Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies > Books: detective (33)
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1477870067
| 9781477870068
| B00HZ6EEN6
| 3.55
| 2,537
| unknown
| May 01, 2014
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did not like it
| Even when I was little, I knew I wasn’t like everyone else. Sure, I had the clothes and the shoes and the general skills to win superficial popula Even when I was little, I knew I wasn’t like everyone else. Sure, I had the clothes and the shoes and the general skills to win superficial popularity points. In the last couple years, I’d managed to get involved in stuff like debate and student government, but I’d never managed to be, well, normal.I've read a lot of terrible YA detective novels and this book would fit in perfectly among those unholy terrors. When I saw a YA criminal-investigation book by an actual attorney, I had high hopes, hopes that were, needless to say, dashed to the ground. I do not doubt the author's credentials in the least. I do not doubt her intelligence, I'm sure she's 1000x smarter than I am (they don't give law degrees to idiots), but this book was absolutely terrible. The YA detective novel is a difficult thing to write, the author has to: - Make the situations believable - Give the main character credibility in her actions - Portray her methods realistically, this is, after all, an under-aged character we're talking about) - Not make the actual police and prosecuting attorneys look like incompetent, bumbling fools. This book failed on all fronts. The Summary: Totally normal girls don’t wear four-inch Prada heels to the library, or stalk criminals, or wear four-inch Prada heels while stalking criminals.17-year old Ruby Rose is something else. She's got a 4.0 GPA, she's a gray-eyed blonde, she can fit a cellphone, makeup, several small kittens, in between her breasts (known as "The Cleave")... I felt for the picture of the girl hidden in The Cleave. Next to my other important stuff—cell phone, lip gloss—she was there....and she's famous! My virginity wasn’t exactly a secret. One of those trashy magazines had even broadcast it in an article called “Ruby Rose: The Virgin Vigilante.”Ruby's SWAT sergeant father was killed in action, and ever since his death, Ruby has been determined to mete out justice on his behalf. In her Prada peep-toe shoes. [image] Ruby Rose isn't your average 17-year old, no sir. She's got a closet (named Gladys) full of designer shoes that she can consult for help. I needed a few moments with my oldest and dearest friend: Gladys—aka my shoe closet.She's got a Black SUV called Big Black... Big Black, my overly tinted SUV and current best friend.Not to mention, at the tiny age of 17, Ruby Rose somehow fucking got a license to carry a concealed weapon. Of course, that license to carry is meaningless without a gun, right? Oh, she's got one, too, named Smith. I looked down at the shimmering weapon—aka Smith, my .38 Special Revolver with built-in laser sight that I’d gotten for my Sweet Sixteenth.Is there anything Ruby Rose doesn't name? Ruby Rose can kick! She can fight! She can shoot! She's trained---at the ripe old age of 17---in the SWAT obstacle courses. She can hack into the Orange County Police Department's criminal system!! And all she wants to do is bring justice to the criminals who have escaped the system! But not kill them, no. It's not ok to kill: Ruby Rose doesn't believe in killing. “Liam, it’s never OK to kill,” I said flatly. I had good reason to do it, sure, but that didn’t make it “OK.”Right. So it's just a little confusing when she kills not once... I pulled the trigger.Not twice. I aimed for the largest target area and pulled the trigger. His chest ripped open and his body lost momentum. He would never fight again.Not three times. I renewed my grip on the knife and slashed once as hard as I could, until I felt the blade slide through tissue and hit bone. He went limp.Oh, god, I lost track of the number of people that Ruby-I-Don't-Believe-In-Killing-People killed. “Things have long been out of control, Liam. I have killed, or been responsible for...” I stopped to count with my fingers. “Seven deaths now. Seven!”Killers don't faint! Definitely not. Ruby Rose is SO competent, right? She's killed so many people (while not believing in killing), she's trained her entire life to be a bad-ass motherfucker by her police dad. So naturally, in these situations, Ruby Rose would never do anything so silly as to...faint...right? A falling sensation rushed over me, and a sickening crack echoed through my skull.Shit. Ok. That was just once. That was just a fluke reaction in a school cafeteria, a visceral reaction to something. Surely she would never lose control of the situation and faint again... And I was losing consciousness.Fuck! Ok, that was a bad example. She got caught unaware and poison-darted on the beach because she was canoodling with lover boy. She will NEVER, EVER faint again. Seriously. Never. My world quickly spun out from under me. Swirling. Darkness. Pain. The last thing I saw was Liam, still on the ground, soundlessly calling out my name.OK, THAT WAS SERIOUSLY NOT HER FAULT. I mean, what kind of teen vigilante would expect a criminal to come up behind her and get caught unaware anyway. Who does that?! That's the last time. EVER. A jarring pain stabbed through my chest, and a coughing fit brought me back to reality.That was...I don't know. I mean, whatever. Let's move on now >_< Fine. The fainting thing was a bad example. Despite all her fainting, Ruby Rose of the 4.0 GPA is supremely intelligent. Not idiotic in the least. A teen vigilante so well-educated, so well-prepared as Ruby would never do anything dumb. He’d done it again. He wanted to toy with me. And I’d been stupid, impatient, and impetuous enough to walk right into his trap.Crap. Ok, that was just one example. Surely, having killed so many criminals, having tracked so many of them down, Ruby would never... Ha, I was insane. I was about to sneak out of my nice safe home and go looking for a rapist to convince him to help me. Real smart, Ruby. Best idea ever.Fuck. I give up. The Setting: This book takes place in Huntington Beach, California, in Huntington Beach High School. It could have fooled me. I grew up 5 minutes away from Huntington Beach, California. I still live around there now. I didn't get any sense of place, any sense of location at all in the setting. There were places that were just names. The Huntington Beach Pier, Pacific Coast Highway. I love those places. I drive down there. I take long leisurely summer drives down PCH for sushi with my little sister. I went to high school in Huntington Beach. It's a beautiful town. I'm not quite sure what school Huntington Beach High School has become when in the book, teenagers have "group sex parties" and teachers ditch class to go surfing on high surf days. It's fucking Huntington Beach. People go to the beach year-round. HBHS students are stoners, at worst >_> (can you tell my high school was rivals with them?) This book might as well have taken place in any generic beach town anywhere in the world. I didn't feel any authentic sense of the city. Ruby Rose: Bafflingly inconsistent. She doesn't believe in killing, but somehow she still does it. She's intelligent, yet she constantly walks into fucking stupid situations, and allows herself to be baited into killing people (which is against her beliefs! Gasp!). She's SOOOOOOOOO fucking perfect, yet she constantly puts herself down. Really, it sucks that her father died, but do you really expect us to relate to a 5-million-dollar-trust-fund blond-haired silver-eyed, buxom 4.0 GPA high school student who's got a closet full of designer shoes, who drives a GMC Denali. [image] Who's got the attention of the hottest boy in school, a cheery best friend, the ability to shoot and kick-ass in karate, and a District Attorney mother (whom she hates for some fucking reason)? Excuse me while I play the world's smallest fucking violin for Ruby. Trouble doesn't come looking for her, she seeks it out, and she cries fucking crocodile tears when things don't go her way. Oh, and her mother. Her poor District Attorney mother. Her cougar mother who checks out her boyfriend. Her Botoxed, Restylaned mother. How dare she seek out a career as a politician. How dare she not ignore her own ambition. Fuck that bitch, right, Ruby Rose? The Writing: Oh my god, so much name-dropping. From TMZ (SO MANY MENTIONS OF TMZ) “How about that I killed somebody,” I said. “I’m a Vigilante Teen Assassin. At least that’s what TMZ called me."To UGGs (I can hardly keep track of the shoe brands in this book). To the extremely silly technological references that just sounds completely fucking absurd, even to an actual geek like me. People who like computers don't actually think in computer-speak! - “So what about Taylor?” I asked, wondering why my brain had brought her up at a time like this. It was like my logical brain had a firewall and was trying to override the invading emotions. - I wasn’t drinking her Very Cherry Kool-Aid. And I definitely wasn’t getting the message she was trying to send. Like the physical contact had created a spam filter and her message was just going to the junk file. To the long, pointless, rambling extended metaphors. I stared at his lips. Were they telling the truth? Or were they like chocolate—promising happiness, providing a few moments of heaven, then ultimately betraying me, going behind my back and putting junk in the trunk?The Romance: Liam. Handsome Liam. Liam who might be a killer. It didn’t seem like a fair choice. Chocolate had total power over me—there was no denying my addiction to the dark, creamy crack. Those few moments of bliss were always enough for me to disregard the consequences. So, even if Liam was only chocolate, I wanted to taste a piece.The Romance: Liam. Handsome Liam. Liam who might be a killer. “I nearly killed my father,” he said point-blank, staring at his hands as if they might still have blood on them.Oh, but it's fine that he beat the crap out of his dad! It's just self-defense! “Protecting yourself would be calling the police, not taking a baseball bat and putting your own father in a coma for seven days.”*slow clap* Good fucking job, Ruby Rose. Recommended for people who love stabbing themselves in the eye. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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May 08, 2014
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May 01, 2014
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Kindle Edition
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0062259601
| 9780062259608
| 0062259601
| 3.74
| 2,048
| May 13, 2014
| May 13, 2014
|
it was ok
| “You know what I think?” I said. “I think whoever killed Erin knew about you and me and her.” I carefully sidestepped the term love triangle, since “You know what I think?” I said. “I think whoever killed Erin knew about you and me and her.” I carefully sidestepped the term love triangle, since I didn’t want to go there.Girl, you went there. This wasn't a terrible book, but it was completely generic, lackluster, and half-assed in every way. There's kind of a love triangle, and there's kind of cheating, but not really, because the two main characters kind of made swoony eyes at each other and literally nothing else for 99% of the book. There was no romance. Don't come in here expecting a love story of any sort. It's emo teenaged wangst, and that's it. Despite the tantalizing hint of a grand romance, there really wasn't anything of the sort, and trust me when I say that I'm the first to jump up and yell "THIS BOOK HAD TOO MUCH ROMANCE IN IT!" This book just had no love. The mystery is half-hearted. It was solved with an overreliance of deus ex fucking machina in which the main character is privy to everything that the police knows. There was a not-terribly-Mean Girls clique. There is a half-hearted stalker. There are people who would blurt out very convenient information with the slightest of provocation. There is a love interest who might be the killer, and who is luurved by the main character, but he's roughly as dangerous as this bunny. [image] He is just so uninteresting and completely dull in every way that I just didn't really give a flying fuck when the main character is all "I KNOW ALL THE EVIDENCE POINTS TO HIM BUT HE DIDN'T DO IT BECAUSE I KNOW HE DIDN'T DO IT. NYAH!" This book also has a somewhat offensive portrayal of Christians. Let's get one thing straight, I'm not Christian,fuck , I'm not the least bit religious. I'm against organized religion in general, and even I felt like this book portrayed Christianity in a very negative light. The type of Christianity portrayed here is the far-right, very religious type with daddy-daughter "Weddings" and "Purity Rings" and fanatically religious Mormons. This book doesn't name the religion outright, but it's pretty fucking obvious that this book talks about Mormonism. If you're easily offended by that, don't bother with this book. The Summary: I would never see Erin again.Lily Graves is just having an average day, cleaning up the cemetary in a Morticia Addams-style gown when the school Queen Bee and her archenemy, Erin Donohue shows up. Erin goes batshit crazy, blames Lily for her breakup with school jock/boyfriend of three years, Matt and proceeds to scratch and claw the fuck out of Lily. ...yanking my black hair, slapping, biting, and finally digging her nails into the delicate flesh of my forearm.Erin finally leaves, with a :DDDDDD bye! See you Monday! ^_^_^_^_^_^ (the "bitch!" is implied), only Lily will never see Erin again, because that night, Erin commits suicide. Or so they say. It turns out that not all is well with the picture-perfect Erin. For starters, Erin's boyfriend Matt has been engaging in a secret flirtation with Lily. It all started with a tutoring session, which leads to driving lessons...on his lap. “You honestly want me to sit on your lap?”Well, one thing's for sure, she'll know when he releases HIS clutch...all over her thighs. I don't know about you, but teaching someone to drive a manual shift while sitting on his lap is all sorts of stupid and dangerous. From personal experience, if a somewhat decent looking girl with a decent face with a nicely cushioned arse sits on a guy's lap, it's going to end in an erection 92.8% of the time. But Lily is charmed! She learns to drive! Hopefully not with HIS stick shift, but whatever. Erin found out about Matt & Lily, she's furious. She told everyone. And now she's dead. Naturally, the main suspect is Matt. When a woman disappears, chances are it's one of the main men in her life who did her in. Also naturally, Lily doesn't believe Matt's guilty at all. She sets out to prove his innocence. “Let it go.”The thing is that evidence keeps mounting against Matt. For one thing, Matt didn't even need tutoring---he lied about his parents and he lied to his parents---Matt wasn't going to fail his classes at all. So why did he have Lily tutor him? “What if I told you, Miss Graves,” Zabriskie continued with a touch of glee, “that there wasn’t a chance that Matt Houser would have been benched this season?”And then there's the issue of Matt arguing with Erin on the night she died. “The guy Mrs. Krezky saw arguing with Erin that night sounds exactly like Matt. Short brown hair, Potsdam Panthers jacket, and everything.”And then it turns out that Erin was pregnant. Matt was her boyfriend. It's not rocket science to assume he's the father. I tried not to think about Matt having sex with Erin.Matt is a suspect, Lily is being told by everyone to stay away from him. Naturally, she can't. “Matt is a boy with...”—she bit her lower lip—“bad intentions, I think. The more distance between you two, the better.”The Side Characters: We’d dubbed them the Tragically Normals, because they were truly living the ultimate high school experience. Good grades? Check. Lettering in sports? Check. Nice cars, cute boyfriends, adorable girlfriends, clear skin, ideal physical proportions? Check, check, check, check, and check.Clichéd, clichéd, clichéd, clichéd. We have here the Mean Girls and Boys. They're bright, shining on the outside. Outstanding students, young pillars of the community who are secretly assholes to everyone beneath them. They're petty, they're foolish, they do illegal things, they're hypocrites, they get away with it. There's the stoner, who says stuff like “You know, when I was at that pit called Potsdam High, you were the only one I thought might be able to understand my interests, seeing as how you too were mocked and ridiculed for yearning to be among the dead.” There's no depth at all to the side characters. Deus ex fucking Machina: TO: Robert R. Amidon, Chief of PoliceTo be fair, I'm not quite sure if this qualifies as deus ex machina, but the plot is helped along by so many convenient excuses, it's hard not to label it as such. Lily's mother is dating the chief of police. Thanks to that convenient little fact, Lily constantly gets tips from the police that she's not supposed to know. She works at the family mortuary so she's got details on the body (Erin's) that she's not supposed to know or see. It was odd to see Erin this plasticized and defenseless, her newly washed red hair in a halo around her vacant face, her mouth glued into a pleasant smile. On closer examination, I noticed her inner thighs were riddled with scars, as were her waist and breasts.Total conflict of interest, but whatever, right? To top it off, everyone gives Lily the information she wants. “Talk to me.” This was my one window of opportunity and I had to make the most of it. “What happened at Erin’s house Saturday night?”Mean girls? Check. One little interrogation and they're blurting out their heart's secrets to her. This is entirely unrealistic, given that the Mean Girls (or "Pathetically Normals") are Lily's sworn enemies. The Suspects: Never entirely well-thought out at all. Random suspects are thrown out of thin air, others seem to be complete red herrings that aren't subtle and witty as much as they're tremendously annoying for the reader. Lily: “This you, Lily Graves?”Lily Graves is one of those teenagers who wear all black in school and is fascinated with death. It doesn't really make her any interesting to me, because I was one of those morbid teenagers myself. My problem's not with the fact that she tries to be different, it's the fact that she has no personality and no purpose for looking and dressing the way she does. She is superficial, despite the fact that she criticizes others for being superficial. She's a normal teen who chooses to dress differently, that's all. I didn't feel that there was anything particularly special, interesting, or especially likeable about her. The Romance: I really can't bring up any quotes about the romance, because despite the fact that this book is based on the rumor of a romance between Matt and Lily, there was none. Matt is not a nice guy. We're led to think he's a nice guy, but he's not, because he cheats on his girlfriend of 3 years with Lily. It's a mental cheating, but he's trying to get to know her WHILE he has a girlfriend. “I did it because...because I wanted to get to know you, and I was too stupid to think of any other way.”HELLO, YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. Matt kept on dating Erin until the very end. He didn't have the courtesy to break up with her, having acknowledged his attraction to Lily. It's not a decent thing to do. Despite his cheating, there is an absolute lack of romance in this book. Lily and Matt do absolutely nothing but make sad puppy dog "I DIDN'T KILL HER" eyes at each other. If you're going to give us a tragic couple, make it worthwhile. Overall: A halfhearted attempt at a mystery that just bored me to death. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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May 14, 2014
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Apr 09, 2014
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Paperback
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0552566039
| 9780552566032
| 0552566039
| 3.70
| 2,236
| Jan 31, 2013
| Jan 31, 2013
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it was ok
