Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran

Published in 2009.

The marriage of Marc Antony and Cleopatra is one of the greatest love stories of all time, a tale of unbridled passion with earth-shaking political consequences. Feared and hunted by the powers in Rome, the lovers choose to die by their own hands as the triumphant armies of Antony's vengeful rival, Octavian, sweep into Egypt. Their orphaned children - ten-year-old twins Selene and Alexander - are taken in chains to Rome. Delivered to the household of Octavian's sister, the siblings cling to each other and to the hope that they will return one day to their rightful place on the throne of Egypt. As they come of age, they are buffeted by the personal ambitions of Octavian's family and court, by the ever-present threat of slave rebellion, and by the longings and desires deep within their own hearts. (book flap blurb)

I had wanted to read this book since it came out so when I won it from a fellow blogger's contest, I was thrilled! Especially since I'm such a huge fan of the HBO series, Rome. When I was reading I kept envisioning the characters with the faces of the actors in the show.

The writing just sucks you in and keeps you reading from cover to cover. Considering the length of this book, it only took me a couple of days to read it all. I couldn't put it down and didn't want to when I had to.

There's enough history included in the text to give you a great idea of just what high Roman life was like during that time but not so much you felt like you were getting information dumped on you. That's a sign of an excellent writer that knows to keep herself behind the pages and the characters in the forefront. I'm sure there could have been so much more added regarding Roman life but if it had been, too much author knowledge would have seeped through. It's hard to do such meticulous research and not include everything you find but the final product speaks for itself.

I had a hard time imagining the kids in this book speaking like they did and being as young as they were but like the addendum in the back of the book states, these were children being groomed as royalty. They're not going to be children but future rulers so they're, unfortunately, not going to get a chance to act like children.

I felt so bad for the romantic situation Selene was in and I felt for her every time she had a pang when looking at Marcellus or when he would do something for her. In the back of my mind I was rooting for her but, unfortunately, I knew how his story ended so I knew, considering how strict to historical facts Michelle was, that that story line wasn't going to deviate. And while I didn't know Selene's history and where she ended up, I saw her arranged marriage coming from pretty early on. The hints are subtle enough that even someone who doesn't know that part of history can pick up on it.

It's hard to imagine that life was so much more precarious back then than it is now and how, at someone's word, a person can just be killed for any reason, or none at all. This book had all the drama, love and torment of any good modern novel, except this could have actually happened. While we're not too privy to what went on behind closed doors with the twins, a lot of inferences can be made based on what we do know. Bringing history to life is such an awesome power to wield and I think Michelle does an excellent job of raising these long-dead figures from their graves. This book has made me want to know more about Selene and Juba and read up on Alexander. Did Octavian really break Alexander the Great's finger taking his ring? What happened to Cleopatra's mausoleum? I can look at my pictures of the Pantheon and see Agrippa's name on there and they mean that much more.

If you're a fan of historical fiction, be sure not to miss this one. You'll regret it if you do.

Vampire Beach by Alex Duval

Omnibus featuring Bloodlust and Initiation, both first published in 2006.

Jason Freeman is stoked when his family relocates to DeVere Heights, Malibu. The kids at his posh new high school are surprisingly friendly, and pretty soon Jason's part of the in-crowd. He even gets to meet the hot-but-unattainable girl.

Then, the morning after one off-the-hook party, a girl washes up on the beach dead. There's no explanation - except a suspicious-looking bite mark on her body.

Now Jason has to admit that what you don't want to know can hurt you. And when an old friend pays him a visit, they have no idea that they're about to put themselves in mortal danger. Literally. (book back blurb)

How are you put in mortal danger theoretically? That irked me.

Anyway, I've had this book for about 10 months, I'm just getting to it now and I just realized, when I picked it up to read it, that it was an omnibus. I had no idea. Gotta love my observant self.

So we have rich kids. In Malibu. The new kid that gets accepted. Rich kids have fangs. New kid gets tossed in the middle of it. How freakin' ORIGINAL. See, when I see the words 'beach' and 'vampire' together, my mind immediately goes to The Lost Boys so when I finally picked this up (after some puttering around, I kept going to Barnes and Noble, picking it up and putting it back down) and bought it, I was half-expecting something somewhat similar. Oh silly me. I should have known this wasn't going to trend towards the good.

What a yawn fest. Seriously. Jason wants Sienna but can't have her because she's his buddy's chick but none of the other girls entice him. That is the damn focus for 2/3rds of the first book. Internal back and forth and back and forth - oh god she's so beautiful but I shouldn't want to kiss her because she's Brad's chick but I want her but I can't but I can't help myself but I have to . . . SHUT THE FUCK UP! Talk about getting totally hung up. On both books, no less.

Also in both books, absolutely nothing going on except parties and pretty people for two-thirds of them. Anything worth reading is all shoved and resolved within the last third of the book. Thank god they both only took me an hour to read each. I might have had to stick this thing in a punkin' and to some chunkin'.

The pretty, popular crowd, aka the vampires, weren't your typical rich kids. They were actually down to earth and normal, which was nice and refreshing. That refreshing quality also made them boring as shit. And they're vampires. WTF? Jason is the typical new kid without too much awkwardness, unless he's around Sienna. And he's around her a lot. They accept him but he's the cool kid for being friends with the pretty people AND guys like Adam who's a movie geek that never had an in before now. Add in the bratty sister and the overly concerned parents and you're good to ride the cliche mobile down the trope highway.

