Flicker by Kaye Thornbrugh

Title: Flicker
Series: Flicker
Author: Kaye Thornbrugh
Length: 7066 Kindle units
Rating: 4 stars

The Plot

One evening, sixteen-year-old Lee wanders into a faerie revel and becomes a favored painter of the court. When a boy named Nasser trades for her release, she finds herself back in the real world, seven years after she left, though she hasn’t aged a day. Unable to go back to her old life, Lee finds herself among other mortals who know about the faerie world. But Lee was never supposed to leave the revel, and there is one faerie who will do anything to get her back.

The Good

I really liked the characters in Flicker. The story was about humans who were close enough to the magical world of the fae that they couldn’t live normal lives, and I enjoyed seeing how the characters tried to fit between the worlds. We saw a lot of what was going on from the point of view of Lee, who wasn’t all that interesting in and of herself but who had a unique perspective in that she was new to the magical world. The next character we meet is Filo, who comes off as cold but who nonetheless tries to meet his responsibilities, even though he feels he has been abandoned by everyone who ever loved him. And the last main character is Nasser, who tries to be good to everyone, even when it means taking too much on himself. This creates problems with his brother Jason, who feels that Nasser doesn’t trust him enough. (Their relationship actually reminds me of Sam and Dean from Supernatural, so I have high hopes that Jason will start drinking demon blood and killing people in order to prove that he doesn’t need his big brother. Or maybe everyone will take the boring and mature route.)

The Bad

The first chapter of Flicker? Totally needs to go. I start reading this stuff about Lee and her friend Kendall getting ready to go to a party, and then they start arguing because Kendall wants to hang out with the popular crowd and Lee doesn’t. So I’m like, Okay, I see what kind of book this is going to be. I hope there are cute boys at the party!  Except Lee doesn’t go to the party and gets sucked off to faerieland instead.

And then suddenly we’re in chapter 2, and it’s 7 years later, and I’m reading about these other characters who do not have anything resembling normal lives. And I’m okay with this once I get into it because, like I said, these characters are interesting, and I care about them. But I find myself wondering why chapter 1 existed at all considering that nothing in it is remotely plot relevant. I mean, yes, it matters that Lee had a life before she got sucked into the faerie realm, but it doesn’t matter at all what that life is.

The Romance

Nasser rescues Lee from the faeries because he feels some supernatural attraction to her, and we are consequently unsurprised when that attraction grows once they get back to the real world. In all honesty, I found the romance a little boring and obvious. There were so many boys hanging around Lee – the other girl on the team doesn’t join the group until nearly the end of the book – that I wanted to see some kind of love triangle. But, alas, I was to be disappointed in this. Though I do have some hopes for book 2, though that’s mostly because when it comes to fictional romance, I am an eternal optimist

Will I read more?

I finished reading Flicker about a day ago, and since then I find myself thinking, I need to do blog reading, but that’s good cuz I’m reading that really good one about the faeries. And then I am sad because I realize that I have finished Flicker, and whatever comes next might be as good. Regardless, I always take it as a good sign for a book when I want to go back to reading it. The author’s web site says that the next book in the series will be out in winter 2012, which I assume at this point means around December. I have added her blog to the list that I follow and plan to pick up the next installment when it appears.

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The Strings of the Violin by Alisse Lee Goldenberg

Title: The Strings of the Violin
Author: Alisse Lee Goldenberg
Rating: 3 stars

The Plot

Carrie has always wanted to believe the kind of magic she reads about in her fantasy books, but she is still surprised when she meets a talking fox. With her friends Lindsay and Rebecca, Carrie travels to a mystical land that is dying because the dybbuk Asmodeus has stolen the strings of the magic violin that give the world light. The girls must journey to the demon’s realm and bring back the strings, but there are any number of dangers along the way.

The Good

The Strings of the Violin presents an interesting mystical land based on assorted folklore. During the trip, Rebecca frequently tries to recall the fairy stories that her grandmother told her, because she realizes that they are about this magical land. However, the stories varied, and characters like Asmodeus did not appear the same in every tale. This uncertainty in folklore is woven into the story so that, instead of being inconsistencies, the differences are all part of the true and strange nature of the creatures in the magic world.

