Review for "Passenger" by Alexandra Bracken

Opening the door even a crack into this was enough of a temptation for her imagination to rip it open and step inside. What would it be like, she wondered, to go wherever, whenever she wanted to? 



Rating: ★★☆☆☆

If I had read this book when I was younger, I probably would've liked it a lot. But my high standards in YA fantasy have led me to rank this book among basic plot, melodramatic books that are twice as long as they should be. I originally picked this book up because I bought the sequel at Half Price Books (I thought the cover was beautiful and I didn't realize it was a sequel), so I read this one just so I could read that one. Here's hoping the second one is better.

In terms of plot, this is just the most basic time travel plot I can think of. A girl finds out time travel exists, and she does it, and she uses it to find a missing artifact to save her mother who's being held hostage. I just felt like I saw everything coming, like there were no interesting twists. On top of the basicness of the plot, the book moves so incredibly slow. The main quest is finding this missing artifact, and that isn't even introduced until page 189 (39% of the way through the book). There are certain elements I liked, but those are more a factor of time travel stories in general and not anything the author did to make it special (I mean just getting to read about Syria in 1599, New York in 1776, Paris in 1890). And this all goes without even mentioning the plot holes.

This was a 3 star book until all the plot holes made my brain hurt. Obviously, when an author writes a time travel story they have to set the terms of time travel. The author doesn't really address things like the grandfather paradox, but just kind of implies that nothing that extreme as happened in this world of time travel... yet. I'm okay with the vagueness, except for the rules the author does set contradict other parts of the plot. And because it's a YA fantasy, the romance had to be a major point in the plot...

And of course there was that heady floral scent, driving him half mad, making him think of silky night air, and the moon hanging like an opal at midnight... 

The tears collected on her pale lashes, but she did not let them fall. 

What would hurt worse: the regret that she tried or the regret that she didn't? 

Maybe that's why she wanted it so badly--it was impossible, and both of them were too stubborn to let themselves be told what they could and couldn't have. 

I have never read a more melodramatic "love" story. There's no way it's not intentional, but I hate it. The insta-love does not make sense here, but I'm learning that maybe I'm just not an insta-love person. On top of their cringey interactions, the characters act much younger than their stated ages (17-20). This wouldn't be an issue except that they literally have sex and I'm like why are these actual children in the middle of a really vaguely written sex scene. Cringe.

The plot, romance and characters would've been so much more tolerable if they had been going on this journey in a trio instead of just Etta and Nicholas. I wish Sophia had found them out, traveled with them, and eventually realized that Ironwood was bad and turned over to the light side. There were just so many better plot directions this book could've taken in regards to Sophia, and having another female character with Etta and Nicholas would've been really good.

Extra star on my rating for diversity - and for expressly addressing how racial discrimination is different in different points in history.

Review for "The Gilded Wolves" by Roshani Chokshi

I don't want them to look us in the eye. I want them to look away, to blink harshly, as if they've stared at the sun itself. I don't want them standing across from us. I want them kneeling. 



Rating: ★★★☆☆

I feel like sometime in my countless hours on Goodreads and Booktube I heard this described as a Six of Crows 2.o/knockoff (depending on how good you think it is). For me, it's more on the side of knockoff. I think I have distinct positive and negatives for most aspects of the book, that even it out to being a solid three stars.

Concept:
The concept is really interesting. I like how there's a fantastical element, but the setting is 1889 Paris. I also liked how there's the Tower of Babel incorporation. However, I think the concept should have been one or the other. A general comment on the book is that there's just way too much going on at once, so either the World Exposition should have been the main focus, or the Babel Fragments. Having both at the same time just made for a bit of a headache while reading.

Plot:
One thing I think is really important when reading is the entertainment quality. This book was entertaining. Like most standalone/1st in a series fantasy books, the beginning is slow to warm up, but once you get into the thick of it, you are intrigued to know how things turn out. That being said, the plot on a technical level feels disjointed. It's almost as if the author started out with the beginning of the book, then wrote each chapter by itself, constantly trying to bring in new aspects of the Magic, or new artifacts, or new characters. I honestly just couldn't keep it all straight and it was frustrating. There are just too many plot directions and supplements related to the magic system to fully understand and appreciate everything.

Characters:
For the most part, the characters are very well done. I'm a little bit in love with Zofia, and I was totally charmed by Enrique. I love how the 3rd-person shifting viewpoint adds to the characters, so we can really see the world as they do. We get a cynical tone with Enrique, a dark tone from Séverin, etc.

