Could it be? Is this really a zombie novel with two bad ass heroines kicking butt and taking names? Oh. No. It isn't.
I'll give Frater credit where creCould it be? Is this really a zombie novel with two bad ass heroines kicking butt and taking names? Oh. No. It isn't.
I'll give Frater credit where credit is due: this story starts off like a really awesome slap in the face. We're introduced to Jenni, who is staring at the tiny baby fingers of her toddler son reaching under a crack in her door. Why? Because her abusive and zombified husband is having him for a snack. Her other son has been bitten by her husband, too, and is trying to claw out of the house via the window to take a chunk out of mommy. Jenni is only saved when Lesbian Katie (more on this in a minute) rolls up and gets her into the truck before she becomes zombie lunchmeat. Then, I'm afraid, begins the agonizing spiral into What The Shit Is This Land.
Here are the problems with this book:
- Characterization:
Jenni, you suck. After Jenni is rescued and she and Katie find a place to hole up for a while, she offers herself up to Lesbian Katie. I get it in a way. Coming from an abusive household, one might safely assume that Jenni has been brainwashed into thinking that she's nothing but a puppet for the needs of other people. Since Katie is the one that rescued her, it might be logical for Jenni to assume that sex is the price for safety and protection, making it really easy to not see this situation for what it is, which is just the first in a long line of scenarios in which Jenni thinks with her netherparts instead of her brain. Jenni's all-consuming goal of getting laid is so overwhelming for her that she forgets that she has a stepson that she needs to rescue (which, if I'm being honest, feels like just an impetus for Frater to insert a fancy action sequence into her story because her stepson is basically pointless after his rescue) and that she's lost her two sons less than a week prior. In short: abort, abort, abort.
Katie, you don't suck as much as Jenni. You're Diet Suck. I have dubbed Katie Lesbian Katie because ninety percent of the narrative about her is about her sexuality. In fact, the parts about her read less like a zombie novel and more like shitty dialogue in a Lifetime movie about gay acceptance. No, really, it gets so bad that Lesbian Katie goes out of her way to have a completely inappropriate and, frankly, pointless conversation about her sexuality with Jenni's adolescent stepson. She entrusted a fifteen year old the secret of her bisexuality; the whole bit felt more like an unnecessary scene for Frater to explain Katie's blossoming attraction with a man, when, if it had been kept out of the book, the story would not have been lacking.
Also, Frater's dudes sound like ladies. You know how annoying Bella Swan was in Twilight mooning over Edward? That was basically every male character in this book.
- Story:
One thing that Frater did really well was make sure that there was a lot of action. I liked that part about her writing because with the limited wriggle room available with zombie lore, stories can become dull or repetitive, which makes interpersonal relationships between characters necessary. Here is the problem. Much of the story focused on a stupid love quadrangle - Jenni loves cock (Travis', first), Travis loves Lesbian Katie, Juan loves Jenni, Katie wants to mourn her undead wife in peace - which was given far more importance than it should have. I was much more intrigued with the politics of the little community that Jenni and Katie found themselves in instead of a dumb game of elementary school Love Connection.
- General issues:
Every single character says, "Gawd" instead of "God". So it was pages of, "Oh my Gawd," and "Gawd, that's terrible," from every single character. I realize that this was a stylistic choice by Frater, but it made me want to punch puppies when every single character started to sound like an unintelligent Scarlett O'Hara.
It was super cute when Juan gave Jenni the nickname Loca. It stopped being cute around the four hundredth time he went out of his way to call her Loca. It made me wonder if Frater has ever had a conversation with a real person because every single sentence was peppered with her name, unnecessarily. Things he actually said: "You're loca, Loca." Shut up. The only redeeming quality about Juan is that I couldn't unsee him as Kevin Alejandro in my head:
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Execution of the story in general was pretty bad. I had comprehension problems with the way Frater described things, but I didn't expect so much when I realized this book was a self-published deal. And it's no wonder. Gawd....more
Okay, it's official: I am the last person on the planet to have read Darkfever. I finished it the other morning at exactly four-seventeen and I remembOkay, it's official: I am the last person on the planet to have read Darkfever. I finished it the other morning at exactly four-seventeen and I remember that because I kept glancing at the clock going, why am I awake? and why did I have to run out of sugar-free Red Bull today?