The Bad

In trying to come up with what to put in my review for this book, the only thing that I found myself really wanting to say was that The Strings of the Violin is not YA. It’s Middle Grade. The characters may tell you that they’re 17, but for all practical sakes and purposes, they are about 12.

The book opens with Carrie about to become a senior in high school and stressed out about picking a college because all she really wants from life is to be an adventurer like in a fantasy novel. When she needs to convince her friends to travel with her to the other land, she points out that they used to believe in magic, so she doesn’t understand why they don’t now. These kinds of dreams and arguments would make perfect sense in a 12-year-old girl not ready to let go of her childhood, but in a 17-year-old, they make me start to wonder if she has some kind of mental deficiency. The plot was similarly simple, with the good guys going on a quest to get something from the bad guys without too many twists, turns, or surprises.

Aside from that, I pretty much don’t feel qualified to judge because I don’t read middle grade books. There were a few holes in the plot, but I’m not sure how typical that is of the genre.

The Romance

The girls run into a princess named Emilia who is being punished for running away with her love instead of marrying the prince her father wants her to. Since we never see either guy, you may count this as romance or not as you choose. The king and queen of the good guys were also married and in love. Carrie, Lindsay, and Rebecca had no romantic entanglements of their own. Which is fine, because they are 12.

Will I read more?

Per the author’s web site, there is a sequel to The Strings of the Violin, but I do not believe I will be reading it, and, again, it’s really just a genre issue.

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Change of Season by A.C. Dillon

Title: Change of Season
Author: A.C. Dillon
Length: 11672 Kindle units
Rating: 3.5 stars

The Plot

Autumn has become silent and withdrawn in the last year, and none of her family and friends understand why. As a last resort, her parents send her off to Casteel Prep, a boarding school with a stellar arts curriculum and a behavioral support program for troubled teens. Autumn begins to excel in her creative writing program and make new friends, but she is still terrified of something away from the school. But there may be something even more dangerous within the school itself, because it seems that a number of girls have disappeared from the school in the last 15 years. Girls who look an awful lot like Autumn…

The Good

Change of Season is a touching story about a girl who has a terrifying past and needs to find a way to get on with the future. Autumn is dealing with things that no teenage girl should have to live with, but she doesn’t trust anyone around her – even herself. The paranormal elements of the story combine with Autumn’s own hallucinations to the point the she cannot tell what is real and what is a product of her anxiety-riddled mind. The powerlessness both of Autumn and the people who love her and want to help her is poignant, as is their development as they learn to get past their difficulties.

Plus, there is a kitty. But beware, dog fans. You are not going to like the way this one goes.

 The Bad

There are a few scenes in this novel where Autumn attends a creative writing class. The class is portrayed very realistically, and I believe that the author has much personal experience with such classes and the exercises and jargon therein. Unfortunately, the author must have skipped the lesson where they taught that NO ONE WANTS TO READ ABOUT A CREATIVE WRITING LECTURE IN A NOVEL. Unless it’s one of those textbook novels, like my sister had for her anthropology class in college. I mean, we are all a fan of the kunstlerroman, but when you have a student read aloud her assignment and then have everyone in the class talk about how awesome it is, it really just comes off as self-congratulatory on the part of the author.

My biggest complaint about Change of Season is that there are a number of unnecessary passages, which makes the book unnecessarily long. In addition to not caring about the creative writing curriculum, I don’t need to know about how the class decided to stage Spring Awakening or which music would best accompany a film about Occupy Toronto, especially when these things are filled with enough obscure references to put Psych to shame. The actual plot of the novel didn’t get started until nearly halfway through it, and then it was sparse in its continuation.

The Romance

I can’t say too much here without giving away some spoilers. But basically we have two timelines going on here. We have Autumn in 2011 who has PTSD (which is very clear to the reader, who knows that something traumatic has happened to her, but unclear to the other characters in the novel because they have no idea what prompted the change in behavior) and doesn’t want to meet any new friends, especially boyfriends. Then we have Autumn back in 2010, who is a normal, happy, friendly girl, who has caught the attention of a seemingly cute and personable boy named Chris. But the whole time we know that something is going to turn 2010 Autumn into 2011 Autumn, and we’re not morons, so we assume that it has to do with Chris. But just how horrible is Autumn’s past? And will she find the strength to love again? Only ye who read the book shall know.

