Quicksilver by R.J. Anderson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I don't even know where to start with how utterly consumed with bitter disappointment I am about this book.

It just took all the bad bits from the first book, but amplified them, with no amazing ending to cover them up.

So, let's begin. I don't like Tori, the MC of this novel. I found her cold, distant, hard to relate to and generally unlikeable. She just had this brash, rough manner about her that grated me up the wrong way. I'm guessing that was perhaps what the author intended, for her to be a hard, untrusting, serial liar that is at times, more than a little bland. You can get away with those kinds of characters when they're not carrying the story, but Tori's the Main Character. How are we supposed to engage with someone who just makes it so damned easy to not like them? Then, towards the end, just when I think she can't get any worse, she goes and does something so ridiculously annoying, I very nearly stopped reading right there. It's just a desperate attempt to get attention. The boy she likes found out her entire life is a live, he leaves, and Tori just so happens to pick a spot right near where this boy runs, at exactly the time he runs, to end it all. Then admits she did it a little bit on purpose, with absolutely no regard to how it's going to affect the other person, just guilt tripping him into liking her again, at least that's what it seemed like to me. Considering her personality up till that point, it was totally out of character.
And like Alison from Ultraviolet (I'll get to her in a second), Tori spends an unbelievable amount of time talking about herself (which would be ok if she had anything interesting to say) or trying to hype up a threat that has no real presence, nor any real hint of danger, over and over again. Just a vague threat in the background, the only purpose it's serving is to give the illusion that there is some kind of plot going on here. Of which there isn't. The reason why she has to keep reminding us is the story is so blah, with nothing exciting going on, that it's easy to forget that there is any kind of threat.

Anyhoo I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the characters. Ok, so Tori's an irritating robot with barely any personality. Now on to the others. I'm not even going to bother with the equally bland, plus stupidly stereotypical Asian boy, whose strict parents want him to be a doctor when all he wants to do is teach kids PE. Did I mention he wears glasses?...


SPOILER ALERT!!!






So, shockingly enough, Sebastian returns. Big surprise, yet in transit he seems to have gone through a personality transplant, as the person who appears is nothing like a Sebastian from Ultraviolet. The author has quite successfully rearranged him into weak, suspicious and cowardly husk, in no way resembling the charming, slightly awkward, but generally agreeable guy we got to know in the first book.

And then there's Alison. Oh. My. God. PEOPLE THAT ANNOYINGLY PATHETIC SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO EXIST. Even when she's not directly involved, when it's other characters talking about her, they make her sound so spineless, and just...WEAK!!! Not only that, but they ladle on the pity with a bucket. It's all 'oh, poor Alison', 'she's so brave', 'she's been through so much, more than any of us could ever imagine, yet she'd such a trooper,'. Look, I get she's been through stuff, and it's going to have an effect, but there are ways of getting people to sympathise with a character without making them so fragile that it's like they're made of glass and if someone so much as looks at them, they'd shatter.
Then we hear from the girl herself, though it's through an email, or 'letter' as they insist on calling it. Jeez, the girl is 17 yet she sounds like an old person from some bygone era. Then she's digging for sympathy too, going on about how delicate she's feeling, how paranoid, how much pain she's in, but the way she says it makes me want to throw things at her. SPEAK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON FOR FUCKS SAKE. What teenager sends an email, sorry 'letter!!!!' to her friend saying, 'He held my gaze steadily as he said those words, and his voice didn't waver'. Who would say that?!! She just comes across as so pathetically tragic. Good grief, it's I wonder the girl can stand up, what with having no fucking spine!!!! I just couldn't sympathise because I was busy trying to control my rage.










SPOILERS OVER

So now on to the plot. I've already mentioned the author was trying to make something out of nothing. I felt no real threat of danger from either of the bad guys, no sense of urgency with what they were doing, because most of the time I didn't know, as the plot peppered with technical junk that I couldn't give two shits about. Basically there was no need to write a sequel, yet I imagine the publishers pushed her to do it so she had to come up with something, but ultimately missed the mark by miles. She basically seemed to have no idea where to go.
It was quite messy in places too, jumping about all over the place, some parts poorly explained, at least to me. A lot of the time the characters appeared to be talking about stuff that they didn't feel inclined to fill me in on. There was also a lot of having to explain actions and motives, which were overly complicated, but without them, quite honestly, I wouldn't have got them otherwise, they were so tenuous and round-about.