Adam had the funny lines. Jason is not a compelling character at all. The events of both books really happen around him as opposed to to him. He just ends up getting himself involved because he's the main character and he'd be even more boring than he already is if he didn't. Sienna turns out to be a little on the slutty side because what would the books be without some teenage romance angst? Dani is your typical younger sister that's as one dimensional as the page I read her on. Who else? The popular guys . . . Zach . . . cardboard. Jason's friend from Michigan, Tyler, twitchy and was pretty much the only one with potential but the author likes rapid fire and clean-cut resolution so that didn't play out like it could have. Am I missing anything? Doubt it.

Oh right. The nice vampires. That don't kill people. And can go out during the day. And donate to charity. That exist because it's a hereditary trait . . . JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. They weren't just emasculated. They didn't even have vaginas. They were just downright eunichs, neuters that needed to get back to their damn bridge game or something. Seriously. Can we cycle back in REAL vampires please? WTF is the point in being this all-powerful supernatural being if you can't even use any of it? And have to go to high school? WTF is with vampires and high school? It was cool with the original Buffy. It was still cool with the series. By now it's so tapped out that that ass is raw. Can we let it heal, please? For the sake of vampire balls? Vampires used to be something to fear. Now they're something to snuggle. *yak*

I think a little more time could have been spent tightening the plot, not to mention editing out all of the typos, than rushing two books out in a year. Quantity over quality, huh?

I'd recommend these for a beach read but, in all honesty, I don't even think they're worth that. They're just not exciting or compelling or even all that interesting to be honest. The second book definitely had more potential than the first but I'll be damned if I read yet another book where I have to wait 120 pages before anything of interest starts to happen. I guess if you feel so inclined to reading them, they'll literally only take about an hour to finish each. Dense is not the word I would use to describe these books. But really, I wouldn't waste that hour. You could be doing better things, like raking leaves.

The Parliament of Blood by Justin Richards

First published in 2008.

George Archer, Liz Oldfield and Eddie Hopkins have made a rather unfortunate discovery: vampires actually exist, and they really do feed on human blood. Using a labyrinth of tunnels beneath Victorian London, these sinister creatures are intent on destroying the human race, and they'll start by taking over the most powerful place in London - the Houses of Parliament.

Through their research on ancient mysteries and a secret London gentleman's club, George, Liz and Eddie come up with a plan to beat the vampires at their own game. And they'd better do it soon, before they become the vampires' next meal . . . (book flap blurb)

What an awesome book. Really. Now here's a guy that knows how to play with the lore, not ass rape it.

First off, I was surprised by how British it was. Usually with British books, when we get them, they're Americanized. Like the Harry Potter books. Most of the British colloquialisms were removed apparently because we wouldn't get it. But this one appeared relatively untouched. There are even 'ou' spellings, British punctuation and everything. I liked it. It didn't insult my intelligence (because, really, Americanizing is pretty insulting) and it made the read feel that much more authentic.

While I pretty much raced through it, I felt it did meander a bit at times. The dawdling at the work house, for instance. I felt too much time was spent there in comparison to the relevance of the place to the greater plot. Yeah, it's a little wordy but I've read worse and even though there were a few too many words, it still remained interesting and I wanted to keep reading. That's really what matters, right?

Out of all the characters, I felt the closest to Eddie. I felt like he was the one character where we were really able to get into his head and his feelings and understand them. Plus he's a snarky little shit and I just really liked that. Sir William's a pretty cool dude. I wouldn't mind working with him. George was a bit of a stiff, especially for someone his age, but he proved useful and not nearly as anal-retentive as he first appeared. I think I liked Liz the least. That's not to say I didn't like her but I felt she didn't really add much to the overall story. I was neither here nor there about her but really just meh.

Plus I felt her "big role" would have been easily found out by the vampires. That was the only part of the book that I had a hard time believing in. By the time we get to that point in the book, we know what the vampires are capable of, what their powers are and so on. Considering that knowledge and the situation, I didn't find her situation plausible and I think they would have ripped open her neck for playing them. But that's just my opinion.

Now the lore part, totally awesome. Richards has all the basic constructs of vampires; fangs, light sensitivity (not combustion level but sensitive), blood drinking, plus he even went with the water fear and the connection to home soil. I loved that part, how they keep their soil on them. Very smart! The Great Lie, though, was quite possibly the best part. It twists the lore just enough that it still maintains its integrity but creates for something new and interesting and YES! I don't want to give it away but let me just say that it takes a "standard" part of the lore that's in favor of the vampires and turns it right against them. Very awesome. And then there's the hibernation bit of it as well. That was another one of the parts of this book's lore that I loved the most, vampires switching places in order to not inundate the planet. No wonder there was discord!

I loved all of the twists this book had to offer, especially with Liz's father. He was such a dynamic character, and one of my favorites, even though he didn't appear much in the book. He was such a strong presence that from the moment he was introduced, even when he wasn't in scene, his presence permeated the pages. Really, no wonder the Reverend wanted to keep Liz away from the theater. While the reason, to me anyway, was pretty obvious as soon as it was introduced, the way it came to light, and then dark, was totally cool.

