3.5 stars rounded down. The rounding down comes from not getting closure on what happened to two important characters. We're given kind of/ maybe an e3.5 stars rounded down. The rounding down comes from not getting closure on what happened to two important characters. We're given kind of/ maybe an explanation at the end but it's still up in the air.
This is basically Needful Things but in a different settings and written for a YA audience. The biggest difference is that there's no Leland Gaunt directing shit from a store or what have you. There's certain a baddie, but it's mostly kept in the shadows.
More then that, this is like a year in the life of a early American settler girl. It's very atmospheric but it really doesn't capture that icky creepy vibe that Needful Things has. I think the biggest issue in that is that we aren't shown what the villain is doing and the entire book is in the same POV throughout so we hear about shit happening after it happened.
I think that's what makes Needful Things so creepy. In the beginning, the little tricks or pranks are very benign and harmless, but as you get to know the town people and their personalities, you start having this sort of interweaving of web that makes it all far, far less innocence. You don't get that aspect with this book.
I don't even know how she could recreate that without a Leland Gaunt character in town, but if she went that direction, it would basically be the same book.
Also, Ellerie, the MC, was so childish in her speech and behavior. She's supposedly 18 but she speaks like she's a child. "Oh, I hope Papa will let me help with the bees today!"...more
This one is really hard to rate for me. I liked it but I also really didn't like it. I think 90% of my enjoyment of this book came from the audiobook This one is really hard to rate for me. I liked it but I also really didn't like it. I think 90% of my enjoyment of this book came from the audiobook reading. The reader uses a very, very good child's voice for much of this and adult voices for the adults. I didn't have to deal with the short sentences and such that I've seen others complain about. It was very easy to slip into this because of the reader.
This book is told from a 6 (or so) yr old kid. She has an "invisible" friend called Other Mommy. She's become scared of her because Other Mommy wants in her heart -- it wants to trade places with her -- and it'll stop at nothing to get Bela to say yes. Oh, and it can look like anyone/sound like anyone too.
What hurt the book, imo, was the adults. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. It was painful. I 100% would freak out in that situation but nothing they tried worked and we got to listen, through Bela, all their whining. Especially the last part of the book (though, was Louise (view spoiler)[Other Mommy playing a trick on them? (hide spoiler)].) It was freaking insanity. Like, WHY?
The monster was terrifying. This has that Cosmic Horror feel though, but I won't expand on that.
This was a decent book. Listen to the audio version, though....more
Oh Lord! I read this simply for the magical school aspect, not the MC. Elena was like a lump of wet newspaper. She spent the entire book in a "eat theOh Lord! I read this simply for the magical school aspect, not the MC. Elena was like a lump of wet newspaper. She spent the entire book in a "eat the rich" mode. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for eating the rich, but even this was too much. Her entire internal dialogue was "I hate all these people for keeping me down!" but the thing was, she's a mage too so they weren't "keeping her down". It was just annoying....more
Disappointing. =/ This felt like book 2 in this series to me. That is, more about the other characters than the main ones. At least I liked them more Disappointing. =/ This felt like book 2 in this series to me. That is, more about the other characters than the main ones. At least I liked them more than the ferryman and all of them. So, there was that.
And now, I just can't stop it. I'm having serious world building issues. I've tried to hold it off but now that there are global issues, I just can't... It's all just ... stupid. The HFL "plan" was stupid. What the Others did was stupid. And it made no sense. I get that it was meant to be a distraction but think about it. It makes no sense. The countries aren't connected for one. They're completely different continents. And the attack was done basically at the same time.
What was the distraction?
It's as stupid as, say, attacking NYC USA to be a "distraction" for your real target: Sydney Australia. Like, what? How would this work? It's not a distraction, even if you made it so it was staggered a bit. It's like stupid. That's something a 5 year old would think was smart. That's two different countries on two different continents. 5 I also chuckle that anyone would think the "battle" would be over from that first volley of fires. Really? Where are we? Pre WW2 Poland?
I have issues with the Others too. They were white knighted, again, in this. Look. I'm sorry but I think it's absolutely wrong to white knight them. The Others are just as wrong as the Humans, as far as I'm concerned. We see the sanctions now but we forget that the Others would kill and eat any human unlucky enough to go on their land before all this. I think the human anger in this is justified to a point. The Others aren't these nice, hippy children and I find this relationship just strange.
I also find the relationship between the "Elders" and the normal Others to be strange too. Is there a species that acts like this? Do lions or tigers go after people who kick house cats? The normal Other's are afraid of them yet we're to believe that these Elders learned all from humans? What exactly are they learning?
How soon we forget the backstory here. How soon we forget that the normal Others punished even one death by killing the entire human settlement. You can't tell us this is what the Others do and then try to martyr them in the next breath.
