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Posted:
Mar 17, 2012
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Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

Author: Ransom Riggs
Series: Miss Peregrine #1
Published: June 2011
Publisher: Quirk Books
352 pages

The March book of my online reading book club :)

A collection of odd vintage photographs and the mysterious and violent death of his beloved grandfather leads Jacob on a trip to a remote island by Wales, where he yearns to find out the truth behind his grandfather’s death and his cryptic last words. Everyone’s convinced Jacob’s having a mental breakdown over the death, but Jacob knows he’s not — he really did see monsters kill his grandpa. Or he thinks he did anyway … after several therapist sessions, even Jacob is starting to think maybe he’s just gone crazy. But the discovery of a broken down house and a miraculous encounter with the peculiar children of his grandfather’s story convinces Jacob that he isn’t seeing things. The monsters were real, and the peculiar children are in great danger.

The problem I had with this book was that it was boring. The plot is weak and moves at an awkward fast-slow-fast-slow pace. It was such a disappointment after the intriguing beginning. The beginning was really well written, in my opinion. I was sucked into the story immediately. It is rather unfortunate that it went steeply downhill from there.

The characters were not very well developed. Jacob, the main character, is a bit of a wishy-washy narrator. He never seems to really know what he wants. He didn’t have any goals to work towards in this novel. It was just, “I’m going to this island … I have no idea what I am looking for, but maybe it will help.” And when he got to the island, he was like, “I’m here now. I have no idea what I’m doing.” Jacob’s father, the one parent that had the most stage-time in this book, had some potential — a bird enthusaist who clearly had some self-esteem issues and was worried that if he didn’t do something productive with his life soon, his wealthy wife would leave him — but the author didn’t really do much with him. Which is a real shame because his back story and his issues sound like they could make a pretty damn interesting novel. As for the other characters, the peculiar children and what not, they had interesting abilities, but not much of a personality.

The most redeeming quality of this book are the photographs, I feel. They range from mildly odd to downright eerie. I think the author must have really loved the photos and wanted to use them to make a coherent plot. The problem with this is that sometimes, in order to include a certain photo or set of photos, unnecessary details or scenes were added into the narrative. I think this contributed to the awkward pacing of the story, and also may be why I felt the plot felt rather weak; the story  was constrained by the photographs. It couldn’t deviate too far from the story the pictures told when arranged in a certain order. So this book’s strength is also its weakness … heh.

As a whole, I just didn’t dig this book. The photos were cool and I really enjoyed the writing style, but the other important components of a novel, namely plot and characters, fell way too short for my tastes.

My Rating:

Posted:
Dec 9, 2011
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The Path of Daggers

Author: Robert Jordan
Published: October 1998
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Series: The Wheel of Time #8
672 pages (mass market paperback) 

Been a while since I read another WoT book. I’m still determined to finish the series, but I admit, the series is progressing in such a way that it’s been difficult to find the motivation to read it sometimes. I was already starting to see plot progression slow down a few books back, and in The Path of Daggers, it’s really starting to grind to a halt. I literally cannot pinpoint what was the overall plot of this book.

From what I can remember, this is what generally happens to the characters in the book: Egwene deals with people treating her like a puppet Amyrlin, but she’s determined to rise above them. Perrin is on some sort of mission for Rand but gets sidetracked by his crazy wife wanting Perrin to be more bossy (WTF?). Elayne, Nynavae and Aviendha are … I don’t know, actually. They were trying to right the weather with the Bowl of Winds, but I can’t remember what the heck happened after that, just that Elayne eventually ends up taking back the Lion Throne (which, by the way, her return to the throne was rather anti-climatic). And Rand. Ohhh Rand. I don’t even know. I think I started skimming some of his chapters, they just bored me to death. There was a lot of fighting going on, he’s conquering cities, he’s trying to fight back the Seanchan, he tries to use Callandor and all hell breaks loose, he’s trying not to be crazy … I don’t know. I have a feeling there were too many pages spent trying to describe what Rand was doing when in reality you only needed maybe ten, and as a result, I ended up confused.

