tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25619878679603395372024-03-12T23:13:19.836-04:00The Overlooked Book NookReviews of books that might have been overlooked while perusing online books.scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-81413827972774324912014-07-21T16:00:00.000-04:002014-07-21T16:00:00.661-04:00A Not So Singular World - Patrick Hatt<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WNC3LC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007WNC3LC&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=PG3W2W75M2IWCDVL"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B007WNC3LC&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=scarlettabl00-20" height="320" width="227" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B007WNC3LC" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">Jeremiah has spent his whole life searching for his parents with nothing but a faded picture of them to keep him going. His search had hit a dead end until his birthday rolled around and he received a gift, being run down by a car that seemed to have no driver. And that was the best part of his day. </span></blockquote>
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Jeremiah is just your average loner, content with just his trusty cat, Orlin. Until a weird guy from the "Brother of Olympus" shows up, and he's told soon after he has cancer. Or when a weird science dude goes to find him, and a punk Brit reality TV show host is hired to capture him, and well. Things certainly turn topsy turvy for this fellow.<br />
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My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.<br />
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This is a great, action-packed story. It hooks you from the very beginning and doesn't let you go.</div>
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There are very few books I've read this past year with a strong plot, and this is one of them. You follow Jeremiah, our protagonist who starts off as a loner who talks to his cat more than the average person, finding himself caught in a whirlwind of events that could end the world as we know it. The plot works off of some Greek mythology, but it puts an interesting twist on it, adding on different aspects to how the fantasy world coexists with our mundane world. It also introduces science fiction; I was a bit skeptical as to how it might work, since fantasy and science fiction don't often go hand in hand, but I was impressed by how well the science fiction wove into the fantasy aspect, working to add to it and create a more complex world.</div>
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The characters are all fully developed and very distinct from each other. I especially enjoyed the British reality TV star/bounty hunter, Rick Tracker, and watching him develop so much from what he was at the beginning. And, of course, I absolutely adored Jeremiah's camaraderie with his cat, Orlin. Although the amount of times he talks to the cat is more often than the average person (acknowledged and played as a gag by the other characters), I felt that the relationship between pet and owner was very nicely portrayed and I found myself smiling at those parts. Most of the main characters go through character development, but it's subtle and gradual, as proper character development should be.</div>
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The writing reads like an action movie. Lots of action-packed scenes, loaded with witty one-liners that are actually witty. I love it when authors invent new words, and the way they are used in the novel work wonderfully to create a vaguely futuristic vision (confirmed when one character mentions leading the country through the second half of the 21 century). The writing is also very well paced, as you never have a real lull in the story.<br />
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Though this is a part of a series, I didn't feel cheated out of the rest of the story. True, the story does end on a very exciting cliffhanger, but enough things are resolved and discovered within this story that you don't feel that the author <br />
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The only criticisms I can make are that there are a good number of typos in the book (though these don't force you out of the story to see what the author meant), and that dialogue tags (he said, they shouted, she murmured, etc) are used very sparingly. While this, at times, can help get the pacing of the the story and make for snappy dialogue, it can get a bit confusing as to who is talking when there are more than three or four characters in a scene, especially in the beginning of the book, where you don't have a feel for each individual voice.<br />
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However, I wouldn't let that get take away from the exciting plot and unique characters. I haven't read a book with so many characters and so much plot packed into a little over 350 pages for a long while, and in doing this, the author has created a brand new world that I think everyone would love to dip into.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007WNC3LC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007WNC3LC&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=JTR4CKGESSYIKG3A">You can find A Not So Singular World here.</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B007WNC3LC" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
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*Disclosure: I received monetary compensation for this review; all opinions are my own.</div>
scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-5817740669618112342014-07-18T16:00:00.000-04:002014-07-18T16:00:02.044-04:00Carpe DiEmily (Part 1) - Riley J. Ford<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ADEJ8WY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ADEJ8WY&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=LMVVCBZ4H37U33GG"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00ADEJ8WY&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=scarlettabl00-20" height="320" width="240" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00ADEJ8WY" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></div>
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<b>TRIGGER WARNINGS: SUICIDE AND MENTIONS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE</b><br />
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Emily Keane has her life organized, filed, scheduled, and color-coded, and now things are looking up: Her boss, Darren, has a promotion she just knows has her name on it, and her longtime boyfriend, Lenny, is going to propose to her tonight. Except... not. Turns out the promotion is for her sleazy coworker, Simone Stevens, and Lenny bought her a break-up gift instead of a ring. Now her life is in shambles, and decides to end her life. She doesn't want it to end for nothing, though, and decides to donate her organs when she dies - and that's where Dr. Becker comes in. Enigmatic and calculating, he gives Emily an offer: One million dollars and one year to do what she wants before he comes to assist her suicide and harvests her organs. Now, with the clock running down, Emily tries to shake up her methodical lifestyle and do what she's never done before: Live spontaneously.<br />
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My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.<br />
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I actually hated this book starting out. Couldn't stand it. Hated Emily and found the build up to her life expectations crashing down extremely predictable. Particularly found Emily's opinion of Simone "Si-Moan" Stevens to be disgusting and ridiculously judgmental, and I was ready to give this a 2 and be done with it.<br />
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I didn't expect this book to actually be laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly good.<br />
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The plot is interesting enough. The main plot is about Emily trying to finish a bucket list and the inevitable countdown before the villainous Dr. Becker comes to take his part of the contract, but there are a fair amount of subplots. Surprisingly enough, though, these subplots weave in and out of the story, adding to and giving substance to the main plot. This book was free, so I can hardly complain, but I'm never a fan of people writing novel-length stories without resolving any conflict for the sole purpose of getting readers to purchase their next book, and unfortunately, that's what this book does. It's not bad, and I enjoyed what I read, but I really believe that each book should be able to stand on its own, especially if it is the first installment.<br />
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The characters, oh, the characters. I hated Emily in the beginning and by the end had vague pity for her; if you read with the intent of falling in love with the protagonist, I probably wouldn't recommend this. However, the beauty is in the side characters, particularly Tyler and Simone; the former being Emily's gay stylist and the closest thing she's got to a friend, and the latter being her flirtatious coworker and rival. I couldn't stand the way Emily had this habit of shoehorning people into categories, and these two get the worst of it: Tyler is always compared to her image of a gay man, and it's like her internal monologue can't shut up about how he's like her gay best friend, all while not really caring about him and just making their relationship very one-sided. With Simone, well. The fact that the nickname Emily silently gives her is "Si-Moan" is enough to make me gag. Simone is always demonized by Emily about her flashiness and her vivacious attitude about life, which I find sad because I'm always of the opinion that you should mind your own damn business when it comes to other people living their own lives.<br />
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However, I was pleased to find that the author does give a lot of hidden depths to these characters. Tyler opens up some; not enough in this installment to really give a good grasp, but it's obvious to the reader (or at least me) that further installments will work to give him even more depth than he has and will probably end up comparing Emily's cardboard cutout opinion of Tyler with the genuine Tyler. Simone is fully fleshed out in here; sure, she likes to have fun and look sexy, but she's also oodles nicer than Emily and I was happy to see her and Emily start becoming friends, though I still disliked it whenever Emily thought her way of things was always better than Simone's.<br />
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It's funny, because the writing is actually very similar to my style (which you will probably never see in action, muahahaha), so it feels strange to critique it because it feels like critiquing my own writing. If I were to try to make a comment about it, I'd say good - very good, in fact, definitely above average - but not spectacular. It doesn't particularly draw you in by itself, but I think the cleverness and humorous situations the author thinks up really gives this story the heart it needs.<br />
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The only thing I have a BIG problem with is the line <span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The space isn't important. It's the love you give the dog and the love they give you." As a pet owner this is a HUGE red flag for me, and I hope others notice that this is so so so wrong as well. I couldn't quite tell, maybe the author was trying to make a point of that, but space is actually crucial. It's cruel to deprive a dog of what it needs and yes, space is one of those things your dog needs, especially if it's a big breed like a German Shepard, which was the breed featured in this novel. Anyone who picks up this book, please never follow that advice, okay, your dog, cat, turtle, bird, etc. needs appropriate space to grow and play in, not a small enclosure more suited for a prison sentence.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #292f33;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, pleasantly surprised. I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ADEJ8WY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ADEJ8WY&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=LMVVCBZ4H37U33GG">You can find Carpe DiEmily (Part 1): A Free Romantic Comedy Chick Lit Adventure here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00ADEJ8WY" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-19378092237364447732014-07-14T16:00:00.000-04:002014-07-23T20:25:18.543-04:00Under the Burning Sky - Olivia Bersell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYVMpVGQBDiSYMKfQp0ZUcn9p3Lv-7HU-lxxw86LUIbQHJbolSqlxEMBOeqfpK2GU41rub64WpHbkkUX4PSi7tzqCdAUcktHkHKmKSnv6meGEQ72cjJ5I0cMNqRIphhz2hzzeDhtbtMU4/s1600/underaburningsky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYVMpVGQBDiSYMKfQp0ZUcn9p3Lv-7HU-lxxw86LUIbQHJbolSqlxEMBOeqfpK2GU41rub64WpHbkkUX4PSi7tzqCdAUcktHkHKmKSnv6meGEQ72cjJ5I0cMNqRIphhz2hzzeDhtbtMU4/s1600/underaburningsky.jpg" height="320" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In 1969 Ex-Marine Ethan Coles, arrives at Stoney Creek, a cattle station in the remote Australian outback to take up his new position as the resident school teacher, and is instantly drawn to the beautiful eighteen-year-old half cast girl, Amarin.</span></blockquote>
