Sister Light, Sister Dark

This book has consistent 5-star ratings on Goodreads, so I feel a little bad for not enjoying it as much.

The world is certainly imaginative. The women of Alta hames have the power to call forth their dark sisters from the other side of the mirror, sisters who are them and not them at the same time. Learning the culture of the hame was a large draw of the book for me. I got into it, and I enjoyed being in that world.

What I didn't like is how the book is divided up into sections - Legend, Myth, History, Song, Ballad ... These sections add little, if anything, to the story itself and mostly served to pull me out of the narrative. I didn't care about the historical analysis of the Alta women from 700 years in the future. I didn't care about a song written about the events I had just read. I didn't care about a legend that foretold what I was about to read. I just wanted to read the story without being interrupted by extraneous information. 

After a couple chapters I just skipped over the extra sections, making an already short book (about 200 pages) even shorter, which brings me to the second thing that annoyed me a little. This is the first book in a two-book story that could have easily been combined into one. Not only is the book short, but it has the same issue I felt with Star of the Morning, which is this book by itself does not tell a complete story. The plot really only picks up at the end with what really should be the middle of the book or just before it. 

This first book, really is just set up for the next one, and I just take issues with stories that are published like this. One book, should tell one complete story, in my opinion. It can have lose ends. Questions can be left unanswered. But there needs to be a rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This book doesn't have that. It's all just rising action. And that bothers me.

So, it gets three stars because I found the book itself to be lacking. But I do plan on continuing on to the next book.

The Summoning

This book took a while to get into its stride. First we have a girl running around while being chased by ghosts, so a supernatural thriller kind of feel. Then we find ourselves in a house full of kids with special powers that gave off a kind of x-men vibe. And then we have the dead rising and werewolves ... which I think finally got the book to match up with the feel the blurb had promised.

Chloe is a 15 year old girl, who one day runs screaming down the halls of her high school while being chases by a ghost. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Chloe is placed in a group home for teens with mental illnesses. Through interactions with the doctors and her housemates, Chloe soon discovers things are not as they seem.

This book has a good pace to it. I read it quickly and was continuously turning the pages, unwilling to put the book down. I enjoyed the story, and I'm looking forward to picking up the last two books in the series.

Fangirl

This is one of those books that's difficult for me to wrap my head around. It doesn't follow the traditional rise and fall of stories I like to read. There's no real building up to the climax and then coming back down for the resolution. It's more like a book of evens that just take place during the novel's time line. Come to to think of it, First Test did the same thing.

Cath is the biggest Simon Snow fan ever. She embarks on her first year of college, dealing with boys, classes, and her family. In many ways, I loved this book. Cath is me in so many ways. My social anxiety is nowhere near as bad, but it's enough that I understood hers. Her experiences as the fandom she loves just breaths through her ... I get it. And her uncertainty with her fiction classes ... is she really cut out to be a writer or does she just want to write fanfic for the rest of her life? I've been there. There's a lot in this book I relate to.

But, taking a step back and looking at this in terms of a story ... For one, the book just kind of ends. There's not much of a resolution to anything other than Cath's boy anxiety. She does finally turn in the fiction story she's been procrastinating about the whole year, but we don't get anything about how she felt writing it or how she felt after. Does she still think fanfic is only for her, or is she more confident in her abilities now? Does she want to keep trying with original work? What about the fanfic she's been working so hard on for the past two years? Did she finally finish it? What are her thoughts and feelings about that? How does she envision Simon and Baz in her life now that the series and her project is final over?

I just feel like Cath had a lot of questions and a lot of struggles during her first year, and I know a lot of them can't be resolved realistically in one year of school. But I also feel like a story has to have some kind of resolution, not just end. And that's how I felt finishing this book, like, "Wait a minute? This is the end of it? What happened to all this stuff?"

I liked the book, it was enjoyable. And I related to a giant chunk of it on a deeply personal level. I just would have liked there to be more a resolution to the story. I prefer it when a book has a more solid story arch. That's just me.

First Test

This is the first book in Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series. This is also the first book of Tamora Pierce's that I have read. Looking at her other series, this is the one that interested me the most, so I picked it up. This series follows the story of Keladry, or Kel for short, who is the first girl admitted to training to become a knight since the King's proclamation that girls could do so. Kel has one year to prove she can keep up with the boys or else she'll be sent home.

