"Dreams of Gods and Monsters," by Laini Taylor

The Principal Cast:

Karou: It's up to her to help the chimaera ally themselves with the exiled seraphim to bring peace to Eretz.

Akiva: He might be the only one with the experience and charisma to convince his fellow seraphim to rebel against the Empire - but can he convince Karou to forgive him?

Liraz: Akiva's angry, shamed sister, who believes she's too damaged by war to be any good in peacetime.

Ziri: A young chimaera who sacrifices his body to help impersonate Thiago to bring peace to his people.

Eliza: A human woman on the run from a mysterious heritage who's haunted by visions of angels and beasts.

Angst Checklist:

• Life is Hard
• Like, Really Hard
• Did I mention Life is Hard?
• Also War
• And Hope
• And a lot of other Abstract Concepts
• Evil Grandmas
• Gullible Christians
• Douchey Research Fellows

The Word: I love candy, but in moderation. Eating too many turns the saliva in my mouth to acidic syrup, burning my tongue until I can't even really taste the sweetness anymore.

That's the reaction I had to Dreams of Gods and Monsters. The eagerly-awaited follow-up to Laini Taylor's endlessly inventive Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Days of Blood and Starlight taught me nothing so much as, this: Sorry Zuzana, but there is such a thing as too much cake.

Since the last book, Akiva and his Misbegotten seraphim brethren have fled the Empire to try and make an alliance with the remaining chimaera. To his surprise, Thiago, the notoriously violent chimaera general, is willing to put aside his people's hostility to consider an uneasy partnership.

Unbeknownst to Akiva - Thiago isn't exactly in his right mind. Or right body, I should say. Karou was forced to kill the general in the previous book when he tried to rape her, but she resurrected his body - with the soul of her dear friend, Ziri, inside. Karou and Ziri know the only way to keep the chimaera under control is to keep up the charade that their trusted general Thiago is still alive. But will the gentle-hearted Ziri be able to successfully impersonate the brutal White Wolf?

Meanwhile, Jael, Akiva's monstrous uncle who has assumed the mantle of Emperor, has travelled to Earth in order to exploit Judeo-Christian symbolism in order to acquire human weapons of mass destruction. If it looks like an angel, carries a harp like an angel, and speaks Latin - well, then let's hand over our nukes!

This all sounds fascinating, right? Unfortunately, Gods and Monsters is a chocolate cake with too much icing. The cake itself is delicious and dark and layered and creative, there's no doubt about it - but you have to wade through so much sticky, sugary angst prose to get to it that it's almost not worth it.

There is no reason for Gods ands Monsters to be 600 pages long. I've always liked Laini Taylor's gorgeous writing - when it's applied economically. Here, a single act of magic will take five pages to describe. There are pages and pages of repetitive angsty inner monologues from both Karou and Akiva about how Everything is Dark and Bleak and Hopeless. Why do difficult things, when complaining about how difficult things are to do is so much easier?

The novel is rather haphazardly paced as a result. Karou will waste paragraphs dithering about the precise mechanics of Akiva's smile and what it means For Their Future, but the Big Giant Bad Guys are dispatched with rather hilarious (and overly-convenient) swiftness. Oh, and there's the sudden, out-of-nowhere Extra Adventure tacked on at the end to gum up the narrative in the name of Plugging a Sequel Series.

This novel reads better when it's skimmed. Taylor's language is beautiful, but it's the application of the language that matters. I'm frankly disappointed that such a promising first novel would get bogged down by increasingly bloated, bleak, self-indulgent sequels.
B-

"A Long, Long Sleep," by Annie Sheehan

The Protagonist: Rosalinda "Rose" Fitzroy. An heiress who wakes up after spending 62 years in frozen stasis.
Her Angst: Her entire life as she knows it is gone - her parents and friends are dead, and the world has changed in unfathomable ways. Her enemies, however, may still be alive...

Secondary Cast:

Xavier: Rose's childhood friend and first love. Rose met him as an infant, but as her parents put her back into stasis, their ages soon started to match up.

Bren: The boy who accidentally wakes Rose up from her frozen sleep, and one of the few friends she makes in this uncertain future.

Otto: An alien-hybrid boy who attends school with Rose and Bren, he commiserates with Rose on their shared weirdness and outcast status.

Mr. Guillory: The CEO of Rose's parent's company - a shady character who is not happy that this pretty popsicle has stolen his company out from under his nose.

Angst Checklist:

• Being an Outcast
• Scientific Ethics
• Underperforming in School
• I Changed My Boyfriend's Diapers At One Point - But That's Not Creepy, Is It?
• Child Abuse
• Self-Hatred
• Corpse Robots

The Word: I checked this book out from the library after reading an effusively positive review of it from the Book Smugglers. However, I found myself supremely annoyed with the novel and its protagonist. And yet - the ending turned the book around for me, and made me question my own reaction to it.

In this futuristic re-telling of Sleeping Beauty, 16-year-old Rosalinda Fitzroy wakes up from stasis to find a strange boy giving her mouth-to-mouth (the CPR kind, not the non-consensual sexytimes kind). To her horror, she discovers she's woken up 62 years in the future. Her wealthy parents bought a state-of-the-art stasis tube for Rose's protection and preservation, but died in a helicopter crash before they could thaw her out or tell anyone about her whereabouts. For six decades, her tube has been mouldering in a forgotten subbasement of her parents' condo.

Now she's awake, with a serious case of freezer-burn, and has unexpectedly inherited her parents' enormously powerful company, UniCorp. As Rose struggles to adjust to a strange future, grieve her deceased parents and boyfriend (a neighbour boy named Xavier), and tentatively develop friendships with the boy who woke her up (Bren) and the classmate who relates to her (Otto) - someone else isn't happy about her reappearance, and would just as soon put her back to sleep. Permanently. 

For the majority of this book, I hated Rose. She was a cowering, snivelling, useless, foolish, self-loathing, doormat martyr of a heroine who stumbles around around in tears whining about how worthless she is while the men in the story tell her she's pretty and take care of her. She's ignored by her foster parents, exploited by her guardian Mr. Guillory, and attacked by a corpse-robot (for reals) and she has to be squeezed like a lemon before she'll even tell anyone she's unhappy or, you know, in mortal danger. What a moron. I couldn't stand her.

But then we start getting into her backstory. I suppose it is a kind of a spoiler, but for the purposes of my review I want to address it, so you've been warned.

I initially thought Rose was put into stasis for her own protection, or because her parents were hiding a high-tech secret life from her, but the answer was far more mundane, and saddening, than I'd anticipated: Rose's parents used stasis to abuse her. Wealthy and entitled, her mother and father would bring her out of stasis to play at being parents with birthday parties and champagne breakfasts and shopping trips - then put her back in whenever she acted out, or disobeyed, or parenting actually got hard.

They weren't interested in having actual offspring. They wanted a permanent child to worship and obey them. And when it looked like she was growing up, despite their most dedicated efforts to keep her childlike and cowed, they left her in the toy chest for good.

The ordinariness (in a sense) of this explanation, and the surprisingly clever way it was slowly unravelled throughout the story, saved this novel for me. Even the most melodramatic and portentous science fictional technology can and will be misused by petty, small people to solve their petty, small problems.

And it (finally) explains Rose's behaviour to a tee. Her intense dislike of herself, her tendency to shoulder blame for every bad experience, her refusal to complain about mistreatment or point fingers at people who are hurting her, it all makes sense because she's been raised to believe her life deserves to be put on "Pause." As much as I dislike Rose as a protagonist, she's a realistic reaction to trauma and abuse. It's also more than a little fascinating to watch Rose's painstakingly slow realization that she even was a victim of abuse.

I still didn't like this book. The heroine was just too passive and whiny for me - but, looking back on my experience reading this novel, that was more due to my own reading preferences than a literary failing on the novel's part. Rose's character is well-developed and realistic. The narrative doesn't push her too far or end her story with a too-soon love interest (which is nice, because her entire relationship with Xavier squicked me the fuck out). The science-fictional setting was detailed and rounded out - almost too detailed, with a lot of elements that weren't completely relevant to the story.

As a book about the insidious nature of emotional and parental abuse, A Long, Long, Sleep was clever and detailed. I didn't like it because, frankly, I don't like reading modern/futuristic fairy tale retellings where the heroines are further victimized. But to each their own. Consider your own reading preferences - if yours are anything like mine, I'd steer clear.
B-

"Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock," by Matthew Quick (Little, Brown; 2013)

The Protagonist: Leonard Peacock. Today is his birthday, and he plans to go out the same way he came in - with a lot of blood and screaming as he shoots the boy who abused him and then himself.
His Angst: Um, see above.

Secondary Characters:

Asher Beal: Leonard's childhood best friend who then became his abuser and tormentor. Leonard plans to cap off his birthday by blowing a hole in Asher's head.

Walt: Leonard's kindly, elderly neighbour who often likes to watch old Humphrey Bogart movies with him.

Baback: A violin prodigy whom Leonard defends from bullies in return for listening to him make beautiful music.