This is an excellent, and creepy, book about vampires. It makes them a little more realistic, a little sexy but very dangerous and very undead. You can't become a vampire until you die and then you get to claw your way out of your grave. It's probably one of the most traditional pieces of vampire lore and one that I liked the best. It gives them the juxtaposition of being appealing but at the same time truly the abominations that they are. They are undead, as they should be. People shouldn't want to be that but there's a side with a draw that, for some, is irresistible.

Read this book. Now. The vampires will appreciate it.

Secret Society by Tom Dolby + Contest!

Published September 29th, 2009.

Do you ever wonder how some people have it all? The best schools, the hottest parties, the priciest clothes, the easiest jobs? Maybe it's not because they work hard or get a lucky break every once in a while. Maybe it's because they're part of a secret group. A secret society. (book back blurb)

Gee. Yet another book about rich prep school kids getting everything handed to them. How original.

It's Skull and Bones, peanut version but with some estrogen. The whole Egyptian involvement is completely contrived and never really explained. I understand we're hopping around behind the eyes of the noobs to the group but as far as I'm concerned, these guys thought the Egyptians were cool and decided to use their logos for their club. By the end of the book, they could have been pirates for all it mattered to the overall plot.

And noob tattoo dude mistake numero uno - the neck is one of the most conspicuous spots to put a tattoo. No matter how small it is, unless it's a little black dot, it's going to get noticed. No more bobs for those girls! For a secret society, they sure flaunt their marker, don't they?

As far as the writing goes, I didn't feel it was quite there yet. It was . . . mediocre. In the hands of someone with more experience or greater talent, I think it could have done better but instead we get a Swiss cheese plot that meanders in all the wrong places, is thoroughly short on suspense and elementarily written. The characters are one dimensional, narrow-minded and as woe-is-me as you'd expect them to be in their current situations.

What little information we are given of this half-assed society is awkwardly dumped in some of the most chunky and ridiculously-sounding sentences I've ever read. The fact that the invitation is only handed out to prep school kids in their junior year is laughable. Want to narrow it down anymore? People with only blue eyes? One leg slightly shorter than the other? Literally, I laughed when that information was dumped because, considering the context and the way it was said, it was just absurd.

Maybe this is something that's just showing my age but the casualness of underage drinking in this book really shocked me, not to mention the lack of consequences for these over-privileged kids. It's parentfail if I've ever seen it because if I had ever come home drunk and hours past curfew, my grounded ass would never see the light of day again. These kids are actually encouraged to act like shitheads. Again, parentfail. I'm all for lowering the drinking age to 18 because if you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to have a drink (because that beer is so more more to handle than those assault rifles and justifiable homicide) but the extreme casualness of it all, how out in the open it was, just really bothered me. We had to be super sneaky when we drank. These kids just did it out in the open with absolutely no consequences. How nice.

The whole secret society concept is unoriginal. The writing needs to be improved. To me, the characters were unrelatable. Because of the poor writing, it lacked the suspense required of these kids' situations. Maybe if it was there, maybe if I was able to feel their fear at what was going on, I might have been able to connect to them. But nope. Tell, tell, tell. I don't care. If I don't feel it, those characters could drink themselves to death and I wouldn't bat an eye . . . oh wait . . .

Maybe it's just my age that's preventing me from liking this one. Or the sheer number of writing flaws have thoroughly detracted me from anything that might be worthwhile in the text. Either way, I didn't like it. This one easily blends in to all the other prep school crap that's out there. Except now it's tainting ancient Egypt's good name and for, apparently, no good reason because the connection is never made.

Alas, by the looks of the end, this isn't the last we'll see of this OMG-we-must-keep-this-secret-but-lets-give-ourselves-secret-tattoos-in-one-of-the-most-unsecret-places-on-our-bodies secret society but rest assured, I won't be reading it. Inconsistencies and technical fallacies irk me. Especially when I'm sick. Irk meter is that much higher. And the ending wasn't even good either. You almost expect it for everything that's happened. But because the author can't write a suspenseful sentence, you don't actually feel it so it all falls flat.

Oh yeah, your neck is one of the most PAINFUL places to get a tattoo. Anywhere where you have a concentration of nerve endings. Where your brain stem meets your spine? I'd say that's a pain hot spot. Just another fallacy that had me not believing anything the author wrote. For a 16 year old, they'd be crying. Just remember, a tattoo needle is as thick as a dime that moves up and down really quickly that punctures your skin over and over and over again in order to wedge the ink in there. And all this being done mere millimeters from your brain stem. Hello???

And this is an ankh tattoo people--


While the circle didn't hurt at all, the butterfly body was some of the most god awful pain I've ever felt in my life. I'll be going back to get my fifth sometime in early spring. And this is on my left hip bleeding onto the top of my leg. The circled ankh is 8 years old and the body is 5. I heart tattoos.

Contest Time!

Want my ARC? Just leave a comment with your email answering this question -

Do you have any tattoos? If so, what are they of? If not, would you get one and what of?

No answer, no entry. Period.

+3 for following
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This is open to US residents only and the contest will end October 30th at midnight, EST. Good luck!

Are books too gritty?

This article highlights an author talking about how she doesn't like the track that children's literature is taking as of late, mainly the gritty realism of a lot of it. She commends the books of the 50s where there was an adventure to be had, a lesson to be learned and a happy ending for everyone.