| Mum laughed. “You wish it was more complicated than it is because you love secrets.” Mum laughed. “You wish it was more complicated than it is because you love secrets.”The best word I can use to sum up this amateur detective novel is "unsuccessful." In order for a detective novel to feel realistic, there has to be an incentive, a remarkable motive that drives the would-be-detective (amateur or not) to seek the answer and to right a wrong. There was no purpose in this book's "mystery" than a girls' overactive imagination and overwhelming jump to conclusion for no reason at all. The mystery is put there in order to write a book, and because of that fact, the entire "investigation" felt overwhelmingly contrived. Not only that, the characters are overwhelming tropes. There is not unbearable girl-hate in this book, but every single female character in this book (with the exception of the main character) is portrayed artificial, stupid, vain clones who are all stupidly boy-crazy, but it's ok if Jess likes a boy. The main character is unconvincing, she is not the worst main character I've ever read, but something in the way the book is written makes me feel like her personality was made up as the book goes along. I didn't hate her, but she didn't feel like a consistent person. Not only that, she constantly blushes, flushes, burns. This book tries to sell her to me as a bad-ass, analytical investigator, and I just can't see Jess as the book meant her to be seen. The investigation of the book is questionable. The main character (Jess) can only be described as "Too Stupid To Live." Jess' intelligence is highly questionable, her investigative methods are as subtle as Lady Gaga at a Mormon convention, and about as smart as putting your finger into an electric socket. I’m going to persuade [the suspect] to meet me at the top of the cliffs. The shock of seeing me will scare [them] into telling me what [they] did. [They] confess, I go back to the police with proper evidence, justice is done.”[image] The Summary: I didn’t realize how stupid I’d been until it was far too late.That sums up the book in a nutshell, but I should probably be a little more detailed than that. Jess is spending the summer with her mum and cousins in Port Sentinel. This wouldn't be a bad thing, except her mother happens to mention the fact that she looks exactly like her cousin Freya, who is her age, who is her twin in appearance. Freya, who was blonde, like me. Who had the same shape of face as me, the same pointed chin. The same slanting blue eyes. The same mouth. The same. Top to toe. The dead girl and I could have been twins.The dead girl. Freya is dead. She died last summer, of an accident. Out of nowhere right after her mother mentioned Freya, Jess starts questioning her death for no reason at all. “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”[image] Jess is absolutely fixated with Freya's death. She becomes convinced that Freya was murdered. It really bothered me that no one could tell me what had happened. If I hadn’t looked like her, maybe I wouldn’t have cared so much. But the reactions I’d had from just about everyone— that mixture of guilt and fear— made me think that there was more to the story than the tragic-accident line Mum had takenAnd naturally, the book is written to present to us the fact that Jess is right, but it does not convince me because there is no evidence other than the gut instinct about a girl Jess has never even met. "I also have the feeling I’ve come in halfway through the story and I’m never going to catch up. And I want to know more about Freya.”Jess starts seeing guilt everywhere. In people's nervousness. I might have wondered what his problem was if he hadn’t been giving me the look I was starting to expect: shock mixed with suspicion. And what looked like—but surely couldn’t have been— fear...She sees clues in the most minute of reactions. In people's eyes. In the way they react to her. How do you expect them to react, she's Freya's physical double! Like it or not, Jess is going to spend the entire summer pursuing Freya's killer. Because she knows Freya was killed. If she's not careful (ha!) she might end up in a coffin herself. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that if she was murdered, the person who did it might want you to stop dragging it all up again?” He looked back at me, his face grave. “Hasn’t it occurred to you they might be willing to kill again?”Investigative Bullshittery: If you're a teenager, and you're new in town, and you're trying to dig up a potential killer, it's probably a wise idea not to be completely fucking obvious about it. You shouldn't do things like going around, asking everyone you know about Freya and her death, which you will loudly proclaim to everyone to be a murder, not an accident. “If you hear everything, do you know who killed her?”I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY JESS KEEPS THINKING THAT FREYA IS MURDERED. “You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about this and I can under stand why. It would be much more exciting if she’d been killed. But there was an inquest. The coroner was quite clear. It was an accident. Death by misadventure. And I told you to stay out of it, didn’t I?”From the very beginning, from the moment she is in Port Sentinel, Jess feels like Freya is killed. I cannot understand her reasoning, and therefore I do not find the case convincing at all. Stayin' Alive: I might have been more forgiving about Jess' unconvincing investigation if she hasn't been Too Stupid To Live throughout the entire fucking case. One moment of stupidity is fine. We're all human. I've done dumb shit myself, I understand, I can forgive that. Repeated acts of stupidity is not ok. Jess constantly gets herself into dangerous situation, and she well knows that she's a fucking idiot. That's the thing, Jess REALIZES HER OWN STUPIDITY. In a life or death situation, she cannot help but shoot off her mouth to antagonize the person who is literally holding her inches from dropping into a cold, dark death. My smart mouth was going to get me killed, I thought. Really, genuinely dead. I should be begging her to let go, pleading with her, groveling so she could see I was completely in her power, but something in me wouldn’t give in. Pride, probably. Which was stupid.[image] Her instincts warn her of danger. She ignores them. I took a tiny breath, which was all I could manage. The old familiar jolt of fear kicked my heart into a canter. Oh, here we are. Danger again. I felt trapped and I was more worried about his intentions than I had been before he’d lied to me.She takes stupid risks, she deliberately places herself in danger. She uses herself as bait, and she's so fucking shocked when shit comes back to bite her in the ass. Then there was the little matter that going for a walk with him was the equivalent of painting a target between my shoulder blades and handing [her] a bow and arrow. So of course I nodded and let him put his arm around me.[image] And instincts? Life-preserving instints? Fight-or-flight gut reactions? There to be ignored. As I started to turn away I half saw a figure in the back room, standing against the wall, watching me, and my heart took off at a gallop. There was that feeling again— pure fear, ballooning out of nowhere. I refused to acknowledge it.This happens so many times. I admire her courage, but you need to stay alive in order to conduct an investigation. You need to use common sense and your intelligence. Jess does none of the above; she wins despite everything, and I cannot believe that. The Girl Hate: Every single girl except for Freya's little sister are portrayed as mindless, boy-crazy bitches. The gaggle of girls in Port Sentinel? Capricious. Disloyal. "Bimbos." "Herd animals." Clones. The rest were girls, clones of the one I’d encountered on Fore Street that morning, wearing tight clothes in ice-cream colors to show off their expensive-looking tans and impeccable figures.Every single teenaged female is stupid, an idiot who needs a Jess in their life and school them on what counts as a "slutty" dress. Girls are to be belittled, because such a tiny thing as swimming can be interpreted by Jess as being too much for them. I didn’t imagine she did much swimming. Too risky for her hair, for one thing.Jess frequently criticizes revealing clothes, tans, beauty. But it's perfectly fine if Jess is naturally beautiful, with flawless, effortless hair. Her jaw dropped as I rattled back down the stairs. “How did you have time to do your hair?”Jess is holier-than-thou. She reads books. She likes to remind us that she's cool, because she's, like, not into book tropes and all, and so not into romance. I had lasted through four chapters of the witless romantic novel I’d found on a shelf before I gave up. Just because the hero was a ruggedly handsome cowboy I didn’t see why it gave him the right to be so rude all the time.Jess makes superly grand speeches to the stupid, slutty, boy-obsessed (and of course, every single conversation between two girls in the book is about boys) bitch that romance isn't everything and she shouldn't be so dumb. “You don’t know him. He’s not like that.”She totally schools the girls for obsessing about a boy! Only it's just fine if Jess obsessed about a boy herserlf. He hadn’t come to see me. I stared at it for a long time, feeling miserable and pathetic in equal measure. What did it matter? So what if he’d decided he had better things to do than visit me? I had rationalized it to my own satisfaction: the near- miss kiss on the beach. He hadn’t meant anything serious by it and now he was scared I’d think he wanted to revisit the moment. Which I didn’t, obviously. I hadn’t even thought about it since. Not more than sixty times a minute, anyway.Oh, the hypocrisy. [image] Skip this book. For a much more successful amateur detective novel, please read Prep School Confidential. Quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof subject to change in the final edition. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 26, 2014
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Mar 27, 2014
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Mar 26, 2014
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Paperback
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0062257803
| 9780062257802
| 0062257803
| 3.47
| 4,780
| Apr 01, 2014
| Apr 01, 2014
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did not like it
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[image] “The Perfect Killer is based in Chelsea and is a student,” I said loudly.[image] “The Perfect Killer is based in Chelsea and is a student,” I said loudly.Well, way to fucking go. This was just a terrible book. There are so many problems, I am at a loss because I'm not quite sure where to start. So let's start from the beginning. This book is about a 17-year old female serial killer. Let's just use our literary suspension of disbelief and let this go because there is so much wrong with this book that the utter improbability of a child serial killer barely registers on the radar of incomprehensible idiocy. Let's just believe, that 17-year old Kit is really a serial killer, groomed by good ole mommy (a gorgeous, blonde former serial killer herself, currently a Stepford Wife in disguise) to kill, since she was 9 years old. When I was nine, we began to manage it together, and when I was twelve she let me have it all for my own. I only killed four between the ages of nine and twelve, but when I took absolute possession of the mailbox I set a quicker pace—about ten a year.At the ripe old age of 17, Kit has developed a reputation for herself, she is known far and wide in London as the Perfect Killer. She has been responsible for over 50 deaths. Ok, suspension of disbelief over. Now onto the real dumb shit. The Writing & Narration: Is just terrible. [image] The writing is full of introspective bullshit that a 15-year old emo teenager might write in her notebook because she feels everything so strongly. It is pretentious, it makes me scratch my head. It is full of observations that just makes me laugh out loud because they are so completely ludicrous. I wondered if the maids would be nervous too if they knew they were cleaning the house of murderers.Note to self: NO SHIT. Kit has the dumbest character observations. She goes into paragraphs and paragraphs to herself, wondering what a person is like, thinking about their characters, their clothes, what they're hiding beneath the surface. It doesn't come off as realistic so much as it gives us a sense that this is a pretentious teenager overthinking things. It doesn't help that her observations are of the "WELL, DUH" sort. She had on this draped, toga-like dress patterned with green bamboo; it didn’t suit her figure, and it bothered me, but she was one of my favorite teachers despite her odd dressing habits. I’d had her a few years ago for an English class. She taught English when she wasn’t teaching philosophy, and I liked her and how she spoke. Her short black hair was no-nonsense, no-frills. She didn’t talk too fast. She took her time with things, and sometimes I even believed that she might understand me and why I killed. But I would never tell her, of course. She was legally obligated, as a teacher, to tell the police.Note to self: NO SHIT. Kit's long running narrative is excruciatingly painful to read. Her observations are way too much. They're just so incredibly silly. BUT HIS EYES! HIS EYES! Kit is one of those sorts who reads everyone's emotions. And it is just terrible. . ...he looked almost upset, but the turmoil was mixed disturbingly with fury.She seeeeeeeeeees so much into people's eyes. His eyes tell me that he is thinking intently about something else, and also that he is sad about something or other.The Dialogue & Kit's Acting: Artificial and utterly laughable. The characters' speech is overly flowery at times, completely wooden in others. It doesn't flow, it doesn't feel like actual dialogue. Kit thinks she is an actress, she tries to be an actress; she feigns distress at times, and her acting is completely laughable. She yowls, she wails. I don't know quite how the other characters buy into her acts of distress when I don't believe in it myself. “Yes, but I didn’t do it, I swear I didn’t, everyone is going to think that, but I swear I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t...,” I wailed insistently, and leaned more heavily against the window, quivering timidly. I even managed to make myself cry some more, tears leaking out of my eyes slowly.Kit acts a LOT in this book. She pretends to be someone she's not, and it is unconvincing as hell. She pretends she's dumb. She pretends she cares. I can't pretend that I give a shit about her and her acting. Kit's Arrogance: Kit is so fucking full of herself, I can't even deal with her. She always puts herself in a setting. She always poses. We always feel her sense of prime self-importance, and it pisses me off like nothing else. Kit appears in every scene like the prima donna in a movie. I thought about us in our gray-walled, elegant hallway, the two slender blondes on the edge of an expensive rug, pale-skinned and frail-looking, pausing beneath famous photographs, drinking orange juice from designer glasses.She is tallish, blonde, pretty enough, and she knows it. She constantly reminds us of how unthreatening she is, making sure that we know that she is good looking, but so self-deprecating that she doesn't really care how pretty she is. They would see dark eyes under dark eyelashes, prominent collarbones, and a smattering of freckles dashed across a thin nose like Audrey Hepburn’s, the only truly beautiful feature of a small pale face—would they see a seventeen-year-old murderer?The Letters: You know, for a serial killer, Kit doesn't exactly keep a low fucking profile. Everyone knows about her, it seems like everyone knows how to contact her---except for the police. The reason is that everyone knows that there is a serial killer on the loose who takes orders to kill, all you have to do is write a letter, leave a sum of money inside the letter, and put it in a ultra special, secret "mailbox." A mailbox that everyone knows about, a mailbox where Kit comes regularly to check her mail and gets her killing orders---except for the police. Kit gets a ton of these letters. And the police---those fuckin' incompetent, idiotic police, right? Just doesn't have a fucking clue. Strangely few people knew about it, considering the fact that I was so famous. Not even the police knew about it. Or at least I assumed so, since they hadn’t taken control of or searched it yet.Can you believe that? And there are a lot of fucking letters. A lot of people who knows about The Perfect Killer. Letters nearly filled the mailbox, at least thirty of them.The Killings: I love serial killers and I love the psychological insights that go on in the murderers' minds. There is no such complexity here. Kit and her mother can't seem to decide why they kill. They sometimes think they are playing Lady Justice. You know why we kill. We kill because there is no justice. And without us, the world is lost—”Except it's not true. There is no reason to these killing whatsoever other than vigilante justice, and then again, justice is delivered to those who do no wrong at all. Kit feels like she is delivering justice, when really, she is only killing for minor, stupid fucking reasons, like to avenge a lover's quarrel. For example: Death #1; a man has done a drunk hit and run. Dear Killer,Said fiancée wants the perpetrator to turn himself into the police. Said perpetrator doesn't want to do it. Said perpetrator writes a letter to Kit, ordering the earnest fiancée's death. Kill her. Her name is Lily Kensington, and she lives at 28 Lark Place, in Chelsea. She gets home every night at nine.Kit kills her. I hardly call that justice. Death #2: A crazed, obsessive lover wants Kit to kill his lover because... It makes me angry. She makes me angry. But I love her. No one can have her but me, or I really am going to kill myself.ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? How is that justice?! If someone is obsessed with me, it's hardly MY fucking fault. Do I deserve to die? Yes, according to Kit. What Psychology?: This book is largely pointless. There is no psychology involved in these murders, the reason is absolutely stupid, and Kit's justification of it makes her character inconsistent. It feels like there is no point for the murders---and I would have actually preferred it that way, because in one sentence, it feels like Kit feels nothing, and in the next, she hates herself. Her character is so incredibly incongruous. This book can't decide what it wants Kit to be. You Expect Us To Believe...: 1. That a 25-30 year old man (and projected love interest) is unofficially in charge of a serial killer who has killed over 50? He was young. Younger than I had expected. Much younger, in fact. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five or thirty. I remembered that my mom had said he was only unofficially in charge of the investigation.And naturally, very attractive. ...he had a bit of a studious feel to him, as if he were a professor or some other scholar.OH PLEASE. Let's not fool ourselves. No fucking man that young can ever be in charge of a very, very important, very, very high profile serial killer investigation. The young Scotland Yard Sergeant was injected into this story because there was a need for a hot young guy in the book. That's all. 2. That Scotland Yard needs HELP from a random 17-year old who suddenly injected herself into the case? “I was hoping you’d come. We need a new eye here. It’s the same deal as before—an untraceable murder. It’s frustrating.”3. That Scotland Yard would share details about a serial killer's latest victim to said 17-year old girl? “The couch pillows are still in place,” he said angrily. “No DNA, no fingerprints, no witnesses, no broken windows or picked locks, nothing. Nothing but the body.”4. That a 17-year old girl would be allowed onto a serial killer's crime scene? Alex let the tape fall, and shoulder to shoulder, we walked inside. Legitimate police officers passed by me, looking very official, making me feel like a child. Once we got into the front hallway, where Lily Kensington had put her hand on my shoulder, he gestured to the room to our left.4. That if you kill a person on black carpeting, bloodstains can't be detected? Black carpet so the bloodstains wouldn’t help the police solve the murder.Because really, what's luminol for, anyway? Useless shit, right. Pfft. A Good Serial Killer Doesn't...: 1. Inject herself into the crime case: Any criminal profiling school reject knows this. Murderers constantly return to the scene of the crime and try to get themselves closer to the police to get to know the case. And it's exactly what Kit does. I walked into the Chelsea Police Station bearing pastries and a smile.2. Ask the police about the crime herself. “You’re a kid. Why are you following me to work? You want something, I can tell, but I don’t know what that is.”3. Go back to the scene of the crime where she very recently killed someone. When we got to the crime scene, there was crime-scene tape everywhere and a near army of reporters.Subtle. Yes, because that helps so much. 4. Bumble the fuck up when getting into a victim's home. I looked around, biting my lip. I needed to get in. Usually by this point in the conversation I was already inside.5. Get to know your victim for months before killing them. “Fair enough. We’re friends, then?”6. Threaten a boy in front of everyone in your class... “Stop playing games,” I hissed.7. ...and then kill him and "discover" his body, at your school. “How did you discover the body?”8. Have a romantic moment over a corpse. And here, in the hallway, despite the darkness of the situation, emotions began to float up in my chest again, accentuated and amplified by the physical closeness between Alex and me.Fuck this book. [image] Quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof subject to change in the final edition. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Feb 17, 2014