Lauren: An evangelical, homeschooled Christian girl whom Leonard develops a crush on.

Herr Silverman: An inspiring teacher of Holocaust Studies, whom Leonard idolizes and looks up to.

Linda Peacock: Leonard's awful, oblivious, neglectful, utterly self-absorbed and useless mother.

Angst Checklist

• Bullying
• Sexual Abuse
• Terrible Parenting
• Humphrey Bogart
• Religion
• Suicide
• Homophobia
• Depression and Mental Illness

The Word: December's a great month - full of twinkling lights and wishes and cookies and family. So what better thing to read for the Forever Young Adult Book Club than a novel about suicide?

Yaaaay….

It's Leonard Peacock's 18th birthday, and how does he plan on celebrating? By taking his P-38 pistol to school and shooting his high school abuser, Asher Beal, and then himself. First, however, he's got four presents to hand out to the four people who at least tried to make his life bearable. 

Jay Asher (the author of Thirteen Reasons Why) blurbed this book, and I can see why, as the narratives are superficially similar. Both plots follow the viewpoint of an abused, vengeful outsider explaining the reasons they've decided to end their life. Both books explore the myriad ways in which parents, friends, and educators can (and do) fail the children they're supposed to be protecting. 

However, while I couldn't quite connect with Leonard Peacock, it was nowhere near as hateful as Thirteen Reasons Why. For one thing, Leonard's pain doesn't beatify him or excuse his intentions the way Hannah's premeditated psychological torture of her "tormentors" was. 

Leonard's intentions are gruesome - but the narrative acknowledges the monster he's planning on becoming even as it examines how he got to this point from an empathetic standpoint. There's also an element of suspense that keeps one reading - each gift that Leonard gives evokes memories and flashbacks, but also serves as a countdown to Leonard's murder-suicide. Will he go through with it as planned, or will someone finally be able to talk him out of it?

Reading Leonard Peacock was similar in a lot of ways to Catcher in the Rye. The narrative, told from the outsider's point of view, keeps the rest of the world at a distance. Everyone is a poser and a phoney. Our protagonist reaches out for help but at the same time resists it, distrusting other people's intentions. Leonard has no hope for the future because he can't find a single adult in his life who demonstrates that adulthood is any less miserable than adolescence. 

There are some bright spots in the never-ending misery, but they are toned down and often bittersweet, such as the post-apocalyptic "letters from the future" that Leonard writes to himself. There are no magical happy endings or solutions.

At the same time, however, I reacted to Leonard Peacock in the same way I reacted to Catcher in the Rye. I couldn't really connect to Leonard. I empathized with his pain but at the same time felt removed from it. As a result, while the reading experience of this book was pleasant I didn't take anything away from it. It was just a story that existed. I'm also not sure the story argued its point very well, but to be fair it's a subject that is pretty murky and miserable.

In the end, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock gets the "m'eh" reaction from me. I never really felt for Leonard the way the author probably wanted me to. Still, the novel does have some insightful and clever moments and is an interesting look at an unusual point of view.
B-

"Hot Under the Collar," by Jackie Barbosa (Circe Press, 2012)

The Chick: Artemisia Finch. A famous courtesan, she remains in a town that despises her in order to take care of her ailing father.
The Rub: The hot vicar proposes an affair - but is she willing to risk ruining the man's career if they're caught?
Dream Casting: Georgia King.

The Dude: Walter Langston. A settled rake-turned-vicar who discovers he's more fitted to his vocation than he originally thought.
The Rub: Would he be willing to risk that in order to find justice for the woman he loves?
Dream Casting: Guy Pearce.

The Plot:

Walter: You're hot. We should bone.

Artemisia: I can't dispute either of those statements, but don't you care that I'm a whore?

Walter: Not particularly.

Boning: *is had!*

Robert, Evil Earl's Son: I care that you're a whore! And I'm going to tell EVERYONE!

Walter: Hey, congregation, 's'alright if I marry this superhot courtesan? Especially if I quote some Scripture at you while I'm at it?

Congregation: We are uncharacteristically okay with that idea!

Robert: CURSES!

Artemisia: Hooray!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Happy Hooker Heroine
• 1 Reforme Rake
• 1 Evil Ex
• 1 Stillborn Baby
• 1 Terrible Housekeeper

The Word: Hot Under the Collar was one of my very first eBook purchases - and then I sort of forgot about it. Mainly because I hated reading on my hand-me-down Kobo Vox, and also because you can't see your eTBR staring you in the face the same way your print TBR does. Thus my print book pile always seemed more urgent.

But now that I have my shiny, lovely Kobo Mini? I'm on the eTrain!

Walter Langston never really wanted to be a vicar. As a ne'er-do-well third son, however, he had little choice - it was the church or the army. And as the hot, young, single vicar of the small village of Grange-Over-Sands, he's a tempting target for every devout family with a marriageable daughter. The only woman who doesn't threaten him with matrimony is also the only woman who never enters the church.

Artemisia Finch knows where she's not welcome - and that includes pretty much all of Grange-Over-Sands. When she was fifteen, she was impregnated by the son of the local earl who had his friends and servants lie about her slutty ways in order to escape having to marry her. After giving birth to a stillborn child, she hied off to London to become a successful and independently wealthy courtesan. While she's returned to care for her ailing father, she keeps a healthy distance between herself and the townsfolk who still hold her in contempt.

Walter is intrigued and attracted to Artemisia and proposes a clandestine affair. Artemisia is also attracted to Walter, and more than a little lonely, so she agrees. Before too long (this is, after all, a novella) they start to develop deeper feelings for each other. But how can a vicar marry a courtesan?

Fairly easily, as it turns out. There are plenty of good aspects to this novella - I love how the roguish Walter grows to actually enjoy his position and his impact on the community, which only raises the stakes since the parish council has the ability to sack him at a moment's notice should he stray from propriety (by, say, carrying on with a courtesan). I also enjoyed how Artemisia is a sexually mature heroine. She carries no shame or regret for the choices she made to survive, and she recognizes the awful double standards that allowed the earl's son to walk away unscathed.

That being said, I felt this story pulled way too many punches. Everything just seemed too easy. Walter worries - but he's never too worried. He's fairly confident he can win the people over, and he does so without too much trouble. Considering how badly people treated Artemisia for years, I had a hard time swallowing how easily (and hypocritically) they re-accepted her into the fold.

Artemisia is a courtesan, but she's such an awesome, super-special courtesan that she's only ever taken two lovers during the entire span of her career. Her "choosiness" is portrayed as a sign of her good (read: not really slutty) character. But when you're a prostitute trying to survive, is only having two customers an actual choice or just really awesome luck? What if she'd had to take more because, I don't know, the economy sucked? Would that have made her less heroic?

As well, there's little to no external conflict. We get a stereotypical moustache-twirling turn from the earl's son, but he's defeated so off-handedly with the casual melodrama of a teen soap that I could never understand how he was considered a threat to begin with.

While I liked both characters and Ms. Barbosa's writing is stellar, the story is just too lightweight to retain my attention.
B-

Review Round-Up: "The Sweet Dead Life," "The Governess Affair," and "The Third Angel"

Okay, let's look at the facts. I read a lot of books, and I recently spent some time away when I didn't have time to update my computer. The result is a bit of a review and post backlog, so, in the spirit of efficiency, I will be combining these three books in one mega-review in order to clear my schedule and start reading the truly monstrous number of books I lugged home from Book Expo America.

The Sweet Dead Life, by Joy Preble (SoHo Teen, 2013).

This was a novel I'd actually picked up last year at Book Expo 2012 but hadn't read yet. A slim but weird tome, it benefits from having a truly hilarious voice in its POV character, Jenna Samuels.

The novel starts out with a typically dark-YA situation. 13-year-old Jenna and her stoner older brother Casey have been scraping the bottom of the barrel to make ends meet. Their father walked out on them five years ago, and their increasingly depressed mother no longer goes to her job, leaves the house, or puts on clean clothes.

Oh, and Jenna's also suffering from a mysterious, debilitating illness that no doctor's been able to diagnose. When she collapses in a seizure, her brother rushes her to the hospital - but because he's also stoned out of his gourd, he crashes the car and dies.

Or not. Suddenly he turns up in the hospital - miraculously alive, healed, acne-free, and accompanied by a sudden new purpose in life and a mysterious mentor named Amber. Apparently, Casey was not destined to die this year, so the Powers That Be have imbued him with angelic powers and sent him back to protect his sister and save their family - since their father's disappearance, their mother's depression, and Jenna's illness might be the result of nefarious design instead of simply bad luck.

The plotting of this story is a little hit-or-miss (and it gets downright science fictional at the end), but beneath it beats an entertaining, sympathetic heart as Jenna enlivens the story with her hilarious observations about Texas, Mexican food, nosy angels, and how much she loves and depends on her brother more than she'd like to admit. A solidly entertaining story.
B

The Governess Affair, by Courtney Milan (2012).

