has to have kept me reading them so quickly right? Or I'm just a glutton for punishment. I dunno… google it and make up your own mind :P
UPDATE : I probably should have waited to review this series until I finished the most recent book. Had I, I would have given it an even more scathing review. After books 3 and 4 began to get slightly better, my hopes for the series peaked a bit and I thought to myself, hey, this may not turn out at bad as I thought it would. Wrrrong. Book 5 was pretty terrible. There was nothing cohesive what-so-ever moving the plot forward. You know how usually in a book (even one within a series!) there is a primary conflict that propels the plot? Well in this book... there is none. Skyla just makes stupid fucking mistake, after stupid fucking mistake. Somehow, it manages to be the longest book of the series yet make absolutely no progress, with the exception of leaving you on yet another horrible cliff hanger. If this cliff hanger is not like all of the others in the series, i.e. it turns out that the horrible things that we think have happened are actually just some kind of misunderstanding, I am going to be hell of pissed. Just sayin.
I read in someone's review of the first book of the series, Ethereal, that it was written like bad fan fiction. I find this to be an accurate description. The main character and narrator, Skyla, is possibly one of the most irredeemable characters in the series. She is shallow and entirely selfish, and lacks any sort of understanding for the consequences to her own actions. Yet somehow the 2 most gorgeous guys in school are in love with her. Go figure.
I found the initial love interest storyline irritatingly straight forward in the beginning. Moore offers no build up whatsoever with the love story, and suddenly they're just making out. Realistic in a teenage world? Yes. Builds an intriguing and well developed storyline? No. Anyway, that is the least of my worries as the story plummets into a gross (and I mean that both ways) amount of lovey dovey, insanely jealous, getting his name tattooed on your butt cheek, writing your name out with his last name and all kinds of heart doodles and shit, teenage musings. Which I wouldn't usually find so irritating if there wasn't a way more awesome and redeeming love interest. Gage, the one that seems to keep getting shit on, is probably the only character that seems to be an actual good person. Not to mention his undying and unconditional love for Skyla makes him even more endearing. I am currently half way through book 4 of the 5 books so far, and Skyla has continuously just been… kind of a ball of shit to him. Although things are starting to mildly look up, I am reading into some foreshadowing that I am not going to be pleased with if it rolls out that way. I cannot stand for this! I promise, I will throw my Kindle across the room if that is how it ends up. For real. Okay… I won't really throw my Kindle… but I will throw something less expensive and important. Perhaps a pillow… or a ball or something. I get to vent my frustration, and the dogs get to have fun… its a win, win. Like I said, it has been a brutal back and forth with the one character I actually like continually being dumped on, so the series has been really difficult to make it through, even though I can't stop myself from reading, because I must know what happens. Also time travel ends up coming into play… and almost anything that involves time travel becomes immediately convoluted. I feel as if this is sucking the life out of me. Usually I would wait to review until I finished all of the available books, but I had to vent some frustration here asap.
I will say though that it does seem like the writing and story line are getting better as the series progresses (either that or I have become accustomed to the awfulness and don't even notice anymore, hopefully not). That being said… I really don't know if I could recommend this series to anyone or not. It is a dilemma. Part of me feels like if I could stop being pissed about how the story is going for one particular aspect, that it may not be that bad. I mean… something has to have kept me reading them so quickly right? Or I'm just a glutton for punishment. I dunno… google it and make up your own mind :P
UPDATE : I probably should have waited to review this series until I finished the most recent book. Had I, I would have given it an even more scathing review. After books 3 and 4 began to get slightly better, my hopes for the series peaked a bit and I thought to myself, hey, this may not turn out at bad as I thought it would. Wrrrong. Book 5 was pretty terrible. There was nothing cohesive what-so-ever moving the plot forward. You know how usually in a book (even one within a series!) there is a primary conflict that propels the plot? Well in this book... there is none. Skyla just makes stupid fucking mistake, after stupid fucking mistake. Somehow, it manages to be the longest book of the series yet make absolutely no progress, with the exception of leaving you on yet another horrible cliff hanger. If this cliff hanger is not like all of the others in the series, i.e. it turns out that the horrible things that we think have happened are actually just some kind of misunderstanding, I am going to be hell of pissed. Just sayin.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Hollows Series --- Zombie Apocalypse goes to the Ladies (Like we knew it would)
I started reading this series for a couple of reasons, one, Amanda Hocking wrote the Trylle Series which I loved, and also wrote My Blood Approves which I also generally approve of, ha…get it? And two, Amazon was offering the Kindle edition for the low, low price of $2.99 so couldn't exactly pass that up!
