Hello, My name is M. I review books I read and post quotes that tickled my fancy.
THIS IS NOT A SPOILER FREE BLOG.
Taken (Taken 1) by Erin Bowman
Brief Summary: Gray has grown up in a world with no men. Every time a boy turns eighteen, he disappears, never to be seen again. After Gray’s brother disappears, Gray accidentally stumbles upon a secret which unravels his entire world. Desperate for answers, Gray decides to go where no one has gone and lived: over the wall of the city.
Non-Spoiler Review
Taken is a fast paced, action driven novel. The story is told through the eyes of Gray a seventeen year old boy whose brother is about to be taken from him. When he uncovers a secret, Gray’s life becomes even more uneasy because everything he knows may potentially be a lie. Every time Gray finds an answer to his question, ten more pop-up. Twists and turns appear at every turn, and I actually can’t say much about the plot without ruining it. But let’s just the say the world is a little bigger and much scarier than Gray could have imagined and the secrets that he will uncover will threaten his entire world.
But the characters are well developed, though I sometimes found Gray a bit hard to like. That’s the thing though, I don’t think Gray is supposed to be completely likable. The supporting characters are just as great. I liked how assertive both romantic interests were and how it wasn’t just shallow attraction.
If you’re looking for a Hunger Games like dystopia, this book is definitely for you. It’s dark, twisted, and makes you thankful for the world you live in now.
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Check it out at: Goodreads, B&N, Amazon, Abebooks
More in-depth SPOILERY REVIEW UNDER THE CUT
The Runaway King (The Ascendance Trilogy 2) by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Brief Summary: King Joren has been ruling for sometime, but nothing is easy or peaceful about his role as king. Most of his council is against him, and they hold his past over his head to keep him in line and from doing anything useful. With a threat of pirates and a neighboring kingdom threatening war, Joren doesn’t think he can keep his crown much longer. So, Joren comes up with a plan to keep his crown and save his kingdom. His plan is to runaway.
This is the second installment of The Ascendance Trilogy, the first one was The False Prince, to read my review for it click Here.
SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FALSE PRINCE
Possible Spoilers if you haven’t read The Runaway King.
This was a wonderful sequel to The False Prince and a great second novel in a trilogy. It managed to escape the Middle Book Death and applaud it for it. All the characters were well developted, the plot was fast paced and exciting, and the book is well worth the read.
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Ruby Red (Edelstein Trilogie 1) by Kerstin Gier
Brief Summary: Gwyneth Shepherd comes from a family of time travelers, it’s in their genes, literally. But it’s usually only one person in the family and that person was Charlotte, her cousin. Since birth Charlotte had been taught the secrets of time-travel and trained in what to do when she does. No one else is allowed to know the secrets. Except they were wrong and when Gwen suddenly time-travels she is very unprepared.
Rubinrot was written by Kerstin Gier and translated by Anthea Bell from German.
Possible Spoilers Ahead
This is one of my favorite books so far this year. I read it in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. The plot is fast paced and the translation reads smoothly and marvelously. I really wish I could read in German, just to read the original novel.
Gwen is a great heroine, spunky, dorky, adaptive and doesn’t take crap from handsome boys named Gidion. She is of course, freaked out at first, after all, all her life it was her cousin Charlotte who was trained for this. Time travel is not an easy thing, there are dangers of catching diseases, being accused of being a witch, or a spy. But Gwen tries her best to learn on the fly since there’s work to be done for the secretive time travel society.
The Time Traveling society isn’t without it’s secrets, conspiracies and dangers. The more Gwen finds out, the more confusing it gets about who you can trust and who you can’t. Especially Gidion, who goes from being super nice to suddenly being a grade-A assbutt. Gidion is a time-travel from another family. He’s been in the business for a couple years so he knows much more than Gwen, and he doesn’t forget to remind her about it. Potential romance abounds!
If you like historical, humorous, time-traveling, well written novels Ruby Red is definitely a novel to read.