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Feb 17, 2014
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Hardcover
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1250030935
| 9781250030931
| 1250030935
| 3.49
| 3,230
| Oct 22, 2013
| Oct 22, 2013
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did not like it
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[image] If you want a 19th century detective novel based on a loving sister's journey for justice for her baby sister, as this book promised, keep walk [image] If you want a 19th century detective novel based on a loving sister's journey for justice for her baby sister, as this book promised, keep walking. There is nothing to see here. If you wanted to read about a sanctimonious, passive-aggressive, holier-than-thou bitch of a sister and her personal journey to find her sister's killer through pure fucking luck for no other reason than to assuage her personal guilt in the role she played in contributing to her so-called-beloved sister's death, then by all means, settle in, my dear friend. It's the biggest lie on earth to slap a "detective" label on this book, because it relies on no other methods of detection besides the overuse of a literary device that I absolutely fucking hate called deus ex fucking machina. If I happen to capture the #1 most wanted on the FBI's Top Ten list because the criminal happened to be hiding underneath my car as I ran him over unknowingly, it doesn't make me a fucking bounty hunter because there is no fucking skill involved beyond that of pure bloody luck. What happens within this book doesn't make it a fucking detective novel because there is no methodology whatsoever besides the dilletante actions of a TSTL socialite/missionary and the unenthusiastic dabblings of a wealthy Detective Sergeant who plays at being a fucking police detective. I say play, because to him, it is nothing but play. The ass wanker is actually happy to have a murder to investigate because he's so fucking bored with his fucking job, which begs the question of why he's actually working as a detective at all when he can clearly afford to do something else with his useless waste of a brain. There is a thing as outright murder, in which a person actually takes another person's life, but that's not the only way to kill someone. And then there's involuntary manslaughter, in which the killer has less culpability. For example, leaving a charged gun in the open where a child can reach it. That person may not have pulled the trigger, but they are still responsible for a death. I hereby accuse Beret Osmundsen of involuntary manslaughter. The victim: her sister. I'm only being mildly facetious, but I do find her grossly negligent and excessively cruel in her treatment of her "immoral" sister, Lillie. You may recall that I have a sister, who is around 10 years younger than I am, whom I adore. She and I are exactly the same age apart as the sisters in this book, Beret and Lillie. I read this book because I love historical novels featuring amateur female detectives, and the premise of a sisterly vengeance is one that I love. I wish I had never read this book. What a disgusting waste of my time. What a travesty of a book. I have never read a criminal investigative book with so much rampant victim-blaming and slut-shaming as this book features. Find a pair of glasses. Cover it with some red cellophane. Listen to some Rammstein. Open up a white-supremacy website and some anti-feminism forums and read through a few pages. Then you'll get a feel of how I felt while reading this book. There was a lot of anger, a lot of rage, a lot of fucking fury and disgust at the level of sly-hate-disguised-as-love within this book. As for sisterly love? Sisterly grief? What fucking grief? One of Beret's first thoughts upon finding out that her sister has been cruelly murdered is to cry "from rage as she realized she would never be able to extract the remorse from Lillie that was due." Beret's mindset throughout her investigation is that of "I AM SUCH A GOOD PERSON BECAUSE I LOVE MY SISTER DESPITE THE FACT THAT SHE FLIRTS WITH ANYTHING WITH A PENIS, AND SHE'S SUCH A FUCKING SLUT THAT SHE PRETTY MUCH ASKED TO BE MURDERED BY BEING STABBED SEVEN TIMES WITH A PAIR OF SCISSORS." Summary: DAMMIT. Beret. Beret. Her name is Beret. Not Sombrero. Get your The Characters: This is usually the part in the review where I go over whether a character is complex or not, her development, blah blah blah. Fuck that. I fucking hated Beret's guts, and here are the reasons why you should, too. Beret: Missionary, my ass. For someone who supposedly does so much good works as a missionary, Beret is a hypocritical, snobbish, judgmental bitch. There are two types of missionaries: one who truly do good, and the other who simply do good for the sake of feeling good about themselves. I believe Beret is the latter. She is such a snob. She looks down on the newly wealthy in Denver for their garish tastes in clothing, housing, furniture, despite being new money herself. Despite working with the poor, the beaten, the unfortunate at her mission, Beret has a surprising lack of sympathy for the prostitutes who work at the brothel in which they used to work. The prostitutes there are seductive, sly, nefarious whores. Nothing more. There is zero sympathy for those women or for their circumstances. Beret is also judgmental of people based on their appearance. Apparently, if you're ugly, you're shit out of luck, and anyone who looks upon an ugly person kindly, like her aunt, must be a fucking saint. Jonas looked directly at Beret now, and she saw the freakish scars on his face and thought what a good woman her aunt had been to pick up such an ugly child, a child other society women might find offensive, and take him into her home. [She] had been the soul of compassion.Beret is also surprisingly racist, despite the fact that she's a missionary. I get it, it's the 19th century, racism is rampant, but I would hope to think that a missionary might be kinder, but no. Beret is horrified that her sister had been a prostitute, and even more horrified to realize that her sister might have entertained a Negro. Her words, not mine. And also, Chinaman. I understand the use of these words in a historical context, but given that there is no use and no room and no point relevant to the plot, is the inclusion of such racist, cruel words even necessary? Beret claims to love her sister. She is a fucking liar. Remember what I said about culpability earlier? Yeah. Usually when a character cries "I killed her!" I'm the first to say "NO YOU DIDN'T, YOU DUM DUM HEAD." In this case, yes, Beret almost killed her sister. It's the fucking 19th century. There ain't a lot of options for a very young, very vulnerable woman when she has been cast out onto the streets by her sister and guardian who should have been taking care of her, no matter what she's done. And what does Beret do? Throw Lillie out of the house on a transgression. I told him Lillie should be cut off until she saw the error of her ways and apologized, and that’s exactly what he did.Beret throws Lillie out of the house that Lillie also owns, by their late parents' will. Beret cuts off Lillie's access to money, money that is Lillie's. Lillie doesn't know she couldn't be thrown out of her home and therefore leaves. What's worse is that Beret convinces everyone, their lawyer, their remaining family, that Lillie is incompetent and immoral and undeserving of receiving her own inheritance. And then Lillie ends up in a brothel, stabbed to a bloody death by seven scissor wounds. Beret believes it's Lillie's fault for bringing her murder upon herself. Indeed, everyone she talks to seems to think Lillie deserved it. Beret found herself hating Lillie and thinking her sister deserved what she’d gottenLillie is so beautiful, that looking upon her sister's corpse, Beret asks the detective whether he has fallen in love with her corpse, too. Fuck you, Beret. Lillie is a seductive child. She goes after anything with a dick. She is cruel, she is manipulative. It is Lillie's beauty that leads men to behave like fools around her. It is not the men's fault at all. Beret hated Lillie and tossed her out because she caught her sister in bed with her husband. Aaaaaaand... You would think after working with so many poor women who’d been abused by their husbands or been forced to sacrifice their honor to their employers that I would have known the man was always at fault. But I’m afraid I reacted like a typical scorned woman. I blamed the other woman—my sister.Yeah, typical. Fuck you, Beret. Act like a whore, get murdered, it's what any ho deserves, right? Fuck you, Beret. Lillie: I get that the book is trying to make Lillie into a bad character. It doesn't work. Why? HER CHARACTER. Always, always, ALWAYS, it's HER CHARACTER. Why is she so bad? IT'S HER CHARACTER. Why does she constantly seek attention from men? IT'S HER CHARACTER. Why do men always fall in love with her? IT'S HER CHARACTER. Why is she so despicable? IT'S HER CHARACTER. Fuck her character. This ain't some Freudian shit, and I'm not a 5-year old who you can spoon fucking feed into believe someone is bad simply because you fucking tell me she is. You want me to hate a character, you better fucking give me a good fucking reason. We get to see glimpses of Lillie from childhood to present, and I see a little girl who grew from a somewhat spoiled childhood into someone who's the fucking Whore of Babylon. Give me some fucking proof because I don't fucking buy what I was given. Setting & Plot: I can't help but wonder that this book needed a better editor, for surely, 5 minutes on Wikipedia can tell you much. Like the fact that there are no skyscrapers in New York in the year 1885. I read historical books because I want to forget about the present. I live in a time where social media and modernity hits me in the face every 5 seconds and I want to get away from that. When I read a historical novel, I want it to be historically accurate, and I don't want modern details sneaking in that slaps me back rudely into the present. I'm sure the word "criminologist" existed in 1885. I'm sure hot running water existed in 1885. I'm pretty fucking sure that the use of either is not prevalent, and I really don't want to see it in my 19th century-based novel. I'm sure that the word "crush" existed, in fact, it was recorded as being first used in 1884 in the modern context. Would it have been commonly used in 1885? Fucking no. Yeah, I'm anal about details. Get over it, or get a better editor. The plot is straightforward enough, but there is a minute amount of detection, and a considerable amount of accidental discovery and stupidity. Frankly, there was no point for having Detective Sergeant Michael in the book in the damn place. Beret at first suspected that he is a political appointee, and also believes that the police are largely incompetent. Well, she was right, because the police and the Big, Brawny Detective himself are completely and utterly useless in this novel. Their role seem limited to poring over corpses, making some vague hypotheses, and the rest of the time is spent making googly eyes at each other in some odd, macabre courtship ritual over death. Which is not to say Beret herself is any more competent, rather less, and still considerably more despicable. As I mentioned previously, there is an ample amount of stupidity within Beret. She continually gets herself into dangerous situations, despite knowing better, and ends up being saved only by an act of Providence, which is to say, things happen by chance to rescue Beret's dumb ass once too many time for me to believe. Fuck this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 23, 2013
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Nov 25, 2013
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Nov 23, 2013
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Hardcover
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0062229036
| 9780062229038
| 0062229036
| 3.85
| 3,673
| Sep 24, 2013
| Sep 24, 2013
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it was ok
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There was no single element that was terrible about this book, but the plot and the characters just didn't combine to form a book that I found remotel
There was no single element that was terrible about this book, but the plot and the characters just didn't combine to form a book that I found remotely plausible. The plot is weak, the main character is unlikeable, the mystery barely exists, because it was so predictable, the side characters are black-or-white. Beyond that, the best test for a book is my enjoyment...and I just didn't enjoy this book. Summary: Wick Tate has had a hard life. Her mother is dead. Her father is a felon on the run (see what I mean about parents in YA novels? Dead or gone). Wick is 16, almost 17, and a skilled hacker. So skilled, it is pretty damn unbelievable. She is living with the perfect family. Truly, Wick and her little sister Lily, have lucked out as far as foster families are concerned. Todd and Bren are youngish foster parents, they are wealthy, they are caring, they are pillars of the community, and they provide for Wick and Lily in every way. Despite that, Wick has no faith in them. 16-year old Wick makes a living on the side with her hacking skills as a private investigator for disgruntled wives and girlfriends who want to check up on their significant others. She hacks into bank accounts. She looks for evidence of cheating through email and social accounts. She looks for their other jobs. She maintains her anonymity in all of this. Meanwhile, a detective named Carson has been trailing Wick everywhere she goes. He is investigating her deadbeat father's case, and seems to have a personal vendetta for Wick. He thinks her, a 16 year old girl, capable of aiding and abetting her meth-lab-operating father in his disappearance. His intrusion is borderline stalking. At school, a girl named Tessa Waye, has died. Suicide. Wick doesn't buy it, because someone mysteriously sent her Tessa's journal on the day she died. From then on, Wick begins the investigation into Tessa's death with the aid of a fellow student. The Plot: This is a teenage amateur detective novel of the lightest order, because it really does not take a genius to figure out the "whodunnit." I thought I had it completely figured out 25% of the way in, and it turned out, I was right. This may be a quasi-detective novel, but it's no Agatha Christie. There's not much guesswork at play here. This is a problem for me, because in as much as I don't like a mystery novel where the ending comes fuck out of nowhere, I also like to be able to think a little for myself. I like to play armchair detective. I like a little guesswork. I love mysteries, and part of that is my love of figuring things out, to follow subtly given clues and see if I made the correct guess. There was no such subtlety in this book. The bad guy was so obvious that my 12-year old self reading The Baby Sitters' Club Mysteries could have figured it out. The villain was so blatant that it took away much of the enjoyment that a reader derives from reading a mystery. The events rather stretch the boundaries a little bit. I'm willing to be flexible when it comes to fiction, but really, am I supposed to believe that at the age of 16, Wick has been a hacker/cyber investigator for 3-4 years? Let's go back in time. 3-4 years ago, Wick was being bounced around in foster homes. Her mother committed suicide when she was 11. Her father started his meth lab when Wick was 5. Wick also has a younger sister, Lily, of whom she is overwhelmingly protective. Am I supposed to believe that during all this time, during her childhood full of abuse, living on tenterhooks because her father was a drug dealer, dealing with her mother's depression, trying to take care of her baby sister---somehow in the fuck of all this mess that is her life, Wick manages to also become a brilliant hacker at the age of 12? While being bounced around in foster homes? The answer is no. Am I supposed to believe that every single fucking adult in this book are idiotic, incompetent, completely incapable, as Wick does? You see, adults mess things up even when they’re trying to fix them. No. Check that. They mess things up especially when they’re trying to fix them. I mean, think about how they tried to save us from our dad, how they tried to help my mom. Failure all the way around.The answer is no. Am I supposed to empathize with a main character with a chip on her back the size of Russia? Who believes that the whole world and its' cousin in law is out to get her? The answer is no. Am I supposed to believe that a it's wise to leave a message on a dead girl's Facebook account, leaving the provocative message of "I know who killed me" and expect to stay nice and safe while she draws the killer out? The answer is no. Am I supposed to believe that a teenaged girl would kill herself and nobody---not even the police---would even think to look at her online accounts and emails and her life, given this day and age to see what went wrong? The answer is no. Am I supposed to believe that withholding evidence from the police is a wise idea because a kid can investigate the deaths so much better than professionals? The answer is no. Am I supposed to believe that the entire police department are stupid and corrupt, and one detective is so fiendishly evil that he would call Wick "trash" to her face? That he would believe a16 year old GIRL capable of such trickery and wiliness that he would tail her around constantly? The answer is no. Yes, I know the police can be corrupt. Humans are corrupt. Law enforcement officials are human. But it stretches my belief when everything is so black-and-white as Wick would see it. The overwhelming sense of this book is that because Wick BELIEVES everyone is incompetent and evil, it is true. Life doesn't work that way. The Main Character: Wick is not a likeable heroine. The summary says it all: "Wick has a bad attitude and sarcasm to spare." It is wholly evident in the book. She sees herself as Robin Hood when she engages in hacking. I don't think she is quite so noble. I didn't like Wick. She is selfish. She has no trust in authority figures, even when said authority figures are trying their very best to do right by her and her sister. According to Wick, the entire world is false. They smile at her with a Cheshire Cat's grin. She trusts no one but herself. Given her past, I can overlook her attitude and distrust, but only to a certain extent. Wick's overwhelming attitude can only be overlooked for so long before it grated on my nerves, and I found myself barely able to tolerate her. Her evolution in the book for the better is seen only in that she stops being an asshole and somewhat ceases her bitchy commentary towards everyone in her life. Wick is selfish. She has a good life, she won the fucking foster family lottery. Yet she seeks to endanger it at every turn by doing her highly illegal hacking jobs. It puts her and her sister in danger of losing their home with Todd and Bren. Lily, the wise 11-year old, sees it, and points it out to Wick. Wick doesn't give a crap, because she doesn't care, and she trusts no one but herself. Chip on her shoulders, indeed. The Romance: The lurve hit me from out of nowhere. Really. Griff has been her classmate for years, they've barely spoken, then all of a sudden he breaks into her bedroom, and Wick thinks "Hey, he's not so bad after all," and then a few days later, this happens out of no-fucking-where: Everywhere he’s touching and everywhere he’s touched is lighting up. I feel like I’ve swallowed the sun.Wha---what? How?! Do I believe that? The answer is no. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Nov 11, 2013
