artsy musings of a bibliophile

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Review: Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

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CAHLBC

ABOUT THE BOOK

Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu
young adult realistic contemporary published by Katherine Tegen Books on May 13th, 2014

Some secrets are too good to keep.

Tabitha might be the only girl in the history of the world who actually gets less popular when she gets hot. But her so-called friends say she’s changed, and they’ve dropped her flat.

Now Tab has no one to tell about the best and worst thing that has ever happened to her: Joe, who spills his most intimate secrets to her in their nightly online chats. Joe, whose touch is so electric, it makes Tab wonder if she could survive an actual kiss. Joe, who has Tabitha brimming with the restless energy of falling in love. Joe, who is someone else’s boyfriend.

Just when Tab is afraid she’ll burst from keeping the secret of Joe inside, she finds Life by Committee. The rules of LBC are simple: tell a secret, receive an assignment. Complete the assignment to keep your secret safe.

Tab likes it that the assignments push her to her limits, empowering her to live boldly and go further than she’d ever go on her own.

But in the name of truth and bravery, how far is too far to go?

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Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

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KDTT

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Taking by Kimberly Derting
young adult contemporary science fiction published by HarperTeen on April 29th, 2014
first book in The Taking series

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing. 

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

THE RATING

 

THE REVIEW

The Taking is an engaging read but only if you can get past the falling-for-my-ex-boyfriend’s-little-brother part. I couldn’t get past it and so, I’m really the only to blame for wanting to read The Taking. I read the summary, I knew she was going to fall for Tyler AKA the little brother but, I guess I just didn’t pay attention. Also, it kind of reminded me of Jacob imprinting on Renesmee and not in a good way (spoiler alert: there’s no good way).

What makes it so creepy is the fact that, for Kyra, it only has been less than a day since she was 16 and forever in love with Austin before she disappeared. For everyone else in her life, it’s been 5 years since Kyra disappeared and they’ve tried to overcome her loss and eventually moved on, because that’s life. However, for Kyra, that’s unfair because she was pretty much having the time of her life at 16 and now everything is a mess. Then there’s the mystery of what actually happened to her.

Much of the first part of the book is slow because it’s all about how Kyra feels alienated (no pun intended) from her parents and that is true. She does feel that way and no one around her seems to understand this except Tyler. So, she naturally gravitates toward him and immediately starts having all these feelings for him. Tyler, on the other hand, seems like has been waiting for something like this to happen ’cause he had a crush on her and now has a way of actually showing it which ew. I did like all those chalk drawings he did for her though, but that’s about it.

Kyra could care less about why she hasn’t aged and what happened to her which really made me want to shake her because man, why are you so disinterested in your own disappearance? Her father has all these theories about what happened to her and when he mentions it to her, she freaks out on him. Really freaks out. Her mother is another issue because she really has a hard time connecting with Kyra after so many years. Understandably, Kya is angry with her but thinking ‘she’d squeezed out her new kid’ about your mother? Not cool.

What finally pushes Kyra to investigate her disappearance is another character’s approach when he basically saves her life by warning her on time. I still don’t know how I feel about the whole alien abduction part of the story and the ending was, in a word, predictable. For the plot to work, that had to happen. It finally clicked, though, the reason why Kyra fell so fast for Tyler. Yet I just feel like the The Taking was planned in a way that it works for the story but not the characters themselves and that’s just disappointing.

THE QUOTES

‘Sometimes those few seconds of hope were worth the crash back to reality.’

Review: Panic by Lauren Oliver

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Panic by Lauren Oliver
young adult contemporary thriller published by HarperCollins on 4 March 2014 

Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a dead-end town of twelve thousand people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.

Heather never thought she would compete in Panic, a legendary game played by graduating seniors, where the stakes are high and the payoff is even higher. She’d never thought of herself as fearless, the kind of person who would fight to stand out. But when she finds something, and someone, to fight for, she will discover that she is braver than she ever thought.
Dodge has never been afraid of Panic. His secret will fuel him, and get him all the way through the game; he’s sure of it. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s not the only one with a secret. Everyone has something to play for.
For Heather and Dodge, the game will bring new alliances, unexpected revelations, and the possibility of first love for each of them—and the knowledge that sometimes the very things we fear are those we need the most.