To me, very little plot occurs in this book. I think it tried to pass itself off as an in-between book — you know, those books that happen in the middle of the series that aren’t as great as the beginning or end books of a series, but has to exist just to progress the story. That’s this book. Except I’m pretty sure you can put all the important things that happened in this book in the next book and it would still have been fine. So much of this book was just long and boring descriptions. I know, I know — descriptions are important in books. I’m not saying get rid of all of them, but there is a limit to how much description a reader wants to take in. I do not need to know every little detail about every body’s clothes or rooms or whatever, especially if they are nothing more than some barmaid or innkeeper or whatever.

Robert Jordan provides even more evidence that he does not really know how to write love relationships in this book. Some past examples include Egwene and Rand *suddenly* realizing they don’t love each other romantically, Perrin’s dislike for Faile and then *suddenly* she’s the love of his life, Lan and his ambiguity towards Nynavae (sure, Jordan says Lan loves Nynavae, but Lan has said or done nothing to convince me of this). Siuan’s one of my favourite characters, but she just got butchered in this book. Essentially, Siuan’s become Nynavae — she has completely taken her personality and her attitude and is Nynavae. And for some reason, Siuan’s in love with what’s-his-face but, like Nynavae, treats him really bad and pretends she hates him when really she secretly loves him. WHAT IS THIS, KINDERGARTEN?

Then there’s Faile and her desire to have Perrin dominate her, so to speak. She wants him to be assertive and boss her around, which, in her mind, will show that Perrin believes her to be a strong enough wife to put up with his shenanigans. I actually can be okay with this bizarre logic if it was only Faile, but it turns out every woman who is Saldean (like Faile) thinks like this. What kind of bizarre culture do Saldean women have? It’s actually kind of almost offensive. The weird thing is, in Robert Jordan’s books, there are never any exceptions. If you are a female from Saldean, you want a dominating husband so you can play the who-has-the-power-in-the-relationship game. I can’t think of more examples right now, but it’s the same with characters from X, Y, or Z places. If you come from such-and-such a place, you are automatically like this or that. So weird.

Okay, so if you can’t tell by now, I didn’t really enjoy The Path of Daggers. It was difficult for me to get through, as the majority of it is just fluff. Honestly you could probably skip this book in the series and continue without it — that’s how unimportant the “plot” was in this book to the overall story. I do look forward to Winter’s Heart, the next book, because I was tipped off (accidentally) what happens in it and it sounds exciting …

My Rating:

Posted:
Aug 4, 2011
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The Queens Of All The Earth

Author: Hannah Sternberg
Published: October 1, 2011
Publisher: Bancroft Press
160 pages (galley)

I got this book off of NetGalley (many thanks!) quite recently and let it cut in line in my TBR queue because the synopsis sounded pretty interesting, and I was in the mood for something contemporary — no fantasy, vampires, fairies and whatnot. Just real people in real situations. But after finishing this book, instead of yearning for more contemporary and like books, I think I’m going to go back to my fantasy, vampires, fairies and whatnot for a while.

The Queens Of All The Earth started off amazingly. I was hooked right away by the rather depressing beginning. Olivia Somerset is suffering from a catatonic episode (a psychological situation when one’s body becomes very rigid and still), while her older sister, Miranda, freaks out. Doesn’t that beginning just make you want to continue reading? It really is one of the best beginnings to a story I’ve read in a while.

Olivia is supposed to be entering her first year of university at Cornell, but her mother pulls some strings and she gets to defer her first year. Miranda takes Olivia to Spain for a vacation, hoping some rest and relaxation will be some good therapy. They stay at a hostel, where they meet a variety of characters, including the ridiculously nice Mr. Brown and his son, Greg, who also seems to be harboring some issues of his own. As they vacation, Olivia tries to break out of her shell while her sister, Miranda, continuously tries to protect Olivia.

Like I said, I did enjoy the (brief) beginning, and I enjoyed the writing style as well. There’s something almost poetic about it, and the way the story was told, there was an element of surrealism felt, which I liked because, well, I like surreal stuff in books.

However, other than that, I found it difficult to really get into the story … because there really wasn’t much of one. I felt like I was reading about someone else’s vacation — all the sights were described (a little too lengthy at times), their interactions with the other hostel members, making plans for what tourist attractions to see … I could not identify a plot. I mean, I guess the fact that Miranda is trying to help Olivia overcome her psychological breakdown is the general plot, but it really didn’t feel like it. It really just felt like I was tagging along as an observer during Olivia and Miranda’s vacation.