Will I read more?

I would have really enjoyed Change of Season if it had been about 1/3 – 1/2 as long as it was. There was just so much extraneous material, and the story moved so slowly that I had a hard time staying invested in the characters and not getting bored. I don’t think there are going to be more books in the series, because I really don’t think poor Autumn can take anymore, but I would hesitate to pick up anything from this author again that was not substantially shorter.

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A Black Deeper Than Death by M.E. Purfield

Title: A Black Deeper Than Death
Series: Miki Radicci
Author: M.E. Purfield
Length: 2690 Kindle units
Rating: 4 stars

The Plot

Miki Radicci has a pretty good life as a wealthy artist and independent minor. The only trouble is that she has the power to read minds, and even alcohol and Xanax can’t quite numb the pain. Then one night, a college student is murdered in her vicinity, and Miki feels every knife wound like she was the victim, with the scars to prove it. Unable to dismiss the experience, Miki begins to investigate the secret life of the seemingly straight-laced woman, but this may end up putting her in even more danger.

The Good

A Black Deeper than Death was a good read over all. It is a fairly standard story of a murdered college girl who had a secret life in the porn industry, with the twist that our budding heroine has the power to read minds.  It reminded me of a Veronica Mars episode in a lot of ways, which is a compliment of the highest order coming from me, with Miki always trying to outsmart the people around her while carrying an assortment of false IDs.

I enjoyed the aspect of Miki being an independent minor (her parents were con artists) but still building a family around herself. She lived with her grandfather, who didn’t always approve of her but loved her anyway, and her friend Corey, who otherwise would have been out on the street.

There are also some indications of an overarching mythology involving a mysterious figure that appears in Miki’s visions and paintings that I would definitely like to know more about.

The Bad

If you are a hero or heroine in a mystery novel, there may come a day when you know crucial information that connects murders. At this point in time, you may ask yourself, “Should I tell the police what I know?” The answer is YES. It is always yes. You should always tell the police this information rather than investigate the issue until you have proof. Because the police are trained to deal with these kinds of situations. They have guns and Kevlar. You probably do not. Sadly, this is not a lesson that anyone taught Miki, and I consequently spent more time yelling at my ipad screen than I wanted to while reading this book.

My other issue with A Black Deeper Than Death is that I didn’t really like Miki all that much. Her life was pretty gritty, with her going out and getting drunk and passing out on the street. (She also took some black market Lexapro, which mostly just made me wonder why anyone would do that. Because you’d have to take a hell of a lot for it to have an effect, and that effect would most likely be sleeping. Plus, you can get a prescription for it easily, and it’s a $4 generic.) The thing is, though, that she’s rich, and I find myself asking why someone would want to have a gritty life if they were rich. It’s like voluntarily becoming Lindsay Lohan. Sure, other people’s emotions invade her mind, but wouldn’t a better solution be to become a hermit?

The Romance

If I were Miki, I would be hesitant to meet any new boys while investigating a murder mystery. Especially when I’m getting creepy calls from the killer, so anyone I seem to randomly meet could actually BE the killer stalking me. (Dun, dun, DUN) But Miki is braver than I, and she meets a boy named Chris at the first victim’s funeral and discovers that he is perfect for her. Meanwhile, she is also crushing on Officer Samson who is investigating the murder case, even though she’s only 16 and he’s like 30. A little flirting in this situation wouldn’t be too creepy, would it?

Will I read more?

I’m relatively indifferent to whether I read more of the story. It was interesting and well-written enough, and I would like to see where the threads left open at the end of the story go. But I also didn’t love it enough to be desperate for the next one. So take that as a recommendation or not, as you choose.

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House of the Winter Moon by Sandra Hennig

Title: House of the Winter Moon
Series:  Rise of the Malandanti
Author: Sandra Hennig
Rating: 1 star

The Plot

When Sydney bought a new coat from the thrift store, she thought that all she was getting was a way to make a fabulous new fashion statement. She didn’t know that it came along with flashes into the past and conversations with a long-dead red-haired woman named Juliet. The ghost claims that she is trapped by a spell, and she needs Sydney and her friends to rescue her. So the teens begin researching the history of the town, specifically the magical folks who lived in Juliet’s now-abandoned house. With some help from local mystics, they discover that they can release Juliet from her curse. But the question is, do they want to?

