5 Stars or Less in 5 Sentences or Less

2 star

Werewolves, Sex, Secret Societies, Suspense

I expected a lot from a story about the last werewolf on earth, 200-year-old Jake who is supposedly sexy and charming and worldly. I found him dry and misogynistic and kind of a dullard; he is super into having sex with prostitutes and not falling in love and he is resigned to his own death, but he completely changes when he finds out there is a werewolf lady and he falls in love with her. The story is told is diary format first by Jake and then by his lady werewolf love; the introduction is interesting but Duncan is trying so hard to make Jake into this epically cool figure that he comes out flat. The intrigue of the secret society of vampires aligned with humans who keep the population of mythical creatures down could have been great if it was fleshed out more, but overall the story was too self-involved to really make it work.

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

2 star

Translators, Language, Canada, Cats, Writers, French

A story told by a translator about her relationship with the writer she works with—it was written in French but I read it in English which added a level of surreality as the translator migrates the author’s works from French into English. It is bland and just weird; lots of facts and tales that go nowhere, characters that are fleshed out and never used. The plot is ostensibly that they are trying to help the girl who abandoned her cat at the translator’s home, but it is fumblingly handled because the narrator is so obsessed with talking about language. Can’t think of who I would recommend this to other than perhaps a translation student.

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

2 star

Short Biographies, Comics, Historical Women, Judgment, Morality

In this book for younger teens a number of famously naughty women from history are given brief bios that are then summed up by the authors (mother and daughter) in a one-page comic-style-blocked illustrated sheet. It’s as weird as it sounds, and I found Stemple’s judgments to be quite mean and none of their comments were particularly intelligent or thought-provoking. The biographies were too short to be truly intriguing, but the bibliography at the end is decently comprehensive. It could have been a great book about the bad rap that tough women have gotten in history but instead devolved into cattiness and short-changed the real people.

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

2 star

War, Honor, Trust, Heritage, Friendship

Karou has taken over Brimstone’s role and is creating bodies for the Chimaera army while Akiva is torn between earning back the trust of his siblings and saving Chimaera. This book would have been better at half the length: there are long scenes with characters that never come into play again as well as too many scenes with Mik and Zuzana that don’t move the story along. The bulk of the story is political drama as Karou tries to prove her worth and trustworthiness while being blocked by Thiago and Akiva plots the demise of the cruel leaders of the seraphim. There was a lot of discussion about rape and the fear of men and it almost dominated the topic of the actual war which I found very unnecessary and not in keeping with the themes of friendship and humanity in the first book. This volume definitely had some interesting parts and more is revealed about the world of Eretz, but overall it felt more like a transition into what should be a very dramatic third book.

First book: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

2 star

Rebellion, 1400s, Magic, Warriors, Romance

Ember loses much of her sass as she attempts to rebel against Bosque Mar’s evil magics, but spends most of her time ignoring her duty and trying to decide if she likes Alistair or just loves Barrow because I guess they’re both hot and she’s indecisive. Despite her lack of effort, the other characters do a decent job of making it harder for Mar to take over the human world and this book does an excellent job of setting the stage for the events in the later Nightshade books. There is a lot of waiting around and worrying and traveling which kind of kills the pace; it could be argued that the bad guys are really the main characters here. Would recommend if you love the Nightshade world.

Previous book: Rift
Later Nightshade books:  Nightshade, Wolfsbane, Bloodrose

2 star

High School, Family Drama, First Love, Expectations

Mara is your typical type-A high school senior (perfect grades, perfect family, clean diet) whose world is shaken when her high school junior niece V (Mara was born to older parents; her sister Aimee gave birth while she was still young) comes to live with them. Mara more or less loses her mind and by the end of the story has stopped caring about everything she cared about in the beginning. The progress is plodding and illogical, and Mara’s 180 turn seems unrealistic and forced, as does her reconciliation with her niece. None of the characters are particularly likable and the story is overall forgettable.

Companion book: Guyaholic

2 star

Alternate Universes, Time Travel, Family, Death

(Spoilers for the other books)

Previous books: A Crack in the Line, Small Eternities

Read More

2 star

Alternate Universes, Time Travel, Family, Death

(Spoilers for the first book)

Previous book: A Crack in the Line
Later book: The Underwood See

Read More

2 star

1805, Teenagers, Piracy, England, Military, Ships

The third book in the Bloody Jack series takes the plot from the first book and smashes it into a new and disappointing mold. Jacky is once again at sea after being pressed into service; she spends the book thinking Jaimy has betrayed her (he hasn’t) and betraying him through romances with other boys and just general bad behavior towards “king and country.” The jokes and hijinks and Jacky’s penchant for troublemaking are the same as in the first two books but decidedly less charming; she becomes less likable as each book goes by because she never learns to do the right thing. Kellgren’s audiobook narration is spectacular as always.