I couldn’t connect with the characters. Don’t get me wrong — I actually think the characters were pretty good, but this is supposed to be a book about coming-of-age, about facing our fears, perhaps about the relationship between two sisters while one of them is suffering and I didn’t feel anything for them. No heartfelt moments, nothing. I did, however, really enjoy Mr. Brown’s character. I think it really says something about people when the nicest character in the story gets treated the worst by the rest of the characters, because they believe nobody can possibly be that nice.

This was a very short story, and there’s something kind of cute about it overall. However, it just wasn’t really interesting and didn’t leave any sort of impression on me at all. Honestly, I’m not sure if this book is what I think it is, or if it’s so brilliant that it’s going over my head. Maybe there’s something very metaphorical/abstract going on and I’m just not getting it, who knows. I’m not sure. I didn’t exactly dislike this book, but it’s really not something I would read again.

My Rating:

Posted:
Jun 13, 2011
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The Time Weaver

Author: Shana Abe
Published: 2010
Publisher: Bantam
Series: Drakon #5
325 pages (hardcover)

I don’t know if this has ever happened to anyone else, but I hate it when I take out a book from the library that seems to be a stand-alone book, but is actually a part of a series. That’s the case here, although it’s actually not as bad a situation as I thought it’d be because it turns out this is the kind of series where each book can be treated as a stand-alone novel (according to the things I read on Goodreads). Still, I wish the publishers would put some sort of hint on the book somewhere that it’s part of a series. I didn’t see any hint, but I had this weird suspicion it was part of a series (my book senses were tingling, aha!), which led me to look up some information about it prior to reading it.

Anyway, it seems that each book in the series features different characters, so each story is new and not merely a continuation. The Time Weaver takes place in an alternate mid-18th century, and is about a young girl named Honor Carlisle. She is of the English drakon clan, who live in a place called Darkfrith. A drakon is a dragon who can shapeshift into a human form. Humans, called Others, have been killing dragons for ages but after the Dark Ages, the drakon have gotten better at blending in with the humans in their own human form.

Honor is unique among the drakon; she can Weave time, going backwards or forwards a few years at a time. She never knew she had such powers until she received a mysterious letter from herself, from the future, warning her that one night, a man will come to “kidnap” her, and she should follow if she values her life. It turns out that she is not safe amongst her own people in Darkfrith for there is a terrible prophecy about Honor, and her unknown friends lead her to Spain to hide. As Honor tries to control and master her gift of Time Weaving, she continously pops into the time of Prince Alexandru, of a rival drakon clan. Prince Alexandru keeps seeing this strange girl, of all different ages, continously coming and going in his life. The two are drawn to each other and fall in love, but their being together may spark a war between the two drakon clans.

Things I knew to expect before I read this book (based on the summary located in the inner flap of the book jacket): there’s going to be dragons, there’s going to be time traveling, and there’s going to be romance. It sounded like a terrific recipe of a plot to me because, hey what a coincidence — I like dragons, time traveling and romance! The result? Ehhh …

The first thing I noticed when reading this book was the fact that it took place in the 18th century. Usually when I read a book that involves dragons, it’s either some sort of epic fantasy novel that takes place in the medieval ages or some sort of Tolkien-esque setting, or it takes place in modern times. I’ve never read a book involving dragons that takes place in the 1700′s, that’s new to me. However, the story is the kind of story that could have taken place in probably any time period, so the author didn’t really “take advantage” of the time period to me. Still, I liked the idea of it taking place in the 18th century.

The characters were all okay, but none of them really interested me in the way you hope a character does. The enemy in the book is kind of in the background, a collective group (the rival drakon clan), but they never really make their presence felt. I suppose you can say the Prince that Honor falls in love with counts as an enemy as well, but the story focuses a lot on their relationship as lovers (in a way that felt very The Time Traveler’s Wife-ish to me) and not really much on the fact that they are of rival drakon clans. In fact, half the time I forget they are, until it is brought up again. On the topic of Honor and Prince Alexandru, I didn’t find their romance touching at all. It kind of reminded me of the the kind of romance in today’s Twilight-spawn: sudden, unexplained, unconvincing. But still, regardless of all that, it was just kind of a boring love filled with “I can’t live without you”‘s and the like, which the Twilight-spawn has totally desensitized me to.

