The Pentrals - Look deeper than the smoke and mirrors.....

The Pentrals by Crystal Mack
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*NetGalley ARC*

THE Low Down...
Do you ever get that feeling that someone or something is watching you, even when you know you are completely alone? What if someone were to tell you that aren't actually alone? That someone really IS always watching you? Though most do not know it, that is the reality of life for the residents to Talline, a city built of glass and mirrors surrounded by towering red rock canyon walls, where every shadow and reflection is in fact it's own sentient being. These "Pentrals" are former People, who have sworn themselves to a "life" of observation without interaction in hopes of gaining redemption for past crimes and indiscretions. May it be as vibrant reflection or a gray scale shadow, they must focus their energy on remaining true to their person's essence. Antares is one such Shadow, having spent the past 17 years serving as Violet's shadow since the day she was born. Once a vibrant, loving and creative young girl, Violet's 17th birthday and a tragic life-changing event have sent her spiraling into herself, cutting herself off from those she loves and making drastic choices that leave Antares at a loss for what is to become of Violet's once seemingly bright future. In an act of fury Antares did not know she was even capable of, or does not understand how she even accomplished it, she turns both of their worlds upside down. Despite the heavy consequences that she thinks must be impending though, Antares' love for Violet and duty to serve her Person compel her to help Violet get back on track. Unbeknownst to both of them though, their separate paths to redemption to will uncover more layers of their world than either of them thought possible.

MY Low Down...

I will be the first to admit that anything in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy realm needs to grab me right away or I will probably never finish. This one toed the line, but caught me just in time and did not let go. Using the unique perspective of a person's shadow rather than that of the actual person, the perception of the world is thrown askew, essentially forcing one to paint their own picture of the story from a perspective they are not used to. From there, the city of mirrors creates a world where one cannot escape their own reflection, a constant reminder of their outward appearance. Through these mediums, Violet, Antares and others are forced to face the role that appearances play in one's feelings of self-worth, and how those feelings can be manipulated. How do you know that what you see in the mirror is what others see? Will you ever be able to know the difference? Who has the power to control such things? These are questions that can and should come up in the "real" world, and Crystal Mack uses a unique and very creative approach to bring them to light.

There were a few areas that were a bit lacking such as general character development and a bit of a cliche in the villain-figure department, but the overall story construction, writing and creativity were deserving of praise. While I certainly would have liked to feel at least a little more connected to the characters, I was connected to their story and as the first in a series, there is plenty of room for growth as the story progresses.

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Poor Little Dead Girls - Poor little not-so-thriller

Poor Little Dead Girls by Lizzie Friend
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

NetGalley ARC.... Sadie Marlowe is an ace lacrosse player from "small town" Oregon who is thrown into the world of the American elite when she is recruited to play for Keating Hall, one of the most exclusive prep schools on the East coast. As Sadie's late mother also attended Keating, she innocently believes that her athletic skilled combined with her mother's alumni status paved the way to her scholarship, but throughout the course of being "kidnapped", drugged, waking with strange bruises and even stranger memories, she learns a whole different side of the story. Billed as both a thriller and YA, I unfortunately would say this novel does not meet either category.

Don't get me wrong, there were some positive aspects of this book: SOME of the characters had a reality to them that was refreshing, the overall plot was well thought out and interesting. Unfortunately for me though, the negatives clung on and I never could quite get over them.

First, foremost and utterly annoying was the "naive small town girl meets the new world of the rich and powerful east coast elite". This concept in itself makes perfect sense; my issue with this is that our supposed small town "hick" is from Portland, Oregon. I admit that I of course take the absurdity of how her hometown was portrayed more personally as a native Portlander myself, but that shouldn't decrease the clear lack of knowledge or research that went into the decision to frame this as her hometown. Throughout the book, references are constantly made to her small town upbringing, her lack of social knowledge through comments like "you really are small town, aren't you", Sadie's assertion that she wore jean shorts to her last school dance, and the reaction Sadie got from "people in Portland" regarding her mom's drug abuse. Sure, Portland is definitely a far cry from suburban Virginia and money means different things in different places, but if you want to portray someone as being "small town" and naive, you should probably pick someplace that is actually small and off the beaten path, rather than a relatively sized city that is by no stretch "cut off" from normal society. Sure, this may be somewhat trivial and your average reader may not know enough to see the incorrect representation, but inaccuracies that are not necessary or justified are a one way ticket to frustration in my reading world.