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Nov 11, 2013
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Hardcover
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1423187733
| 9781423187738
| 4.09
| 34,085
| Apr 10, 2014
| Apr 15, 2014
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liked it
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Actual rating: 3.5 “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not proud of it. Even though you didn’t have that damn necklace on, as far as I knew, youActual rating: 3.5 “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not proud of it. Even though you didn’t have that damn necklace on, as far as I knew, you were still with Del. And I’m not big on making out with another guy’s girlfriend."The apocalypse has arrived, and the signs started with Khanh liking a bad-boy love interest within an Armentrout novel. I've read a lot of Armentrout books, and I have to say that this was my favorite in her repertoire. It was not amazing, but like all Armentrout works, it is immensely readable, and unlike most Armentrout works, it didn't give me a pounding headache. I have always loved the amnesia trope, and this book did the trick. More details later, but in short, here's the good and the sort-of-bad. Honestly, there wasn't anything truly atrocious about this book. There were a few moments that made me cringe. Specifically, they were the moments when Sam felt like she had to get physical with her boyfriend in order to be a good girlfriend. I didn't like the intonation that it was the girl's fault if she could not get into the attraction, that is was her duty to be sexually fulfilling in order to have a functional relationship. Thankfully, that only happened twice in the book. The good: 1. A non-bitchy heroine for a change 2. A bad-boy love interest who turns out to be likeable, even by Khanh standards 3. No Mary Sue syndrome 4. There's an actual FAMILY, they have family interactions! The MC is not an orphan! The (sorta) bad: 1. The MC is Too-Stupid-To-Live at times, and too meek in others; she trusts too easily 2. The plot was extremely predictable: I guessed the whodunnit within the first 20% of the book 3. The "amnesia" excuse was believed by everyone, which is a far stretch to me 4. There was no subtlety: there are extremely obvious and caricaturized Mean Girls. The bad guys all but wore "VILLAIN" signs around their necks. The hints and clues were so loud a 5-year old could have guessed 5. Extremely shallow female friends The bad: 1. The forced physicality between Sam and her boyfriend The Summary: “She thinks I did it?” My voice was small, hoarse. “She thinks I did something to Cassie?”A girl wanders the streets, battered and bruised. She doesn't know where she is, she doesn't know who she is. It turns out that she is Samantha Jo Franco, and her life appears to be pretty fucking sweet on the surface. She's got loving parents, a twin brother, not to mention the fact that her family is immensely wealthy. We drove past them...in our Bentley.She lives in a house that makes a mansion look like an apartment. Samantha is good-looking. She's got a loving steady boyfriend. She's headed to Yale next year. So what could be wrong? “Cassie Winchester is your best friend. She disappeared with you.”Oh, there's that little matter. Not only has Samantha's memories disappeared, but so has her best friend, Cassie. And the trouble doesn't end there...you see, Samantha---the old Samantha...was a huge bitch. “You were a terror to everyone who knew you."It turns out that there is a Mean Girl clique at her school, and Samantha was the queen bee. She ran a campaign of terror, lording it all over her classmates. Everyone in school hated her, with good reason. “Just a couple weeks ago, you called her”—she lowered her voice—“a fat bitch whose thighs were capable of setting the world on fire."To make it worse, someone's leaving her strange notes. Drawing in a shallow breath, I unfolded the slip of paper.And she's having hallucinations of Cassie...if that's what it is. There's a whole lot of adjustment to be made. Sam's got to come to terms with who she was, and who she is now. She has to determine who's her friends, and who's her enemy. She has to sort out her feelings between her childhood friend Carson, the son of "the help," and her handsome, blue-blooded boyfriend Del. There are relationships to be rebuilt between her family and her twin brother Scott, and she's going to have to rebuild some broken friendships. And try not to get herself killed in the process of remembering what happened the night Cassie disappeared. Who killed Cassie? There are no shortage of suspects. “There’s a huge list of people who were angry with her, but to kill her? I don’t think so.”And one of them may be Cassie herself. "Right now, if it turns out that she was murdered, you’re their number one suspect.”Samantha: “You’re not an idiot, Sam.”I actually liked Sam a lot. I found her switch from bitchy before-Sam to completely passive after-Sam to be a bit of a stretch, but she is the first Armentrout main character who didn't make me want to strangle her. Sam is really nice, but also incredibly meek at times. Due to her amnesia, she is incredibly innocent, and she asks a lot of questions, which is reasonable, but also frustrating at times. “Jeez, this is like talking to a toddler.”She is pretty smart, she has some common sense. When Sam receives mysterious notes, she knows she needs to keep them as evidence, despite her brother's protestations to the contrary. But she can be, as she said, "incredibly naive." Sam didn't realize that she was a suspect in Cassie's disappearance. That's just really unbelievable. “The big deal is that you were most likely the last person who saw Cassie—you were probably with her when...when whatever happened to her occurred.”She trusts people too easily. Sam doesn't have her memories, she doesn't know who she can and can't trust, and yet she seems to intuitively feel who she can trust---and she turns out to be right, without much credibility on the reader's part. And to top it off, she sometimes acts foolishly. Sam returns to the possible scene of the crime alone. She runs off to be by herself, leaving her family to worry. But she is never outrageously stupid, and I liked her as a main character. I feel like she grew up along the way, I feel that she became self-aware. She eventually becomes strong, but never a bitch. The Credibility: My main fault with this book is the credibility. I don't mean the amnesia premise, I mean that everyone buys into it so quickly. Before-Sam was a bitch. Why did everyone all of a sudden believe that she has amnesia? Because before-Sam was a manipulative bitch, wouldn't it be so much easier for everyone to think that she had been lying all along? Everyone seems to buy the amnesia premise without much convincing, and I found that hard to believe. No Subtlety: The mystery was extremely obvious to anyone reading this book. The bad guys says things too quickly, too brightly, they smile too falsely, too easily. Sam has a knee-jerk reaction to them. I liked this book, but I like more depth to my investigative mysteries, and I found this book to be rather shallow. The Mean Girls: Sam's friends are horrible people. Almost all the females in this book are bitches. They're beautiful and manipulative. They're petty. They're shallow. They're absurdly snobby. They're outrageously racist. “Look, Pham or Long Duck, whatever your name is, turn around."The Mean Girls clique is one element of Armentrout's book I could do without. The Romance: There is a love triangle in the book, and it is so half-hearted that I can't even be bothered to complain about it. What surprised me was my "like" (not love, like) for the bad-boy-motorcycle-riding love interest. It started off badly enough, as the newly-amnesiac Sam falls into insta-love for an asshole who hates her. “Is that my boyfriend?” I whispered, hopeful and scared all at once.And he also rides a motorcycle. Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare me, please. But as it turned out, he's...kind of a nice guy. For one, he doesn't want to be a cheater. “I don’t like Del,” he admitted, staring straight into my eyes. “He’s a dick, and you’ve always deserved better than him, but I’m not that kind of guy. At least, I’m trying to not be with you.”Sam has a boyfriend, Del. She's not attracted to Del, she's attracted to Carson. Technically, she's cheating on Del mentally. But the thing is, Sam realizes that cheating is not right. I needed to figure out how I felt about Del if there was any hope for us because stringing him along wasn’t fair. If I was no longer the girl who’d fallen in love with him, it wasn’t right to keep up this...this charade.I liked Carson. I liked Sam. Their romance didn't hurt, and neither did this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 15, 2014
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Apr 16, 2014
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Oct 18, 2013
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ebook
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1452110700
| 9781452110707
| 1452110700
| 3.67
| 7,228
| Aug 16, 2013
| Sep 17, 2013
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it was ok
| "Miss Holmes. Miss Stoker. There are many young men your age who are called into the service of their country. Who risk life and limb for thei "Miss Holmes. Miss Stoker. There are many young men your age who are called into the service of their country. Who risk life and limb for their queen, their countrymen, and the Empire. Tonight, I ask, on behalf of Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales: will you do what no other young women are called to do, and place your lives and honor at the feet of your country?”This book, while by no means perfect, was just a lot of fun. It is mostly plot-driven, without much character development nor depth. It is also bogged down by some truly stupid insta-loves and love triangles. Overall, I would still recommend this for a is a light, easy, fun read. "Yes, I am willing,”The setting is London, 1889. This is a steampunk novel, but it is steampunk light. It can barely be called steampunk, because this is just a more mechanized, steam-powered version of Victorian London. The elements of steampunk are there, but they are so very minor as to be almost nonexistent in the book. Victorian ideals and beliefs still prevail. We have steam-powered engines, trolleys, electricity is outlawed, we have robot-like machines used around the house to help ladies put on corsets and practice dancing without a partner. London is just a little bit different. I disliked the new carriages, propelled by a steam engine and with no visible driver or engineer. They ran on some sort of magnetic tracking system. Ever since the Moseley-Haft Steam-Promotion Act had been passed by Lord Cosgrove-Pitt and his Parliament, everyone in London had been keen on them and anything else that could be mechanized and automated.Our heroines are Alvemina (who understandably prefers to be called "Mina" instead of her full name) Holmes, daughter of Sir Mycroft Holmes and niece of the famed Sherlock Holmes. Neglected by her father and abandoned by her mother, she is highly deductive (and thinks quite highly of herself), impulsive, completely lacking in social graces, and not altogether familiar with common sense, however book-smart and practical she is. Mina claims to be a scholar, and an admirer of her uncle's work. To be honest...I didn't find her too terribly smart, despite her self-professed assertion of being brilliant. Her partner-in-crime, reluctantly thrown together, is Evaline Stoker, of Colleen Gleason's Gardetta Vampires family series. She is a vampire hunter, who is feeling a little bored and more than a little helpless at her current situation (London is sadly lacking in vampires to hunt, since her famed ancestor Victoria has pretty much killed them all, half a decade or so ago). Evaline is the opposite of Mina. She is beautiful, socially graceful and active, and as much as Mina is a scholar, Evaline is a warrior, despite her quiet front. She is a vampire hunter, and she does know how to kick some asses. The two young ladies (and they are very young, 18 or so) are enlisted by Irene Adler of Sherlock Holmes fame, to investigate the deaths of some young society ladies. Along the way, they encounter mysterious Egyptian clues, secret societies, and mysterious young men---one of whom might even be a time traveler. He wears strange pants! His shirt has no buttons and a word that looks like AEROPOSTA on it. And he carries a strange device... I pulled the device from my pocket. It looked like a small, dark mirror, but its window or face was black and shiny and reflected a bit of light and no clear image. About as big as my hand, it was slender and elegant, made of glass and encased in silver metal. I turned it over and noticed the faint image of an apple with a bite out of it.I don't know if it's an unintended joke on the Apple theme...but Evaline's mentor is named Siri. Both Mina and Evaline are very different, and they are initially distrustful and judgmental of each other. Mina is dismissive of Evaline's skills and personality, based on her beautiful exterior. According to The Venators, the vampire hunters of her family were endowed with superior physical strength and unnatural speed. I wondered if it was true. She certainly didn’t appear dangerous.And Evaline is similarly disparaging of Mina's braininess, calling her a "gawky brain-beak", which is also a dig on Mina's appearance, since Mina has unfortunately inherited the famous Holmes beak-like nose. Despite their initial dislike of one another, they slowly warm to each other, and become appreciative of one anothers' strengths. They are not perfect, and both act really, really idiotically at numerous times in the course of their investigation. Mina walks into dangerous situations alone, without any defense, as well as invites a perfect stranger (a MAN, no less) to stay over at her home, knowing of the danger and the ridiculous impropriety of it. Similarly, Evaline acts like an impetuous fool, and completely blow their covers on more than one occasion. However, they are excellent foils to each other, since they are both there to bail the other out when one is endangered. Their partnership grow to be one of trust, and maybe even friendship. That was when I realized that, somewhere along the way, she’d ceased being Miss Stoker and had become Evaline.There is not much character development in this book...both characters start off being unsure of themselves and their situation in the world, and are eager to prove their worthiness. They do accomplish that, to an extent, but that's the magnitude of their maturity. There is not much beyond that. My major complaint with this book is the forced romances. Thankfully, Mina and Evaline never did fight over a guy, but I found their respective love interests to be such a stupid stretch. One of the two character not only falls into insta-love, but also gets involved in a stupid love triangle. The other gets involved with some mysterious young man who speaks in an exaggerated Cockney accent, who makes an appearance at pretty much every place she turns up (in this day, we'd call that a stalker), and kisses her silly at every chance. And naturally, our lovestruck heroine is intriged. BY A COCKNEY-ACCENTED STRANGER NAMED PIX. LIKE PIXIE. /facepalm Regardless of the stupidity of the numerous romances in this book, it was an fun read. Recommended for people who want something light that doesn't require them to think too much. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Sep 23, 2013
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Sep 15, 2013
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Hardcover
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1451684436
| 9781451684438
| 1451684436
| 3.66
| 1,405
| Nov 27, 2012
| Nov 27, 2012
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did not like it
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This was a very poorly written book, with an incredible, inconceivably perfect Mary Sue of a character, with inexplicable insta-love. It is categorize
This was a very poorly written book, with an incredible, inconceivably perfect Mary Sue of a character, with inexplicable insta-love. It is categorized under such genres as "Historical Romance," "Mystery Thriller." Both, all, really, would be wrong. I would like to suggest another genre under which this book should be shelved. "Terrible." I don't always have to like the main character in order to love the book, but more often than not, the main character and his or her gradual development makes or breaks a novel. In this case, the novel is irretrievably shattered by the fucking unrealistic paragon that is Charlotte Raven. Before you decide whether to read this book, I would like to present to you some facts about Charlotte, which should be useful for you in deciding whether to try this book out for yourself or not. - She was born and raised a street urchin and chimney sweep until she became stuck in one at the age of 12. Our extremely fortunate girl-in-disguise chimney sweep is then abandoned by her employee, still stuck headfirst within the chimney, and adopted and made the heiress of a wealthy society peeress, Lady Howe. - Somehow she has managed to pass flawlessly as a society lady without anyone being the wiser, despite having grown up in the streets. She is equally at home in a back alley as in a society ball. - She not only balances life as a society woman (whose character is beyond reproach, "unimpeachable," "irreproachable," while maintaining a double life in the grimy seeds of the London underworld for 12 years, without the Ton being any wiser to her low connections and base beginnings. - She figures out the clandestine occupation of a Lord, which he has kept secret for years, within a day of meeting him, with no clues whatsoever - She has no last name, but is so named by her fellow urchins as a child because her hair is "as black as a raven's wing." - She is stunningly beautiful, intelligent, and observant. She literally has no faults throughout the course of the book. - "I [Charlotte] became Luke’s lover because it was the only thing he wanted, and it seemed wrong to deny him when he had done so much. I was twelve years old.” I am not slut shaming. I am only stating it for the preposterousness that it is. It is even more so when both said criminal mastermind of the Rookeries (Luke) and a high-born nobleman, Edward, both fall senselessly in love with her. Luke has been in love with her since he was 16 and she 12. Edward, our stoic, politically-minded nobleman, falls for her intrigue within hours of their encounter, despite smelling that something just ain't right. "...he’d thought there was something about her—a cheekiness, a liveliness that reminded him of the streets."There is no character development. None. The characters make grand speeches about change, about love. It means nothing, because the evidence of how their character develops and mature is just not there. “No. I’ve chosen to be myself. To follow my own heart for a change. I don’t think I ever have.”That is bullshit. In the events of the book, it is complete and utter bullshit. It is a grand speech with nothing to back it up. As far as we see in the book, Charlotte does whatever she fucking pleases. That is a beautiful, grandiose statement that I quoted from her, and grandiose is all it is, because it is full of hot fucking air and completely lacking in fact. Let's recall, shall we, that Charlotte has chosen to lead a double life. She was not forced to choose one nor the other. Charlotte has been given free reign to do whatever she fucking pleases, by both her wealthy guardian, and by her overprotective crime lord who would slaughter people at the drop of a hat if they dared so much as to harm a hair on her head. There is no self-denial here, no tragic martyrdom. Charlotte is the luckiest bitch ever born. The mystery is supposedly based on real historical events, Napoleon's plan to control England's gold resources. It is absurd, the way the mystery unfolds has no rationality, it is too dependent upon deus ex machina. Aside from the obvious characterization failings of the book, there are two other faults with it that keeps it from any semblance of being even a merely "good" book. Like with the characters, the plot is completely filled with telling, not showing. We are expected to believe this happened, that that happened, we are not shown and demonstrated as to how such and such happened. I would have loved to read about Charlotte's transformation: it does not happen. There is no fucking My Fair Lady moment in this book that would make me believe or empathize with Charlotte. It truly is all telling, no showing. We are supposed to swallow, deep-throated and choking, the fact that Charlotte completes her upper-class education and passes for a society lady without any proof whatsofuckingever. We are supposed to believe that Lord Edward is a nobleman, and a gentleman spy, well-educated, a fucking Renaissance Man, with no evidence whatsoever. We are told she does this, she uncovers this. He does this, he discovers this grand fucking plot, and expected to swallow it, hoook, line, and sinker, without evidence. It is a fucking insult to my intelligence. Oh, my. This review is just getting angrier and angrier as I go along, isn't it? The other fault is with the writing, the dialogue. The writing itself is decent, although it contains some really weird metaphors that just left me wrinkling my forehead. What I cannot overlook is the atrocious dialogue. The dialogue is completely inconsistent. We have Cockney street accents with a dropped H in one word, and a completely pronounced H in the next. We have modern contractions and phrases, coupled with archaic speech. We have usage of the word "Daddy." In Regency London. I'm just glad to have finished this terribad book so I can delete it and save the wasted space that it presently occupies on my Nook. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 03, 2013