As for Séverin himself... If we're still making comparisons to Six of Crows, Séverin is a major disappointment as a stand-in Kaz Brekker. He's not nearly as smart/calculating; whereas Kaz is always two steps ahead, Séverin falls into a major trap in the very beginning of the novel. I'm conflicted about how I feel about this. On one hand, it makes Séverin more human which makes the story more compelling, but at the same time Kaz is just way cooler. It's just like, Séverin talks a big game, but he doesn't really back it up with actions. I would say Séverin is consistently shaped by the plot, whereas Kaz shapes the plot, so I guess it depends on what kind of book you're looking for. For a multi-character book about using individual skillsets to pull off a heist (the plot/structure of both Six of Crows and The Gilded Wolves), I would be looking for a character-driven novel in which case Kaz is a more compelling character. Again, that's just a comparison to a very similar book that I think did some things better than this one.

Another character I didn't love was Laila. I appreciated her emotion, and I think her backstory from India and how she was "made" is really interesting, but she's again too disjointed. She has so many interests and roles in the novel that it feels like they should've just made another female character to take on some of those roles. She's a down-to-Earth baker, she's a flamboyant broadway dancer (I know the novel makes a point about how she's different to the public and in private, but honestly I don't see that much of a difference because she's still the wardrobe/make-up person in her private life), but she also is a classically trained dancer IRL, she can "read" objects, she's [something???] with Tristan, she had sex with Séverin ONE TIME two years ago and will never forget it... There's just way too much going on. You can have character depth without making a character drown in things that are supposed to make them interesting/drive the plot.

Relationships:
I appreciate that romance is not a driving force in this novel. It is definitely meant to be more of an accessory than a main plot point, which I think works well in these kind of fantasy novels. But did we have to ruin that by talking about Laila and Séverin's one steamy night every other chapter? Every time Laila and Séverin, like, SEE each other, they flashback to "his skin against mine" or some other god-awful sex cliche. It got very tiring. And again, I was confused because I thought in the first half of the novel it was implied that Laila and Tristan were together, so that just changed my comprehension of all Laila's romantic encounters. Also I was shipping Enrique and Zofia SO HARD and then Hypnos swoops in like whaddup I'm here to steal your girlllll, like what?! Grrrr. And then Zofia skips the party when she sees them together, and you KNOW that Enrique is really into her and not Hypnos... (Side note: Who names a character of Hypnos's personality/age/standing "Hypnos"? Yes, I know the mythological significance, but it still sucks as a name for him.)

Language:
I wouldn't normally include language in my book reviews, but some of the language here did not sit well with me. First of all, I know we give YA fantasy novels a lot of lenience in using dramatic cliches, but "She tasted impossible. Like candied moonlight." Seriously... that's bad. Also, I feel like the author was not always mindful that this story took place in the 19th century when writing the dialogue. Using phrases like "all the rage"... I don't know, something with the language and dialogue just doesn't fit with the setting.

Overall thoughts:
I like the concepts, I like the entertainment value of the plot, I like most of the characters, I just think that all of it should have been cut in half. Half of the artifacts and magic things, half of the character's divergent personalities, half of the plot points should have just been thrown out. The novel is entertaining at the same time as it is messy and disjointed.

Review for "Winning" by Lara Deloza

Why the hell should I care about Alexandra Miles's opinion of me? I think it has something to do with her freakishly strong magnetism. She's like the sun. You never really stop wanting to feel that warm, buttery light on your face. Even if you've been burned by it. 



Rating: ★★★★☆

There's a good possibility that I'm being overly generous with my rating of this book for two main reasons: 1) My self-proclaimed guilty pleasure is trashy teen high school drama books - I absolutely DIED over reading PLL, and I binged all 8 seasons of Gossip Girl in a month and 2) This is exactly the kind of book I needed to read right now. I picked this book up in a bookstore because the cover was gorgeous and it was in great condition and it was actually $2. I've been in a bit of slump - I've just been reading so much heavy sci-fi and classics and complicated/dark fantasy lately that it has been burning me out. So, my cure? A 300-page teen drama. And it accomplished its mission well enough.

When it comes to betrayal, a little goes a long way. 

This book is like the movie Mean Girls, if it was told from the perspectives of Regina, Gretchen, Janis, and Damian. The funny thing is, one of the narrators even recognizes the extreme similarities and makes connections between the characters in Winning and the characters from the film. Also, if Regina George was more like Blair Waldorf - smart in her scheming, vindictive, cruel, and not concerned with "collateral damage".