The year is 1969. Ethan Coles, an Ex-Marine, goes down under, to Stoney Creek, a town in a remote area in the Australian outback to teach. He is instantly enamored by Amarin, an beautiful half-Aboriginal girl. They quickly find themselves falling for each other, despite Amarin's mother's disapproval. As they begin their summer romance, Ethan deals with getting accustomed to life in the Outback and trying to avoid a rival, while Amarin struggles to uncover the secrets to her birth, all while a mysterious murder shakes up the small town.<br />
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My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars<br />
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*Disclosure: I received monetary compensation in return for this review. However, all opinions are my own.<br />
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I found this book to be a pretty fun read. I thought it was paced well, and I quickly fell in love with the characters.<br />
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The character building was by far the strongest part of this book. Using 3rd-person omnipresent point of view (POV), the author manages to get you inside of each character's head, picking up bits and pieces of their backstory along the way. Each character had a distinct voice in their dialogue and mannerisms; after having read a lot of books in which a lot of characters seem to be personality clones of each other, I found this refreshing.<br />
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The plot is a slow burn. What I did like is that, while the two protagonists are immediately drawn to one another, the romance does proceed at a steady and realistic pace. While the main plot is ultimately the romance between Ethan and Amarin, the subplots are extremely intriguing and draw you further into the story. I kept wondering, 'who is Amarin's birth father?' and 'who is the culprit behind the murder?' I was a bit disappointed to find that these were not answered in this installment, but they definitely leave titillating cliffhangers.<br />
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The writing is very straightforward, and it works for the story. It first allows you to more or less get into Ethan's head as he heads to a place that is just about halfway around the world; it then follows along and settles you into his routine with working with his students and having secret rendezvous with Amarin. While the writing doesn't alter when the POV focuses on another character, you still get a strong feeling for how the focus on that character is, if that makes sense. At the end, the way some of the scenes are written can truly make your heartstrings tug a bit.<br />
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Some bonus points for including a fair amount of Aborigines in the story. It's not too often I get to read about an interracial relationship, and I thought it was quite refreshing, since too often relationships like my own parents' are too often ignored in literature.<br />
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This all being said, there were just a few things that bothered me. I'm a stickler for spelling and grammar, and particularly comma usage, which I found to be 'off and on' in the novel. Near the end I noticed that there were some careless typos, though they don't create that big of a deal or impact one's understanding of the book. <br />
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EDIT: there was a sex scene that I wasn't too comfortable with due to perpetuation of some myths, but after contacting the author she agreed to edit it for future editions :)<br />
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This was a nice book to curl up with, and I definitely think you all should give it a chance! I give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars.scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-86889332248249891902014-07-11T16:00:00.000-04:002014-09-01T17:07:02.582-04:00The Plantation - Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ARMMNS8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ARMMNS8&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=SAGIFSNUI2WNIQOO"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00ARMMNS8&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=scarlettabl00-20" height="320" width="212" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00ARMMNS8" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">A century has passed since they arrived. Human history has been erased. Children are enslaved on Alien plantations. Some have heard whispers of the existence of a rebel band of humans who roam free in the forests. Most slaves dare not speak of the rebels for fear the mutant guards will grab and make an example of them.</span></blockquote>
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It's one hundred years after the fall of humanity. Aliens have taken over the earth, enslaving humanity and putting them on plantations. Not all hope is lost, however, as Freya, Finn, and the band of escapee slaves who call themselves the Saviors are out there, training and waiting for the day they can start a revolution. While every Savior has some sort of superhuman ability given to them by alien testing, Freya is average, making her the weakest one on the team. Tensions rise as leadership is challenged in this struggle for humanity. </div>
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My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.</div>
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One thing - I loathe to call it a dystopia; dystopia implies that it seems like a good world on the surface, but in reality it's horrible. This is not that, it's a bad world all around. </div>
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This being said, all throughout the novel, I very strongly felt that I was reading a knock-off of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MQYOFW/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002MQYOFW&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=FA2VLNP7LRUNPFLO">The Hunger Games</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B002MQYOFW" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />. The plantations being numbered, different plantations specializing in different things, and Nya the archer genius did give that feel to it.</div>
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Unfortunately, the world building isn't as great as I wanted it to be. Most things are left completely unexplained, and it feels like a lot of the things that are explained are done so moments before becoming pertinent to the plot, so sometimes I felt that we got some vital world building info that would have let me further sink into the world Freya and co. were living in way too late into the novel, to where it felt much more like a plot device than an organic part of the world.</div>
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None of the characters really stood out to me, unfortunately. I felt that Daphne and Damian actually had the strongest and most recognizable personalities, as well as the most character development. For instance, if you were to remove all dialogue tags and context, leaving you with only the text within the double quotation marks, I would not be able to differentiate the different characters. In fact, I would probably guess there being around five, maybe six characters, not twelve. I understand the length of this book does not give room to fully develop twelve entire characters, which is why I think a lot of these characters are redundant and are only useful for plot's sake than anything else, which is sad because you're supposed to kind of feel like they're all family.</div>
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The writing was pretty good most of the time. There are some glaring errors, namely missing commas and comma splices (though sometimes the comma splices made sense, whereas the missing commas did sometimes get in the way of the flow). It was a quick read, and I never felt like the narrator only told me things, which was refreshing.</div>
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Forever upset about no people of color, nor queer people in this book. Even The Hunger Games had POC, with Rue, Thresh, and even Katniss herself; for some reason, I get the feeling that the aliens only enslaved white people, and the rest of the population has been wiped out (yaawwwnn). So, even though there were quite a few characters to juggle with, I never came across any descriptions that would put them outside of white. Disappointing.</div>
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Overall I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars. It's enjoyable enough, but there are a lot of issues that made this book miss its potential.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ARMMNS8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ARMMNS8&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=SAGIFSNUI2WNIQOO">The Plantation (Book 1)</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00ARMMNS8" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-64785126607694600252014-07-07T16:00:00.000-04:002014-07-07T16:00:00.414-04:00The Color of a Memory - Julianne MacLean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYdRwI__Vr87URpk9RP1sKNrrk53FVMHgMdZHvrFSk6Aera5e4S1dBVVryP-2mNeoaXNnzhnYOvaqsYnBR1DKfrqMA4qEb8DqkQa0QpY3dxnVvQUWh-BEdz9gBbuTsAVJHhzK059IP11Q/s640/blogger-image--310281801.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYdRwI__Vr87URpk9RP1sKNrrk53FVMHgMdZHvrFSk6Aera5e4S1dBVVryP-2mNeoaXNnzhnYOvaqsYnBR1DKfrqMA4qEb8DqkQa0QpY3dxnVvQUWh-BEdz9gBbuTsAVJHhzK059IP11Q/s320/blogger-image--310281801.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">ER nurse Audrey Fitzgerald believed she was married to the perfect man - a heroic firefighter who saved lives, even beyond his own death. But a year after losing him she meets a mysterious woman who has some unexplained connection to her husband.... </span></blockquote>
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Audrey Livingston is a nurse who meets firefighter Alex Fitzgerald on just an average day at the clinic. However, she quickly finds herself falling for him. When he dies on the job, she is devastated, and the story follows her in investigating whether Alex was faithful and Nadia, a woman who received Alex's heart.</div>
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My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.</div>
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This was a quick read, but I can't really say I was ever very excited. The plot was dull - did the posthumous husband cheat or not? - and the characters themselves weren't exactly jumping off the page either. The writing doesn't ever seem to bring life to the story, always telling the reader everything, rather than showing them.</div>
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I felt like the story repeated established facts about the characters over and over again. I know that it was in part because the story split in the middle to narrate from Nadia's POV (which seemed unnecessary to me, but perhaps it's of importance in the other installments) but I felt like I was rereading parts of the book several times. Not to mention Nadia and Audrey had nearly identical styles of speech (very unlike <i>Seduced by Innocence</i>), making it hard for me to really differentiate between the characters. </div>
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Although there are a lot of women in this story, I feel like it barely even passes the Bechdel Test because literally all these women talk about are men in their lives. Alex is the main guy, but there's also his father, his best friend, etc. Never do we hear a conversation that doesn't center around Alex; there are no subplots that parallel to the main plot or anything. It's a very A to B to C plot, which is okay, but it lacks the complexity I expect from a lot of books.</div>
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And, you guessed it, no diversity. This was like heteronormative paradise, with every single significant female character having a baby to raise. I'm fine with stories that have people grow to become parents, but seriously? Every person in the novel? Come on. No people of color either, though I always saw David, Alex's friend as black despite there being no indication he was anything but white. I can't say that diversity would save the story, but every character being white and straight only serves to make the story more boring; at the very least, the story has to be something special for me to care much about the romance.</div>