In the Hollows series, Amanda Hocking has gone in a different direction than I've become accustomed to in my usual crappy reading, opting out of vampires, werewolves, faeries, or seraphim, and instead opting in for zombies. She also went really wild, and decided to not make the supernatural beings in the story the object of lust…thankfully. Although, I guess it would be nice for a guy to be interesting in a girl for her brains instead of her body for once. HEY-OO!!! Anyway, I'll say that I knew this series was about the zombie apocalypse prior to reading it and, for some reason I was hesitant to get started, even though I generally love all things zombie. However, I was very quickly turned around. The story follows Remy, an all around bad ass zombie slayer chick, on cross country trek to find her kid brother. Enter bitchin' ass zombie eating lioness stage right. Actual lioness… that isn't a term for something else, at least not that I am aware of. Enter 2 dudes stage left. Don't worry, you don't have to stress out about a love triangle yet. However, I advise not to get your hopes set on the wrong candidate right off the bat like I did, there will never be so much as a glimmer of hope in that direction. Let's just say, that the actual love interest wouldn't exactly be Darwin's choice to carry on the human race. But at any rate, I eventually decided he was endearing enough to entertain. We continue on with tons of zombie slaying, cult people, more zombie slaying, rebel mercenaries, and even more zombie slaying. On the whole, I really did enjoy both of the books that have come out in this series so far, I breezed through both of them pretty quickly. I will say though that, as in many other Urban Fantasy novels, the main character has an irritating habit of being unnecessarily self sacrificing. I mean, its not like that is a bad quality for a character to have, but its frustrating to read sometimes. Not to mention the fact that this is the zombie apocalypse we're talking about here… not exactly the best time to have an unnecessary sense of responsibility. Mild spoiler alert: I recommend not getting your hopes up in regards to the original romance carrying over into the second book. Nothing major, it just doesn't go in the route that you exactly expect for it to go as far as that is concerned. This didn't really bother me however, and I found that I actually enjoyed the second book more, which as far as other reader reviews I've read, tends to be the opposite with a lot of people. I think knowing that it isn't going to be what you expect, helps as far as appreciating the story itself. The same thing kind of happened for me in the Trylle series, but I had a friend warn me not to get attached to the original interest, and it made it much more enjoyable!! So yeah, don't be a douche and stop reading, it all comes back around :) Anyway, I'll definitely be looking forward to book 3!