The Good

The basic story of House of the Winter Moon is interesting. Sydney buys a coat that is haunted, and it starts to interfere with her life in strange ways. She has to investigate local history, which I always think is fun, and her discoveries lead to a mythology involving two warring witch clans. There are also some important themes running through the story regarding trust and respect for one’s ancestry.

I also do like the title, even if I’m not sure what it has to do with anything.

The Bad

I don’t really feel like there’s a way to tell you the problem with House of the Winter Moon without sounding like I am exaggerating or being a grammar snob. So I will do what I did as I explained to my friend why I did not want to go back to reading this book. I will give you some sample sentences, exactly as they are written in the text:

“Going about her usual nightly routine of washing her face and brushing her teeth, she was thinking about picking up a few more hours at work so she could speed up the process towards purchasing her very own car. She had made up her mind, in the morning she would ask her mother about it in the morning.”

Now, you might not have the exact same reaction as my friend (which was “Good Lord! That writing is a crime!”), but I think you can at least see where the phrasing is suboptimal and the punctuation nearly non-existent. And this is not a selection I picked out that was especially bad. This was a sample I picked pretty much at random that is par for the course for the entire novel.

On top of this, the story wasn’t particularly well organized. There were long sections that went in completely plot-irrelevant places. For example, Sydney spends a lot of time discussing how she purchased a car that her mother thought was impractical. I probably would have been okay with this if the car had later broken down at an inconvenient time, but the truck runs perfectly fine for the rest of the novel. Also, these people spend SO MUCH TIME talking about what they’re going to eat. Every meal becomes an epic saga, even when they are in terrible danger.

The Romance

We establish fairly early on that Sydney has a crush on her friend Darcy. Their mutual friend Bridget claims she has no interest in him, and she even tries to help push the two of them together, despite Sydney’s protestations. But Sydney suspects that Bridget is secretly crushing on Darcy as well, though she doesn’t suspect (as I do) that Bridget’s mystery date was actually with Darcy. And after that… Actually, after that we get nothing at all in the romantic department whatsoever because everyone is focused on plot. If there is another book in the series, it might pick up some of the romance stuff.

Will I read more?

I’m not sure whether there will be more books in the series or not. The end makes it seem like there might be more ground that they can cover, as does the lack of resolution of the romantic plot, but those could just be the kinds of things meant to be left up in the air. The Amazon page seems to think that the series has a title, which does imply future books. Regardless, I am insufficiently curious to be willing to wade through more unedited text during which the most common kind of sentence is run-on.

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Land of Myth by Becka Sutton

Title: Land of Myth
Series: The Dragon Wars Saga
Author: Becka Sutton
Length: 4150 Kindle units
Rating: 2 stars

The Plot

Lydia, Andrew, and Karen are waiting for their fourth quadruplet Daniel to come home when they find themselves in a magical world where animals can talk and many races live together, sometimes peacefully and sometimes not. The three find themselves drawn to talking animals and magical bracelets that give them power over the elements. But there is a deeper plot afoot. The three are followed by a dark rider and are forced onward by motives they can’t understand. But they will quickly discover that this new world has many wonders… and many dangers.

The Good

I feel like the author of had a very detailed world planned out in her head, and there were some very interesting facets therein. Most of the denizens of the world were called “speakers,” which meant they were sentient animals or humanoid species whose lifeforce was stored in heart jewels. Occasionally a human would venture into this world and would find that he or she had a heart friend, a resident of the world with no heart jewel whose lifeforce was bound to the human’s. Some of the humans were also Warriors of a particular element, who gained magical powers through bracelets and weapons specific to their powers. Humans were not well-liked in general, but they were not nearly so disliked and feared as the dragons.

The Bad

I can best describe Land of Myth as progressively harder to understand. I started out following it okay. Three siblings are getting ready to go to the movies, but their plans are interrupted when the area around their house turns into a mystical land. They hear someone call for help, so they decide to explore it.