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I give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars. It wasn't <i>bad, </i>per se, but it's not something I would recommend to anyone.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JQOGUOQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00JQOGUOQ&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20">You can find The Color of a Memory (The Color of Heaven Series Book 5) here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00JQOGUOQ" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </div>
scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-26304494862916543812014-07-04T16:00:00.000-04:002014-07-04T16:00:01.019-04:00Seduced By Innocence - Karpov Kinrade<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">All my life I've been told that I will kill my first love. That the dark power I harbor within myself will destroy him. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">Just like it's destroyed others. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">Witches take an oath to do no harm, but I broke that oath even as a child, and so I hide within the invisible walls of my strange coven, keeping everyone at a distance. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">Until I meet Derek.</span></blockquote>
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Rose is a dangerous girl: she has the power to destroy someone's mind, leaving them an empty shell of what they once were. She's been told all her life by her mother and other members of her witch community that her powers are uncontrollable and that she is doomed to a life of celibacy lest she kills her lover. However, she meets Derek, a man she is inexplicably drawn to, right as her coven prepares to launch an attack on the Druids, their enemy.</div>
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My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.</div>
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Surprisingly good. Considering this is the first book I've read since <i><a href="http://scarlettablack.blogspot.com/2014/06/blur-night-roamers-kristen-hiddleton.html" target="_blank">Blur</a></i>, it's not that big of a compliment, but I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would with a title like<i> </i>"Seduced by Innocence".</div>
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The world building is a bit disappointing. While we did hear about the spells and magicks the witches cast as well as the potion-making and shapeshifting of the Druids, I didn't feel like the story properly set up the worlds and sometimes it felt like the author was either making it up as they went along or expected the reader to already know about the community of either group. Compared to <i><a href="http://scarlettablack.blogspot.com/2014/06/botanicaust-tam-linsey.html" target="_blank">Botanicaust</a></i>, which had beautifully vivid world building and strong explanations for the occurrences in the book, I was probably spoiled with it and expected a bit too much.</div>
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The characters are pretty likeable and while they aren't fully developed, you can definitely get a feel for them. Most of the time I didn't look to see whose POV it was (as it switches back and forth between Derek and Rose, with a few chapters in which Blake narrates), but I always knew who was talking because they all have a different style, a different kind of internal monologue, which was pretty cool. </div>
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In particular, I really enjoyed seeing Blake's internal monologue because it differed so drastically from Derek's and really emphasized what a creep he is. He has this <span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Nice_guy_syndrome" target="_blank">Nice Guy™</a></span></span> sort of feel to him and at first I thought, 'well, maybe Rose is being a little harsh,' but as the book progressed you could see <i>exactly</i> why he made Rose's skin crawl, and while I know the book wasn't written before this, Blake's narration reads eerily similar to the Santa Barbara shooter's manifesto sometimes (especially in a part where he claimed to "deserve" Rose's affections). It was good to finally see a creepy, only nice to get the girl, kind of guy as the bad guy while being juxtaposed to a guy who actually respected Rose.</div>
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The theme was actually pretty cool. In each chapter, there is a quote from Shakespeare's <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, and it was interesting to see how the author wove their story to parallel and even challenge that play. Unlike our R&J, who are infatuated to the point that they marry in three days and are the cause of six deaths, this book challenges the families and claims that it isn't necessarily that the two main characters are too immature, but that the family cannot let go of past grievances.</div>
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(The following part is about the erotica in the book and I should probably disclose that I am asexual so my opinion may vary from an <a href="http://asexualityexists.tumblr.com/post/29138181610/on-allosexism" target="_blank">allosexual</a>'s.)</div>
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The sex was well written. I've read my fair share of porn and there's nothing worse than an author being noticeably embarrassed at what they're writing. This author, however, lays it all down, isn't squicked at describing vaginal anatomy and pleasure, and makes each scene (there's only a few, don't worry) enjoyable to read. I really do have to say well done because I'm tired of reading 'his manhood' and 'down there', and, other than a questionable "rose-colored nipples" (are there roses the color of the areola?), this author did it.</div>
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It's pretty feminist friendly. When Rose sets boundaries, they are always bent by her and not by Derek trying to coerce her. Everything is about consent. While I was pretty worried about that (the book is called <i>Seduced by Innocence</i> and there are several lines in which Derek is aroused by her 'innocence'), it all turned out to be okay. The Bechdel Test is passed. There are also a few queer characters and I'm really happy about that, even though only two of them get any sort of recognition. The lack of people of color is sad, (and the one POC in the novel was stereotypical and kind of racist with the Magic Asian who speaks broken English and runs a martial arts center or whatever) and I'd really rather read a book with a couple nonwhite people, but other than that I was mildly impressed.</div>
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Of course, the real downer is the ending. Here's the thing; I like reading fully developed stories. They must have some sort of resolution; this had none. I understand it's a first installment, but you can't deliver an unfinished manuscript and call it a first installment. That's not how it works, and I was disappointed that this author chose that route.</div>
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I give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. It wasn't written quite well enough to warrant a 4, but it was very enjoyable and actually kind of refreshing. It's a definite recommendation in my book.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B751B6E/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00B751B6E&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20">You can find Seduced by Innocence: A New Adult Paranormal Romance of Shifters & Witches (Rose's Trilogy, #1) (The Seduced Saga) here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00B751B6E" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-44865057978940464692014-06-30T02:12:00.000-04:002014-06-30T02:12:00.417-04:00Mythical - C.E. Martin<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 23px;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">Colonel Mark Kenslir is the last of the Cold War supersoldiers--and he's just come back from the dead. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">Sent to Arizona to hunt a heart-devouring shapeshifter, Colonel Kenslir and his team of supernatural-smashing soldiers thought it was just another mission. But instead of stopping the monster's murderous rampage, Kenslir and his team became the latest victims in trail of carnage blazed across the southwest. </span></blockquote>
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It's summertime for Josie and the gang, who ride off in their motorcycles to celebrate having graduated high school. However, they find a burnt boat and a stone man in the middle of the desert. Soon, the stone man comes to life as Colonel Mark Kenslir, a supersoldier with general amnesia. Josie and her friend, Jimmy, soon find themselves on a wild ride as they try to help Mark Kenslir remember his past and complete his mission.<br />
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My rating: 1 out of 5 stars.<br />
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I'm going to say them. I'm going to say the eight deadly words: "<strong data-mce-style="color: #000000;" style="color: black;">I don't care what happens to these people.</strong>" Though really, it's not that I don't care <em>what </em>happens to these people, but rather, I didn't care about them at all. I don't really blame this on the characters, since it seems that, given enough time, I might care about Josie, but I blame it all on the writing.</div>
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And what writing! What a flat, monotone voice. I mean, sure, I'm not going to expect a masterpiece out of a pulpy action story; that doesn't mean I've never enjoyed one. When I read a story based on action, I want to feel involved, I want my pulse to begin racing as it did when I watched <em>Pacific Rim</em> or <em>The Avengers</em>, you know, I want to worry that 'maybe the good guy won't win this time'. Nothing like that ever happened. I always was deeply aware of the disconnect I had with the story, Mark Kenslir is so ridiculously overpowered that I never really worried about his life (and the one time that I might have worried, it was a flashback so it was established that he does indeed survive), and the action really just reads like stage directions. For instance, in Kenslir's battle with Femagick, I don't know how many times I read the phrase "Femagick gestured again". There is so little variety in the types of sentences Martin uses that I found myself quite bored whenever it was an action scene.</div>
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It's as if the author was never told "Show, don't tell". At every point in the story, I knew exactly how every character felt, not because of gestures that clued me in, no, the author explicitly told me these things. Like, Josie wasn't afraid when she found the stone man, Jimmy was jealous, Mark was confused, et cetera ad nauseam. I don't want to read "She'd never been so mad in her life", like, please show me how mad she is, or how jealous he is, or what have you. I'm begging here.</div>
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I don't know why but this part really bugged me:</div>
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The giant grinned. He had learned long ago to form his heart on the left side of his chest, to avoid the spears, swords, knives and other weapons that had so often been employed against him in this form. But the black haired man with the strange green-black eyes had normal human anatomy. His heart was exactly where it should be.</div>
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Whhhhhhh??? ???<em>???????<strong>???????????</strong>??????????</em>?????? <em>Uhhhhhhh</em></div>
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I'm sorry, where do you think the heart is? I mean, it is roughly in the center but it's quite common knowledge that it tends to be <em>on the left side</em> of the person's chest. That's why, in the United States we place our right hand over our chest so that it crosses over to the left side so that it is over our heart. I understand that I shouldn't expect writers to have expert knowledge of human anatomy; I know I don't. But I do expect some very basic research so that things are relatively as they should be.</div>
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Rant over. Anyway.</div>
