All posts tagged book reviews

I Loved Ace of Shades

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

I recently finished reading Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody.  It’s not a cookbook.  When I was in the Navy I worked with a person named Army; our last names don’t always match our job title.  At any rate, it was a very enjoyable book, and I look forward to the sequel whenever it comes out.  I got this when it was on sale for $1.99 the other day.  I figured I couldn’t pass it up.

Our story takes place in a place called New Reynes, which is also known as the City of Sin.  Our first protagonist, Enne, is supposed to be a debutante in about a year, and she knows how to behave like a proper lady.  Her (adoptive) mother, however, is missing, and she is entering this den of iniquity in an attempt to find her.  Almost immediately after stepping off the boat, she loses her luggage, is chased by the cops, and ends up running into a gang lord (which is the person her adoptive mother wants her to seek out).

Levi, our other protagonist, is the gang lord.  He is in desperate need of getting his hands on 10,000 volts (volts are their form of currency).  Enne just happens to promise him that amount of money if he will help her find her mother.  Our story follows the two protagonists as they get themselves into trouble and change the city forever.  Along the way, Enne finds out some dangerous family secrets, and discovers that she might not be cut out to be a proper lady after all: she might be much more instead.

The Characters

Ace of Shades is told in the third person point of view from the perspective of our two main protagonists.  I enjoyed the characters.  Levi was a gang lord, but he was still fairly young.  He’s also, for the most part, not an evil guy.  He might cheat at cards, but he’s not a murderer, for example.  Enne begins her journey to New Reynes as a very naïve lady, but she is quickly changed by the city.  While I do like the characters, the rapid transformation of Enne stretches reality a little.  It doesn’t keep me from enjoying the book, but it may bother some people.  The same holds true for Levi and Enne’s relationship.  They start to develop an attraction to each other almost immediately (although they don’t act on it).  Levi and Enne are so completely different that it’s difficult at first to see themselves falling for each other.

The World

The World of Ace of Shades seems to be pretty unique.  It seems to have a basis in Las Vegas, but there is a magic system in place that obviously doesn’t exist in the real world.  Everybody has talents that they are born with; your two last names tell other people what your talents are.  People bind themselves to each other with oaths.  There are more magical forces in this world as well, but I won’t mention them in order to not give out spoilers.

The city is also a city of dirty politics.  It has faced war in the past.  It is crawling with street gangs, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t associate with one another.  Some of the police are also corrupt.  The world is well done and enjoyable.

Overall, Ace of Shades was enjoyable and well worth the time I spent reading it.  It may not be the best book I read this year, but I liked it nonetheless.

Far Forest Scrolls was… Okay

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

I recently had the opportunity to review Far Forest Scrolls Na Cearcaill.  It sounded really great.  What’s not to like about a fantasy story with dragons and adventure?  It looked like it might have a little Celtic influence as well (I’ve done a little bit of studying Irish and there are a few words in Irish in this book).  It turned out, the book was just okay.  The book has a lot of potential; I just didn’t think that it was where it should have been for a published novel.  Especially not for a book that is scheduled to cost $24.95.

Plot

Far forest scrolls happens in a medieval fantasy setting.  There is a “squad” of squires that the story revolves around, mostly Bellae, who is a pre-tween who discovers that she has a gift for talking to animals.  The squires (and their knights) go through many adventures.  Bellae (or her friend) has been foretold to be the chosen one in the upcoming Na Caercaill, which I think means some sort of cataclysm or world-shaking event.  There is also war on the horizon, which the squires and knights must prepare for.

What I Liked

While overall, I wasn’t a fan of this book, it wasn’t without its merits.  The story was imaginative, and I thought Bellae was a cute character, and she had some nice friendships with some of her squadmates.  You could tell how she loved animals, which was quite endearing.  There were parts that were pretty exciting.  The story was written with a good vocabulary, with colorful words.  Some of the illustrations were good.