A brief prologue tossed out a bunch of information with terminology that I didn't quite understand, but the first few pages beyong that were pretty great, introducing Mac as this Sookie Stackhouse type character - she's blonde, young, Southern, and she works in a bar. I like Sookie Stackhouse, so my interest was immediately caught. Moning writes about the South in such a way that you know that she's been there and she's not just taking her queues from redneck jokes she looked up on google. I like that. So when it came to the point that Mac decided to go to Ireland to investigate her sister's death after hearing her cryptic voicemail, I was kind of disappointed; I like the Southern aesthetic, okay?
So, Mac. She started off great and swiftly became almost unbearable; I don't think I've ever read a book with a more vapid character. Every other paragraph was about some dumb shade of pink that she was painting her nails or how awesome her legs looked or the flowery/rainbow skirt she was wearing to match her pink nails that made her legs look awesome. This goes on throughout the course of the novel. It's especially bad when Mac is forced to cut and color her hair. She went from vapid to whiny to whiny and vapid. It was bad. Not to mention, I kind of felt like Mac was stupid in a lot of ways. Some of the things she said made me want to punch her for being an idiot. Examples:
- "Should I be calling pubs poos?" - If you don't know what I mean or you think I'm being melodramatic, then you've never really loved anyone. - And then this narrative was just gratuitous and unnecessary: I felt as if he'd not only seen me nude but somehow knew I had a tiny heart-shaped mole on the left cheek of my behind, and another on my right breast, just east of my nipple.
Next, there's Jericho Barrons (or Barrens, as this ebook sometimes said - wtf, mate?). I've learned that Jericho, via several reviews, is the love interest. I was kind of disappointed to hear that. Mostly because he's a bag of assholes. After first meeting Mac, he shows up to her hotel room in the middle of the night, threatens her, and proceeds to push her up against the wall with his hand around her throat and kiss her neck. This wasn't sexy; this made my skin crawl. He doesn't get a lot better beyond that, either, considering he's also a giant misogynist. Examples:
- "Go home, Ms. Lane. Be young. Be pretty. Get married. Have babies. Grow old with your pretty husband." - "As if you could. You might break a nail." - "Just the latest piece of ass, McCabe." I no longer had to bite down. I was speechless. McCabe laughed. "She talk?" "Not unless I tell her to. Her mouth's usually too full."
There are other examples of misogyny throughout the book, both Barrons' and others, and it's all repugnant. Like I mentioned on some of my statuses, the only way that I was able to get through this book was to imagine Jericho as Colin Farrell. I know it's not supposed to be attractive when anyone treats women the way Jericho does, but for some reason, Colin Farrell makes it tolerable. Don't judge me.
As far as the story itself, I was reasonably impressed. I liked the fact that there was a plot exclusive to this novel, but there was clearly a developing arch that could be explored later. I liked reading about the different types of creatures that were presented, even thought the randomly masturbating many-mouthed one was again, really gratuitous and gross. Even the sex-fae wasn't all that bad, though the scenes in which Mac had to keep putting her clothes back on were ridiculous. The scene in the museum, particularly after Mac showed the spear to V'lane and the glamour dissipated, was horrifying and really triggery for me, but unlike similar triggery issues in Dead Witch Walking, I thought it was more integral to the story in that Mac could have a solid example of what these creatures were capable of. I liked reading about the shadows and the way that they killed, especially.
There's no doubt that the mythology used in this book is rich and explored pretty well. It makes me interested to read the other books in the series to see what other creatures Mac will encounter. I just hope that she's infinitely less annoying in book two than she was in Darkfever....more
I wasn't going to review this book because it meant taking an extra five to ten minutes thinking about it, which should, essentially, convey exactly wI wasn't going to review this book because it meant taking an extra five to ten minutes thinking about it, which should, essentially, convey exactly what I thought about it. I'm also flabbergasted as to how the rating on this book could be so high; I feel as though it's my civic duty to rate it appropriately so that maybe someone somewhere won't make the mistake of picking up this novel to read.
