Book review: This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity, #1) by Victoria Schwab

 

Do you know that feeling when you open a book, read the first line and go like, ‘yup, this is my author, alright’. I got this feeling when I started reading “Vicious” - the first book by Victoria Schwab that I read. And I got the same feeling when I started reading ‘This Savage Song’. And it thrilled me to no end.

“This Savage Song” was doing a lot of rounds on BookTube last year, and the most mentioned thing about it was the fact that there is no romance in this book, which is incredibly rare and unusual for a young adult novel. What this book does have in abundance is monsters - both of human and supernatural variety.

The novel is set in a dystopian world, in the city which is divided by civil war. August Flynn and Kate Harker might seem like dystopian Romeo and Juliet but, thankfully, they are not star-crossed lovers, although there is an undeniable connection between them. There is enough gore and violence in this book to make it seem almost an adult novel. Almost but not enough. I would have loved this book to be more heavy (yes, more angsty and more intense), but I loved it for what it was worth.

“This Savage Song” seems like such a my book that it is surprising that it doesn’t have my name printed all over it. I couldn’t have asked for a better book (well, maybe a bit more angst and queerness) to read. I am surprised I have not written it myself, in a way. Just like when I was reading “Vicious”, I kept thinking that Victoria must be my brain twin as she created monsters that are more human than humans, and humans who are more monstrous than monsters - something that I aspire to do too.

I adored this book. I read it in less than two days because I just couldn’t put it down. I did, however, manage to predict who the real bad guys are, but it didn’t disappoint me in the least but rather made me more firm in my assumption that Victoria writes much in the same way as I think. Which is brilliant.

I don’t want to discuss plot for the fear of spoiling it, but I must say that I loved everything about this world: the monsters and their different powers; the fact that monsters are born from the vile crimes that people commit (which is something that I feel strongly about); the dystopian city divided by civil/turf war; chosen families; instant connections and unlikely friendships; being true to oneself, etc. There are so many things that I love about this book. I want to read it again. And again. And again.

The best thing about this book, though, is the fact that there is a sequel and I am already reading it.

Rating: 4 stars

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Neighbourhood vibes

Book review: Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Have you ever been in a situation when you don’t know what to read and then randomly find a book and it is exactly what you have been craving but you just didn’t know that? Well, this is what I felt when I started reading “Peter Darling” by Austin Chant, after seeing it being recommended by Cece at ProblemsofABookNerd. I still mentally salivate when I think about it.

I did not read the synopsis of the book before reading it, and I encourage you to do the same. Not because it is really spoilery (it is but there is just no other way to summarize the books, I guess), but because it does not reflect the dark and surreal feeling that this book inspires. To put it shortly, it is an adult fantasy novel, a sequel to Peter Pan, which features a transgender main character. That’s all you need to know. Go and read it now!

It takes place 10 years after the events of “Peter Pan”. Peter Pan has grown up, but his life has not been easy with Darlings. His father keeps calling him Wendy and his brothers think he invented Peter Pan. Peter feels the pull to return to Neverland, and this time for ever. Once he is back, he has to face his old adversary, Captain Hook. Ten years is a long time, and Peter is not a boy anymore, and it is not only hatred that he feels towards Hook.

I love reading books by indie authors, however, I rarely stumble upon real gems, and this book is definitely one of them. The book is well written with the right amount of angst and action. And I am a big sucker for angst. Peter struggles to be true to himself while managing his relationship with his brothers and parents, who see him only as Wendy. It is striking and moving, and I couldn't help but root for Peter.

Peter, when he returns to Neverland, and Lost Boys are brutal and more savage, which reminded me of “Lord of the flies” in some ways. There is a certain twist in the novel, which I freaking loved, and wish I could rant about it in my review, but it is a big spoiler.

Relationship between Peter and Hook is very believable, and I appreciate the fact that it did not happen out of blue or developed at a warp speed. For those who are concerned with the age difference, remember that Peter is of legal age in this story.