In the Hollows series, Amanda Hocking has gone in a different direction than I've become accustomed to in my usual crappy reading, opting out of vampires, werewolves, faeries, or seraphim, and instead opting in for zombies. She also went really wild, and decided to not make the supernatural beings in the story the object of lust…thankfully. Although, I guess it would be nice for a guy to be interesting in a girl for her brains instead of her body for once. HEY-OO!!! Anyway, I'll say that I knew this series was about the zombie apocalypse prior to reading it and, for some reason I was hesitant to get started, even though I generally love all things zombie. However, I was very quickly turned around. The story follows Remy, an all around bad ass zombie slayer chick, on cross country trek to find her kid brother. Enter bitchin' ass zombie eating lioness stage right. Actual lioness… that isn't a term for something else, at least not that I am aware of. Enter 2 dudes stage left. Don't worry, you don't have to stress out about a love triangle yet. However, I advise not to get your hopes set on the wrong candidate right off the bat like I did, there will never be so much as a glimmer of hope in that direction. Let's just say, that the actual love interest wouldn't exactly be Darwin's choice to carry on the human race. But at any rate, I eventually decided he was endearing enough to entertain. We continue on with tons of zombie slaying, cult people, more zombie slaying, rebel mercenaries, and even more zombie slaying. On the whole, I really did enjoy both of the books that have come out in this series so far, I breezed through both of them pretty quickly. I will say though that, as in many other Urban Fantasy novels, the main character has an irritating habit of being unnecessarily self sacrificing. I mean, its not like that is a bad quality for a character to have, but its frustrating to read sometimes. Not to mention the fact that this is the zombie apocalypse we're talking about here… not exactly the best time to have an unnecessary sense of responsibility. Mild spoiler alert: I recommend not getting your hopes up in regards to the original romance carrying over into the second book. Nothing major, it just doesn't go in the route that you exactly expect for it to go as far as that is concerned. This didn't really bother me however, and I found that I actually enjoyed the second book more, which as far as other reader reviews I've read, tends to be the opposite with a lot of people. I think knowing that it isn't going to be what you expect, helps as far as appreciating the story itself. The same thing kind of happened for me in the Trylle series, but I had a friend warn me not to get attached to the original interest, and it made it much more enjoyable!! So yeah, don't be a douche and stop reading, it all comes back around :) Anyway, I'll definitely be looking forward to book 3!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
In Good Book News....
Holy movie trailers, Batman! Just watched the new trailer for The Hunger Games last night. For lack of a more intelligent way to get my point across, I will just say that it looks BAD ASS! If you haven't read The Hunger Games trilogy yet, I'm going to go ahead and recommend that you watch the trailer, because, honestly it sums up the premise more clearly and bad ass-ly, without spoiling anything, than I would be able to. If you have read The Hunger Games trilogy, you should also watch the trailer. If you've already watched the trailer… you should watch it again. Here's the link
Its been a long time since I have been this excited about a movie, which I completely expected because when I read The Hunger Games, it had been a long time since I had been that excited about a book series. This series literally kept me awake nights. It haunted my dreams. Not in the way that a scary movie would haunt my dreams, but in the way that I was so sucked into the story and the characters that it encompassed not only my waking thoughts, but apparently my sleeping thoughts as well. Suzanne Collins, managed to create a detailed, and distrubing world without detracting from the plot. Meaning mostly that she managed to bring to life this world and these multi-dimensional characters that I cared about and understood, could visualize... without the prose driven, detail oriented fodor that I tend to get bogged down with when reading a lot of other…ahem..."well written" books for lack of a better term. Alright… seriously… what I'm trying to say, rather clumsily, is that it felt like I was reading the plot driven crap I usually read, while still managing all of the details, and character development that I sometimes miss out on, without making me want to skip a few pages to get past the description of the mideval castle and get to the good stuff. Still doesn't make any sense? Fuck it. It was really, really good. I liked it a whole lot. Please, please read it. And please, please, for the love of god, don't just see the movie like a big ole' dummy that never learned to read. How's that for well written?
Its been a long time since I have been this excited about a movie, which I completely expected because when I read The Hunger Games, it had been a long time since I had been that excited about a book series. This series literally kept me awake nights. It haunted my dreams. Not in the way that a scary movie would haunt my dreams, but in the way that I was so sucked into the story and the characters that it encompassed not only my waking thoughts, but apparently my sleeping thoughts as well. Suzanne Collins, managed to create a detailed, and distrubing world without detracting from the plot. Meaning mostly that she managed to bring to life this world and these multi-dimensional characters that I cared about and understood, could visualize... without the prose driven, detail oriented fodor that I tend to get bogged down with when reading a lot of other…ahem..."well written" books for lack of a better term. Alright… seriously… what I'm trying to say, rather clumsily, is that it felt like I was reading the plot driven crap I usually read, while still managing all of the details, and character development that I sometimes miss out on, without making me want to skip a few pages to get past the description of the mideval castle and get to the good stuff. Still doesn't make any sense? Fuck it. It was really, really good. I liked it a whole lot. Please, please read it. And please, please, for the love of god, don't just see the movie like a big ole' dummy that never learned to read. How's that for well written?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)