Let's start with the Becca Fitzpatrick's most cardinal sin. Hush, Hush is a blatant rip-off of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga which is a blatant rip-off of L.J. Smith's The Vampire Diaries. Here's the one question that I have: how in the hell do you rip-off a book like Twilight and make it suck worse than the original? I mean, a person has to have a special kind of talent in order to borrow a plot from a terrible writer and make it even worse.
For your pleasure (or, you know - abject horror), here are a few similarities between the two novels:
1.) The main character is a girl so stupid that she makes Paris Hilton look like a member of MENSA by comparison.
2.) The love interest of the main character is a rapey, pervy sicko that outright says multiple times that his base instinct is to kill her.
3.) What little plot and back story there is in this novel doesn't appear until approximately page three hundred; it's as though Becca was so focused on writing about her 'hero' (I use this term incredibly loosely) sexually harassing Dumb Girl that when she got to page three hundred and realized there was no plot to speak of, she shoved in a whole bunch of confusing, stupid mythology and hoped that no one would notice.
4.) Annoying supporting characters, holy shit. Dumb Girl's best friend is a girl named Vee. I remember her name distinctly because every second I saw it in this book, I fantasized about there being a real Vee so that I could hit her with my car and/or maim her to death with a golf club. Vee essentially forces a creepy, rapey guy (not the love interest; you heard me - there's more than one rapey guy in this book!) into Dumb Girl's life and Dumb Girl basically allows her to do so instead of telling her to stick it where the sun doesn't shine. Dumb Girl, you should have let your friend die.
There were several scenes in this book that mortified me to my core. Really, Becca Fitzpatrick? Writing a scene in which an educator essentially harasses a student into talking about 'attractive traits in a mate'? Really, Becca? Letting that same educator ignore another student's overt sexual harassment of another student?
I can appreciate a good hate/love relationship as much as the next girl, I really can, but this love story wasn't a hate/love sort of thing. This love story was about a controlling, perverted guy taking advantage of a girl that clearly lacked the spine to tell him to back the hell off. This was a story in which girls are supposed to swoon because even though a foul, lascivious jerk-bag of a guy wants and needs to kill a girl but doesn't because it's 'so romantic'. It's not romantic. It's scary that this is what publishers are impressing upon young girls. I don't have a daughter, but if I did, I definitely wouldn't want her to read this and love a guy that embodied all of these qualities; that's just dangerous....more
**spoiler alert** IMPORTANT EDIT (1/14/18): Fam, I wrote this review in 2011.
All of y'all commenting in 2018 need to get over it. I've moved to a diff**spoiler alert** IMPORTANT EDIT (1/14/18): Fam, I wrote this review in 2011.
All of y'all commenting in 2018 need to get over it. I've moved to a different account. I've moved past Cassandra Clare and while I maintain that this book is a blatant rip off of about 1000 other books (and while a lot of you insist that she's an original author, like it or not, she does have a history with plagiarism/bad behavior), I haven't read any of her new stuff so I can't tell you if she's continued to toe the line with plagiarism or write poorly. In fact, I can tell you that a lot of people whose opinions I trust say that she's become a much better, more original writer. I've even considered reading some of her newer books.
If you enjoy her writing, good for you. If these books she's written are important to you, I'm happy for you. My opinions are my opinions, you don't have to share them.
What's really gross is the amount of bullying and personal attacks that are going on in these comments and in messages I've received. While I do regret some of the harshness of the original view, attacking me or anyone else in the comments (on either side of the fence) is gross. I've received abuse about my looks, about my writing abilities (I don't write), about my sex life (people implying I should get laid), about my mental health, and even a few messages telling me to kill myself. All because you don't like my opinion of a book. Guys, even if you hate this review, you have to see that this is way too much.
I've grown up since writing this review and I sincerely hope that some of you have matured, too, since writing some of the hate that I've read (some of of which I've deleted) in these comments. Please stop. Please move on.
Review from 1/24/11: I've been deliberating for a few hours over doing a Serious Business review of City of Bones and outlining the infinite number of problems that lie within, but I decided that any critical thought that I could flesh out isn't going to be anything that you've never heard before. Therefore, I choose the low road - sarcasm and mockery.