What?

Oh. Yes, this was the comprehensible part.

Anyway, it’s all going good for a while. Lydia, Drew, and Karen meet some friendly (and unfriendly) birds and find magic bracelets. There is also a secret dark rider who attacks some mermaids. Fun times.

Then we start introducing the factions. There seem to be lots of different races of people in this world, few of whom are have English-congruent names like “elf.” I would have been okay with “light elves” and “dark elves” and “other elves,” or at least some solid translation of each of the factions into something I could remember, but in this hope, I was disappointed. So I think that I can at least start keeping track of which factions are good and evil, or at least aligned with our main characters. But it turns out that all of these factions are multi-faceted. Or involved in some crazy nine-sided war. And our main humans? Not so main. Less and less of the book is about them. And more and more of it is about various native denizens of the land, many of whom have oddly similar names.

Basically, by the time we find out the true identity of the dark rider, which is not nearly as much of a surprise as it thinks it is, I have totally given up trying to keep the factions straight. I persevered to the end, mostly because I would never review a novel without reading it in its entirety, and also hoping that the big reveal of what happened two years ago would make things make sense. Yeah, it didn’t. In fact, it introduced a load of other new characters and factions that we didn’t even know existed.  I think a lot of these things made sense in the author’s head but were just not adequately translated to paper.

The Romance

There is not any romance to speak of in Land of Myth. Karen apparently dated one of the bad guys two years ago, but she was fourteen and doesn’t remember it for most of the book, so how serious could it really have been? Poor quadruplets. Sixteen years old and not a date in sight.

Will I read more?

I gave Land of Myth my best try, and I couldn’t keep track of what was going on. So I feel like this equates to failing the intro class of a subject. I accept that this is just not going to be a me-friendly series and move on.

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Lazarball by David Ayres & Darren Jacobs

Title: Lazarball
Series: Anumal Empire
Author: David Ayres & Darren Jacobs
Length: 6779 Kindle units
Rating: 3.5 stars

The Plot

Clinton is a lion in a society of Anumals, sentient animals who coexist peacefully after the extinction of humanity. But he has learned that sometime the world is neither just nor fair. After his parents disappeared in disgrace, Clinton only wants to take care of his brother. Unfortunately, he has ended up on the bad side of the city’s corrupt leadership because he protects the defenseless and steals so that he and his brother can eat. But Clinton has one hope to change his fortune – he’s going to enter the city Lazarball tournament, which is guaranteed to grant fortune and glory to the winner. 

The Good

I actually liked Lazarball a great deal more than I expected to. When I read the description, my reaction was pretty much “A society of animals? Are you serious?” But the authors actually make it work. I have a few remaining questions (Can anumals mate with other species of anumals? If so, why are there no mutli-species animals? If not, doesn’t that seriously limit their reproductive options?), but I had no trouble believing in the way the society functioned.

The society itself was quite engaging. I mean, it was super corrupt, and the first half of the book is pretty much watching hoards of unfair things happen to Clinton, which is kind of depressing, but it was very well described. I definitely felt for the lion and wanted things to work out for both him and his society as a whole. During the whole Lazarball tournament, I was on the edge of my proverbial seat waiting to see how everything would turn out.

The Bad

The first chapter takes place ten years before the rest of the story, and I don’t actually understand most of what happens in that chapter. Way later in the book, some of it is explained, but the whole thing serves to be more confusing than anything. On the other hand, there are a number of scenes from the past that I would like to know more about – specifically what happened to Clinton’s parents, but also what the deal is between Clinton and his arch-nemesis Dallas. Unfortunately, this information is only hinted at and never described in detail, so I spent the entire book waiting for an explanation that, frustratingly, never came.

I found Dallas’s character to be a bit confusing in general. I felt like some of the time we were supposed to find him sympathetic, but that seemed at odds with pretty much everything he did in the story, so he came across as uneven. I was also unsure for most of the story what position he actually had in the society, though this is eventually explained. He seemed to have some unspecified connection to the Sabres, a group that I interpreted as bullying cat supremacists, though I wasn’t sure how that made sense considering that the mayor was a beaver and the justices were giraffes.

