book reviews
Hello!
Yes, I do still have a livejournal. Who knew. Law school is boring, and I'm on summer break, yay. So I've decided to read a ton of YA in between interning and all that.
Reviews! Because I wanted to put my thoughts down somewhere. SPOILERS within.
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
I really enjoyed this. The story is narrated by a pathological liar, so it is the ultimate in unreliable narrator epics. The main storyline is the mystery of who murdered the narrator's boyfriend. The author does a really great job of getting us to believe the narrator over and over and over again, even as the narrator reveals that she lied about this or that little thing. She then slips in a little line like "I didn't kill him either" out of nowhere which just made me stop and reread that page about three times over.
It's hard to say what's good or bad about this book. It's mostly just intriguing, and I came away from it with a lot of respect for the author's technique. There are a lot of purposeful inconsistencies. e.g.: The narrator goes on about how she misses her boyfriend in some places. In others she says she isn't sure she loved him, because she really preferred to be alone better. The best part was, although you start disbelieving the narrator more and more, most every individual lie she tells is couched in real human emotion and ultimately believable. (This changes a bit as the book progresses and you start seriously doubting everything the narrator says... but the author really makes it work.)
The first major twist in the story was disappointing to me (and apparently most of the reviewers on Amazon and such). However, I can't get get too angry at the author bringing in a supernatural twist halfway through a book, given that there's the ever-increasing possibility that the narrator is just lying about it all.
A lot of the reviewers were also disappointed that we didn't get to know at the end what had really happened, but I liked that. I don't think it would have been in the spirit of the book for the author to come clean.
One critique I have is that the narrator - after you've been reading long enough that you won't just put the book down and not finish - openly mocks the reader several times for being gullible. Should have been toned down, especially if catering to teens.
^ Overall, recommend pretty highly.
Wings by Aprilynne Pike
Um. It probably should have tipped me off that Steph Meyers endorsed this book, but it was really pretty terrible. It was very quick and readable, and my first instinct after finishing was to go looking for the sequel, so take all this with a grain of salt. However, after I stepped back a bit, I was left too annoyed at the book to really want more. The heroine is supermodel gorgeous. She moves to a new town, immediately some sweet and cute guy is all over her. His female best friend who also has a crush on him is all "well dayumn, Heroine. But instead of resenting you like a normal teenage girl would, I'm going to be all selfless and encourage you to get together."
Then of course we find that Heroine is actually a fairy placed with regular parents for some epic quest she never knew about. GASP. She also has a flower grow out of her back. That actually sounds kind of cool, but trust me, all they did was go on about how gorgeous and attractive it was. *rolls eyes*
She somehow winds up back at her old house with is IMPORTANT FAIRY TERRITORY, we discover. There is also some random fairy guard there who hits on Heroine like a crazy thing. He is as ridiculously good looking as she is. If all fairies are this hot, shouldn't he be immune to her non-charms? But no, she's the hottest of hot things. And then the rest of the story, while not quite an epic battle in Heroine's heart between Hot Fairy Boy and Hot Human Boy, was pretty close. There was some random plot thrown in of some trolls trying to buy the important fairy territory from Heroine's broke parents. And then trying to kill Heroine and Hot Human Boy when they tried to stop the evil and ugly trolls. It was okay, nothing I haven't read fifty times before. Some good usage of 9th grade biology, so at least the teens will learn something?
The most interesting parts of the book were that fairies were somehow plants and grew flowers out of themselves. And produced baby fairies via pollination. (But still had regular sex for pleasure.) It didn't make much scientific sense, though. And was really quite ruined by going on about how good looking all the fairies/plants/good guys are, and how ugly looking the trolls/animals/bad guys are.
^ Overall, it was quick and readable, but nothing special. I was annoyed by the stupid teenage love triangle, and how all the good guys were super attractive and bad guys super ugly. Do not recommend.
More to come! Up next should be Kelley Armstrong's Darkest Powers series.