I chose a novella to read on my plane ride over to Book Expo America - mainly because I knew I would want to dive into my swag books as quickly as possible.

The prequel to Courtney Milan's Brothers Sinister series (this story involves the parents of the future protagonists), our hero is Hugo Marshall, a coal miner's son who dragged himself up from nothing and currently works as an unofficial Fixer of Problems for a spoiled and cruel Duke.

His boss is in dire financial straits thanks to being on the outs with his purse-string-wielding duchess, and if Hugo can clean up the Duke's messes enough to merit a reconciliation, he'll win 500 pounds and be able to start his own business empire.

His plans are stymied when Serena Barton, a former governess, sets up camp outside the Duke's townhouse to shame him with a silent protest. Serena was forced to keep silent when the Duke assaulted her and shattered her future, so now she's determined to use that very silence to blacken his name with scandal.

Hugo knows it's up to him to "fix" this very real threat to the Duke's tempestuous marriage and his own dreams of success, but the more he interacts with Serena, the more he comes to love and admire her - and recognize the desperation of her own situation.

This is one of the stories that's a little difficult to review. BEA is so hectic and I was always putting this book down and picking it up again in so many different states of mind that I didn't really have a consistent reaction to it. The writing style is strong and lyrical, which I appreciated, and has an entertaining and complex heroine who, while practical, is not afraid to take a risk when her back is up against the wall. Unfortunately, I found Hugo to be a little two-dimensional. His motivations seemed pretty flat and standard (Make Money and Be a Man) and were pretty quickly changed as soon as he meets Serena.

While this wasn't an unpleasant read, it wasn't a particularly memorable one.
B-

The Third Angel, by Alice Hoffman (Three Rivers Press, 2008)

Alice Hoffman's books have been so consistently good to me that they've turned into emotional comfort reads - even if the way their characters' crises sometimes mirror my own makes them rather, uh, painful comfort reads.

The cleverness of The Third Angel's conceit lies in the fact that this novel can be read backwards and forwards, thanks to the interconnectedness of all three stories and heroines. Divided into three parts, the first part takes place in the 1990s and concerns Maddy, an embittered attorney visiting London to celebrate her sister Allie's wedding - while secretly pining for Allie's fiancé, Paul.

The second part of the novel revolves around Frieda, a girl in the 1960s who overcomes the pain of her parents' divorce by declining university to work as a hotel maid in London. There, she falls in love with a drug-addicted musician and discovers her own hidden penchant for song writing.

The third and final part takes us back to the 1950s, where 12-year-old Lucy is forced to accompany her father and new stepmother to London when she would much rather stay back in New York, read her novels, and grieve for her recently deceased mother. In spite of herself, she falls in love with London and winds up an accomplice to a secret affair between her stepmother's wild sister and her forbidden lover.

All three characters are connected - Lucy grows up to be Allie and Maddy's mother, and Frieda is the mother of Paul, Allie's fiancé. As each story brings us further back in time, the revelations in each story inform and give context to the tales that came before, making the novel extremely re-readable. Despite the rather unusual setting, the novel is still chockful of magical realism (symbolic herons and ghosts!), deeply romantic and complex female characters, and fantastic setting detail.
B+

"A Woman Entangled," by Cecilia Grant (Bantam, 2013)

The Chick: Kate Westbrook. The product of a love match between the son of an earl and an actress, she's lived between two worlds, welcome in neither. She's determined to make a splendid marriage in order to improve circumstances for her siblings.
The Rub: Despite catching the eye of a newly-minted baron, she still has unresolved feelings for barrister Nicholas Blackshear.
Dream Casting: Kimberley Nixon.

The Dude: Nick Blackshear. A barrister with political ambitions who hopes to develop the proper social connections to improve his career.
The Rub: Three years ago, he tried to propose to Kate but was rejected due to his lowly status. Now, a scandal in his own family makes any renewal of affection impossible.
Dream Casting: Tom Hiddleston.

The Plot:

Kate: I wish I was a genteel, upperclass aristocrat! Too bad my family's embarrassing and my mother's an actress!

Nick: I wish I was a powerful, successful politician! Too bad my brother ruined my family's reputation by marrying a prostitute!

Kate: Initiate Operation: ASSKISS.

Snooty Relative: Sure, let's acknowledge our connection!

Kate: Mission accomplished!

Snooty Relative: ...so we can help you get work as a servant!

Kate: Mission somewhat less than accomplished.

Kate's Father: Hey Nick, my daughter is taking initiative and trying to determine her own future - clearly a terrible decision! Watch over her! And, if possible, be SUPER JUDGY ABOUT IT!

Nick: Can I continue to have small misunderstandings about her motivations and behaviour?

Kate's Father: All the better!

Kate: Oh COME ON.

Nick and Kate: *kiss*

Kate: This can never happen again, for obvious reasons.

Nick: Totally obvious reasons.

Snooty Estranged Grandmother: *dies*

Kate: Welp, guess we have to have full-on sex now.

Nick: Wait, what? Why?

Kate: Circle of Life!

Nick: Good enough for me!

Kate and Nick: *knock boots*

Nick: Can we get together now?

Kate: Another chapter of angst first.

Nick: ...

Kate: ....and now! Let's get married!

Nick: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Friends-To-Lovers Romance
• 1 Scandalous Mother
• 1 Scandalous Sister-in-Law
• 1 Rejected Marriage Proposal
• 2 Rather Oblivious, Naive, Self-Absorbed and Judgmental But Still Loving Parents
• 1 Sudden-Death Sex Excuse

The Word: Few things in life are constant, and those that are, are mostly unpleasant. Taxes. Death. The death of your favourite Game of Thrones character. And the fact that once in a while, a favourite author will write a dud.

Mary Balogh had A Matter of Class. Laura Kinsale had Seize the Fire.

And, it seems, Cecilia Grant has A Woman Entangled.

I should probably clarify right now - A Woman Entangled, Grant's third book in her Blackshear series, is not nearly as terrible as Matter of Class or Seize the Fire. As a romance in itself, it's pretty average. But when compared to Cecilia Grant's magnificent A Lady Awakened and A Gentleman Undone, it's a disappointment.

All the more disappointing because it starts off with such promising themes. Our heroine, Kate, has always yearned for the upper-class drawing-room lifestyle her aristocrat father was born into but cast out of when he married an actress. While her parents' marriage was a love match, their children have reaped the consequences of reduced prospects, social snubs, and sneering looks.

Kate has worked for years to cultivate the manners, appearance, and reputation of an upper-class girl in the hopes of making a splendid match and raising her family back into respectability. When her latest attempt to communicate with her father's family unexpectedly receives a positive response, Kate's determined to use this newfound connection to secure her future and reconcile her father with his family.

However, her father, now a barrister, worries that Kate will be taken advantage of and asks Nicholas Blackshear, a colleague and family friend, to watch over her while she attends society functions. Nick, like Kate, has been struggling to restore his family's honour - ever since his younger brother married a hooker, Nick's reputation, his legal practice, and his political ambitions took a nosedive. He hasn't spoken to his brother since.

 Unfortunately, Nick has been in love with Kate for years but has kept his feelings on the back burner ever since Kate spurned his proposal and made it clear she would never marry below a baron. Awkward.

A Woman Entangled has a great idea - romance is full of socially mismatched protagonists who seemingly don't care what society thinks of them. Dukes and milkmaids. Counts and courtesans. But the stories never proceed far enough past the epilogue to examine the consequences their pairing has on their children and family. Here, the hero's current obstacles stem directly from his brother's HEA, and the heroine has to reconcile her desire for an upperclass life with her love for her actress mother and eccentric siblings - who would never be welcome in that environment.

Despite this great idea, A Woman Entangled has little in the way of actual plot or conflict. Kate and Nick are clearly still attracted to each other, and their increased proximity leads to a passionate kiss - and the rest of the book is spent angsting, bickering and internal-monologuing over this one event and whether or not it will damage their friendship and future prospects.

When I think about it, none of the characters really do anything in this book - they spend most of their time overthinking and whining about their problems. Kate, despite apparently spending years attempting to revive her family's reputation, does little more than look pretty and be extremely polite. Her predecessors were willing to create a fake heir and use complicated mathematical tricks to achieve their goals, so I expected a more detailed plan of action from Kate than "smile demurely at anyone with a title until they offer marriage." Her motivations and goals - and thus, the story itself - seemed half-baked, with no particularly strong focus or structure.

Add to that the fact that the hero is a bit of a hypocrite (he's doing to his brother what Kate's paternal relatives did to her entire family), the protagonists share no chemistry, and the novel's theme seems to be about settling for less and getting used to disappointment when your dream proves impossible. Cecilia Grant's expressive writing style is as lovely as always, but it cannot redeem a tedious, unstructured story.
B-

"Speechless," by Hannah Harrington

The Protagonist: Chelsea Knot. Chelsea will do, and more importantly, say anything to stay in her popular best friend's good graces. So when she discovers a schoolmate is secretly gay, she rushes off the share the details with her - and accidentally informs the whole basketball team, too.
The Rub: When that gay classmate winds up in a coma, Chelsea becomes an outcast when she comes forward. Learning the hard way how powerful speech can be, she takes a vow of silence.

