Made For You Review

Made For You by Melissa Marr

Title: Made For You

Author: Melissa Marr

Series: None

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: September 16, 2014

Genre: Fiction; Contemporary; Mystery; Thriller; Romance; Paranormal

Pages: 356

Format: Hardcover

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When Eva Tilling wakes up in the hospital, she’s confused—who in her sleepy little North Carolina town could have hit her with their car? And why? But before she can consider the question, she finds that she’s awoken with a strange new skill: the ability to foresee people’s deaths when they touch her. While she is recovering from the hit-and-run, Nate, an old flame, reappears, and the two must traverse their rocky past as they figure out how to use Eva’s power to keep her friends—and themselves—alive. But while Eva and Nate grow closer, the killer grows increasingly frantic in his attempt to get to Eva.

For the first time, New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr has applied her extraordinary talent to contemporary realism. Chilling twists, unrequited obsession, and high-stakes romance drive this Gothic, racy thriller—a story of small-town oppression and salvation. Melissa’s fans, and every YA reader, will find its wild ride enthralling.

My reaction to this book: ….WHAT?! #*@! What the effing F?

Eva Tilling has a classic case of amnesia you often find in mystery murder thrillers. She was a victim of a hit and run and is now the key witness in catching this want-to-be killer. I don’t know about you, but that sure does sound like fun. While caught in a maelstrom of “Who dunnit?” Eva is reunited with him. Nate. Not just a boy, but the boy. I think you see where I’m going with this. So, because a girl’s work is never done, Eva not only has to catch a murderer, but she also has to navigate the treacherous waters of boys and love.

“Creepy” is the first word that pops to mind. Weird is another, but creepy really encompasses the strangeness this book is comprised of. Would you believe that before this book, I was a Marr-book virgin? Never, not once, have I ever read anything of Marr’s before. I have to say I’m a little hesitant to touch another. I’m not really one for creepiness.

The things I liked: the writing and the format. There is no denying that Marr is the queen of suspense and thrill. Her writing had me on the edge of my seat, and multiple times my eyes did that thing where they widen in surprise and awe even though it’s just a book and no one else is there, so you’re kind of just surprising yourself which is a little nerdy and odd. I don’t usually have those eye-widening moments, but in the case of this book, I had many. Which is good, I guess. Also, I’m a fan of the way Marr wrote in the point of view of the killer. Made it even more mysterious. Ooh. (*finger waggle that people do when they try to make a scary point*)

Like I said, I’m not one for creepiness, which lets me move on to what I didn’t like. The obsession and the psychopathness of it all was just a little too…much. I could see where all the people who raved about this book were coming from, I really could. The writing was amazing, but my own personal opinions of what I like to read just got in the way. In the standpoint of an indifferent third party judging purely on the technique and quality of the book, it was amazing. But in the point of view of me, the creepy-sensitive book reviewer, it was not so amazing. Multiple time it just went a little too far. And plus, I just couldn't get into the whole "oh, I have mysterious powers that I automatically understand and don't really care where they came from or why I have them" thing going on. 

I love thrillers and murder mysteries. Just not like this. It’s my personal opinion that I would rather not read stories that make me want to go out and buy fifty more locks and dead bolts to put on my door.

Lynburn Legacy #3: Unmade Review

Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: Unmade

Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Series: Lynburn Legacy #3

Publisher: Random House

Publication Date: September 23, 2014

Genre: Fantasy; Gothic; Romance; Fiction; Contemporary; Supernatural; Young Adult

Pages: 384

Format: Hardback

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A modern, magical twist on the Gothic romance and girl detective genres, the Lynburn Legacy books will appeal to fans of both Beautiful Creatures and the Mortal Instruments series.
 
Powerful love comes with a price. Who will be the sacrifice?

Kami has lost the boy she loves, is tied to a boy she does not, and faces an enemy more powerful than ever before. With Jared missing for months and presumed dead, Kami must rely on her new magical link with Ash for the strength to face the evil spreading through her town.

Rob Lynburn is now the master of Sorry-in-the-Vale, and he demands a death. Kami will use every tool at her disposal to stop him. Together with Rusty, Angela, and Holly, she uncovers a secret that might be the key to saving the town. But with knowledge comes responsibility—and a painful choice. A choice that will risk not only Kami’s life, but also the lives of those she loves most.
 
