Category: 2015 Reading Challenge

Review: Evercrossed (Kissed By An Angel #4)

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The fourth book in this series, and the first book in the second set of three, Evercrossed was a quick and entertaining read, but it paralleled the very first book in that it mostly just sets up whatever action is bound to take place in the next two books. I’m interested enough to keep reading through the next two books, if I can find them without paying the ridiculous $8.99 per installment price that Amazon wants to charge me. (These books are only a little over 200 pages, this is highway robbery.) Again, I feel that this does not work at all as a stand alone book, and I’m not really sure why it is. It’s not that YA readers can’t handle a higher page count (the recent influx of dystopian YA paperweights attests to this), so I’m not sure why the author felt the urge to split it up rather than just package the whole thing together.

In my review for Soulmates, I wondered if Chandler was going to add in modern technology or skip ahead ten years (or 20 years, as that’s how long it was between books 3 and 4). iPhones, Google and GPS devices make an appearance, but not Facebook. Which is a slight oversight, considering the story hinges on a missing person case. I don’t feel like the author really committed to it, and only 1 fictional year has passed between the two books. It definitely doesn’t make sense for cell phones to be ubiqitous now when they weren’t then.

So lets get into the plot. One year has passed since the car accident that took Tristan’s life, which happens in Book 1. Ivy and Beth are spending the summer in Cape Cod, helping out Beth’s aunt Cindy at her inn or seaside motel or whatever it is. There are two other girls, Kelsey and Dhanya (fixed on April 2, 2015) who are kind of entitled party girls, and because of them, the four girls end up playing with an Ouija board and contacting a spirit. This, along with a car accident that causes Ivy to die for a few moments, is the catalyst for some new spiritual activity between the friends. While Ivy is recuperating in the hospital, she meets this guy who has amnesia. He was discovered near where the car accident happened, and as they begin to form a friendship, she begins to suspect that Guy is actually Tristan, come back from Heaven. Beth and Will are suspicious of Guy, and think that he is actually GREGORY, come back from… well, wherever he was.

When Ivy has the accident and it is clear that she is having an out-of-body death experience, I started groaning inwardly. Oh no, is Ivy going to be the angel now? But thankfully, the book did not go this direction. I’m definitely interested in where the story is going from here. They’ve introduced some other characters that are definitely sketchy, so there could be many conflicts to arrive over the course of the next two installments. But, as a stand alone, this book just doesn’t have much going on in it.

3 stars

This book fulfills no requirements for the challenge.

Review: A Time To Kill

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I’m as surprised as anyone by how much I absolutely hated this book. It really doesn’t have that much to redeem it. I’ve read some other Grisham books before, and I don’t recall them being this terrible. Almost every page had something new to make me irritated.

First, the plot was decent. So it has that going for it. But getting to the bones of the plot was this strange meandering journey, filled with random asides that were flushed out way more than needed and then completely discarded. I wondered why we had to know so much about Dell, the waitress at The Coffee Shop, when it wasn’t necessary at all to the plot or main characters. Certain aspects that were brought up would have aided in world building if they had come up earlier, and then referenced again later, but I felt like a bunch of things (like this really long aside about the secretaries getting lunch at 11:50 sharp in the square) completely stupid and unnecessary, and pushed back actually interesting things. Details are invented and then discarded, some things seem to contradict, and some are just downright confusing.

The book was also pretty offensive. Things like rape and racism need a gentle touch, and maybe the same story in another writer’s hands would have been amazing, but in Grisham’s hands it surely wasn’t. This is a story where a young black girl is raped and her father shoots the rapists and is on trial, but the protagonist is a white male lawyer. We are supposed to sympathize with him, as the womens and the blacks are all brushed off as intellectually subpar. But Jake Brigance is an arrogant jerk who is pretty unlikable. Really, he seems to be the definition of a douchebag. He treats his wife like a child, his clients like pests, and the law clerk that offers her services for free as a seductress, not to mention a bleeding heart liberal that doesn’t wear bras (it’s apparently very important to know that she DOESN’T WEAR A BRA – as it is repeated at least 4 times). The n-word is used so many times I felt like it was just randomly inserted as much as possible. I just feel kind of icky that these topics are being handled by a white man and without much grace.

I was amazed at the amount of typos there were in a book that is more than 25 years old, which has likely undergone several revisions. Some of it could be attributed to the transfer from page to ebook, as that is how I read it, but others where definitely spelling errors (venear isn’t a word). I was also jarred by the use of the term “Kluxer” instead of Klansman, which is what I’m used to seeing. A quick Google search shows that is has been in use before, but not much. So I’ll let that slide, but it’s a strange way to see it written. More than half of the chapters begins with the name of a random character, introducing that character, and going on to the main plot again. This device wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t keep happening over and over. It got to be really noticeable.