Secondary Cast:

Asha: A sweet-natured social outcast who befriends Chelsea after her vow of silence. Loving knitting and working at the local diner.

Sam: The best friend of Noah (the gay bashing victim), he's paired with Chelsea in art class, and the two bond over their mutual friendship with Asha.

Andy: Noah's boyfriend. Still angry at Chelsea for outing Noah, he's also angry at himself.

Noah: A classmate of Chelsea's, whom she outs after she catches him making out with Andy. Is attacked and hospitalized by two basketball players.

Kristin: Chelsea's former best friend and the most popular girl in school - she is a ruthless, conniving, and, yes, stereotypical Queen Bitch who makes Chelsea Public Enemy #1 after she rats out Kristin's boyfriend to the cops.

Lowell: A thuggish basketball player who starts bullying and harassing Chelsea for ratting out his teammates.

Angst Checklist:

• Homophobia
• School bullying
• Personal responsibility
• Bitchy Frenemies
• The importance of speech
• Popularity (and the lack thereof)
• Tuna Melts

The Word: This was an interesting novel to read because although I really didn't like the writing style, um, at all, the story was interesting enough to keep me absolutely addicted to it.

Chelsea Knot is living the high life as the best friend/minion/personal Gretchen Wieners of Kristin, Grand Lake High School's vicious Queen Bee. Sure, she always has to play second fiddle and cater to Kristin's exacting moods and personal style, but the ensuing popularity is all she's ever wanted. Chelsea is incapable of keeping a secret and is one of the biggest gossipmongers at school, a trait she maintains because it entertains Kristin and keeps her in the popular girl's inner circle.

When Chelsea drunkenly walks in on a male classmate, Noah, making out with another boy during a party, she stumbles off to share the scandalous details with Kristin - and blurts out the deets in front of half the basketball team as well. That very night, two basketball players attack Noah and put him in a coma, and for the very first time, Kristin demands Chelsea keep her mouth shut.

But Chelsea is horrified at what she's done, and makes the hardest (and ultimately best) decision of her life: she goes to the cops with her story, resulting in the arrest of her school's star basketball players - one of whom is Kristin's boyfriend. She then makes the second hardest decision of her life: to take a vow of silence to atone for her formerly loose lips.

Chelsea becomes a pariah overnight - half the school despises her as the traitor rat who crippled the basketball team, the other half are eager to kick the Queen Bee's sidekick now that she's down, and her teachers have no idea what to do with a student who refuses to speak. The only people who reach out to Chelsea are the people she least expected - the quirky, unconventional social outcasts who knew Noah personally.

There were a lot of things I didn't like about this book. The voice, for one. The writing style is juvenile and simplistic in a cliched way - it doesn't come across as immature because it's the voice of a teenager, but because it sounds like an adult trying too hard to imitate the voice of a teenager. I also thought the villains' comeuppance at the end was disappointingly lame considering the huge amount of build-up the story bestows upon Chelsea's "brilliant" revenge scheme. As well, I was kind of annoyed by how little "screen time" both gay characters in the book received. The Inciting Incident of the novel is a gay bashing - but it's used to illustrate the story of a sad, straight, privileged, white girl while the actual victim is only present for ten pages or so. However, one could also make the exact same argument about Lauren Myracle's Shine, and that book rocked my socks like a laundry machine hurricane.

But what did this novel do well? Despite the clunky writing and the disappointing payoff, the character development is amazing. I loved reading about Chelsea's progression towards being an independent person. I loved how her voicelessness helped develop her self-awareness, especially regarding her friendship with Kristin and her own personal value. Chelsea starts the book as a stereotypical Popular Girl - obsessed with clothing, gossip and boys and terrible at schoolwork. Once Kristin destroys their friendship and Chelsea starts to make friends who don't require that she constantly praise and entertain them, she has time to explore things she'd always convinced herself weren't important because they didn't keep her in Kristin's good graces. Chelsea's grades improve significantly, she gets a job, and she finds a way to interact with the community without having to speak.

As a character novel, Speechless is incredibly effective and well-paced and explores some excellent themes about the power of words and a person's contribution to their community. If you can tolerate childish writing and a weak ending, you might want to give Speechless a try.
B-

You can purchase Speechless here.

"Beauty," by Robin McKinley

The Protagonist: Honour, a.k.a. "Beauty." The daughter of a wealthy merchant, she struggles with being brainier, less proper, and less beautiful than her two older sisters.

Her Angst: When the family fortunes suddenly wane, and her father runs afoul of an angry Beast in an enchanted castle, Beauty has to sacrifice her freedom in return for her father's life.

Secondary Characters:

Grace: Beauty's older sister. Gorgeous but depressed after losing the love of her life in a shipwreck.

Hope: Beauty's second oldest sister. Also gorgeous. Married to Gervais, a blacksmith.

Gervais: A blacksmith and originally one of Beauty's father's employees. Marries Hope and proved to be of invaluable assistance when their fortunes waned.

Beast: A mysterious, furry figure who lives in an enchanted castle. Supposedly a love interest.

Lydia and Bessie: Two invisible servants who help tend to Beauty during her stay. The longer she stays at the castle, the easier it gets to hear and understand them.

Angst Checklist:

• Living in reduced circumstances
• Being uglier than one's sisters
• Family responsibility
• Forceful Invisible Servants Who Keep Trying To Make Me Wear Slutty Clothes
• Reading books that don't exist yet.

The Word: I remember when I first read this book as a young teen, I thought it was a good story, but it ripped off the 1991 Disney film Beauty and the Beast far too much. Smart-alecky enchanted servants? Beast giving Beauty a library? Sure. Right.

At least, that's what I thought until I picked up this novel again for my ReRead Rollout and realized that  it was originally published in 1978.

Whoops.

Ah well. For some reason (probably because Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite fairy tales), I held onto this volume. In the interim, I've read dozens of reviews praising McKinley's books, but I never got around to buying or reading anything else of hers (except for Deerskin, which remains on my TBR, as yet unread). So I decided to reread this YA novel again and see if I could understand what all the fuss was about.

Beauty is a good book, but in the end, I may end up damning it with faint praise. 

The novel starts by diving into Beauty's life and history. A solid third of the book goes by before we see a glimpse of an enchanted castle or illegally-obtained rose. Beauty (whose childhood rejection of her given name "Honour" left her with her current annoying nickname) lives with her widowed merchant father and her two beautiful sisters, Grace and Hope. Formerly wealthy, the family loses their standing in a matter of weeks when their father's fleet is devastated by storms, pirates, and other misfortunes. Forced to auction their mansion and their more expensive belongings, the family packs up and departs inland, to a small town where Hope's new husband, Gervais, has secured employment as a blacksmith. It's a decent place to live, provided one stays out of the enchanted forest nearby.

After the family spends some time adapting to their reduced circumstances, their father gets word that some of his ships miraculously returned to port, and he decides to return to the city to sell them and settle some of his affairs. Before he leaves, he asks his daughters if they'd like him to bring anything back from the city. Beauty's two sisters jokingly ask for pearls and jewels, but Beauty asks for rose seeds instead, so that she may plant them around their cottage and spruce the place up a bit.

However, their father returns burdened with impossibly wealthy gifts and an impossibly terrible choice to make. As it turns out, on his way home, he got lost in a storm and took shelter in a mysterious castle. On his way out, he thought nothing of plucking a single rose bud from the castle's miraculous garden to bring back to Beauty. However, the moment he removed it, he was confronted by a terrifying, howling Beast who demanded his death in return for the desecration of his garden and hospitality. When their father begged for his life, the Beast relented - saying he would let the man go free if his daughter Beauty came to the castle in his place, and of her own free will. 

Their father has a month to decide - in one month, if Beauty does not go to the castle in the enchanted forest, the Beast will come for him instead. Beauty, against her family's wishes, stubbornly insists on meeting the Beast's challenge. When she arrives, however, she finds neither the castle, nor its Beastly inhabitant, are as frightening as they seem.

First, let's list the things I liked about the story. Robin McKinley has a lovely writing style, and I quite liked the main character of Beauty. While everything post-rose-theft follows the fairytale pretty closely, the development of Beauty and her family members are where most of McKinley's revision occurs. Beauty is not actually beautiful (at least in her own eyes), but bookish and awkward. Her two older sisters are not vain, spoiled, or frivolous and Beauty's father does not willingly offer his daughter in his own place. As Beauty deals with being under the Beast's curse, she learns to understand herself as an independent being, rather than as a sister or a daughter. 