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Oh, speaking of rants, I at first thought this book was going to be primarily about Josie, and I was kind of excited in the beginning because I had just finished <em>The Shadow and the Rose</em> and I was so so so ready for some ladies to kick ass, and unfortunately for me, Josie is involved in exactly one fight scene, and almost every fight scene there is, she is a damsel in distress. (Also, are the descriptions of her clothes really necessary? And when she put on makeup she "<span data-mce-style="color: #000000;" style="color: black;">looked remarkably different"? Dude, do you know how long you have to work on makeup to dramatically change your look? And why does she have makeup on in the first place, why is she carrying that stuff around in the middle of the desert whhh??).</span></div>
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The only other lady who really plays a part in the story is Femagick (and I cringe every time I must read or write that), a sorceress who is ludicrously outpowered by the mighty Mark Kenslir. And you know, fine, whatever, Kenslir is your typical male power fantasy and I can handle him being outrageously overpowered, he's basically a comic book superhero, I can dig that. But like, can you not make your female antagonists hysterical and vain. It was just so blatantly misogynistic, Femagick's temper tantrum when Kenslir beat her. I'm not about that, no thanks.</div>
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And what really is disappointing is that the plot is kinda good. I thought it was strong, and I really was interested in the mythos of the whole world with superheroes and all that, but the writing and the bland characters really damaged the story to where I can't really recommend this as a book I enjoyed reading.</div>
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But, you don't necessarily have to take my word for it. If you like male power fantasies, and you like being read out how the characters are feeling, and you like reading in great detail what happens in a fight, this might be the book for you. I give it 1 out of 5 stars.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008913B3U/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008913B3U&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=7IL2XE3LHPIIFYU4">You can find Mythical (Stone Soldiers #1) here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B008913B3U" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-17891949199379146502014-06-28T05:05:00.001-04:002014-06-28T05:07:52.872-04:00Scarletta Reads Atlas Shrugged - Chapters 1-2<div><b>Chapter 1</b></div><div><br></div>The story starts off following Eddy Willers as he approaches Taggart Transcontinental to tell James Taggart that the Rio Norte Line is pretty much falling apart. James Taggart seems to be stuck on doing nothing because he still hasn't gotten in a shipment of steel for the tracks from his good friend.<div><br></div><div>Next, we follow Dagny Taggart as she heads to Taggart Transcontinental HQ as well, seeing how badly the railroad company is doing and deciding to implement change: first by canceling the order of steel to instead order Rearden Metal, and then to work on the Rio Norte Line. J Taggart is for the most part unreasonable while D Taggart is the epitome of reason.</div><div><br></div><div>--</div><div><br></div><div>The first chapter is by no means attention grabbing. To be frank, a lot of the words that I've been seeing feel like white noise - you could probably half this novel's length and get more impact from truncating it. While I tend to like descriptive novels, this novel seems hellbent on adding a lot of things that seem like symbolism and needlessly elaborating on what Rand is already saying. I'm willing to bet at least 75% of these are cases of faux symbolism written just to seem profound.</div><div><br></div><div>I'm not here for an Aesop's tale, and that seems to be what I'm getting right off the bat. Logic and reason = good; empathy and basic human emotions = bad. While I see some point in this, fervently attacking J for having loyalty and, you know, <i>pesky emotions,</i> is Kind Of. It is starting out a bit absurd, as right now the story seems to say 'the less you function as a human being the more valuable and therefore better you are'.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Chapter 2</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>This chapter is 100% about Henry "Hank" Rearden, who, after months and months of tireless work, has gotten his first order of Rearden Metal and has begun pouring it in preparation. While he is overjoyed by this, his family is cool and indifferent to his success, blaming him for not caring about them. His mother and brother are by far the worst offenders, with his wife and friend occasionally (not always, mind) stepping in to defend him.</div><div><br></div><div>--</div><div><br></div><div>I had been told I should at least get to reading about Rearden but. I mean it's like "here's another human robot who is contemptuous of these meager humans and their pesky need for contact and emotions, BAH" and I'm just not feeling it.</div><div><br></div><div>I liked Lillian though. His wife? Was pretty cool, like she just kind of talked to in a way he could relate and defended him from the worst diatribes. But like. Rearden really is the most arrogant asshole like. He overanalyzes every single move his family makes as begging at his feet "throwing themselves at his feet" I believe is the term used (twice) for money and time from him and he just <i>condescends</i> to helping these poor, sad, over emotional human beings, waahh. Like is Rearden supposed to be a good human being for blowing off family? Is he supposed to be a good human being for feeling like he's doing his wife a HUGE favor by agreeing to show up at their anniversary? I don't get it. I really don't. </div><div><br></div><div>The one thing I liked was the end: “A chain," [Lillian] said. "Appropriate, isn't it? It's the chain by which he holds us all in bondage.”</div>scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-28622797874388029522014-06-27T16:00:00.000-04:002014-06-27T16:00:00.726-04:00The Shadow and the Rose - Amanda DeWees<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 23px;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">When ordinary high-school junior Joy Sumner visits a graveyard at midnight on a dare, she doesn't expect to end up sharing a kiss with brooding teen model Tanner Lindsey. And she definitely doesn't expect to make an enemy of Tanner's seductive, sinister mentor, the ageless supermodel Melisande--who may not be entirely human--or to find that her sleepy little corner of North Carolina is buzzing with supernatural energy. </span></blockquote>
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Joy Sumner, a junior attending Ash Grove, an extremely competitive performing arts high school, ventures out to a graveyard at midnight because of a dare. What she doesn't expect to find is teen model Tanner Lindsey, an old student at Ash Grove. She finds herself at odds with the new big celebrity in town, the beautiful Melisande, and works through her year to survive high school and uncover the mystery behind Melisande and Ash Grove.<br />
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My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.<br />
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Given how common the 'supernatural romance' genre is, I was really expecting this to be kind of trite and predictable. However, I think this might be the first book I have read to review that I feel like raving about.</div>
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The plot begins a bit cliched. Girl meets boy. In a graveyard, sure, we have to set the right tone for a dark fantasy romance, but still. However, the interactions between Joy and Tanner are very organic, and while things can be laid on a little thick, you never feel like they're being strangled with the red string, but rather that their relationship grows pretty realistically after that first kiss.</div>
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I'll admit, I didn't read the blurb before trying out this book (or, if I had, I had long forgotten it when I got to reading this book), so I didn't actually know there would be supernatural elements to this book. But, it was fun. The explanations we do get about the paranormal activity happening seemed unique but believable enough, if that makes sense. I didn't quite understand why we never heard of the 'time slip' experiences from anyone but Joy, especially considering that it's pretty much stated that the powers coursing through the school grounds had a much smaller effect on Joy than most of her classmates, so it would only make sense that at least a few of them would experience some of the things that Joy did, but I digress.</div>
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I did like definite condemnation of Melisande's sexual and exploitative relationship with Tanner; unfortunately, there's such a large stigma in sexually abused men that 'they weren't <em>really</em> taken advantage of' or 'they definitely wanted it anyway' so to see a big issue like that tackled with grace was really nice.</div>
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The representation in the book, while not perfect, is definitely a step up from the books that I've been going through, so I must applaud the author for that. It's stated that the main character is 'plump', and her weight is often commented on by one of her classmates (and her six month pregnancy is still concealable), so it's really nice that there's a positive portrayal of a bigger girl that doesn't culminate in some dramatic weight loss. Wish the girl on the cover of the book might represent that, but I suppose you can't have everything. The black girl, Tasha, is not written stereotypically, though I do wish that she had more time 'on screen' and could have taken control of a subplot. (And of course, I always roll my eyes a bit when POC are described using food - coffee-colored skin, for example.) While the main gay man, Clarke is 'sassy', it really doesn't try to overdo it or go "hahaha look at this sassy gay man, he's so funny and gay". Like all of the other characters, he's a realistic portrayal of the people around us. And I liked that. I only hope that in the next installments she has added more people of color and possibly lesbians.</div>
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I don't really know what to think of about William, Joy's best male friend. I mean, he has a crush on Maddie, Joy's roommate, and gets angry that she only seems to date jerks and acts like being the 'nice guy' is a curse, but other than one outburst from him, we never hear him trying to police who Maddie decides to date, or try to make her feel obligated to date her because he's decent to her. Is he a Nice Guy or a guy who is genuinely nice? I couldn't quite get a grasp to figure it out.</div>
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But anyway. I loved the characters. Loved them, especially our protag. She has her own issues, her own angst, but she doesn't dwell on those things enough to keep her from focusing on the mysteries at hand. That, and I just love this line:</div>
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"If you’re such a waste of space, I’d have to be pretty stupid to care about you, and I am not stupid; I am goddamned awesome."</div>
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Yes. Yes! I need girls who have a high esteem of themselves, who don't need their love interest to save them, who see the good aspects of themselves, and aren't afraid to say it. God, when that happened I was cheering.</div>
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This book was a refreshing find. I hope that you all will give it the chance it deserves. (And, as of right now, the ebook on Kindle is free! So, it's a good opportunity)</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009YO4GT4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009YO4GT4&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=DBKBBWKZ3BQDEOH3">You can find The Shadow and the Rose (The Ash Grove Chronicles)Here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B009YO4GT4" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-69308755445902709032014-06-23T16:00:00.000-04:002014-06-23T21:03:00.256-04:00Investigating the Hottie - Juli Alexander<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 23px;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">When Amanda spends a week with her aunt, Christie, she learns that her aunt is a spy. Christie admits that Amanda has security clearance and has already started her training. When her aunt asks her to investigate a teenage hacker, Amanda thinks that spending time with a nerd should be doable despite her social ineptitude. Unfortunately for Amanda, the hacker is a hottie.</span></blockquote>
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Amanda Peterson, super spy. At least, that's the temporary occupation this high school sophomore takes when she spends her fall break at her aunt's place. Her assignment? To investigate a hacker who has promised something big come next Monday. So far, the top suspect is Will Middleton, who attends school near the area. Unfortunately for Amanda, the hacker is, in her words "yummy".<br />
