Review: City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Title: City of Fallen Angels
Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: The Mortal Instruments, #4
Format: Paperback, bought
My rating: 2 / 5

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The Mortal War is over, and sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She’s training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And—most importantly of all—she can finally call Jace her boyfriend.

But nothing comes without a price.

Someone is murdering Shadowhunters, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second, bloody war. Clary’s best friend, Simon, can’t help her—his mother just found out that he’s a vampire, and now he’s homeless. When Jace begins to pull away from her without explaining why, Clary is forced to delve into the heart of a mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare: she herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

Uhhh. That was disappointing. And boring. Honestly, I feel like we took two steps forward in City of Glass and five steps back in City of Fallen Angels. What the heck happened?! Reading a 435 page book where 15% at best is relevant plot progression and 85% is unnecessary padding gets old VERY fast. I think the best way to tackle this is to list out what worked and didn’t work for me.

Too many Points-of-View: I’m someone who dislikes multiple POVs in books anyway, and City of Fallen Angels is the guidebook to why I dislike them so much. I didn’t have a problem in the previous three books, but this one… uhhh. There was quite a bit of backtracking and repetitiveness when we switch over to a new narrator; character development went out the window in favour of re-explaining things we already knew, and the pacing grinded to an all-out crawl resulting in me craving a character death just to get some action back into the mix.

Too much Simon: He was the unexpected surprise in City of Glass, and while I really liked him in that book, that doesn’t mean I wanted to be stuck in his head for a billion pages in this one. He had A LOT of the main focus in this book, but honestly, I found all of his POV sections very boring and tedious to read. I know he is adored by many, many TMI fans, but… I just don’t get it.

Clary: Now, Clary has never exactly been a shiny beacon of awesomeness, but I feel her character has dwindled down to insignificance the longer the series has gone on. I really feel like she’s at risk of becoming irrelevant beyond being the person Jace loves. And that’s just sad. I don’t particularly like Clary, but geez, the girl desperately needs some decent character development.

Jace: Love him or hate him, I find Jace to be the most entertaining character in this series. Well, snarky humorous Jace is, anyway. Here… I’m torn. I can understand why Jace is acting as he did, but all the moping around got boring after the first hundred pages; never mind the next three hundred! I miss humorous Jace. Also, was it just me or were his POVs too scarce?

Romance: I though all the romantic aspects throughout the book felt forced and unnatural. And this was with all characters, not just Clary and Jace. Alec seemed a bit OCC to me, and the whole Isabelle/Maia/Simon thing… uhhh. Also, was it just me, or did the dialogue in general seem a bit off?

The ending was… pretty good! I know, I’m surprised too! I enjoyed the last three or four chapters, but what grates on every strand of patience I have within me is when all relevant plot progression is contained within those final few chapters. *screams internally*

So, after all that, Alma, do you plan to continue the series? Emm… yep. I do. I know, I know! I’m a sucker for punishment, but I made the mistake of buying the fifth book in the series before reading the fourth book, and I feel like I should at least give it a go. Considering I bought it in good faith that I’d like City of Fallen Angels… Well, look how well that turned out! *sobs*

Review: Reap the Wind by Karen Chance

Title: Reap the Wind
Author: Karen Chance
Series: Cassandra Palmer Series, #7
Format: Paperback, bought
My rating: 2 / 5

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You’d think that being Chief Seer for the supernatural world would come with a few perks. But as Cassie Palmer has learned, being Pythia doesn’t mean you don’t have to do things the hard way. That’s why she finds herself on a rescue mission skipping through time—even though she doesn't entirely understand her dimension-bending new power.

Rescuing her friend John Pritkin should have been an in and out kind of deal, but with the near-immortal mage’s soul lost in time, Cassie has to hunt for it through the ages—with Pritkin’s demon dad in tow. He’s the only one who can reverse Pritkin’s curse, but with the guardians of the time-line dead set on stopping anyone from mucking about, Cassie will have to figure out how to get her friend back without ruffling too many feathers—or causing a world-ending paradox or two...