That being said, while I appreciated how McKinley took the time to develop Beauty as a character and explored the dynamics of her family and upbringing, the narrative strength and detail of the novel's first third did not carry over into the rest of the novel - i.e. the Beast part of the novel. The Beast's character is disappointingly underdeveloped - in fact, he's barely outlined at all. We never even learn his name, who he was as a person, his personality, beyond a tossed-off explanation at the very end. He's an object, a plot point, and that annoyed me and weakened the novel. How are we to understand why Beauty falls in love with him if we don't even know who he is? So he makes sad eyes at her and lets her read in his library. Okay. So what? He's also keeping her a virtual prisoner. We're going to need more than sad eyes and the occasional line uttered with heart-rending anguish to understand him as a character and how he relates to Beauty. 

As well, the magic in the book isn't very well explained either. It's vague and undefined until a hasty last-minute explanation - much like the Beast. The last half of the book seemed, well, unnecessary. It follows the original fairy tale so closely (and with about as little embellishment). We already know this part of the story - why not develop it the way Beauty's history was developed? Why not explain it from the Beast's POV? Why is he dying? Why does he suddenly heal? How has he overcome his curse to remain inwardly human? 

The whole point of rewriting a fairy tale is to explore it from a new angle, or to build something fresh upon the foundations of an older story to impart a new idea or message, and I feel the novel sort of gave up on this halfway through. It's not that this novel wasn't entertaining, or even that it was poorly-written. It just could have been more. It was a novel that started out strong but ultimately left me dissatisfied.

B-

"Cold Magic," by Kate Elliott

The Protagonist: Cat Hassi Barahal. An orphan raised in the household of her aunt, uncle and cousin Bee, she just wants to blend in and avoid getting involved in radical politics between the lower class and the princes and mages.
Her Angst: Her life plan is shot to hell when her "beloved" aunt and uncle bind her in marriage to a Mage House to spare their own daughter - who, in turns out, has magical powers the Mage Houses are perfectly willing to kill for.

The Secondary Cast:

Bee Hassi Barahal: Cat's crazy-annoying cousin who acts like a chihuahua who was force-fed espresso beans. Also has possibly world-saving magical powers. Sucks to be the world!

Andevai Diarrisso Haranwy: The powerful but young cold mage tasked with marrying the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter in order to secure her powers for his Mage House. Too bad he marries the wrong girl instead!

Chartji: An American troll solicitor. For reals.

Roderic: Cat's Surprise!Brother! Revealing any more would spoil it.

Angst Checklist:

• My Cousin is Ferociously Irritating But Everyone Seems to Like Her for Some Reason
• Self-Identity
• Independence
• Human Rights
• The Industrial Age
• My Relatives Sold Me Into Marriage

Fantasy Checklist:

• 2 Surprise! Magical Powers
• 1 Surprise! Sibling
• 1 Poor Farmer's Son With Surprising Magical Strength
• 1 Destroyed Airship
• Two Trolls
• 1 Dimension into the Spirit World
• 1 Pack of Magical Cats

The Word: Cat Hassi Barahal is the orphan niece of an illustrious family that's fallen on hard times. For the first few chapters, she attends university with her bouncy, perfectly beautiful and monstrously annoying cousin Bee. The world she lives in is divided by unrest - the continent of Europa is split into hundreds of puzzle pieces ruled over by spoiled princes and powerful Mage Houses, who are in turn threatened by the advent of the Industrial Age and the radical democratic notions of the increasingly rebellious populace.

Cat's personal world, however, is thrown into turmoil when a young mage from the powerful Four Moons House abruptly arrives and demands Cat's aunt and uncle honour a contract they made years ago promising the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter in marriage. Cat, being two months older than Bee, is promptly handed over to a total stranger in marriage and is told to make the best of it. Her new mage husband Andevai is, of course, arrogant, vain, pig-headed, and Inexplicably Handsome in the way of all Obvious Love Interests.

Too late, Cat realizes her aunt and uncle tricked the Four Moons House into accepting her in place of their own daughter, who has an innate magical talent the head Mage wants. Cat is then forced to flee when she overhears the head Mage ordering her new husband to kill her, in order to free him to marry Bee.

While on the run, Cat comes to learn more about the world, the tyranny of the petty princes and Mage Houses, and her own secret heritage and innate magical talents.

Confused? Well, the first 150 pages of this novel are nigh-incoherent - full of confusing staging, stilted dialogue, contrived situations, and screamingly annoying characters (can Bee just go away? Forever?), with piles and piles AND PILES of clunky exposition inexpertly wadded into every nook and crevice. I'm talking about telling over showing, "As You Know Bob*" Dialogue, and just plain infodumping, where our heroine presumably stares off into space while she relates pages of history to the reader that ultimately have nothing to do with the story at all.

I'm not kidding. It's like every character is on the Tourism Board for their particular tribe or clan or country and are incapable of introducing themselves without also listing their country's historical battles, natural resources, and cultural holidays. It's disappointing, because the worldbuilding in itself is interesting and original - an alternate universe in which Rome crumbled before it could become a driving cultural force, leaving Europe and Africa a mosaic of cultures and traditions. The majority of the worldbuilding is easily conveyed by the organic interaction of the characters with the setting.

Thus, the blatant infodumping is entirely unnecessary, which makes it as offensive as it is puzzling. I've read Kate Elliott before - her Crown of Stars septet was amazing and managed to convey an intriguingly gender-bent medieval society without reams and reams of lectures. So why does she go completely overboard overexplaining everything here? Is it because this book is more targeted towards YA readers? Because teenagers need to be talked down to and hand-held through the harder bits?

That being said, the story does start to pick up steam around the time Cat hooks up with her Arrogant, Vain, but Inexplicably Handsome hubby - basically, once the story starts being about Interesting Things That Are Happening Right Now and less about Less-Interesting Things That Happened a Thousand Years Ago To The Ancestors of Minor Characters. To Elliott's credit, once the plot gets going, it's pretty hard to put the book down. She's a master of description, setting, and suspense. However, even when the story is chugging along at full pace, the writing style still seems juvenile and even a little corny, at least in regards to the overwrought dialogue and the characters' behaviour.

It's difficult for me to truly summarize my reaction to this novel - while on the whole, I enjoyed reading it and thought the ideas and the setting were interesting, I felt enormous swathes of dialogue and exposition could have easily been cut and I couldn't really get invested in any of the characters (except perhaps Andevai - he is Inexplicably Handsome). I felt torn between Raging Frustration and a compulsive urge to turn the next page.

So I loved it - and I hated it? Ultimately, I think I loved it because Kate Elliott writes ferociously addictive set pieces and conflicts - and hated it because the author wastes so much time stopping to explain things when she could instead be writing more ferociously addictive set pieces and conflicts. Hopefully this might thin out in future books, such as Cold Steel (which is already on my TBR).

I'm just saying - most people start reading epic fantasy when they're still in their teens. Give teen readers the benefit of the doubt.
B-

You can purchase Cold Magic here.

*As You Know Bob dialogue is when two characters talk about things they both already know for no reason except to inform the reader.

"I Kissed an Earl," by Julie Anne Long

The Chick: Violet Redmond. A spoiled, petulant debutante with an inflated sense of self-worth, when she suspects her MIA brother Lyon might be a pirate, she bribes her way onto the ship of the man hired to track him down. Piece of cake!
The Rub: "What do you mean I have to eat hard tack and peel vegetables and earn my keep? Isn't my Pretentiously Wild-Spirited and Secretly Clever Presence payment enough?"
Dream Casting: Anne Hathaway.

The Dude: Captain Asher Flint, Earl of Ardmay. An American-raised bastard-turned-sea-captain, he was raised to the rank of Earl by the King and gifted with a vast estate - but if he wants the fortune to maintain said estate, he will have to find and capture an infamous pirate named Le Chat.
The Rub: The crazy mess of a woman who's stowed away on his ship will do everything in her power to thwart him - but she also has information on Le Chat that he desperately needs.
Dream Casting: A younger Liam Neeson.

The Plot:

Violet: I am bored and wealthy! FATE! GIVE ME PURPOSE!

Random Extra: Hey all these random facts about this random pirate remind me of your missing brother, Lyon!

Violet: TO THE SEA! *bribes her way onto ship*

Flint: WTF.

Violet: Hello, peasant. Where's my feather mattress? What time are cocktails? Why is there no shuffleboard equipment on deck?

Flint: YOU'RE A MORON.

Violet: But I'm so Fiery and Clever! Even when I'm outmatched by almost everything and entirely due to my own poorly-planned decisions! Don't you find me charming?

Flint: NO.

Violet: But I'm gorgeous and rich! How is that possible?! We could work together to find and save Le Chat.

Flint: You mean find and capture and/or kill Le Chat.

Violet: Let's cross that Sibling-Killing Bridge when we come to it.

Giant Storm: *arrives*

Violet: HEY DID YOU SAY STAY BELOW DURING THE STORM OR COME UP AND FLAIL AROUND AND ALMOST DROWN IN A TIDAL WAVE DURING THE STORM?

Flint: OMG, you really ARE a moron!

Violet: But this time I did it because I'm in love with you!

Flint: I am inexplicably turned on!

Shipboard Storm Sex: *is had*

Flint: I'm off to kill Le Chat!

Violet: Please don't!

Flint: Well, since you asked nicely.