I also don't believe the humans wouldn't know about what's in the wild places. That's just stupid. I'm sorry but it is. No one actually believed in Dragons. No ship captain actually believed he'd fall off the edge of the world. You can't live with something like that and not know.
I dislike the term elder too, if elder only means how long the variety has held on shape vs how long the individuals have lived (in the traditional sense of the word.) I'm sorry. I just don't buy that but I'm a woman. I also don't believe I need a dick to think rationally.
I think both humans and others are bad. They're both terrible species. Let's be honest. This series has just made it seem like the humans were the only bad ones. That's always bugged me....more
The mysterious wizard was so painfully obvious though. I knew who it was the first day she got to that placeI liked this one more than the other one.
The mysterious wizard was so painfully obvious though. I knew who it was the first day she got to that place. So, sadly, one of the saving points of this book is that she actually figured it out.
I really wanted to like this more but all the little things just added up and pushed me over the edge of enjoyment and into the tepid waters of meh.
ThI really wanted to like this more but all the little things just added up and pushed me over the edge of enjoyment and into the tepid waters of meh.
The characters were okay. I'm sort of 50/50 on the MC. I did like her and felt really sorry for her, but that kind of faded with the incident in the dinner where the other girl was fired. I think I could've been okay with it but the author (probably caving under pressure of 'that's just terrible form; this'll lose sympathy so fix it') put a mini-chapter right before in the POV of the waitress and it was obvious that she was trying to make the poor girl look bad. Characters do all sort of things, good and bad. It was the obvious justification on the authors part that got me.
The fantasy part of Urban Fantasy was severely lacking. She just sees omens and repeats those little wives tales. There was one scene that had a bit more fantasy at the beginning but we don't get more of that so yeah, the others who say this is a 'whodunit' are right on the mark.
But moreover was the world building. I understand Ms. Armstrong is from Canada. This book is set in America and it reads like an fake America you get in TV shows. It's so painfully obvious to anyone who lives here that she doesn't have any idea of the basics of living here.
That whole religion thing make me laugh out loud. A small town without a church? Is that a joke? And a church having to go to town council to build one? Or, hell, a small US town accepting someone who is Wiccan? Now that's funny!
Because the whole idea of religious freedom here is a joke. Especially in a small town. And being scared away by gargoyles? Ha! This is the country that sent Bibles on special little listen devices to the survivors in Haiti after that terrible earthquake instead of provisions. People would see gargoyles as a challenge. ;P
This is the reason most US UF authors sidestep the issue completely. It's just one of those things that you don't see unless you spend a lot of time here. The whole 'religious freedom' is taken as seriously here as Rome when dealing with its pedo-bear priests.
Oh, and I loved the comments she made about Rome, especially how she'd said that writing UF takes a ton of research. You what to know why Ms. Armstrong thinks Rome invaded the British Isles? To stop human sacrifice. Because the value human life. Yeah. No kidding. I can't even type that with a straight face.
This is the same culture that practices human sacrifice themselves. The same one that has human sacrifice in classic literature and, of which, it's estimated that there was one slave to every one free man. Oh, and let's not forget that war is not only held above all but it was the mode of gaining riches and fame. Because, you know, pillaging, raping, and murdering is the best way to value human life. Right?
This book wasn't bad but I don't think it was for me. It's a 'traditional' suspense, I guess.
It's just that genre books on that end don't have a lot oThis book wasn't bad but I don't think it was for me. It's a 'traditional' suspense, I guess.
It's just that genre books on that end don't have a lot of character growth, and that's bothersome to me.
It was also a bit too much with the limited information we got from his searches. You don't find out why he's being chased until the last 90% ~ 95% of the book. Or, perhaps it's better to say that you're not given any idea, whatsoever, until that last five to ten percent of the book. The whole book has seemingly the whole freakin' world trying to catch him for no conceivable reason. As much as I hate plots that revolve around stupid characters who aren't interested at all when everything plus the kitchen sink is trying to kill them, I think this is probably the other side of that extreme.
And, on some level, I think the reason why wasn't one that would ever actually get him killed over it. It's rather silly to place so much documentation on the one without any other proof. I mean, it's not as though no one has tried that trick before. Actually, I can't imagine that it the claim didn't happen on a weekly basis. You'd think that killing off several people per week because they try to pull that over on them would be noticed...
I did like Shep. I think he was my favorite character in this book. The most balanced. In a way, it kind of felt more like this book than Mike's. Kat sounded older than my own eight year old nephew does so that was a bit strange.
So I enjoyed it but I wouldn't read it again, and I'll probably not seek out more of his books. Not in a bad way. Just in a 'meh' way....more
I'm so disappointed! I was hoping that this last book would redeem the series for me and it failed so utterly with all the promises made in the other I'm so disappointed! I was hoping that this last book would redeem the series for me and it failed so utterly with all the promises made in the other books.