And the resolution. Generally, in a courtroom novel, the case builds and comes to a rising conclusion, typically with a major breakthrough or amazing closing argument. The main action of this lands “off screen”, and seems to be a non-sensical random chance. The reason the jury decides as they do almost makes no sense. It only ends that way because it is the best possible outcome. A lot of the loose ends just don’t get tied up or even mentioned, particularly in reference to the KKK. They just … leave? Well, okay then, I guess they weren’t serious about being a threat.

I plan to follow this up with a review of the film version (which is on its way) and a review of the follow-up novel by Grisham, entitled Sycamore Row. It was published in the past few years, so I want to see if it still is as terrible as this one, or if this one is just bad because it is the first book he ever wrote. For now, I’m left with a not very pleasant picture of Mr. Grisham.

2 stars.

This book fulfills the first book by a popular author requirement for the challenge.

 

Follow up reading:

 

Review: Divergent

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I saw the movie first, so that sort of colors things a little. It is not really the same story, although the bones are basically the same. 

This is a dystopian young adult novel, the first part of a trilogy, about a 16 year old girl named Beatrice Prior. It takes place in a post-war Chicago, where people are divided into 5 factions that all contribute to society in different ways. It’s like the McDonalds of society, where everyone has a narrowly defined place in the greater structure. At 16, each person chooses if they will stay in the faction they were born into or transfer to a new one. Beatrice begins in Abnegation, which is selfless yet in charge of governance. She chooses Dauntless, a wild and crazy bunch of pierced and tattooed soldiers who are trained to defend the city from threats. What threat there could be is never specified, and only briefly does Beatrice wonder what is “beyond” the fence.

Once at Dauntless headquarters, she is thrown into death defying stunts and training in order to prove herself. She slowly begins to uncover a plot from Dauntless, spearheaded by the brainiacs of the society – the Erudite faction – to overthrow Abnegation and take over governance. 

Oh, and to throw a wrench into the whole thing, Beatrice (or, as she renames herself once joining Dauntless, Tris) is something called Divergent. This concept is not really explained, mostly because we are on this ride with Tris herself, and no one has explained it to her yet. But she deduces that this is not a good thing and she is in mortal danger. 

I heard this series was great awhile ago, but was convinced not to read it but some that said it was a big ol’ meh. The movie did pique my interest, and I have to say, it has a lot of very interesting ideas in it. The world building is great, there are lots of asides that explain how things work within this society without being exposition heavy. 

One of the most interesting aspects to me about it is the sense that Tris has about her identity, and how she is conflicted about where she truly belongs. It’s something that she struggles with throughout the book, first that she doesn’t feel like she is selfless enough to be Abnegation, and later that she isn’t brave enough to be Dauntless, and so on. She goes back and forth, and her instructor/boyfriend Four expresses this out loud. He wants to be all the qualities that each faction espouses, not just one. Tris also talks about how she can trade one poor trait for another, when switching factions or loyalties. 

There are a lot of unanswered questions as the book ends, and I’m interested to see which way the story develops. I hear the ending of the third book is rubbish, but I’m in for the ride now.

4 stars (no pun intended)

This book completes the book made into a movie, written by someone under 30, one-word title, and set in the future requirements for the challenge.

Review: Soulmates

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The final story in the original trilogy of the Kissed by an Angel series was good, although I have qualms. I’ll get to those.

First, the actual story was still good, in my opinion. The action ramps up very well, and it definitely gets to that white knuckled suspenseful climax. I felt like the motivation for Gregory was believable. Ivy reacts to the threats around her in very believable ways. For instance, near the end she finds some evidence that is very damning. She immediately brings it to the police station instead of hiding it somewhere in the house or in her pocket, where it could be snatched away at the last minute, putting her in even more peril. The threats were scary and well conceived. 

I do have a few nitpicks. I thought the love story between Ivy and Will was contrived. They start hinting at it very early on, possibly in the first book, but it feels so rushed. The 3rd book takes place somewhere in the vicinity of October, just a few months after the accident which killed Tristan. Ivy and Tristan were only dating a few months but were in L-O-V-E, and then before he’s even been gone 6 months she is already in love with someone else, all the while Tristan as an angel is still around? Much too fast, even for flaky teenagers.

