I just couldn't with this book. The heroine, burned by a cheater ex-husband, was oblivious to what was smacking her in the facSo. Much. Cheese. [image]
I just couldn't with this book. The heroine, burned by a cheater ex-husband, was oblivious to what was smacking her in the face (I think it was the above cheese fish*) and the hero was unrealistically patient and way too coy about his desire to start a relationship with his best friend's ex-wife. Or maybe it was ex-best friend?
The setup: Cami comes home early one day and catches her husband in the act with another woman under their Christmas tree (part of the reason she now can't stand Christmas). She photoshops their wedding pictures to crop him out and then posts them online. It's such a hit that she's now made a business out of doing it for other women, along with cautionary blog posts about never getting involved with men. Stay single!! Too bad for Cami that Noah Cullen is waiting to upend those plans.
I winced every time the the heroine had an inner debate with her giddy (but also wiser!) alter ego, Miss Sparkly, about the merits of falling in love, #NotAllMen, the joy of Christmas, living life to its fullest, etc. I never want to see the word "sparkly" again.
It's a very cutesy and squeaky clean contemporary romance, so if that's your jam and you adore cuteness in your chick lit, have at it! I breezed through it as quickly as possible (okay, skimmed is probably the better word for the last half) and returned it to Kindle Unlimited as soon as I finished.
* aka Guineafowl pufferfish (the yellow variant, obvs.)...more
One more Retro Hugo nominee! The Changeling is a 1944 novella by A.E. van Vogt, a well-regarded Golden Age SF author, which is currently a nominee forOne more Retro Hugo nominee! The Changeling is a 1944 novella by A.E. van Vogt, a well-regarded Golden Age SF author, which is currently a nominee for the 2020 Retro Hugo award. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature (along with a link to Internet Archive, if you're interested in checking this out):
The Changeling begins in a fairly promising way: The comfortable life of Lesley Craig, a well-to-do business executive, is upended when his boss comments on how well the firm has done since Craig joined it four years ago. Craig is confused: he knows he’s been with the Nesbitt Co. for (pause while he counts) thirty-four years. Which makes Craig fifty years old and — now he’s getting concerned — he looks and feels like he’s in his mid-thirties, and his memory of most of these years is pretty hazy.
When Craig sets off to confront his wife, he’s taken prisoner by (cue wincing here) a group of tough women who have taken an “equalizing” drug that makes them physically … and presumably mentally and emotionally … as strong and capable as men. Equality of the sexes, 1940’s-style! These “equalized” women haul Craig before the president of the U.S., Jefferson Dayles. President Dayles favors Craig with some “As you know, Bob” info-dumping about their troubled times in 1973, threatens him, takes a sample of Craig’s blood, and then sends him on his way.
Everyone around Craig — his wife Anrella, his boss, the president and others — seems to have competing ideas about what Craig should do, but none of their ideas involve informing Craig about what is really going on with his entire life. Craig is a confused man, and as he stumbles from one crisis and plot complication to the next, the reader is equally confused. Far-fetched explanations are eventually forthcoming, but the plot is a severely disjointed one, with a few odd jumps in time, and a murky ending that did nothing to redeem the story. Add to that the really cringe-worthy treatment of gender issues; even for the 40s, this seems like awful stuff. The Changeling is pretty much a hot mess, with a lot of wasted potential....more
This review is only for Intruders from the Stars, a 1944 novella that's currently a Retro Hugo nominee. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature, aloThis review is only for Intruders from the Stars, a 1944 novella that's currently a Retro Hugo nominee. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature, along with a link to Internet Archive if you really want to read it. But I can't recommend it!
I have never seen a published work with so many exclamation points. There are dozens of them — on Every! Single! Page! This is one seriously overwrought novella, with tons of purple prose. It stars Bess-Istra, a gorgeous (of course) and megalomaniacal Queen of All She Surveys, who loses a battle against rebels on her home planet and takes off in a spaceship with her remaining (more or less) loyal soldiers to take over another planet 13 light years away.
Their scientist uses a sleeping gas to put everyone on the ship into suspended animation for the trip. Because of Reasons, they miss the planet they were aiming for and, many millennia later, land on Earth during WWII. Bess-Istra promptly moves to take over the Earth.