Then we have the ending. Bare in mind, that I've been waiting for the same kind of gob-smacking, crazy, brilliant twist that there was at the end of Ultraviolet. So it's get towards the final chapters. Everyone's running around doing stuff. I'm not really sure what, or why because it's all jargon and words that may as well be written in a foreign language for all the sense they made, but they seem pretty panicked and nervous about the whole thing. Then lots of stupid things happen in rapid succession, one after another, each more outrageous and dumb than the last. But no matter how hyped the characters are, when you get down to it, it's an uninspiring and anti-climactic ending. A wet fart of an ending, if you like. Then it gets all cliched and B-movie-esque and I started skipping bits. Apparently though, all of the characters are able to forgive each other, even when they've been lied to, betrayed, used, ignored and been unbearably stupid/irritating. Woop-di-do what a nice neat little ribbon everything has been tied up with.

Oh, hell, I really wanted this to be good. But it's just not.

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Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was, all in all, a really great finale to the series. It was highly readable, had enough enough action, excitement and general plot stuff mixed in the with the romance to keep me interested without rolling my eyes. There is a simple elegance to Clare's writing that I find ridiculously enjoyable. It is easy to overlook, but I find myself thoroughly impressed, which perhaps isn't the greatest praise coming from me, but I find that a lot of YA authors tend to sacrifice their prose in favour of bland writing so they can concentrate on the story (and by that of course I mean the romance as that usually IS the story).

The reason then, that this didn't get four stars, was that there was something about the ending that just didn't sit well with me. It was all a bit too 'they all lived happily ever after'. Ok, I'll admit that without giving anything away, some characters take a bit longer than others to get their Happyily Ever After (from here on referred to HEA's), but that they all do, somehow seems to be a bit of a cop-out, a bit of a cheat. Almost like the author couldn't bring herself to choose between any of her characters, so she just didn't. I don't know, maybe it's just me. In these kind of stories there has to be a bit of suffering and sacrifice, it's what makes the HEA's more meaningful. Don't get me wrong, there was both of these things present, but they never stuck, as if the author just couldn't do it to her characters.

But on the other hand, a part of me is really happy that most of the characters got their HEA. Because some of them really did go through a lot of shit, and they did deserve it.

Ahhhh, the ending has me really torn. I really can't put my finger on how I feel about it. I am completely divided!!! Overall, I did really like the book, but that ending!! I am not a fan of time-spans being recounted in a few pages, or time jumps, so that was always going to taint my opinion slightly, but I really don't want to say any more because I would have to give away major spoilers and 1) I hate doing that and 2) it would make this review hideously long. So I will leave it here I think.

I still much prefer this series to the Mortal Instruments, which started well but should have ended three books ago...just saying. Oh and I liked the characters in this series LOADS more!!!

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Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess by Phil Foglio
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh my. I was not expecting to enjoy this one as much as I did, but it was truly such an original and brilliant novel, that I couldn't help but be swept along with.

We enter right where the first one left off, but where as Agatha H and the Airship took half the book to really get going, this one steamed ahead from the first page. I feared for maybe a slight dip in the narrative, as it is about twice the size of it's predecessor, but it didn't. It kept up it's relentlessly enjoyable pace through-out, throwing so many surprises our way that it was impossible (for me at least) to know where the story was going.

I mentioned in my review of the first book how impressive the scope of the imagination that went into creating Agatha's world. I want to reiterate that point again, and again, and again, because this to me, is what Steampunk should be and what all authors should aspire to. Ok, the idea of airships, automatons, bizarre weaponry and even the fashion aren't really anything new, after all, there are hundreds of books claiming to be Steampunk, but somehow this one to me should be allowed to lay to the right to calling itself Steampunk more so than the others. Every aspect of the story bares reference to it. Every aspect of the world and the people in it, their lives are surrounded by clockwork and mad-boys tinkering with nature, science, and that to me is true Steampunk. Not an odd invention here and there, a bustle and corset teamed with a pair of goggles, but some reference to something fantastical and mad on EVERYPAGE.