I also didn’t like how insane Gregory became in the big scene on the railroad tracks at the climax. A couple lines about possible drug use could have explained it away, but he seemed really unhinged despite being a calm sociopath before that. I could also have done without the screaming demons in the background. It was a little over the top, even for a supernatural romance.

Otherwise, this was a great story, and I’m really excited about reading the next three books. I think it held up pretty well over the last 20 years. The second set of three were written in 2011 so it might have an entirely different feel to it, considering how technology has changed so much.

4 stars.

This book completes the mystery/thriller requirement for the challenge.

Review: The Power of Love

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The second installment of the Kissed By An Angel trilogy was another quick read. The suspense begins to accelerate during this book as more of the pieces begin to come together.

The first book leaves off with Tristan remembering something weird about the brakes in his car, and how he wasn’t able to stop the car accident from happening. So this whole book deals with him learning how to utilize his angel powers in order to make contact with Ivy in order to warn her that her life may be in danger. The paranormal aspects were okay, nothing too bizarre. I was able to suspend my belief enough to accept them in the story, although there were things that I wondered about. For example, Tristan learns to harness his energy enough to materialize fingertips. But he doesn’t lock the door when Ivy forgets to, or go and read the police report he sees on Andrew’s (Ivy’s stepfather) desk. Minor complaints.

We begin to see a connection between the suicide of Gregory’s mother (Andrew’s first wife) and the car accident. Gregory’s friend Eric had some sort of drug addiction (although no specific drugs or types of drugs are ever named – just “pills”. Maybe pharmaceuticals?) and this is causing an issue between Eric, Gregory, Andrew, and Gregory’s late mother. 

Tristan attempts all kinds of ways to reach Ivy which mostly succeed only in freaking her out, as he speaks through her brother, her friend Beth, and new guy Will. He is able to push Will towards Ivy’s house when he suspects that she is in danger, and some unknown assailant has broken into the house and apparently cocked a gun to her head, and stop the attack.

Ivy still has no idea what is going on or that there is some sort of conspiracy, when, after a recurring nightmare, Gregory dopes her up with spiked tea and drags her off to train tracks, just in time to get bulldozed by the 2am train. Tristan is able to propel Phillip, Ivy’s 9 year old brother, out of bed and towards the train tracks to stop he tragedy from occurring. 

And then it ends. Stay tuned for the last book, suckers! 

It seems like the middle book in a trilogy always ends at a key point in the action, probably to get you hooked so you read the last book. I feel like these books are all so short, it really should be all in one. I wonder if there was some sort of page limit on young adult books in the mid-nineties. It doesn’t really work as a trilogy. 

I am both anticipating and dreading the final book because I know what happens to the cat (sad face), and I honestly can’t remember the motivations for the murders. I imagine I will complete it in a day or two.

I also discovered that the author has written THREE MORE INSTALLMENTS of this series and I’m kind of excited.

This book fulfills no requirements for the book challenge.

Reading Challenge February Wrap Up

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This month I read 3 more books, and checked off 7 more boxes on my list.

I started with A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard. I had two memoirs loaded on my Kindle already, this and The Glass House. In the (paraphrased) words of the Grail Knight from Indiana Jones, I chose poorly. I looked at the page numbers and went with the shortest one, and boy oh boy, that was a bad decision. I was reading others’ reviews afterwards, and it seemed to me that most of the high ratings were literally pity ratings. Yes, her story is sad, but it was not worthy of publication in this format.

Next, on the recommendation of my friend Alyssa, I read The Birth House by Ami McKay. I had seen some reviews of it while searching for my hometown choice, and it seemed like a good option. As my review states, I sort of liked it. It was set in Scots Bay, which I had never heard of, but is apparently near Kentville.

I spent some time deliberating my next choices after I finished The Birth House. I watched the movie Divergent, so thought I might read those, since I’m on the look out for a trilogy. Then I remembered this YA series I read long time ago, and thought, perfect! I’ll use that as my book from childhood AND a trilogy. I happened to find all three audiobooks from my library.

Then I came up as next in line for the ebook of Divergent from the library also. So I may end up reading two trilogies, since books 2 and 3 in the Divergent trilogy are over 500 pages. Also, the author is under 30. 

I finished the first book in the Kissed By An Angel Trilogy, aptly titled Kissed By an Angel, by Elizabeth Chandler. I also started Divergent.

I’m trying not to have too many books on the go at once, because I used to do that all the time and felt split too much and it took forever to finish a book since I was dividing my time. But the Angel series is on audio and the Divergent series is on my Kindle, so they have different times when I am more to read one or the other. I may fall behind a smidge on my podcasts while I listen to these.