This novella features another those tough, highly competent guys so popular in Golden Age SF, a war correspondent in this case, who falls in love with Bess-Istra even though he knows she’s bad news (not to mention being, you know, an actual space alien, though she conveniently speaks English). When I hit the phrases “her breast heaving” on the third page and “her glorious, scarlet lips” on the page after that, used in a completely unironical way, I knew we were in trouble. It never really gets any better from there.
The only part that engaged me was the brief explanation of how and why they missed the other planet they were aiming for. :)...more
ETA: My college-age daughter read this a couple of days ago, and I quote: “It’s not worth the time.” She has good taste in books, so I’m going to go wETA: My college-age daughter read this a couple of days ago, and I quote: “It’s not worth the time.” She has good taste in books, so I’m going to go with that.
Initial post: Me two days ago: I wonder if Stephenie Meyer is working on writing anything new? It’d be interesting to see a Host sequel ... I’d even read a Renesmee novel.
Stephenie Meyer: You thought Midnight Sun had been permanently shelved? Hah, suckers!...more
2.5 stars. This is a Victorian era romantic soap opera, with all the drama, self-sacrifice and long-windedness that implies.
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Written in 1873 (I2.5 stars. This is a Victorian era romantic soap opera, with all the drama, self-sacrifice and long-windedness that implies.
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Written in 1873 (I read it online at Project Gutenberg), The Doctor's Dilemma begins with an uppercrust, frantic young woman, Olivia, escaping from the rooms in London where she's been locked in for three weeks because REASONS, and haring off as far as she can go ... which ends up being the Channel Islands. There she shelters with a friendly fisherman and his aged mother in a remote cottage on the island of Sark.
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One fateful day Olivia slips and falls down a cliff, injuring herself pretty badly. Enter the handsome doctor from the nearby island of Guernsey, and love at first sight. But the handsome doctor is also engaged to a cousin of his, which was a major thing to try to upend back in that day. Also the doctor soon realizes that Olivia is the nameless woman that he saw a newspaper ad for, by someone trying to find her. Sinister or good? He doesn't know. What he also doesn't know is that Olivia has other secrets she hasn't shared ...
Not badly written, for its day, but MAN, does this novel take the long and winding road to the expected ending. Maybe it was originally written as a newspaper serial? Because I can't think of any other reason (besides Victorian, which admittedly does explain a lot) for it to be so lengthy. I have to admit I skimmed most of the second half of it.
Recommended only if you really like old-fashioned romance and don't mind if it’s a super-slow burn....more
2.5 stars. Dazzling science can't make up for a mundane plot. Full review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Nick Chen is an IT guy on a mission: when2.5 stars. Dazzling science can't make up for a mundane plot. Full review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Nick Chen is an IT guy on a mission: when quantum computers become available to consumers, he tries to convince the managers at the Babylon Hotel and Casino where he works to shut down their keno lounge, knowing that quantum computers can quickly crack the random-number generators of the keno game system. When he fails to persuade them, he uses his override passwords to shut down the keno game, which quickly gets the attention of Edwin Rutledge, the head of the casino. Eventually convinced by Chen’s arguments, Rutledge authorizes Chen to buy the casino its own quantum computer for $300,000 (“We fight quantum with quantum”).
A couple of days later, a new QuanaTech quantum computer is delivered and installed by a salesman, Chen sets up airtight security systems around it, and all is now well with the Babylon keno game … or, perhaps not. It turns out that the QuanaTech salesman is married to a brilliant physicist, who has an idea for an ingenious way to game the system.
Andy Weir is still riding on the coattails of The Martian's fame, but I’m getting dubious that he’ll ever recapture that same magic. Randomize doesn’t do it. Weir tries to dazzle your eyes with lots of geeky science talk about quantum computing and pseudorandom number generation and entangled qbits, and how that would affect the massive Las Vegas gambling industry. But once you clear away all the sparkly physics details, at its heart this is just a heist story, and not a particularly compelling one.