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

The Cassandra Palmer series is one of the few Urban Fantasy series I’ve kept up-to-date with from my pre-blogging days. It was one of the first UF series I read, and it still remains a firm favourite to this day. This is going slightly off-topic, but I find wait times between books in a series can be painful at the best of times, but when it’s a favourite series, that wait can become excruciating. Add in the fact that the sixth book in this series, Tempt the Stars, ended on yet another cliff-hanger, it was extra frustrating when I found out that Reap the Wind was set to be pushed back by an entire year. When the book finally arrived in the post a couple of weeks ago, I began reading straight away and my expectations were through the roof!

I don’t know what went wrong, exactly, but frustration was the main emotion I was left with after I finished reading. While I was reading, I kept thinking ‘was I satisfied with the things that were happening?’, and ‘was it worth the extra wait time?’ If I have to answer those questions, my answer would be no. This isn’t a small book by any stretch of the imagination, – 514 pages – yet I felt it turned into a giant recap of the previous six books in the series. It has been a long time since I read the previous books, so yes, this recap was appreciated. But, to be perfectly honest, getting a recap of the series wasn’t the reason why I wanted to read this book in the first place! Maybe if I wasn’t waiting for several dozen Cassie and Pritkin situations to be resolved, maybe this wouldn’t have bothered me so much. I hate to say this, but a part of me feels a little cheated. I expect what’s mentioned in a books synopsis to be solved – that’s its selling point, so I expect at least what’s mentioned in the synopsis to be addressed and resolved within that book. I don’t want to say any more, but I wasn’t satisfied with how little progress was actually made.

Here’s the thing: Cassie and Pritkin have been bickering and bugging the hell out of each other since the beginning of the series, and their dynamic together is AWESOME. It’s the main reason why I’ve stuck around for so long! I love it. In this book, however, there was a huge Pritkin shaped void. It was tolerable for a while, but by the half way mark, I was starting to get a bit angry with his continued absence. Also, I was starting to get tired of more and more unresolved stuff being piled on top of even more unresolved stuff . It became too much, and in honesty, and there are so many things going on I can’t keep it straight in my head anymore. What makes me really sad, though, is I’ve started not to care, and this breaks my heart. I LOVE Cassie and Pritkin, I really do, and I don’t want to be feeling this way after reading the latest instalment in the series.

Before I wrap up, I have to mention Mircea. I liked him in the first book, but by the second book I had jumped on the Pritkin bandwagon and haven’t looked back since. While I like Mircea’s character in general, I (surprisingly) found him extremely creepy in this book. There are some sexy time scenes with him, and honestly, I felt they were more unsettling rather than hot. I’m really glad Cassie FINALLY grew a pair and stood up to him – it only took seven books, but hey, better late than never, right?! Let’s hope she continues on this way in the future… but I’m not holding my breath.

I have to say, I think I went into this book expecting far too much. Reap the Wind isn’t really a bad book; it just didn’t live up to what I was expecting on any level. I guess my final thoughts come down to whether I want to continue with the series… well, erm, surprisingly yes. Yes I do! Seven books worth of investment isn’t something I’ll sacrifice on a whim, and Cassie and Pritkin mean too much to me abandon them just yet… but my patience will only last for so long. I’ll give the series one last chance, and I really, really, really hope Ride the Storm will deliver on all its promises. If it doesn’t, I’m gone.

Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Title: Red Queen
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Series: Red Queen, #1
Format: Hardback, owned
My rating: 2 / 5

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This is a world divided by blood - red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

That is, until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of Mare's potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance - Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart...

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

Red Queen was one of my most anticipated reads of 2015, and it also happened to be one of the most hyped new releases of the year. My expectations were through the roof, and I was expecting it to deliver so many awesome and unique things. I should know by now to approach really hyped books with lots of caution as I’ve been bitten by the hype bug one too many times. Sadly, I didn’t think Red Queen lived up to any of the hype, and I don’t feel any of my expectations were matched.

Red Queen felt like a recycled version of dozens of books I’ve read in the past, and most notably for me, there were A LOT of Hunger Games vibes. While a little familiarity can be a nice thing occasionally, too much similarity bugs the hell out of me. It was like I was playing a game of ‘this reminds me of X-Book-That-I-Love’. It’s so frustrating! There was SO MUCH potential for a truly awesome story, but I feel it’s been boiled down to mass-palatability, rather than branching out and trying something a bit more unique and risky.