I really liked seeing the viewpoint of Alexandra (the Queen Bee/Regina George/Blair Waldorf). Obviously, the way she's written makes her absolutely horrible, and I think this is one unlikable character where it is very obvious that you are not supposed to like her. It helps that there are multiple perspectives from the good guys, it stops us from siding too much with Alexandra when we know it's wrong. I didn't love Sloane's chapters just because I thought they were completely unnecessary. She acts like she's going to bring Alexandra down (ahem, Janis Ian), using her best friend (Gretchen) and by ruining her relationship with Matt (Aaron Samuels). But then she hardly plays a role in orchestrating Alexandra's great fall. I suppose they added her perspective because they wanted the book to be longer or more substantive, but if that's the case they really should have given some chapters to New Girl Erin. I understand why she didn't have any chapters, since it did help make her seem like an outsider, but for a book that is supposedly about a Queen Bee protecting her throne from a preppy New Girl, the New Girl isn't in the novel as much as you'd expect.

Just a small detail I want to point out - no matter how immature and evil Alexandra was, can we talk about Principal Frick? Like how can a principal "have it out" for a student? How is a school administrator allowed to so publicly hate a student? I'm not saying Alexandra didn't deserve to be hated, but Frick was just unprofessional.

Look, the writing isn't fantastic. The plot is clearly not original. The characters are one-dimensional, and the author is a little insensitive to certain societal taboos (having a sober person take advantage of a drunk/roofied person at a party, but it's okay because they weren't the one that roofied her and they end up dating later anyway). Overall, the story is cliche and predictable and not that compelling. But I still liked it. I enjoyed my time reading it, and I wanted to know how everything was going to happen. For me, this book was an escape into a 2000's teen movie. You know it's not real, or even a realistic reflection of high school, but it's still entertaining. So I may reduce my rating after I've had more time for it to sink in, but overall I was entertained and that's the important thing IMO.

May 2019 Wrap-Up

This was a slowwwwww reading month for me! 8 books in one month is usually seen as an average or even a lot, but I normally read upwards of 15 books in a month. I had a crazy time going on trips and then moving back to the US, so I had to DNF a lot of books that I will definitely come back to when the time is right. That being said, for the books I did read this month... My average rating was a 3.5, and my most read genre was Fantasy. I read a total of 2,933 pages (so close to 3K!), and that makes an average of 367 pages per book. I prefer to stay around 350 or higher, so I am pleased with at least this area of my stats. Here are the books I read in the month of May:

#1: And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman

Rating: ★★★★☆
I want to read it again.

#2: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Rating:★★★☆☆
As far as classics go (not a favorite genre), I liked this one a lot more than many others. It’s dark and twisty but I still found Mrs. de Winter to be a compelling character/narrator. The book is slow to start, and in general a lot longer than it probably needs to be. But the last half of the book really had me intrigued.

#3: White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Rating: ★★☆☆☆
I'm probably a bad judge for this book because I tire of books that lack plot. You know the kind. When there's no direction, just a bunch of people going through life. It's an omniscient POV, and we get to see 3-4 different generations, so that makes it more tolerable. But one of the things I despise most about this book is its implausibility. The characters were just so... over-the-top. And not in a way that was fun like in Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty) or The Casual Vacancy (JK Rowling) or The Secret History (Donna Tartt). Half the things that happened, by the characters or to the characters, I just didn't believe. I felt like I was wasting my time reading this. I honestly don't think I gained anything here.

#4: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Rating: ★★★★★
A timeless classic.
This is the first time I've reread this since seeing all the movies, and it's refreshing to remember how simple and innocent the original novel is. After, the book was written by Tolkien for his children, and I love the simplicity and intrigue of the story.

#5: Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl

Rating: ★★☆☆☆
I was not a fan of the insta-love here. Also just disappointed because I would think a book literally entitled “Black Widow” would be about Black Widow and not some random teenagers?? They even have a different alias, “Red Widow”, for this teenage girl. Natasha was a side character. If you want a book about teens that are angsty and don’t have much personality that "fall in love” after two days of knowing each other, this is for you. If you want a book with substance, where Black Widow is the main character, skip it.

6. Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

Rating: ★★★☆☆
I read this as a buddy read over the course of five days. My review is done as journal entries, ergo it is VERY long. Check out the details HERE.

7. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Rating: ★★★★★

Fantastic. Amazing. Incredible. I may never recover. Check out my full review HERE.

8. I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong

Rating: ★★★★☆
This was the first nonfiction I've read in a while. I thought it was very accessible to different levels of scientific understanding and had some interesting facts/stories about animal microbiome.