I also almost began a book by Emily Giffin, whom I very much enjoy. It’s tucked into my purse right now, as it is a physical book, so I might begin that one soon too. It’s my “latest book by author I enjoy” book. 

After these, I may need to start on the book that is over 100 years old, because those tend to be a slog. I’ve got all of Jane Austen’s books, and I’ve only read Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park before. I might enjoy Emma or Sense and Sensibility. I also considered The Red and The Black by Stendahl, as I was supposed to read that in school and didn’t. Same with Frankenstein. So many choices!

If anyone is still doing a challenge, I would love to see how many boxes you’ve checked off.

Review: Kissed By An Angel

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I can’t decide if I like this book because it tickles my nostalgia bone or because it is pretty good and has held up over time. I first read this book in 9th grade, and I loved it. I remember sitting in the youth center at church, devouring it. My copy had all three books in one volume, as pictured below.

Divorcing it from the other two books, however, this one is very much a prologue to the main story. I don’t really remember most of the story, other than Ivy’s boyfriend, Tristan, dies in a car crash, and later becomes an angel, and also that the cat, Ella, is a main plot point in the climax of the third book. 

It starts at the accident, then goes backwards and fills in all the context. Ivy’s mother has married a rich dude with a snotty son, and they and her younger brother Phillip go to live in their mansion. Ivy is terrified of water, and Tristan gives her swim lessons and they fall in love. There’s something fishy about her stepbrother, Gregory, and his friends. That is the entire novel. 

Actually, if this were the entire story, and not just a preamble to the following two books, this would be pretty terrible. But it does lay down some needed context, about Ivy’s family situation, her relationship with Tristan, her belief in angels, the suicide of Gregory’s mother, and of course, the cat. It just doesn’t work without the following two books, unlike many other trilogies.



This book alone only merits 2 stars, but I’ll wait to rate the entire trilogy.

This book fulfills the book from my childhood, and set in high school requirements for the challenge. 



Review: The Birth House

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I began this book feeling excited. It was about midwifery, set in the province I grew up in. It had to be great! And the first 3/4ths were. But then, it was like a speeding train that half heartedly slipped off the tracks with a giant shrug.

The story begins with Dora Rare, with Mik’maq blood deep in the family’s past, the only daughter in a family tradition of sons. A little strange and “witchy”, she’s tormented by class mates and admonished by adults. Her father is uncomfortable with her burgeoning womanhood at 17, and ships her off to live with another witchy woman, Louisiana transplant Miss Marie Babineau, the local midwife.

After this is where things started going off for me, but I was willing to accept it, because it was still interesting. Dora is suddenly incredibly knowledgable and wise concerning midwifery in the span of about a year. Dr. Thomas comes into the picture, opening a “maternity home” for the “latest obstetrical advances” that directly competes with Miss B and Dora’s midwifery. Apparently all the expectant fathers are 100% into this new medical childbirth while the women are all nervous about it.

Then a confusing courtship begins between Dora and the eldest son of a rich widow, which seems completely out of left field as Dora is even more marginalized as a witchy midwife, despite her chastity. Apparently, Archer Bigelow would rather get it on with the local “loose” woman, but won’t get his inheritance if he marries her because she’s a tramp, or something. So Dora is the next best thing? She’s attracted to him, so she goes for it. But then her attraction is suddenly over once they marry, and she tries to avoid him at all costs. In return, he leaves for long periods.

The day of the wedding, Miss B mysteriously disappears, and is never heard from again. We are to assume she died, and found a way to make her body disappear. Or maybe she ascended to heaven, who knows.

Archer becomes a controlling jackass, and Dora has to hide her midwifery dabbling as neither he nor Dr Thomas approve (for someone who lives and works out of the area, the Dr seems to know everything), and paint her as a dangerous monster, intent on using backwards remedies and hocus pocus on the local women. She is at a birth at the maternity home and witnesses twilight sleep, and later the postpartum depression of the same mother. Archer conveniently drowns and is out of the picture.

Eventually, she is run out of town after she helps a woman have an late term abortion and the woman dies within 24 hours of visiting her. (But don’t worry, she was super conflicted about helping abort the baby.) She goes to stay with her brother in Boston, where he lives with a bunch of transient women who are suffragists, lesbians, artists, and more, across the alley from a brothel. Eventually, her name is cleared, as Abortion Woman’s husband is accused of pushing his wife down a flight of stairs (which killed her in her weakened state), and so Dora returns home.