Violet: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Inconvenient Inheritance
• 1 Missing Brother-Turned-Pirate
• 1 Evil Pirate Captain
• 1 Good Pirate Captain
• Several Tidal Waves
• Hundreds of Peeled Potatoes
• 0 Mustard-Flavoured Weevils

The Word: Much like my reaction to Seize the Fire, I found that while Julie Anne Long's writing is as ornate and lyrical as it ever was, the stupidity and selfishness of her heroine prevented me from truly enjoying the book.

I Kissed an Earl is fourth in the Pennyroyal Green series, one that deals primarily with the feuding families, the scandalous Everseas and the snobbish Redmonds. The series started with The Perils of Pleasure (good), Like No Other Lover (very good), and Since the Surrender (dumb but charming).

Violet Redmond is spoiled and bored, and has garnered a bit of a reputation around Pennyroyal Green for being a crazy hot mess - her highlight reel includes an attempt to throw herself down a well after an argument with a suitor.

At a party in town, however, she overhears speculation about a nefarious pirate named Le Chat who has been attacking and sinking English merchant ships. Due to certain details regarding his nickname, the name of his ship, and his apparent resemblance to Violet's brother Jonathan, Violet begins to suspect Le Chat might be her older brother Lyon, who went missing ever since his heart was broken by Olivia Eversea.

Surprisingly, no one in her immediate family is willing to take her suspicions seriously (throwing oneself down a well for kicks can put a damper on one's trustworthiness). So she does what any pampered, spoiled rich girl would do - pay someone to break the rules for her. She bribes her way on to the ship of Captain Asher Flint, a man recently named an Earl by the King in return for capturing Le Chat and bringing him back to face justice.

Flint is, shall we say, less than pleased to discover a Too Stupid To Live heroine stowed away on his  ship. A TSTL heroine who immediately demands better food and a better room, and proceeds to explain how he's inferior to herself because he works for a living.

Violet is not as bad as, say, Olympia in Seize the Fire. For one thing, she's a (somewhat) better fleshed-out character who is smart in her own way but has never been given an appropriate outlet for her passions and intelligence in her stifled life in Sussex. I get it, she's sheltered, she's repressed, she's not going to know certain things, but it's like the book itself can't decide what type of Crazy she is. Parts of the story imply that she can't help being nuttier than a fruitcake because Her Heroine's Heart Is Too Big For Sussex! But there are just as many aspects of the story that suggest she acts like a hot mess on purpose because she gets off on the attention. And I found I really had no sympathy for the Paris Hilton of Pennyroyal Green.

To her credit, she does develop more understanding and intelligence as the story goes on - particularly in regards to the interesting mystery surrounding Le Chat and why he's sinking all those ships. She is someone who's been cosseted and sheltered, and she's quite aware of that, so she does need to start at the bottom, character-wise. However, she never stops pulling stupid, contrived stunts - the difference is that later in the book, instead of doing it because she's a bored prat, she's doing it because she's in love. So that makes it better?

Flint was somewhat less developed - not surprisingly, since the vast majority of the novel's POV is told from Violet's skewed perspective. A fatherless bastard, Flint was saved from rootless poverty as a child by Captain Moreheart - a man who was recently killed by Le Chat when the pirate captured and sunk his ship. Revenge fuels Flint even more than his desire for a family.

Most of the delicious tension in his relationship with Violet comes from them being completely at cross-purposes about Le Chat. Flint wants to bring Le Chat to justice for murder and theft (and also for the King's reward), while Violet wants to save him, since if Lyon is attacking and sinking ships, he must be doing it for some higher purpose. However, Violet needs Flint's ship, and Flint needs Violet's inside info on Lyon, so the two have to stick pretty close together while maintaining a pretty cat-and-mouse game regarding their intentions. Admittedly, most of this is pretty entertaining.

That being said, I couldn't really invest myself in either of the characters, although Julie Anne Long's lovely, insightful writing style tried its very best. I Kissed an Earl is not a terrible novel. It had a genuinely entertaining piracy subplot, good writing and description, interesting hero and heroine tension. However, the romance itself never fit into place for me. Protagonists should definitely screw up and make mistakes, but the romantic plot should emerge organically from a variety of decisions and factors. The story's sole existence should not rely on a character's stupidity.
B-


You can purchase I Kissed An Earl here.

"The Girl Most Likely To..." by Susan Donovan

The Chick: Kat Cavanaugh, a.k.a. "Kat Turner." When she was sixteen, she got pregnant and was abandoned by everyone she trusted. Now wealthy and successful, she's determined to prove to everyone how wrong they were about her.
The Rub: Her revenge against the love of her life, Riley Bohland, backfires when she realizes she's still in love with him.
Dream Casting: Elizabeth Banks.


The Dude: Riley Bohland. After belatedly learning he has a son and fruitlessly trying to find him, he's furious when Kat comes back into town to rub it in his face.
The Rub: He realizes he was wrong to drive her away - but how can he win her trust again when he's secretly a million dollars in debt?
Dream Casting: Joe Manganiello.


The Plot:

Kat: Crap! I'm pregnant!

School Principal/Abused Mother/Riley: GTFO!

Kat: Fine, then.

20 Years Later

Riley: OMG, how DARE you take my child away from me!

Kat: Um, he's my child, and you dumped me for a car.

Riley: YOU AN UNFORGIVING, COLD, BABY-STEALING WITCH - and I'm still in love with you!

Kat: Awesome! Hoo-

Crazy Psychotic Ex: Guess what? We're still engaged!

Kat: What.

Riley: We're NOT! ...but I am a million bucks in the hole.

Kat: Excuse me?

Aiden, Riley and Kat's Lovechild: AND I'm going to sulk about your womany lies and make you feel bad for a couple of chapters.

Kat: Are you kidding me?

Abusive Father: Did someone order a climax with a loaded gun? *dies*

Kat: IS THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING OR DID I TAKE CRAZY PILLS?

Riley: We're good now. Let's have our HEA!

Kat: Hooray!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Secret Baby
• 1 Big Misunderstanding
• 1 Very Bad Parent
• 1 Inconveniently Deceased Parent
• 1 Surprise! Parent
• 1 Count of Stalking
• 1 Count of Blackmail
• 1 Evil Ex(-Fiancee)
• 1 Secretly Enormous Financial Debt
• 1 Slightly-Less-Evil B & B Owner
• Several Repressed Memories
• 1 Crazy Italian BFF
• 1 Bulletproof Pie Tin

The Word: When Kat Turner, nee Cavanaugh, was sixteen, she discovered she was pregnant, her aunt threw her out of school, her battered mother threw her out of the house in favour of her abusive father, and the love of her life (and babydaddy) Riley Bohland coldly dumped her, all in the same day. She fled her small town of Persuasion, West Virginia, uncertain if she'd ever return.

Twenty years later, she is all set to enact her perfect revenge fantasy. Thanks to a hell of a lot of good luck, she fell in with the right people and managed to build a pretty solid life for herself and her son, Aidan. Recently, having come into an unexpectedly enormous inheritance, Kat decides now's the perfect time to swing back into Persuasion, filthy rich and fabulous, to rub her good fortune in the faces of everyone who turned their backs on her. Oh yeah, and to tell her good-for-nothing high school sweetheart Riley that he'd fathered her child before he dumped her.

The trouble is, somehow Riley already knows about his secret baby, and he's furious with her. I'll warn you - there is a lot of male entitlement at the beginning of this novel, lots of Riley ranting about how Kat "stole" his boy (not their boy) and how Aiden should have been raised a Bohland in the Bohland way, and that Kat's a cold, hard bitch for keeping Aiden from him out of spite.

I'll now take a moment to explain that Riley dumped Kat the night she was going to tell him she was pregnant, and intentionally did so in the coldest way possible, because his daddy threatened to take away his car.

He dumped his girlfriend, the admitted love of his life, for a car. Yes, he was sixteen, but so was Kat, and Riley wastes an absurdly long time in this novel before he bothers to give Kat even the barest amount of slack for choosing to raise her child away from the town where she a) was thrown out of school, b) was terrorized by an abusive father c) was kicked out of her home, and d) placed second behind a car.

Okay, so it's not that bad. Riley realizes he's still in love with Kat, and she him, pretty early on in the novel, and there's a surprisingly tender scene where he sees a picture of his college-aged son for the first time and cries - not just for the years he missed raising his boy, but also for the twenty years he could have had with Kat. And while I did have problems with how everyone (including Kat) initially piled on her for deciding to abandon their faithless asses to raise her baby on her own terms, the novel does slowly, gradually address everyone's shades of grey in that situation as the characters develop.

That being said, while the novel starts out strong, with excellent dialogue, loads of emotional drama, and colourful characters, it slacks off pretty quickly. Riley and Kat realize they still love each other almost immediately, so the remaining obstacles are taken up one by one, relay-style, by Riley's Psychotic Stalker Ex, a Big Misunderstanding instigated by Riley's Psychotic Stalker Ex, Aiden's angst at discovering he's a Secret Baby, Sudden Trust Issues stemming from Kat discovering Riley's a million dollars in debt, a Mildly-Obsessed Baker who decides to blackmail Riley's Now-Ex-Psychotic Stalker Ex to break up a secondary romance, a Completely Ridiculous Secret Parentage Conspiracy Reveal, and finally Kat's Monstrously Abusive Father.