THE RATING


THE REVIEW

For the town of Carp, Panic is more than just a feeling. It’s a rite of passage. It gives the town’s sheriff something to investigate on and the townspeople something to look forward to in the summer. Most importantly, it gives its winner a chance to get the hell out of Carp. Panic is very real. But proving oneself worthy of winning more than 50K is more real than that. The catch? You’ll never know who the judges are and you won’t know what the challenges are until the day of. It’s like a reality TV show that really has no script.

So something can always go wrong. And it does.

For starters, the stakes are high. The police are after anyone who may be playing Panic. The players are in for some real surprises and the ones who are really good at it do not even want the money so much. There’s just this need to prove that they can play which is just really disappointing. When doing tasks, the players are all afraid but right before and after them, they’re all…casual. This is what made Panic so drudging to me. The challenges are stupid and reckless but they really require hardcore courage to complete them. But I never got that from either Heather or Dodge.

Heather takes part in the game on a whim; though it’s very clear what, or who, spurs her decision. Her life is hard and the only people who are constant in her life are her little sister, Lily and her best friend, Bishop. But Lily is having a hard time dealing with how things are at home while, Bishop seems distant right when Heather admits to herself that she might be falling for him. Nat, her other best friend, is just busy trying to win Panic so she can go to Hollywood to and start her modeling career.

Dodge is playing Panic for revenge. Despite everything that led him to that decision, I could never discount the feeling that the revenge aspect was stupid. Probably because it is. And that’s all I got on him even though half the book is from his perspective. His role is typical; will-do-anything-to-win which got really old, really fast.

As a game, Panic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There is never any sense of desperation, the desperation to win. The competitive streak. That could be because of the way things proceeded because the revelation wasn’t surprising to me as I picked off on all the hints before. By the time the end rolled in, everything just fizzled out.
I was never fully invested in the characters because their reasons for playing Panic did not equal the risks involved. Moreover, the tiny hints about the whole mystery took the surprise out of the whole thing. With a plot that never really grabbed me and characters who acted predictably, for me, Panic turned out to be a forgettable read. 

THE QUOTES

‘Why did time have to be the wrong kind of relative?’ 

‘It was so strange, the way that life moved forward: the twists and the dead ends, the sudden opportunities. She supposed if you could predict or foresee everything that was going to happen, you’d lose the motivation to go through it all. The promise was always in the possibility.’

Review: All That Glows by Ryan Graudin

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ABOUT THE BOOK

young adult fantasy published by HarperTeen on 11 February 2014 

Emrys—a fiery, red-headed Fae—always embraced her life in the Highlands, far from the city’s draining technology, until she’s sent to London to rejoin the Faery Guard. But this isn’t any normal assignment—she’s sent to guard Prince Richard: Britain’s notorious, partying bad boy and soon-to-be King. The prince’s careless ways and royal blood make him the irresistible for the dark spirits that feed on mortals. Sweet, disheveled, and alive with adventure—Richard is one charge who will put Emrys’ magic and heart to the test.
When an ancient force begins preying on the monarchy, Emrys must hunt through the London’s magical underworld, facing down Banshees, Black Dogs and Green Women to find the one who threatens Richard’s life. In this chaos of dark magic, palace murders and paparazzi, Emrys finds herself facing an impossible choice. For despite all her powers, Emrys has discovered a force that burns brighter than magic: love.