What I Didn’t Like So Much

The book felt a little amateurish.  For example, sometimes the characters would explain concepts of the world that the other characters probably already knew, but the reader didn’t.  It made the dialogue sound a little off.  There were a lot of characters in this book, and in the beginning, they were introduced a little too quickly — I had trouble keeping everything straight.  The same holds true for the places in this world.  The book also had several illustrations.  While a smattering of the illustrations looked like they were professionally done, some of the illustrations looked like they came out of someone’s sketch book.  You could even see the outline of the page where it had been scanned.  The sketches and illustrations broke up the text on my Kindle, although if you read this in the hardback version, that wouldn’t be a problem.

The book seemed to have an abrupt ending.  There really was no climax to the story; no great battle that they win and then they have to go fight an even bigger battle, like many other trilogies/duologies/tetralogies etc. have.  They were in the middle of a fight, some reinforcements show up, and then… that’s all folks.  The web site describes this as part of a pentology, so there must be more to this story coming.

This book was categorized as a Young Adult novel, but I would probably put it in the Middle Grade category.  The main characters are Middle Grade age, and there is some banter that I think would be better appreciated by a Middle Grade audience.  Some of the vocabulary might be advanced for Middle Grades, but the storyline itself I think has more Middle Grade appeal.

After I agreed to review this book, it was taken off Goodreads.  It is also no longer on NetGalley (where I received my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review).  Perhaps the author withdrew the book so they could make further revisions (it was supposed to be released August 3rd).  I hope that they do that, because while I didn’t particularly think the story was great, it does have the potential to be a good story.

Legend is One of My Favorite YA Trilogies

By Brookelorren on 7 Comments

Legend coverLast week I wrote about Marie Lu’s latest book, Warcross; today I’m writing about her debut trilogy, Legend.  The series consists of three books: Legend, Prodigy, and Champion.  If you haven’t read them yet, you are missing out.  Go read them right now.  I’ve read them several times myself, and I love this universe so much that I have published three fanfics about it on Archive of Our Own (with a fourth sitting unfinished on my desktop).  Since this is a completed trilogy that I’m not reading for the first time, I’m reviewing the trilogy as a whole, and not the books as separate entities.

Plot

The story begins on November 28, 2031 (which is a Wednesday, in case you’re curious).  Legend begins with the memorable line “My mother thinks I’m dead,” which immediately hooks you into the story.  Daniel Wing, now known as the notorious criminal “Day”, is hanging out with his best friend Tess.  They both live on the streets, eking out a living as best as they can.  The plague patrols are coming through, and Day is watching his family’s house, worried that his family might be sick.  It turns out, his younger brother Eden does have the plague.  Being the loving brother that he is, Daniel breaks into the hospital in order to try to steal some plague cure, setting off a chain of events that will change his life (and the country) forever.

June (our other protagonist) is a brilliant girl in her final year at the military academy.  She doesn’t fit in with the rest of her classmates because over the course of her childhood, she’s skipped several grades, and everyone around her is older than she is.  Her family is also about as wealthy as Day’s family is impoverished.  When tragedy strikes her family, she is sent to track down the person responsible.  In the process, she ends up meeting Day, and they develop a relationship with each other.

The trilogy deals with political corruption, deception, love, and war.   It deals with the problems caused by class disparities when the privileged aren’t aware of the plight of those that are less fortunate than them (while I was reading Never Stop Walking, I thought about this story and how there are people living lives similar to what Day had, except in reality, not fiction).  If I go into too much detail, I’ll give away spoilers, but there is a lot going on in this story; you’ll just have to read it until its exciting conclusion.

Characters

The story is told from Day and June’s points of view.  These two characters (as well as the supporting characters) make the story come alive.  Day is street smart and agile, able to climb buildings in a single bound (okay, that’s a little of an exaggeration).  He suffers from a few physical problems (courtesy of the government), and when his world intersects with June’s, the cultural differences can cause a few problems.  June is wealthy and wickedly smart.  She has an almost obsessive-compulsive fixation on time and minute details (which is why I can tell you when the story begins, even though the book never outright states it).  She’s a good fighter, and her attitude can sometimes get her into trouble.