Weir does give his characters a few memorable characteristics: Rutledge is deeply status-conscious and mistrusts anyone who won’t drink with him; the QuanaTech salesman and his wife, Prashant and Sumi Singh, are an Indian couple in an arranged marriage that has worked out rather well, but they want to escape their financial worries; Nick Chen is a nerd who cares about his new quantum computer more than his co-workers’ — or his own — comfort. However, the characterization feels perfunctory; with the exception of Sumi, the characters are all readily recognizable types. The heist plan is overly-complex from a physics point of view but the actual execution of the plan is so simple as to be an eyebrow-raiser. The ending of this novella was amusing but underwhelming.
Randomize is part of the FORWARD collection proposed and curated by Blake Crouch. It’s a set of six stand-alone novellas, each by a different author, that explore the “effects of a pivotal technological moment.” The authors are Crouch, N.K. Jemisin, Veronica Roth, Amor Towles, Paul Tremblay and Andy Weir. The individual novellas are reasonably priced and available in ebook and audio form individually or as a set....more
Huh. I think I get why Ilona Andrews abandoned this starter to a new series. It has some pretty disturbing elements, and it’s got about a million surfHuh. I think I get why Ilona Andrews abandoned this starter to a new series. It has some pretty disturbing elements, and it’s got about a million surface details but nothing that really sticks. It’s like the proverbial river that’s a mile wide and an inch deep.
Karina Tucker is a widowed mother of a young daughter, Emily. While driving Emily and a few other kids home from from a field trip they make a quick stop at a building because Jacob HAS to use the restroom. It's an ugly, somehow menacing building (Karina! just send Jacob into the bushes with some tissues!).
And from there Karina (and Emily) are involuntarily pulled into a weird, deadly dimension. With lots of men - also menacing, but hot, so ... The few women are just there for backdrop. It's all about the alpha guys here.
Will Karina be able to overcome a bad start (seriously, a really, REALLY bad start) and control her density destiny? (view spoiler)[C'mon, it's an Ilona Andrews book! (hide spoiler)] Will the rapey man have a good heart and Reasons for how he acts? Who cares?
I’d only recommend it if you’re an Ilona Andrews completist and not too picky about your urban fantasy.
Full review to come.
Content notes: Lots of language, violence, kidnapping, assault ... but no sex....more
2.5 stars. Unpopular opinion time! The first of my two DNFs in the last few weeks. This breezy adventure about a motley crew in an old spaceship was j2.5 stars. Unpopular opinion time! The first of my two DNFs in the last few weeks. This breezy adventure about a motley crew in an old spaceship was just okay for me. It never captured my imagination, and I ended up putting it down about halfway through and just never picking it back up again.
If diversity and acceptance are deeply important to you, this might be a great read for you. Everybody on the crew of the Wayfarer is diverse (mostly in a space alien but also in a sexuality kind of way) but accepting and loving (well, mostly), conflicts are resolved, love is found, and so on. But other than that diversity-positive element, the plot didn't strike me as anything new or unusual in SF, and diversity and social justice by themselves aren't enough to keep me engaged in an otherwise bland book....more
Olivia, a bookish Regency lady who wears spectacles, gets a surprise proposal from the handsome Duke of Ashmont and agrees Runaway bride alert!
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Olivia, a bookish Regency lady who wears spectacles, gets a surprise proposal from the handsome Duke of Ashmont and agrees to marry him. Everyone is thrilled ... except Olivia. She's sure Ashmont doesn't really care about her. The morning of her wedding, her courage bolstered by some alcohol, she climbs out of a window before the ceremony and takes off for ... who knows where? Not Olivia, that's for sure.
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Ashmont's close friend, the Duke of Ripley, sees her and takes off after her, with the plan of protecting her from harm and persuading her to come back and marry Ashmont. As one thing after another goes wrong, Ripley and Olivia start to connect. But clearly it's impossible to pursue a relationship between them, especially in Regency society. Clearly. Of course.
Loretta Chase is usually a great choice if you’re looking for a well-written historical romance with interesting characters, humorous dialogue, and a large helping of steaminess, but this one just didn’t do it for me. The first half follows Olivia's and Ripley's misadventures around town. For whatever reason I found it incredibly tedious.