Oh, Cassie Clare, you so crazy. I can only guess that after writing almost a million words of Harry Potter fan fiction, a bunch of people sucking your e-cock for stealing whole paragraphs from books and quotes from Buffy simply wasn't enough. No, I understand. You had to capitalize on all that time spent typing up whole paragraphs from books and outlining plots that pretty blatantly ripped off from various films, books, etc. I get it. I'm sure that's how the Mortal Instruments came to fruition. It is painfully obvious that your dopey red-haired ingenue and snarky blond asshole were essentially Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy in Original Character clothing. Ditto Simon being a hybrid of Harry/Ron and maybe Isabelle being a slutty Hermione. But wait, you didn't stop there! Hodge is Lupin/Peter Pettigrew 2.0 and Luke is better known by his other name, Sirius Black, and I am not entirely sure why you didn't just call Valentine by his true name - Voldemort. And seriously, though, why not just call the Mortal Instruments by their true name - the Deathly Hallows? But wait, it gets better!
Strong with this novel, the Force is - because somehow there's a creepy Luke and Leia thing going on with Clary and Jace which, for the record: dude, that's nasty. How dare you let them make out and then discover they're related. Because I had to know in order to keep myself from hurling up my dinner, I did discover that this little detail does get resolved eventually, but I reiterate: that's nasty. I thought the point of this book was to make teenage girls hold their hands to their hearts and swoon, not make them want to upchuck with what I find to be your disturbing affinity for incest (seriously - you had the whole six episodes of Star Wars to steal, uh, draw inspiration from and you pick the creepy incesty parts?). But it's weird, because if Jace and Clary are Luke and Leia, does that make Simon Han Solo? In a weird way, I found Jace's whole over-confident demeanor to be more like Han, which I guess is pretty on point with what happens in later novels. In other news, I will no longer be referring to Valentine as simply that; he is now Darth Valentine. Yes, I said it. I guess this makes Jocelyn Padme, except she's not dead yet.
I must give you where credit where credit is due, though. Clary isn't a total dumb, annoying, doormat heroine, which is essentially my biggest pet peeve in the entirety of fiction. Instead, Clary is just dumb and annoying. Why the fuck does she slap everyone? It doesn't make her a strong, venerable female, it makes her a psychotic bitch, especially since there wasn't a single justifiable slap she delivered. Also, she's a moron. Blind, deaf babies knew that Simon was in love with her. My dog knew that Simon was in love with her and the most complicated thought he has in a day is, 'gee, I think I'll lick my junk today'. I have no idea why it's such a surprise to her, really. This brings me to my second greatest pet peeve and yet another trope that you liberally borrowed from, well, everyone: all the boys want Clary. What the hell is this shit? Clary isn't even likable. You stole it off of Stephenie Meyer who stole it off of L.J. Smith and frankly? You keep copying copies, the shittier-looking and harder to read they get. You are not an exception, you are the rule.
Also, okay. So the Clave is like the circle of Jedi, right? And the Circle is like the Order of the Phoenix and the Death-Eaters, sort of, but bad. So, like, Order of the Sith, kind of? Also, is Darth Valentine channeling Magneto from X-Men: The Last Stand with his whole 'purifying the race' bullshit? I think he is. Now that I've brought the X-Men into the picture, I can see the vast similarities there, too; Clary is film version Rogue and Wolverine - Rogue because she can't be with the person she loves physically (Rogue's life-sucking power = Clary's being in love with her brother) and Wolverine because of the whole not having any memories thing and wondering why he has all this power. Also, The Institute = The Knight Bus/Hogsmeade/The Leaky Cauldron (because sometimes the Institute boards travelers and there's bad food at all three places, much like Isabelle's cooking) and also Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters (and Hodge is kind of Professor Xavier-esqe - his inability to leave the institute = Professor X's disability) and also The Jedi Training Academy and also possibly Starfleet from Trek.
You know what the funniest thing about all this is, Cassie Clare? You aren't even stealth about stealing. You know, when most people shoplift, they maybe do a cursory look for the cameras and stuff something in their pocket when they think no one is looking, but you're that chick that goes up to the clerk, asks a clerk a question about a product you have in your hand while winking that you just don't have the money to pay for it. In this book there were blatant reference to both X-Men and Star Wars (Magneto and Prof. X by name and the dice hanging up in the Millennium Falcon).