First, the good thing: I thought the exorcism of Rafi/As was very interesting and well done. It was probably the best in the whole series and, in that, it shined.
The disappointments:
1. Fix never grows a pair. 2. We hear a lot of rumors in previous books (and a great deal in this one too) about how Rafi isn't as 'wonderful' as the world seems. It seemed to be tilting to a more darker light and it was all ignored. 3. What happened to the journal? He really crosses countries and paid an enormous amount of money for them to be translated, but then forgets about them? REALLY? 4. The saccharine sweet ending; it was disgustingly wrapped up in a nice tidy package, and to do that he had to ignore the whole series, basically. I threw up a little in my mouth when I finished it. It was terrible. Here are some highlights:(view spoiler)[
A. The girls are magically untouched by this vicious demon. The author himself brings notice to this fact in that ridiculous way that some authors do when trying to pull 'if this was a novel, it would be ex deus machina but whew! this is real life' BS, as though that ever works. The demon supposed killed those close to Rafi, to drive him out, but magically (WONDERFULLY!), the girl are completely untouched. WOW! B. JJ, you'd think, would be angry, yes? But don't be worried! The author assures us that the fact that JJ never shows up again is because she's being well hidden by ... someone. Yes. The author literally tells us she 'disappears'. C. It's amazing how the demon couple is able to have no issues in their relationship afterward, right? True love, huh? D. And, in spite of all that Rafi had done, we're told the two of them are (literally) fucking like rabbits everywhere! (hide spoiler)]
I've lost what little respect I had for this author. I won't be reading anymore of his works....more
I'm so torn over this series. I like it a lot. I like the MC. I like the world he set up. I just hate pretty much every other character in the book. BI'm so torn over this series. I like it a lot. I like the MC. I like the world he set up. I just hate pretty much every other character in the book. Being a character person, that's a problem for me.
I'm just sick of the crap that everyone gives Fix and him just agreeing and bending over. It's like every character in this story exists only to shit on him, and I hate it. Now that's getting pushed off on Fix for being such a wimp.
Thus far, the book (or any of the characters) have yet to convince me that Rafi's condition is his fault. Was it Fix that summoned him? I mean, let's say some dumb fuck was playing with a gun (which, if you take the POV from the book, is basically the same thing) and that idiot shoots himself in the head, is it the first responders fault because he couldn't save him?
Pen, I thought, was the only decent character there but when Pen said some BS like 'right! Run away from your responsibilities!' I wanted to chuck the book. Really? She wants to bitch about responsibilities? This woman who would've allow this monster free, who'd allow an innocent child's soul be sacrificed to a man who hadn't even been with her at the time it happened (who'd apparently had dumped her and was known for being a player)?
I could, perhaps, take it a bit easier if the characters weren't so fucking self-righteous about the whole thing. He's like 'but what about this innocent kid' and then they try to say he's not responsible? Bah!...more
This is a hard one to write because I feel sort of divided. The time it took me to finish this book had nothing to do with the book itself. I'm kind oThis is a hard one to write because I feel sort of divided. The time it took me to finish this book had nothing to do with the book itself. I'm kind of a magpie on that. *points to GR name*
That said, this book was slow. I still might've given this three stars but the last 75% totally throw the whole book for me. It just doesn't make any sense. None. I was already having problems with the Levo/Slated system. It's really hard to start over with a big, huge sign pointing to a person that says "Hey! I was a criminal bad enough that they had to wipe my memories!" That's just asking for problems from both people who would prey on vulnerable kids like that but also for the kids themselves. I mean, come on! They're kids and teens. Telling a teen no is like declaring a challenge to them. It's like daring them to try and find out.
Hell, that's what this whole book is about!
But then you add (view spoiler)[the fact that victims are willingly slated (the ones that can't get past the trauma they've suffered) and then released into the population as possible horrible criminals? Are you kidding? Why do that? Just stone them like they did to rape victims in the past. That is, at least, more humane than what this book purposes. (hide spoiler)] No. Nope. I was floored. I don't think I'll read the next book....more
This book is a hard one to rate. I almost wanted to give it more stars but I really couldn't. It went by okay but ...
I didn't hate the MC like most sThis book is a hard one to rate. I almost wanted to give it more stars but I really couldn't. It went by okay but ...
I didn't hate the MC like most seem to. I actually enjoyed all the characters save Ben. And the ending did somewhat surprise me, so I'll give Ms. Flynn that. I was tempted to give it another star for that but the reason it surprised me wasn't because Flynn was being clever.
My major problems were mostly due to the story telling method the author use. In no order:
1. The vast majority of this book, be it descriptive or otherwise, consisted of similes. It felt like (pun intended) I was drowning in them. I think they conveyed the meaning the author wanted but it was just way too much.