The Romance

Often when I consider reading a book or watching a movie, I will ask a friend who has read/seen it the following question: “Were there any girls in it?” This does not have a 1:1 correlation with my liking of the story, but generally if a story has no female characters, I am less interested in experiencing it. I don’t want to say there were NO female characters in Lazarball, because one of the Sabres was a girl, and a woman was responsible for enrolling everyone in the Lazarball tournament. On, and the chief evil… spirit? … was also female. But there really weren’t any important female characters. This, of course, severely limited the potential for traditional heterosexual romance, and the story did not seem inclined in the direction of homosexual romance. So no romance for the fans thereof, but on the bright side, this kept the story from erring into the realm of erotic furries, for which I think we are all grateful.

Will I read more?

I have no strong feelings about whether I read more in the series. Some of it was very interesting and compelling, but some parts were confusing. I do not have a judgment of good or bad on the overarching mythology yet (which is totally unrelated to the anumal stuff, but it’s not revealed until about three-quarters of the way through the story, so I don’t want to spoil). Plus, we must always factor in the no girls thing. I would say that I probably won’t pick up the next installment on my own, but if I had to read it, I wouldn’t cry or anything.

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Into the Hourglass by Kelly Marino

Title: Into the Hourglass
Series: The Hourglass Trilogy
Author: Kelly Marino
Length: 5893 Kindle units
Rating: 2.5 stars

The Plot

On Franny’s birthday, a doctor calls her with the most astonishing news – she has a rare blood type that may be the key to solving many human illnesses. When she shares this news with her parents, she learns an astonishing truth – she is adopted, and her parents have no idea why her blood is so special. Before she has time to process all this, Franny is transported back in time 300 years, where she learns that she is part of a race of immortals who are in grave danger from one of their own who is hunting them down one by one.

The Good

There is a trend in urban fantasy, and to an increasing extent young adult paranormal romance, to make everything as “gritty” as possible. I’m not entirely sure what the appeal is, because I have no desire to read about someone who has been forced to become an assassin because of the way the cards fell in her supernatural life. Even in cases where the characters are relatively normal, they usually possess at least one major flaw and behave with the occasional selfishness. Sometimes, though, it is refreshing to see characters like those in Into the Hourglass, who act with good intentions toward the world at all times. When the doctor discovers Franny’s unique blood, he wants to help heal the ills of the world and does not even suggest turning her into a lab rat/prisoner. The people she meets always try to help others without even a second thought for themselves, and it can be nice to read about characters of such merit.

The Bad

My biggest problem with Into the Hourglass was that it was so absurdly happy that it was boring. Now, you might say, “But Elizabeth, the main villain was clearly evil and slit the throats of children in their sleep!” And I would have to agree that, yes, the villain was horrible. But seriously, everyone else was so uncomplicatedly good that I found myself hoping for someone to turn out to be evil just to make things even a little interesting. But for as long as the book was, not a lot of things – happy or unhappy – happened at all.

The entire time travel aspect of the book was also confusing and largely irrelevant. There really wasn’t a logical reason for the two characters to be pulled back in time, other than the fact that the story needed to have modern people in Salem Witch Trials time. But I wasn’t even sure how the time travel thing worked and why, if Abigail could see into the future and travel there, she didn’t know everything about what happened in the time between 1693 and 2010. I felt like the only answer was “because the author hadn’t thought that through,” which is never as good a reason as it seems.

And the section that represented the Native Americans as wise naturalists who gave special names to the white people they found favor with? Yeah, we’re just not gonna mention that.

The Romance

If you have read more than a few romance novels, you have almost certainly run into the situation where the hero and/or heroine feel the need to tell you at least once every five pages that they feel a deep connection to each other, not just physically but spiritually. Since this has been a pattern I have discerned in more than one book, I can only assume that it is something that some readers want. Me? It drives me crazy. I have to bury my head in my pillow every time it happens and then pray that it will stop. Fortunately, Into the Hourglass did not feel the need to tell me about Franny and Mike’s connection every five pages. Unfortunately, it happened frequently enough and with enough intensity that my pillow got to spend more time in contact with my face than I consider optimal.