As coauthor with Cassandra Clare of the bestselling Bane Chronicles, Sarah Rees Brennan has mastered the art of the page-turner. This final book in the Lynburn Legacy is a wild, entertaining ride from beginning to shocking end.

Brennan, I had such high hopes. You have an idea for a fantastic series, you write an amazing book, a slightly underwhelming sequel, and then this? Seriously, what happened?

Jared has, once again, gotten himself stuck in a mighty difficult hole to dig himself out of. Kami, fettered with magical ties to the wrong boy (why she doesn’t just cut them, I don’t know; there is literally no reason for them to continue to be stuck together, and yet, they still are) must for the ten thousandth time save Jared’s suicidal ass. Rob Lynburn, like the good little evil villain he is, terrorizes the town and is strangely placated and not at all hostile. He could do so much worse, and why he doesn’t, I am again unsure. As protocol calls for, Kami and all of her friends wade through obstacle after terrible obstacle. As this magical and gothic series comes to a close, a totally predictable battle scene leaves one force victorious and the other entirely destroyed in this not-really-epic conclusion of the Lynburn Legacy.

If you can’t already tell, I was entirely unimpressed with this disappointing and seemingly rushed conclusion to a series that was once one of my favorites. In the summary, the tagline reads “Powerful love comes with a price. Who will be the sacrifice?” I can answer that: the readers. The readers are to be sacrifices along with the quality of this gothic romance.

One of the best things in this series had utterly departed in this conclusion. The humor, the thing that made this whole series worth it, was gone. Vanished. Nowhere to be found. In the first book, there were times when I was literally rolling on the floor, hysterically laughing almost to the point of crying. Let’s just say the most this book got out of me was a twitch of the lips. No matter how much I wanted the opposite, there was nothing other than that small amount of amusement.

If I’m going to be completely honest here, I’m just going to say that reading this book was like walking through a forest trying to enjoy the scenery during the night while it is foggy to point of zero visibility. I didn’t retain anything. Sure, my eyes saw the words, and I heard the sentences in my head, but did I actually pay attention? No. No, I most definitely did not. This was mostly due to the fact that I was being bored to tears. The whole middle section of the book was just like blah blah blah blah.

Rusty was stepped on and marched over during the whole book, and the author did a horrible job of trying to convince me that Jared was worth more than sweet Rusty. Anyone with a mass of gray matter between their ears can see that Jared is the hoity-toity prince of a rich family who goes off to the woods to sulk and generally be a jerk, and Rusty, amazing Rusty, is selfless (not all the time, but much more than Jared) and willing to be there for his friends (something Jared is frequently not). Kami, also, didn’t grow at all in Unmade. Instead, it’s like she regressed into a pathetic, little, helpless girl who was incapable of being the badass I was expecting. That was probably the biggest disappointment of all.

This series was just too strong in the beginning for me to accept this mediocre and sub-par novel as an adequate ending to an otherwise wonderful series. I closed the cover to this book, and all I could do was wonder what exactly happened to have caused the cataclysmic destruction of this phenomenal series. I would ask for Brennan to try again, but it’s already just too late. I’ve said my goodbyes to this series, and I won’t be sad if I never see this second-rate finale again. 

Reality Boy Review

Reality Boy by A.S. King

Title: Reality Boy

Author: A. S. King

Series: None

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: October 22, 2013

Genre: Realistic Fiction; Contemporary; Romance; Young Adult

Pages: 353

Format: Hardback

goodreads

Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school.

Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he’s tried to learn to control himself, and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone’s just waiting for him to snap…and he’s starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that.

In this fearless portrayal of a boy on the edge, highly acclaimed Printz Honor author A.S. King explores the desperate reality of a former child “star” who finally breaks free of his anger by creating possibilities he never knew he deserved.

Reality Boy is my first A.S. King novel. And I can’t really say that it bodes well for any future King books.

Gerald Faust has a messed up family in a messed up life. And it all started the day his mother invited in the TV crew of a hit reality show. “It’s supposed to help,” his mother said. “It’s supposed to fix things.” And by “things”, she meant Gerald. Twelve years later and nothing’s been fixed, nothing’s been changed. If anything, it’s made things worse than they actually are. The only thing the TV crew seemed to bring were reasons for Gerald to be ostracized in his own home and plenty of clinically diagnosed anger management issues. Gerald grew up thinking he was nothing and didn’t deserve to want things. Now, he must break free of his restricted life and finally fight for what he wants.