Then there's the story. Oh boy, I don't even know where to begin with the story. It's just one brilliant twist after another, like I said, there's no way of telling where the plot will take us next. Agatha is such a wonderfully well rounded lead, the circus folk a motley, but delightful crew of diversity. There is fun and mystery, shocks and revelations to be had on every page. Seriously I wouldn't know where to start with describing the plot, only that it is utterly original and utterly, utterly brilliant, fantastic, stupendous, marvellous, intelligent and, and...I have run out of words, but it is sooooo worth reading!!! I have even come to love the Jagermonsters, who I moaned about in the first review. They really come in their own in this one and I actually love how they speak. It still takes a fuckin' to work out what they are saying, but it wouldn't be right now if they spoke any other way.

To sum, up I loved it, and you will too. If you decide to give the series ago, prepare yourself for a most rip-roaring adventure. Goggles on!!! (^_^)

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Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Well, I'm glad I didn't go all the way to America for this. That would have been a huge chunk of money wasted. What a load of blah. Firstly I got confused as to the setting. In most cases, when a book contains some deadly virus-plague thing that slowly wiping out all humanity, I automatically think Dystopia. But when they started going on about steam carriages and corsets, I figured I was wrong. I know Steampunk can be set in an alternate future, but most of the time they hang about the Victorian era, where they belong. Also referring to the city they lived in as 'The City', also didn't really help. Don't get me wrong I like a bit of mystery, but at least let me know if we're in an alternate reality or not. That could be one of those silly things that just bugs me. I am aware that I am fussy.

Then there was the fact that the whole thing was told not just in the first person, but also in the present tense, which meant that we were finding things out when the main character did. Unfortunately the snag there was that no-one seemed willing to tell her anything. Sometimes she'd take it upon herself to ask a question, but then for some inexplicable reason, wouldn't (that was actually used in the book). Then you'd finally think they were going to tell her something and there'd be a distraction of some ilk and they'd forget all about it. Which wasn't annoying at all (it was, I'm being sarcastic). It really stunted the pace of the book, not that there was anything going anyway, but still, nothing was happening, really slowly. What did happen was lots of cliches I can imagine the author just shoving in willy nilly because she wanted a Mask of Zorro-esque scene with all the sword fighting and dress slashing, goddammit and no-one was going to stop her. That's the only explanation for it I can think of because THERE WAS NO REASON FOR IT, IT MADE NO SENSE AND WAS STUPID!!! Not to mention being pong-wiffy with cheeseyness.

And don't even get me started on the characters. E-gads. They just got worse and worse as the book progressed. The main character was a complete contradiction to herself and couldn't decide whether she wanted to be vulnerable or strong. She ended up being neither, rather a simpering self centred attention seeker (not in a show off kind of way, more in a woe-is-me I'm so alone and misunderstood kind of way) who wanted to play the hero but when it came down to it always managed to wheedle her way out of it. Other characters (mostly male) kept telling her she was brave, but I'm sorry, I saw not one shred of evidence of her apparent heroics. They must have been saying that just to get into her pants (and by that I mean undercrackers). All she did was moan about how no-one cared about her, ramble on about how guilty she felt over her brothers death and generally wallow in self pity. It's a wonder she got up in the morning. On that topic, it was mentioned that she was suicidal but apart from a couple of mentions, to me she didn't really come across as someone wanting to off herself. She just whined. A lot. The two male leads for just funny in their stereotypical-ness (not really a word but it'll do).

I'm not even going to talk about the god awful love triangle (or not much anyway), because I'm eating dinner while writing this and I don't want to up chuck into it. Suffice it to say there was lots of to-ing and fro-ing, sappy lines, denial and 'it meant nothing's' usually in the space of a few sentences. Yay

There'd also be random bits that were quite graphic and disturbing that felt a bit out of place.

Did I mention the main character was annoying...I did? Well, she really, really was. I think it was the fact that she was so spineless that got to me. There are just too many strong, female leads in the world of literature that there's just no room for self-centred girls like Araby...I've forgotten her surname, that's how much I didn't care about her or her problems.