Initially, I started out liking the book, so it was quite surprising how much I grew to dislike the story and become indifferent toward the characters. The world-building in general felt a bit sketchy, and I didn’t manage to get that clear a picture of the dynamics between each of the neighbouring lands, or their history. I began questioning what the point of the story was very early on, and I don’t feel like I got any answers after I’d finished reading. The society is defined by blood, and the Silvers are the oppressors, and the Reds are the oppressed. So, naturally, a rebellion is on the cards, and the Reds have formed a secret resistance called The Scarlet Guard with the intent of infiltrating the Silver’s lavish court, and causing a bit of havoc. While all of this is grand, I can’t help feeling like it’s a rebellion for the sake of having a rebellion. Yes, the reds are the suppressed class and they’re pretty fed up and want some changes, but what was the catalyst, the spark… or the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak? What did the Silvers do to push some of the Reds over the edge to want to rebel, and to actually form an entire group? Way too much vital world-building was skipped over, certainly from the Reds perspective, and things moved forward to establishing the Silvers far too quickly. I didn’t have enough time to care about the Reds before we’re immersed in Silver culture.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really like any of the characters, either. Mare Barrow is the main character and narrator, and I have to admit, she’s one of the weakest heroines I’ve read about in quite a while. She’s trying so hard to be fearless and badass, but honestly, she’s just a whiny, naïve brat. Her reaction to some of the things that happened was simply laughable at times. She actively sought out The Scarlet Guard, and offered to help them without giving it a second thought. Then, she begins whinging when people start dying. Umm… what did you think a rebellion would lead to?! People sitting around singing Kumbaya until the governing people get sick of all the noise and they surrender? I’m sorry, but I ended up having zero sympathy for her. Also, Mare has powers that Reds aren’t supposed to have. She can control electricity, and I’m assuming this is meant to create the image of a fearless, badass, power wielding rebellion leader in the making… but, erm, well… *cough*… all I could picture was Pikachu.

My opinion of the male characters didn’t fare much better. Kiloran is pretty much a pseudo-Gale, and between Cal and Maven we have 50 Shades of Every Bland YA Male You Can Possibly Think Of. Since Mare is such a special little snowflake, naturally all three guys are in love with her. I felt their individual development as characters was sacrificed in favour of creating a love square, and it really didn’t appeal to me at all. If I ended up liking one of the characters more than the others, then I’d at least have had something to root for, but as it stands from my neutrals perspective, it seemed a bit unnecessary.

By a mile, the ending was my favourite part of the book, and the action sequences were awesome. But by the time we’d gotten to the ending, my opinions had already been set in stone, and it was a case of too little too late. If you try too hard to convince me of something, it’s usually not true, and the more you hammer on about one point, the more resistant I’ll be to believing you. I kind of saw what happened coming a long way off, so most of the surprise was lost on me.

I really wish I enjoyed Red Queen more than I did. I was sure I would love it and it sucks when things don’t work out quite as expected. It’s a shame, as there was so much potential, but I didn’t find it anywhere near as unique, awe-inspiring or clever as the hype had lead me to believe. A lot of what happens in this book has been done before – and done much better. Oh well, can’t love them all, I guess. :(

Review: From a Distant Star by Karen McQuestion

Title: From a Distant Star
Author: Karen McQuestion
Format: eARC, kindly provided
by the publisher, via
NetGalley (Thank you!!)
Series: Standalone
My rating: 2 / 5
Publisher: Skyscape

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Seventeen-year-old Emma was the only one who hadn’t given up on her boyfriend, Lucas. Everyone else—his family, his friends, his doctors—was convinced that any moment could be his last. So when Lucas miraculously returns from the brink of death, Emma thinks her prayers have been answered.

As the surprised town rejoices, Emma begins to question whether Lucas is the same boy she’s always known. When she finds an unidentifiable object on his family’s farm—and government agents come to claim it—she begins to suspect that nothing is what it seems. Emma’s out-of-this-world discovery may be the key to setting things right, but only if she and Lucas can evade the agents who are after what they have. With all her hopes and dreams on the line, Emma sets out to save the boy she loves. And with a little help from a distant star, she might just have a chance at making those dreams come true.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

I’m so incredibly torn! From a Distant Star isn’t a bad book, and I’d like to make that clear right from the start of my review. On the one hand, I really liked the concept: a young guy on his death bed miraculously makes a full recovery after a lengthy battle with cancer, and his recovery just happens to coincide with an alien crashing to Earth. It sounds amazing! But unfortunately, this is where my disappointment starts to creep in – it didn’t live up to my expectations.