With so many of the issues coming from outside the relationship, the romantic plot felt contrived. There was some nice emotional development by the end but I felt that most of the time that could have been spent on character and romantic development was sucked up by outside drama. And while I do enjoy outside drama, it shouldn't overpower the two characters' paths to love and when they practically start out the novel on the threshold of the HEA, I don't see how much further they can go.

The Girl Most Likely Too starts out strong, has dynamic writing, and deals with some pretty dark issues, but it ultimately left me unsatisfied.

B-

You can purchase The Girl Most Likely To... here.

"The Vicious Deep," by Zoraida Cordova

The Protagonist: Tristan Hart. A young lifeguard at Coney Island who discovers he's half-merman after he mysteriously survives a tidal wave.
His Angst: He's not just ANY half-merman - he's the grandson of the King of Sea, who wants Tristan to take his place.

The Secondary Cast:


Maia: Tristan's awesome mum. Formerly a mermaid princess before she fell in love with Tristan's dad.

Layla: Tristan's childhood friend, who's been with him through thick and thin. Unfortunately, Tristan's feelings towards her are starting to feel a bit more than friendly.

Maddy: Tristan's heartbroken ex-girlfriend, whom Tristan cheated on.

Sea King: Tristan's merman grandfather, who wants Tristan to compete to be heir to the Sea Throne.

Elias: Tristan's rival for the crown - and a right royal douchebag he is, too.

Gwen: Elias' fiancee, a cunning mermaid princess with secret talents of her own.

Nieve: An evil seawitch (and technically Tristan's great-aunt) who's willing to go to any lengths to destroy Tristan and his loved ones and secure the crown for herself.

Angst Checklist:

• Crushing On Your Best Friend
• Parents Keeping Secrets
• How to Be a Good Boyfriend
• Family Ties
• Sudden Responsibility
• Canadian/Italian/Irish Cousins
• I Have To Save The Ocean And I'm Only 17
• My Dick Disappears When I Grow a Tail and That Deeply Troubles Me
• Oh? There's a Pocket For It? Why Does That Not Comfort Me?

The Word: Tristan Hart has a pretty awesome life. He and his loving parents live in Brooklyn, and he gets to work as a much-oogled be-Speedo'd lifeguard at Coney Island for the summer. He's got sand, surf, a group of good friends, and school is almost over.

He's still got angsts, though - like how his revelation that he's got Speedo-feelings for his best friend Layla has come at the most inopportune time ever (right after his current girlfriend Maddy caught him cheating with another girl). But it's nothing a few months tanning on the beach won't fix.

That is, until tidal waves swamp the beach and Tristan gets knocked out trying to rescue a drowning swimmer. When he wakes up on the beach, three days have passed and no one knows how Tristan survived - least of all Tristan himself. Once he gets home, he starts experiencing strange changes and heightened senses and ultimately sprouts a giant blue fishtail.

Turns out his parents have a lot of explaining to do. His mother is actually a true-blue mermaid princess who was stripped of her tail after falling in love with Tristan's father - and despite wrangling a promise from her old man (the King of the Sea) that Tristan would never sprout fins, dear old Grandad (who's planning to retire) has decided that Tristan will be his heir and champion and sends two of Tristan's merfolk cousins to retrieve him for the challenge.

Yes, challenge - because other well-finned members of the Sea Court will also be submitting champions for the crown. Oh, and a millenia-old seawitch may be trying to kill him.

I had supremely mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, Tristan is charming and I loved his voice and perspective. He's a teenage boy, so his reactions are, well, very much like a teenage boy who's had a lot of good things handed to him, and his observations are often incredibly funny. Even so, he's already on the cusp of manhood and starting to question the way he's been living his life and the irresponsible reputation with girls that he's earned for himself - especially in the eyes of Layla, his lifelong best friend, with whom he's starting to realize he's in love. But how can he win over the girl who's witnessed all the stupid shit he's pulled?

I also liked Tristan's family dynamic - especially once he turns into a merman, which is a source of much humour. In fact, I enjoyed most of the scenes and dialogue that take place on land. Cordova really brings Coney Island to life, with the sand and greasy fried foods and tourist traps, bringing to mind a tarnished teenage wonderland. Tristan's background and community felt incredibly fleshed out to me.

But that leads me to the parts I didn't like - namely, the fishy parts. While not exactly inconsistent, the worldbuilding for the seakingdom and marine life seemed shaky and underdeveloped. While the human side of the story is evenly explored, we get a lot of fantasy exposition really quickly and not all of it makes sense - for example, the Sea King's decision to choose oblivious half-human Tristan as his heir despite his multitude of experienced merfolk grandsons "because Tristan's mom was his favourite daughter" seemed a particularly flimsy excuse, especially considering how much is at stake.

I want to be a little more charitable with this because I suspect more might be explained in subsequent books, but for now, the worldbuilding is pretty but not particularly in-depth or interesting. I also felt the book left far more loose ends dangling than I like to see in first novels. 

Finally, I feel I should mention my mixed reaction towards Layla, Tristan's best friend and primary love interest. Her character comes across as a deliberate attempt on the author's part to create a strong female character who isn't just a token female, someone who can look after herself and doesn't rely on the protagonist to rescue her. Which is good!  

Except for the fact that more often than not her "Strong Femaleness" translates into "acting like a boneheaded moron with no regard for consequences" who winds up having to be rescued ANYWAY when the situation blows up in her face. Quite frankly, when it comes to female characters I much preferred the cunning and cynical Gwen (the mermaid princess betrothed to one of Tristan's rivals), who, while less in-your-face, knows how to use what resources she has to achieve her desired result in an effective way.

The Vicious Deep shows definite promise, but its narrative could have afforded to be a little more developed and organized.
B-

You can purchase The Vicious Deep here.

"Catch and Release," by Blythe Woolston - Review and Giveaway

The Protagonist: Polly Furnas. When seven people in her hometown, including her, contract a devastating illness, only she and her classmate Odd remain living.
Her Angst: Defining the word "living" becomes more complicated for Polly as her illness leaves her horrifically scarred. To escape her depression and apathy, she and Odd embark on a two-day fishing trip that takes a series of random detours.

The Secondary Cast:

Odd: A football player a few years younger than Polly who also survived the outbreak. Suffers from an overabundance of angst and severely impaired impulse control.

Polly's Mom: Used to be incredibly close and supportive of Polly - until Polly's illness made her incredibly overprotective and smothering.

Bridger: Polly's boyfriend, who promptly ditched her after she recovered.

Angst Checklist:

• Germs Ate My Face
• Germs Ate My Leg
• Douchebag Boyfriends
• Adapting to Changes in Circumstance
• The Importance and Definition of Family
• Pie
• Where Should I Hide This Gun From My Emotionally Unstable Fishing Buddy?
• Fishing as Pastime and Metaphor

The Word: First things first, I would love to thank the wonderful Blythe Woolston - I remember reading an amazing excerpt of her novel Catch and Release over at Forever Young Adult and I made a comment on Twitter on how good it sounded. Nothing surprised me more than when she contacted me on Twitter and asked if I would like a copy to review. I happily accepted.

Second things second - I realize that the novel's title includes an ampersand, but Blogger formatting is being a fussy bitch, so for the purposes of a clean review I'm spelling it with an "and." Just in case you are fussy about that sort of thing as well. 

Polly's life and identity are divided in two - the Polly-That-Was of the past who was a cheerful overachiever and beloved girlfriend, and the "monster" she became after surviving an outbreak of MRSA (resistant flesh-eating bacteria) that killed five other people. Polly survived, but at the cost of her right eye and cheekbone. Her spineless boyfriend broke up with her before fleeing to college, her dream of working with children is now impossible, and now she's stuck at home in a kind of numb, emotional stasis with her overprotective mother.

The only person she can stand to be around is Odd, a football player a couple of years younger than her who lost a leg to the MRSA outbreak. When Odd asks her to come with him on a fishing trip, Polly decides action is better than inaction and agrees. However, Odd is not in the most stable, rational, or healthy frame of mind and their two-day fishing trip takes a lot longer and ostensibly leads them on a journey of self-discovery.

I say "ostensibly" because, while Woolston's writing style is stellar, I had a hard time connecting to this book or the characters.

My dissatisfaction with this novel comes from the fact that I'm a big-picture girl. I like knowing the backstory and getting a glimpse into the future. However, Catch and Release is very much a book that lives entirely in the present. What little we do come to learn about the characters' backstories and what kind of people they were before MRSA, come to us in flashes and glimpses - and the future itself remains frustratingly blank.