Now that I've drawn all necessary attention to your totally original content, I want to talk about the story in general. I read this book because it was handed down to me by my recently-turned eleven year old niece. I figured, okay, I'll figure out what the big deal is with this book since everyone and their mom (no, really, I think my mom, too) has read it. My niece isn't what anyone would call fastidious; she hates cleaning her room and at dinner, she likes to mash all of her food together and make a sculpture with it and then eat it. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the portion of the book I borrowed from her had pages upon pages of highlighted words. I figured, aw cute, she highlighted her favorite parts. But, no, my eleven year old niece had gone through the book and highlighted grammatical errors. There were misspellings, comma splices, and just general bad phrasing all throughout. She had also highlighted words that she saw in multiples. Seriously, Cassie Clare, I get it. Every time a wolf shows up in your book, you don't have to describe it as 'brindled'. I get it. Did your word-of-the-day calendar run out? Did you lose your thesaurus? Do you have a short-term memory problem and forget that you used the word 'brindled' to describe a wolf eight times? I can't even talk about the metaphors and the similes. I can't. I used to like them. Now they make me want to punch toddlers in the face because your book is full of approximately nine hundred and thirty-three million of them. I am also not going to talk about your bizarre tense changes and the random chapter you threw in from Luke's point of view which was completely out of character for both a man and a human, let alone Luke - no one talks like that.
Another thing that I want to reference is this whole stele thing. In Tatiana's review, she mentioned that there didn't seem to be any parameters with this stele; it seemed to be a fix-it for whenever you had written yourself into a hole. I may not have noticed it had I not read the review first, given that as I was trudging through, I was filled with an irrational rage. It's a very good point, though. But since I read your book in three days just to get through it, I'm feeling like an asshole and I want to ask the following questions: can the stele make me look like Scarlett Johansson?; can the stele magic a cheeseburger out of thin air? These are questions of vital importance. Because if the stele can't, maybe you want to consider it in case one of your characters gets stuck on an island with no food for three years or something.
In conclusion, Cassie Clare, OF COURSE YOUR BOOK IS GOOD. YOU STOLE EVERYTHING IN IT FROM OTHER PEOPLE. I just want to say that I sincerely hope that you make/have made a lot of money off your books; I also hope that the people you blatantly stole your content from take it all from you when they sue you.
Here is the Reader's Digest version of this review:
The Mortal Instruments = Harry Potter/Star Wars/X-Men/possibly Star Trek Clary Fray = Ginny Weasley/Princess Leia/Rogue/Wolverine/Uhura/Cassandra Clare, herself Jace Wayland = Draco Malfoy/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo/Wolverine/possibly Captain Kirk Simon = Harry/Ron/Cyclops/sometimes Han Solo/possibly Spock Isabelle = Slutty Hermione/one of the green chicks Captain Kirk always hits it with/one of Jabba the Hut's slaves/possibly Jubilee or another dumb, irrelevant mutant Alec = token gay character/C-3P0?? Luke = Sirius Black/Chewbacca Jocelyn = Padme Hodge = Remus Lupin/Peter Pettigrew/Professor Xavier Valentine = Voldemort/Darth Vader/Magneto The Institute = The Knight Bus/Hogsmeade/The Leaky Cauldron/12 Grimmauld Place/Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters/Starfleet Academy Church the cat = Mrs. Norris/R2D2 the portals = Floo Network/Disapperating/Beam me up, Scotty
EDIT:
Someone pointed out that mundies = muggles GOOD POINT, YO...more
Katie Ellison is a moron. And that's the nicest thing that I can say about the so-called 'heroine' of this steaming load of crap.
The story is based arKatie Ellison is a moron. And that's the nicest thing that I can say about the so-called 'heroine' of this steaming load of crap.
The story is based around the lies and life of one girl that I can find no redeeming qualities in, even after her transition into truth-telling after living a life weaving stories for her own nefarious purposes. The entirety of the book reads like a thirteen year old girl's diary, evoking the me, me, me mindset of a spoiled brat for whom enough is never enough. Additionally, Katie is surrounded by a hive of like-minded, vapid friends who on more than one occasion justify her bad behavior and facilitate their own.