I read this book within a day. It's short - about 200 hundred pages. And there's no real overarching plot - the story mostly just goes through Kel's training as the year progresses. What makes it much more interesting than say the training in Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit is it's not just details of the children's chores for the day. We get Kel's thoughts and emotions as she tries and sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds at the tasks. We get the slow progression of friendships Kel forms with her fellow students. We get the back and forth sense of uncertainty from the training master - is he for or against Kel?

For such a simple book, there's a lot of emotion packed into it. You are driven to care about the characters and what happens as the year moves on. I had no desire to put the book until I was through to the end. Kel herself is very likable, befriending animals and protecting her smaller classmates (Kel is tall for her age). She's smart and capable, though at times uncertain. And she has a fear of heights.

I liked this book, and I'll definitely be picking up the rest of the series.

The Mage's Daughter

And we are back with the second book in the first trilogy of Lynn Kurland's The Nine Kingdoms series. As we return, this book focuses primarily on Morgan and Miach. Morgan is as stubborn and willful as ever, though a little unsure of herself given the evens of the previous book and with Miach's affections continuing to catch her off guard.

Finally, in this book the plot picks up. Morgan's true identity is realized, the danger to the kingdom is identified, and Morgan and Miach's relationship is eventually solidified. There's still magic and swordplay going on, though not as much as the previous novel. Primarily this book focuses on Morgan and Miach's relationship. And me, being a lover of romance, ate it up. Unlike the previous novel, this does seem to have a solid beginning and ending - mainly the relationship arc - and I feel like I could go back and read it on its own if I wanted, though reading the first book prior to is still required to give this one context.

I'm very excited to move on to the final book in the trilogy. I expect it to have plenty of action with magic and sword play, and danger and romance of course. I can't wait!

Dead Witch Walking

A witch working as law enforcement to round up criminals in the form of leprechauns, vampires, werewolves, and other otherworldly creatures as she dodges murderous charms from the her former work agency with her pixie sidekick and vampire roommate looking out for her? I was all over this. Seriously, what could be better?

And then things got weird and annoying. First there's the history of a bio-engendered virus escaping its lab and killing most of the human race to the point that all those otherworldly creatures find themselves at level numbers with the humans so they don't feel they needed to hide anymore. I was fully on board with suspending reality and believing this was a world where humans and otherworldly creatures co-exist with each other without needing any further explanation. Having the back story of every apocalypse movie ever didn't add anything for me. It just felt out of place. (And I have a hard time believing humanity would boycott pizza for all eternity just because the virus was transmitted by an infected tomato.)

The main character's interactions with Ivy drove me up the wall. They've worked together for 10 years. I was under the impression they were supposed to be good friends. And yet Rachel scrutinizes her every word, every move, and every look (and I mean every single one) like she's just waiting for her to attack. Why do you hang out with this woman if you don't trust her that badly? Even after Ivy goes all vampire and freaks Rachel out, the scrutinizing just got on my nerves. Ivy apologizes and Rachel just can't get over it. And after the two of them have a heart to heart, Rachel still scrutinizes her every move. Through the entirety of the book Ivy's just trying to help, and all Rachel can do is accuse her of wanting to drink her blood.

Rachel is annoying. Aside from the condescending way she treats Ivy, she is constantly running head long into things, never thinking them through. Through the whole beginning of the book, people are removing death charms off of her that she admits she should have seen but was too preoccupied to notice. She comes up with the idea of breaking into the office of the biggest drug dealer in the city (while in a disguise she knows most people can see through), gets caught, and makes a plan to go back the next day, knowing she's likely to get caught again, which she does.

The writing in this book is a little disjointed. There were several points where I had to go aback and re-read the last paragraph because I didn't understand how we had gone from one point to another. The main plot line also just seemed a little weird to me. Rachel is in law enforcement, not the mafia. Why would they kill people who decided to leave the agency? And if you have enough money to buy out of your contract, you're free to go with no strings attached? They aren't going to hound you for the rest of your life to get more money? There doesn't seem to be any reason to this. It just is.

I enjoyed the different creatures in this book. The vampires, the pixies, the weres. I liked the different forms of magic. I wanted to keep reading just to say I'd gotten through it all. But after skimming through the third quarter of the book, I just had to give up. I couldn't take it anymore.

Zel

I've been wondering lately if fairy tale retellings just aren't for me. As much as I liked this book, it didn't captivate me in the way I felt it should, and I can find no fault in the novel to suggest why. So I can only assume in some way this story just wasn't for me. And then I think of how much I love Ella Enchanted ... maybe I just need the right kind of retelling?

Zel is a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale and follows the dark Brother's Grimm version - the one where the prince sleeps with Rapunzel and when the Mother finds out she gouges out the prince's eyes and banishes Rapunzel to wonder the desert and birth her children alone, that version.