THE RATING


THE REVIEW

The one thing that comes to mind after reading All That Glows is that while it isn’t bad, it isn’t good either. There are many things that could have been improvised to make it all a little more of an engaging read but, alas, All That Glows fell short.
On the one hand, Emrys is very skilled at making use of her magic despite being young in terms of Fae age. On the other hand, she feels a connection to Richard only because he senses her presence, which later turns out to be because Emrys desired it. Having lived through centuries of history, you’d think that Emrys would have an amazing personality and a badass attitude. You’d be wrong. The one thing that I found interesting was her gripes about mortality and death.
There are many things that are not consistent with the plot and the most striking of all, is the pairing of Emrys with Richard. The core of All That Glows is the love story which is, sadly, weak at best. I couldn’t grasp how Emrys, being an elegant Fae and hundreds of years old, connects with a supposedly ‘notorious, partying bad boy.’
From what I gathered, Richard isn’t notorious at all nor he is a bad boy because getting drunk every other night isn’t the definition of being bad. On the contrary, it makes him ordinary. There is no reason given whatsoever for his being the way he is. It takes the biggest shock of his life to turn him into the opposite of irresponsible and in just a span of a few weeks. I wasn’t sold at all.
All That Glows is overwrought with metaphors that either results in very unpleasant imagery or don’t make much sense. The book picks up its pace, especially towards the end of the book, when the action takes the front seat and Emrys manages to shine for a bit. In all, the execution of an amazing premise is lost in the lackluster romance and an unrestrained use of metaphors.

THE QUOTES

‘At one time, I could count on the world. Winter’s hard freeze, the bitter howls of gray wolves, the colors and laughter of May Day and the bonfires of Samhain, the twines of magic holding me together . . . Things once constant, now suddenly not. Nothing, not even the immortal, is safe from decay.’ 

‘Death — the aftermath of it — is a strange thing to watch from the pedestal of immortality. I’ve seen death in every way: as a thief in the night, as the heat of fever, as the lust of a warrior. Yet I’ve never really understood grief, or what it does to those left behind.’

Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge 
young adult fantasy published by Balzer + Bray on 28 January 2014
first book in the Cruel Beauty Universe series

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom—all because of a reckless bargain her father struck. And since birth, she has been training to kill him.
Betrayed by her family yet bound to obey, Nyx rails against her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, she abandons everything she’s ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, disarm him, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.
But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her. As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex’s secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. But even if she can bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him?
Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

THE RATING


THE REVIEW

I was almost fully taken with Cruel Beauty. Almost. Despite having been thoroughly intrigued by the enchanting prose, I found something to be amiss from the story. A dark, intricate tale with a gorgeous cover, and raving responses; Cruel Beauty managed to deliver, but not all the way. 
Once, the kingdom of Arcadia was fairly ruled by the heirs of Claudius. But then one night, the Gentle Lord descended upon Arcadia. The Sundering confined Arcadia to exist under a parchment dome for all of eternity. Adorned with a sun that doesn’t come close to the real one and demons that lurking in every shadow to keep the fear instilled, the only hope of Arcadia is Nyx Triskelion.
Leonidas Triskelion struck a bargain with the Gentle Lord and it turned out to be Nyx’s undoing. The bargain left him without a wife and two daughters; out of which one’s fate was sealed from birth. Brought up with a mindset to marry the Gentle Lord, Nyx has been taught the unusual Hermetic arts to nullify the hearts of four elements hidden in the castle, in order to collapse the castle.
But Nyx is indecisive and that indecisiveness goes a long way in overshadowing everything else about her. She resents her father for never loving her, loathes Aunt Telomache for involving herself in their lives, and envies her clueless sister, Astraia. So in her yearning for love, the barest of attention that Shade bestows on her is enough for her to get taken with him. 
Trapped into living a life she didn’t ask for, Nyx spends her days exploring the castle looking for the hearts. However, the haunting castle never stops magically changing its inner layout which I found quite enthralling. Her failed attempts to kill Ignifex has only intrigued him to the point of respecting her efforts. He sees the malice in her heart which weakens Nyx. Haunted by his own demons with no memory of how he got there, Ignifex is enchanting but only to a limit.
Cruel Beauty promised to be dark and vicious with a blend of Greek mythology with a fairy tale retelling. I enjoyed reading the intricate details despite a very complex plot. But I found Nyx to be more clingy and repetitive than wicked and the romance to be off putting. Between an overwhelming world-building and an underwhelming ending, Cruel Beauty turned out to be a majorly bland read with some truly exceptional parts.

THE QUOTES

‘And you. Leonidas’s sweet and gentle daughter, with a world of poison in your heart. You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you.’
‘They said that love was terrifying and tender, wild and sweet, and none of it made any sense. But now I knew that every mad word was true.’