The thing that makes me rate this book on the low side is that it just didn’t quite capture my attention the way I thought it would. I think it’s the writing style, which is rather slow in pacing, and involved more description than I personally enjoy in books. The story just seemed to move rather slowly. It’s not an action-packed plot to begin with either, so the fact that the writing bogs it down even more is just unfortunate. I can’t even identify the climax of the story because I didn’t feel excited about anything that happened. The ending was, for lack of better words, kind of lame. Due to the impending war that Honor and the Prince’s relationship will surely cause, Honor figures out the cheapest, lamest, and easiest solution. I won’t say what it is, but you know, based on her special Gift, it’s not hard to figure out.

I feel like I’m being a little hard on the book, but there’s one thing that remains certain: I found the book boring. It was just too much of a cliche romance, and though the writing was nice, it was slow and dull too. I think there are certain kinds of readers who would enjoy this, but it’s definitely not for me.

My Rating:

Posted:
May 15, 2011
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Mockingjay

Author: Suzanne Collins
Published: August 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Series: The Hunger Games #3
390 pages (hardcover)

As the final book of the series, I don’t think Mockingjay does The Hunger Games justice. I think this book bombed. If you are planning to read this series, I’d suggest stopping after book two, but with that cliffhanger, I suppose you’d feel compelled to read book three anyway. I wanted to like this book, I tried to like this book, but I found it hard to pretend. And I’m going to apologize ahead of time that half of this post contains spoilers (which are marked).

In Catching Fire, we were left off with the most aggravating-in-a-good-way cliffhanger: “There is no District 12.” In this book, we find out District 12 has been destroyed by the Capitol after Katniss escaped from the Hunger Games arena, and less than 10% of District 12′s population has fled to the once thought to be non-existing District 13, who takes them in. Katniss and Peeta somehow get flung into opposite ends of the war: Katniss is wanted by the rebels to become their Mockingjay — the face of the rebellion, their symbol of hope. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol and is being used as the spokesperson for their own cause — a call for a ceasefire.

I’ll try not to be a negative Nancy by talking about the few things I did like first. Though I didn’t really have any characters I particularly liked or cared about in the first two books, I did in this one: Finnick! A secondary character, I know, but his background story is expanded in this novel and … I don’t know. I think I liked him because he’s the only one who doesn’t seem so bland. I also liked the concept of President Snow’s character. The whole blood and roses thing was pretty awesome, and really gave me an idea of what kind of villain we are dealing with. Seriously, two thumbs up for a great villain concept.

I can’t really think of anything more I liked … As for what I didn’t like … Well, I will start off with the general plot of the story. I didn’t find it engaging or interesting because so many of the things that should be engaging and interesting happen off camera or were seriously downplayed. (Contains Spoilers!) Example 1 – When Gale & Co. go rescue Peeta from the Capitol, Katniss just stays behind in District 13. Next page, bam! Hey Peeta’s back! I don’t know about you, but getting Peeta back seems important enough to me to happen on stage. Example 2 – Finnick’s death was brushed off like it was nothing. I know, he’s a secondary character, but surely his relationship with Katniss warranted more than just a, “Oh no! Finnick died! … Moving on now …” Example 3 – Pretty much the entire ending of the war happened off-screen. President Snow’s capture? Off screen. Katniss’ trial after she killed Coin? Off screen. I felt seriously robbed. These feel like HUGE moments, but instead all I got was Katniss locked up somewhere, and a few pages of reading about Katniss contemplating suicide later, a messenger arrives with, “Oh hey, uh, we decided you’re free in a trial that you didn’t even have to attend.” I mean, really?

Oh, and I must mention how I feel the message of the series got totally destroyed by the ending. This is what I thought the take-home message was: killing destroys people, it ruins them. It doesn’t fix anything, and you can’t rule through fear. Yet at the end, when Coin proposes a final Hunger Games for the children of Capitol citizens, Katniss agrees. Seriously?! I felt like that went against everything the books were telling me … evidently, I’ve been misinterpreting the entire series the entire time. It’s all good as long as it’s for justice?