Aside from the fact that that point of view is horribly out of date and optimistic to the point of unrealistic, I think it's blanketing too much of the reading that's out there. She talks about it as if all children's books have endings that you'd rather slit your wrists to than feel happy about. That they're all too real and children don't need to be exposed to that.

The thing is, what's being written in children's books now is happening to children. Ellen Hopkins is a wonderful case in point. Her books are not dire and depressing and offer nothing to the reader. In fact, quite the opposite. They're warning tales and even amidst the hardships of the characters, there is a ray of sunshine but it's not about to slap you in the face.

Not all children or teens are white and from the middle class that skip around going tra-la-la. Yes, up-beat adventure books are fun. But even the 50s had poor kids. Destitute kids. Minority kids. Kids from bad homes. Sure they could read those books to escape but as soon as their noses were out of them, we were back in reality where things weren't so rosy. With this grittier network of reading material, it provides an alternative. Something that more children can relate to and in turn become hopeful about once they reach the end of the book. It's not such a stark difference between the book and real life but if there's a glimmer of hope in the book, so can there be in life.

Gritter books have their merits just like the fluff does. It doesn't make it any better or worse than whatever else is out there. But there are options. Kids change. Their desires change. Sure they want fantasy, someplace they can escape to, but the characters need to be those they can relate to. If they can't relate, if they can't picture themselves in those characters shoes, then what good is the fantasy?

What do you think? Are books getting too gritty? Should the market pull back or do you think this influx of more realistic fiction offers something that wasn't there in the article's mentioned author's happy time?

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Published September 1, 2009.

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying. (book blurb)

POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING

I'll try not to but I just wanted to cover my ass in case I did. So you're been warned.

I swallowed The Hunger Games whole when I first read it and I've had my copy of Catching Fire since the end of May but I didn't get around to reading it until a couple of weeks ago (because I'm 9 different levels of OCD) and I don't know if I should have read it immediately after I read HG or waited even longer because goddamn it. Now I have to wait what, a year? before the third installment comes out? Shit.

I liked HG mainly because Collins isn't afraid to tear her characters new assholes. I love it when authors do that. The story was compelling, I cried at all the right moments (I'm a sap, shut up), I honestly felt for the characters and the writing was absolutely phenomenal because of all of those feelings. Any writer than can elicit such feelings in their readers is one that we need to hold on to and beg, plead and whine for them never to stop writing.

With Catching Fire, there was absolutely no disappointment. In fact, I thought it was better than HG. Yes, the edge is slightly taken off. HG was total shock and awe with what we were getting into. Gritty is putting it lightly. The Capitol people are fuckers with no moral code except to further feed their god complexes by using their subjects as pawns in their death games. So that shock has been tempered. We know, because of the ending of HG, that it's going to get worse but the impact wasn't as great this time around because we were expecting it. The element of surprise was gone.

That's ok. Because the poo still went hurling at the fan.

I wasn't a fan of the twist about mid-way through the book at first. For those that read it, you know what I'm talking about. I was kind of like, "really?" Kind of cyclical and I started questioning the author's motives. Why? What's the point of the repeat? And then I kept reading and the why became clear and the event grew on me and then I really started to feel for everyone involved. I just don't understand why they conceded. If all of the participants were that against what was going on that they made a public display of it, why not protest by inaction instead of participating? There was still very much a protest going on, which only answered my why question but it would have put the Capitol in just as precarious a position this time around like they were in HG, if not worse.

But I'll stop alluding.

When the Victory Tour started, prior to the twist, you can actually feel the dissent simmering from the pages and I really couldn't help but attach it to our current political situation. I highly, HIGHLY doubt that was the intent of the author but connections like that are going to be made regardless of what the author's intent was. It's not a strong connection but something I could feel not only going on on the page but in the world around me as well.

The way the people are treated is heart-wrenching. The public displays of enforced obedience and order are disgusting and you start to feel hopeless when everything starts putting up barriers around everyone. And fences start to get electrified. It seems like annihilation or submission is the only way to fight what's going on since the Capitol has such immense forces behind them.

But with the mention of District 13 brings hope. And conspiracy theories. I love conspiracy theories. It's not mentioned often, but often enough that it's ingrained this little seed of something in your brain. What's going on over there, if anything? Can we believe what people are saying about that place? Or should we believe the Capitol?

I'm not a big "shipper" so the relationships going on in the book (or any book, really) don't have all that much effect on me. I thought the forced relationship between Katniss and Peeta was sucky at best. I didn't like what the Capitol was making them do and I'm pretty sure that was the point. It sucks that Peeta's genuinely invested in the situation while Katniss is playing along but it creates for some great dramatic tension. At the same time, though, I wasn't too big of a fan of Katniss and Gale, not as a couple, anyway. I liked them as friends. They really complemented each other but beyond that, no. They'd make good warriors together. I can see Peeta being the voice with Gale and Katniss as the enforcers in the situation going on. But I think romance is the very last thing anyone in the book, or reading it, are concerned about. There's just way too much going on.

The book ends on such an INFURIATING note! Gah! And I have to wait a year to find out what happens??? *weep* The ending is just a segue into the next book and while I normally don't like those types of endings, it works here because what's going to happen next belongs in its own book. What happens in CF is the roiling the water does before it starts to boil. The next book will be the boiling point. If they're giving away ARCs of this one at the next BEA, I might have to make the 5 am stop there to get one.