This was weird. Really weird. And not the good kind of weird. The kind of weird that makes you go, “What the f-- am I reading?” The plot line was too strange for me to actually like reading it. The characters were bizarre, unrealistic, and strangely unfeeling. For example, Hannah, Gerald’s love interest, was so unsympathetic to his life. Even when he obviously needed someone to comfort him, she just left him, basically saying that her life was just as bad, but she got over it and so should he. Which it not the case. She was rude, selfish, and obviously not a very good friend. Basically, I really disliked her as a character. Plus, there was, like, no chemistry between Gerald and Hannah.

While I didn't like the mood or atmosphere in the novel, the questions it raised were good ones. The questions about mental illness, and living with mental illness, not only as the patient, but as the people around the patient. While the victim of a mental illness might be the only one diagnosed to be dealing with the disorder, it is the whole family that has to live with and work around it also. They are not left unaffected, and I think this book does a good job of pointing that out. Plus, it points out that children who behave badly do so for a reason, which I think is a widely misunderstood concept.

Even with the awareness it brings about issues such as mental disorders, bad home life, and the effects of been stuck in front of the public eye, this book was just too strange for me to enjoy. I’m pretty sure Reality Boy is just one of those books that you either love or hate. And let’s just say that I definitely didn't love this book. 

Solstice Review

Solstice by P.J. Hoover

Title: Solstice

Author: P.J. Hoover

Series: None

Publisher: Tor Teen/Macmillan

Publication Date: June 1, 2013

Genre: Science Fiction; Futuristic; Mythology; Fantasy; Romance; Young Adult

Pages: 384

Format: Hardback

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Piper's world is dying. 

Each day brings hotter temperatures and heat bubbles that threaten to destroy the earth. Amid this global heating crisis, Piper lives under the oppressive rule of her mother, who suffocates her even more than the weather does. Everything changes on her eighteenth birthday, when her mother is called away on a mysterious errand and Piper seizes her first opportunity for freedom.

Piper discovers a universe she never knew existed—a sphere of gods and monsters—and realizes that her world is not the only one in crisis. While gods battle for control of the Underworld, Piper’s life spirals out of control as she struggles to find the answer to the secret that has been kept from her since birth.

An imaginative melding of mythology and dystopia, Solstice is the first YA novel by talented newcomer P. J. Hoover.

Piper lives in a world that’s boiling and above 120 degree temperatures are to be expected. Piper, living under the control of an overly-protective mother, has never had much of a life. On her eighteenth birthday, all of that is about to change. She’ll discover worlds she never thought existed and secrets never meant to be uncovered. With the help of Shayne, a mysteriously dark guy who seems to know more about her than she does, she’ll learn things that will turn her life upside down. Solstice combines Greek mythology and dystopian science fiction to create a novel about discovering who you really are.

I was not impressed for about the first half of this book. The whole time I was reading it, the thought “two stars, two stars, this such a two star book,” kept floating around in my head. Honestly I didn’t even think I wanted to finish it. A serious case of nauseating insta-love made me roll my eyes every two pages and the shallow depth of the characters about made me want to gag.  I had serious problems with this book. It was only past the half-way point where I actually thought, “okay, fine, maybe I can actually finish this sucker”.

First of all, the setting. I will give credit to Hoover, it was interesting that she combined two genres on the opposite ends of the spectrum of YA. Greek mythology and science fiction are an interesting combination. Sure, it was a good idea. Was it done well? Eh. Not really. If you are going to combine two different genres, you have to give equal time to both genres, and that is just not something that Hoover did. Her focus was more on the mythological part and the dystopian part took the back seat. Without the development, the setting was confusing and left too many loose ends. The book probably would’ve been better if there wasn’t a dystopia element at all. The mythological element of the story, however, was an entirely different story. You could tell the Hoover knew what she was talking about. The Persephone and Hades spin off was enough to keep me interested (and is probably the only reason why I rated this two stars, not one). But let’s face it, after Percy Jackson, there just really isn’t any competition for Greek myths anymore.

Secondly, the characters. I could not stand the main character, Piper. Too fake and superficial. And stupid. I found out the big “surprise” about five thousand pages before she did. And her reaction to learning these “secrets” and “revelations” was way too accepting. It wasn’t realistic. There was no denial, at all. And don’t even get me started on the sickening insta-love. Yuck.