The supporting characters are also great.  Tess, Day’s best friend, is a caring healer.  Metias, June’s older brother, teaches June not to judge people just by their life’s circumstances.  Thomas, Metias’s friend, is a soldier that is blindly loyal to the government.  Joining them is a whole host of other characters.

Themes

The Legend trilogy has many themes underlying the story, which is one of the things that makes it so enduringly lovely.  It speaks of sacrificing your own wishes because of your love for other people.  It speaks of not holding someone in judgement just because they’re not as well off as you.  It speaks about how blind loyalty to a cause can be dangerous.

I guess that one of the themes in this story can be summed up by these two lines of dialogue between June and another character:

“I will die with honor for sacrificing everything — everything — for my country.  And yet, Day is the legend, while I am to be executed.”

June’s response to his confusion about why Day, a criminal, was being held up as a good guy, and why the other character was being sentenced to death for following orders, was “Because Day chose to walk in the light.”

One Final Note

Legend has a very… complex… ending.  It’s not a story where the ending leaves you seeing flowers and rainbows and puppies and kittens, but it’s also not an ending that leaves you crying as you crawl into bed at 4 in the morning (yes, I’m still talking about you, chapter 50 of Allegiant!).  When I initially reviewed Champion on Goodreads, I gave it four stars.  I have since upgraded my review to five stars, because the ending grew on me a little (it helps that I write fanfiction in this fandom).  After reading the ending, I wanted more, which is why I chose to create more on my own.  I didn’t want to let the story go as it was.

If you like dystopian YA stories and haven’t read this one yet, you’ll want to read these.  All three of them.  I absolutely love this trilogy, and I think you will too.

Never Stop Walking Was Great!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Never Stop Walking CoverNever Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World, by Christina Rickardsson, is an outstanding book.  It is a story that everybody with a heart should read.  This book may even cause you to see the world in a different light.

Never Stop Walking is the true story of a girl who grew up on the streets in Brazil and was later adopted by a family in Sweden.  In a way, it is a literal rags-to-riches tale.

Christina’s telling of her childhood growing up, first in caves, then in the slums of São Paulo, is fascinating.  She witnesses horrors that most first-world adults couldn’t even imagine.  In order to survive, she witnessed (and caused) violence, endured extreme hunger, and was treated worse than most people treat animals.  After she is adopted, she has to deal with fitting in with people that have no clue what she’s been through.  Her story ends as an adult, returning home to find out the truth about her family and what actually happened.

Never Stop Walking is a story that should make you think.  What Christina went through as a girl is still happening today.  There are still desperately impoverished children in Brazil, even today.  There are places in the world, like Venezuela, that are becoming more and more like the world of this story.  People are being displaced from their homes through war and terrorist activity; what are their lives like?

This book is not one of despair, however.  Never Stop Walking is, above all, a story about how love can carry people through even the most difficult of situations.  The love of Christina’s friends, of her mother, and even from the occasional caring adult, kept her from being completely torn up and destroyed, even after all that she had been through.  Most of us will probably never have to worry about being rounded up and shot by the police, or will have to fight over scraps of food after not eating for days, but when we do go through difficult times, the people around us can help us through.  We can care for others and help them through their difficult times.

Never Stop Walking is a book that made me feel thankful.  Bad things happen to everybody, but if you’re reading this book review, you probably will never have to go through what people living on the streets of Brazil go through every day.  I enjoyed reading this story, and I feel like I am a better person because I read it.  I hope you like it as well.

Should You Fear A Reaper at the Gates?

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A Reaper at the Gates CoverA Reaper at the Gates is Sabaa Tahir’s third book in the Ember in the Ashes Quartet.  It is another outstanding book in the series.  I read the three books in three days, and now I feel like I’m stuck in the Waiting Place until 2019 when the final book comes out.

This review contains spoilers for An Ember in the Ashes and A Torch Against the Night.