I have before mentioned my three day rule, which states that couples should not be doing things like moving in together or getting engaged or even declaring their undying love after only knowing each other three days. Into the Hourglass has prompted me to add an addendum that it is even worse to be doing these kinds of things if you have not even known each other one day. It does not matter if someone else – who you have also just met – explains that you are soulmates. You cannot possibly know enough about someone after 12 hours to decide that you want to marry him. Most psycho killers probably seem like great people after you’ve only known them for 12 hours.

Will I read more?

From reading Into the Hourglass, I actually thought it was a standalone novel, but according to Amazon and the author’s web site, it is actually a trilogy. I’m a little bit curious about what more could happen in the story, since everything seems pretty well resolved. But I don’t think I’m curious enough to invest any more time into Franny’s adventures.

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Assorted News

I have some good news, some bad news, and some not yet news. In the good news, Wading Through Electronic Ink has reached 100 posts. This is, in fact, the 102nd post. My blog has come a long way in the last eight months or so, and I want to thank all my readers for making it as much of a success as it has been. Hopefully, the future will see 200th blog post and a 300th and so on until I get tired of young adult novels.

The bad news is that today is going to be the last sequel Tuesday post for a while. This is because of the not yet news, which is another project that I am not ready to announce yet but that will be taking up some of my time in the coming weeks. When I do return to reviewing on Tuesdays, I will most likely be changing the format somewhat. When I have a sequel to review, I will do so in the usual format, but on weeks that I do not, I will do a reviewer’s choice review.
 

When I first started doing my blog, my intention was to review all the books that Amazon kept recommending to me so that readers like me would know which ones were worth the $2.99 investment. I had no idea that there were so many indie authors who wanted people to review their books and help get the word out. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being able to help out indie authors in this manner, but I’m so booked up with requested reviews that I don’t have time to review the books that I pick. So instead of taking time off from my ordinary schedule, I’m going to use future Tuesdays to do that.
 

So I think that’s everything. 100 posts. Sequel Tuesday on hiatus, followed by a slight format change. New secret project to hopefully be announced soon. Have a great Fourth of July, everyone! (even if it’s not a holiday where you are)

Adversity by Claire Farrell

Title: Adversity
Series: Cursed
Author: Claire Farrell
Previous Books in Series: Verity, Clarity
Rating: 4.5 stars
Length: 3607 Kindle units

Refresher: Perdita is the victim of an ancient Gypsy curse that gives her happiness with her werewolf soulmate Nathan but ultimately means she must die young.
 

Adversity is an example of the increasingly frequent phenomenon that is the between-the-novels novella. These can be many lengths – short stories or, as in this case, almost full novels in their own right – and many styles – prequels, different character viewpoints, incidental activity between novels. Regardless, they seem to be almost a necessity of modern series that seek to to whet the appetite of readers chomping at the bit for fresh installments of their favorite characters. I have to confess that as a reader, I am not a huge fan of the trend. When I’m in the middle of a story, I don’t want to go back and read about things that I already know happened, and I don’t want filler fluff; I want to see how the story progresses. But then I feel like I have to read these prequels or I will have missed something, but then I am disappointed because I don’t get any story advancement.
 

That is my opinion on these stories in general, and I apologize to Claire Farrell that this is the second review I've given her where I dedicate many words to my thoughts on the genre as a whole. In the case of Adversity, I have to rule the story absolutely crucial for plot purposes. In my review of Clarity, I commented that we didn’t hear that much from some of the characters in the first book. One of the scarcer characters was Amelia, with whom Perdita and Nathan periodically checked in, but who seemed to be doing some plot-relevant things on the sidelines. This is confirmed when at the end of the novel she drastically changes the course of events with relatively little sense or explanation. So when I found out that book 2.5 was Clarity again from Amelia’s point of view, I decided I definitely had to pick that up.
 

Now that I have read it, I know that we didn’t miss out on too much by not getting Amelia’s viewpoint. In fact, I was kind of grateful we missed out on Amelia’s whining. In Clarity, both Nathan and Perdita are constantly thinking about how they can make things easier or better for the people around them, but Amelia is apparently thinking, “Why isn’t anyone paying attention to me?” So I wanted to smack her a little bit. But it was cool to see what was going on in the mysterious dreams she was having, and it was definitely helpful to see what was going through her head at the end. So all in all, I call it a win, though I think I’ll be glad to go back to Perdita’s head in Purity.
 