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My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.<br />
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I actually really liked this book. It's definitely for a slightly younger audience, but the flow of the story, from exposition to rising action to climax to resolution, was really really good. I thoroughly enjoyed the main plot, and the romance was pretty good as well. The plot twist at the end was actually really really good (though I'm beginning to realize that maybe I have a knack for spotting foreshadowing way before the reveal is, well, revealed).</div>
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The characters were all pretty likeable. I was particularly surprised at how much I liked Will, as usually I'm pretty apathetic about the love interest in these sorts of novels, but here he and Amanda both seemed to come alive. I felt the chemistry was good. Plus, it was fun to see her aunt, Christie, banter with her partner, Nic. Overall the relationships shown in this book were organic and pretty realistic - or at least as realistic as a book with spies can be.</div>
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The only bad thing is more of a personal preference, I guess. I was a little creeped out by Amanda's word choice when describing Will, as her go-to word is "yummy" or some variation thereof. I can understand it maybe once or twice, but after a while it seemed a bit creepy. And while I was glad there was at least one person of color, there was a line that was a little suspect. Like, there are black people who don't live in the south. They're going to have whatever accent that area has. Not everyone speaks in solely AAVE. Come on, people. (And then, as usual, heteronormativity. "I wanted a boyfriend. What girl wouldn't?" Well, most of the time, me to be perfectly honest. And other asexual girls. And lesbians.)</div>
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However, despite those little things, I found myself having fun while reading this, and I actually finished it pretty quickly because I kept wanting to read further.</div>
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I would definitely give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ATV9O4S/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ATV9O4S&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=2ZBQLLYQZGEPLVMT">You can find Investigating the Hottie here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00ATV9O4S" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-68634107179052481982014-06-20T16:00:00.000-04:002014-06-20T16:00:00.649-04:00Remember This (A Romantic Comedy) - Shae Buggs<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 23px;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">Lu</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">cy, a hard working shenanigan queen, finds evidence that her husband, Mason, cheated on her. In a heated moment, she throws a wine bottle at his head leaving him unable to remember anything from his past. Since she is responsible for her husband’s amnesia, it is her responsibility to get his memory back. Motivated by revenge, Lucy plans a way to get Mason back to normal while having a little fun in the process. This story unveils her comical attempts to sabotage him and how he tries to win her back.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Clumsy and hardworking Lucy Harper has lately found herself growing apart from her husband Mason. However, one day she finds compelling evidence that he has cheated on her, and in a moment of passion chucks a wine bottle at his head, inducing a case of amnesia. Now, she needs to get his memory back so they can finally get to divorcing. However, Lucy soon finds herself falling for this amnesiac Mason, like t</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he first time around.</span><br />
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My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.</div>
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I like a good romcom as much as the next romantic chick. The whole 'boy meets girl' or vice versa, the banter, the flirting, the endgame romance; it's all fun, and I'm certainly not expecting something that defies all romcom cliches. However, with this story... I go back and forth on this story. There are aspects of it that I enjoy, and others that I don't.</div>
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Well, as a starter, I disliked the protagonist, which is probably not a good sign. She seemed quite petty and unsympathetic; I mean, she sees a bra, hanging up, away from the bedroom in a very peculiar place and doesn't give her husband any time to defend himself - which is understandable, to an extent - and <em>chucks a wine bottle at him</em>. a full wine bottle, at that. I don't drink, but I've held a wine bottle; it's pretty heavy. Whether or not she is drunk doesn't excuse her throwing something that, given a good or bad throw (depending on how you look at it), could probably kill someone or at least cause massive injury. What's more is that it broke upon impact, and I know bottles of alcohol have thick glass, indicating that the force with which it was thrown was certainly enough to kill. Mason was probably lucky to only suffer temporary amnesia. And after that, she doesn't seem too guilty about it, choosing to complain about having to be in proximity to Mason for longer instead of showing remorse for almost killing her husband.</div>
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On the other hand, I did like the gradual shift in opinion towards Eli, who had so many red flags up during the beginning I read going 'No, no, no, you <em>cannot</em> be seriously considering him as an option. Please, no.' This being, he has a girlfriend, but is attempting to pursue a relationship with Lucy at the same time. I've nothing against polyamorous relationships, given that they're healthy and maintained with lots of honesty; alas, this is the same old story of 'I can't get rid of the girlfriend I no longer love' and leaving the other woman hanging as he plays his cheating game. But then, amazingly enough, Eli was acknowledged as the sleazy dude I pegged him for, and got a pretty satisfying end, if I may say.</div>
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I did like the small twist, as I had guessed at it for a while before (though it's not as if the author doesn't foreshadow it about three or four times prior to the reveal).</div>
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There is a sex scene (or two) in the book but they're not much to read. A pet peeve of mine is when female genitals are referred to as 'umm, down there' or '<em>there</em>', which is of course exactly how the protag calls her genitals while they have sex. It's okay, authors everywhere. It's called a vagina. You might be referring to the clitoris if you're talking about stimulation. I understand we have grown up to fear our anatomy and the thought of using clit or vag seems dirty or what have you, but actually referring to the body part instead of 'down there' just reads so much better, as well as defying the constant neglect of saying anything about the female anatomy.*</div>
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The humor was mostly of the slapstick or bathroom variety; which is funny at times, no joke, but it can grow a little old and immature. There are only so many times one can read a fart joke before seriously reconsidering whether this is actually a book intended for adults and not preteen boys. There was also a throwaway line that seemed kind of transmisogynistic, used as a punchline, which was of pretty bad taste.</div>
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I know I criticize the hell out of these books, but I swear they're better than I make them out to be - otherwise it's unlikely I would bother to finish them. Still, this one was stale, the romance unable to reach its potential, the comedy juvenile, and to top it off, a good number of typos and grammatical errors. Overall? I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A0C9T5U/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00A0C9T5U&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=YN4PVR5SIRXVI3CU">You can find Remember This (A Romantic Comedy) here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00A0C9T5U" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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*when I say female anatomy I mean the sex female - gender and sex are different things and I understand that men and people who don't fit under the gender binary can have vaginas.</div>
scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-71580309117303257112014-06-19T02:13:00.001-04:002014-06-19T14:16:49.122-04:00Atlas Shrugged - A Bi-chapter CommentarySo far I've been reviewing books I've found on Amazon, which are usually not exactly the most popular books on Kindle. Now, however, I'm going to try to read a much bigger, much more famous book: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.<div><br></div><div>I've decided that I'll give a review every two chapters for this book. They'll be short updates, and they won't stop the regular book reviews from coming in every Monday and Friday. These reviews will always be under a read-more, and they will contain spoilers. If you've read Atlas Shrugged and you want to join me in my commentary, I'd love to share this conversation with you.</div><div><br></div><div>That's all; I just wanted to update on a new goal of mine. </div>scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-90033759771721777192014-06-16T16:00:00.000-04:002014-06-16T16:00:02.457-04:00The Paparazzi Project - Kristina Springer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">Livvie Peterson thought taking Interpersonal Communications her junior year would be an easy A. But when the first assignment is given, her world flips upside down. Here’s the deal: the class is assigned a six-week project and is split into three groups— Paparazzi, Tabloid, and Celebrities. The Paparazzi follow around the Celebrities taking pictures and grabbing any kind of quotes they can. The Celebrities try to navigate being tailed on a daily basis. And the Tabloid receives all the information collected by the Paparazzi and decides what makes the weekly summary report. Sounds harmless…and it’s all just pretend anyway, right? </span></blockquote>
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Livvie Peterson has just been assigned a project - to be a part of the paparazzi. For school, of course. Her junior year Interpersonal Communications class's first assignment is to recreate the relationship between celebrities, paparazzi, and the tabloids. So she follows around the selected celebrities, taking pictures, and sending them to her tabloid contact, the cute Chas, to spin several articles a week, just like regular tabloids. It starts off innocently enough, but exactly how much can someone take their personal life being broadcasted to the school?</div>
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My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.</div>
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Don't get me wrong, I'm usually a fan of the YA genre, but this was definitely more well catered for a younger audience. It was enjoyable enough and had a pretty important message to send, but I think a preteen or thirteen/fourteen year old would enjoy the book much more.</div>
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The writing is juvenile. It is in first person, and the person in question is a junior in high school (though as far as I can remember, the last time I might have acted anything like any of the characters in the story would have been freshman year at the latest), so it fits with the narrator's voice, but it can get a bit annoying at times. Sometimes I liked Livvie. Sometimes I didn't. She struck me as hypocritical most of the time, as the first part of the book is spent with her tiring of her best friend's drama and talking about how she hates drama, then spends the rest of the book (eagerly) searching for any scandal she can find and effectively creates as much drama as she possibly can. Though this hypocrisy is addressed in part, it is often left for the reader to ponder over.</div>
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Of course, since this is a high school story, a large part of the subplot is the romance between Livvie and her 'tabloid contact' Chas, and the drama between her best friend, Tessa, and her cheating boyfriend, Mike. Livvie doesn't shut up about how cute, or hot, or smart, or kind, Chas is. I didn't care for Chas that much, frankly. I stopped caring when he said it was refreshing that she didn't gossip much. This is in part because it is completely false as she spends the entire novel creating gossip with him, but mostly it is because I'm very tired of boys in real life using the 'you're not like other girls' line to compliment them, as it of course reinforces the thought that girls are generally vapid and catty, and in order to compliment a girl you must demean other girls.</div>