I really, really liked this book. I wish I had a physical copy, but it is definitely joining my favourites collection on my Kindle. I liked this book so much that I immediately went on twitter to tweet at the author and ask if he plans to do more fairy tales retellings/sequels because this one was awesome.

So, if you like queer stories and retellings peppered with angst, go and read it!

Personal rating: 4 stars

Buy on Kindle:

BookTube-A-Thon TBR

Who doesn't love a good challenge? Or an opportunity to tackle some of the books that you have always wanted to read but never had time to? Well, that's what read-a-thons are for.

Next week, beginning Monday, July 24, and till Sunday, July 30, the BookTube community will strive to complete all of the seven challenges announced by Ariel Bissett in this video. Obviously, I have to try too.

So, here is the list of challenges together with books, I picked (some links are affiliated):

The 2017 Reading Challenges:

1. Read a book with a person on the cover.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

Genre: YA, contemporary, LGBT, Own Voices

 

2.  Read a hyped book.

Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy

Genre: YA, fantasy, anthology

3. Finish a book in one day.

Black Dog: 4 vs the wrld by Matthew Heiti

Genre: play/script

4. Read about a character that is very different from you.

Fishbowl by Bradley Somer

Genre: adult, contemporary, humour, magical realism

 

5. Finish a book completely outdoors.

genre: classic, detective, graphic novel

(I don’t think it is available in stores now, but I found this listing on Amazon - http://amzn.to/2uNADce)

6. Read a book you bought because of the cover.

Sherlock: A Study in Pink (Manga)

genre: TV-tie in, manga

7. Read seven books.

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

Genre: play/script, LGBT, magical realism

OR

Grief is the Thing with Feathers

Genre: poetry, novella, magical realism

 

Let's see how I do this year :)

Book review: 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher (audiobook)

   

I had never heard of this book before it started to consistently pop up in my YouTube feed. For some reason I thought that it was a new release, and then was confused when I realized that it has been on sale at BookOutlet for awhile. Everyone seemed to rave about it, which, as always, makes me apprehensive. And then this title appeared on my Netflix feed. I was getting annoyed.

And then I saw that Emma from emmmabooks did a review of the tv show, and I was like, okay, if Emma has read it, then I should read it too as I trust her opinions when it comes to sensitive topics.

But a warning first: this book deals with abuse, rape and suicide. If you are triggered by either of those, do not read it and skip the tv show. I am serious.

I did not want to read the physical book because I find it hard to concentrate on contemporary YA, and I also thought that this book will work well in an audio format seeing as the major part of the narration is done via audio tapes. I got the audiobook on OverDrive and, to my biggest surprise, flew through it.

I wouldn’t call this my favourite story. It is a horrible and a very realistic story of abuse at school, rape, and other circumstances that resulted in a suicide. The book is told from the first point of view of Clay Jensen, the boy in high school, whose first love, Hannah Baker, took her life. One morning, two weeks later, he receives a package with audio tapes, recorded by late Hannah, in which she talks about thirteen people that had affected her life. Clay is compelled to listen to them, not only because of the threat of the second copy being made public if he doesn’t listen and then pass on the tapes, but also because he wants to know what part he himself played in Hannah’s death.

This book is perfect as an audiobook. Hannah’s narration gets more raw and candid as the story progresses. I enjoyed both narrators and I think they did a great job with both characters. The story has a bit of mysterious, almost suspenseful, air at the beginning, which made me think that there might be more to the story than it seems. Unfortunately, even though the story does have some unpredictable moments, it was not the case. I managed to guess some of the twists right off the bat, as they were rather obvious. The way the story was narrated, however, was very compelling, and I couldn’t stop listening to it.

Funny thing about this book - I kept forgetting that Hannah was dead. I kept thinking that this is going to be the moment when she would be okay. And after I watched Emma’s video review of the book and TV show, I found out that she had the same feeling while watching it. But no - Hannah Baker is dead, but she is so alive in this audiobook, that it is easy to forget this fact. I liked both Hannah and Clay. I felt really horrified by everything that Hannah went through, and I think that the author did a great job describing abuse and depression, and how all of those small things just add up. I was appalled by the fact that nobody could see what she was going through, including adults (which is a very real and common thing, unfortunately). It is a very believable, realistic and terrifying story.

