DNF at 75 pages, because I just don't care. Skimmed the next hundred or so pages, and concluded that I made the right decision in DNFing.
This book wasDNF at 75 pages, because I just don't care. Skimmed the next hundred or so pages, and concluded that I made the right decision in DNFing.
This book was a complete waste of my time. It gave me a headache. Over a thousand people die? I just Do. Not. Care. This is a book that focuses on the delivery, and not the plot, and it disengaged with me from the very beginning. It is all telling, no showing.
This is what I can tell you from having read 75 pages of this book. That's roughly...16% of the book?.
- So far, I haven't personally met any of main characters involved in said plane crashes.
- So far, I feel no emotion for the plane crashes, and over 1,000 people died.
- So far, there has been a number of narrators, all of them unconnected personally, almost all of them are new characters. I don't know if they'll appear again or not. They are mostly faceless.
This is a book about an author writing a book about plane crashes which references other books. It features interviews, very unconvincing Skype chats, excerpts from books writteb from families and the personel involved.
That's too fucking meta for me. Sorry.
I can't stand the epistolary style, and I'm confused as hell. It's the same reason I couldn't get further than a few chapters of World War Z. Where the fuck are my main characters? There are so many characters that I can't keep them straight. There is no single narrator. Nearly every character in every single chapter is new. It's just me, of course, I need a main character. I like a traditional style of writing, and this book was not for me.
There's just no emotion, and that's rather sad. This book was published soon after the tragedy of the real-life Flight 370 that disappeared. Hypothetically, I should have felt something reading about the plane crashes in this book. Nope. Zip. Nada.
We read about the plane crashes from the people involved, the families of the survivors, of the deceased. The rescue personnel. I feel absolutely nothing for them. I don't care about them. I want my motherfucking mystery.
This is the book's structure: It is told through the POVs of fuck knows how many people. The first chapter in this book is the internal narrative of a shy, overweight, neurotic American woman.
Truth is, she hadn’t dared use one of the bathrooms at the airport. What if she found herself face to face with one of those futuristic toilets she’d read about in the guidebook and couldn’t figure out how to flush it? What if she accidentally locked herself inside a stall and missed her flight?
70+ pages later, we have yet to hear from her again.
The next chapter is presented to us as excerpts from a book. Complete with a "Note from the author" section telling us about the tragedy of January 12, 2012 and how she compiled this book.
I decided that if I was going to add my voice to the mix, the only way forward was to collate an objective account, letting those involved speak in their own words. To this end, I have drawn from a wide variety of sources, including Paul Craddock’s unfinished biography, Chiyoko Kamamoto’s collected messages, and interviews personally conducted by me during and immediately after the events in question.
The "author" of this book is not Sarah Lotz, it's a made-up author named Elspeth Martins.
The next few chapters are presented through the form of a Skype chat the likes of which I've never seen before, because the entire chapter is written in entire well-formatted, well-written paragraphs. Then there is the "book" written by a B-grade TV actor "guardian" of one of the child survivors (whom we've yet to meet, by the way) --- who likes talking about himself far too much.
I’m often asked, ‘Paul, why did you take on the full care of Jess? After all, you’re a successful actor, an artiste, a single man with an erratic schedule, are you really cut out to be a parent?’
I’d gone off the rails a bit in my mid-twenties after a severe professional disappointment. I was in the middle of filming the pilot for Bedside Manner, which was being dubbed as the UK’s next hot hospital drama, when I got the news they were cancelling the series. I’d won the part of the main character, Dr Malakai Bennett, a brilliant surgeon with Asperger’s syndrome, a morphine addiction and a tendency towards paranoia, and the cancellation hit me hard.
Do. Not. Care.
After skimming the book, I came upon some more gems...in particular, some terribly unconvincing chat transcripts between a popular Japanese gamer (Chiyoko and her boy toy otakuRyu). Who uses way too many emoticons.
RYU: Σ(O_O;)! RYU: _|7O
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Who talks on 2-chan. I've never seen 2-chan so...competent. I've never seen 2-chan give such good advice. It's like it's not fucking 2-chan at all.
NAME: ANONYMOUS85 Get the weapons loaded. NAME: ANONYMOUS337 Train that princess in your sights. NAME: ANONYMOUS23 Locked and loaded, SIR! NAME: ANONYMOUS111 First, we gotta help Orz get out of his room. NAME: ANONYMOUS47 Orz. Some good advice: 1. Clean yrself up so that u look as presentable as possible. No bed hair or pimples. 2. Go to Uniqlo and get some good clothes nothing flashy. 3. Go and see The Princess. 4. Offer to buy her dinner. 5. At dinner, tell her how you feel. That way, even if she cuts you off, you will have no regrets.