The resolution isn't much better. In true fashion of a person who truly believes that the world revolves around them, Katie comes out as a liar publicly, causing the ruin of a community event because she's too selfish to make peace with the people she's hurt privately, thus nullifying this bullshit martyr act of hers.
The love story. What can I say about the love story? Which love story are we talking about? In addition to being a liar, Katie is also a cheater. She cheats on the boyfriend that she lied to get, she cheats on the boyfriend that she's cheating on boyfriend number one with, which makes her transformation into a seemingly monogamous being for this new-old guy in her life totally unbelievable, essentially ruining any possible reason for anyone wanting to read this book.
If Meg Cabot had killed off every character in this book in a massive bus accident, I might have given it more than one star. Thanks, Meg, for teaching young girls that you can lie, cheat, and manipulate people and you can still have a perfect, happy ending....more
I picked up Dead Witch Walking in the wake of finishing Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris. Having perused both Wikipedia and Goodreads for a geneI picked up Dead Witch Walking in the wake of finishing Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris. Having perused both Wikipedia and Goodreads for a general synopsis of the story, I felt confident that I was going to love the series and that it would also soothe the ache of not getting another Sookie Stackhouse novel until May of this year. This was a bad idea for two reasons: 1.) Gauging the content of one set of novels, however similar, against another (especially since it was the first in a series - sometimes it takes time for author's to get their sea-legs with a new character or world), makes it impossible to do an objective reading and 2.) I was, naturally, completely disappointed.
I didn't violently hate Rachel Morgan as much as I've hated other female protagonists. Don't get me wrong. Rachel definitely had her annoying moments, namely whenever she grabbed on to someone and growled 'cookie' at them. I know that Kim Harrison was probably just try to emphasize Rachel's bad-assness or whatever, but I thought it was really annoying and stupid. If I met someone that did this in real life, I'd probably punch them in the temple. Something about Rachel that confused me was her inexplicable fear of Ivy. I get it, she's never lived with a vampire before, but as an IS runner, I have to assume that she had been in contact with all manner of dangerous creatures beforehand, which made the whole fear of Ivy thing really weird. Ivy was okay, too. I think I probably like her more than Rachel. The clear star of this whole book is Jenks, though. Jenks and Mrs. Jenks, and Jax, too. I want four hundred thousand words on the Jenks family in which they fight a fairy war and they decorate their tree stump with scrap yarn and cleaned lids of aluminum cans for mirrors!
Anyway, I think Rachel was kind of stupid. She would get injured, go out and get injured some more and go out and get injured some more. I get what she was trying to accomplish, so I don't know that I'd put her in the 'dumb heroine' category just yet, but she was really sort of moronic in places.
I didn't mind the lack of love interest so much. I can forgive a lot with a good plot. Unfortunately, lacked that, so it would have been nice to have some guy in the picture to make this book a lot less boring.
The world-building was okay. It took me a long time to get through this novel and I think it was because in places, Kim's writing was a little weird. And, for whatever reason, it bored me for about seventy-five percent of the book. I liked the witchy/spell-casting parts. I liked the general concept of a world in tatters because of a virus spread by genetically-engineered tomatoes since it's at least marginally plausible (seriously, kids, they're already selling genetically engineered fish at your local grocery store).
The biggest problem that I had with the book was the triggery content. The mink scene made me physically ill. I rescue abused animals. The dog that was formerly in my user photo was an abused dog, too. I got him from the kill-shelter on the day he was supposed to be euthanized. He had two broken legs and he was absolutely petrified of all people. He's great now. He's more than great, actually, considering he gets steak every Saturday night and we make him his own cheeseburgers whenever it's red meat day in our house. The point is, I can't stomach animal abuse, even in fiction. I'll stop watching films if animal abuse is even implied. This scene where Trent keeps Rachel locked in a cage and allows Jonathan to essentially poke, prod, and beat at this mink - even though she wasn't really a mink - disturbed me to the point of tears. Even more disturbing was the graphic violence described in the rat-fights; animal fighting is a particularly triggery thing for me since I just got two rescues that were used in dog fights. I just thought it was really unnecessary to the plot when Trent could have easily locked Rachel up as a human and tortured her. It was sick.