I usually try to find a positive, but I can't even say the writing made up for everything. It was pretty basic and kinda obvious, just a series of lists describing things or events in rather unimaginative fashion.

I was originally going to give this 2 stars, but during the course of writing this I've changed my mind. So, sorry. This one for me at least, is a dud, though after looking at the reviews, I see I may be in a minority.

Edit: Oh crumbs and I completely forgot that the main character takes drugs. Because her life is soooo terrible and she has nothing to live for...blah, blah, blah!!! Doesn't that make her seem like a wonderful and noble person. Things start getting iffy? Time to space out and go to a happy place!!!



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So finally got round to writing a review. Egads I am getting really lazy at this, mainly I think it's because i feel like a am constantly repeating myself. Oh, well it's not like I have to read it >.<

Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book had me completely hooked from within the first 20 or so pages, then again, killing your main character right at the beginning is going to grab peoples attention. And no, that's not a plot spoiler because it says that in the synopsis!! What could be considered a spoiler is that she doesn't stay dead long, but it would be a much shorter book if the main character stayed dead, so I think it's kind obvious. Apologies though if you disagree.

The pace it moves at is really something. For once, the likenesses on the front cover are accurate. It is just like a mix between The X Files and an episode of 24, though Janelle has 23 days rather than 23 hours. You get a real sense of the desperation as the clock winds down to it's unknown conclusion.

Janelle is likeable and her narration easily readable. I've got much love for the relationship that build builds between her and the mysterious Ben too, who is just too hugable for words. I felt myself getting swept up into their story, which is obviously good news.

Now for the bad. I found the idea that Janelle could steal and hide her fathers research a little hard to believe. Him being an FBI agent and those files being highly classified, I'm pretty sure that she should have been arrested, but rather than that she completely gets away with it. Even though other agents know she has them. Really?

There was also a point where the story started getting a little flimsy. I had to stop reading at one point (it was after midnight after all on a work night!!!) and it was getting seriously good. But when I picked it up the next day, something felt off. I can't quite explain it (no surprise there). It just didn't feel like the same story. It was at the point the supernatural element was introduced, and from then it just fell a little flat. Things started to feel a little difficult to believe. I've said this many a time, but if an authors got an idea that is impossible and could never happen in a million years, or is completely made up, they still need to make it plausible. Norris just wasn't overly convincing when explaining certain bits.

Then again, I am very fussy!! It still gets four stars though because other than a couple of hiccups it was still immensely immersive and tremendously enjoyable so big thumbs up!!

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So I'm still very much in the testing stages of this blog. This is me seeing if I can embed a video...here we go




Ahhhh, it worked. This is my latest book review on Youtube >.<

Now, let's see if I can add a review from Goodreads...

Fever by Dee Shulman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Hmmm, where to start? What I will say is that if you are Dee Shulman, look away now. I am doing this for your own good. And apologies, this is going to be a long. I will do my best to avoid spoilers (though it be difficult as there are a lot of specific bits that I really want to moan about!!!)


I really did try to find some positives, as I don't like giving a completely negative review It's not really fair or constructive, but it was difficult. The only thing I could find, was that the author can put a sentence together well, and technically speaking, her writing is pretty, well, readable. The problem that I had then, was with what the words were saying.


So lets start with her characters. I don't think I have ever instantly disliked a character as much as I did Eva. She's just too perfect. It's never really spelt out for us, as Eva's storyline is written in first person perspective, and being so humble and self-deprecating (which gets really annoying!!!) she never says 'I'm stupidly intelligent', but when we discover she can hack into computers at the age of 8, it's kind of implied.


Then once she hits her teens, she suddenly becomes some kind of radiant goddess that boys can't seem to resist, which girls hate her for.


So far she has brains and beauty. What are we missing?...oh yes, talent. She can play guitar and sing!! There we go, the perfect package. To be fair to the author, she did try to balance Eva out by giving her family/friend issues, but by that point my dislike was so firmly cemented, I just couldn't bring myself to sympathise or care and I just wished she'd stop whining and get over it. You can't have everything.