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Of course, I can't really say that any of these girls, except maybe Talia, or Emma perhaps, even imitate the behaviors of normal girls, as most of them are catty, gossipy, even at times hysterical. Which brings me to Tessa, Livvie's best friend. The story begins with Tessa discovering that her boyfriend has been cheating on her. While I'm glad that this story does not quickly delve into 'getting him back' and turning into her against the mystery girl, the story takes a good amount of time condemning the girl for going after Mike, when it's not even extremely clear if 1) she even knows that Tessa and Mike are dating or 2) if it was her who went after Mike or if Mike was the one who started the affair.</div>
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And, as usual, the whiteness of the entire cast (I don't think there was a single person in the book who wasn't white, actually) and the heteronormativity of the story failed to make the story stand out in any sort of way to me.</div>
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So, a 3 out of 5 stars. It was good, fun, and the overall message was worth hearing, but overall bland, typical, and trite.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AMO4GSQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AMO4GSQ&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=ZYUCWK6YRXBPVHDU">You can find The Paparazzi Project here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00AMO4GSQ" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-60854457620513265482014-06-13T16:00:00.000-04:002014-06-13T16:00:01.863-04:00Arrival (The Maddy Young Saga) - Nick Pirog<div style="text-align: center;">
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Maddy Young is dead. Or at least that's what they tell him. Imagine that when you die, you have a 1 in 3 chance of having another life; same body, same age, same place as when you died. But for Maddy, everything is not making sense. He was just a week away from his Bar exam and starting his life as a Public Defender, when he made a grand entrance into this second life of his—a place they call Two.</blockquote>
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<strong>TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS STORY: </strong>Mentions of death and various ways to die throughout; brief rape mention, lesbophobic language and general homophobia</div>
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This story is about Madison "Maddy" Young, a young man who has died jerking off in the shower before the story has even begun. But he doesn't find himself in your typical afterlife, but instead a facility with other people, who all have died too. They've found themselves in a rehabilitation center in a place called Two, a world were one in three people arrive to in the afterlife. It's just like the living world, Maddy finds, only with people who have died. However, some things are not quite as they seem. They surround the conspiracy of the 'Borns', people who are supposedly born in Two.<br />
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My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.<br />
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I liked the overall sense of style to the story, but I have to say that Maddy's constant comments to JeAnn, someone he only assumes is a lesbian, which are often pretty derogatory. Well, overall his internal monologue is often quite misogynistic. Unfortunately, I feel this is supposed to just be some sort of 'endearing characteristic', in which it 'adds to the comedy'. It doesn't.</div>
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Unfortunately it seems that there was no editor in the making of this, as there are just over 100 pages and a handful of typos that are very easy to spot and correct. One or two are marginally acceptable, but it's a little... Not to mention some weird goof ups. For instance, Darrel quickly becomes Maddy's new close friend, but Maddy mentions that Darrel and he are friends... chapters before even introducing Darrel by name, apparently. And he starts one chapter by rehashing what happened in the last chapter. I wouldn't exactly expect a reader to forget everything that just happened in the last chapter. Maybe it was to add to the tone and style to the story, but it fell flat.</div>
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Speaking of the length of the story, there is absolutely no payoff to this story. This was not a full story, it was the exposition. The author set up the premise, created some potentially interesting characters, got me invested in the overall plot - then ended on a cliffhanger. Not a good cliffhanger either; absolutely <em>nothing</em> is resolved. There is no climax. There is barely even rising action. It just ends with an author's note asking the reader to buy the second installment. I'm not impressed.</div>
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However, I did initially enjoy the diversity to the story; the rehabilitation facility is filled with a lot of people of color, of all ages. However, the only people of color who seem to remain in the story is Dr. Raleigh and Darrel, who both are, in my opinion, more interesting than the protag. But that is neither here nor there. And the author seems completely fine with adding queer characters - if only he would stop with the homophobic remarks. But, despite the remarks, JeAnn, who is, unfortunately only insinuated to be gay by Maddy, is extremely professional and likeable, so there may be hope? Hopefully.</div>
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To be honest, I got this story while it was on sale, for free, and read it in a little over a day. While I actually did enjoy a lot of the story (the premise is extremely interesting, the plot twists are compelling, and I'd like to know what happened to Berlin, the little girl), I probably wouldn't buy the second installment unless it also briefly went on sale for free. It doesn't quite seem worth it to reward a guy for writing misogynistic and homophobic remarks that really seem to be his views on these topics and for setting up the reader to pay again for the actual story.</div>
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I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars. The idea is extremely good, the supporting characters are intriguing, the protagonist tolerable, and the writing pretty good, but the problems mentioned above are pretty serious for me.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GTLPGN0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00GTLPGN0&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=O334OI2HWAB2SSQN">You can find Arrival (Maddy Young Saga 1) here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00GTLPGN0" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></div>
scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-44742815720447115422014-06-09T16:00:00.000-04:002014-06-09T16:00:00.897-04:00Crying in Colour - Sally Sorrell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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George definitely got off at the wrong bus-stop. Either that, or he's having a really bizarre dream. Probably both, as he wakes up in a tree with two strangely-dressed men staring up at him.</blockquote>
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<em>Crying in Colour </em>is a story about modern Brit George, who lands in this medieval land one might hear about in old tales. This story combines medieval fantasy with modern wit. George plays the straight man to Lord Farley and his hodge podge crew: Oberon, the voluntary servant to Farley; Chancy, the long-haired, beautiful gentleman with an aversion to violence and bloodshed; Mackerel, a jack of all trades and his younger brother Koi; and Benjee, an Australian woman. This unlikely group bands together on a quest to find the magical Tear-Stone.</div>
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My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.</div>
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What's fun about this book is that it's a quite modern way of storytelling, but it keeps the fun and wonder of a historic fantasy that is in no way historically accurate. It was interesting and often funny to see George so far removed from his home in England and being forced to interact with Lord Farley and company, who are ardent about the existence of magic, of chivalry and of quests. An interesting spin to the story is that the author is a character in the story. They only speak to George and occasionally send down notes from the sky. At first I thought it was a bit awkward and like reading a fanfiction in which the writer interrupts the story midstory to talk to the characters, but I very quickly got used to the banter between George and the author, and the ending makes the author's frequent appearance into the story make sense.<br />
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It was a fun, short, read. To be honest, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but by the end I had really grown to care about all of the characters and felt a bit empty when I had finished it.<br />
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I really enjoyed reading it and I would highly recommend reading it. I give it a 4 out of 5 stars. <br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FNZX5HC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FNZX5HC&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=E6MYOAL3BGAPYLNC">You can find Crying in Colour here.</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00FNZX5HC" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-4647006941926944972014-06-08T03:30:00.001-04:002014-06-08T03:30:15.447-04:00UpdateNot a review in itself, but just an update saying that I'm going to be importing my reviews from my previous blog onto here. Not all at once, but I'll schedule them to come in about once a week. Thanks!scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-87307389769028841902014-06-07T03:06:00.000-04:002014-06-20T11:39:01.830-04:00Blur (Night Roamers) - Kristen Middleton<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: start;">Seventeen year old Nikki and her twin Nathan have moved to Shore Lake to start over after their mother is brutally attacked. When Nikki starts seeing shadows outside of her bedroom window and hears whispers of vampires in town, she realizes that there are worse dangers than what they left behind in the big city.</span></blockquote>
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Nikki, her mother, and her twin brother, Nathan, move to Shore Lake after her father sexually assaults and rapes her mother. However, what originally looks like a great place to at least start getting their bearings turns out far more deadly than anyone could have foreseen. A dead body the first night, and mysterious figures outside at night cause fear in both Nikki and Nathan.</div>
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My rating: 1 out of 5 stars</div>
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Ugh. Ugghhhh. There are not many books I would just consider <i>bad</i>, but this certainly takes the cake. In fact, I think that I may have preferred <i><a href="http://scarlettablack.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/mythical-stone-soldiers-1-book-review/" target="_blank">Mythical</a></i> to this, and that's saying a lot. While it was a quick read, it had me groaning all the way through. </div>
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The entire book is women losing consent over their bodies. It starts off on the very first pages, with the mother brutally raped for ~shock value~. Then, we find a dead girl in the lake, which looks like an accident at first but looks more and more like a covered-up murder as time passes - another violation of a woman's body. Then we have yet another girl killed. An older woman killed. Nikki herself forcibly taken and essentially drugged into wanting to have sex. Soon we learn her mother has the same sort of thing happening to her. We have men fighting over Nikki and not giving her a right to say anything. Someone says Nikki came of her own free will to a place, when, pages before we read her literally saying "no" while being carried to said place. A guy says that whoever has been spying on Nikki while she bathes is a 'lucky guy' and worse, we're supposed to see him as a good guy and that comment as a flirty compliment. It. Is. Disgusting. </div>