I felt that the ending of the book was a bit weak, seeing as the book had a great build up, but I was let down a bit as the ending didn’t feel as cathartic as I expected. Also, I felt that the reasons behind some of the people’s actions were never properly explained. People can be cruel for no reason at all, but I felt that it made some of the characters a bit cliched.

I didn’t have any intention to watch the tv show, but after Emma’s review, I am starting to think that I might actually like it better than the book. I did enjoy the book but I felt it lacking for the reasons mentioned above. To my surprise, it seems like the tv show addressed those weaknesses and made the story more dimensional and elaborated. As a matter of fact, if you watch Emma’s review (and she gives away everything including the ending of the show, so beware of major spoilers!!), it feels as if the tv show might even be extended, which gives the story a different perspective (if it does get the second season, I might be even more compelled to watch it, because I want to see how everyone is dealing with the aftermath, as we are not shown that in the book). Honestly, her review makes me want to watch the show as I want to know more about those characters, although I don’t like the idea of watching Hannah suffer all over again.

“13 Reasons Why” is not a light read, nor it is the best book I have read this year. It is, however, an important read - a reminder to everyone to be kind to each other and that there might be people around us who are suffering in silence.

Plot: 3 stars

Narration: 4 stars

Overall rating: 3.5 stars

Affiliated links:

  

July 18, 2017: Queen + Adam Lambert Concert

Book review: The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich

   

This book kept coming up on BookTube and GoodReads as a new YA contemporary with a main gay couple, so of course I had to pick it up! I chose to read this book as part of #LGBTQIAREAD Read-a-thon, as I mentioned in my blog post.

“The Love Interest” is a slightly sci-fi young adult contemporary romance novel. Sounds confusing? Well, how about the plot. There is a nefarious secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. They are taken from their families and raised and trained to be perfect love interests for people who are destined for great power or influence. Those “love interests” are split into Nice and Bad, depending on their personality fit, and are constantly evaluated for various skills. Once they are deemed to be fit and are matched to their “chosen one”, they are then given the directives and are implanted into lives of those “chosen” to spy on them for the rest of their lives.

Caden is a Nice, Dylan is a Bad. They are give the same target and the ultimate incentive to win this dangerous game: be chosen or be killed. But, unexpectedly, they start to develop feelings for each other.

The plot summary was what attracted me to this book. I am not a huge fan of YA contemporary romance, but I love queer books and dystopian/sci-fi elements, so I was very excited to read it. Good thing that I purchased the book before I checked its rating on GoodReads or I might have never picked it up. As I am typing this, “Love Interest” has the rating of 3.18 on GR, and I try to never go for books which are under 3.5, because I get mostly disappointed (the only exception besides “Love Interest” was “Wink Poppy Midnight” which I adored).

Let’s be fair here, “The Love Interest” is far from a strong debut novel. There are a lot of plot holes surrounding the secret organization and how it was dealt with. Especially, in the last third of the novel - I had an impression as if the author was rushing through the ending or didn’t have it fully outlined, because everything that was happening was just too fantastical to be real. Some of the characters were too two dimensional for my taste and some of their actions were just implausible.

The good thing about this book is that it is just pure fun. The first half or even two thirds of the book is just a pure satire and parody on a typical young adult romance. And it is intended to be such. I found the narration overall pleasant enough and the action was fun.

I think that this book would have benefited from more editing and perhaps another round of revisions. I liked the idea of love interests/spies, I liked both Caden and Dylan. But the book lacked depth and even the moments that were supposed to move me felt a bit shallow as they were so brief. Not to mention the fact that the ending was extremely weak.

Is it a great book? No, but it IS a fun book which I might even re-read if I need a good laugh (because some of those romance tropes were just hilarious). But most importantly - the book gave me exactly what I wanted to read: a queer love story. We don’t have enough of those in YA, even nowadays.