Her family doesn't understand her, which she often reminds us of, and she has no friends because she can't let anyone know her secret super-duper brain powers. All the boys want to date her because she is so beautiful and all the girls loath her because they are riddled with jealousy!!


Later on though, she meets Ruby who becomes her first friend. But when they fall big style (not Eva's fault of course, and yes, that was sarcasm) she becomes a stereotypical jealous, teenage villain, calling Eva lots of nasty names very publically. But don't worry, Eva's not alone, and the friends she doesn't even realise she has come to her rescue in the most cheesy fashion you could imagine. Yay.


A lot of my criticisms are probably just me being a bitch though, as I find people like Eva extremely hard to relate to and empathize with. It didn't help much that was particularly believable either. It soon becomes obvious to all that she's a brain-box, gorgeous and a mean musician, but it's the fact that she's so modest about it to the point of denial, that irritates me so much! How can she not know that she's stupidly attractive, when every guy who takes one look at her instantly seems to throw themselves at her feet, or how intelligent she is by the fact she gets accepted into the Boffin Institute (actual name St. Magdalene's)? It all comes across, to me, as a bit false. Just a little self acknowledgement of her many gifts, and some simple honesty would have made me like her more.


Then there's Seth, the male lead. A gladiator. He's strong, agile, quick and has this uncanny ability to pre-empt an opponent's next move before even they do (facts that we are reminded of constantly). Basically the perfect fighter. Then there's the fact that the poor dear, has to be beautiful and ooze charm that seems to draw in the opposite sex like a magnet. It's a hard life. But like with Eva, the author has tried to balance him out with being a slave and lacking in the freedom department. I actually found that I liked him to start with, but then his love interest, Livia, appears and he becomes a bit of a simpering romantic obsessed with love and the need to be with this girl he barely knows. I'm afraid I lost all respect for him. Again, this is probably just be my own personal failings when it comes to matters of the heart, but it started to get a little cheesy.


So within a few chapters, I was already finding this book a bit of a struggle, as I wasn't really invested in the characters. But I will say, which can be viewed as the second positive, is that though I personally didn't get on with her characters, the author has admirable character building skills, as through the course of the book, you really get to know them inside and out.


You may at this point, be wondering why I continued reading. The answer is the plot, as I was interested in finding out how she was going combine the two very different story lines together. The book makes it clear that time travel is involved, but it takes a while for that particular plot point to develop as there is a lot of initial back-story to wade through. Unfortunately, I was to be disappointed as the whole thing becomes a little silly.


We are introduced to the concept of Parallon, an alternate dimension (I think) that exists outside of time...and that's about all we get. There is very little explanation as to what it is, why it's there or even where it got it's name and although there's a character in Parallon who seems like he might have the answers, he is too irritatingly evasive and vague to be of any use.


It is from this point Eva and Seth finally meet, and it all seems a bit patched together, erring on the side of random. A series of events that don't really fit together or flow, leaving the whole thing disjointed. Towards the end of the book, I waited for a climax to the plot and maybe a few answers to some of the many mysteries hinted at, as, though this seems to be the start of a series, usually there is some sort of sense closure and of wrapping up. However, as there was no real focus to the story, this was absent. Instead we got some technical jargon about the fever for which the book is named, and although high-lights the research the author must have done, was detailed to the point of being boring and I'm afraid I began to skip chunks.


Then we finish on a scene that was missing from the earlier narrative, and should have been the grand finale, in which we discover the key details of a pinnacle event that occurred previously and that links, Seth, Eva and Livia together (badly and tenuously). Yet alas, by this point, I had lost all interest and just wanted to finish the book.


So, in conclusion, not good. Characters that are hard to like and unrealistic. A plot with too many holes and (deep breath) missing explanations that leaves the whole thing feeling like lots of random ideas just thrown at each with no real effort to linking them together, and too many mysteries that are left unresolved and therefore make no sense.


A lot of this (as I always say in my reviews) is of course personal preference so I won't tell you not to read it, as you may miss out on a book that you may in fact, like.


My goodness, that's the longest review EVER. If you made it this far, I commend, congratulate and thank you. You are super.


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