Yes, I do still have a livejournal. Who knew. Law school is boring, and I'm on summer break, yay. So I've decided to read a ton of YA in between interning and all that.
Reviews! Because I wanted to put my thoughts down somewhere. SPOILERS within.
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
I really enjoyed this. The story is narrated by a pathological liar, so it is the ultimate in unreliable narrator epics. The main storyline is the mystery of who murdered the narrator's boyfriend. The author does a really great job of getting us to believe the narrator over and over and over again, even as the narrator reveals that she lied about this or that little thing. She then slips in a little line like "I didn't kill him either" out of nowhere which just made me stop and reread that page about three times over.
It's hard to say what's good or bad about this book. It's mostly just intriguing, and I came away from it with a lot of respect for the author's technique. There are a lot of purposeful inconsistencies. e.g.: The narrator goes on about how she misses her boyfriend in some places. In others she says she isn't sure she loved him, because she really preferred to be alone better. The best part was, although you start disbelieving the narrator more and more, most every individual lie she tells is couched in real human emotion and ultimately believable. (This changes a bit as the book progresses and you start seriously doubting everything the narrator says... but the author really makes it work.)
The first major twist in the story was disappointing to me (and apparently most of the reviewers on Amazon and such). However, I can't get get too angry at the author bringing in a supernatural twist halfway through a book, given that there's the ever-increasing possibility that the narrator is just lying about it all.
A lot of the reviewers were also disappointed that we didn't get to know at the end what had really happened, but I liked that. I don't think it would have been in the spirit of the book for the author to come clean.
One critique I have is that the narrator - after you've been reading long enough that you won't just put the book down and not finish - openly mocks the reader several times for being gullible. Should have been toned down, especially if catering to teens.
^ Overall, recommend pretty highly.
Wings by Aprilynne Pike
Um. It probably should have tipped me off that Steph Meyers endorsed this book, but it was really pretty terrible. It was very quick and readable, and my first instinct after finishing was to go looking for the sequel, so take all this with a grain of salt. However, after I stepped back a bit, I was left too annoyed at the book to really want more. The heroine is supermodel gorgeous. She moves to a new town, immediately some sweet and cute guy is all over her. His female best friend who also has a crush on him is all "well dayumn, Heroine. But instead of resenting you like a normal teenage girl would, I'm going to be all selfless and encourage you to get together."
Then of course we find that Heroine is actually a fairy placed with regular parents for some epic quest she never knew about. GASP. She also has a flower grow out of her back. That actually sounds kind of cool, but trust me, all they did was go on about how gorgeous and attractive it was. *rolls eyes*
She somehow winds up back at her old house with is IMPORTANT FAIRY TERRITORY, we discover. There is also some random fairy guard there who hits on Heroine like a crazy thing. He is as ridiculously good looking as she is. If all fairies are this hot, shouldn't he be immune to her non-charms? But no, she's the hottest of hot things. And then the rest of the story, while not quite an epic battle in Heroine's heart between Hot Fairy Boy and Hot Human Boy, was pretty close. There was some random plot thrown in of some trolls trying to buy the important fairy territory from Heroine's broke parents. And then trying to kill Heroine and Hot Human Boy when they tried to stop the evil and ugly trolls. It was okay, nothing I haven't read fifty times before. Some good usage of 9th grade biology, so at least the teens will learn something?
The most interesting parts of the book were that fairies were somehow plants and grew flowers out of themselves. And produced baby fairies via pollination. (But still had regular sex for pleasure.) It didn't make much scientific sense, though. And was really quite ruined by going on about how good looking all the fairies/plants/good guys are, and how ugly looking the trolls/animals/bad guys are.
^ Overall, it was quick and readable, but nothing special. I was annoyed by the stupid teenage love triangle, and how all the good guys were super attractive and bad guys super ugly. Do not recommend.
More to come! Up next should be Kelley Armstrong's Darkest Powers series.