When we last left our fearless characters at the end of A Torch Against the Night, Elias had died, but in exchange for his life, he had agreed to become the Soul Catcher, which allowed him to return to the mortal world and help Laia and his friends in the outside world, when he wasn’t working with the ghosts.  Darin had been busted from Kauf prison, but he wasn’t like his former self.  Laia had discovered that she was gifted with the power of invisibility, and was starting to become a leader (although she didn’t want to admit it).  Helene’s family had been killed, with the exception of Livia, who was now married to the sadistic emperor.

Can things get any worse?  I asked that while I was reading A Torch Against the Night too.  Unfortunately for these characters, things continue to get even darker in the third installment of this series.

Like the last book, A Reaper at the Gates is primarily told from the perspectives of Laia, Elias, and Helene.  A lot of the time, they are dealing with their own battles, so it makes sense to follow these three.  The Nightbringer also has a couple chapters from his perspective.

After she accidentally gave away a piece of the Star to the Nightbringer (dumb dumb dumb!), Laia goes on a quest to prevent him from getting the final piece.  She’s also trying to help the scholars rage against the machine (the Empire, that is) and not get killed.  Meanwhile, her brother wakes up, and she needs to help him get back to work making Serric steel weapons.

Elias has his own battles to face.  He’s taking over as the Soul Catcher, but he’s still trying to help Laia, whom he loves.  If he doesn’t do his job as Soul Catcher well enough, there could be disastrous consequences.  Unfortunately, there is a tug at him to give up his care about the world in order to do his Soul Catcher duty.

Helene is dealing with politics in the Empire.  Keris Veturius is trying to undermine her at every step, and there are enemies trying to wage war on the Empire.  Meanwhile, her sister Livia is in danger, both with the Emperor and with Keris.

A Reaper at the Gates is even darker than A Torch Against the Night.  The characters deal with court intrigue.  They learn secrets.  Many of them grow as people.  Some of them seem to be fighting a losing battle.

One of the subplots of the series is the relationship between Elias and Laia.  If I were to give this relationship a tag on Archive of our Own, it would be sloooooooow burn.  At least they finally realize that they love each other in this book, and are willing to admit it.  There are a couple of really nice scenes between the two regarding their love for each other, but with Elias’s new gig as Soul Catcher, is their relationship doomed?  You may or may not find out the answer in this book.

At the end of A Reaper at the Gates, the characters don’t run off into the sunset and sing Kumbaya.  They still have a lot to deal with.  You may finish this book and, like me, feel like you will be stuck in the Waiting Place until 2019 when this book concludes.  I’m personally a little scared though… I really hated chapter 50 of Allegiant, and I hope to not see another repeat of that.  However, the darkest hour is just before the dawn.  Perhaps there was a little foreshadowing involved when Laia said what Nan once told her “as long as there is life, there is hope.”  While things will look bleak when you finish this book, you will want more, and fortunately, there is one more book to hopefully set this world right once again.

Other books in this series I have reviewed:

A Torch Against the Night Kept Me Awake

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A Torch Against the Night CoverA Torch Against the Night is the outstanding second book in Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes Quartet.  I started reading this series a couple of days ago, and finished all three books in three days.  They were that good.  I was fortunate in that my library had an extra copy of this book on their shelves.  Once I realized that this book was available, I rushed to go pick it up.

The following review may contain spoilers for An Ember in the Ashes.

In the first book, our heroes, Elias, Laia, and Helene, were tried in various ways.  As A Torch Against the Night begins, Elias and Laia are running for their lives, and Helene has sworn an oath to the foul Marcus to be his Blood Shrike.  Could things get any worse for these people?  Oh yes, they can.

Elias has promised Laia to go to rescue her brother, whom we discover is in the Kauf, the worst prison of the Empire.  Along the way, they run into all kinds of trouble, but they also find the help of allies, and discover that they can show kindness to others, even when they are in all kinds of distress.

Helene has been tasked to track Elias down.  If she doesn’t, there will be consequences for both her and her family.  As a result, she is put into a very tough predicament.  Will she become a completely different person in pursuit of her duties?