Catch and Release is also a deeply introspective book. Polly is forced back into the world of the living and has to confront in practice what she's only been learning in theory: that life will never be the same for her thanks to her deformity, but that it still goes on. In that sense, I appreciated the random, meandering pace of both the narrative and the roadtrip itself - from what we know of Polly-That-Was, she planned everything out in advance, from her school projects, to her career, to her "perfect" relationship with Bridger. Having all of her plans pulled out from under her by the horrifying results of her illness left her almost immobile with apathy - so her recovery comes from following Odd's seemingly directionless, last-minute, impulsive itinerary.

While Polly is a realized, immediate character, Odd was ... not. He's like the Dude Version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope, and while this may be a double standard, having the unstable, unpredictable, crazy-troubled free-spirit be a guy ended up being kind of terrifying, particularly in the claustrophobic nature of the narrative (Odd and Polly are the only real characters with dialogue in this story). And when he's not terrifying, he's gross and a jerk. Odd has serious problems and there were several points in this story where I felt Polly should have gotten out of the car and walked away - preferably to the nearest gas station with a ladies' bathroom and a phone.

Ultimately, the story felt a little unfinished - again, I'm a big-picture girl. I like to have an idea of where the characters are going to end up, or how they're going to live their lives now that they've resolved their issues, and I didn't feel like I got that with Catch and Release. The story definitely indicates that Polly learns life is still worth living - but doing what? I wanted to know what Polly felt about doing with her future - what did she want to do now? What had she learned? What were her new dreams and motivations? The novel lacks this, and thus the ending felt abrupt.

That being said, the writing style is sleek and evocative - the style of writing is actually what attracted me to the novel in the first place. Woolston creates a wonderful sense of setting and environment as Odd and Polly explore new fishing grounds.

As it is - Catch and Release is a pretty good example of a book that is by no means terrible, but simply isn't to my taste. The writing is excellent, and the character-building (at least on Polly's part) is subtle and clever. That being said - focused, introspective character pieces aren't my particular cup of tea. But that doesn't mean it can't be yours - read below.

B-

Blythe Woolston very generously provided me with an extra copy of Catch and Release to give away to a lucky reader! To enter, simply comment below on where you'd like to take a roadtrip - or if you've already had a bitchin' roadtrip, what was the most interesting part? Contest is international and open until Sunday, May 27th, so go crazy!

Or, if you're weird and you'd rather pay to read Catch and Release, you can purchase it here.

"Tiger Eye," by Marjorie Liu

The Chick: Delilah "Dela" Reese. A skilled metalsmith vacationing in Beijing, she is talked into buying a mysterious riddlebox at a local market by a mysterious old woman.
The Rub: The box releases a powerful warrior cursed to serve her every whim, but can he protect her from assailants who also want the box - or who have a personal vendetta against Dela herself?
Dream Casting: A younger Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Dude: Hari. A tiger shapeshifter cursed into eternal servitude by an evil Magi, he is bound to Dela until the end of her days, regardless of either of their wishes.
The Rub: While Dela is kind to him, his experience tells him it's only a matter of time before the temptation to command him grows too great.
Dream Casting: A younger Keanu Reeves with flashy highlights.

The Plot:

Wise Old Chinese Woman: Buy this mysterious box!

Dela: Sure! What could possibly go wrong?

Hari: *poof!*

Dela: SWEET!

Hari: I am cursed to serve you hand and foot, shall I commence sexual stimulation while wearing an expression of total and profound disgust?

Dela: Wow, not so sweet.

Assassin: Die, oh tiny blond one!

Hari: Here, I'll defend you!

Dela: Oh no, let me defend you! For as a seven foot tall trained warrior with 2000 years of experience, you are far more susceptible to pain and injury than an unarmed blonde woman!

Hari: After 2000 years of torment, your insane and unreasonable Mary Sue Martyr tendencies are strangely appealing!

Dela: Let's get out of China!

In America...

Three Hot Sequel Baits: Hey Dela! Let us protect and cherish you, in a totally platonic and angsty way!

Hari: I am totally cool with this - they are clearly destined for future novels.

Dela: SWEET!

Hot Sequel Baits: Someone's trying to kill you - because someone used one of your artsy knives to kill a child!

Dela: WHAT?! Someone used a SHARP METAL BLADE that I fashioned into an item EXPRESSLY DESIGNED FOR CUTTING AND STABBING THINGS to do just THAT? My world is falling apart!

Antagonist #1: *kills self*

Hari: Well that was easy!

Antagonist #2: *gets eaten*

Dela: Yay! More time for love scenes!

Antagonist #3: Despite having no build up or true motivations and only sporadic appearances throughout the novel, it turns out I'm your big bad! Watch as I tell instead of show you what happened to me because I'm obviously just a narrative plot device whose motivations remain pretty sketchy!

Dela: *kills herself, thereby killing villain, achieving Martyrdom Singularity*

Hari: Good thing I have Last Minute Never Explained Resurrection Powers!

Dela: *revived* HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 McGuffin Curse

2 Suspense Subplots

1 Fiddler BFF

3 Shapeshifters

1 Evil Magi

2 Dead Gang Leaders

1 Use of The "Love Fixes Everything" Cure-All

3 Pieces of Hot, Angsty Sequel Bait

The Word: It's always interesting when one finds a favourite author, because no matter how awesome an author and some of their books are, everyone has their bad days. All books aren't created equal. It's even more interesting when it comes to evaluating a favourite author's series, and how the quality degrades or evolves from the first book onward.

I started on the eighth book of Marjorie M. Liu's Dirk & Steele series, then moved on to the ninth. They were both excellent paranormal romances, and this comes from a gal who does not often enjoy paranormals. So I thought I would see where the series started, and went to the very beginning with Tiger Eye, and was intrigued with the result.

Dela Reese, an artist with the psychic ability to manipulate metal, is vacationing in China when an old woman convinces her to purchase a mysterious, beautiful riddle box. Soon after, she is attacked by a malevolent stranger but she escapes. Back in her hotel room, she manages to open the box and is astounded when a super-hot, 7-foot-tall man-genie with awesome highlights appears.

Okay, so he's not technically a genie, just a tiger shapeshifter (hence his crazy striped hair) cursed by an evil Magi to serve whomever opens his box, but that's close enough. Hari has endured 2000 years of torment as a slave, bodyguard, hired killer, and very reluctant lover to a parade of cruel, bloodthirsty masters, and he expects Dela to be no different.

Dela, however, is appalled at Hari's curse and all-but-literally clasps the poor, tormented mankitty to her bosom. All bosom-clasping is put on hold when another mysterious assailant tries to kill Dela - with a dagger she herself designed. With Hari's help, they escape, and Dela calls her pals at Dirk & Steele (the world's only Secret Magical People Detective Agency) to help them out of this jam.

I'll be honest and flat-out say that Tiger Eye was not to my taste. It had an interesting setting, a solid mystery, and beautiful writing, but dull characters and superficial characterization. Dela just plain annoyed me. I felt I was being told she was a tough, independent, smart character while being shown that she was a naive, inexplicably innocent and easily-bruised Mary Sue whose only flaw is Caring Too Much. When she learns that one of the weapons she forged was actually used in a crime, she acts all appalled and surprised - while I kept thinking, if you hate violence so much, WHY DO YOU MAKE WEAPONS FOR A LIVING? There are a MILLION other things you could do, artistically, with metal!

I also felt her romance with Hari was very simplistic. She is literally the only person who has ever been kind to Hari in the entire 2000 years of his imprisonment, and before you know it love bounds in on heavy tiger feet and they're both perfectly in sync by the halfway mark. The attraction is very much of the "you are pure kindness and light," "you are pure bravery and sacrifice bound up in angsty pain I will heal with my pure kindness and light" variety. Again, it's not badly written, it's just not to my taste at all.

It makes the rest of the book pretty dull in terms of romantic development. What relationship obstacles they have seem token and easily brushed aside. Ultimately, they're too busy fending off assassins and bantering with the Three Sequel Baits (three hot dudes from Dirk & Steele who are friends with Dela) to really worry at or build on their relationship past It's True Love. As for fantasy elements, they're okay but the flaws show here and there - mostly in the presentation of the novel's main antagonist, a cartoonish, sketchily-drawn villain.

What interests me about my reaction to Tiger Eye is that it seemed, to me, to be very conventional. While the language reveals burgeoning amounts of the linguistic grace Liu would put to good use in later books, the use of language and the plotting and the development of the romance was very derivative, and even cheesy. All the hallmarks of a standard paranormal starter are there - copious amounts of exposition, hot super-powered angsty manfriends fated for their own sequels, obvious plot threads left tantalizingly dangling by novel's end.

But when I think about it, it makes sense. An established, successful author can take more risks, be more creative and defy more conventions because she already has a demonstrated regular readership. Someone just starting out with a series would still be required to be original and creative (of course!), but I think maybe they're expected to follow the more established "rules" of what's popular and desired in their genre because they're just starting out, and have to hook an entirely new pool of readers who have no prior experience with them.

Take it from me, though, when I say that her series has nowhere to go but up from Tiger Eye.
B-