Atlantia Review

Atlantia by Allie Condie

Title: Atlantia

Author: Ally Condie

Series: None

Publisher: Dutton Children’s

Publication Date: October 28, 2014

Genre: Fiction; Fantasy; Futuristic; Dystopia; Romance; Young Adult

Pages: 368

Format: Hardcover

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Can you hear Atlantia breathing?

For as long as she can remember, Rio has dreamt of the sand and sky Above—of life beyond her underwater city of Atlantia. But in a single moment, all her plans for the future are thwarted when her twin sister, Bay, makes an unexpected decision, stranding Rio Below. Alone, ripped away from the last person who knew Rio’s true self—and the powerful siren voice she has long hidden—she has nothing left to lose.

Guided by a dangerous and unlikely mentor, Rio formulates a plan that leads to increasingly treacherous questions about her mother’s death, her own destiny, and the complex system constructed to govern the divide between land and sea. Her life and her city depend on Rio to listen to the voices of the past and to speak long-hidden truths.

Ugh. I just—ugh. UGHHHGHHGHG.

(Me at the first sighting of Atlantia)

Me: Ooh pretty book. (Strokes cover a little creepily)

Book: Read me. I’m fantastic, I promise.

Me: I don’t know…

Book: I’m a futuristic romance with sirens and other cool stuff…come on, you know you want to.

Me: (with pitiful naiveté) Okay!

It was pathetic. And it’s never happening again. I am so done with sirens.

Rio wants to leave the Below more than anything. She’s dreamt of living in the sands of the Above all her life, but in the few seconds it takes for her sister to abandon her in the underwater city of Atlantia, Rio is stuck. Forever. Dun dun DUUUN. She seeks the help of a stranger to get her above ground, to find her sister who obviously has a perfectly reasonable reason for leaving Rio there to wither away alone. Obviously. Then there’s a little romance and blah blah blah until it finally ends.

I was so bored. I was bored writing the summary. I was bored reading the actual book. Every time I opened that stupid awful thing that is not a novel, I died a little in side. The book nerd in me started to cry.

If you haven’t already figured it out, I hated this book.

First of all, the names. THE NAMES. We get it, there’s lots of water. You don’t have to name your characters after it! We get the picture. I mean, Bay? Rio? Oceana? REALLY?? Can we have a little subtlety please? Apparently not.

The writing was even worse. Apparently young adult readers need to be talked to like they’re fourth graders, and they need to like it. If you haven’t noticed, the best young adult books speak to adults and teens with a level of intelligence both can understand and enjoy. Taking away all the talent and skill that comes with writing a novel does not make it better. It makes it awful. Period. Exclamation point.

I didn’t even like the idea of mermaids and sirens in the first place. I’ve never read a book that actually did it well, and apparently I never will. The only reason I read this book in the first place is because it sounded similar to a book called the Dark Life, which I actually truly enjoyed. It was nothing like that. The world-building was nonexistent and the explanations for character’s actions were stupid.

After reading this book, I wanted to throw it away and forget I ever wasted time on that plotless, interest-less, talent-less excuse for literature. Honestly, you’d think publishers would figure out that things need to be of high quality before they sell it.

The story line was swamped with mediocrity, the romance was confusing and unrealistic, the characters had to be purposefully bad because no one could do that accidentally, and the overall book gave me a raging headache. But hey, it’s kind of my fault right? I should’ve just stopped reading, but stubborn me wanted to finish that God-awful book. I don’t know why, but I did. Well, I’m never doing that again. 

Promise of Shadows Review

Promise of Shadows by Justina Ireland

Title: Promise of Shadows

Author: Justina Ireland

Series: None

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: March 11, 2014

Genre: Greek Mythology; Romance; Fantasy; Supernatural; Young Adult

Pages: 371

Format: Hardback

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Zephyr Mourning has never been very good at being a Harpy. She’d rather watch reality TV than learn forty-seven ways to kill a man, and she pretty much sucks at wielding magic. Zephyr was ready for a future pretending to be a normal human instead of a half-god assassin. But all that changes when her sister is murdered—and she uses a forbidden dark power to save herself from the same fate.

Zephyr is on the run from a punishment worse than death when an unexpected reunion with a childhood friend (a surprisingly HOT friend) changes everything. Because it seems like Zephyr might just be the Nyx, a dark goddess made flesh that is prophesied to change the power balance. For hundreds of years the half-gods have lived in fear, and Zephyr is supposed to change that.

But how is she supposed to save everyone when she can’t even save herself?

I’m just going to put this out there: Any Greek mythology book is really just playing for second. Two words: Percy Jackson.

With that said, this is a very good second place. It’s not a Percy Jackson, but it is good. Zephyr Mourning is a Harpy. But, unlike how Greek mythology really goes, she is not a chicken with the head of a woman. No. She just has wings, and bright blue hair. Apparently having flying apparatuses on your back and unnaturally colored hair makes you a harpy. Not what I was expecting, but okay. Even with her feathery wings and electric hair, she still is not a very good harpy. Not good at magic, not good at killing people. She just can’t seem to do anything right. When her sister is murdered and she does the unthinkable in retaliation, things take a turn for the worst. With dark magic at her side, she must learn to fight for not only herself, but also for others.

I start with the things that I liked. I liked the main character. I liked the romance. I liked the spin on the “light always beats dark” theme. Zephyr, unlike many other heroines, is not a badass, or morally righteous. She can’t kick butt at will or have any incredible skills. All she has is her dark magic that is strangely evil-like and her blue hair. She doesn’t even have wings. And yet, she is supposed to be the famous Nyx. While she herself is not capable of awesomeness, her dark powers are just plain cool. I loved how Ireland played with the irony of dark powers being good and light powers being bad. I liked how the main protagonist had antagonistic tendencies, giving intricate depth to the character.  

Here’s the thing: I have a thing for bad boys. Or, rather, fictional bad boys. You know, the jerks that the girl has to reform and crack the hard sexy outer shell to get to the even sexier sensitive stuff. Well, the love interest just happened to be one of those boys, more or less. While the romance was sudden, it was also sweet and touching.

I thought this book was incredibly creative. I wish that it wasn’t a standalone; it has so much potential! But still, it was worth reading. More than worth it, I would say. And the cover is just gorgeous, isn’t it?

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

goodreads

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.