I think my expectations got a little confused somewhere between the awesomely beautiful book cover, and the synopsis. I love the Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout, and I was thinking From a Distant Star would turn out to be something along those lines, only the aliens wouldn’t be glow worms. I was expecting a pretty full on alien Sci-fi novel, so I was a bit surprised that it reads like a contemporary novel with a couple of sprinkles of Spec-Fic here and there. I really liked the early chapters, and I thought things were going to progress really quickly. When the pages kept going by and nothing much was happening, my attention began to wander. The slow moving plot does have its advantages: it allowed plenty of time for detailed descriptions and plenty of back-story for the characters and other areas of the plot and world-building. And this is another thing that splits my opinion – I favour fast paced books, and I did feel bored quite a few times. However, all the details we do get are essential to the overall story! As with everything, it comes down to personal taste, and I think I would have been more engaged if the plot progressed a lot quicker.

Lucas’s little brother, Evan, was easily my favourite character. He has a wise head on his shoulders, and considering he’s only 14, he seemed like one of the most mature characters in the book. In general, with one huge exception, I thought the characters were portrayed really well, even though I didn’t necessarily agree with what they did at times.

Unfortunately, my biggest problem with the book happens to be the main character and narrator, Emma. It might be a little surprising, but I originally liked and sympathised with her. Her boyfriend is dying, and she’s the only one clinging to hope that he’ll pull through. Grief can do some pretty crazy things to a person’s personality, and seeing her denial portrayed as it is was quite believable. I can understand lashing out at those around you when you’re hurting from grief – heck, I think many of us that has lost someone close to us will understand this. BUT! Lucas survives, and Emma doesn’t snap out of her grief filled denial – she actually becomes insensitive, rude and hurtfully mean. It was like a complete one-eighty turn, and it felt incredibly strange and off-putting. Honestly, her attitude and her actions left me feeling very uncomfortable while I was reading, and it became so unbearable that I considered rage-quitting and abandoning the book on more than one occasion.

I wasn’t convinced with the Lucas/Emma relationship, either. Emma takes every opportunity to convince us that they’re the perfect couple, but it’s incredibly hard to believe in their love story when we haven’t witnessed any of the moments she’s talking about first hand. I had no connection to Lucas, only second-hand accounts from Emma’s perspective, and it felt very tell but no show.

As I said at the beginning, I don’t think From a Distant Star is a bad book; it just didn’t work for me. Overall, I liked the concept, but I don’t feel my expectations were fully met.

Review: Gates of Thread and Stone by Lori M. Lee

Title: Gates of Thread and Stone
Author: Lori M. Lee
Series: Gates of Thread and Stone, #1
Format: Paperback, owned
My rating: 2 / 5

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In the Labyrinth, we had a saying: keep silent, keep still, keep safe.

In a city of walls and secrets, where only one man is supposed to possess magic, seventeen-year-old Kai struggles to keep hidden her own secret—she can manipulate the threads of time. When Kai was eight, she was found by Reev on the riverbank, and her “brother” has taken care of her ever since. Kai doesn’t know where her ability comes from—or where she came from. All that matters is that she and Reev stay together, and maybe one day move out of the freight container they call home, away from the metal walls of the Labyrinth. Kai’s only friend is Avan, the shopkeeper’s son with the scandalous reputation that both frightens and intrigues her.

Then Reev disappears. When keeping silent and safe means losing him forever, Kai vows to do whatever it takes to find him. She will leave the only home she’s ever known and risk getting caught up in a revolution centuries in the making. But to save Reev, Kai must unravel the threads of her past and face shocking truths about her brother, her friendship with Avan, and her unique power.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

My expectations were really high when I began reading Gates of Thread and Stone. The premise sounds so good! I loved the beginning of the book, and I thought I’d found a new favourite series, but unfortunately things began to slip a bit shortly after that and they didn’t fully recover.

Initially, I liked Kai, and I still do to a certain degree. She seemed a bit hot-headed and impulsive, but her heart was in the right place. She’s seventeen, and lives in the Labyrinth area of Ninurta: an area made entirely of freight containers that have been turned into roughly constructed housing units. I loved Kai’s determination to find Reev (her non-biological "brother") and the street-smarts she exhibited at the beginning… but I don’t feel it lasted. One minute, she’s awesome, the next she gives in to blind naivety! She became wishy-washy and aloof, and it made very little sense to me. In honest, her entire character felt a bit inconsistent as the story progressed.