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Even if we were to look past this, the writing, nor the characters, nor the plot could have saved this book. It is frankly guilty of bad writing all around.</div>
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The author has no real idea how to use commas. There are oodles of commas where there oughtn't be, and commas mysteriously disappeared into the night when they are needed most. There was an "effect/affect" error and a "your/you're" error. I can usually forgive a few typos, but those are two typos that a writer always looks for in their writing, so for these to be so egregiously overlooked is a sign of lazy editing, to be quite frank. The few times the author attempts italicized internal monologue (which isn't exactly necessary since we already have Nikki NARRATING THE STORY) she writes it in past tense. Sorry, but do you think of an even happening to you <i>right then</i> in past tense? Even in the regular narration, there's a lot of weird tense changes for no reason, usually from past tense to past perfect tense. Again, these are situations in where regular ol' past tense works fine and even better than past perfect.</div>
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The characters are bland. Nikki is a straight, white, "average" (which is the author saying 'pretty' without having to say 'pretty') girl who undergoes a personality change during the second half of the book, from "vaguely interested in guys" to "unable to control herself around guys". Nathan is the Big Eater man who Loves The Ladies. Mom is the Supernatural Skeptic who is mutating into something while going "nah, nothing's wrong". Caleb and Ethan are Obviously Evil and the fact that the author thinks the reader is too dumb to figure out the former is a vampire is Kind Of. Duncan is the Boy Love Interest who is Very In Love For No Reason Except That The Plot Demands It. None of these characters get deeper than this. None of these characters ever progress their development in a realistic way. I hated all of these characters and didn't care very much what happened to them, save for when ETHAN RIPS THE DOOR OFF A CAR TO GET TO NIKKI AND THIS IS NOT PORTRAYED AS SCARY.</div>
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The plot could have been good. You have a bunch of evil vampires in one area, several of whom have closed in on the family. That could be the plot beginnings of a Stephen King book. But, weird, out of place, badly paced, dumb as hell romance plots pop up out of nowhere. I'm fine with romance. I actually enjoyed Twilight the first time through, I rooted for Ron and Hermoine ever since the third book came out, I'm a fan of Pride and Prejudice. There are a lot of ways for romance to be done and to be done well. Even sexual romance which is, again, not my thing. But these characters had zero chemistry whatsoever. Duncan and Nikki had no chemistry, Ethan and Nikki had negative chemistry, and while we do see the mom and Caleb a couple times, their relationship isn't stellar either. If you want me to believe these relationships are good for the characters you have to make it a bit believable. But the plot goes all over the place, the characters, barring the family, know each other for a week at best during the entire duration of the novel and yet everyone is Super Tight. Not to mention the chapters just end. I think the author meant to be suspenseful but it was just someone saying something and the chapter ended, with the next chapter continuing the conversation. The book also ends on a cliffhanger in which absolutely nothing is resolved. Doesn't make sense. </div>
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I could go on further. But this book isn't worth any of your time, even if it is free on Amazon. I'm not even going to post a link to the book because I believe in you all and I urge you all to love yourselves. Needless to say, I give it a 0.5 out of 5 stars.</div>
scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-642789601367084432014-06-05T21:17:00.004-04:002014-06-14T05:42:40.233-04:00Botanicaust - Tam Linsey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: start;">After genetically altered weeds devastate Earth's croplands, Dr. Tula Macoby believes photosynthetic skin can save the human race. Her people single-mindedly embark on a mission to convert the cannibals roaming what's left of Earth. But when Levi, a peaceful stranger, refuses alteration, Tula doesn't think the only options should be conversion or death.</span></blockquote>
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It's a futuristic, crapsack world. The earth has experienced the Botanicaust, in which foreign weeds have overtaken almost all plantlife, leaving no crops or the like for humanity. Most have resorted to cannibalism in order to survive; other humans have found a way to survive without much sustenance: by inserting chloroplasts into their skin and photosynthesizing like plants do.</div>
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In Levi's case, his community does neither. A heavily religious, tightknit town, using electric fences to keep out the dangerous weeds and the cannibals, the Holdout has been able to survive the Botanicaust. However, his son, Josef, has cystic fibrosis, and there is no way of curing it, except for maybe contacting the Fosselites, advanced people who have also survived the Botanicaust and have discovered eternal life. His journey begins when he searches for them.</div>
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Tula is a Haldanian doctor, a Conversion Psychiatrist who aids cannibals in converting to Haldanians, people with chloroplasts implanted in their system. However, when the Burn Ops capture a person who might not actually be a cannibal, Tula takes off on an adventure that will change her life.</div>
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My rating: 5 out of 5 stars</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bow down. We have a winner here.</td></tr>
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During my time using <a href="http://scarlablack.hubpages.com/hub/Bookbub-The-New-Way-to-Find-Books" target="_blank">BookBub as a way to find free books</a>, I have been waiting for a book like this. I've been wallowing in the books with okay plots, but badly written characters, or beautiful characters and weak plots, of both good characters and good plots but horrible, stilted writing, and more. <i>Botanicaust</i> is such a wonderful departure from the land of Mediocre Writing.</div>
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The science fiction is science fiction-y. If you don't like the science fiction genre, it's very possible this book just won't appeal to you. However, I love science fiction. It usually doesn't call my name like fantasy or YA novels based on Greek Mythology, but hey, give me a sci-fi book and I will read it with gusto. In this book, we have green people and immortal (barring fatal wounds and the like) people. Interestingly enough neither of these are aliens, but rather humans who have dealt with some interesting biochemical engineering. It goes into both the ethics of science (ie, forcing people to convert, the use of test subjects without consent, etc), and the hubris of scientists. In Tula's case, she has a hard time believing that anyone could <i>not </i>want to be Haldanian. She gets the food she needs through the sunlight, and with minor things like protein supplements, she can exist with relative ease. In the Fosselites' case, well. That's a bit of a spoiler, but it still ties in with the theme of 'sometimes we are our worst enemies'.</div>
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Everyone knows that religion and science often don't go together, so it was interesting to see a highly religious community in a sci fi novel. I think it worked beautifully, and really gave the 'moral way' a very big push and pull in progressive views, represented by the Haldanians, and conservative views, represented by the Old Order, with the median view being indicated as the best way.</div>
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The world building is beautiful, to say the least. When I picked up the book to continue reading, the descriptions of the world made me vividly imagine all of it, from the Holdout to the Protectorate to the cannibal lands. I took a peek at the author's bio, and her education focus on bioengineering makes a ton of sense - it is literally everywhere in her novel. And while this is science fiction and not everything is possible with today's technology, everything seemed realistic given the wording and the explanations behind it. </div>
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The only things I can think to criticize is the romance between Tula and Levi. Frankly, I was more interested in the world and the debates within the novel; I found myself trying to skip ahead when I noticed the sex coming up. I'm never one to enjoy the 'this woman is seducing me, I cannot control my loins' line that Levi's POV repeated a million times. The end of the book's status on their relationship was actually really satisfying, though, so I can forgive what I often struggled through in the book. However, if you really like romance, and sexual romance at that, this probably won't be a bad thing to you.</div>
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While the two main characters (and the two cannibals introduced in the book, gosh) are well written, I feel that the main antagonist, Tula's boss, was a bit weaker. Makes you think about the Protectorate and the power system the native Haldanians have over the converts, as it doesn't really make sense for an obviously...xenophobic? genophobic? man to be the head of conversions, unless the rest of the Haldanians were. (Which is funny because all of them are not naturally green as all of them originated from biomed engineers - kind of similar to xenophobic white Americans whose ancestors came from Not America). However, it was good to have a hysterical and Completely Wrong male character, as I've had to deal with that kind of character being female for so long. </div>
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It's pretty feminist friendly. While it doesn't have many women, the main female character is as developed, if not more, as the male protag. It passes <a href="http://adf.ly/pK31O" target="_blank">the Bechdel test</a><a href="http://adf.ly/pK31O" target="_blank"> </a>several times. I almost lost hope for people of color (the regular colors, not green, haha) when one of the Fosselites turned out to be a black woman, and one who didn't die at the end or be shown to be hysteric or lesser than her white peers, god bless. I think some of the cannibals may have also been nonwhite? I would have loved more, but I'm glad there were at least a couple. And again, the lack of diverse sexualities and gender expressions was disappointing but expected.</div>
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I would recommend this to all my friends. I probably will end up recommending this to all my friends. It is by far the best, most fully developed story I've read in a long while. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. </div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008VEUMQ4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008VEUMQ4&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=YRYHEY5L5RWKAPWD">You can find Botanicaust here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B008VEUMQ4" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-41310930901344966362014-05-30T09:36:00.000-04:002014-06-09T03:59:24.079-04:00Scary Mary - S.A. Hunter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYnRpQWIvMD27MtH1EO6hn8EzrHXjIkqjmUsMwoO45EI_RvoHgLlpsX3i2fX_WW6iVRllhCVUJkAZrXQRUVxZrvIkoSz_49I3TY1g2qtU8s60y4qIC6rzI7zj3904RzopvtWtw2a6wN8Q/s640/blogger-image-1157942145.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYnRpQWIvMD27MtH1EO6hn8EzrHXjIkqjmUsMwoO45EI_RvoHgLlpsX3i2fX_WW6iVRllhCVUJkAZrXQRUVxZrvIkoSz_49I3TY1g2qtU8s60y4qIC6rzI7zj3904RzopvtWtw2a6wN8Q/s320/blogger-image-1157942145.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Mary has always been different. She’d like to be normal, but being able to hear ghosts means she’ll never be like everyone else. She starts her junior year of high school hoping to be left alone, but Cyrus Asher is new and doesn’t know or seem to care that she’s an outcast. They start hanging out and all is well until she goes over to his house. Cy’s house is haunted, and not by Caspar, the friendly ghost. </span></blockquote>
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Mary is an outcast at her school. She can hear ghosts, and that, complemented with her macabre sense of humor, has earned her the title of 'Scary Mary' or freak, if classmates don't want to get too formal. However, the new kid, Cy, doesn't seem too bad. In fact, Mary kind of likes him. But when she goes over to his house, she finds that Cy's house is haunted, and not by any old thing, but by a malevolent and dangerous spirit.</div>