Overall, not impressed. The Greek in it was good, everything else was not. Wouldn’t recommend it and not worthwhile. If I want to satisfy my Greek myth craving, I’ll just reread Percy Jackson. 

Steelheart Review

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Title: Steelheart

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Series: Reckoners #1

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Publication Date: September 24, 2013

Genre: Fantasy; Science Fiction; Young Adult

Pages: 386

Format: Hardback

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Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics...nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart - the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning - and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

A classic tale of David versus Goliath, Steelheart tells the story of a boy who wants nothing more than revenge for his father’s death. Steelheart, one of the many Epics that have taken over the world, is now the dictator of Chicago. Impervious to everything and possessing magnificent powers, he is undefeatable. Expect David has seen him bleed. And he intends to do everything it takes to make him bleed again.

You know when you watch a movie like, let’s say, Transformers 4, and you just say, “Wow. This is such a guy movie.”?  It’s all action, action, action, the frequent sprinkling of special effects, and the occasional humorous line. Occasionally there is a love story woven in for variety. But overall, while the action scenes are cool and exciting, the actual writing is, at best, meh. Let’s just say that Sanderson could definitely be the screen writer for the next Transformers.

While it was just interesting enough for me to finish, I was not into this book. It was a chore for me to read it. Sure, once I started reading it, it got a little bit less tedious of a job, but I still didn’t really enjoy it. The humor, or shall I say the attempt at humor, was strained, blatant, and cheesy. The main character, David, was confusing and not well formed. I couldn't match up his awkward personality and his strange infatuation with bad metaphors with who he kept saying he was: a boy obsessed with killing his father’s murder and vengeance-obsessed. That side of his character was not shown to the reader, and it was hard to believe that he was that boy at all. The other characters were also not convincingly real. The explanation for the story was, at best, hard to understand, and at worst, non-existent. I still don't know what Calamity is. And I read the book. 

Long story short, I was disappointed. Sure the action scenes were badass, but that was all they were–action scenes. The characters, story, and conflict were all flat. They were rushed and mediocre, to the point that I wondered if the author really cared. I probably won't read the sequel. 

Firefight

January 6, 2015

Origin Review

Origin by Jessica Khoury

Title: Origin

Author: Jessica Khoury

Series: Origin #1 (Has a Short Story Companion)

Publisher: Razorbill

Publication Date: September 4, 2012

Genre: Science fiction; Mystery; Romance; Young Adult

Pages: 394

Format: Hardback
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Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home―and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.

Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia's origin―a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.

Origin is a beautifully told, shocking new way to look at an age-old desire: to live forever, no matter the cost.

“We are limited only by the questions we haven’t yet thought to ask.”

Pia is perfect. Or at least that’s what everyone tells her. She had unbreakable skin, enhanced reflexes to match those of a cat’s, and incomparable speed and agility (but not strength). Oh, and she’s immortal. Her life expectancy is eternity. She is alone in that she is the first and the only of her kind. She dreams of creating her own race, her own Mr. Perfect, so she won’t have to be alone. Hidden away in the jungle, she has never seen the outside world. She is happy with her home and her family of scientists, never questioning her way of life. Until. One fateful day she escapes into the jungle and gets her first taste of freedom, and meets a boy named Eio. With the help of the natives, she learns the truth of her origin. And it changes everything.

I don’t know what I expected from this novel. A fun story, maybe, that I would quickly forget and never think about again. A filler of space and time that would entertain me and keep my boredom at bay. This book was all of those things. And not much else.

“‘No one should live forever,’ I whisper. ‘Isn’t that how it goes? ‘There must me be a balance. No birth without death. No life without tears. What is taken from the world must be given back. No one should live forever, but should give his blood to the river when the time comes so that tomorrow another may live.’”

While the frequently brought up questions of immortality and ethics were interesting and insightful, and it did add depth to the plot, this book could’ve been so much more. The characters, in my opinion, fell flat in terms of complexity and, well, character. There was only one layer to their personalities, and I wanted there to be more. Pia, for example, was supposed to be smart, agile, and perfect, but all I read was a normal teenage girl who couldn’t get paper cuts. She was raised as a scientist but was ironically incurious about what was going on behind lab doors. Eio, too, was flat and uninteresting. The romance between the two was border-line insta-love (just add water!). This book didn’t connect with me.