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Sep 04, 2013
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Aug 31, 2013
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
0062237179
| 9780062237170
| 0062237179
| 3.97
| 6,727
| Aug 27, 2013
| Aug 27, 2013
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it was amazing
|
Some series need to die a graceful end, this is not one of them. Whenever I want a good book, there are certain authors I reach for, certain authors I Some series need to die a graceful end, this is not one of them. Whenever I want a good book, there are certain authors I reach for, certain authors I know will never let me down. The mother/son duo of Charles Todd numbers among those authors. They have written over 20 books, and I have adored every single one. What can I say? There's a reason why I've read everything Charles Todd has ever written, and will continue to do so for as long as they continue to write. An interesting, compelling mystery. A lot of wartime action, particularly in the nursing stations, caring for the wounded, the dying, the ill. The trauma and urgency is there. The mystery is intriguing, and constantly manages to surprise me in the twists and turns it took. That's the thing about Charles Todd's books. The direction of the mystery never turns out the way you would expect. It is no Agatha Christie. You can never see where a clue will lead you. It is so much more complex than that, such is human nature, and human nature is so eloquently described here. Bess Crawford is an amazing heroine; she always has been. She is smart, strong, brave, not afraid of getting dirty, despite her social status. Her family is similarly lovable, particularly her strong-willed, iron butterfly mother and loving Colonel Sahib of a father. I can completely understand Bess's need to clear her family's name and maintain their honor and pride. I love the fact that there is no forced romance, and there has never been any in Charles Todd's series...any of them, be it the Ian Rutledge series or this one. The romance is nonexistent, which is as it should be, given the war time and the gravity of the situation. Ain't nobody got time for romance, and that's the way it should be. Still, I can't help but hope that one day, the irreplaceable, wonderful, stalwart Simon Brandon would end up with Bess. There is no more fitting match in my eyes. It's a short review, it's a poor review, in terms of the ones I've written, but I love this series so much that I simply lack the appropriate words. It's not perfect, people meet happenstance far too many times in the midst of war, but overall, this book is so well-written and the characters so brilliantly portrayed, that I will happily overlook any minor flaws. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Oct 19, 2013
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Aug 31, 2013
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Unknown Binding
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0345537181
| 9780345537188
| 0345537181
| 3.59
| 2,938
| Sep 24, 2013
| Sep 24, 2013
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it was ok
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I'm a somewhat impatient reader. I don't mind a long book, but it has to be worth the investment, and I felt that this very, very long book was not wo
I'm a somewhat impatient reader. I don't mind a long book, but it has to be worth the investment, and I felt that this very, very long book was not worth the time and effort that I have devoted to it. This book has the feel of Anne Perry's Charlotte & Thomas Pitt series, without the sensible plot development, without the complex character portrayal, with a largely forgettable cast. What it does have (to its detriment), is a predictable and stupid love triangle, a boring main character---who, I must be honest, doesn't even feel like a main character, because she feels sidelined by the needlessly large side cast, an overly complicated plot, and a cliffhanger. There are several rather...questionable words used to describe people of certain races. Words like Negro, and Chinaman. Fine, I accept that those words were probably used quite freely during that time era, but I do question the author's choice in including such words in her work, particularly in this day and age, when they are so offensive. It's just my personal pet peeve. Don't be fooled by the cover...our heroine is nowhere as cool in the book. Evelina Cooper is the niece of Sherlock Holmes, whose connection is tenuous and barely mentioned throughout much of the book. She is caught between two worlds, the one she was born to: that of the Gypsy and their traveling circus, and one to which she was adopted: that of upper-middle-class respectability. Evelina has a secret, she has magic (also referred to as having the Blood); this is a dangerous skill to have, and one that must remain hidden, because in this steampunk version of Victorian England, magic is illegal and the discovery could lead to her execution. During an extended stay with her friend Imogen Roth, daughter of Viscount Roth, Lord Bancroft, she finds some highly illegal automatons (robots), and is involved in the discovery of a servant girl's death, all in one night. She sets out to solve the girl's death, with an ulterior motive which has me gritting my teeth---she merely doesn't want her beloved best friend to be embroiled in scandal during her Season, despite the fact that someone in the household may be the murderer. So much for impartiality; Sherlock Holmes would be so disappointed in his niece. But wait! That's not all. I only wish that Evelina's determination to solve the murder mystery was the only plotline...then this book might have been tolerable. Nope nope nope. We have numerous other plotlines to be resolved, which ultimately ends in me having a headache. The plot The book is told from a third-person POV, with multiple narratives. You may think this is Evelina's book. You would be wrong. Her character and story feels completely sidelined by the much overly complicated plot and numerous side narratives of the other characters. For example, we get the narrative of: Nick (Evelina's former love, from her old life), Tobias Roth (golden son of Viscount Roth), Imogen (Evelina's best friend), Jasper Keating (a steam baron), Lord Bancroft. Most of the narratives just added to the confusion of the plot, and some--like Imogen's, added absolutely nothing more than giving us insight into a young woman's view of the Season and her potential suitors. The first half of the book was frankly, a pain to read through, because the various plot strings have not yet come together, and it just added to my frustration to have to follow multiple conspiracies from multiple perspectives. The book is far too complicated, and far too long. - We have Evelina trying to solve the mystery of a servant's death. - We have Evelina concealing evidence and trying to solve the mystery of the various items she stole off the corpse, as well as detecting the traces of magic on it. - We have the steam barons seeking to consolidate their power. - We have one particular steam baron seeking a magical artifact. - We have Lord Bancroft plotting against the steam barons. - We have a mysterious shadowy figure with an unknown motive. - We have magic and demons in play. - We have Sherlock Holmes drawn unwittingly into the scheme at some point. - We have playboys involved in juvenile bets, like almost setting a fucking theatre on fire and killing everyone for the sake of amusement. - We have side characters doing their own investigation while investigating yet more things for someone who hired them. - We have a love triangle. - We have Evelina trying to go about her Season and being presented to the Queen - We have Evelina's best friend trying to find a husband It is just altogether too fucking much. The Setting The world building is interesting; it is a steampunk version of England in every sense of the word, because steam rules the day. The steam barons are a council of very powerful men and women who control England behind the scenes because of the power, literally, that they wield. England runs on power, on steam, and these people hold England more or less hostage. The steam barons ran their companies and, by extension, certain towns and neighborhoods with a combination of bribes and threats.Magic is hated and feared, particularly by the steam barons, because its mysterious origins run contrary to their investment. If magic could power things, then the steam barons would be run out of business. Thus, magic is illegal, and to be tried as a witch is a surefire sentence of execution. Steam barons can also show their power to those who disobey by Disconnecting---or effectively cutting off electricity and power---to a household it deemed unworthy. An intriguing premise...but the delivery is not so effective. While the explanation of the power of steam is quite grandiose...the extent of how steam and electricity is used is, well, not so impressive. The power of the steam barons is mostly told, not shown. From what we see in the book, steam is mostly used to power tea trolleys in the house, in sauce-dispensing machines for dinner parties, and for pretty decorative lights outside of wealthy people's houses. There is a slight inclusion of magic, there are elemental creatures called devas, which are largely controlled by Evelina for the purpose of spying. There are hints of demonic possessions. The use of magic is there, but the inclusion of it just didn't interest me, and it didn't really feel like it meshed well with the plot overall. The Characters Evelina: She is smart...but her investigative skills leave a lot to be desired. She is completely biased, she sets out her investigation with a purpose in mind: to save her friend's family from scandal, so in this caase, her skills as a credible detective is highly questionable. Evelina doesn't change at all throughout the novel. Her character lacks the development and the complexity, we see her doing a lot of things, but there's very little insight into her mind, and I personally do not feel that she matures at all. I like that she is intelligent, I like that she wants to pursue her education, and that she likes mechanical things and tinkering around with engineering, but there is a serious lack of depth and insight into her personality. To be honest, Evelina feels like a Mary Sue at times, she is too perfect...and she never feel like she fits in. "She was caught between, half gentry and half vagabond, two halves that never knit properly together." She knows how to act like a lady, and she knows how to walk on a tightrope. She is... ...a beauty. Skin like the moon and hair like a starless nightEvelina is too much. She is unbelievable.It is not that she is an annoying character, Evelina is quite tolerable, even if she does incredibly stupid things (like hang upside down outside a window in the middle of the night), but I'm just not attached to her character. Tobias & Nick: I'm going to lump the two love interests together, because they are such horrible tropes. Nick is the Indomitable Niccolo, the circus knife-throwing man. The mysterious, dark, handsomely swarthy bad boy who loves Evelina from afar and is too far beneath her socially to entertain dreams of having a future with her. Tobias is the golden-haired playboy, a secretly brilliant engineer, the son and heir of a Viscountancy, completely out of Evelina's league. He knows that she's beyond his status, but of course, he selfishly pursues her anyway. I hated both of them; both men are completely unoriginal, and can be found in various reincarnations in 99.7% of the substandard PNR/fantasies in existence. Apparently, Tobias and Nick can be compared to ships! Shiiiiips! Tobias would have been something beautifully crafted and elegant with lots of white sails—the meeting place of tradition and innovation.Romance Broken record here, but the romance and love triangle is stupid. For Nick, Evelina has "always been the only girl who’d ever made his whole being come alive just by walking into a room." Um. They grew up together, they last saw each other when she was 14, and he was 17. That's a little creepy. And for Nick to continue feeling that way about her 5 years later...it's unrealistic. And Tobias, well...trope aside, they had a lovely little moment of attraction... The top buttons of his shirt were undone, his collar gone. She could see the smooth pale arc of his throat. Beneath the scent of brandy, she could smell smoke, as if he’d been standing next to a steam engine.Cute, right? Well, not exactly. Because they're both hovering over a mutilated corpse. ...a dead body. Not just dead, but violently dead. The straggling hair was matted with blood...The dead woman’s face was obscured by the tumble of her hair, but Evelina could see the throat had been slashed from ear to ear.Sooooooooooo romantic! Yeah, you can see where this goes. Not recommended. Too long of a book for too little return in pleasure of reading. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 26, 2013
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Oct 2013
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Aug 28, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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1250033608
| 9781250033604
| 1250033608
| 3.98
| 1,568
| Mar 04, 2014
| Mar 16, 2014
|
really liked it
| Daddy said that you can’t change the way things are by saving one person. He said the best we can do in life is surround ourselves with people who Daddy said that you can’t change the way things are by saving one person. He said the best we can do in life is surround ourselves with people who make us happy, because the rest of the world is too big to find meaning in.Nancy Drew could only aspire to be as cool as Anne Dowling. Have you met Anne? You must. There has scarcely ever been such a level-headed, intelligent, delightfully winsome teenaged detective in all of YA literature. There is little to dislike about this book, and a great deal to love. If you enjoy a boarding school setting, you will adore this book. If you like a strong, smart female character, you will adore this book. If you enjoy reading about realistic teenagers, you will love this book. The Summary: I’ve been expelled from my beloved Manhattan school, questioned as a person of interest in a murder investigation, and nearly shot to death in the woods, but I’m convinced Monday morning is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.Our beloved amateur detective is back. In the last book, she unsolved a friend's murderer, nearly got killed; you can't blame her for wanting to chill a little bit. Currently, life is blissfully free from murder, she's going out with the incredibly hot (and incredibly sweet) Brent. But something doesn't feel right. Something connected to the murder that was supposed to have been solved. The dead leave lots of things behind. Like messes you can’t see. Or sometimes, actual things.They don't call it women's intuition for a reason. Matthew Weaver's disappearance happened so long ago that it feels like a boarding school urban legend, Anne knows that she would be dismissed as crazy if she brought up the fact that she wants to investigate it. Her therapist thinks she's just looking for trouble. Even Anne thinks he has a point. He also asked me if I found myself bored in the weeks after Dr. Harrow’s arrest. I’m not an idiot: He thinks I want there to be more to the mystery. Sort of like I’m having mystery withdrawals or whatever.But it seems the mystery won't leave her alone. An active mind makes connections on its own, and there are far too many clues for Anne to overlook. Such as the fact that her boyfriend's father, among others, are Matthew Weaver's former crew members and classmates. Over 30 years after Matthew's disappearance, they are now successful and influential men, but what secrets are they hiding? What about the rumors that Matthew is a sacrifice in a Satanic ritual? Why did Matthew Weaver draw himself as the Biblical Adam? Matt Weaver drew himself as Adam.Unfortunately, Matthew Weaver's death is not the only thing on Anne's mind. There is something going on in school, people are being hurt, secrets are being kept; betrayals abound. ...the picture makes me want to throw up.Anne sees this case through. She spies, she snoops. She breaks curfew (and incurs the ire of the Residential Advisor). Anne mines information from microfiches to Wikipedia to...VHS tapes. “Where can I find a VCR?” I say from the doorway.No clue is left unturned. Along the way, she has to reluctantly seek the assistance from a former (and rather unsavory) acquaintance. “Hi. Um. It’s me. Anne. Look, I know we haven’t talked in a while. But I really need to talk. To you. It’s important.”Anne needs to be careful. If Matthew Weaver died 30 years ago, the killer is still loose. And they may be coming for Anne. I think of all the Wheatley School students who have wound up dead (or presumably, at least): Isabella Fernandez. Matthew Weaver. Cynthia Durham. I’ve never believed in curses or any of that garbage. But I will admit it: I’m starting to worry that if I stay at the Wheatley School, I might be next.The Setting: I have to admit, I love a boarding school setting, and this book did the trick. Unlike other books set in school, this book never lets you forget that the kids in this book are high schoolers, they have homework, they have relationship dramas, they have classes. This book portrays such a wonderfully authentic school atmosphere. The teens study together. They have classes together. They hang out together. They act silly and party together. They're not perfect. The kids are great students, but they're human. The teens in this book are great kids, but they occasionally fuck up, they have relationship drama. They do drugs, they sleep around. It is never overdone to an extent to which that it take over the plot. “Oh, no,” April says over the sound of Murali, Phil, and Cole’s laughter. “There are tons of bananas in the fridge. You’re not doing the Sprite-banana challenge, are you?”Unlike in other "high school" books, we actually have classes, and homework. Everyone is in self-imposed isolation today: We all got drunker than we meant to last night, and there’s lots of shit due in class tomorrow.There's plenty of teenaged groping and canoodling, only there's not a whole lot of privacy in the dorms, lol. Brent sits up, his back against his pillow, and I sit on his lap facing him. He kisses my neck, and when I kiss his earlobe his whole body contracts into mine.This is such an awesome boarding school setting; it's the sort that makes me long for a better high school experience. Anne: Anne is back, and she is fucking awesome. In case I haven't made it clear, I absolutely freaking ADORE Anne. Rarely have I encountered a female main character whom I love so much. Anne is smart. She is rational. Her family is well-off, she is pretty, but she never, ever lords it over other girls. Anne has an unprecedented sense of justice (her father is a lawyer) as well as a good dose of rationality to help her through the case, even if the reality is not one she likes. Occam’s razor: It’s a theory of logic stating that the simplest explanation to a problem is usually the best one. It’s my father’s worst nightmare in the courtroom.She is never, ever judgmental and hateful of other girls, even a potential love rival. Absent, thankfully, is Jill Wexler, who is tall and thin and blond and in love with Brent. Which isn’t grounds to hate her. I’m not like that.She is truly a friend to the other girls in the book. You will find no girl-on-girl hate here. “Don’t ever say you hate yourself for that. You know what I hate? The idea that we’re supposed to hate ourselves for having sex.”Anne has a wry sense of humor, and I love that about her. Her sense of humor is more deadpan than anything, and she never grates on my nerves. Anne is not perfect. She makes mistakes. She gets caught. She breaks down, and I love it when she does. She is occasionally weak... I’m not going to let myself cry. I worked too damn hard on my eye makeup....but never for long. The Investigation: I felt Anne's investigative skills were well-done and credible. There is a little suspension of disbelief here, because one of her "sources" is just, well, too good to be true. Otherwise, Anne uses her Internet skills, her snooping skills, and her deductive abilities to figure out the case. It is almost like doing a research project. “You found all that out on your own?”The Romance: I didn't have much of a problem with the romance in this book, but I have to warn you that there's a love triangle. To be honest, I didn't mind it at all, for the most part. The love triangle is not gratuitous. It did not bother me. It felt like a natural progression of relationships, and I thought it was well done. I have to admit that this book kept me guessing. The relationships were extremely well-done. There is the dreamy, sweet Brent; their relationship in the book is sweet, calm, soothing. But there are hints of unease beneath the surface. “I’ll see you in a few, I guess.”The romance is not a heavy element in this book. When it happens, it was well done and believable. “No, there’s more. I don’t want to pretend I don’t give a shit what you think of me. Because I do. I don’t want to be the waste product you think I am. It’s all I think about lately.” His eyes are pleading, begging me to understand what he’s really saying. “You’re all I think about, and I can’t stop.”They're teenagers. The romance was never overdone. There is never insta-love, and relationships happen naturally. I liked them all, love triangles be damned. The ending had me screaming. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 10, 2014