The second half - though much more interesting - involves (sort of a spoiler but, c’mon, could anyone really be surprised?) (view spoiler)[Olivia cheating on her fiancé with his friend. I mean, couldn’t you wait a day and officially break the engagement first? (hide spoiler)] But what’s a couple to do when they’re out in a rainstorm, but luckily there’s an empty cottage nearby (there always is) where they can take shelter from the storm?
A soft 3 stars, maybe 2.75. So ... I'm having bad luck lately with my romance binge and am about ready to hang it up. This author also wrote the very A soft 3 stars, maybe 2.75. So ... I'm having bad luck lately with my romance binge and am about ready to hang it up. This author also wrote the very charming The Hating Game. 99 Percent Mine was ... not so charming. Well, okay, I liked Tom a lot, but "bad girl" Darcy and her twin brother were more irritating than appealing.
The heroine, Darcy, has made a mess of her life in more ways than I can count (including general life aimlessness, job problems, drinking problems, sugar bingeing, and not taking care of a truly severe heart problem). I guess so that she has nowhere to go but up as she starts to get her life back together? Darcy's uptight brother Jamie considers Tom his friend and will do anything (including flat-out lying) to torpedo any romance between them, even though he knows they're both extremely interested in the other. Meanwhile (view spoiler)[Jamie is doing the Exact. Same. Thing with a close friend of Darcy's! (hide spoiler)] *brain explodes* The roadblocks to Tom + Darcy are as contrived as they could possibly be.
The last half of the book was better but I found the first half mostly tedious. Glad I got it from the library.
I read Green Dolphin Street as a group read with the Retro Reads crowd. I had such high hopes because I've loved the other two historical fiction noveI read Green Dolphin Street as a group read with the Retro Reads crowd. I had such high hopes because I've loved the other two historical fiction novels I read by Elizabeth Goudge, but this one landed with kind of a thud.
Marianne and Marguerite are two sisters, daughters of a wealthy merchant, who live on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Marianne, who is five years older than Marguerite, is intelligent but mercurial, and not as conventionally lovely or as well-behaved as her younger sister. They both fall in love with William, who's not in their social class but is a compelling personality. They all hang out together as they grow up but, predictably, it's Marguerite that William falls in love with.
William leaves Guernsey to go to New Zealand to seek his fortune, planning to bring Marguerite there once he's settled and doing well. But he's drunk the night he writes the fateful proposal letter, and accidentally mixes up the sisters' names and asks Marianne to come to NZ to marry him. (The author claimed this part was based on a factual story.) Marianne is elated; Marguerite deeply dejected. And William, when he sees which sister shows up on the boat months later, doesn't know how to undo his mistake. This is back in Victorian days, when you just didn't do that kind of thing.
Green Dolphin Street follows their lives and adventures together. There are some harrowing times with the Maori natives, and here Goudge's normally fine sensibilities let her down. It's dated and, to say the least, racially insensitive. This book was written in 1944, and if you can't make allowances for outdated social attitudes, you'll be offended.
Between that and the Drama (with a capital D) between William and the sisters, (view spoiler)[ and the resulting difficulties in William's and Marianne's marriage (hide spoiler)], this just wasn't a book I found appealing. Elizabeth Goudge was a talented author, but I'd definitely recommend The Dean's Watch or The Scent of Water over this one.
One of the worst Kindle freebie romances I've had the dubious pleasure of downloading, and that's saying something. Both of the main characters are idOne of the worst Kindle freebie romances I've had the dubious pleasure of downloading, and that's saying something. Both of the main characters are idiots who blow hot and cold, and the writing is so clunky it was painful.
I started squinting at it after a chapter or two and ended up skimming through the rest of the book, just to see how it all played out. When I finished I even went to the trouble of going to Amazon and permanently deleting this book from my Kindle files, so I can forget about it as soon as possible and never ever be reminded of it again. ...more
Hundreds of years in our world’s future, dystopia prevails, at least in the nation called t1.5 stars. Full review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Hundreds of years in our world’s future, dystopia prevails, at least in the nation called the Federacy. Judge Max Cone, with a stellar career as a military commander behind him, has spent the last fourteen years as a high judge. One of his duties is to interview young people who want to become formal citizens of the Federacy, guaranteeing them freedom. Most are rejected, sent to border settlements where life is perilous. Now Max is biding his time, taking care of his beloved wife and three young children and quietly planning his personal revenge on the governmental officials who ordered the procedure that essentially lobotomized his wife, a gifted scientist whose research findings threatened the Federacy.