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Mad Science Institute by Sechin Tower

Title: Mad Science Institute
Author: Sechin Tower
Length: 3475 Kindle units
Rating: 4.5 stars

The Plot

Sophia “Soap” Lazarchek wanted to go to MIT, and she might have gotten in, too, if her science projects had less of a tendency to go explosively awry. But after her latest experiment fried the cell phones of everyone at the science fair, she could pretty much count out a scholarship to any respectable school. So when the Mechanical Science Institute at Langdon University, Minnesota, offers her a full scholarship, she jumps at the chance. But she is about to find out that getting an education might be more dangerous than she would have ever thought.

The Good

I enjoyed Mad Science Institute a great deal, even though it is not the kind of book I usually read. It is definitely more sci-fi than paranormal/fantasy, and there is more in the way of action and explosions than character development. Which is not to say that the characters are not interesting, because all of them are, from our heroes Soap and Dean to science students Victor and Nikki to the minor characters like Soap’s girlie roommate Hannah. There are quite a few of them to keep track of, and keeping in mind who knows what and who is good or evil at any given time keeps readers on their toes.

In spite of being an action-adventure book, Mad Science Institute managed to have a number of cerebral ideas as well. The characters had a number of discussions about the relative merits of brain vs. brawn, which played out in various aspects of the story. Similarly, there were demonstrations of the relative benefits and disadvantages of being book-smart rather than people smart.

The Bad

The story is told from the point of view of Soap and her cousin Dean, firefighter by trade and new dean of students at Mechanical Science Institute for reasons more to do with his danger fighting skills than any academic prowess. I don’t really have a problem with the dual perspectives, and I think the story is better told from their two different viewpoints than it would be from either one alone. What does annoy me is that we get Soap’s sections from first person and Dean’s from third person. This always makes me think that one of the characters is supposed to be primary and one is secondary, which makes me wonder why I’m reading about the secondary one at all. The narrative style is especially problematic when Dean’s third person is occasionally used as an excuse to jump to someone else’s viewpoint.

Other than that, my only complaint is that sometimes Soap is a little TOO clueless. Like, when a guy calls you up on a brand new cell phone that he has given you and offers you $10,000 to do anything? Yeah, he’s probably evil. And her complete inability to turn her roommate’s conversation algorithm into something approaching Gricean norms was a little unbelievable.  I assume it was done primarily for comedy, so I forgive it, even though it fell a little flat.

The Romance

Dean’s entire purpose throughout the story is to avenge the death of the former dean of students of Mechanical Science Institute McKenzie, who is also, coincidentally, the great love of his life. So while he does not encounter any inappropriate new romance in the course of the novel, his motives are sufficiently sentimental to win over most readers. (And the explosions and high-speed chases are there for everyone else.)

Soap, on the other hand, meets two attractive boys upon arriving at college: Brett, the school’s new quarterback who is at least smart enough know that a girl who can make robots is way more interesting than her manipulative roommate, and Victor, one of only two other students currently matriculating at Mechanical Science Institute. Of course, Soap is far too busy trying to save the world from the bad guys to have time for dating, but just in case things ever slow down, it’s good to know that she has options.

Will I read more?

I do not know whether there will be any more books in the series, but I certainly hope there will be. There are some loose ends left open and lots of interesting places that the story could go. Regardless if, at any point in the future, there are sequels to Mad Science Institute, I have every intention of reading them.

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Kindle INDIEpendence Day Giveaway

Would you like to win a Kindle Fire and/or a selection of YA and MG indie books this Independence Day? Of course you would! So you should absolutely enter the Kindle INDIEpendency Day Giveaway going on RIGHT NOW (through July 7, 2012). The contest features a couple of authors whom I have already reviewed (Abigail Boyd and Katherine Pine), some other authors I may review in the future, and some authors who write genres I don't review but whose books are definitely worth checking out.

You can find official details for the contest here, and you can enter through the Rafflecopter app at the bottom of this post. Best of luck to everyone!

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