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Mar 10, 2014
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Aug 25, 2013
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Paperback
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0525953043
| 9780525953043
| 0525953043
| 4.07
| 21,501
| Aug 20, 2013
| Aug 20, 2013
|
liked it
|
Actual rating: 2.5 [image] Missed the mark. Completely missed it. Recommended for lovers of detective novels, because that's all this book is. I feel misl Actual rating: 2.5 [image] Missed the mark. Completely missed it. Recommended for lovers of detective novels, because that's all this book is. I feel misled---specifically by the genres under which this book is categorized. I was led into reading this book under false pretenses. It is a far, far stretch to shelve this book as Urban Fantasy or Paranormal when it is more of a mystery with some very forced and frankly, nonsensical attempts at incorporating extremely, extremely minute elements of fantasy that ultimately didn't make a dent of a difference in the overall plot. This book started off wonderfully, then it just fizzled off into a completely different direction from what had initially attracted me towards it in the first place. Don't get me wrong, this was not a bad book by any means. The writing, as per Ms. Armstrong's usual style, is great. Succinct, to the point, never overly verbose, never confusing. The characters were well-done, not always likeable, but well-portrayed enough, and it helps that our main character is a highly likeable character. My problem is with this book's promise of an urban fantasy. Of the paranormal. In the author's introduction of the book, she tells us that there are hints scattered throughout the book, and that we're free to do our own investigation as we go along. I didn't need to, the terms sprinkled throughout are common enough so that any average reader of fantasy would know what a piskie, goblin, hobgoblin, bogeyman are. There are Welsh terms sprinkled throughout the book, also of that nature, and easy enough to understand...the problem with the supposed hints is that they go nowhere towards explaining the ultimate mystery of Olivia and what's behind the strange little town of Cainsville. The book centers around a very privileged young woman, Olivia, who has recently discovered that she is adopted. To make it worse, her biological parents are convicted serial killers. With all the media frenzy surrounding her, and a broken engagement to a very eligible and privileged political scion of an old money family, Olivia picks herself up and runs away from it all. She eventually ends up in the towns of Cainsville, where she meets ambulance-chaser lawyer Gabriel Walsh. The two of them then set out to solve the mystery of her biological parents, and set out to prove their supposed innocence. A privileged young woman gets uprooted from everything she knows and encounters an asshole in a new city. Sounds like the Fever series, doesn't it? That's where the comparison ends. The world of Fever is filled with dislikeable but highly complex characters within richly imagined, well-built world, fraught with utterly frightening underlying darkness, this book just falls flat in comparison. The characters are likeable, but dull. The ones who aren't likeable, are also dull. We do not get as much of a sense of character development, and there is no world building of the paranormal or the fantasy sort that would keep me mesmerized. Cainsville is, in short, Dullsville. I really liked Olivia's character. She is privileged, but she is not a bitch. She is a little sorry for herself and the mold of a the privileged life into which she has been forced to conform, but I never got much of the poor-little-rich-girl-woe-is-me vibe from her. She is an utterly likeable character. Olivia realizes that she is fortunate to live in such a privileged world, with her work helping the addict, she understands how good she's got it, even if she wishes things were different. I live with my mother in a house bigger than the entire shelter. I have a master’s degree from Yale. I work as a volunteer, and I don’t even need to do that. Do I appreciate it? No. On good days, it chafes, like a dress with a scratchy tag. On bad ones, I feel like a bobcat caught in a trap, ready to gnaw my foot off to escape. Then I look at someone like Cathy, and a wave of guilt and shame stifles the restlessness.Out of nowhere, Olivia is slammed with the news that she is not who she thinks she is. The media, the paparazzi, have a field day. Her face is plastered all over the news: it's big news, a socialite turns out to be the child of serial killers? That's the stuff that makes the media cream their pants. Her family and her fiancée...pretty much all the people she knows, really, prove themselves to be more or less fair-weather people, and Olivia does a pretty reasonable thing in my opinion. She runs away, she disguises herself; she wants to escape from it all, just for the moment. As a privileged woman, Olivia has a hard time slumming it, but she struggles through it well enough, she is not a whiner. I really liked that about her. She may not have known what she was getting herself into, but she manages her new situation with gritted teeth, and is even brave enough to confront her nightmares...namely, her parents and their past. Naturally, her mother claims to be innocent, and seeks Olivia's help in proving it. "Prove us innocent of this crime and the other evidence will be called into question. A house of cards. Pull out one and the rest topples.” She leaned forward. “Can you do that for me, Olivia?"The rest of the book comprises Olivia and Gabriel working together in the course of their quest to prove her parents' supposed innocense. I enjoyed the way Olivia went through her investigation. She never acts so foolish as to make me cringe, she never deliberately places herself in the line of danger needlessly, and I feel that her behavior was rational, and within the limits of reason. I also liked the fact that there is no attempts at a grand romance to overwhelm this book. Olivia still has to deal with her fiancée on top of her reluctant involvement with the jackass lawyer, the town swindler, the lawyer-with-a-shady-reputation jackass of an alpha-male that is Gabriel Walsh. But he's no Jericho Barrons. And dare I say it, I think I might prefer Jericho Barrons, the lord who reigns over my list of douchebags. “I wouldn’t call Gabriel Walsh if I was on fire.” She pursed her lips. “No, I might. To sue everyone responsible---from the person who lit the match to those who made my clothes. But I’d wait until the fire was out. Otherwise, he’d just stand there until I was burned enough for a sizable settlement.”It is a good book...for a mystery. Because an investigative mystery is all that it is. The investigation is well-portrayed but it feels like the paranormal hype surrounding this book is just hype. There was almost nothing of the paranormal about it. If this book was a mystery, I would have liked it just fine. It promised to be what is was not, and that's ultimately what upsets me most. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 21, 2013
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Aug 23, 2013
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Aug 18, 2013
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
1250017599
| 9781250017598
| 1250017599
| 3.93
| 4,020
| Jul 30, 2013
| Jul 30, 2013
|
it was amazing
|
4.5 stars Take your preconceptions on Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars and check them at the door. Haters to the left. This book was an absolutely b 4.5 stars Take your preconceptions on Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars and check them at the door. Haters to the left. This book was an absolutely blast to read. I want to give this a solid 5, I seriously do. I have no complaints at all about this book, none. But I am still stupid, and my mind cannot wrap itself around the concept of giving such an exalted number for an YA book of this light nature. I'm not perfect by any means. I judge books: more often than not, my expectations are shot down into a bloody pulp as I am drawn in by an interesting blurb and attractive cover. Not this time. I came in as a skeptic, I was wrong, I loved the hell out of this book. Let's face it, we've all watched Gossip Girl or heard of it in some form or another, and at first glance, this book sounds like another clone. Bitchy, spoiled, poor-little-rich girls with nothing better to do than spend their daddy's credit cards and wail about the lack of availability of their trust funds as they weep into their fucking Hermès scarves tucked into their Louis Vuitton satchels, right? Wrong. When entering the category of YA high school fiction, there are bound to be tropes. There are few of that nature within this book, and the few clichéd characters that exist are developed out so well in character that it didn't bother me at all. Besides the main characters, the rest of the large supporting casts are so wonderfully written as well. The characters are complex, their character develop as we get further along in the book, as we learn more about them. There is no black and white; these kids may be rich prep school kids, but they are also smart, ambitious, and so very human. These teens are realistic; they are not complete assholes, they are not perfectly good; they do not fit into the Gossip Girl teen clichés at all. Nobody is perfectly good or bad, not the victims, not the villains; they are such wonderfully written characters. I was set up by the premise to be contemptuous towards our main character, Anne. I assumed that she would be empty-headed and stupid based on her background, and because of what she did (arson, come on now)...but Anne is so much more than that. I adored her. Yes, she is a spoiled teenager, but she is smart, she is rational, she has common sense, she is a queen bee, but not in the sense that she will destroy people in the process. No. She has the ability to think for herself. Anne is not a Mary Sue. We get the impression that she is good-looking, and she has beautiful hair, but she never refers to her looks throughout the book. She is smart, she is charismatic; that is how Anne became the most popular girl at her previous school, and that's how she immediately gained that status upon arriving at her new school. Anne is not cruel, she may be popular, but she never uses her status to hurt anyone, she is an egalitarian, and that's why her new school bothers her so much. Wheatley is an extremely prestigious college-prep private school; the school body is small and mostly limited to the children of the extremely wealthy or powerful (read: politicians). It's a big difference from Anne's previous school, and despite her popularity, it really bothers her because of the reason why. "At St. Bernadette’s, it didn’t matter where your money came from, since everyone’s parents were attorneys or plastic surgeons or famous rock stars; you had to prove yourself to earn your status. The fact that Remy and Company won’t even wait for me to prove myself makes me distrust them."Anne was set to hate her new school and her new dorky roommate, but to her surprise, both aren't bad, and she finds herself really liking Isabella, despite her status as a scholarship student, and at the bottom of the popularity ladder. Almost right after they start bonding, Isabella is murdered, and nobody at the school seems to care about it. Anne has a very ingrained sense of justice (her father is a lawyer, after all) and she is infuriated and frustrated by the fact that nobody seems to care. Anne sees the injustice in the matter, she sees the hypocrisy in the case, and she's determined to do something about it. "I should be worried about myself and my future, but I can’t stop thinking about Isabella, and how if she were the daughter of a politician or the attorney general, the police would probably have found her killer by now.It's not only that people don't care about a lowly girl, what's worse is that people seem to be hiding clues to conceal the truth about her case. Anne is determined to uncover the truth, despite all the people who seem to stand in her way...and there are no shortages of suspects. There are a number of blocks in the way, there are powerful people in play, and people also question Anne's credibility. Let's be honest, would you trust a girl who's been kicked out of school for arson? Anne has a lot of obstacles to work through, and she handles them all with grace. "I wait until I’m out of the administration building to give in to a few tears. Obviously I can’t go to class now, and I don’t want to go back to my room. I could go to the police, but what would I say? Hey, I have absolutely no evidence, and they didn’t take anything, but someone was in my room.Anne is not TSTL. She investigates the case, but she never intentionally puts herself in so much danger that I find myself face-palming and cringing due to her stupidity; she is intelligent, and it shows through every step of the way. Her investigation progresses in a rational manner, and while some of her observations are a little...questionable (just because someone looks creepy doesn't automatically make them a suspect, my dear), I highly enjoyed reading about her sleuthing as she works the case. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really enjoyed the way romance was handled in this book. There is attraction between Anne and a few characters in the book, but it never overshadows the big picture. Anne has her priorities and her head straight. There is attraction, there is no insta-love, as there should be. Romance is handled in a realistic way within the book; the characters take relationships not too seriously, as rational teenagers should do, and I liked them all the more for it. There is a love triangle, but it is done so well, that again, I have no complaints at all. I found the guys to be clichéd, but they are so well-written and likeable that I don't dislike them at all. I actually prefer one over the other and was rooting for him throughout the book! The students are a diverse lot, there are a few students who are not white; I do wish there were more, but you can't have everything. I honestly cannot find much to criticize about this book, and you know I love to complain. Highly recommended, one of the best YA books I have read this year. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 16, 2013
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Aug 16, 2013
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Aug 16, 2013
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Paperback
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1250045630
| 9781250045638
| 1250045630
| 4.34
| 32,376
| May 20, 2014
| May 20, 2014
|
really liked it