The ending culminates at what's going to be a new beginning. Or a new cycle. We know what we want to happen in the next book but at the same time we know that Collins does nothing easily. If we want the good ending, the losses will be extremely high. If we don't get it, it'll be even worse. But there's so much at stake where we're left. We only know for sure what the status of a handful of characters are at the very end but we're missing out on other vital ones. Will they make it through the aftermath?

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock . . .

Book Preview: Pillage

First published on July 30, 2008.

When fifteen-year-old Beck Phillips travels by train to the secluded village of Kingsplot to live with his wealthy but estranged uncle, Beck discovers some dark family secrets. A buried basement, a forbidden conservatory, an old book of family history with odd references to . . . dragons? Beck's life is about to be changed forever in this suspenseful tale about the destructive nature of greed and the courage it takes to make things right. (book blurb)

To be fair, I haven't had this sitting around for a year. This was another chapter sampler I grabbed at BEA. They must have been leftovers from the publisher or something. And being the hoarder that I am, I snagged.

Meh. I wasn't all that impressed. I think it had mostly to do with the language and the way the story was told. I mean, this is a first person narrative of a 15-year-old boy and he was saying things like, "The fearful faces of the crowd of onlookers told me quite clearly that rampaging ivy was not something that normally happened at Callowbrow." Yeah, it's snarky and it's a pretty funny line. I just don't think it fit the mouth that it was coming out of. How many 15-year-old boys do you know that speak like this? It just didn't click for me.

I liked the excerpts from the dragon book, The Grim Knot, and even the story itself was pretty interesting; I just didn't like how it was being told. I don't know. It didn't sit right with me. It's almost like the timing wasn't right or something. Like maybe if I'd read it on a different day I'd like it. Strange, I know but there you have it.

There really isn't too much of a good reason not to like it (except for the voice which really did irk me) but I don't think I'd be able to get into it if I had more to read.

Book Preview: Black is for Beginnings + Contest!

Pub Date - September 1, 2009

The Blue is for Nightmares series that put a spell on half a million young adult readers continues - in graphic novel format!

Prophetic nightmares. Near-brushes with death. Killers pursuing her and her friends. Stacey Brown knows that being a hereditary witch isn't all it's cracked up to be.

All she really wants to do is work things out with Jacob and figure out what to do with the rest of her life. But before Stacey and Jacob can have a future, they must face their pasts. Black is for beginnings reveals the never-before-seen backstory - and what lies ahead - for the young, spell-casting lovers. (book back blurb)

This isn't a book review since I don't have the whole book. It's just a bound preview edition that's the first 99 pages of the book itself. I figured why not put in some cents on it, right? It's not going to get a rating or anything since I don't think it's fair to rate something based on a portion of it. But I can give an impression of it.

I know with this series I'm not coming in in the right place and in all honesty, I don't know if I'm the best person to be judging graphic novels. I just don't read enough of them to get a good grasp on them so I'm not sure what's normal, what isn't, what's good, what isn't. But I can say a few things.

I'm almost positive I'd like the book better. It's not that I don't like comics but to me it's lacking a lot from an actual book. I can paint a better picture in my head with the words from a book than I can with the pictures already in front of me. Weird, I know, but there you go.

Plot-wise, it's really jumpy. The timeline is more stream-of-consciousness than chronological (although it's chronological within the stream-of-consciousness which lowers the confusion slightly) and I found it hard trying to keep all of the events together coherently. With everything jumping all over the place, it was hard for me to remember what came when and where.

And a major writing issue for me was the "let's recap even though you guys should know what's going on in the story" moment. It's in there for the benefit of the reader, not the characters, so it comes off as an infodump. Granted it's a crucial infodump for the book itself but I think there are other, better, ways to go about it.

The drawings are pretty cool but like I said, I paint more vivid imagery with words than I do with pictures. But the story itself I actually really liked. It's very fast-paced, has the right amount of drama and tension, it's got some action. There really isn't anything not to like about the story as it is. In fact, it makes me want to go out and buy the books to get a feel of just what I'm jumping into here because I do feel a little lost. But I'm sure that's due solely to the fact that I've never read the series.

So I'm not too sure how I feel about the comic but I definitely like the story.

CONTEST TIME!!!

I have two of these preview books for Black is for Beginnings, plus a bookmark each to go along with it. You want one? Here's what you have to do--

+1 Comment with your email to enter
+2 for following (new or old)
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This'll end September 7th at midnight, EST. US residents only please. Good luck!

Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick

Pub date, September 1, 2009

When Private Matt Duffy wakes up in an Iraq army hospital, he's honored with a Purple Heart. But one memory haunts him: the sight of an Iraqi boy as a bullet hits his chest. Matt fears he was somehow involved in his death--but a head injury keeps him from putting the pieces together. Eventually sent back into combat, Matt discovers the notion of guilt is very complicated indeed. (book blurb)

First, let me just say, I can't stand eBooks. I hate reading books on a screen. There. I tried it. No one can say I didn't. And I hated it. My eyes ended up in this weird Magic Eye swaying thing by the time I was done reading, and I only read five chapters at a time. I had afterimages of the white pages burned into my retinas. Ugh. Give me your normal, tree-killing paperback any day over one of these.

No, that mini-rant didn't come from the crevices of my buttocks. This book was an eGalley and the first book I've read on screen. And it will be the second to last. I have one more. And then NEVER. AGAIN.

Now onto the real review.

You know, I didn't know what to expect going into this. Is it going to be a glorification of war? Is it going to be starkly anti-war? Is it going to carry some kind of agenda? I really didn't know and the blurb is a little ambiguous. But when I started reading, I just didn't want to stop. But if I didn't limit my reading, my computer screen would have made me blind so I had to. If this were a tangible book, I could have easily read this in the span of two hours. Maybe less. And not just because it was a decent-sized font with wide margins. I wanted to find out what happened to Matt in that alley as much as he did.

This book doesn't glorify war. It isn't far to the left against it either. It's real. It's as real as a war story as I think a war story could get. There's one small anti-Bush mention. If I remember correctly, it was a poster with the joke, "W put the 'duh' in dumb." Something like that. Other than that, it could have very well been the journal of a soldier suffering from PTSD. There's no leaning. There's just doing your job and staying alive.

Matt is compelling from the first second of the story. Absolutely. You're kept sitting right on his shoulders. You know just as much about what's going on as he does and because of that you develop the same mad drive to figure out what happened in that alley that Matt does. You have to know. You need to know. You have to know why everything's different. Why your buddies are so strange. How the hell you ended up in the hospital to begin with. Why your superior officers are giving you memories that you're pretty convinced aren't your own.

This is a very cut and dry plot. Point A to Point B. Matt wakes up in the hospital to Matt finds out what happened in the alley. It really is that simple. But there's so much else going on that while the walk from A to B might be cut and dry, it doesn't mean you're not getting splashed on the way to B.

What this book also opens up is just what is real. What could be real. Are soldiers really returned to their units with TBIs, motor skill issues and physical impairments? Considering how hard up we are for soldiers over there, I wouldn't doubt it. Do commanding officers take liberties with situations in order to avoid real messes? Really don't doubt that.

This book is so reminiscent for me of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. There's no bias to one side or another, just the perception of the soldier. A ringing motif in Purple Heart is the little boy Ali being killed and how Matt remembers him dying. He remembers the boy flying up off his feet, floating, looking almost happy, and then his arms and legs start to flap and he goes down. It rings so close to home of Ted Lavender in Things. A running motif in that book is that Ted died by sunlight. That's how the MC remembers seeing it. The man stepped on a land mine and just before his body exploded all over the foliage, the sun's rays were coming in from behind him and he looked almost peaceful, as if the sunlight was gently putting him to rest. I just couldn't help but make comparisons between the two books.

The real kicker with this book for me was that this 18-year-old boy, BOY, because you are not a man at 18, I don't care how many of them think they are, is having to endure all of this death and destruction and confusion. Even Matt mentions the insanity of it all when he gets a letter from his girlfriend where she talks about such inconsequential things like tests in school while he reads it in a battlefield. The juxtaposition of those two elements bring the severity of Matt's situation into focus. Here's a boy whom we tell isn't old enough to handle the responsibility of drinking all the while dressing him in full body Kevlar and arming him with rocket launchers, hand grenades and assault rifles. What it going on here?

What I got from Purple Heart is that this isn't a book about war. Not about fighting it but about interpreting it. How is it seen through the eyes of a soldier? Through Matt's, thanks to his TBI (traumatic brain injury, in case you weren't sure what that meant), it's damn near indecipherable. And here he is with a gun in his hands.

I cried reading this because it can be true and it probably is. This book could very well be many soldiers' realities in war. If a book in which a soldier, our epitome of a man, collapses into a fetal position and weeps because three of his buddies just got blown up and he just had to sort through their belongings, doesn't make you cry, I don't know what will.

It's about perception and this is the perspective that the news doesn't give us and the soldiers themselves are wont to talk about. Read this book. Read it now. And while you're at it pick up The Things They Carried too. You'll see the similarities that I'm talking about. And I can guarantee you won't want to put either of them down.

Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani + Contest!

Pub date - September 1, 2009.

Three reasons why Viola Chesterton knows she'll never survive her first year at boarding school.

• She has to leave behind her best friend, Andrew.
• . . . and replace him with three new roommates who, disturbingly, actually seem to like it there.
• "There" is South Bend, Indiana, which feels about as far away from her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, as you can get. (book back blurb)
  

This book gets ten points alone for not being Tall Tales of the Moron Girls and How to Talk Like a Douche. There was literally a sigh of relief as I started reading this because it wasn't stuffed sausage-tight with so-hip-you-need-a-new-one slang and absolutely ridiculous situations.

But . . .

I started getting antsy, anxious, for something to happen. It was so boring and . . . ordinary. I can understand the realistic aspect to it and trying to make that kind of connection to readers that this could very well be a real girl anywhere having to adjust in a situation like this. But just think about it. How exciting is your normal, everyday girl going to school? Exactly. That's what Viola is.

The book is about the year in Viola's life where she goes to boarding school and has to adjust and learn a few life lessons. The thing is, it's so realistic it makes for a really dull read.

There's no drama. Well, next to none. And I felt that by the end of the book I should be holding hands with someone and singing Kumbaya or something. It was just so Brady Bunch uneventful. Hell, I think the Brady Bunch were more exciting. I mean, for a girl that's pretty much a loner and isn't the nicest of people to her roommates the first day of school, they sure seem to forgive her really quickly and they all become the bestest of friends. There's no head-butting with other girls, no rivalry, no normal social situations that real normal girls go through in school. It's like these characters existed in a love-in vacuum.

There's a hint of intrigue in the story but it pretty much stays that way. A hint. It leads Viola down this road to making her movie but it's just like seeing something in the right time and place. The only excitement going on around you when something like that happens is the epiphany going off inside your head. The only one that cared was Viola. And her Partridge Family friends.

The situation with Andrew was . . . meh. It worked itself out in the end. He joined in the Kumbaya sing-along. Jared on the other hand . . . well, it was another lesson Viola learned. Next time can we make these lessons something resembling compelling, please? Being steeped in ordinary is so BORING. I mean, they were good lessons and all but it was trying so hard to be realistic it ended up not being realistic. Does that make sense? No one goes through their freshman year in high school that easily, even with the "issues" Viola had. NO ONE.

That's not to say a book needs fantastical elements or ridiculous mememe drama for it to be compelling. But the lives of ordinary people are boring and shouldn't be written about. They need spice. This book would have been better with a modicum of tension and drama that actually exists in real school situations but it was so strawberries and cream glossed over that it eradicated it. It's like The Babysitters' Club on Prozac or something. Full House had more tension than this book.

The writing itself was a little awkward too. I know this is an ARC but a couple of things stood out that my gut tells me aren't things that are going to be fashioned out on the last copy edit. Namely dialogue and infodumping.

I have a feeling that dialogue isn't this author's strong point. They were all very stilted conversations and none of the characters really had their own voices. When one said a line, it could have been interchanged with any other character and it wouldn't have made a difference. I mean, not all teens talk like tools but most do use contractions.

And I really shouldn't say infodumping because that implies massive chunks of exposition which there aren't. What I'm talking about are things like conversations, or emails, between two characters where they would say things that are very obviously for the sake of the reader and not for each other. It comes off very unnatural. For instance, Cailtin, one of Violet's best friends from Brooklyn, sends Violet an email. In it she mentions her aunt. Seeing how often Caitlin talks about this woman, and how long they've been friends, Violet should already know who she is. But she goes into small detail about her aunt, "you know, first name, last name, what she does, why she's being mentioned." It's very awkward and very obvious that that information isn't there for Violet's benefit. She'd already know it.

And it really annoyed me when Violet kept saying South Bend, Indiana, South Bend, Indiana, South Bend, Indiana. The full city and state. Constantly. No just South Bend. And no just Brooklyn either. Rarely. Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn, New York. When you say Brooklyn, who the hell won't know what you're talking about? And what irked me even more, and this is something so minute but it goes against the grain of the character, Violet rarely called Brooklyn home. For how much she missed it, it was always Brooklyn, never home. That bothered me. A lot.

So I went from one extreme, Alphas, to another. It's not a bad book. It's just uneventful, which can equate to boring. Just think about how much you'd want to read the diary of your normal, everyday girl. Then again, I'm pretty sure your normal, everyday girl goes through normal everyday high school shenanigans which seem to be left out of Prefect Academy in South Bend, Indiana. Check your normal high school/boarding school at the door and welcome to Stepford.

Personally, when I read a book, I want something that's going to excite me, in one way or another. Not a boring girl's journal.

And what the deuce is with the boarding school craze? I don't get it. I live within ten minutes of two prestigious girls' boarding schools and every time I passed them when I was younger, I cringed. Now they're supposed to be appealing and real world "fantasy"? Stumped me.

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Soulstice by Simon Holt

Pub date - September 1, 2009

Six months . . .

Since Reggie first discovered the existence of the Vours in a tattered journal. Since her little brother, Henry, began to mutilate animals and turn against her. Since she learned to devour her fear and destroyed a Vour to save Henry.

The Vours still haunt Reggie, but only in her dreams - until one horrifying night, when an unexpected visitor turns her nightmares into reality. (book back blurb)

You know, it's books like this that make me want to haul ass to my local used book store and scour the shelves of YA horror of the days of yore (which I'll be doing on Saturday, thanks). The Devouring series is proof positive that you can have kick ass YA reading material without some derivative love triangle (or romance in general) mucking things up.

Steph from Reviewer X and I talked about this when we were at BEA. How many YA books out there do you know of that don't involve some kind of romance? Ding ding ding! I have one right here! But there are so many counting fingers left over . . .

Yes, Reggie has a crush but what fifteen-ear-old doesn't? The difference here is that that's as far as it went before Vour!Quinn was sunk into a frozen lake. No pining, no losing a sense of self, no moping. Just a crush before the shit hit the fan.

And then we get Soulstice which just takes the fucked-upedness to a whole new level. The mystery behind Eb is finally revealed and Reggie has to compromise the very thing she believes in in order to get the help she so desperately needs to fight the Vours. I can't talk about it without actually spoiling these little tidbits of information but damn, I loved them. And I just can't get enough of the fearscapes that Reggie makes her way into. They're just . . . things of nightmares. Not "OMG what am I going to do without my boyfriend?" nightmares but true-on Nightmare on Elm Street, you wake up and check to make sure your arms are still attached, nightmares. God I love it.

And the characters. If the fearscapes aren't enough, the characters and whole loads of love. Henry is one of the most multi-dimensional characters I've ever read. Reggie . . . I just like Reggie. She's a good, solid, well-rounded character that, despite the circumstances, comes off as real. You can actually believe that she could be a real chick. She's just normal. And Aaron is Reggie's Ducky but he's so much more than that. The kid takes a beating and just keeps on kicking. It shows just how strong the friendship is between those two. The father is a little cardboard but he barely plays a role so I can easily overlook that. And don't forget Eben. That guy is just love right there. The persistence he has with what he does would make any teenager envious. And it does in the book.

I have to say, this one didn't penetrate my defenses like it did in the first one but here, we know what the Vours are. To me, the mystery is what's the scariest. The unknown. We know what they are now and we know they're bastards so the fear is kind of gone. Well, at least the boogidy-boogidy fear, anyway. There are still many things left in this book to creep a person out, that's for damn sure.

So while the actual 'freaked out in the dark' horror element of the first book is gone, Soulstice escalated the series just to the other side of that. Now you know what these things are and you know exactly what they can do to you . . . right? When you think you have the dark all figured out, it throws you a blood-covered curve ball.

An excellent sequel and what a smarmy place to end it! Now I have to wait until the third comes out! Damn you, publishing schedules! Gah!

The Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda + Contest!

Pub date - September 1, 2009

Bilqis Sangreal always knew that being a Knight Templar required the complete sacrifice of normalcy. Instead of hanging out with friends or flirting with boys, she spends her time in the darkest corners of London's underworld, battling the Unholy in a centuries-old war for mankind's soul.

Even though she's been solitary for years, Billi's lone-wolf attitude is challenged when her childhood friend and fellow knight, Kay, returns from Jerusalem with a new radiance and a dangerous chip on his shoulder. Kay is ready to reclaim his place by Billi's side, but she's skeptical. While Billi was risking her neck fighting werewolves and vampires, Kay was reading auras in the lap of luxury. Now he spends his time showing off his new powers, cultivating the admiration of the other knights, and teasing Billi. It's all too much to bear . . . until Billi meets Michael, a disturbingly handsome guy who understands her like no one else, effortlessly staking a claim on her heart.

Kay wastes no time in complicating Billi's life just as it's starting to improve. In a moment of bravado, Kay uses the last of the Templars' treasures, King Solomon's Cursed Mirror, to look into the Ethereal Realm, drawing the attention of the Angel of Death. Even though Kay is the most powerful psychic the Templars have seen in centuries, he's no match for the dark angel responsible for the plague that killed every firstborn child in Egypt so long ago.

The Knights know that the angel needs the mirror in order to unleash the Tenth Plague again, but keeping it from him will be nearly impossible. To win this battle and save the lives of millions of children, the Templars will have to find renewed strength, and Billi will have to make sacrifices greater than she'd ever imagined. (book back blurb)

That has got to be the longest blurb ever to grace the back of a book. Personally I don't think it being that long is all that necessary but that's just me.

Anyway, it was alright. I didn't dislike it but I wasn't ecstatic about it either. The writing was good. Nothing really to complain about there but just the overall effect of the book . . . eh, I wasn't thrilled with it. I read it once and I'm good for a while. Might read a sequel if there is one.

I liked Billi a lot. Nothing says awesome author like one who can kick the crap out of his characters to make them who they are. The dynamic between Billi and her father is, for most of the book, "WTF is his problem?" but in the end, it rips your heart out a little. I really liked that relationship, for all the problems that are there. And that's not to mention the shit that gets kicked out of Billi on every freaking page. It's awesome! Well, not for her but I like seeing authors not be gentle with their characters. And yay for it not being her with the Special Child Syndrome which automatically negates such a syndrome.

I don't want to give it away but there are two twists in the book. One I think is fairly obvious from the second it appears on the page. I knew there was something not right - I just couldn't pinpoint what kind of not right it was. And the second one I figured out not too long before it actually happened. So that doesn't really count but that second twist is by far more convincing as twisting than the first.

I liked mixing the Old Testament type of stuff in the modern world. Not exactly original but I liked the way it played out in this book. I liked how the Knights Templar weren't defenders of the Holy Grail but of the people from otherworldly beings. It makes for a more exciting story! At least this one had fangs. I also liked being able to see the sickness for what it really was although that's not a pretty sight at all. Downright gross is more like it. But again, it shows that Chadda is not shy about what he writes, which is always a good thing.

I wasn't too fond of the protection that Billi got at the end. Granted she'd suffered more than enough and could have used a little bit of help, but it allowed her to pass through all of the sickness to fulfill the prophesy set out for her (ok, so she has some Special Child Syndrome but it's really watered down and really palatable). I could have lived without that. Or seen a little more struggle. What can I say, I'm a sadist.

Yeah, there are a lot of good things about this book but at the end of the day, it's one of those that just didn't tickle me the right way, or in the right spot. I'm not going to deny it the praise it deserves but I'm just not going to rave about it either. I didn't feel that way about the book. Really no good explanation or excuse for it. It just is. But I would definitely recommend this to people to read, especially if you're into the whole Knights Templar business and London. I loved how London was woven into the storyline and became part of the story. I've been to Temple Church and I could picture everything Billi was talking about.

So aside from the fact that the girl on the cover doesn't match the ethnicity of the girl in the book (white versus Pakistani), which isn't the author's fault, I liked it but wasn't in love with it. But I'm sure many people will be.

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