In the last few short chapters, Dora and her newfound sass opens her home as a birth house, unceremoniously runs Dr Thomas out of town, and takes a lover in her deceased husband’s younger brother. And that’s it.

Sprinkled throughout are some random historical events, such as World War I and the Halifax Explosion.

My biggest problem with the book was how it didn’t connect the dots between all the plots. It was too ambitious, and it didn’t give enough time to develop any of the plot threads. It was like a fleshed out outline, not a novel. McKay could probably have skipped all of the Boston stuff, and elaborated more on the ousting of Dr Thomas. I didn’t feel like his departure was earned. Some criticisms of the book stem on the white hat/black hat nature of the conflict between Dora and Dr Thomas, and I can see that. He does seem a little overtly villainous. The historical elements are just thrown in, like checklist items that needed to be marked complete.

The ideas and promise were here in the book, but it just didn’t come together in a way that made the book anything above mediocre. I also would have liked a lengthy postscript about the historical things referenced in the book, like whether the Canning maternity home existed, if the Birth House was a real thing, and maybe some other tidbits about the Halifax explosion and other contextualizing details, rather than the first several chapters of her next novel.

3 stars.

This book fulfills the book set in a different country, book a friend recommended, and book that takes place in your hometown requirements.

Review: A Stolen Life

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I don’t want to discount the real life experiences of Jaycee Dugard, who went through hell for 18 years after her abduction in 1991 and her slavery until she was recovered in 2009. But this book was awful. And I don’t just mean the events that it described.

Yes, there is an author’s note at the beginning that pretty much states that it’s poorly written, but she wanted control over telling her story and that is why it is how it is. That’s fine, but I’m honestly amazed the publisher went through and released it. I just read the entire book and I don’t really know what happened to her. I had to read the Wikipedia page just to get the skeleton of her story. She definitely should have had a co-writer, and saved this draft for her personal therapy. The story could have been amazing, heartfelt and fascinating, but instead it was like reading the diary of an 11 year old. It was stream-of-consciousness style all through, with too little editorializing to insert much needed context.

So if you are interested in the story of a young girl who was kidnapped at 11, look for a documentary or something. Because this was just awful. Actually, I recommend the Wikipedia article.

1 star.

This book fulfills the memoir requirement for the challenge.

Reading Challenge January Wrap Up

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So I started my reading challenge this month, which you can read about here. This post will be a bit of an update on how things are going, and a little behind the scenes of how I am going about choosing books.
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This month, I completed Think Like A Freak, BtVS: New Rules, and During the Reign of the Queen of Persia. One non-fiction, one graphic novel, and one fiction.

I LOVED New Rules, which may not be all that surprising to those of you who know how much I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but this one exceeded my expectations. I got that one for Christmas and was looking forward to reading it before knowing how awesome it was. I am super excited about the following books in this series, and am champing at the bit for the next one to come out.

I read Think Like A Freak because I had requested it several months ago from the library and my turn came up. Like I mentioned in my review, it was just a rehash of topics they’d covered in the podcast, so I felt like it was a waste of my time. I doubt I will read any other books they have put out. At least it was short.

I still have mixed feelings about During the Reign of the Queen of Persia. When choosing, I searched “best books of 1983” and I found an old New York Times Book Review article that had about ten books listed on it, and this was the most interesting sounding one. Now I feel bad for the other books on the list. Perhaps I should have read some reviews first? Although I also found glowing reviews from NPR and other places, so maybe I’m just too picky about silly things like plots.

I haven’t chosen the next book I’m going to read yet. I’ve been thinking about doing the 500+ pages one, the classic romance, or the one set in the place I was born. The latter is proving to be more difficult than I expected, and I didn’t even expect it to be easy. Most books are set in Cape Breton, which is technically Nova Scotia, but so far away from where I was born I don’t know how it would count. Many others are historical books about Halifax, in the time of the Halifax Explosion. Which could be cool. I found one that takes place in “rural Nova Scotia”, but doesn’t specify where exactly. Another takes place near Kejimkujik Park, which is fairly close but still not exactly it. There was a surprising amount of erotica that takes place in Halifax. So I haven’t quite decided yet. Part of it does depend on the availability of said book.

As far as 500+ paged books, I have a lot of choices. I’ve listed a few on my Goodreads shelf for this challenge, contenders that I’ve “bookmarked” for later reference. I had originally intended to read Outlander by Diane Gabaldon for this one, but 850 pages is quite the commitment! I would like to combine classic romance with this also, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood for Jane Eyre.

If you are doing a reading challenge, I’d love to hear an update on your progress!