Previous books: Bloody Jack, Curse of the Blue Tattoo
Later books: In the Belly of the Bloodhound, Mississippi Jack, My Bonny Light Horseman, Rapture of the Deep, The Wake of the Lorelei Lee, The Mark of the Golden Dragon, Viva Jacquelina! 

2 star

History, World War II, Occupation, England, Literature, Friendship, Letters

Told entirely in letters, Guernsey is about a young writer, Juliet, living in London after World War II. She starts a correspondence with several residents of Guernsey and goes to visit them, learning about life during the Occupation and finding love. The story has no consistency in tone: it tries to tear your heart out through brutal depictions of concentration camps and then rapidly flips back to Juliet whining about how she doesn’t want to marry the man who proposed to her, to the dead woman everyone on the island hero-worships to further whining by Juliet about how difficult it is to write when the scenery is so pretty and distracting. The view of island life is interesting yet there is no plot or conflict; the story merely floats along through the letters which are almost universally glib and homogeneously styled.

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

2 star

Whaling, Ships, Ocean, Obsession, Whales

Ishmael loves to be onboard a ship—but even he is not prepared for the three-year hunt of the vicious and legendary white whale under the obsessive command of Captain Ahab. The first third of the book is an introduction to Ishmael and his friendship with Queequeg the cannibal harpooner, while the remainder is a cross between suspense / adventure and the weary ramblings of a man who has been too long at sea and feels compelled to share the minutiae of his whale knowledge. The lack of cohesiveness makes for a difficult read (a professor once told me to pretend the story is like the waves of the sea, high and low in equal measure) but the real trouble is that so much of the book was devoted to Ishmael but he drops out of the story almost as soon as the Pequod leaves Nantucket and not nearly as much care is given to Ahab and his search for vengeance. It is fascinating to learn the gruesome truth about whaling and compare Ishmael’s views with those of modern society. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read all of the classics or who doesn’t mind languid adventure stories.

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

2 star

Survival, Family, Post-Apocalypse, Journeys, Death

A man and his son are travelling south in a post-apocalyptic world: battling the elements, scrounging for food, and avoiding at all costs the “bad guys” who might just kill or eat them. It is never explained what happened to the world, why everyone died, why everyone has suddenly become a cannibal, or why it has been several years since this time of scarcity began and the man and his son are only now trying to escape the cold. This lack of history makes this story have so much less of an impact—you don’t know how to feel about the actions the characters take because you never understand their motivations or past. The style is interesting; it varies frequently between cold assessments of scenes and the abstract thoughts of the man. It is interesting and a quick read but it didn’t make me think as much as I wanted and expected it to.

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

2 star

Relationships, Love, Desire, Life, Growing Up

The list of unlikable and not-at-all compelling characters begins with Mirabelle, a clinically depressed 28-year-old with the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old; she briefly dates the unintelligent Jeremy before falling in love with Ray who is nearly twice her age, a millionaire, and who keeps insisting that there is no future even while she blindly believes he loves her in return. Martin spends so much time telling you what the characters are feeling and why they act as they do that there is little space left for him to actually show their interactions. Conversations never take place, they are only summarized; the ending is so neatly-tied that it is nearly nauseating after an entire novella of emotional distress. There are some interesting insights into the nature of humanity as a whole and a few rather funny lines if you can get past the tedium.

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)

2 star

Relationships, Friendship, BDSM, Controlling Significant Others

In what originally started as Twilight fanfiction, Ana falls in love with Christian Grey: beautiful, wealthy, and a Dominant. She spends most of the book feeling uncomfortable about his sexual preferences and trying to justify his life choices to herself without being able to discuss any of it with her friends or family and she is actually pretty realistic in her concerns (she ends up consulting with her “inner goddess” and “subconscious” for huge parts of the book, though, which is really annoying). It’s pretty uncomfortable to read; the violence and the rules, mostly, but also watching Ana morph from an independent young woman into this confused mess. It is no masterpiece but it is fascinating how it has captured the attention of the country; it definitely brings to light a subculture and does a good job of explaining it.

Other books in the trilogy: Fifty Shades Darker, Fifty Shades Freed

(Source: ihopetheyhavebooksinhell)