Tensions with other nations and powerful rebel groups are high. While at the trial of a thirteen year old girl named Pique, a citizenship candidate who decided to prove her nearly inhuman talent as a fighter by tying Max up, Max gets kidnapped by a representative of the Federacy’s supposed ally, the Nation of Yerusalom. He finds himself pulled in different directions by various factions who want to use him and his skills and famous name for their own political and military purposes. Max sometimes cooperates, but often pushes back. Despite his jaded view of politics, he has a deep determination to do what he thinks is best. When a shocking tragedy occurs, Max becomes more deeply involved with these powerful forces who want to change the world to fit their vision … in ways that might be disastrous.
Game of the Gods, a debut novel by Jay Schiffman, started out fairly interesting for me, with a combination of action/adventure and conspiracies. Max is a reluctant hero who finds himself deeply enmeshed in a complex web of political and religious scheming, and he’s surrounded by some intriguing secondary characters. The first person/present tense narration was a drawback, though; it never ceased to feel clunky.
Around the one-third mark I really started to disengage. It began with a team-building exercise for a planned rescue mission that is, rather suspiciously, comprised entirely of young woman ― except for Max. He resists the multiple sexual come-ons heroically, but hey, what’s a guy to do when the women pin him down and force hallucinogenic drugs into his mouth? My eyes were rolling SO hard. Max never seems too exercised about it (partly because the girls give him another drug to cloud his memories of what happened) but it’s a highly dubious combination of ritualized sexual fantasy and guy rape.
Game of the Gods never recovered from that point. The plot gets more fragmented and unwieldy, and Schiffman’s writing style is rather choppy and frequently heavy-handed. At one point there’s a truly startling leap in time: a chapter ends with a tension-filled scene ― cherished characters dying! traitors being executed! ― and at the very start of the next chapter Max suddenly awakes from a medically-induced coma to find that six months have passed. It felt like Schiffman wanted to shift the action forward in time and thought this was a convenient way to achieve that goal, but it came across as inept.
Game of the Gods ends without any real resolution. Though it’s not being marketed as the first book in a series, I can only surmise that a sequel is intended; otherwise the ending is incredibly dissatisfying. If there is a sequel, though, I won’t be reading it.
I received a free copy of this book from Tor for review. Thanks, and sorry this one wasn't a winner for me!...more
I picked up this collection of four Jane Austen fan fiction (JAFF) novellas and stories as a Kindle freebie and couldn't resist diving right into it. I picked up this collection of four Jane Austen fan fiction (JAFF) novellas and stories as a Kindle freebie and couldn't resist diving right into it. There are two Pride and Prejudice stories, one Mansfield Park one, and one that's a quirky combination of P&P, MP and Emma. The stories share a Christmas theme.
They're cute and fairly well-written and went down fairly easily, but there's just not a lot of substance to them. And what is this thing JAFF writers have with making Darcy so sappy and whipped over Elizabeth? I'm alarmed at his gooeyness. That is not MY Mr. Darcy.
Anyway, this collection started out fairly strongly but kind of petered off after the first story. Here's the breakdown (spoiler warnings for P&P and MP):
3.75 stars for "Her Christmas Gift" by Robin Helm. In this novella, the longest story in the collection, the plot veers off from the standard P&P when Lady Catherine de Bourgh never shows up at Longbourne, and Elizabeth and Darcy never get the chance to talk and work things out after he helps Lydia and then accompanies Bingley back to Meryton. Elizabeth has realized that she's very attracted to Darcy, but doesn't expect to ever get another chance with them.
Now it's the Christmas season, and Elizabeth has traveled to Rosings (Lady Catherine's estate) to help her friend Charlotte in her late pregnancy). Lady Catherine and Mr Collins both get ill (for different reasons), and Darcy shows up at Rosings with Thomas Jones, a handsome physician who's a childhood friend of Elizabeth's ... and is still carrying a torch for her. An interesting love-triangle-ish kind of story. I enjoyed the unexpected development of Anne de Bourgh's personality.