I will definitely keep an eye on Cale’s books and hope to read more by him.

Personal rating: 3 stars

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Book Review: Heartless by Marissa Meyer (audiobook)

 

A year ago when several lucky booktubers were hauling an advanced reader’s copy of “Heartless”, a new stand alone novel by Marissa Meyer, I was feeling rather jealous. The ARC looked stunning and the final version was beautiful too. I had not read a single book by the author, but I was extremely interested in reading “Heartless”.

“Heartless” is a retelling of a story about Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Catherine might be a daughter of marques, but her dream is to become a baker and open her bakery. Her mother, however, dreams of her daughter to be wed to the King of Hearts. Catherine is struggling to find the balance between her parents’ wishes and her own dreams, until one day she meets Jest, a royal joker, and she is immediately attracted to him. But nothing is what it seems, and their secret courtship is overshadowed not only by the impending marriage to the king, but also the attacks by hideous and murderous monster named Jabberwock.

In spite of a great premise, I felt disappointed by the book. I read the first 100 pages and then got stuck, not because I hated the writing or was completely not interested in the plot, but rather because the story felt too slow-paced and too reflective for my taste. I felt almost bored when I was reading it, that is why I found myself picking up the book less and less, until I put it aside for a month or two. Frustrated, I decided to switch to an audiobook version, especially since I found out that it was narrated by Rebecca Soler, who voiced Nimona, and whom I rather liked.

So, I switched to an audiobook, started from the very beginning, and found that, although it was much easier to get through “Heartless” while colouring or doing something else, I was still getting annoyed by the fact that almost nothing was happening. Cath seemed too weak-willed to turn into a real Queen of Hearts. Her shiness and modesty didn’t match with the image of the queen yelling “Off with their heads!”. Jest was intriguing enough, but too good to be true, and I kept waiting for a big dirty secret to be revealed about his past and, unfortunately, was let down. I found some of the secondary characters more interesting than Cath herself.

However, no matter how many problems I had with the action and plot, I found the world wonderfully written. Marissa Meyer did an amazing job intertwining all the elements from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass world together into something that was very fascinating on its own. I would have loved another book set in this world, but not related to “Hearltess” in the plot.

Although Rebecca Soler does a great job voicing different characters, I found her British accent quite annoying and unnecessary. Her Cheshire and Hatter sounded too similar at times. Her King was extremely annoying (purposefully, I assume). Jest was lovely, but I could barely stand Cath or her friend Mary-Ann (not sure if it was because Rebecca is so good of a narrator of it is because I just disliked the characters).

I think the downfall of Heartless for me lies in the predictability of the ending. I mean, we all know what kind of character Queen of Hearts was in Lewis Carroll’s books, so it was never about the ending, but rather about the journey to that ending. ‘The journey’ failed to deliver and ‘the ending’ was just as expected, which turned this book, to my surprise, into a three star read.

I enjoyed the book, I liked the world and some characters a lot. I think that it was very well written. But the plot line made me want to grab the book and shake it until everything gets mixed inside and all the puzzle pieces finally fall into right places. I am still on the fence about how I feel about the book. I liked it, but I might have overhyped it to myself (I wanted to be so badly swept off my feet by it!), so it turned out to be a letdown. It is in no way as bad as some other retellings - it is well written! But it could have been so much better!

Therefore, I am splitting the ratings as follows, as I am not able to give just one rating to this book:

Plot: 3 stars

World/characters: 4.5 stars

Narration: 4 stars

Overall: 3.5 stars

If the author ever decides to write another book in this universe, that would have a completely original plot, I would totally down for it. Otherwise, I am glad that I only spent an Audible credit for an audiobook and didn’t succumb to the urge to buy a physical copy, no matter how pretty the cover is.

P.S. I am totally NOT OKAY with what Marissa Meyer did with Jest and Hatter at the very end. NOPE. That was just UNFAIR.

Affiliated links:

 

Painted sunrise

Be gentle