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Check it out at: Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, It’s Website, Abebooks
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PS: Be careful going into the tag “Ruby Red” it’s full of porn, search “Rubinrot” instead.
The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds 1) by Alexandra Bracken
Brief Summary: Adolescent kids across the United States start dying or developing strange superpowers. The government panics and starts rounding them up and putting them into concentration camps for “rehabilitation”. They are classified by their danger level, but Ruby manages to manipulate her way into a milder set. When she finally escapes, she meets up with a couple of cool people, but she’s afraid of getting close to them because she doesn’t want to hurt them. They try to find a place where they can at least survive, if not live in peace, all while being hunted like rabid dogs.
Possible Spoilers Ahead
This book is really something. It’s a dystopia that really stands on it’s own and isn’t a rehash of the Hunger Games or Divergent, it’s better than both of them put together. It’s a lot more like the Hunger Games, which is great, because if I read another dystopia where the girl’s main concern is who she gonna be paired with, so help me.
The Darkest Minds both terrified and amazed me. It terrified me that the reaction of the government didn’t seem like a stretch. What would happen to our country if our children suddenly developed strange superpowers that ranged from being able to move objects to mind-control. Some of these kids are still fairly normal, others use their power to get what they want. But the government doesn’t even try to see if they can use these powers for good, it’s like the whole country freaks out. Some parents try to protect their kids, others send them away. You know, it’s a grim reflection on this world’s society.
I had a hard time liking Ruby because at first she was such a passive character. But we see a lot of character development and growth through the book, until Ruby stands and fights not just for other people, but for herself as well. Liam, the romantic interest, is a total sweetheart. He’s loyal, caring, and strong. The other supporting characters were great as well, contributing to the story.
As for the villain, well, I had a suspicion about him from the start. He just seemed a little perfect and gave me the creeps. It also just didn’t make sense how such a big settlement didn’t noticed or manage to be found out for so long.
The ending broke my heart. It honestly did. Can I please have the second one now?
Anyway, I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a good dystopia.
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Alexandra has a tumblr : Here
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Check the book out at: It’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Shadow and Bone (The Grisha Trilogy 1) By Leigh Bardugo
Summary on Goodreads: Here
Possible Spoilers Ahead.
I’m in a love hate relationship with this book. Don’t even talk to me.
I had very high expectations for this novel. Mostly because it is set in the world that is very much like Russia and it just screamed home and childhood to me. Look at the cover too, it’s beautiful, mysterious and it reflects the themes of the novel wonderfully. It just begs pick me up and read me.
The fact that the book is set in world that is different from the generic middle ages is very refreshing. It’s beautifully described and explained very well. The world is well built and you can see the influence of old Russia and Russian folklore everywhere.
The characters were wonderfully developed as well. Alina, the main character, is kick ass heroine who goes though a lot of development and growth; a journey of self-discovery and becomes a stronger person in the end. However, some of the supporting characters seemed to be picked from stock: you have your flawless, misunderstood, beautiful best friend with a dark past; the best friend who takes her for granted until she’s gone; and the dark and mysterious stranger who neither the reader nor Alina know whether to trust or not and can’t help falling for.
Needless to say I had a problem with both love interests, but especially Mal, the best friend who took her for granted. I understand that they grew up together and they care for each other, but I don’t think he deserves her, because he never noticed her as a romantic interest until she was gone. He even admits it himself, that he never saw her, not while there were hotter women he could sleep with, but of course he always loved her. When she’s beautiful and grown up, he suddenly notices. She easily forgives him of course, but I’m not that forgiving.
Like I said before, the influence of Russian culture is very apparent, but Bardugo took a lot of liberties with the language. I would call this cultural appropriation. I was easily forgiving with some things, but not others. For example she makes “kvas” a national, cultural type of drink. Easily a replacement for wine. But that’s not what kvas is and I thought it was a bit silly. First of all, most of the time it is not alcoholic, even kids drink it. I was happy about it because it’s something cultural enough, and it’s not vodka, so it wasn’t stereotypical. But as Russian person, I thought the idea of kvas as something to get drunk on was ridiculous, because it’s gross, and especially because there are other cultural drinks, such as “samagon” that would have fit the role better, which is basically home-distilled vodka.