When we last left our cast of characters at the end of An Ember in the Ashes, we were left with questions about who is going to fall in love with whom?  Will Elias and Helene get together while Laia and Keenan find love?  Or will it be Elias and Laia?  If you read the first book’s description, you already know, but by the end of this book, there will be no doubt about who loves whom in this series.  Whether they end up happily ever or not… remains to be seen.

Like the first book, A Torch in the Night has beautiful scenes, great characters, and a lot of action.  If you’re looking for a feel-good book, this is not it; however, if you’re looking for a book with a lot of excitement and magic, this series is great.  I highly recommend this series for people who are interested in this genre.

Other reviews in this series:

An Ember in the Ashes Has that Spark

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

An Ember in the Ashes CoverAn Ember in the Ashes is the first book in Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes tetralogy, and it is excellent.  If you haven’t read it yet, you want to add this to your TBR list.  Be warned, however, once you start reading this series, you’re going to want to get your hands on the next two books so you won’t have to wait for the next book.

I was originally planning on reviewing Marie Lu’s Legend series today, but since the third book in this series, A Reaper at the Gates, just came out, I will be reviewing the three books in this series over the next several days instead.  I plan on reviewing A Torch Against the Night on Saturday, and A Reaper at the Gates on Monday.  As I am writing this, I’m only 120 pages into the second book, but I already know that I’ll be spending most of my free time reading these books until the series is done.  It’s that good.

An Ember in the Ashes is set in a fictional world that is based on the ancient Roman Empire.  In the beginning of the story, it’s a normal world with stories of magical creatures, but as the story progresses, it turns out that these stories are real.  The story is told from the point of view of our two protagonists, Laia and Elias.

Laia is a lower (maybe lower-middle) class girl living under the oppressive Empire.  Elias is about to graduate from 14 years of grueling training that have turned him into an elite soldier.  After Laia’s life is turned upside down in one horrific night, she undergoes a quest to try to save her brother, voluntarily becoming a slave.  This is where she meets Elias, who is not like most of the other trained killers in his profession.  Elias doesn’t want to be a killer – he wants to be free to be something else.  Over the course of the book, they develop an unlikely relationship and realize that they both can help each other.

The book is well-done.  The characters are interesting, the plot is intricate but not confusing, and the world is well-built.  Before I was even halfway done with this book, I made plans on obtaining the next two books.  I didn’t go to bed until I had finished the book, and I’m sure that I will finish the second book tonight.

I couldn’t find anything that I didn’t like about this book.  It seems appropriate for most teens.  There is a lot of violence and some threatened sexual violence, but there is nothing explicit and there is no cursing (when the characters “curse” they say things like “ten hells” or expressions that we don’t consider to be obscene).

This book seems to have positive messages.  Don’t beat yourself up for protecting yourself.  As long as there’s life, there’s hope.  I liked that about this story.

If you like young adult stories with a little bit of magic, check out An Ember in the Ashes, and the followup books.  I’m loving it so far.

Other books in this series I have reviewed:

No Angry Morning with the Wrath and the Dawn

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The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée AhdiehThe Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh is a modern retelling of 1001 Arabian Nights.  After reading Flame in the Mist and absolutely adoring it, I thought that I should check out her other works.  This became available at the library the day before Smoke in the Sun showed up on my doorstep, so I had a little Renée Ahdieh reading marathon going on this week.  I enjoyed this book, and plan on reading the follow-up book soon, but I didn’t like it as much as I liked Flame in the Mist.

Like 1001 Arabian Nights, The Wrath and the Dawn is set in the Middle East during the time of sultans: if images of Aladdin and flying carpets come to your mind, that is exactly the type of world we are experiencing with this book.  The king, Khalid, has been marrying a new girl every day, and in the morning he has been killing her.  Shahrzad’s best friend, Shiva, was killed by this king, and Shahrzad volunteers to marry him (knowing the consequences), although her intention is not to die, but to take revenge on Khalid for what he did.  Shahrzad tells stories in order to get through the first couple of nights, which keeps her alive.