2. The hints were WAY too heavy. It felt like half the book was dedicated to the hints and not in a 'move the plot along' way. It's a 13 hour long book via audio book with 'flashbacks' of the day of the mass murders. These flashbacks felt less like actual telling of what really happened and more like trying to leave those huge, heavy handed clues. Part of it had me sighing and wishing the author would just get on with it.
3. The actual events (who and how the murders took place) were WAY, WAY! too deus ex machina. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe she tried to overshadow it in earlier parts but it was still way too contrived. It almost left like the author, at some point, realized that her previous hints were way too strong and thought, 'hey, let's just throw this ball in from the left field' instead of reworking the previous events.
4. Ben. I hated him. I still hate him. I'm really bothered by him. I think, honestly, that he was completely unredeemable. Especially at the end, after what all happened to bring out the killer. I'm more disgusted with him than anyone else in the book. It really bothered me that the book seemed to end with a whole 'Ben is redeemed' or some bullshit, and that scene with him at the end where he thinks about protecting his sister? Bull-fucking-shit! It pissed me off that the author even *tried* that tact....more
This book is rather hard to review and rate, and sitting down to think of a way to do this is a bit painful.
Rating: 4 stars for the first story and 2 This book is rather hard to review and rate, and sitting down to think of a way to do this is a bit painful.
Rating: 4 stars for the first story and 2 stars for the second.
First and foremost: this book is two separate stories intertwined. And it's really weird that the author decided to do this because the story doesn't flow very well with the way that it's setup.
So, the first story (the proverbial 'Lost') is about a couple who checks into this inn for whatever reason. Weird shit starts happening and so on. The proverbial 'Found' story is about ghost hunters who go to the inn to investigate this couple (who died there apparently.)
I hesitate calling it a spoiler because it's blatantly obvious when you start the first story. The problem comes thusly: since the first story is rather interesting in nature (it starts off with all this supernatural stuff coming from the very beginning.) However, the 'found' part is very dry and boring. I was skimming the second story. We go from all this interesting supernatural stuff to a ho-hum ghost investigation. It's like hitting a brick wall while going 60 mph.
I felt nothing for almost all the characters (save, perhaps, the daughter.) The couple in the first story was cliche heaven, though that was a bit more forgivable because of its pace -- it didn't leave us to dwell.)
It doesn't help that the prose is HORRIBLE. It's quite obvious that the author doesn't have a decent editor. It's terribly redundant. I gave up highlighting the worse halfway through because there was too much (and let me say that this is the first time I've *ever* felt like I should highlight the terrible prose -- it's that bad. But I got a new shelf idea so it's probably all good.)
Notables:
He stepped out into the empty lobby like a zombie, arms waving slowing in front of him as he made his way to the front desk.
Only Alan would think this place would be romantic, she thought, as she went to pull herself out of bed.
[Wait, where'd she go to pull herself out of the bed? Did she break herself into two sections? How does on pull oneself out of bed?]
She stood in spite of her aching appendage and went to flip the light switch, but not before she tripped over an ottoman.
[Appendage? You see, clearly if you'd've kept that second self to get the light after it pulled you out of bed than you wouldn't have this problem.]
"Well, we have work to do," her father said (though he accentuated this by biting into his muffin).
I'm not certain what to say here. This book isn't bad but it isn't Gaiman either. It felt a bit like a slump book or something made from rote and no aI'm not certain what to say here. This book isn't bad but it isn't Gaiman either. It felt a bit like a slump book or something made from rote and no actual feelings.
What, exactly, makes this book more adult than Caroline? The mention of sex or saying that adults aren't different from kids? Why is sex always the standard of in what we consider adult? I'm really, really sick of authors who move from YA to adult books and think just mentioning sex (or sticking sex in it) in some way makes it adult.
There was no soul in this book. It was like he knew where everything should go but that spark that's in all his other books aren't in this one.
It wasn't terrible but it wasn't fantastic and it certainly wasn't Gaiman quality. This book doesn't hold a candle to Caroline or the Graveyard book or American Gods. Hell, some of his short stories are more 'adult' than this one.
Honestly, I wonder how this girl goes to the bathroom in the mornjng and doesn't manage to kill herself -- or make all the wrong people man and thus hHonestly, I wonder how this girl goes to the bathroom in the mornjng and doesn't manage to kill herself -- or make all the wrong people man and thus has to dodge assassination attempts.
I'm not certain if I'm amused by this character or horrified....more
I didn't like Ben in this book. XD He's a bit too bitchy and I keep wondering when he'll just fly off the handle.I didn't like Ben in this book. XD He's a bit too bitchy and I keep wondering when he'll just fly off the handle....more
Alisi � wants to read too many books �
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good-but-not-great
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