The problems with terminology doesn’t stop there, but I feel that it annoys me only because some of the words were just a little bit off from what they actually are. Like the dress/clothes that they wear she calls “kefta” when the original word is “kaftan”. So, I don’t really see why she has to go and change three letters. Also, adding the suffix “-alki” to something to make it feminine. But that’s not even the annoying part, the annoying part was that she didn’t make all the words her own, but only a few. If you’re going to change the words to make them your own, change all of them! Why adopt a culture only partly? Especially when it’s so obvious, and then change a few things to make it your own. As an English reader, I would have been annoyed at the fact that not all cultural words are explained. And I’ve seen a few other reviews that say that they felt confused because they didn’t.
I did like the plot twist very much because it was a surprise to me. I feel now that it shouldn’t have been, but it was, and I’m happy it was. Because I was glued to the rest of the book, reading it with wide eyes and a captured breath. It was beautiful.
Furthermore, the book was well written and the dialogue was pretty funny. I chuckled and flailed a few times. So I can say that even though I was annoyed at a few things, it was still an incredibly entertaining and great read.
Froi of the Exiles (Lumatere Chronicles 2) by Melina Marchetta
Summary of Goodreads: Here
Possible Spoilers Ahead.
This was an amazing sequel to Finnikin of the Rock and worthy second installment. Melina Marchetta is a master when it comes to creating an amazing world and lovable characters. Then again, this book bled me of tears until I died of emotional trauma and this is actually my ghost writing this review.
Trigger warnings for this book: a lot of mentions/talk/depiction of sexual, physical and mental abuse; though there are no graphic portrayals of it.
Spoilers beyond this point.
I’d like to start with the characters. The book is split into two different settings one of things going on in Charyn with Froi, and the other of what’s going on in Lumatere. This is great because the story never gets boring. Marcheta doesn’t mind adding in cliffhangers for one side of the story and then go ahead to the other one, which makes you fly though the next couple of chapters to find out what happens. A lot of characters are introduced in this novel, mainly Froi’s family and the princes of Charyn. We also learn the stories of those characters that we met, but we didn’t really get to hear from in Finnikin of the Rock.
Froi has been living the the Queen’s Guard, they’ve been raising him and caring for him, and he has come a long way from being the savage and monstrous human being that he was in FotR. We see his development through his interactions with Quintana, the most fucked up character that I ever had the pleasure of reading about. To this moment, I cannot fathom what this poor girl went through; constant sexual and mental abuse at the hands of just about everyone in the palace where she lives. I was so mad at some point, with Marchetta, because it seems to me that just about every female (…actually, quite a few males as well) character in her books went through some sort sexual abuse. So, if you’re not a fan of novels that include such themes, stay away. It’s not graphic though, not at all, just really painful. But that is not to say that Quintana is a weak character, no, she is a fighter who refuses to stand down and she only puts up with the abuse because she thinks it’s the only way to break the curse of their kingdom.
We also meet Froi’s parents and let me tell you, they are the most dysfunctional family ever. They hate each other and they don’t bother telling each other differently. Each of them went through horrific things. It was hard to read. But not as hard as it was to read about Lady Beatriss, whose story we also learn in this novel. I was so, so angry with the men in her life who were supposed to protect and love her. I understand that they also went through a lot. Everyone did. But to ignore her pain was unforgivable. Lucian too, pissed me off. But the thing is, my own personal feelings aside, it’s a very realistic portrayal of human relationships and just how hard it is to talk about painful experiences.
The plot moves along at a nice pace, mostly thanks to the split in settings. There are a few cliffhangers, hair tearing moments and plot twists. The end of the novel sneaks up on you and then you scream in agony, crying to God about unfairness of life. I wish I was exaggerating, but the end of the novel is such an amazing set up for what’s going to happen in the next book that I just wanted to fall dramatically on my bed and weep until the next book comes out. Which I shall go do, now.