Shahrzad’s plan for revenge doesn’t quite go the way she intends, because she eventually develops feelings for her husband.  She starts to believe that he’s not the monster that everybody says that he is.  Threats to the kingdom develop, and we are left with something of a cliffhanger (that’s why it’s a duology).

I enjoyed this story.  I haven’t had the chance to read 1001 Arabian Nights yet, but I’m suspecting that there are many differences.  I loved how Ahdieh put together this world, which brings us a world with a little bit of magic and characters that you want to read more about.  Although the character’s problems don’t magically resolve at the end of this story, it leaves you wanting more, and doesn’t leave you frustrated, sad, or wrathful at the ending.  If I had read this book in 2015, I might be upset that I have to wait another whole year to find out what happens, but since the sequel to this book has already been written, I don’t have to wait.

The Wrath and the Dawn is not my favorite book by Renée Ahdieh, but I can say that, so far, I’ve liked everything that I’ve read that she’s written.  It’s probably a matter of personal preference, but I didn’t click with these characters quite as much as I did with the characters of Flame in the Mist, but I enjoyed this story all the same.

If you like YA stories with a little bit of magic to them or enjoy Renée Ahdieh’s books in general, you might want to check out this book.  Since this book has been out for a while, you can get a pretty good deal on this book in paperback, or your local library probably has a copy that you don’t have to wait very long to read.

Marissa Meyer’s Heartless is Good Fanfiction

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I recently read Marissa Meyer’s 2016 book Heartless.  It is a story based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories, with a few references to some familiar nursery rhymes and Edgar Allen Poe thrown in for good measure.  I thought that it was an excellent piece of fanfiction and is well worth the read.

I’m not sure if many people refer to this novel as fanfiction, but that is what it is, and it’s not meant to be an insult.  As someone that’s written over 1000 pages of fanfiction myself (and have probably read at least a million words of it written by other authors) I happen to like fanfiction.  Meyer herself wrote more traditional fanfiction (based on Sailor Moon) years ago, so it probably shouldn’t be surprising that someone can make a career writing fanfiction based on works that are in the public domain.

Heartless delves into the question of “What was the Queen of Hearts like before she became the evil creature that Alice runs into?”  It’s a fair question, because most children aren’t calling for the heads of people that they’re angry with.  It turns out, at least in Meyer’s world, that the Queen of Hearts was just an ordinary girl with big dreams.  Big dreams, a love interest, and a family that didn’t quite have the same dreams for her that she did.

Like most good fanfiction, the story is much richer if you are familiar with the original stories that it is based on.  There are characters in this story that you’ll run into that play a minor part in Alice in Wonderland that play a larger part here.  You can still enjoy this story even if you aren’t familiar with Alice in Wonderland; the more you know about the original work, the more you will appreciate the little details in this story, however.

I enjoyed most of the elements of this story.  Meyer uses beautiful imagery to tell about the treats that the future Queen of Hearts, Cath, makes, she creates an interesting little love story, and the story ends with a good explanation of how the Queen of Hearts becomes the heartless creature that we see in Alice in Wonderland.

This is not a feel-good story, but that’s not really to be expected, because if it truly was a story that emitted happy feels, then the Queen of Hearts wouldn’t become who she becomes.  She is a character who, although she is brave in some areas, can’t assert herself in other areas, and is slightly unlikable as a result (overall, I do have a favorable impression of her though).  Her love interest, Jest, is a likable guy, and I would have liked to have seen more of the story exploring their relationship.  These are just minor complaints, however.

If you haven’t read this story yet, I recommend it, especially if you like stories set in an Alice in Wonderland-style fantasy setting.  If you like Lewis Carroll, I definitely recommend it, as there are some passages with witty banter like you would find in the Wonderland stories.  Although it is not the best book that I’ve read this year, I did enjoy it a lot, and I kept reading it on my work breaks and in the evenings until I finished it.