Lastly, the love triangle thing was NOT resolved, in my opinion. Katniss ends up with Peeta … because Gale gets a job working in District 2 and doesn’t see her anymore. Really? Katniss ends up with Peeta because he’s the one who is physically closest to her? And Gale doesn’t even attempt to do anything about reaching out to Katniss, he just gives up? So much for being sooo in love with her. This all happens in one sentence: “Peeta and I grow back together.” Small paragraph explaining why Peeta and not Gale. The end. The love triangle thing has never felt like it fit in this series, but I mean, since it’s in the story now, I expected a better resolution. (End Spoilers)

My final thoughts are that Mockingjay is a letdown, and a disappointing end to a good series. For a book about life and death, friendship, trust and vengeance, it was utterly void of emotions due to the monotonous voice Collins employs to write her novels, and lack of inclusion of what I believe to be key scenes. I feel that Collins had a strong idea for The Hunger Games, but no strong direction as to what should occur in the series’ subsequent novels, and it really shows in Mockingjay. This was a frustrating read for me, I’m sad to say.

I considered giving just one star, but you know what? I still think overall, the series is good, and Mockingjay had its small, rare moments.

My Rating:

Posted:
Sep 16, 2010
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Hush, Hush

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick
Published: October 2009
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Series: Hush Hush #1
391 pages (hardcover)

A lot of people are raving about this book and giving it great reviews. On the flip side, a lot of people are also giving it bad reviews and calling it a total Twilight rip-off. I was curious as to which camp I would fall into, and how big of a rip-off this book could be, so I picked it up when I saw it available at the library. Now that I’ve finished reading it, I can conclude that 1) I side with the readers who feel this book is a big disappointment and 2) it is so, so incredibly obvious that it’s a Twilight rip-off, or at least trying to ride on Twilight’s high. The list of similarities is uncannily long, but I won’t list them all here in this post.

Basically, if you know anything about Twilight, you already know the story behind Hush Hush, just replace vampires with fallen angels. Nora Grey meets mysterious new student Patch in her biology class and is forcefully assigned to be his partner for a biology project. Patch is ridiculously good looking, but has a hard, icy personality. They don’t get along very well and Nora decides she doesn’t like Patch, yet mysteriously feels attracted to him anyway. The more Nora tries to stay away from Patch, the more intrigued she is by him. Meanwhile, at the same time, Nora feels she is being stalked by a man in a black ski mask and believing it may be Patch, she starts trying to dig into his past, but comes up empty handed each time. Only when she sees the scars on Patch’s back, she Googles ‘fallen angels’ and realizes that Patch must be one, and possibly trying to use Nora as a sacrifice so that he may obtain a human body.

What irked me was Patch and Nora’s relationship. Even if I forget the whole idea of it being the same situation as Bella and Edward (Edward wants to kill and drink Bella’s blood for his own benefit; Patch wants to kill and sacrifice Nora for his own benefit), it’s just a really shallow and nonsensical relationship built on intimidation. I did not understand how or why Nora would start falling in love with Patch and vice versa. She is frightened of him and seems to dislike him and after standing a little too close to Patch, she suddenly decides she secretly is lusting after him. It’s so incredibly hyporcritical; there’s several points in the story where Nora believes Patch is a real danger to her life, and at the exact same time, she also believes Patch would never harm her. I don’t understand this at all. She switches back and forth on her stance on Patch every other page, it would seem. Not to mention that it’s so disturbing that her supposed love for him is based on fear; she finds him dangerous and that is attractive to her so she continues to hang around him despite believing he has the power to kill her. So unsettling. Nora is an incredibly weak minded and shallow girl.

Patch is worse, he gives no hints that he likes Nora at all, and suddenly it is revealed near the end that he is in love with her; no explanation why he would choose her. I mean, Nora doesn’t exactly have a stellar personality or drop dead gorgeous looks from what I can tell. I can see no reason why a fallen angel would find her irresistibly alluring. I don’t find him to be a likable character at all. Also, the author’s repeated use of the word ‘smiling’ when describing Patch got on my nerves. He was smiling like he knew a secret. His eyes smiled. I could feel him smiling. You get the idea.

While eerily similar to Twilight’s, I didn’t think the plot was unbearable. The overall plot actually is okay (hence my pity half star below …). What I found silly was the author’s portrayal of teenagers and high school. It’s just so out of touch with what real teenagers or real teachers would behave like. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious that I didn’t really like this book, but I admit I’m kind of curious about the sequel because I want to see if it’s going to continue shadowing Twilight’s plot (and like I said, plot-wise, it isn’t that terrible, it’s really the characters that drag this book down). As far as recommendations go, I don’t recommend reading Hush Hush.

My Rating: