Review - Curse of the Dragon

Curse of the Dragon
by Richard Fierce
Date: 2023
Publisher: Dragonfire Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: short story
Pages: 15
Format: e-book
Source: BookFunnel

One misstep can change a life. When Mina stumbles upon an abandoned dragon cave, she finds more than she bargained for. This is a prequel short story that leads into the series Marked by the Dragon. It doesn't have spoilers, but rather expands what the main series mentions.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This short story is a unicorn indeed: a self-published work that's technically competent. The author clearly has a good command of grammar and punctuation (or he has an editor who does). Unfortunately, the story itself is rather weak, marred by a few continuity issues and a lot of... well, nothing happening.

The first half is literally a twelve-year-old girl wandering about, trying to be helpful. The second half is where the action starts and ends, but in a 15-page story, that doesn't leave a lot of room for plot development. Basically, this is just a snippet of backstory that explains how the main character in the Marked by the Dragon series got her start.

It's possible that the main books in the series are stronger. But, given that so much time in an already short story is spent on irrelevant wandering, I'm a bit wary. The first full book in the series is free, though, so if you're really into dragons, you might want to check it out. However, I'm not sure if this prequel short story is really necessary.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing & Editing: 4/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall Rating: 2.71 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - The Seventh Raven [AUDIO]

The Seventh Raven
by David Elliott
Date: 2021
Publisher: HarperCollins and Blackstone Publishing
Reading level: YA
Book type: verse novel
Length: 1 hour 47 minutes
Format: audio book [unabridged]
Source: library

Best-selling author David Elliott examines the timeless themes of balance, transformation, and restoration in this evocative tale about a girl who will stop at nothing to reverse a curse that turned her seven brothers into ravens.

And these are the sons
Of good Jack and good Jane
The eldest is Jack
And the next one is Jack
And the third one’s called Jack
And the fourth’s known as Jack
And the fifth says he’s Jack
And they call the sixth Jack
But the seventh’s not Jack
The seventh is Robyn

And this is his story

When Robyn and his brothers are turned into ravens through the work of an unlucky curse, a sister is their only hope to become human again. Though she’s never met her brothers, April will stop at nothing to restore their humanity. But what about Robyn, who always felt a greater affinity to the air than to the earth-bound lives of his family?

David Elliott’s latest novel in verse explores the unintended consequences of our actions, no matter our intentions, and is filled with powerful messages teased from a Grimms’ fairy tale.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

When you want a cool fairy tale retelling and you get a pile of pretentious poetry.

Yeah. It's like that.

I enjoy verse novels, but I did not click with this one. I think part of the problem is that I detested Robyn, the character with whom we're supposed to relate. See, Robyn likes being a raven... but he's such an unempathetic narcissist that, when the point of breaking the curse comes, he can only think of what he is going to lose, not what nine other people are about to get back, or the fact that his sister had to literally mutilate her body to break the curse. So he goes and sulks for the rest of his life and declares he's an angel (I kid you not; we're supposed to like this weirdo?).

There's a note at the end about how different forms of poetry were used for different characters. In another format, I might've found this interesting. But since I listened to the audiobook, I didn't get to see the words on the page, which made it more difficult to differentiate the types of poems. The effect one gets from listening to this book is one of unevenness and excessive repetition.

The misandrist messaging, the unlikable characters, and the repetition all combined to leave a rather sour taste in my mouth. I love verse novels. I love fairy tale retellings. I should have loved this book.

But I didn't.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Performance: 3/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall: 2 out of 5

Review - Wings in the Wild [AUDIO]

Wings in the Wild
by Margarita Engle
Date: 2023
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Reading level: YA
Book type: verse novel
Length: 1 hour 46 minutes
Format: audio book [unabridged]
Source: library

This gorgeously romantic contemporary novel-in-verse from award-winning author Margarita Engle tells the “inspiring and hopeful” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) love story of two teens fighting for climate action and human rights.

Winged beings are meant to be free. And so are artists, but the Cuban government has criminalized any art that doesn’t meet their approval. Soleida and her parents protest this injustice with their secret sculpture garden of chained birds. Then a hurricane exposes the illegal art, and her parents are arrested.

Soleida escapes to Central America alone, joining the thousands of Cuban refugees stranded in Costa Rica while seeking asylum elsewhere. There she meets Dariel, a Cuban American boy whose enigmatic music enchants birds and animals—and Soleida.

Together they work to protect the environment and bring attention to the imprisoned artists in Cuba. Soon they discover that love isn’t about falling—it’s about soaring together to new heights. But wings can be fragile, and Soleida and Dariel come from different worlds. They are fighting for a better future—and the chance to be together.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I didn't expect to dislike this one as much as I did. I've read a couple of Margarita Engle's other verse novels, both historical fiction set in Cuba, and really enjoyed them. I was curious to see what a verse novel was like in audiobook format. I can't say that I was impressed. Then again, I don't think I would've liked this book anyway, even if I'd read a copy.

Aside from being very hard to follow (which may simply be one of the limitations of the audio format here), the characters are flat, the story fizzles, and the whole thing gets very, very preachy. Dariel's anger over climate change is to the point of being off-putting, and a few times the narrative devolves into statistics and scolding. I almost wondered if this thing had been ghostwritten by Greta Thunberg.

Yes, deforestation is a problem. Yes, artists being persecuted in Cuba is awful. Yes, being a refugee must suck. Those are the things I really wanted to read about. Instead, we got a weak story with contrived relationship complications, a confusing timeline, anti-adult sentiment, and a little too much preaching about how the world is toast if we don't meet yet another arbitrary target for carbon-emission reductions (which will probably be pushed ahead another few years when we reach 2040 and we're not all dead).

If I read any other books by this author in the future, I'll be sticking to her historical fiction... and staying away from the audiobooks.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Performance: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall: 2.17 out of 5

Review - Not If I Save You First [AUDIO]

Not If I Save You First
by Ally Carter
Date: 2018
Publisher: Scholastic
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Length: 6 hours 55 minutes
Format: audio book [unabridged]
Source: library

Bestselling author Ally Carter returns with an exciting stand-alone novel, about a girl stranded in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness with the boy who wronged her . . . as an assassin moves in.

Maddie and Logan were torn apart by a kidnapping attempt when they were young. They were only kids -- Logan's dad was POTUS and Maddie's father was the Secret Service agent meant to guard him. The kidnappers were stopped -- but Maddie was whisked off to Alaska with her father, for safety. Maddie and Logan had been inseparable . . . but then she never heard from him again.

Now it's a few years later. Maddie's a teenager, used to living a solitary life with her father. It's quiet -- until Logan is sent to join them. After all this time without word, Maddie has nothing to say to him -- until their outpost is attacked, and Logan is taken. They won't be out of the woods until they're . . . out of the woods, and Maddie's managed to thwart the foes and reconcile with Logan.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I don't know why I do these things to myself...

It's been a while since I read a novel, but I didn't really feel like reading a novel, so I thought I'd find an audiobook instead. But... have you seen the length of some of those things? Fourteen hours just seems kind of intimidating. So when I found Not If I Save You First, which clocks in at just under seven hours, I thought I'd found a quick, fun read.

Hah.

I don't know if it was just the narrator or if I would've felt the same way if I'd been reading the print version, but I could not stand Maddie. It's like she was supposed to be a statement against the "not like other girls" trope, but it went so far that the girl was insufferable. When you've just been kidnapped by Russians in the Alaskan wilderness, the last thing you should be thinking about is your hair. And even if the whole carefree valley-girl thing that she lapsed into whenever things got serious was some sort of defence mechanism, it was extremely annoying. I was honestly rooting for her to get pushed off a cliff by the end of the book.

Aside from the far-fetched story, this book has some other problems. In Chapter 14, there's suddenly all this weird, sexist talk that seems to come out of nowhere. It makes the book seem like it was written in the past. And yet, the male MC almost comes across as emasculated thanks to the insistence on Maddie solving all their problems (with a metaphorical flip of the hair and a cheeky, "Whatever!"). This particular book also doesn't lend itself very well to the audiobook format. It was fine when there was just one Russian. He had an accent, so it was easy to tell when he was talking. But then there were suddenly two Russians, and I had to back up a few times to try to figure out who was saying what because there weren't always dialogue tags to indicate it.

One of the biggest annoyances, though, was the author's insistence on continually using the characters' names... even when they were alone in a scene or when Maddie and Logan were by themselves. "She" and "he" would've been more than sufficient and a lot less distracting.

That was part of the problem. This book just didn't hold my interest, and I got distracted a lot. I couldn't tell you some of the finer plot points because I kind of zoned out, and there was even a bit near the end where I forgot where Logan was. By that point, though, I had so little investment in the story that I didn't bother to go back and re-listen. I just wanted to be done.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 1/5
Pace: 2/5
Performance: 2/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 0/5

Overall: 1.5 out of 5

Review - The Climb

The Climb
by Amra Pajalic
Date: 2022
Publisher: Amra Pajalic
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novella
Pages: 86
Format: e-book
Source: newsletter

"Noah and Zephyra have been best friends since they started high school. Zephyra thinks of Noah as a brother. Noah thinks Zephyra is the one.

Zephyra’s only interest in romance is between the covers of her favourite romance novels. Noah believes now that they’re sixteen it’s just a matter of time until their friendship becomes a relationship.

When they are completing a one week bike marathon their friendship hits some unexpected speed bumps. Will their friendship turn into something more or will they crash?

The Climb, a young adult contemporary romance."

(synopsis from Goodreads)

There's a reason self-published authors are encouraged to hire editors. This book is a prime example of why. In the beginning, it wasn't too terrible, so I thought I'd just keep reading; the book is short, after all. But at around Chapter 5, things took a turn for the worse, and reading this book became more of an exercise in endurance than enjoyment. (I will admit that I did enjoy some of the unintentionally funny typos and turns of phrase... but that's probably the only enjoyment I got out of this.)

The basic premise isn't bad. Two friends, Zephyra and Noah, join a school-sponsored charity bike ride. This forms the backdrop for the rest of the story, which is basically all about the characters. Unfortunately, none of the characters are likeable, or even realistic. We're stuck with stereotypes, and strange adult characters who come across like they're preteens.

My biggest issue, though, is the relationship between Zephyra and Noah. They're best friends. But Noah has a thing for Zephyra. Like... a getting-a-boner-on-the-bus sort of thing. (This book gets pretty graphic in spots, especially for a YA novella. It's definitely not for the younger end of that age group!) The problem is... he doesn't seem to have heard of a little thing called consent. Throughout the book, he repeatedly kisses or tries to kiss Zephyra, then gets angry when she tells him (also repeatedly) that she's not interested. Eventually, she comes around because of jealousy, and Noah gets the girl. I hate this. Make a nuisance of yourself until you get what you want? Great lesson.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Even if the relationship aspects had been dealt with better, the editing was non-existent. Seriously. The book shifts from third person to first person... twice. Save your time and skip this one.

Premise: 1/5
Plot: 2/5
Characters: 0/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing: 1/5
Editing: 0/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 0/5

Overall Rating: 1 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - You've Reached Sam [AUDIO]

You've Reached Sam
by Dustin Thao
Date: 2021
Publisher: Macmillan Young Listeners
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Length: 9 hours 42 minutes
Format: audio book [unabridged]
Source: library

Dustin Thao's You've Reached Sam is a heartfelt audiobook about love and loss and what it means to say goodbye.

How do you move forward when everything you love is on the line?

Seventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan.

But then Sam dies. And everything changes.

Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries everything to forget him and the tragic way he died. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces back memories. Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail.

And Sam picks up the phone.

In a miraculous turn of events, Julie’s been given a second chance at goodbye. The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam’s voice makes her fall for him all over again, and with each call it becomes harder to let him go. However, keeping her otherworldly calls with Sam a secret isn’t easy, especially when Julie witnesses the suffering Sam’s family is going through. Unable to stand by the sidelines and watch their shared loved ones in pain, Julie is torn between spilling the truth about her calls with Sam and risking their connection and losing him forever.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I thought the premise of this one sounded so cool. A grieving girl who suddenly has the chance to reconnect with her dead boyfriend through a magic cellphone? Sign me up!

I'd read some not-so-stellar reviews of this one, but I thought I'd give it a try, anyway. The library had the audiobook, so I gave it a go.

Big mistake.

It's probably just one of those books that works better in print. Because the timeline skips around a lot, it's kind of hard to follow. I can't see scene breaks when I'm listening, so sometimes I was confused when Julie would suddenly be with Sam again. A lot of the confusion could've been avoided had the author used the past tense for flashbacks. But the majority of the book is written in the present tense, even when Julie is remembering things that happened in the past.

Speaking of those memories, I'm not a fan. They're almost like a fever dream, with one recollection dissolving into the next, and everything seems disjointed. These sections could've really helped flesh out the story, or made me understand the characters a little better. Sadly, much of the book seems like padding, and the various characters are unlikeable, underdeveloped, stereotypical, unpleasant, or just plain inconsistent. I don't even particularly like Sam, especially after he died; all those rules with their connection that are never explained almost seemed like manipulation.

When we find out how Sam died, I thought there would be more to it than that, especially since Julie spends much of the book in a "woe is me, it's all my fault" mode. In fact, a lot of people blame Julie for Sam's death, and the reasons why make absolutely no sense to me. The perpetual blame game comes across more like a plot device than anything else, and I was disappointed that there was no earth-shattering twist that explained what really went on that night and who was really to blame.

I'm not sure if I should even mention this next part, because I'll probably get flack for it, but I feel like it needs to be mentioned. This book is kind of racist. I'm already uncomfortable by the fact that a Vietnamese-American man decided to write the book from the point of view of a Caucasian girl... but not because authors need to stay in their own lanes. What irked me is that this choice seemed to be made as a subtle way to make a statement about race. Julie, a white girl, doesn't really have a cultural background; on the other hand, the book tries to glorify Asian culture (while simultaneously presenting it as a bit of a stereotypical monolith, which was a bit odd). Everything Asian is good (the people are model-beautiful, they bring pretty lunches to school, they're so inclusive they'll let white people into the Asian club, they're so in touch with their heritage, etc.), while a number of the white kids in the book are portrayed as one-dimensional bigots.

Anyway, even without that stuff, I'm not sure if I would feel much more favourably toward this book. It was kind of boring, in the end, and I never got the answers—or the characters—I wanted.

Also, sending flaming lanterns out into the wilderness in a state that regularly has wildfires is extremely irresponsible. And Julie wouldn't be walking under cherry blossoms during her first week of school. I'm surprised an editor didn't have something to say about these things...

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Performance: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.33 out of 5

Review - Unchosen [AUDIO]

Unchosen
by Katharyn Blair
Date: 2021
Publisher: HarperAudio
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Length: 10 hours 3 minutes
Format: audio book [unabridged]
Source: library

For Charlotte Holloway, the world ended twice.

The first was when her childhood crush, Dean, fell in love—with her older sister.

The second was when the Crimson, a curse spread through eye contact, turned the majority of humanity into flesh-eating monsters.

Neither end of the world changed Charlotte. She’s still in the shadows of her siblings. Her popular older sister, Harlow, now commands forces of survivors. And her talented younger sister, Vanessa, is the Chosen One—who, legend has it, can end the curse.

When their settlement is raided by those seeking the Chosen One, Charlotte makes a reckless decision to save Vanessa: she takes her place as prisoner.

The word spreads across the seven seas—the Chosen One has been found.

But when Dean’s life is threatened and a resistance looms on the horizon, the lie keeping Charlotte alive begins to unravel. She’ll have to break free, forge new bonds, and choose her own destiny if she has any hope of saving her sisters, her love, and maybe even the world.

Because sometimes the end is just a new beginning.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I was looking through my book blog and realized I hadn't listened to an audiobook in over a decade. What?! Yeah, I know. But, to be fair, audiobooks and I don't always get along. Without visual input of some sort, my mind tends to wander. (Either that, or I fall asleep.) But I've been having trouble lately with starting books and then not finishing them, so I wondered if "reading" an audiobook might work better for me right now.

I haven't tried an audiobook in ages, and I also haven't read a young adult novel in a while. I think I might be getting too old for them. Or maybe I was just too old for this one. When the world has gone to hell and zombies are nipping at your heels, it seems a little ridiculous to start waxing poetic about some guy's shoulders. But... here we are.

I did really like the premise of this one, though. It's basically a post-apocalyptic zombie book, but the zombie thing is really unique. It's based on a curse rather than the usual virus, and it's spread through eye contact. This leads to some interesting work-arounds like the characters having to use mirrors to look at things, lest they get zombified.

Our main character is Charlotte, who's the inconsequential middle sister of three. Her older sister is some badass warrior, and her younger sister is literally the Chosen One who's supposed to save them all. On top of that, Charlotte is in love with her older sister's boyfriend, so things aren't running too smoothly in the family unit.

Once the story started to pick up a bit, and some villains were thrown into the mix, I found myself getting a little lost. Maybe it was because of the audio format, or maybe the book was actually just confusing. The pacing seemed uneven in spots, especially toward the end (which was a little lacklustre after all that buildup). I wasn't that impressed with the villains, either; they were your standard moustache-twirlers who enjoyed being evil just for the sake of it.

This probably wasn't the best book to ease me back into the world of audio. There was an awful lot of repetition, which was painfully obvious in audio format. (What I mean is that certain words and phrases were repeated way too close together, and characters' names were used too often when "he" or "she" would've sufficed.) I also wasn't a fan of this particular narrator, who would lower her voice for the male characters (which sounded silly) and harshen her voice for some of the female characters (making the villains, especially, sound more vapid than menacing). I do realize there's not much a single narrator can do with a book to differentiate the characters other than try to put on different voices. Still, I felt like the somewhat weird character voices were distracting and drew me out of the story at times.

Overall, I give the premise top marks for originality. The execution is a little lacking, though. Still, it will probably appeal to young adult readers who are looking for an interesting post-apocalyptic romp with a touch of romance.

Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Pace: 4/5
Performance: 4/5
Originality: 4/5
Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3.33 out of 5

Review - Eve of Eridu

Eve of Eridu (Eridu #1)
by Alanah Andrews
Date: 2018
Publisher: Michael Terence Publishing
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 226
Format: e-book
Source: Kobo

In a world where emotions are forbidden, what happens when you start to feel?

The harvest separates the worthy from the unworthy. Those who pass are destined to continue the human race, and the unworthy are culled.

For years, Eve has been the poster girl for emotional control. But ever since her brother was culled, Eve is finding it difficult to keep the monitor on her wrist an acceptable blue.

The next harvest ceremony is approaching and Eve will do whatever it takes to avoid the same fate as her brother. Gripping and intriguing, Eve of Eridu explores the lengths that humans will go to in their quest for survival.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

Wow. I don't think I've ever had this much of a drop in enjoyment between two instalments of a series before.

I read The Harvest (the prequel short story) a week or so ago and was really intrigued by the world the author had built. Eve and Hana were interesting characters, the world was fascinating, and I wanted to know more. Why was Eve's brother, Luc, culled? That was the biggest question I had, and I really wanted to see if Eve of Eridu would answer it. Well, it did... but that answer was less than satisfactory.

It's painfully obvious that Eve of Eridu was written before The Harvest, even though the latter is the prequel. While The Harvest featured distinct characters and an intriguing introduction to the world of Eridu, Eve of Eridu feels incomplete, confusing, and not consistent with its prequel. I kind of liked Eve in The Harvest; she's completely unlikeable in Eve of Eridu. Maybe the author realized she needed to humanize Eve a little more in the prequel so that she didn't come off as a brainwashed sociopath. (Yes, she gets better toward the end of this book, but it's too little, too late... and even then, she's still spouting the cult's sayings like a loyal member. It makes her final actions ring a bit false.) Also, if you liked Hana in The Harvest, you'll be disappointed here; she's little more than a cardboard cutout for Eve to look down upon in this book.

The other way this book seems obviously written first is the writing and editing. The first part is okay, but then the editor seems to give up. The rest of the book is full of comma splices, misplaced action beats, and incorrect punctuation (including a seeming aversion to question marks). If I hadn't wanted so badly to find out how this cult started and what its goal really was, I would've given up.

I can't even imagine reading this book without first reading the prequel. As I was reading Eve of Eridu, I was thinking about how confused I would've been had I not already been introduced to the world and all its terminology. And as for Luc... well, that's probably this book's biggest failing. He's already gone by the time the story starts, so we never get to see his relationship with Eve... and that makes it really difficult to feel anything for her because we don't really know what kind of relationship she's lost. All we know is what she tells us. (Unfortunately, the amount of telling in this book borders on the ridiculous. We're often not shown anything at all, and Eve just explains things to us. At one point, we skip ahead by months, just with one sentence. This transition could've worked... but not stuck in the middle of a random paragraph as it was.)

I'm just disappointed. I so rarely read YA these days, and I thought I'd found a series that I'd actually enjoy. Right now, I'm more annoyed than anything, and hesitant to even recommend the prequel (even though it's far better than this book). Judging by the rating on Goodreads, I'm probably in the minority. Your mileage, as always, may vary. But, if you do decide to read this, make sure you start with The Harvest.

Premise: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing: 2/5
Editing: 2/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall Rating: 2.25 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - The Harvest

The Harvest (Eridu #0)
by Alanah Andrews
Date: 2019
Publisher: Deadset Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: short story
Pages: 55
Format: e-book
Source: Kobo

ONLY THE WORTHY PASS THE HARVEST

Ever since WWIII devastated the surface of the Earth, emotions have been strictly forbidden. Childhood friends, Eve and Hana, have grown up in an underground compound, their emotional control monitored at all times.

But the harvest is approaching . . .

In two days, the low-ranked students will be culled and the worthy assigned to their permanent positions in society.

Eve is a high-ranked student, but harbours secret concerns about her brother leaving—feelings that she must conceal from her monitor if she wishes to succeed. Hana has always struggled to control her emotions, and she fears that this harvest will be her last.

Both know there's no place for friendship when they're competing for their lives.

The harvest is coming, and only the worthy will remain.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I don't read nearly as much YA as I should. For some reason, it's my favourite age category.

I picked up this freebie and thought I'd give it a try. I was actually pleasantly surprised. Even though this is a prequel story, I didn't have any trouble getting immersed in the story and the world. It's a kind of standard dystopian with an underground society and people who are forbidden from having emotions. This particular story is told from the points of view of two girls: Eve, whose sections are narrated in the first person, and Hana, whose sections are narrated in the third person. I'm not really sure why this was done, as the first book in the series, Eve of Eridu, appears to be all from Eve's point of view.

Anyway, it's a tantalizing glimpse of a really screwed-up society. I'm curious about what happens to some of the characters now. The story itself is written fairly well, although the present-tense narration does have a few lapses into past tense. The author also repeatedly uses some odd turns of phrase (things like "up the front" rather than "up at the front"), though I'm not sure if this is a regional thing, as the author lives in Australia.

I haven't yet decided if I'll move on and read the actual first book in the series, but it's not because this one didn't pique my interest. If you're looking for a strong dystopian read, give this story a try and see if the world of Eridu might be your cup of tea.

Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Pace: 4/5
Writing & Editing: 4/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.57 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - Hook: Dead to Rights (DNF)

Hook: Dead to Rights (Captain Hook and the Pirates of Neverland #1)
by Melissa Snark
Date: 2018
Publisher: Nordic Lights Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 230
Format: e-book
Source: Kobo

Neverland is a wondrous isle of adventure.

Neverland is a cruel lie.

Children follow Peter Pan believing their dreams will come true—to never grow up.

Surprise, surprise... they never will. The children Peter Pan abducts are murdered or meet a grimmer fate.

I'm the child who escaped Peter's treachery. I've made it my life's calling to rescue the Lost Boys, even those who don't wish to be saved. Now Pan has a schooner he's using to steal even more children. I'm the only one who can stop him.

Call me Hook. I am the master and commander of a pirate ship, and I'll have my revenge on Peter Pan if it's the last thing I do.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

DNF @ 31%

I think I've been more than fair in giving this one a shot. At almost 1/3 of the way through, exciting things have only just started to happen. Six chapters before that were taken up with introducing characters on the pirate ship Revenge and annoying me with the overly modern narration. (Correction: The author tries to make the writing sound old-timey but doesn't always succeed. It often comes across as a teenage girl participating in Talk Like a Pirate Day.)

For such a short book, I expected things to move along much faster. But the story is so slow. And I'm finding it difficult to care about what happens.

Also, if you're going to gender-swap characters from the Edwardian era, don't name them things like Jayden. If I'm being honest, that pretty much clinched this book as a DNF for me. The author could've gone with Jane Hook. Even Jamesina Hook would've been more realistic. Jayden Hook? Give me a break; last I checked, the infamous Captain Hook was not part of Generation Z.

Review - Elatsoe (DNF)

Elatsoe
by Darcie Little Badger
Date: 2020
Publisher: Levine Querido
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 368
Format: e-book
Source: Kobo

Imagine an America very similar to our own. It's got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream.

There are some differences. This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day.

Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

DNF @ 18%

This sounded like it would be good, but I didn't even read 1/5 of it and I just can't bring myself to open it back up (which is always a bad sign). While the writing is technically okay, there's a big mismatch between the characters' ages and how they're portrayed. Ellie is supposed to be 17, but she comes across as a tween and the book (what I read of it, anyway) reads more like middle grade than young adult.

I'm also not a fan of the way the fantasy elements are handled. I expected more Indigenous myths. Instead, I got a mishmash of myths with everything from ghosts and vampires to river creatures and European fairies. Which myths are Apache? Who knows? (I kind of wanted to.)

What I read of this book reminded me of Sarah Cannon's Oddity, a middle-grade novel with a similar setting that also throws everything but the kitchen sink at its readers in terms of supernatural creatures. (I didn't love that one either, but at least it didn't try to pass itself off as YA.)

Judging by the high overall rating of this book, it definitely has an audience. Unfortunately, I'm not it.

Review - Anomaly

Anomaly (The Blood Race #0.5)
by K. A. Emmons
Date: 2020
Publisher: K. A. Emmons
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novella
Pages: 150
Format: e-book
Source: author

14-year-old Ion Jacobs just wants to belong to a family and feel normal. But his past is a mystery, his future is a question, and his whole life is about to change.

Tossed from one foster home to another and shadowed by his mysterious past, Ion fears he’ll never fit in — until one day, when he drops a pencil and instead of falling to the floor…it floats.

Shocked and bewildered, Ion searches deeper and discovers an undeniable truth about himself: he possesses extraordinary powers beyond his control. Healing injuries, levitating objects, and superhuman strength come as easy to him as breathing. Now Ion only has one goal: make sure no one finds out what he’s capable of.

Struggling to keep his newfound abilities a secret, Ion finds himself more isolated than ever — until he meets a mysterious stranger in the woods who seems to understand Ion better than anyone else. As tensions rise at home with his new foster family, Ion finds it harder and harder to control his powers. And when he accidentally sparks a fire that nearly destroys their home, Ion is forced to face the reality of his situation: not only is he capable of healing — he’s also capable of fatal destruction.

Anomaly is the gripping paranormal prequel to The Blood Race series by K.A. Emmons.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I recently read The Blood Race, which was the first book published in this series. I was curious to try this novella-length freebie for a couple of reasons: 1) to see if the author's writing had improved over the course of three years, and 2) to see if some backstory would help me understand the characters in The Blood Race better. The answers? 1) no, and 2) yes.

I should love this series. But there are some major problems with the writing, pacing, and character development that prevent me from doing so. Anomaly moves along at a much quicker pace than The Blood Race, with fewer halts in the action so that people can have boring conversations. I did like getting to know Ion in this book. And we actually get to know something about him! With The Blood Race, it was almost as if we were missing something, and we were dropped into the middle of the story with characters we were supposed to already be familiar with (which is a problem, given that it was the "first" book). I never really got a feeling for who Ion was in The Blood Race, even though other characters kept telling us what kind of person he was. (Unfortunately, these explanations didn't mesh with what we were shown.) In Anomaly, we meet a confused 14-year-old kid who's having some very strange things happen to him. And he has no support system because he's a foster kid who's been placed with a family of stereotypes. So... life is rough.

Unfortunately, that little bit of character development in Ion doesn't cancel out all the other problems the book has. The main character's voice is off; he's supposed to be a 14-year-old boy, but he talks like a 20-something woman who reads lots of self-help and spirituality books. Most of the characters speak very formally, but it's not as bad as in The Blood Race, where you could be forgiven for thinking there'd been some sort of time-slip into Regency England. What really gets my goat about these books, however, is the editing. The continuity problems are awful here, just as they are in The Blood Race, and I'm starting to wonder if editors just skim and call it a day. A particularly egregious example of what I'm talking about can be found in chapters 15 and 16. It starts by referring to a "navy" sky. So it's probably night (or close to it). But a few pages later, we're told the sidewalk is painted a "pale pinkish-gray by the setting sun". Two paragraphs later, it's "dark". Two paragraphs after that, "the sky was getting dark". I mean, it doesn't take a professional editor to know that the sun doesn't bounce up and down like a rubber ball... but that appears to be what's happening here!

If I were to recommend this series to someone, I'd probably tell them to start with Anomaly. It sets up the character of Ion Jacobs much better than in the official first book of the series. But I'd be very careful about who I recommended this series to; if they're detail oriented and prefer characters who seem at home in their chosen genre and time period, I might suggest they look elsewhere.

Premise: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing: 2/5
Editing: 1/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall Rating: 2.38 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - The Blood Race

The Blood Race (The Blood Race #1)
by K. A. Emmons
Date: 2017
Publisher: K. A. Emmons
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 321
Format: e-book
Source: Kobo

All Ion Jacobs ever wanted was to be normal. But when you’re capable of killing with your very thoughts, it’s hard to blend in with the crowd.

Running from his past and living in fear of being discovered, Ion knows he will never be an average college student. But when Hawk, the beautiful, mysterious girl next door unearths his darkest secret, Ion’s life is flipped upside-down. He’s shocked to discover a whole world of people just like him -- a world in another dimension, where things like levitation, shape-shifting, and immortality are not only possible… they’re normal.

Forced to keep more secrets than ever before, Ion struggles to control his powers in the real world while commuting between realms -- until his arch enemy starts a fight he can’t escape. Now he has sealed the fate of the Dimension, severing their connection to the real world, and locking himself inside forever. But a deadly threat hidden in plain sight may cost Ion more than just his freedom -- it may cost him his life.

The Blood Race is the first book in K.A. Emmons' riveting new sci-fi/fantasy thriller series. If you like epic urban fantasy, fresh takes on super powers, deep allegories, raw emotions and intricate plots that surprise you at every turn, you'll love the first novel in Emmons' page-turning series. Grab your copy of The Blood Race and delve into a new dimension today!

(synopsis from Goodreads)

It's taken me over two months to read this book. Given that it's not very long, that should tell you something. I wish I could say that I'm not the audience for this, or that it just wasn't my cup of tea. Unfortunately, this book has a lot that's objectively wrong with it.

K. A. Emmons is also known as Kate Emmons, sister of Abbie Emmons who wrote and self-published 100 Days of Sunlight a couple years ago. (You can read my review for Abbie's book here.) The sisters host a podcast called The Kate & Abbie Show where they gab about writing and storytelling. Given this, and after being impressed by the brief sample on Amazon, I bought The Blood Race and hoped to enjoy it. Let's just say that I expected a lot more from someone who purports to be some sort of writing guru.

I think the first problem is that she's marketing this as YA sci-fi/fantasy. It's not. It's NA crossworlds fantasy... but with a weird insistence on keeping things squeaky clean. Nineteen-year-olds are chastised for using the word "frickin'", for example. The very worst language this book offers is three instances of "shit" (and yet, that was enough to get some reviewers' panties in a terrible twist; it makes me wonder if they've ever been around real 21st-century teenagers).

The second big problem is the obvious mismatch between chosen genre and writing style. I was misled by the sample, because that first chapter is an action-packed one. But from there, things slow to a crawl, and the reader is treated to session after session of stilted dialogue that sounds like it would be more at home in a Regency-era drawing room. (Kate has admitted in the podcast that she doesn't read a lot of fiction. She does, however, watch BBC historical dramas. These two points are reinforced through her writing style.)

Much action is skipped over with dry paragraphs of the characters telling us what transpired. And it's not even linear. As the point of view switches back and forth, so does the timeline jump around so that we're often thrown back a few hours so that we can see a scene from the other character's point of view. This threw me a few times, and I wondered if I'd missed something... only to realize that it was just another clumsy transition.

That's what the whole story seemed to me: clumsy. I can see the glimmer of a good idea here, but it's hidden behind weak plotting, white-room syndrome, and underdeveloped characters. Much of the character development of our leads, Icarus and Hawk, consists of other characters making observations about them... even when those traits aren't shown to the reader. And I was never quite sure who the main character was supposed to be. The blurb makes it sound like Icarus... and yet, it's Hawk (I'm assuming) on the cover, and Hawk who's the more developed of the two. Abbie had the same problem in 100 Days of Sunlight, with her secondary main character of Weston kind of stealing the show. Unfortunately, Hawk isn't anywhere near as likeable as Weston, and yet we're forced to be in her head for half the book.

This review is already way longer than I intended, so I'll just mention one more thing, and that's the editing. I realize this is a self-published book, but when so many of these indie authors are so adamant about the necessity of using outside editors, I really expect better in the way of typos and errors. The continuity errors, in particular, are some of the worst I've ever come across. It makes me wonder if people don't actually read books anymore, but merely skim; am I the only one who's noticing when people are lounging on a picnic blanket, and the next instant they're standing on the edge of a cliff, about to head back to their picnic blanket? (There was a gaffe like this in many of the chapters, which made for some frustrating reading.)

I'm in the minority, though. People seem to like this book, judging by its overall rating. The ending is a "cliffhanger"... but I have no desire to continue with the series. If you like clean NA fantasy with little swearing and aren't a nitpicker when you read, you might get more out of this than I did. If, however, you're looking for YA sci-fi/fantasy with teenagers who actually talk and act like teenagers, you're liable to be disappointed.

(All that being said, I would be interested to see what Kate could do if she tried her hand at writing historical fiction or high fantasy. The overly formal dialogue style she seems to be fond of would work much better in those genres than it does in a contemporary fantasy setting.)

Premise: 3/5
Plot: 1/5
Characters: 1/5
Pace: 1/5
Writing: 2/5
Editing: 1/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall Rating: 1.63 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - Firebirds

Firebirds
edited by Sharyn November
Date: 2003
Publisher: Firebird
Reading level: YA
Book type: short stories
Pages: 421
Format: e-book
Source: library

Firebird-the imprint-is dedicated to publishing the best fantasy and science fiction for teenage and adult readers. Firebirds is an equally special anthology. Its sixteen original stories showcase some of the genre's most admired authors, including multiple award-winners Diana Wynne Jones, Garth Nix, Lloyd Alexander, Nancy Farmer, Meredith Ann Pierce, and Patricia A. McKillip. Here you will find a sparkling range of writing, from dark humor to high sword and sorcery to traditional ballads-something for every sort of reader. Finally, to make this anthology even more of a standout, it appears first as a deluxe, jacketed hardcover. Welcome to Firebirds-a must-have for fans of contemporary speculative fiction.

Edited by Sharyn November.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I've had this hardcover sitting on my shelf for... well, I think I bought it shortly after it came out, so it's been over at decade, at least. I don't even know if I read any of the stories at that time. I figured I should probably get around to doing that!

Here are my thoughts on the individual stories:

"Cotillion" by Delia Sherman

This is a variation on the "Tam Lin" story, in which a girl named Janet has to save a young man from being a fairy sacrifice. I didn't love it, but part of that was because I was a bit confused about the setting. I guess we were supposed to figure out that it was set in 1969 just from a vague Vietnam reference and the way the main character was dressed (honestly, I thought she was just retro). I've read a few variations on this story, and to be honest, I didn't think this one really offered anything new or unique.


"The Baby in the Night Deposit Box" by Megan Whalen Turner

I thought I might enjoy this one because I really love the author's The Thief. This definitely does have an interesting premise (a baby is mysteriously left in a deposit box at the local bank). The baby--who eventually grows to be a young woman and the hero of her own story--is black, which isn't an issue... except that it's revealed kind of late, resulting in a sort of violent mental adjustment for the reader. (I like knowing what the characters look like from the beginning.)


"Beauty" by Sherwood Smith

Here's a story by the author of another of my childhood favourites, Wren to the Rescue. I didn't realize until I read the author's note at the end of it that it's based on characters from another of her series. It doesn't really matter, though; this story can stand on its own. And now I'm kind of curious about the world it's set in and the characters it follows. (I mean, there was a guy who got turned into a tree. Now I really want to know the details of how that happened!)


"Mariposa" by Nancy Springer

I guess not every story can be a winner. I can sort of see what the author was trying to do here, but it didn't quite work. The story comes across as dated, repetitive, sexist, and slightly racist. The basic premise is that girls tend to lose their souls in the pursuit of being what society says they should be. I mean, you could look at it that way... but I also got the uneasy feeling that the story was also implying women were weak and silly for letting this happen. (Also, the phrase "remembering as if cozening back a dream" is used twice. That prose is so purple, it probably needs to let out the breath it didn't realize it was holding.)


"Max Mondrosch" by Lloyd Alexander

I guess I was expecting a little more fantasy from this particular author. With the exception of the ending (which could also be viewed as simply metaphorical), there's really nothing fantastical about this story. It's really more of a tragicomedy about a man trying (and failing) to find a job. It's well written and a quick read, but I don't think it really fits in this anthology of fantasy and sci-fi.


"The Fall of Ys" by Meredith Ann Pierce

This is actually one of the stronger stories in this collection. It's inspired by an old Celtic myth, but changed up a bit so that it's not so misogynistic (the author's note at the end explains the original; wow... women just couldn't win). It reads like an old fairy tale, and I quite liked the style. It's one of the shorter stories in the book, but I wouldn't have minded if it had been a little longer.


"Medusa" by Michael Cadnum

This story is too short. It's also kind of misogynistic and victim-blamey. It's interesting that what would've been okay in 2003 raises red flags in 2020. Basically, this is a retelling of the Medusa myth from Medusa's point of view. Athena is the villain, cursing Medusa because she dared to have consensual sex with a hot god. So the poor cursed girl turns her family to stone (and presumably lots of others, too, although that part is glossed over) and then we get to the point where Perseus chops her head off. With her last thought, Medusa begs Athena to give her the life she deserves... and Athena turns her into a rock. WTF? She deserves an eternity as a rock because some goddess got her peplos in a twist and cursed her? Whatever.


"The Black Fox" by Emma Bull (adaptation) and Charles Vess (illustrations)

This one struck me as kind of unnecessary. It's an old ballad given a graphic-novel treatment. The poem is included, and after reading it, I can't really see why anyone would want to go to all the trouble of illustrating it; it's pretty boring. Charles Vess apparently did a whole series of these illustrated adaptations for a book. That's probably where this one should've remained. It doesn't quite fit here. It's all English snobbery with the devil thrown in at the end... and it's odd, to say the least.


"Byndley" by Patricia A. McKillip

This is well-written, standard fantasy fare about a wizard named Reck who's trying to find a way into a magical realm so he can return something he stole from the faeries many years ago. While I wasn't blown away, I wasn't irked by anything, either, and quite enjoyed the writing style. I might have to check out more of McKillip's work in the future.


"The Lady of the Ice Garden" by Kara Dalkey

While this retelling of "The Snow Queen", set in ancient Japan, is well written, it suffers from trying so hard to be feminist that it comes across as misandristic. Coupled with the statutory rape of a 13-year-old boy, the themes here aren't really appropriate for inclusion in a YA anthology. (And if you're hoping for something akin to Frozen, you'd best look elsewhere. Not that Frozen is even a good example of a retelling of "The Snow Queen". But I digress. "The Lady of the Ice Garden" is dark, depressing, and left me feeling like I'd just wasted a few minutes of my life.)


"Hope Chest" by Garth Nix

This almost seems like it could've been written today as a commentary on charismatic politicians who threaten society. It seems to be an alternate history/fantasy sort of story about an abandoned girl who comes to town with an unopenable trunk. When she finally gets it open at age sixteen, she finds that it's full of guns. She then tries to take back the brainwashed town in a bloody display of marksmanship.

This is really gory, and focusses so much on the guns that I was about ready to scream. (I don't know what it is with some authors and their need to describe the guns in such excruciating detail. It's a gun. We get the idea.) Being a young adult story, it also featured the much-hated phrase about the unrealized held breath. Overall, it had some interesting moments, but I doubt I would ever read it again.


"Chasing the Wind" by Elizabeth E. Wein

This story is a complete rip-off. It's pure historical fiction, so I don't know what it's doing in a sci-fi/fantasy anthology. (In the author's note, she says something about how she started writing a Somali-inspired alternate history fantasy... then decided she really wanted to write about "aeroplanes". Okay, so write about "aeroplanes" on your own time and write something in the assigned genre for inclusion here! I really don't get why this was allowed.)

And the story wasn't even that good. Aside from Martha wishing she were a Mary (it's a Biblical reference), there's no character development. It's just three people (and a couple of barfing cats) taking a plane ride across Kenya. There's little conflict, and the only interesting parts of the characters' histories are merely hinted at. This was a waste of time.


"Little Dot" by Diana Wynne Jones

This is probably my favourite story in the book, and it's about cats. Since I don't like cats, that says something about my enjoyment of the rest of the book.

But this is a cute little story, told from the point of view of a cat named Little Dot, about a group of rescued cats, their wizard, and a beast that's stalking the neighbourhood. Magic and hijinks ensue. This was as strong as I expected it to be (it's Diana Wynne Jones, after all) and I quite enjoyed the feline characters, despite my initial misgivings.


"Remember Me" by Nancy Farmer

A strange story about an unusual sister and an odd camping trip. I usually enjoy Nancy Farmer's writing, and I did enjoy this story (even though it was quite short).

"Flotsam" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

This is awful. The writing is stilted, the dialogue is even worse, and the whole thing comes across like it was written by a time traveller from the 1950s. (The bully's name--in a contemporary fantasy--is Shoog Kelly! I kept waiting for him to whip out his comb and give his hair a tweak.) Full of insignificant and confusing details (who gets changed in the hall closet when there's a perfectly good bathroom a couple of steps away?), this story is a whole lot of "skip it".

"The Flying Woman" by Laurel Winter

This story struck me as a bit sexist. The main character is a girl, but it's her brother who has all the power and the emotional journey. As a result, the main character seems like a bit of an accessory, there only to prop up the male secondary character. Basically, a sister and brother are sent to a deserted island because they can find and use magic (respectively). One day, a winged woman washes ashore. The brother appears to fall in love with her (probably because she's the only female around who isn't his sister). The winged woman is miserable and just wants to leave. She eventually does, and there's some sort of weird emotional resolution from the main character that doesn't seem to follow from the rest of the story (no matter how much the author might explain it in the note at the end; if you have to explain what you meant, and the reader still doesn't see it, you didn't do a very good job with the story itself).

Overall, I'm disappointed. This is supposed to be an anthology of fantasy and science fiction, yet there were no science fiction stories that I could see, and "Chasing the Wind" is historical fiction with zero fantasy elements whatsoever.

If you're looking for fantasy stories, you might want to check out this collection. Just be aware that some of them seem a bit dated. If you're looking for science fiction, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Overall: 2.34 out of 5

Review - Beautiful Demons

Beautiful Demons (The Shadow Demons Saga #1)
by Sarra Cannon
Date: 2010
Publisher: Dead River Books
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 186
Format: e-book
Source: Amazon.ca

Harper Madison isn't like other girls. She has extraordinary powers, but her inability to control them has gotten her kicked from so many foster homes she's lost count. Shadowford Home is her last chance, and she hopes Peachville High will be the fresh start she needs. But when evidence ties her to the gruesome murder of a Demons cheerleader, Harper discovers this small town has a big secret.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I recently discovered that there's a particular species of vlogger on YouTube: the self-published author. I've been watching some of their videos, which talk about the nitty-gritty of writing as well as the publishing process. Having recently been impressed by Abbie Emmons' 100 Days of Sunlight, I thought I'd give another one of these self-published YA novels a try. This time, I picked the first offering from Sarra Cannon, the first in a very long (I think it's up to 10 books now) series.

One of the things that all of these self-publishers emphasize is editing. You must hire a professional editor, according to them. I see in the credits at the beginning of this book that Ms. Cannon did, in fact, use an outside editor. However, that doesn't mean that this is a well-edited book. In fact, as it went on, it got worse and worse, to the point where it was very obvious that I was reading a self-published work. (I shudder to think what the draft provided to the editor looked like, if this was the final product.) There were misspellings, punctuation errors, and lots and lots of continuity problems. Simple things like the main character's position in a room and whether she was sitting or standing offered points of confusion. At one point, we get the following passage:

Ella Mae had told me I cut my hand on a piece of glass when I passed out in the bathroom that night after I got back from the police station. She said I'd been holding a cup of tea and when I fell, it broke.

(This was later established to be a teacup, so the glass reference really should've been caught.)

The plot itself is representative of the cheesy vintage YA that was popular about a decade ago. Harper Madison isn't like other girls. (Seriously. That's the first line of the blurb.) She's a foster kid with a troubled past who ends up in a mysterious town where nothing is what it seems. Every single guy at the high school is tall, ripped, and gorgeous (boy, did I ever go to the wrong high school!) and the girls are variously catty, scheming, or mysteriously quiet (possibly hinting at more character development in later installments). The plot gave me a "chosen one" vibe, but of course Harper is kind of oblivious, to the point where the reader might want to smack their own forehead while shouting "Duh!" At one point, she loses her memory, which leads to a confusing last act of the book... mostly for the reader. Her memories are conveniently selective, meaning that some of the twists and turns can be spotted by the reader a mile away. Then we have to wait for her to catch up.

This was a freebie, and it's a short book, so I'm not that annoyed at having to slog through the badly edited prose. It's interesting to see the variations in quality among self-published books (especially when the authors in question have YouTube videos wherein they present themselves as knowledgeable about writing, editing, and publishing). I would be curious to see how Ms. Cannon's writing has improved over the last 10 years... but I'm not quite curious enough to continue with this series. The concept doesn't really excite me (although I can see it appealing to other readers).

Premise: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Editing: 1/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall Rating: 2.25 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - 100 Days of Sunlight

100 Days of Sunlight
by Abbie Emmons
Date: 2019
Publisher: Abbie Emmons
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 310
Format: e-book
Source: Amazon.ca

When 16-year-old poetry blogger Tessa Dickinson is involved in a car accident and loses her eyesight for 100 days, she feels like her whole world has been turned upside-down.

Terrified that her vision might never return, Tessa feels like she has nothing left to be happy about. But when her grandparents place an ad in the local newspaper looking for a typist to help Tessa continue writing and blogging, an unlikely answer knocks at their door: Weston Ludovico, a boy her age with bright eyes, an optimistic smile…and no legs.

Knowing how angry and afraid Tessa is feeling, Weston thinks he can help her. But he has one condition — no one can tell Tessa about his disability. And because she can’t see him, she treats him with contempt: screaming at him to get out of her house and never come back. But for Weston, it’s the most amazing feeling: to be treated like a normal person, not just a sob story. So he comes back. Again and again and again.

Tessa spurns Weston’s “obnoxious optimism”, convinced that he has no idea what she’s going through. But Weston knows exactly how she feels and reaches into her darkness to show her that there is more than one way to experience the world. As Tessa grows closer to Weston, she finds it harder and harder to imagine life without him — and Weston can’t imagine life without her. But he still hasn’t told her the truth, and when Tessa’s sight returns he’ll have to make the hardest decision of his life: vanish from Tessa’s world…or overcome his fear of being seen.


100 Days of Sunlight is a poignant and heartfelt novel by author Abbie Emmons. If you like sweet contemporary romance and strong family themes then you’ll love this touching story of hope, healing, and getting back up when life knocks you down.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

It's been over a year and a half since I last read a young adult novel. Maybe it was my one-star experience there that turned me off, or maybe I just got tired of seeing the same old problems in books written for that age group. In any case... it's been a while. So why did I pick this one up?

I was searching for graphic design videos on YouTube when I spotted one of Abbie's videos. I watched it, and then I realized that she's the author who wrote that self-pubbed novel with the gorgeous cover that I'd put on my "want to read" list months ago. As I watched more of her videos, I began to get curious. She seemed to know what she was talking about, so I reasoned that her book was probably pretty decent. So I checked out the preview on Amazon, decided it looked like it might be a worthwhile read, and bought it.

The first thing I want to talk about here is the self-publishing aspect. I've seen other reviewers make assumptions about Abbie getting a publishing deal because she's a YouTuber. Nope. 100 Days of Sunlight is a self-published book (which you can learn more about in some of her videos). Having read quite a few self-published books, I've come to the conclusion that they're often... well, terrible. This book kind of shatters that perception, though. When an author really takes the time to properly organize, plan, write, edit, get feedback, and pay attention to good design, the results can really pay off. 100 Days of Sunlight does not seem self-published. In fact, I would encourage anyone who's thinking of self-publishing their own book to buy a copy of this one to see how it should be done. Everything--the cover, the layout, the editing, the e-book's price point--gives a reader the impression that they're looking at something that's come out of a traditional publishing house. In fact, I can count on my fingers the number of technical mistakes in the writing... which is more than I can say of some books to come out of the big publishers. (Hey, errors happen. The fact that they didn't happen until almost the very end is really impressive; I'm used to seeing them start to creep in after the halfway point.)

Let's talk about the story. It's your standard YA contemporary romance (I'm guessing... since this is not my preferred genre), complete with characters who are about one quip away from bursting into song surrounded by cuddly forest critters. Were it not for the alternative POV and Weston sharing his backstory in flashbacks, we would've had a Manic Pixie Dream Boy on our hands. (I mean, the guy makes waffles and plays a yellow ukulele while trying to help the heroine see the brighter side of life.) The comparisons to Augustus Waters are pretty much inevitable. But Emmons avoids falling into the MPDB trap trope by letting us get inside Weston's head. And, actually, it's really his story. I found that, as I was reading, I was far more invested in his narration than I was in Tessa's, despite her problems being the catalyst for the whole story. I thought Tessa wasn't developed quite as well, and there were things about her that seemed to be obvious attempts to make her character more interesting... when they really didn't. I'm talking about things like her overly nasty attitude at the beginning, her mother (that could've been interesting to work into her character development, but it seemed more like an effort to make her family seem unconventional), and her strange comments about holding Weston's hand being "inappropriate" (I know this is a sweet little YA novel, but... hand-holding?). As for Weston, I liked him for the most part... but he lost me for a bit somewhere in the middle with his attitude about disability. This isn't the first time I've seen this attitude from those with physical disabilities, and maybe Emmons was aware of this when she put the words in Weston's mouth, but as someone with a non-physical disability, it really pissed me off:

"You see, most people would look at me and say that I have every right to be miserable. But I don't. I have no right. I have no right. And neither do you."

When a reader is struggling with something like depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, or bipolar disorder, it's painful to read something like that. Painful, and incredibly invalidating. When some of these conditions, by their very nature, can make you miserable (as in, you have no control over what emotions are sweeping over you at any given moment, no matter how hard you try to plaster a smile on your face), to have a character--a hot, wish-fulfillment sort of character, at that--basically dismiss you as someone who's choosing to be miserable, who doesn't even have a right to their own feelings, it can be tough. Don't get me wrong: I like Weston. But I do wish authors would be a little more cautious when they try to include messages like this in their work. Someone like Weston can overcome their challenges with a lot of hard physical work. But if your challenge is a mental illness that actually makes you miserable, it's not as easy. In fact, for some, it might be impossible.

Aside from that, the plot is pretty generic, and suffers a little from being somewhat contrived. Some of that could've simply been avoided by setting this, say, twenty years ago. As it is, some readers are going to inevitably wonder why Tessa needs a typist in the first place. She's got Siri on her phone, so we know this world has voice-recognition technology. Why wasn't it used? (For that matter, making Weston sit in the bottom of the tub to take a shower just seemed like an opportunity to show him feeling pathetic. Does this world not have adaptive technologies? His parents bought him running blades, but they couldn't spring for shower legs?) Some of the dialogue is kind of treacly, and doesn't always ring true. The child characters don't sound quite right to me (including 13-year-old Weston and his friends), and the grandparents are likewise a little off. Maybe it's just that most of the book is squeaky clean, and much of the dialogue sounds a bit formal. Nobody I know talks like this, but maybe they do in other parts of North America.

I know all that makes it seem like I didn't like it, but that's not true. I'm not sorry I read it. I just don't think I'm the audience for this sort of thing. However, I would still recommend it to readers who enjoy YA contemporary romance, and I would also recommend it to those who are interested in self-publishing as an example of how to get it right (because goodness knows there are enough examples out there of how to get it wrong).

Premise: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Editing: 4/5
Originality: 4/5
Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3.25 out of 5 ladybugs

Review - Mooncakes

Mooncakes
by Suzanne Walker
illustrated by Wendy Xu
Date: 2019
Publisher: Lion Forge
Reading level: YA
Book type: graphic novel
Pages: 259
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

Suzanne Walker's and Wendy Xu's graphic novel based on their webcomic Mooncakes, which follows long-lost childhood crushes Nova Huang and Tam Lang as they struggle through bills, family, and the supernatural in ways that only a witch and a werewolf can.

A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft.

Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers' bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.

Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I was seeing lots of buzz for this graphic novel a few months ago. I started it, but kind of lost interest. I wanted to finish by the end of the year, so I plowed ahead and got through it. While it's not the worst graphic novel I've ever read, it's definitely not one of my favourites.

I didn't actually realize that this is based on a webcomic until I read the synopsis (after I'd already read most of the book). I think that was part of my problem: I'd never seen the webcomic, and so parts of the story felt forced, contrived, or very sudden. I'd seen readers squealing over the relationship between Nova and Tam, but when I finally read the book, I didn't see what they were seeing. Coming to the book without any sort of knowledge of their previous relationship, I thought it all seemed very insta-lovey to me. Tam shows back up in town after a prolonged absence, and within a few hours they and Nova are making out.

And let's talk about that for a moment. It was too much. At one point, when the villain tells Nova to run back to her little friend, Nova says: "I will! And I'm going to make out with them while I'm at it!" Now, I know teenagers can be wrapped up in their hormones, but when you're trying to save your friend from demonic possession, why are you thinking about making out?

Much seems to have been made about the fact that Tam is a non-binary character. I don't really care about that (well, except for the fact that every time I read "them" my brain immediately tried to figure out what group of people was being talked about; English really needs some standard, singular, gender-neutral pronouns). What I do care about is whether the character is a good character. I'm not going to give extra points just because the book is trying to be diverse. Tam has a potentially interesting backstory, but with the way this book starts, we're kind of dropped in way too late... which makes the reader reliant on flashbacks and overt telling to figure out what Tam's life was like before their reconnection with Nova. The rest of the characters are okay, too, with an interesting family dynamic: grandmothers, ghost parents, a cousin with a strange magical affliction... But, like I said, we're dropped into this story too late for it to make much sense to someone who hasn't read the webcomic.

I guess I might recommend this to fans of the webcomic, but I can't really recommend it to readers who aren't already familiar with Nova and Tam. The story isn't strong enough to stand on its own (which is unfortunate, given all the potential that's there) and the climax comes across as a little hackneyed and cliched.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lion Forge for providing a digital ARC.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing & Editing: 2/5
Illustration: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall Rating: 2.25 out of 5 ladybugs