| “Sweet,” I said, astounded at my acting skills. I should’ve gone to Hollywood when I had the chance, but when that old man offered to take me that “Sweet,” I said, astounded at my acting skills. I should’ve gone to Hollywood when I had the chance, but when that old man offered to take me that one time at an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t sure I could trust him. Mostly because he had rope, duct tape, and lots of condoms in his backseat. Still, I’ll never know what could have come of it. How far I could have risen.There are two types of people in the world. Those who hate Charley Davidson, and those who will love her no matter what. I'm in the latter camp. So take my 4 star with a grain of salt. If you didn't love Charley, you're going to hate this book. If you loved Charley, come on over. There's a lovely little circle of us around a Satanic bonfire, and we have marshmallows, pointy sticks, and Hershey's, because the only time Hershey's chocolate is worth eating is when it's in a S'more. You're free to use the sticks however you so choose. But I digress. It's like a parent with their fantastically stupid child who they think is the most smartest wittle Einstein in the whole fucking world. Said parents will coo at that idiotic child and say "Ooh, isn't my darwing wittle pooh bear so adowable?! Isn't she?! Isn't she?!" as the idiotic brat is cramming a small Lego up her fucking nose while you're standing by looking on nodding and thinking "One day, my child, you will be blessedly removed from our fucking gene pool. Wait for it." With Charley Davidson, I'm kind of like that parent. No matter what kind of idiocy comes out of her mouth, no matter how stupid she is, no matter how inappropriately snarky she is, I will still think Charley Davidson is the shit. If she bit off a wee little bunny's head in front of me and then bared her teeth in a bloody grin, I'd stare in shock for a moment, and then stammer out "Well...maybe that bunny was asking for it," and I'm neither a fan of victim blaming nor a bunny hater. Quite the opposite. I loved this book because I love Charley, but I have to admit that it's one of the weaker ones in the series. The Plot: It goes all over the damn place. If you want a straight, linear plot, you're not going to find it here. If you haven't read Charley before, don't even think about touching this book because you're not gonna understand a single fucking thing. It'll be like an insider's joke where everyone is laughing at you (not with you). Charley is a private investigator, albeit a paranormal one. In this book, she's... - Got an anonymous naked ghost in her car. It's a little hard not to look at his penis because hello, the dude's naked (and old. Not cool.) The poor guy needed to be done with whatever it was he’d left unfinished. I couldn’t have him running around naked forever. It just seemed wrong.- Got a dead Chinese man in her bedroom, and although that wouldn't ordinarily be a problem (I dated a few Chinese guys myself), this one is dead, he's been in her room for as long as she's been there, and now...there's just something off about him. - Got a client who's sold his soul to the Devil. Literally. - Probably going to have said Devil as a father-in-law one day, considering her lover and "night-fiancé" Reyes is the son of the devil. Or the spawn of his flesh. More the latter, really. Who knew the Devil didn't like traditional procreation?! - Had some random ass guys show up in her bedroom in the middle of the night and they're not surprise strippers - Found out that her man may or may not have a sibling. Oh, hell! - Trying to deal with an evil stepmother and a dad who's dealing with cancer slash midlife crisis. What else would you call running away to sail off into the Atlantic. With cancer (ok, fine, in remission). Clearly crazy runs in the family. - Lost roughly $17 million in a card game. Fine, more like $1.7K. It's just a few zeroes off. - She's trying to hook up her best friend and her uncle, both of whom are making googly eyes at each other, and both are too shy to make a move. - Trying to prevent a couple of teenagers from doing the Romeo and Juliet thing. So you can see why this book isn't for everyone. I have to admit, I have the attention span of a peanut. Sometimes a book delivers a million storylines, and I absolutely hate it. Sometimes a book like this happens, and I love it, because I love the character, because I find the situations interesting. Your mileage may vary. Charley: “I tend to forget how beautifully your plans work when each and every one goes awry, including the one that left you stranded on a deserted bridge with a man who had every intention of burning you alive.”Ok, so Charley kind of has a bit of a hero complex. And I mean "a bit" in the sense that running headfirst into a metal pole is "a bit" painful. She's snarky, she's irreverant, sure. She's also got this overwhelming sense of stupidity that makes her want to rescue every stray soul out there in need of help. Whether it's matchmaking her best friend/receptionist to her uncle, or saving an errant soul from eternal nudity, to playing card games with a demon...she'll do anything necessary. My heart broke all too often. Even when people passed through me who’d gotten past their hardships, their heart-wrenching pain, and had lived long, full lives, seeing that part of them still cut me to pieces. So, maybe all this time I’d been hanging with Mr. Wong, I was really putting off the inevitable, the truth, not for his benefit, but for my own.Charley is often too sympathetic (and often empathetic) for her own good. And she's often got a sense of humor that's hilarious to those who love her...but can seem overly forced to those who don't. I dialed her number. Got her voice mail. Waited for the beep. Then I did my best creepy kidnapper voice. “This is a ransom demand,” I said, my voice raspy. Kidnapper-y. “Deliver one hundred boxes of Cheez-Its to the unmarked—ignore the license plate—cherry red Jeep Wrangler sitting in your parking lot by noon today, or you will suffer the consequences.” I paused to cough. Raspy was hard on the esophagus. “They will be dire.”The Romance: “I’m not stupid,” I said, growing tired of his questioning everything I did. “I do use common sense.”I don't like asshole alpha males, and one could argue that the Son of the Devil, Reyes Farrow, is an asshole alpha male, but in this book, he is entirely tamed. He wears an apron, he works as a waiter, he adores Charley despite her obvious idiocy. This wolf is now a puppy. A really hot puppy, but a puppy, nevertheless, and it's often frustrating to me that Charley leaves him hanging... “When are you going to answer him?” Cookie asked, drawing my attention.I can't even blame little 12-year old Amber for her crush. A hopeless sigh slid through Cookie’s lips as she finally looked at him. “You’ve set the bar too high now. No one will live up to—” She gestured to all of him. “—all of that. You’ve ruined my daughter.”...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 26, 2014
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May 27, 2014
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Aug 04, 2013
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Hardcover
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3.99
| 691
| Aug 19, 2013
| Aug 19, 2013
|
it was ok
| “Holy house of hogs getting blasted by the blue birdie brigade...”What the actual fuck? This was just a terrible book. The background and informati “Holy house of hogs getting blasted by the blue birdie brigade...”What the actual fuck? This was just a terrible book. The background and information given regarding a crucial part of the plot was very poorly explained, and ended up confusing me more than anything. The plot was straightforward enough, but my enjoyment of it was bogged down by poorly written characters, of every imaginable trope in the book. It was peppered with insta-love, slut-shaming, and girl-hating...which is even more atrocious, given that the main character and the main narrator is female. The writing is fine, but in order to endure the dialogue, you would need to take a couple of Vicodins...it was that painful to read. The plot is...recycled. Jessie and her Klaire Simple enough, let's see where this went wrong: Jessie Dark: I love my snarky, smart-assed heroines. I love Georgina Kincaid, I love Charley Davidson. I have a feeling that the author of this book was trying to manufacture a character of a similar sort here, a loveable, wisecracking teenaged version of the two. It didn't work. Jessie Darker is but a shadow of the type of characters that I adore. She tries to sound witty, it doesn't work; it translates as a teenager just trying too hard to be a smarty-pants, know-it-all, bitchy, rebellious teenager who ends up being more annoying than amusing overall. The book tries too hard to make her into a likeable, humorous character, it failed completely. There is a fine, fine, fine line between making a character strong, amusing, but annoying: Jessie leans towards the latter. I could not stand her. She is a thoroughly dislikeable character: she is bitchy, she contradictory, she is judgmental, she slut-shames, she falls into insta-love. She is the embodiment of every character flaw I hate within the YA genre. Jessie fucks up---a lot. During her cases, she more often than not causes more trouble than she solves. She breaks her mother's rules, and flaunts the fact. In her eyes, she never does anything wrong; Jessie can always find a justification for her actions, no matter how wrong she is. Yet she is judgmental of others, like her sainted mother, for doing the same. Her mother is a complete idiot, too, some of Klaire's decisions, like having her volatile daughter babysit Wrath---had me seriously questioning her intelligence. It looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The dialogue: The writing is adequate, but the characters' speech was excruciatingly awkward. The teenagers' speech, for example, is far from natural. It is so stilted. It is a 75 year old retiree's version of how teenagers speak. For example: “Looks like you’re not the only new kid in town. Did you get a load of the new chick?” Garrett let out a sharp whistle. “Hawt! Girl’s got a pair that would drive a priest crazy.”Who the fuck says "Hawt?" “Ya know, like sucking face and having gropefests?”I don't blame you, Lukas. I can't understand it either. The insta-love: Inexplicable. Jessie falls for Lukas' dark, mysterious good looks the instant she sets eyes on him (see introductory quote). Naturally, Lukas fits every trope in the book. He is of an unknown age...yet naturally remains a fresh-looking 18. For someone who's been alive that long, and for someone who is a fucking Deadly Sin (Wrath), Lukas is really, really stupid and naive. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Lukas, but the world’s changed since your time. People suck. They steal, they lie, and they kill each other in horrible ways for no good reason. Some are just bad. Badder than the demons.”OH MY GOD. YOU ARE A DEADLY SIN. ACT LIKE IT. Why the fuck is Lukas so surprised that people are bad. HE IS BAD. Could I emphasize it again? HE IS A DEADLY SIN. Lukas has been alive for a long time, he's had women fall all over him before, naturally, both past and present: it's not surprising, according to him, because he's good-looking, and he was from a wealthy family. But naturally, all other women are bland, and in all his years of living, only Jessie (whom he has known for all of three days, who has finally caught his heart. “I want to stay because of you. I’ve never come across someone like you. Your strength and determination is astounding. It’s odd because you’re so incredibly infuriating---My entire life, all I wanted was to find something different. Special. I never would have guessed I’d have to sleep for so long to find it.”Three. Days. Slut-shaming: Not just slut-shaming, every other female character within the book is portrayed in a bad manner, even her best friend, in order to highlight Jessie's personality. I fucking hate this shit. Why do women have to hate each other so much? Why does the author feel the need to make the main character look good at the expense of slut-shaming the other women around her? That is fucking bullshit, man, and it doesn't even make me like Jessie any more. It just makes me respect her---and the author, far, far less. It makes me so, so angry. Jessie repeatedly calls other girls "bimbos," "bitches," Lukas' ex-fiancee is a "big fat ho." The girls at her school are all blond, evil, queen bees who dress like sluts. Every girl is a vamp, a seductress, compared to the oh-so-normal, oh-so-pure, never-been-kissed Jessie. The Sins: Unoriginal and bland. They're either inexplicably stupid, like Lukas ("The guy was rare. Deadly and tainted by Wrath, but at his core, innocent and good." Extra Speshul, Lukas is), or horribly steoretypical, like Sloth, a New Joisey-swaggering, slow Italian type. Or just offensively unimaginative, like Lust. The girl’s too-tight black sweater dipped to a dangerous V, showing off cleavage that would make a porn star proud, and ended just above her belly button. The skirt—if you could even call it that—hung at least seven inches above regulation and bordered on sheer.Vida's presence was offensive to me, not in that she encourages sexuality, but it is that Lust is used as a tool in which to incite emotions that seems to be shaming sexuality in general. Lust is portrayed as bad, as evil, as shameful, through Jessie's eyes. I don't like that one bit. Unoriginal, and at times, confusing plot, peppered with slut-shaming and all the high school tropes in the book: not recommended. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 29, 2013
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Aug 30, 2013
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Jul 29, 2013
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1477809600
| 9781477809600
| 1477809600
| 3.94
| 7,695
| May 21, 2013
| Jan 21, 2014
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liked it
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Actual rating: 2.5 "'Once upon a fuck, you people,' I muttered." Indexing is like the X-Files, if the X-Files were about fairy tales instead of aliens a Actual rating: 2.5 "'Once upon a fuck, you people,' I muttered." Indexing is like the X-Files, if the X-Files were about fairy tales instead of aliens and monsters, without the underlying Mulder/Scully sexual tension between the agents. It's the premise of a thousand other TV shows, comic books, and movies. A secret government agencies designed to keep people in the real world in the dark about what's really going on. The agency in question here is the ATI Management Bureau, ATI being short for Aarne-Thompson Index, an index used to measure and keep track of real-life fairy tale manifestations. The agency in this serial operates under this premise: all fairy tales are real. Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc. All of them. They may not always be accurate to the Grimm version, but they exist, and they manifest themselves in the real world. The ATI Management Bureau's jobs is to keep these manifestations under control, so that normal humans don't get pulled into them and overwhelmed by them. This is a world where Sleeping Beauties can be raped while comatose, where a Pied Piper can pull thousands of rats and vermins from the city sewers, where evil stepsisters can be killer. The ATIMB's job is to keep us safe and unaware of these manifestations so that we can sleep easy in our warm beds at night with our children dreaming about Sleeping Beauty being awakened by a handsome prince's kiss, instead of dying from a actual Sleeping Beauty's uncontrolled manifestation. "...a four-ten manifested in a small beachside community, and no one noticed. She put the whole town to sleep, and this is the real world, which tends to be pretty straightforward about things like 'humans need to eat' and 'if you sleep for three weeks without any medical treatment of any kind, you will die.' By the time the four-ten herself died, breaking the spell cast by her presence, no one lived there anymore." The ATI have codes for every manifestation; for example, a 709 is a Snow White manifestation, a 410 is a Sleeping Beauty, a 280 is a Pied Piper, etc. The agents themselves were previously part of a manifestation themselves, or else had their story "averted." Our main character, Henrietta Marchen (yes, her last name means fairy tale in German), is the child of a manifestation, as well as one herself. She is a 709, a Snow White, but not one of the lovely Disney creatures you see walking around the park, smiling and posing with children. Henry does have an affinity for woodland creatures and a tendency to make flowers grow on carpet (not an entirely useful skill), but that's where the resemblance ends. "We're too pale, and our lips are too red, and we look like something out of a horror movie that didn’t have the decency to stay on the screen." This book is not a book, but an e-novella, delivered through a Kindle subscription every two weeks. We first meet Henry and the ATI as they're investigating a case. In the first two chapters, we're introduced to the ATI, given a rough idea of what they do, and we meet the other members of the team (including Sloane, an averted Wicked Stepsister, with the pain-in-the-ass attitude to match). The first few episodes were really boring; I never really bought into the premise of the ATI, and I was still pretty fuzzy on the premise of the ATI Management Bureau itself. After the first three episodes or so, we get into more of a groove, with each subsequent episode telling the story of a case. After the first two episodes, things picked up. The cases are amusing, short, an interesting spin on the original fairy tales. It gradually becomes less X-Files, and more Fringe. I think the concept of the ATI works best if you don't think too much about the agency or the concept, and instead focus on the interpretations of the fairy tales themselves. Episode 1 and 2: introduction of the ATIMB, a Sleeping Beauty and a Pied Piper, as well as the recruitment of a new team member. Episode 3: A Red Riding Hood case (with bears!) Episode 4: Sloane's continuing story as the Wicked Stepsister Episode 5: just released a few days ago, and I've yet to read it. It's just not too successful a premise altogether. Maybe it's just me; I have yet to meet a Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire character I actually like. I never really felt connected to any of the team members, or to our narrator, even if the author does her best to give us a sad backstory on most of the agents. This may be due to the fact that the novella is still so short and only in its fifth installment, and there hasn't been time for anyone to develop a personality. Rest assured, they all have bad backstories. As previously mentioned, these are not Disney movies with the associated happy endings. These fairy tales are much Grimmer. Come on, you guys knew that pun was coming from a mile away. In summary: this series is just ok. If you want alternative retellings of fairy tales, there are better ones out there. I would suggest you reach for one of the excellent anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow et al, before resorting to this. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 16, 2013
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Jul 19, 2013
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Jul 16, 2013
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Paperback
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1423168232
| 9781423168232
| 1423168232
| 4.19
| 172,061
| Nov 05, 2013
| Nov 05, 2013
|
it was ok
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[image] This book is Criminal Minds fanfiction, for the under-15 crowd. It takes a great deal of suspension of disbelief to read this book; and I'm not [image] This book is Criminal Minds fanfiction, for the under-15 crowd. It takes a great deal of suspension of disbelief to read this book; and I'm not talking about the preposterousness of the idea that children---teenagers, can be FBI criminal investigators. The necessary suspension of disbelief from the reader's part is required in order to swallow the fact that a bunch of utterly incompetent, petty teenagers are capable of looking beyond their egotistical, self-centered noses. There's this show I love called Criminal Minds. It features a team of FBI profilers at the Behavioral Analysis Unit. They take on difficult cases, involving mainly serial killers. The special agents make psychological profiles about the potential suspect, then using that information, narrow down the field of suspect until they get the right one. The show is entertainment, there is no argument on my part about that. Behavioral analysis is a bullshit art, at best. Criminal profilers have rarely been right, it's more of a matter of throwing a rock into the darkness in the hopes of eventually hitting someone in the face. It rarely happens, but they get it right sometimes. More than anything, it is a show with likeable, complex characters, and a wonderful team who puts their personal problems and quirks aside to work together like a well-oiled machine in order to solve a case. Well-oiled machine is not the word I would use to describe the characters in this book and their cohesiveness. The teenagers in this book work together as well as an AK-47 that's been left to rust for 50 years in the mud of a long-forgotten battlefield; the parts do not function, and the damn gun might blow up and shoot you by accident in the face at any given moment. Still, this book is based on that premise. It is a team of teen profilers who use the word "UNSUB" to describe an unknown subject. The word UNSUB is strictly a TV-based term, and it was Criminal Minds that popularized the use of the word. To me, this is nothing more than adolescent Criminal Minds fanfiction, without the likeable, complex characters. Summary: 17-year old Cassandra (Cassie) lives with her large extended Italian family, working part-time as a waitress. Her mother has been murdered 5 years ago, and her father is out of the picture (see what I mean about parents in YA fiction? Dead or gone 90% of the time). Cassie has always had a skill for reading people, for predicting what they want. Right now, her skills are being used for nothing more than to predict what her customers are going to order next from the menu. A boy, a sexy boy appears from nowhere, well-dressed, too handsome for his own good, and asks her to predict how he prefers his eggs: “What kind of eggs?” I asked.Over easy eggs! Clearly, Cassie is a genius worthy of the FBI. Just like that, she is drafted to join a special unit in the FBI. The Naturals. She lives and trains with four other teenagers, each with their own special skills. They may be kids, but they're soooooooooo much better than the real FBI agents. No matter how long they did this job, or how much training they had, these agents would never have instincts as finely honed as ours.Teen The kids, and they are kids---try to solve old cases for practice, they do training on random everyday subjects at malls, food courts. The teenagers in the prorgam play games, they flirt, they kiss. And there might be a serial killer out there who wants to collect Cassie as his prize. Let's get this straight, this is Criminal Minds fanfiction, but it does not have an iota of the enjoyability. Criminal Minds has amazing, complex characters The teens in the Naturals are teenagers. For better or worse. They have special abilities, there is no doubt of that, but I have serious doubts as to their judgment and their competence to actually fulfil their purpose when 90% of the times, they act like---well, really immature teenagers. The characters are teenagers who act positively juvenile; they have special abilities, but that is the limit to my interest towards them. There is nothing about the characters that make them stand out, that make me sympathize with them, that make me like them, despite the author's attempt at giving them sad backstories. They are merely teenagers who get on my nerves. We have Dean, who is the James-Dean-esque weightlifting, bulky teenaged deliquent who looks ready to punch someone in the face at any second. Dean is a profiler, like Cassie. We have Lia, the sexy Asian girl, who wants to slither onto Michael's lap at any given second. Her specialty is lying, at detecting liars. We have Michael, the wealthy, (multiple) Porsche-owning trust funded, blue-blooded, smug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug son-of-a-bitch whose sole purpose in life is to make Dean lose control and to make Cassie want to rip his head off (when she's not kissing him, that is). We have Sloane, the duller than dull factoid spouter who is boring, and who's pretty much useless. I mean, anyone can spout off random-ass facts. I would be a much better Sloane. I mean, I have personality. Cassie herself is boring, without personality. Cassie reminds me of geniuses who are so brilliant in one category that they are completely lacking in everything else in life. Life skills. Personality. Cassie is a good profiler, not great, I have a lot of skepticism where her skills are concerned, and I have to accept the fact that her natural talents are that---natural, inside her, because there is no explaining her talents otherwise. Frankly, Cassie never exhibits many signs of intelligence besides for her Natural Profiling skill. The rest of the characters are largely unlikeable in one way or another, they are either surly, or selfish, or bitchy, or snarky, or else they blend into the shadow so much I hardly remember they're there. I think that's why Sloane spouts off so many random facts. If she didn't speak up once in awhile to say something completely random like "Less than point-five percent of the words in the English language contain all five vowels,” I would completely forget that she has ever been there. Criminal Minds does not concern itself about their team playing petty mind games with each other, nor do they play Truth-Or-Dare There is so much antipathy between the characters. Dean and Michael are ready to strangle each other at any given second, and while Dean keeps quiet and stay true to his bad-boy-loner trope, Michaels is the Naturals version of The Simpson's Nelson Muntz, pointing his finger in Dean's face, going HAW-HAW!!!!!! “Have you ever seen The Bad Seed?” he inquired politely. “The movie.”