3 stars for "The Christmas Matchmaker" by Laura Hile. Wow, this one was kind of weirdly fantastical. It's right after Bingley's ball fairly early in P&P, and the morning after the ball Darcy and Bingley's sisters pack Bingley off to London to avoid him getting further involved with Jane Bennet. Before the rest of them can leave, they get some VERY unexpected visitors at Netherfield: it's Emma Woodhouse, accompanied by Miss Bates and Tom Bertram (from Mansfield Park). Apparently "Aunt Jane" sent them to Netherfield, hah.
Elizabeth Bennet also pays a visit to Netherfield to look for her amethyst bracelet that was lost at the dance the evening before, and Emma immediately launches into her matchmaking mode ... except that it's not Darcy who she wants to line Elizabeth up with. To his own surprise, Darcy is unhappy about Emma's meddling. Meanwhile Charles Bingley comes back to Netherfield because the bridge gets washed out, everyone is stranded, and mumps is going around (Caroline Bingley gets it, hah!). There's some really odd meta stuff going on, apparently due to Aunt Jane's meddling in the character's lives, trying to keep everyone on track.
"Aunt Jane," said Darcy in a low voice, "is apparently some sort of guardian to us all."
"That is very nicely said," agreed Miss Woodhouse. "It is most unwise to trifle with Aunt Jane. No good will come of it."
It's quirky (especially this one dream scene from their future that Elizabeth and Darcy share) but it had its moments.
2.5 stars for "No Better Gift" by Wendi Sotis. It's nine days before Christmas, and Darcy drops by the abandoned Netherfield estate to pick up a gift for his sister that he'd left there. He still can't get Elizabeth off his mind, but he's determined to avoid her. But Meryton is oddly abandoned, and when Darcy gets to Netherfield he finds ... Elizabeth mucking out one of the horses' stalls in the stable. Turns out there's YET ANOTHER bout of sickness going around - this time it's chicken pox - and so many people are ill that Elizabeth (who is immune since she had the chicken pox as a child) is helping out the ill servants at Netherfield. Darcy is alarmed at the state of Netherfield ... and about the return of his unwelcome feelings for Elizabeth. This story was weakened by (view spoiler)[ a sudden realization by Darcy that Elizabeth will actually make him a good wife and an even more sudden proposal scene (hide spoiler)], so joltingly sudden that I literally did a double-take. Minus points for sheer improbability (in a non-fantasy setting).
2.75 stars for "Mistletoe at Thornton Lacey" by Barbara Cornthwaite. This Mansfield Park fan fiction, which takes place right at the end of MP, includes a little conniving by Tom Bertram and Susan Price (Fanny's sister) to get Edmund to realize that he should marry Fanny. But an offhand comment by someone else has already led Edmund to that same thought.
On Thursday he wondered if true regard and affection were enough to build a good marriage on, deciding in the affirmative. On Friday he spent his time pondering if perhaps he could, in time, love Fanny in the same way that he had loved - well, at any rate, the way a bridegroom ought to love his bride. By Saturday morning he determined that the answer to that was yes, he certainly could - he was already thinking no other woman would ever do for him. By Monday he was overcome with nerves ...
But it turns out to be a tricky thing for Edmund to propose to Fanny.
It's not bad, but overall kind of lacking in depth and insight. Right after I finished this off I found myself rereading another Mansfield Park JAFF work, Everingham (which is free online, BTW), just to remind myself what really good JAFF is like....more
DNF. I read several chapters, started suspecting that it wasn't going to be my type of read, and skimmed about half of the rest of the book, which conDNF. I read several chapters, started suspecting that it wasn't going to be my type of read, and skimmed about half of the rest of the book, which confirmed my suspicions. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Thirteen-year-old Elliot is pulled from his geography class one day, packed into a van with three other students, and driven to a random field in Devon, England, where he watches his French teacher exchanges money with a woman standing next to a high wall.
The woman in odd clothing “tested” him by asking him if he could see a wall standing in the middle of a field. When he told her, “Obviously, because it’s a wall. Walls tend to be obvious,” she had pointed out the other kids blithely walking through the wall as if it was not there, and told him that he was one of the chosen few with the sight.