And Avan. Oh, Avan… how I disliked you. He’s our love interest, and he did seem mildly interesting in the beginning, but the more I read, the more I ended up disliking him. I don’t like saying this, but to me, he’s the perfect example of a card-board cut out. His personality was pretty much non-existent, and I didn’t feel anything toward him apart from irritation. The only character I was interested in was Mason. I thought he was adorable! I really wish there was more emphasis on him in this book. I liked his personality: he’s serious when he needs to be serious, yet lightens the mood and jokes around, too. In comparison to Avan, he felt a lot more well-rounded and balanced.

I really disliked the focus that Kai puts on Avan, and I was so disappointed that most of the emphasis was on her fluttery feelings for him, and how distracted she gets whenever he’s in her proximity. The book is written in the first person, and Kai is our narrator, so EVERYTHING is seen through an Avan-filter. It detracted an awful lot from my opinion of Kai’s character overall. An example of this was when Mason brought her to see the gargoyles while they were in The Void. She had absolutely no interest in learning about them at all! Erm, well… little ol' me as the reader would have liked to find out more about the gargoyles! All she cared about was leaving to go sit in the Sun with Avan… -_-

I’m so disappointed that I didn’t love the book like I thought I would. Everything started out so well, but by the end the entire plot and world-building elements felt very disjointed and all over the place. Initially, I let things slide, thinking I’d get lots more explanations and details as the story progressed. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. Honestly, it felt like I got lots of detail where none is needed (ie. Avan), and no details where they WERE needed (ie. everything else!). The flow of the plot didn’t feel natural at all, it felt very rigidly planned, and a bit over plotted, like X had to happen before Y, and then Z could shortly follow. By the end of the book, I ended up feeling very confused about the overall outlook for the series. While I was reading I kept getting the feeling the book was based on a mish-mash of Greek mythology, only disguised in a fantasy-like post-apocalyptic/dystopian world. When a Greek Titan showed up at one point, I had one of those weird ‘Aha, I knew it… but WHY?!’ moments. Very confusing!

I think I could have overlooked some of the issues I had if the ending had been epic. Unfortunately, the ending in general left me feeling very underwhelmed and disappointed. Personally, I didn’t like it at all, and it was too unbelievable for my tastes. Overall, Gates of Thread and Stone had bags of potential, and I’m so disappointed that I feel it didn’t live up to the awesomeness that the synopsis hinted at.

Review: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood
Author: Kendare Blake
Series: Anna, #1
Format: Paperback, owned
My rating: 2 / 5
Pages: 369

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Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas's life.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

Before I begin my review, I want to note that it’s going to be hard for me to be completely objective. Why? Well, when I think of the word ‘horror’, I automatically have some expectations. The main one? Feeling scared! When I saw the label “Not For Younger Readers” on the back cover, I’m pretty sure I had an evil grin plastered on my face, thinking this will be freaking awesome!

Cas is our main character and narrator, and he can see ghosts. Think of a male version of Buffy, but rather than being all-round snarkishly awesome, he’s an arrogant asshole, and ‘kills’ ghosts rather than vampires. He and his mum travel around North America following various tip offs about murderous spooks, allowing Cas to hunt them down and kill them once and for all. The book begins when they’re about to move to Ontario to hunt down the most murderous, heartless and bloody spook yet… Anna Dressed in Blood.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? So, Alma - why only 2 stars??

Ok, the positives. It’s a very readable book, and the writing style is excellent, with good characters.

But, here’s the thing: I love scary books. I love creepy books. I love paranormal books, and I LOVE ghost stories. Based on all these things, on the surface, Anna Dressed in Blood is like a bookish match made in heaven for me!

Well, I have a confession. I didn’t like it. Why? It wasn’t scary. At all!

For me, the atmosphere is one of the most important things a horror book has to achieve. A good horror story is all about the build-up to the scares. It’s that anticipation and tension that you can cut with a knife that makes a horror story terrifying. When all of this is lacking, there is very little to make me scared, or even mildly creeped out. My biggest fault with Anna Dressed in Blood was NO atmosphere. I didn’t feel any tension, no anticipation... nothing. It was just… flat.