Aside from the Portland snaffu, there were also other weaknesses that brought this one a bit down for me. First of all, the storyline itself was interesting and well thought out, but the actual construction left much to be desired. Situations were not built enough to cause any suspense, clues were blatant and left nothing to the imagination, and characters were for the most part allowed to develop only to the minimum point needed to make them useful. When finished reading, I unfortunately did not really care much what became of them, as I was never allowed to truly care about them.

Lastly, this novel seriously toed the line on being the YA it claims to be. Sure, the characters were young adults, but the novel is definitely more appropriate for a slightly older audience. I read something previously from the author about this, and she stated she feels like the situations presented in the novel are what normal teens are dealing with and want to read about. While it may be true that it is what they "want" to read about, I don't know if it is necessarily what they "should" be reading about - I personally would not want any mid-teen of mine reading about rich prep school girls having their personal hairdressers sneak booze into their dorm rooms or the "cool" senior boys getting drunk at every dance, all with no consequences.

Overall, an OK read for a rainy weekend afternoon but nothing I would write home about.

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The Cuckoo's Calling....Harry Potter it is NOT!

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first non-HP I have read, and I really didn't know what to expect after 10+ years of reading and loving them. Despite my initial questioning, I ended up loving it, and I now definitely believe the JK Rowling is diverse author capable of writing to any audience or genre.

The "just enough info" intro did it's job perfectly in hooking me in and it mostly got better the further I got. The 2 main characters, Strike and Robin, have a great chemistry that's not really a chemistry, if you follow my random drift there, that makes you love them more and more as things progress. I feel like I got to know both of them very well without feeling like it had required reading too many long-winded, not action monologues of personal details to get there. Don't get me wrong, the details were there but interspersed throughout at timely moments to both add to the current storyline and teach you more about the characters, Overall, the superb characters were the resounding highlights.

As an overall fan of mystery/crime, this already had a point it it's favor for the genre. Overall, I did enjoy this one, but the way the storyline progressed is the one negative point I really noticed. When reading a mystery novel, one of my favorite parts is that "Aha!" moment when the trail of clues start coming together (or so you think) and you know whodunit (or so you think again...), and the following build-up of excitement to when you find out that you had it all wrong after all :) Unfortunately though, I didn't get that feeling all with this one. With the number of characters involved and their varying stages of being suspected, I felt like a little too much was put into "trying" to point you in the wrong direction that it ended up being too many different directions. Once I learned whodunit and started hearing the backstory of how it happened, I was easily able to go "Oh yeah!! I do remember that!" or "Oh duh. How did I not get that?" but before that I never felt like I had any solid idea. While the story was still great overall, one of the best parts of a mystery is feeling like you figured it out - while all of the points were there to where I could technically have figured it out, there were just too many diversions in there without enough "outs" for the possible suspects to really do all that much actual figuring.

An excellent read that I would definitely recommend, and I would also love to see these characters continued!

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Dead Ever After - I am going to forget this book ever existed *With Spoilers*

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I feel disrespected and appalled at this last installment that Charlaine Harris somehow thought would pass as an acceptable conclusion to the series. And to say nothing about the editors who wasted the money on printing this thing. Quite frankly, I don’t think any of them cared. They knew the number of people, such as me, who love this series and were excited for the grand finale (or in this case, grand failure). Despite the last 4 books being increasingly bad, we held onto hope that CH would pull it together and send everything out with a bang. Instead, they played on the love of Sookie’s fans, knowing that this hope would lead to the purchase my so many of this mediocre crud.

Why? Let me count the reasons…

#1 – Continuity: I have read each of the books only once, so I missed a few things others have pointed out, but there was still enough that I caught to irk me. Sookie can all of a sudden only read the emotions of wares? Since when? Sookie knows a swear word worse than damn, and uses it? Since when? Sookie is a hypocrite who can’t stand the fact that vampire blood might be affecting whether she really loves Eric, but she is A-Ok with the Sam situation even though it was affected by the cluvial dor? HELLO!!!

#2 – Eric: I’ll admit, I love Eric (and not only because I love watching Alexander Skarsgaard play him, I actually like the book character too ). CH spent EIGHT books building up that relationship, and then threw it away. And not only did she throw it away, she didn’t even do it with an ounce of drama or respect. Literally, there were probably a total of 3 pages devoted to ending Eric and Sookie’s relationship after, again, EIGHT books of building it up. Whether you are an Eric fan or not, this is just stupid.