When the woman asks Elliot to come with her to the magical land on the other side of the wall, he promptly tells her no one will miss him (Elliot’s problematic home life is explored later in the book) and heads over the wall with her. There he finds, somewhat to his disappointment, that he’ll be attending school to be trained as either a warrior or councilor. Elliot, more inclined to using sarcastic words than his fists for fighting, quickly opts for the council course. He equally quickly begins to mock Luke, the handsome blond guy who seems inclined to act as the leader of the group of new students at the Border, and Luke’s smiling sidekick Dale, mentally dubbing them Blondie and Surfer Dude. And Elliot immediately falls in love with an “elvish maiden” warrior who introduces herself as Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.
So begins Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands, which has been nominated for the 2018 World Science Fiction Society award for best Young Adult book ― a new category for the WSFS, which administers the Hugo awards. It’s a magical school set in a magical land peopled with the usual suspects: pointy-eared elves, short dwarves with beards and hammers, unicorns, mermaids. The fantasy worldbuilding is paper-thin; Brennan’s real attention here is focused on teenage relationships and growing pains. We follow Elliot and his friends and classmates over the next four years as they learn to navigate magic school, friendships and romances. There’s lots of sleeping around, and Elliot’s emerging bisexuality is one of the things he explores through several sexual relationships with both sexes. Gay, bi and straight relationships and sexual exploration are all accepted in this magical world with equanimity.
Elliot is a deeply insecure protagonist who gets along by being relentlessly antagonistic, hurling sarcastic insults at others at every opportunity. Many readers may enjoy his constant snark; it got old for me fast because there was so much anger and meanness underlying it. It takes Elliot years, not to mention way too many pages of this book, to grow up emotionally. Elliot’s dedication to obnoxiousness, combined with the superficial, chatty writing style Brennan uses in this book (one review I read compared it to fanfiction) and the lack of any originality or depth in the fantasy aspects of In Other Lands, were enough to make me abandon the book. I wasn’t ever able to lose myself in the story.
In Other Lands wasn’t my type of YA book, but if bisexual characters, gender-bent societies (the elves have a firmly matriarchal society where the women are the warriors and the men keep house), and a primary focus on teen relationships are particularly interesting to you, give it a shot.
Content notes: lots of teen sex, but nothing beyond the kisses is explicit....more
There were some interesting ingredients in this contemporary mystery/suspense novel: Vanessa is the troubled ex-wife, desperate Color me underwhelmed.
There were some interesting ingredients in this contemporary mystery/suspense novel: Vanessa is the troubled ex-wife, desperate to prevent her former husband Richard’s remarriage. Her chapters alternated with those of Nellie, the perky, pretty preschool engaged to be married to the suave Richard. Then there was Richard himself, a concerned, attentive husband and boyfriend.
There were several interesting twists in this book - I actually only anticipated one of them. I will say that the last couple of twists seemed gratuitous to me, not really necessary or integral to the plot, more like hey, here’s ANOTHER twist we can throw into the story. Yay!!
But my biggest problem? I was just so BORED for the first two-thirds of the book. The writing is pedestrian, and there was lots of repetition and not a whole lot of forward movement until the end was within sight. The plot just plodded slowly along, filled with lots of details that just seemed so mundane. Yes, a lot of those details turned out to be relevant in the end, but by then I was past really caring.
2.75 stars. I’m an outlier here so, clearly, your mileage may vary....more
2.5 stars. Jean Webster, best known for her charming 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs, also wrote this 1907 bit of fluff novel, Jerry Junior. Jerry (Junior)2.5 stars. Jean Webster, best known for her charming 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs, also wrote this 1907 bit of fluff novel, Jerry Junior. Jerry (Junior) is a wealthy upper-class American, a handsome young man whiling away several days in an Italian village, waiting for his sister and aunt to arrive. He's getting very bored, so when the hotel waiter tells him about a lovely young American woman staying in a nearby villa, he decides to drop by (without an invitation or introduction, gasp!) and meet her.