I kept waiting to be scared. I think this was the main reason why I read the book quite quickly – I was actually looking to be scared, and I was convincing myself that surely the next chapter has to be where the terror begins. Then, before I knew it, the story ended without me being scared once. A lot of my feelings boil down to my expectations, too. I was expecting to be scared. I was expecting to be terrified, actually. Hell, I was in the mood for a really scary read, and I was hoping this would deliver. Unfortunately, I felt it was a complete let down on the horror front. It. Just. Wasn’t. Scary!

While I really enjoyed the writing style, and the secondary characters were quite entertaining, the lack of scares left me bitterly disappointed. I think my sum-up of the book is either a) Anna Dressed in Blood is not a horror story, or b) I’m a LOT braver than I give myself credit for. Truthfully, I’m voting on the former.

Review: Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Opposition
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Series: Lux, #5
Format: Paperback, owned
My rating: 2 / 5
Pages: 534

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Katy knows the world changed the night the Luxen came.

She can't believe Daemon welcomed his race or stood by as his kind threatened to obliterate every last human and hybrid on Earth. But the lines between good and bad have blurred, and love has become an emotion that could destroy her—could destroy them all.

Daemon will do anything to save those he loves, even if it means betrayal.

They must team with an unlikely enemy if there is any chance of surviving the invasion. But when it quickly becomes impossible to tell friend from foe, and the world is crumbling around them, they may lose everything— even what they cherish most—to ensure the survival of their friends…and mankind.

War has come to Earth. And no matter the outcome, the future will never be the same for those left standing.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

Opposition was the one book that was set to be released in 2014 that I was 100% sure I would love.

Leading up to the release, I never once thought I might feel anything less than adoration for Opposition. My reaction has completely blindsided me. How do I feel? Underwhelmed and disappointed was the best sum-up I can come up with. Bored was another. I'm numb. It never occurred to me. It wasn’t supposed to happen! Everything that I loved about Origin, was completely absent in Opposition. I think I’m more shocked about my less than fangirling reaction, rather than what occurred in the book. I have to be honest: I felt Opposition was very tame, cheesy, and too neatly resolved. I was expecting so much more. Also, my expectations were far too high. Arrgh, I don’t want to be writing this. I want to be gushing from the rooftops, and it pains me that I’m not. I WANTED to love this book so much.

Opposition follows on two days after Origin ends. Daemon, Dawson and Dee have gone back to the Luxen, and Katy is stuck with Beth, Archer and Luc. For the first thirty, maybe forty pages, I loved everything. Both Daemon and Katy’s voices were distinct and I was gobbling up both the story and the pages. Then everything I was enjoying … stopped. In Origin, the dual POV – when Daemon and Katy were separated – worked so well. It served a purpose, allowing us to see both sides of the story, and what both characters were separately going through. I loved seeing inside both of their heads, and I was looking forward to reliving all of this again. Unfortunately, in Opposition, after the first fifth of the book, both Daemon and Katy’s POV’s were blending together, and I had to go back and check who was narrating quite often. It felt like the story was being told in one POV, and the only change was which name was being used in the dialogue. This completely shocked me. Not ONCE did I have this problem in Origin! I have no idea what went wrong. If the book was written in Daemon’s perspective, or in Katy’s perspective, I would have accepted and maybe even liked the book more than I did. I KNOW I would have.

I was disconnected from both Daemon and Katy for the vast majority of the book. There were moments where Daemon was his usual smart-ass self, and I liked seeing Katy in her badass role. But, for so much of the book it felt like a watered down version of my two favourite characters. I wanted to see more of Katy being Katy and Daemon being Daemon. It felt like I was reading about two cardboard cut outs with the names Katy and Daemon stamped on them, rather than their usual vibrant selves. When Katy uttered the word “totes”, I was taken aback in a big way. My initial reaction was ‘Who the hell are you, and what have you done with Katy?’ Can you imagine the girl that dumped a plate of spaghetti on Daemon and Ash in Obsidian saying the word “totes”? I sure as hell can’t! I’ve resorted to blaming my disconnection with them on the POV switching, and it breaks my heart that I didn’t feel the same love for both of them that I did in previous books. I loved these two, and knowing this is the last time I’ll read anything new about them, and I didn’t love it… sigh. It feels like such a let-down.