The only truly good thing about this book was the insightfulness of the questions it brought up, the creativity behind the science in the book, and the setting. It was just interesting enough that I kept reading until the end of the book, but, honestly, this book was way too long and had too many extraneous elements for what the author was trying to convey. A book this size should have more action, more suspense and climatic moments, and Origin fell flat.

Origin was not an entirely bad book. It was just sub-par to all the other sci-fy books I had read in the past. It had so much potential, and I wanted to love it, but I couldn't. In short: unimpressive, and only the slightest bit interesting

 “They all haunt my mind, waiting for me in the shadow of sleep. Reminding me how fragile this life is and how easily it can be lost. Compelling me to live and to live well, while I still can.

Because sooner or later, we must all face eternity.”

Obsidian Mirror Review

Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher

Title: Obsidian Mirror

Author: Catherine Fisher

Series: Chronoptika #1

Publisher: Dial

Publication Date: April 23 2013

Genre: Fantasy; Science Fiction; Young Adult

Pages: 384

Format: Hardback

goodreads

Jake's father disappears while working on mysterious experiments with the obsessive, reclusive Oberon Venn. Jake is convinced Venn has murdered him. But the truth he finds at the snow-bound Wintercombe Abbey is far stranger ... The experiments concerned a black mirror, which is a portal to both the past and the future. Venn is not alone in wanting to use its powers. Strangers begin gathering in and around Venn's estate: Sarah - a runaway, who appears out of nowhere and is clearly not what she says, Maskelyne - who claims the mirror was stolen from him in some past century. There are others, a product of the mirror's power to twist time. And a tribe of elemental beings surround this isolated estate, fey, cold, untrustworthy, and filled with hate for humans. But of them all, Jake is hell-bent on using the mirror to get to the truth. Whatever the cost, he must learn what really happened to his father.

“This was the past. The only past left. Captured by light, frozen in a rigid image. Gone. But if you could re-enter it; if you could go back to that place and be that person again, if you could live that moment again, better, without the stupid remarks, the arguments, the mistakes, wouldn’t that be a things worth taking all the risks in the world for?”

If I saw this book in the library, and someone asked me if it was any good, my reaction would be something along the lines of shrugging noncommittally and saying “It’s okay, I guess. If you like that sort of thing.”

This book was definitely not one of my favorite books.

Catherine Fisher is a highly acclaimed writer known for her interesting fantasy/sci-fy books. I read the first book of her New York bestselling series, Incarceron, and much like this book, I found it confusing and hard to get into. I’ll admit that Fisher is one of the most creative fantasy writers that I've read. But her books are just not my kind of books.

It was really hard to get lost in this book. Some books have really vivid awesome imagery that allows the reader to really get into the book. Obsidian Mirrorlacked that interesting world-building. Not only that, but the magic and the time traveling was just so complicated.I didn’t really know what was going on half the time and the other half I was just too bored to care. The magic was kind of explained scientifically. Whenever an author turn mysterious magic into boring old science and takes all the magic out of the magic, the result is unadulterated boredom.

Another reason I just do not care for this book is that there was too much going on. Fairies and fantasy worlds mixed with time travel science fiction made for a confusing complicated story. In the beginning, Fisher hooks you with questions and mystery, but in my opinion, there were too many questions and not enough answers. There was no one that didn't have  secrets or an unknown past. It was hard to find out how it all fit together, or why that piece of information was so important. Much like the mythical hydra, every time a question was solved, two more popped in its place. I mean, they were fighting an enemy from the future from the present by going to the past with the help of someone trying to save the future by helping the past which was actually the present even though they still have to transport to the past to save the future by helping the present.

I got a headache just writing that.

I won’t say that this book was horrible. It just wasn't good. For me. The total lack of romance or character relationships was definitely a penalty point. And there was potential for it. The confusing plot and overwhelming amount of information thrown at you at every page turn was another thumbs-down. While I didn't like it, if there is someone who wants a fantasy science fiction book completely lacking romance with a topsy-turvy plot line, they will absolutely love this book. If not, then I wouldn't recommend it.

Obsidian Mirror was not my cup of tea. Too many flavors and not enough reward. I don’t plan on reading the sequel.