Some people aren't going to like this book because of the darker material, but I believe Napoli handles the material well. She doesn't shy away from the fact that someone locked up in a tower for years with no one for company would slowly go insane. She doesn't brush aside that having hair that long and having someone climb it would cause excruciating pain.

What this book does well is provide insight into each character - their thoughts, their emotions, their motivations for doing things. Why would anyone trade their child for handfuls of lettuce? Why is Rapunzel locked in the tower? Why doesn't she try to leave? And how does the prince become so infatuated with her? I appreciated these clarifications on the original tale, I enjoyed having such well-rounded characters, and liked that the darker elements of the story were given and explored and not sugar coated or brushed aside.

The novel switches back and forth between three points of view - the Mother, Zel, and the prince. Normally, I don't like novels that switch perspective between characters because it usually isn't done well and I end up confused. But I experienced no such confusion with this novel.

So, why three stars if I can point out so many good things? It's hard to explain ... I didn't feel absorbed into the story. I wasn't enchanted by it. I liked it. It's a good story. It just didn't seem to have whatever I need to say that I really like a story or that it was fantastic.

I would definitely recommend picking up Zel if you like the story of Rapunzel and are looking for retellings on it, especially if you don't mind the darker stuff. As a retelling, the novel does what it does well and is very good in that aspect. If you are not looking for a retelling specifically, and just want a good book to curl up with and get sucked into, this novel might not be what you are looking for.

Poison Study

Okay, so I'm throwing out the idea of reviewing series as sets unless I have reason to otherwise. Ha. Next up, we have Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. I've been thinking lately about how a lot of books have pointless prologues or just have poor beginning chapters that don't offer much substance and their books take too long to get to the point. This book, however, is awesome in that we are dumped right into the action.

We meet Yelena as she is about to go to her execution for killing a general's son. The Comander's poison taster (this is a kingdom controlled by the military) has recently died, and as per the Code of Conduct, the position must be offered to those facing execution (I guess since no one but someone already facing their death would be crazy enough to take the job). Yelena accepts, and finds herself in a position where her life is threatened every bit as much as before.

This novel suffers from an identity crisis. Since the characters are in a castle and there's no electricity, I would think the setting is going for middle ages (and the cover helps with that). There's also mention of period appropriate clothing. But there are modern influences that pop up that shouldn't. For one, not even the most prestigious castle would have running hot water. Technology would not be advanced enough for switchblades or trampolines. I'm not sure "disinfectant" would have been a word. "Military district" would not have been shorted to "MD" in conversation or conscious thought. Yelena wouldn't bathe everyday. And even though this is a fantasy kingdom with it's own customs, animals, people, and countries, coffee somehow exists. This book doesn't know if it wants to be medieval, it's own fantasy realm, or modern.

There's some not so well constructed story elements. Yelena is given a poison that she needs a daily antidote to for the rest of her life or she'll die. I might be willing to believe Yelena doesn't realize poisons don't work like that, but you're telling me no one out of the multiple people Yelena goes to for help don't know poisons don't work like that? There's no possible way Valek could have switched out a poisoned bottle of wine with a clean one. He'd have to have the second bottle close by, for one. And since the wine is from a country they don't import with, it'd be impossible. And there's no way a master chief wouldn't have thought of roasting some mystery beans to change their flavor, especially not when Yelena asked if they were coffee beans, which he's been craving for years.

Transitions are severely lacking between paragraphs. For example: In one sentence Yelena is talking with Lisa, then paragraph break and Yelena is with the Camander. Yes, I know Yelena was on her way to the Camander and she caught Lisa on the way there. I can figure that out, but you need to tell me that Yelena moved from Lisa's side and continued on her way so I don't sit there and go "wait-wha?" in the moment. This kind of thing happens throughout the book.

The author needs to give more description in certain instances. At one point Yelena gets out a grappling hook and "climbs through the trees." How? How is this working with the grappling hook? How is she moving from tree to tree? You need to describe it to me. When Yelena and the love interest finally kiss, it's glossed over so quickly, the meaning that's supposed to be attached to it went right over my head. More description was needed here and in other places.

Yes, this novel has issues. It makes me sad to think these are all things a good editor could have caught and worked with the author to correct. When you look at it all written up, the damage would seem pretty major. Yet, I've always said that if a story is good, I can overlook almost any other issues. And this book proves to follow that rule. Despite everything, I got caught up in the story. I couldn't put the book down. And when I finished with it, I immediately wanted the next one.