In the middle of the book, the story fell away completely, and I became very bored and impatient. I was expecting the story to zip on ahead like in the previous books. When it plodded on and on and on, I just wanted the point to hurry up and get here already! When it did arrive, the resolution to the Luxen invasion felt rushed, and unconvincing. There was a bit of build up to the big resolution, and then poof, it’s over. Just like that. It felt too anti-climactic, especially after everything that happened in Origin, and over the series as a whole. Granted, everything wrapped up as I expected, and I’m happy about that, but I was convinced something epic should have taken place. When it didn’t happen, I was left with a feeling of… meh.

In honesty, the epilogue was what brought the book back from the brink of total disappointment in my eyes. I loved it. It was the perfect conclusion, and I just wish the rest of the book held half the same meaning and emotion for me as those short few pages did. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to override my disappointment of the book overall. I can’t help feeling that Opposition was a half-hearted ending to one of my favourite YA series.

This time last month, before I read this book, I never thought I would be writing up this kind of review for Opposition. It breaks my heart so much, and I wish I was trying to put into words how much I loved this book. The Lux series is still a 5 star series for me, and this is based on Shadows, Obsidian, Onyx, Opal and Origin. I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority with my opinions on Opposition. My expectations were way, way, way too high, and once the first doubts began creeping into my head, I couldn’t find anything to bring my opinions back to being positive before the epilogue.

My rating is a very generous two hearts, and this is in reflection of my love for the previous books in the series. If I was rating Opposition by itself, one-point-five hearts would be the highest I could give it.

I’m absolutely gutted I didn’t love Opposition. I never expected it. This has thought me a bitter lesson to never expect to love a book. I will reread the series one day, and I really hope my final thoughts on the last book will change in the future.

Review: Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

Title: Wallbanger
Author: Alice Clayton
Series: Cocktail, #1
Format: Kindle
My rating: 2 / 5
Pages: 314

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The first night after Caroline moves into her fantastic new San Francisco apartment, she realizes she's gaining an intimate knowledge of her new neighbor's nocturnal adventures. Thanks to paper-thin walls and the guy's athletic prowess, she can hear not just his bed banging against the wall but the ecstatic response of what seems (as loud night after loud night goes by) like an endless parade of women. And since Caroline is currently on a self-imposed dating hiatus, and her neighbor is clearly lethally attractive to women, she finds her fantasies keep her awake even longer than the noise. So when the wallbanging threatens to literally bounce her out of bed, Caroline, clad in sexual frustration and a pink baby-doll nightie, confronts Simon Parker, her heard-but-never-seen neighbor. The tension between them is as thick as the walls are thin, and the results just as mixed. Suddenly, Caroline is finding she may have discovered a whole new definition of neighborly...

In a delicious mix of silly and steamy, Alice Clayton dishes out a hot and hilarious tale of exasperation at first sight...

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

Wallbanger was one of those books that was absolutely everywhere I turned last year. I saw so much praise, with 4 and 5 star reviews and I thought it would automatically be such a great read. I saw it on sale recently, and I thought I’ll give it a go. Unfortunately, for me at least, it’s a case of the hype being greater than how I found the book.

It’s a fairly familiar premise. Caroline is our main character and narrator. She’s a single girl living in San Francisco. She’s been missing her O for six months since she had a one night stand with Machinegun Cory. When she moves into the vacant apartment her boss owns, she becomes obsessed with the guy living next door who frequent has very loud sex with various different girls. Since the walls are paper thin, she gets a front row seat.

What drew me to this book at first was the humour that lots of people gushed about. I downloaded a sample last year, and I thought that I’d really like the book, but I didn’t buy it immediately. It took over a year for me to get around to it actually! I will say that, yes, the book is very funny… until the funny wears off. This is so contradictory to everything I usually rave about. I love funny moments in books! But, this is the thing: I love funny moments that don’t feel like they’ve been planned. I guess what I’m trying to say is that unexpected humour appeals to me more than predicted humour.