**note: Dean's father is a serial killer, hence the Bad Seed joke. The Bad Seed is a movie where the child turns out to be an evil, murdering monstrosity.** Criminal Minds does not concern itself with a fucking love triangle There's Cassie! Who will she fall for?! Is it bad-boy loner Dean? The surly boy who never, ever, EVEEEEEEEEER lets anyone close to his heart---until Cassie comes along! Or will Cassie fall for Michael! Michael with his movie-star good looks and multiple Porsches who hides his nonchalance behind a snarky exterior, never letting anyone see the warm, melty, oozing, cheesy (sorry, I haven't eaten dinner yet), fluffy interior. Over easy, indeed! Or will it be Lia! Lia with her constant flirtation with Michael! Or does Lia love Dean instead?! Noooooooooo! Fucking gag me, please. Criminal Minds never has a fucking touching romantic moment right after leaving a crime scene with dead bloodied bodies and a killer on the loose When Agent Starmans glanced in the room, all he saw was [him] and me.Self-explanatory. Criminal Minds has Reid. Sloane is no Reid Really, Sloane is the most useless character in the world. She does absolutely nothing besides spouting off random facts: Sloane on coffee was a bit like an auctioneer on speed. The numbers poured out of her mouth rapid-fire, a statistic for every occasion. For eight hours.Oh, and she's a really good hugger. Because every FBI investigative team needs a hugger. For hugs. Sloane slipped an arm around my waist. “There are fourteen varieties of hugs,” she said. “This is one of them.”Criminal Minds does not try to slut-shame a girl Lia. Poor Lia. She is sleek, she is Asian, she is sexy, she is tall. She also has a special ability to lie. She wears barely-there clothes. She makes numerous sexual innuendoes. Agent Locke added, meeting Lia’s eyes, “she’s a very good liar.”Naturally, she's to be shamed for the way she dresses. Naturally she hits on the guys. Naturally, she eats ice cream for breakfast (in a sexual manner) and wears silk pajamas that leaves nothing to the imagination. Can we not do this, please? Can we just have normal characters who just happen to like dressing that way without writing it in a way so that the reader hates them? If you want to read books about serial killers, I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga is a good book. Alternately, you can just go watch Criminal Minds itself. Either way, I can guarantee you will get more enjoyment from either than you will ever get out of this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Nov 08, 2013
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Jun 25, 2013
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Hardcover
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0316125849
| 9780316125840
| 0316125849
| 4.01
| 41,165
| Apr 03, 2012
| Apr 03, 2012
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it was amazing
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Actual rating: 4.5 A dark psychological thriller. I have to admit, this wasn't what I expected. Given the premise, I anticipated something more flimsy, Actual rating: 4.5 A dark psychological thriller. I have to admit, this wasn't what I expected. Given the premise, I anticipated something more flimsy, something along the lines of Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective. I got a young Dexter/John Cleaver, with considerably more emotional baggage. This book works for me more as a psychological analysis than anything. Yeah, the plot is there, and it is good. The mystery kept me guessing and I loved seeing things through the eyes of the killer, but the psychoanalytical aspects of this book blew the actual storyline out of the water. Psych 101? Please. I gained more insight into the human mind from this book than from anything I learned in that class. Jasper's father is a serial killer, the worst (meaning the best, and not the most terrible) serial killer of all time. He has killed 123...or 124, people before stupidly getting caught, and now poor Jazz is left to grow up pretty much on his own in a town where his name is notorious for being the child of a serial killer who got caught. Nobody held him accountable for his father's crimes since he is a juvenile, and not an actual accessory to his father's crimes despite the fact that his dad has been practically grooming him to take over the "family business" since he's been in action---meaning started killing people. Jasper (Jazz) is extremely intelligent for his age, he's got the street savvy, he's got the smooth-talking skills down, he's got dear old dad's skills of persuasion, and some others that he wish he didn't. Now, there's another killer loose in the town of Lobo's Nod, Jazz thinks it's a serial killer but nobody believes him, and he's out to investigate. Not the smartest move if you want to stay under the radar, but I suppose if he acted intelligently and kept his head low, this book wouldn't exist. Jazz: I loved Jazz's character, his complexity, his conflicting desires. This book is an insight into his head, the psychological torment that he goes through day by day knowing that he is his father's son. He struggles with his desires to do good and the darker parts of him that might be a little too close to his father than he likes. The conflict inside him is beautifully written. From the charismatic, normal front he puts up daily to fool others, to his deeper inner struggles with his father's programming. He's got a dark sense of humor, and I rather like that as a bit of a break within such a dark tale. Children are so impressionable, and even if his father got caught, the years and years of grooming affected his mind more than he wants to believe. He doesn't want to be like his father...who, besides the most twisted, mentally ill children wants to emulate a serial killer when they grow up---but Jazz can't help growing up the way he did, having witnessed what he did, and having the same blood running through his veins. Jazz knows his own terrifying potential, should he allow it to grow. "'But you don't want to kill people,' she'd said with finality, and Jazz had let the conversation die right there. Because the only honest response would have been: It's not that I want to or don't want to. It's just…I can. I could. It's like…I imagine it's like being a great runner. If you knew you could run really fast, wouldn’t you? If you were stuck walking somewhere, wouldn't you want to let loose and run like hell? That's how I feel." Jazz wants to do good, but he has to constantly fight the monster that's lurking within himself, however much he wants to suppress it. "She was dying. Dying right in front of him, and he didn't trust himself to help her because he didn't trust his hands not to finish the job instead...She was in the full throes of cardiac arrest. Jazz didn't think. He didn't torture himself. He tilted her head back and listened for breathing. Nothing. A moment of intense pleasure washed over him, followed by a revulsion so sickening that he almost threw himself headlong out the window." The insight into his life post-dad is pretty interesting, too. You know all the sicko serial killer fans? He's got that, just by being the infamous son. He's got media following him, exposing him (is that even legal? to show a juvenile in this circumstance in the media? Fucking Doug Weathers). He's got people wanting to give him money. He's got grieving parents contacting him for closure. He's got people angry at him, asking why he didn't just stop his dad. Simple: "like the children of alcoholics and the victims of abuse, Jazz had been a master at compartmentalizing. That, combined with Billy's persistent brainwashing and total control, meant Jazz had never uttered a peep to anyone." The plot: interesting, but I can't help thinking JAZZ YOU IDIOT. JUST STAY AWAY. MOVE TO ANOTHER TOWN. When you're the child of a serial killer, wouldn't it be wisest to just stay out of the picture? Especially for a kid so smart, so savvy, so good at manipulating people and appearing normal like Jazz supposedly is? It doesn't make sense to me why he'd want to get so involved. Disbelief aside, the mystery itself, the procedures, the glimpses into the serial killer's work was well-done. The clues were given gradually, and that in combination with the flashes of POV through the killer's eyes makes this an excellent armchair detective novel. I was constantly guessing for the whodunnit through all the little bits and pieces given. There is gore, there is blood and torture, but it's nothing the average viewer of CSI or Criminal Minds haven't seen before. I liked all the characters. The villains, the cops, not everything is black and white. People grow, people change. Even Jazz himself is not immune to foolishness, regret, and hubris. My main concern before starting this book was the premise...a boy, just a boy, doing better detective work than the police themselves? I expected detectives to be bumbling fools, I expected people to compartmentalize Jazz, I epected this to be a Them against Me story. I was wrong. Everything and everyone had more depth than I expected. Oh, and the ending. Did I see that coming? Nope, nope, not from 10 miles away. Damn. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 22, 2013
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Jun 26, 2013
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Jun 22, 2013
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
1101623365
| 9781101623367
| B009KUY65G
| 3.51
| 616
| Jun 18, 2013
| Jun 18, 2013
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it was amazing
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Jane Eyre meets Pride and Prejudice meets Anne Perry. This book has everything I ever wanted in an HR. Wonderfully complex main characters, a supportiv Jane Eyre meets Pride and Prejudice meets Anne Perry. This book has everything I ever wanted in an HR. Wonderfully complex main characters, a supportive, likeable supporting cast, all with varying degrees of depths. The bad guys, the rakes...there is no black and white here. Things happen for a reason, people are good/bad for a reason, there are no Disney-like villains here. The mystery is actually an integral part of the plot. Imagine that! This is no thinly-veiled excuse to write a bodice-ripper. People get hurt, people die. There is danger, there is sleuthing, the mystery unwinds slowly and rationally, as it should in this time period, and given the severe limitations of 19th century methods of criminal detection. Make no mistake, there is steam, there is attraction, there is sex, but it builds up so gradually. The tension is just seething beneath the surface. It's a slow foreplay. A little touch, a little contact; the appropriateness of the Victorian era is on display here, and the strict restraint of it is is more well done and satisfying than any Regency cop-a-feels could ever be. Mia Danvers is nearly blind. Abandoned by her callous family at the age of 16, she lives in a cottage on the Duke of Carrington's estate. Alex is a good man, trying to do his duty as the new Duke, and when Mia claims she witnesses a murder on his estate, he has to take care of it in a discreet manner as to not sully his family's reputation and name. As the murders escalate, he and Mia find themselves working together to solve a mystery of a notorious killer that has struck before. The suspect might be closer than either of them know. What this book thankfully lacks is stupidity. Our damsel in distress may be mostly blind, but she ain't stupid. She's not putting herself in foolishly dangerous situation despite her disability, and I absolutely loved that about her. I can find very little not to love about this book. Mia is such a harrowing character. She is so pitiable, so sympathetic. For me, she is comparable to Jane Eyre. After her father's death and the accident that nearly killed and blinded her, her family abandons her in order to spare them the cost of caring for her. Instead, they leave her in a miserable little cottage, alone but for the faithful governess Rachel, who chooses to stay with her for a pittance of pay, while her sisters debut in society and make successful marriages to peers; even worse, they spread the rumor that she is utterly mad, and has died from the accident. "'And they told everyone she had died in the accident?' he asked, unable to believe such a thing. 'Why would they do such a thing?' he asked, despite knowing the likely answer. 'It was for the best of everyone,' his mother said. They'd hidden her away rather than having to care for her, financially, the rest of their lives. But they hadn’t even given her a chance to meet a man and to marry. Certainly there was someone out there willing to look past her affliction and take her to wife. 'The best for everyone but Mia.'" She supports herself with the little she earns from her art; despite her near-blindness, she sculpts. Mia has since given up any dreams that life would be different. She does not pity herself, but she does not have any starry-eyed fantasies that life will drastically change for her. She just endeavors to live, day by day, a peaceful existence is all she can ever hope for, given her circumstance. Due to her blindness, her other senses are heightened, she has a superior awareness of details that the eye does not detect. She notices sounds, smells, nuances in voices, small details that would escape an average person familiar with the use of sight to notice details. Due to this, the information she provides is of enormous use, despite her blindness and assumed inferiority as a believable witness. Mia knows that people underestimate her credibility as a witness, however, she is determined to see justice served. Despite her determination, she is not so foolish as to ignore danger when she detects it. "'Did we forget to lock the door?' Rachel asked softly. 'I don't believe so,' Mia said. Cautiously, she stepped inside the cottage and immediately the hairs on her arms stood on end. The acrid scent of that tobacco still hung on the air. Her heart pounded and she grabbed for Rachel's hand as she walked backward. 'We need to leave, now,' Mia said. 'Someone has been in our cottage.'" Lord Alex is the epitome of a proper English lord. Far from being a rake, he is the model of propriety. His father and grandfather were...unsavory characters, and he is determined to rebuild the family name. When we meet him, he is absolutely straightlaced, even priggish, full of propriety and self-importance. He initially dismisses Mia, believing the rumors about her madness, but he comes to know her and her intelligence, her bravery, her capability, and she slowly becomes beautiful to him. Alex is so determined to do the right thing that he fights his attraction to Mia, knowing that he can do her no good. He is determined not to pursue her, not even as a dalliance. There is no droit-de-seigneur here. "He was the worst sort of man, wanting to take advantage of a poor defenseless girl. Once her virtue was destroyed she’d truly be a ruined woman because no man could marry her. She was damaged, and she had no men in her life to protect her. Here he was the closest thing she had to a male guardian and he was thinking lascivious thoughts about her." He is self-flagellating in his desire to do good. And he is utterly determined to do right by Mia, bring her justice, make everything right for her. "Perhaps no one else knew Mia Danvers was still alive, but Alex wouldn’t ignore her upbringing or her family name. She deserved the same treatment as the other Danvers sisters had received. Hell, she deserved to be treated as any lady of the Ton." Their mutual respect turns into attraction, then love. It's gradual, believable, well-written. And not without its hiccups along the way. "'You are proposing to me? Marriage?' Mia asked. She shook her head. 'Even though you freely admit that I am not duchess material.' She came to her feet. 'I suppose I should be flattered, but I am not. That was a terrible proposal and I kindly decline. Good day, Alex.' And with that, she turned on her heel and left the room." Well ok then, Mr. Darcy. The main characters do not fall in insta-love. They do not hate each other, there is no revulsion, there is no antagonism, no antipathy. There is no screaming, no pouting, no fighting in spats and fits. There is initial distrust, wariness, but both characters behaved appropriately, as they should given their status in this era. This book just feels accurate. The characters are always...in character. There is no 20th century colloquialism, exclamations, clichés. The speech, the characters' actions all befit the time period. There are a lot of characters, some of the characters have their very own minor storyline. I sometimes have a problem with large casts, it's difficult to build character and a believable story behind everyone. There is no such problem with this book, the minor characters all have their role, their distinct personality, even the blandest characters like the supposedly perfect Juliet is more than what she seems to be, more than a a character "designed specifically to be an Englishman’s wife." The bad boy brother is not who he seems, his actions are self-destructive not without reason, and we come to sympathize with him just as much. I absolutely loved this book and greatly look forward to reading the next book in the series. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 27, 2013
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Jun 28, 2013
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Jun 15, 2013
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ebook
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