Unfortunately, Jerry and Constance get off on the wrong foot, and she dismisses him without a whole lot of thought. Jerry, angry and a little humiliated, is about to leave town when he overhears Constance discussing him with her father at the hotel's restaurant, admitting he was handsome and slightly regretful about how it played out. Since Jerry's attracted to her, he decides not to leave town after all. When he also overhears her asking for an Italian guide for some hiking the next day (“He must have curly hair and black eyes and white teeth and a nice smile; I should like him to wear a red sash and earrings.”) Jerry - in a burst of dubious inspiration - decides to disguise himself as their guide (though he speaks almost no Italian).
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The next day during the hike, Constance makes him almost immediately but decides not to let on that she recognizes him, and flirts with several handsome Italian officers just to make Jerry jealous. Jerry digs himself deeper with lies and scheming, but also manages to do some close-up flirting with Constance. When Jerry's sister finally arrives, the plot thickens further.
So this one didn't appeal to me all that much, though readers of old-fashioned romances might get a kick out of it. There's some amusing dialogue, but I was too annoyed with Jerry and Constance's relentless game-playing with each other. I got kind of bored with the whole story and started skimming after a while, though it picks up a bit toward the end. There's also a strong dose of unexamined classism and stereotyping of Italian characters, nothing wildly out of line (it's pretty typical for a century-old novel) but it didn't help Jerry Junior's case.
This is a Gutenberg and Amazon freebie, but I'd only recommend it to those who really love retro romances ... which I generally do, but not so much in this case. Too bad! The Gutenberg version does contain some charming Gibson Girl-type illustrations.
This 1962 book (which I picked up on a $1.99 Kindle sale along with the other two books in this series) is a 9-years-later sequel to The Eye of Love. This 1962 book (which I picked up on a $1.99 Kindle sale along with the other two books in this series) is a 9-years-later sequel to The Eye of Love. Martha, an 18 year old Brit who was a willful 9 year old budding artist in the first book and one of an ensemble of characters, is now the main character, as she's sent by her mentor, old Mr. Joyce, to study art in Paris. Since the first book was set in 1932, this one would be 1941, but WWII never makes any kind of appearance, even as a backdrop. It was like some alternative world where Martha skipped the 40s and time-jumped straight to the 1950s.
This book seriously wasn't what I expected.
What I expected: *Charming, fun Paris! *Lush descriptions of art. *A delightful romance, starring a chunky, sympathetic heroine.
What I got: *A Paris setting, but thin on the details, charming or otherwise. *Way less art than I expected, considering how devoted Martha is to it. *A manipulative, self-centered heroine with almost a complete lack of empathy for others - an interesting character, but extremely hard to like. *A romance that happens only because the shy bank clerk is completely deluded as to the actual character of Martha. *And (view spoiler)[an unwanted out-of-wedlock pregnancy (hide spoiler)], which turns out to be the main focus of the story.
This would have been edgy reading in 1962, but not so much now. Read it if you're interested in a character study of an unpleasant and quirky but talented young woman.
Also, it ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger. To get the rest of the story, you need to read Martha, Eric and George ... another 10-years-later sequel....more
Irritating characters and amateurish writing. I don't expect a whole lot from my Kindle freebie romances, but I just couldn't connect with this one.Irritating characters and amateurish writing. I don't expect a whole lot from my Kindle freebie romances, but I just couldn't connect with this one....more
2.25ish stars. Still a Kindle freebie romance - sorry, I know I've been binging on these lately, but I think I'm about at the end of that cycle for a 2.25ish stars. Still a Kindle freebie romance - sorry, I know I've been binging on these lately, but I think I'm about at the end of that cycle for a while. Katherine Collins is trying to get her stepsister Constance quickly married off so Constance doesn't lose her fortune. She chooses Alexander Wescott, Lord Borin, to throw Constance at.
Alex is more interested in Katherine than Constance, but really he's not interested in marriage at all right now: he wants to be a spy for England. And to prove himself to the spymaster, he decides to dig into something fishy that appears to be going on in the Collins household.
Regency-era silliness that just never engaged me. I skimmed through most of it and deleted it from my Kindle. It's possible that I was more critical than usual because I've had my fill of this genre, but I'd only recommend it if you like the sweet, rather silly historical romances.
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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