Unfortunately, I didn’t connect with any of the characters either. The highlight of the book was Carline’s cat, Clive. All the characters are super rich, and in honesty it’s become a bit boring reading these story lines. I kind of took an instant dislike to Simon, and I didn’t see anything to help me get over that. As he’s the main male characters, this is fifty percent of the character appeal gone very quickly. Caroline didn’t fare much better. And what is with the nicknames?! Wallbanger is pretty self-explanatory once you read the book, but whenever “Pink Nightie Girl” cropped up, I cringed.

I think this is a case of timing. If I had read Wallbanger last year, around the time I read the sample on Amazon, I think I would have liked it a lot better. I personally feel I’ve read better books that deliver on all fronts, from characters, to sexy-times and overall story. I will admit there are lots of funny moments, but I need more than humour alone to make me love a book.

Review: Frigid by J. Lynn

Title: Frigid
Author: J. Lynn
Series: Frigid, #1
Format: eBook, owned
My rating: 2 / 5

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For twenty-one-year-old Sydney, being in love with Kyler isn't anything new. They'd been best friends ever since he pushed her down on the playground and she made him eat a mud pie. Somewhere over the years, she fell for him and fell hard. The big problem with that? Kyler puts the 'man' in man-whore. He's never stayed with a girl longer than a few nights, and with it being their last year in college, Syd doesn't want to risk their friendship by declaring her love.

Kyler has always put Syd on a pedestal that was too high for him to reach. To him, she's perfect and she's everything. But the feelings he has for her, he's always hidden away or focused on any other female. After all, Kyler will always be the poor boy from the wrong side of tracks, and Syd will always be the one girl he can never have.

But when they're stranded together at a posh ski resort due to a massive Nor'easter, there's nothing stopping their red-hot feelings for each other from coming to the surface. Can their friendship survive the attraction? Better yet, can they survive at all? Because as the snow falls, someone is stalking them, and this ski trip may be a life-changer in more ways than one.

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

Everything started out good. It was light, entertaining and funny, until it just wasn’t. The more I got to know the characters, the more irritated I became. I’m really tired of the supermodel good looking guy that sleeps with anything available, and the picture-perfect almost-pure-as-snow girl characters. It came across as over the top and boring. I feel like I’ve read a version of this story too many times and I’m over it.

Sydney:

I was in love with my best friend. And it could be worse, I guessed. I could have been in love with a male stripper or a drug addict. Kyler Quinn was neither of those things. Although he could easily be passed off as a male stripper with those jaw-dropping good looks and messy brown hair, and he was as addictive as any drug out there.

I think I would have like to read about Sydney falling in love with a stripper and/or drug addict. I mean, there are so many ways you could run with that storyline!

Kyler:

Sydney was perfect— the actual embodiment of the perfect woman. She was practically pristine and fresh. She was untouchable. She was everything to me.

Sometimes, I seriously wonder if my priorities are correct. Putting myself in Sydney’s shoes: if I knew there was a “snow storm of the century” coming, the first think I would be thinking about are things like… food. And water. Also firewood (if you had a fireplace) candles, matches, blankets, torches and spare batteries in case the electricity goes, stuff like that. Once that was taken care of, THEN I might start noticing said “best-friend Kyler” who I’m trapped with and crushing on. Granted, yes, they had all of these things, but the way it was portrayed took from the significance of the situation. I don’t want to be told every few pages about the storm: I want to see the characters actually preparing to keep themselves alive, you know, show a little responsibility and build up an atmosphere that isn’t exclusively lust. Everything needs balance, including relationships portrayed in books!

I want to feel the connection between characters, not be told about a connection, whether it is friendship, love, trust, hate, it doesn’t matter. If I’m not convinced of it, it just doesn’t work and I can’t connect with or believe what happens.

The amount of miscommunications going on is just mind-boggling. A regular person talking to their best friend would hold up their hand and say “Wow, hold on a minute, you’ve got that wrong” and then put them right on the issue. It’s just too much and overly dramatic. One or two instances within a book could be believable. But constantly? No, I don’t buy it. They don’t come across as friends who are secretly in love with each other: they seem completely obtuse and lack real trust in each other.

When Sydney’s best girlfriend tells her “Okay. Stop the bullshit.” I actually nodded and said, yep, I’ve been trying to tell you that from the beginning… That’s not the reaction I want to have in any book I read. I really like Jennifer Armentrout’s Lux series, and I don’t want to write a less that glowing review for any of her books. But, I have to be honest, and from my perspective this is her weakest work I’ve read: so disappointing.