#3 – The whole dang plot!: Really?! This passes as a plot line that will be published by a major publishing company? Apparently you don’t have to have any creativity, or skill, in crafting an enticing plotline to get a book published. So on that note, I’ll be right back – need to pop in and tell the boss I’m quitting since I can certainly make more money as a mediocre author. Seriously though, this plot was full of holes, pieced together segments that ultimately meant nothing to each other, and the pacing was awful! I was reading this on my Kindle and at one point I looked down and saw “91% complete”. I frantically started thinking my KF must be broken, because there was NO WAY that everything that started would come to a resolution with so little left. But it did. And it did POORLY. Literally, this book when from a meander through the woods to the Olympic 100 yard dash in about a page. The last 10% of the book was so fast, so shoddily pieced together and too outright disappointing to even think about.

#4 – Lack of respect for readers: Yes, CH created her characters and it is entirely up to her what happens to them. Despite my disappointment with the ending of the series, I can respect that (though I do question the reason, given that she went against just about every review I’ve ever read and every fellow fan I know….). What I can’t respect are the things listed above. It is a sad thing when your readers apparently know more about the stories created than you do to catch continuity issues you have missed. Oh, they were on purpose? You changed things to make your ending work better and thought we weren’t smart enough to notice?

Since CH did not have enough respect for her fans to write a final book of any quality, I am not going to give her the respect of caring about her ending – I will have my very own sitting happily in my mind, blocking out all memories of her completely, utterly, and absolutely disappointing finale.

And publishers, shame on you. You had better believe I will be putting more thought into what Penguin books I actually spend money on for a while – you have some redeeming to do.


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Gone Girl - Don't even try to figure it out!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5*

I'm glad I took a while to write my review of this one, because a little time and more thought earned it another 1/2* - I can't bring myself all the way to 5, but it's close!

THE Low Down...

Nick meets Amy. Nick and Amy get married. Happy couple moves to boring (her) and wonderful (him) small town mid-west. Amy disappears. Chaos ensues. End result - You will not believe it until you read it!

MY Low Down...

Yowza! Talk about twists and turns. Not only was I constantly guessing and questioning, but it evoked every emotion from giggly romantic to pure hatred. I managed to both love and hate both Nick and Amy at times, and the emotional jumps sometimes had just a page or less separating them as every curve ball imaginable was thrown into the mix. The writing was fluid and concise, with just the right amount of detail in just the right places. There was enough foreshadowing to have the "duh" moments pop up later, but not enough to spoil anything. Flynn clearly has an amazing imagination and knack for timing and details that just cannot be taught - I will definitely be looking into her other titles!

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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - I should have read the book first!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In a rare moment of potential insanity, I am going to say it...I liked the movie better!

Please do not think that I did not enjoy the book, as I really did. Also, it should receive a good deal of credit for the very reason that I enjoyed the movie better - the book was a more realistic picture of both how the Marigold residents would come to be in India in the first place, and also of the country itself, whereas the movie definitely portrayed it in a more romanticized light. Both have their merits, and the book itself is actually well written and enjoyable. Quite frankly, I must admit that I may have given the novel a higher ranking had I never seen the movie. I know this is quite unfair to the author, but at the same time I can't help but think she had a role of some kind in the creation of the movie (please forgive me and accept my apologies if I am incorrect) so should have realized there would be such comparisons.

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The Fault In Our Stars - Sadness Alert!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5*

THE low down...

Hazel is a teenager with terminal cancer who has been given the "gift" of an unknown amount of borrowed time by an experimental drug that she seems to be the only person having positive results from. Augustus is teenager with cancer that is in remission and a type that has something like an 85% survival rate. Hazel meets Augustus and he pulls her out of her life that has been defined by cancer in the 3 years since her diagnosis. You're on your own from here because the spoilers involved with saying any more would be a mine field!

MY low down...

This one was a roller coaster for me! The big uphill, I started to love it, as much as you can love a story that you know before you even start that it will break your heart. The scream inducing down hill, I wanted to punch Hazel and Augustus for seeming to be incapable of speaking like teenagers. So many times I felt like the only way these conversations could have ever happened was by scripting them out ahead of time, like they were in a play that was confused about the time period it was in. The nauseating loopity loop, I wanted to punch myself for wanting to punch kids with cancer.

The story was poignant, the characters likeable most of the time and a few twists and turns to keep you interested. The overall quality though still left a bit to be desired and was only 3* as I just couldn't fall in love with the writing. Overall it was a good book, but to bring up the often mentioned "cancer perks", I think the "kids with cancer" storyline was the only reason it was memorable since the characters weren't particularly exceptional other than the fact that they were cancer patients. Don't get me wrong, they are far more exceptional than me for what they've been through, I just didn't get a connection to them other than sadness for their struggle.

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