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My rating: 2 out of 5 stars</div>
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This book had a chance at being good, had the writing been better. As it stands, it was written poorly and awkwardly. The prose had no cadence to it at all, making the style about as dry and bland as my mom's overcooked chicken. Though the author did use some 'show, don't tell', nothing ever lifted off of the page, or felt real.</div>
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Mary has a sour additute. I'm fine with unlikeable characters, as I've said in my review of <i><a href="http://scarlettablack.blogspot.com/2014/05/styrofoam-throne-david-bone.html" target="_blank">Styrofoam Throne</a></i>. But it should be pretty obvious if the author wants you to like their protag; this author did. I can't say that anything really wanted me to keep reading on about her. She had a lot of internal misogyny to work out, calling Vicky a 'bimbo' and refusing to put a bulk of the blame on anyone but her.</div>
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Speaking of the characters, everyone is such dull stereotypes. Mary is the ~good but misunderstood~ outcast; Vicky is the alpha bitch cheerleader; Rachel is the quirky and outgoing fellow outcast; Cy is the new kid, seemingly drawn toward our protagonist, etc. I want to know if this author has ever even been to a high school or if they are taking stereotypes from Hollywood. I was never a popular kid. Sometimes people did make fun of me, or at least try to. You know who didn't? The popular kids. The really popular ones? The ones who have a lot of power in the student body? Those are literally the nicest people you will ever meet. The mean ones actually aren't that popular - everyone stays out of their way but actually hates them. Like, how do people think kids get popular? Being likeable is a hhuuuuuggee part of that, and I'm tired of this idea that cheerleaders are inherently mean. I was getting <i>My Immortal</i> flashbacks. Almost expected someone to say 'goffics rox n preps suck!' because that was the underlying tone of the entire book. </div>
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No diversity whatsoever. A bunch of straight white teens plus grandma. Now, could diversity have helped this book? I don't know, I know it wouldn't have saved the writing for sure, but it definitely couldn't have hurt. And it would have been so easy too! For instance: Mary is black (how many black goth girls are included in paranormal books? You would already be breaking the mold!), Cy is bisexual and his lashing out at Mary was in part because he was struggling to understand his feelings for another boy at the school (combined with <i>The Little Mermaid </i>allusion, which was a story created by a bisexual man who fell in love with a man who couldn't love him back), Rachel is genderqueer and frequently changes her hair and look to match her feelings about her gender, Vicky uses a hearing aid. Like, I would have enjoyed that. I might have still been critical of the elementary writing, but I would have enjoyed the characters a lot more. </div>
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Dialogue was alright. There were times it seemed to flow well. However, I don't remember 'said' anywhere in the book, the author opting to minimize the amount of dialogue tags used. Which is great and can make dialogue snappy, but there were times I couldn't figure out who was speaking. </div>
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Some plot weirdness. Cy is the new kid but seems to know Vicky and dislike her for reasons? Cy is interested in Mary then hates her and can't stand her as suddenly as he liked her? Mary hating everyone then suddenly having support in a friend and becoming spontaneously nicer? Not much is consistent. Also some weird grammar things, particularly with the subjunctive tense. Took me out of the story to scratch my head a bit.</div>
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All in all, not feeling it. It's alright, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I give it a 2 out of 5 stars.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00400MQ9Y/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00400MQ9Y&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=MYTZYF367GMEKZMH">You can find Scary Mary (The Scary Mary Series) here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00400MQ9Y" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2561987867960339537.post-25723716757811828592014-05-29T07:32:00.000-04:002014-06-09T03:58:14.996-04:00In Your Dreams - Amy Martin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sixteen-year-old Zara "Zip" McKee lives for three things: basketball, books, and bailing out of tiny Titusville, Illinois, where the junior high and high school are in the same building and everyone's known everyone else since birth. But when Kieran Lanier moves to town and passes out on her desk on his first day at school, Zip's life gets complicated in a way she never dreamed. </span></blockquote>
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Zip McKee is just a junior trying to get through school in the sleepy, small town of Titusville, Illinois. However, the arrival of a new family in town shakes up her small world. She finds herself growing closer to Kieran, the new boy with narcolepsy. However, she soon finds out that his narcolepsy isn't exactly normal - sometimes when he dreams, he dreams of the future. Together Zip, Kieran, and his family try to piece together why that happens. </div>
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My review: 4 out of 5 stars</div>
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I thoroughly enjoyed this book, let me just say that right off of the bat. The dialogue between the two main characters was often witty, flirtatious banter and it fit perfectly with them. The parents seemed like they could be my mom and dad. Everyone was given a different personality, and no one was made an archetype. For someone who enjoys the characters most of all out of a book, I was highly impressed and really liked all of the characters introduced. </div>
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The plot does move slowly, which is what made the synopsis rather difficult to write. You find out the boy has premonition like dreams a bit early on, but the plot twists, which actually delve into the actual plot, come a lot later. Sometimes I did wonder if the plot would even go anywhere, or if this would be another Twilight-esque 'no plot until the last stretch' type book. I enjoyed the plot when it came about, but it doesn't exactly grab you for a while. There are also a few typos which actually changed some of the meaning of the text and took me out of the story as I had to reread a couple sentences over and over trying to understand what the author was trying to say. </div>
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The only big criticism I would give is that there is a noticeable lack of diversity. I don't think any of the characters are anything but white - which may be understandable as it is a small town, but it's a bit of lazy writing not to include other races. As to be expected, there were no queer characters, which, even if they are in a small town, there's definitely a queer person in that town. I still stand by my headcanon that Kayla, Kieran's sister, has a bit of a crush on Zip and that was why she was even more so standoffish towards her than towards anyone else, but it would still have been nice to have a bit of actual representation.</div>
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What really sells this story are the characters. All highly believeable, even the baddies felt like I could have known a guy or two like them. Though the Chunk Of Dialogue Exposition came kind of early and seemed rather unlikely for Kieran to be telling a complete stranger, it later made a lot of sense and kept the relationships between all of the characters extremely believeable.</div>
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This is the first book of a trilogy, but it ends nicely. Not too many plot lines are left hanging, but there's definitely enough story left to be told for another book or two. The kindle edition for <i>In Your Dreams</i> does give a very lengthy preview for the next book, which starts shortly after the first book ends.</div>
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So, great characters, a pretty good plot, a disappointing amount of diversity, and a few interesting typos. I give this book a weak 4 out of 5 stars.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;">Coastal California, 1984…with school season just ending, sixteen-year-old Donovan wants nothing more than to work inside Castle Dunes, the seaside haunted attraction that his mom wishes him nowhere near.</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">School has just ended for the sixteen-year-old, macabre weirdo Donovan. This year, he has his sights set on Castle Dunes, a horror attraction nearby. The only problem? He's broke, and his mom won't help whatsoever. However, after getting out of working with his mom, he finally finds himself at Castle Dunes. Before he knows it, he's now in, an employee at Castle Dunes. There, he makes friends and tries to make the most out of his dream for the summer.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My rating: 3.5 out of 5</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This one actually took me a while to read, mostly because I didn't connect with the protagonist. So you're a weirdo, big whoop. I suppose the thing is, he wasn't likeable, but he also wasn't funny. I compare a lot of unlikeable protags to Yossarian from my all-time favorite novel, <em>Catch-22</em>, and while Donovan is definitely on the same level as Yossarian when it comes to being a self-centered and generally unlikeable human being, the writer didn't give wit to it, or give self-awareness to the writing, like "yeah, this guy's an asshole, but he doesn't think so".</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For one thing, the way he treats his mother is pretty awful. Granted, she ain't exactly the best mother of the year, but she did get him a job, and she did raise him. I would never give my own mother the amount of disrespect Donovan gives to his. I know that the author meant to show that Donovan lived in a loveless, borderline abusive environment, but throughout the story it seemed that Donovan was about just as bad as his mom.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I was really about to give up on this book, but then Renaldo appeared. If there was one character in this entire book I cared about, it was Renaldo. When he showed up, it was like the story came to life; the plot actually took off, the humor became surprisingly funny, and I wondered why I hadn't enjoyed the book before.</span><br />
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As the story progresses, it's very obvious that the title fits: to Donovan, Castle Dunes is <i>the </i>place to be. However, it's run by someone only in it for the money, the "castle" itself is crumbling, and the employees are quite often high or slacking off. And despite all of this, despite the fact his job is a janitor who refreshes the rat traps that get their daily fill of rats, despite getting beaten up multiple times, despite everything, Donovan thinks this is a swell place. Really, he's an interesting foil to Colin - the local famous Count Dracula from the commercials, in that they are so sucked up in this castle and its crumbling walls that they take it over something better. And in Colin's case he literally sits on a styrofoam throne.<br />
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I felt the ending to be really great up until the last scene. I dunno; I was really expecting something more, but it ended extremely abruptly - it almost felt as if my call was suddenly dropped, you know? Right when I was getting invested in our protagonists life, boom, over.<br />
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All in all, it was a fun coming of age story. I recommend it, giving it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.</div>
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<i>Styrofoam Throne </i>has extreme language and some sexual content, so be advised.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FW0UT0E/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00FW0UT0E&linkCode=as2&tag=scarlettabl00-20&linkId=S3ZK43HEJFZANLFJ">You can find Styrofoam Throne here</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=scarlettabl00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00FW0UT0E" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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scarlettablackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09933552810121886147noreply@blogger.com0