The second triggery thing was the shape-shifting demon, asking Rachel if she was afraid of rape. Enough said. I think it was disturbing and I think the book would have been better without it and the gratuitous violence against animals.
I'm giving this a two. Had it not been for those specific scenes, I'd give it a three and I'd be mildly interested to see what happens next in the series. That said, I sincerely doubt I'll be reading the next book in the series or anything else Kim Harrison has written....more
**spoiler alert** In all honesty, if this hadn't been a free book (my friend runs a used bookstore and is forever refusing to allow me to pay for tran**spoiler alert** In all honesty, if this hadn't been a free book (my friend runs a used bookstore and is forever refusing to allow me to pay for transactions; I pay her in cake), I'd have been upset that I paid money for it.
I'd been thinking about snagging this book forever. Like almost everyone else I know, I love John Green. I love John Green so much that after I finish this review, I'm shelling out a twenty-five dollar donation to read his self-proclaimed 'terrible' novella entitled Zombicorn. Therefore, reading this book was a no-brainer, though I wasn't familiar with either of the other writers involved. Additionally, I'm a sucker for a good holiday romance. Good holiday romances these were not, though.
Maureen Johnson's story is first - "The Jubilee Express". It wasn't entirely memorable. I remember the basic premise was a girl traveling because her parents were incarcerated for not leaving a line in which they had been waiting for a collectible winter figurine thingum. I remember that the train stopped and the girl inexplicably got off the train and headed to Waffle House where she met a stranger who she goes home with. Overall forgettable. Sorry, Maureen Johnson.
Next was John Green's "A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle". As I suspected when I first picked up the book, it was my favorite of the three stories. What was likeable about this story for me was that it departed from John Green's usual schtick of geeky-awkward boy falling in love with a quirky girl filled with wanderlust. I can't say that I enjoyed it better than I did, say, Paper Towns, but it was an interesting peek outside of John's niche. He should try it again sometime.
"The Patron Saint of Pigs" by Lauren Myracle was last, thank god, because if it hadn't been, I sincerely doubt that I would have been able to plow through the rest of the book. Like John Green, based on this novella, Lauren Myracle seems to have a niche, too - cultivating extremely annoying characters. The main character, Addie, was narcissistic, whiny, and a total bitchtaco. She cheated on her boyfriend and whined and cried because her friends tried to approach the subject of getting her boyfriend back realistically - guess what, bitchtaco? Boys don't want you back if you cheat on them. If I ever met a person like Addie in real life, I think I'd find a gun and shoot her. Needless to say, I will not be reading anything else by Lauren Myracle....more
I either read an interview or saw one with Stephenie Meyer who remarked that she got her plot to Twilight from a dream that she once had. After havingI either read an interview or saw one with Stephenie Meyer who remarked that she got her plot to Twilight from a dream that she once had. After having read this, I can say in all certainty that if she got the idea from a dream, it was at some point after reading this series. Look no further for her source material, here it is.
Just a few of the parallels that I noticed: Stefan (Edward) can read minds. Stefan and Elena fall splendidly and exquisitely in love with each other despite the fact that there's little narrative to their love story. Stefan wants to stay away from Elena because he's a killer, and so on, ad nauseum. Credit L.J. Smith here, though, considering that she was the one that did it first and she did it better (although I'd say not much, since I'm being honest).
Particularly in the first novel, "The Awakening", I found the main character - Elena - to be selfish, spoiled, and revolting. Perhaps it's because the popular, pretty girl foil is simply something that I can't related to, or perhaps it's because the idea of making my friends swear in blood that they won't stop until they 'get me' a boy is totally and completely absurd.
In the second book, Elena is a touch more palatable, but that might have been because the story as a whole got marginally better, leaving less time (but still ample, believe me) for Elena to wax poetic about the unexplainable love for Stefan that seemingly flourished after one kiss.
I'll give this three stars because it did get better in the end, but a more realistic rating would have been two or two and a half....more
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