It might be the case that later on in the book, the plot comes together. I will actually know what's going on. The story will be compelling, the characters fabulously drawn. I don't care. I'm not hanging around to find out....more
Over the next hour and a half, twenty more dragon names cross my computer screen. All ignore me. “Why aren’t they answering?” I ask Lester. I scan th
Over the next hour and a half, twenty more dragon names cross my computer screen. All ignore me. “Why aren’t they answering?” I ask Lester. I scan the script for what I’m supposed to do but can’t find anything that applies...the section near page bottom—For arrogant or annoyed dragons. “Please help me. I am weak. Without your help, the invisible men will...”
DNF at 58% because there's just no point in continuing. This is the worst book about dragons that I've ever read.
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I still have enough to rage about, as it is. This is a book about a girl who --for lack of a better description-- becomes a dragon telemarketer, at least, that's where I stopped.
This book is one of the most plotless, nonsensical books I've ever read. Dragons? DRAGONS? My left shoe has more personality than these dragons. I think I gave this book a fair shot. If there's absolutely crap world building by this point, then why should I continue?
This is a book about dragons vs. the government, sprinkled with reality TV, catfights, whore-name-calling, and a magical makeover. There was no world building, a terrible main character who SCREAMS AND YELLS AND OMG DADDY FUCK YOU I HATE YOU and YOU'RE A STUPID LITTLE SNOT, DUMB FUCKING LITTLE BROTHER with all the signs of being a special chosen snowflake later on for no apparent. It's all telling and no showing and as emotionless as Nicole Kidman's face after a Botox binge. I've been warned that there's slut shaming (thankfully, I didn't get to that part, but I stopped right after a catfight, so I've no doubt there was going to be some unholy feminist rage later on had I continued further).
The writing was unremarkable, so much so that I took almost no notes on this book. There was nothing that stood out. As such, you're going to have to endure a review with remarkably few quotations from the book (for me, that is).
The Summary: 15 years ago, dragons came to earth. They're terrifying, destructive monsters, killing over 80 million people. For some fucking reasons, we conquered them. The dragons, Reds, Blues, Greens in color, are now sent to, like, dragon zoos. No idea what happened to the rest of the world, or the rest of the US, because we're living one military city, Mason-Kline, and it is as if nothing else exists outside of it.
Melissa Callahan is a stupid teenager who does stupid things. When we start the book, she and her friends have broken into a dragon compound (where's the motherfucking guards?!) and taken some stupid Facebook frat boy/douchebag style photo, posing on top of a Blue dragon (respect, yo!). A hot boy appears, says something mysterious to her. She hears a mysterious dragon voice in her head! Boy disappears. Melissa's like "Huh."
Her dad finds the stupid photo of her mounting the poor sleeping dragon. Melissa gets into trouble. She flips her dad off, she yells at her dad, she yells at her brother. Her brother runs off in tears. All of a sudden, there are dragons eeeeeeeveryfucking where, breathing fire and shit on people. The military comes in, they subdue the dragons, but not before the dragons do some major damage. The dragons carry her off to some kind of dragon camp. Hot boy is there. He tells her that dragons are really nice people, they just want to live in peace. They talk a lot. Melissa still thinks the dragons are murderers. They talk some more, and I don't know what the fuck they talk about because I can't remember a single fucking thing about their fucking conversations.
Melissa gets captured somehow. She, for some fucking reason, gets a makeover where she turns into a blond beauty. There was no point to this, because she gets sent to some kind of rehabilitation camp with a bunch of catty girls who call each other "whores," where she pretty much uses her TELEPATHY MAGIC SPARKLY UNICORN POWER to tune in to dragon radio and call dragons to recruit/trick them as needed.
Lester hands me a different call script. A single page with two paragraphs of text. One for introduction, one for rebuttal. Only one fill-in-the-blank (my alias) and one handwritten note (Growl as you speak). “Bryzmon, my name is Christina Grace, I am a member of the Diocletians,” I say, adding a throaty rumble to my words. “Join us or die.” The Green responds immediately in a guttural voice that spikes a shiver through me. I will enjoy sucking the skin from your roasted body, human. His call frequency updates to 98.667 iGHz. The rebuttal section—When the dragon threatens to devour you—is simple. “Join us and you can eat well every day without fear of—”
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Where's the fucking world building?!: As I said, 15 years ago, dragons came to earth. I don't know what the fuck happened, apparently, neither do the dragons. They're destructive, they killed over 80 million people (that's 1/4 of the current US population) before they were stopped. How were they stopped? They can't see the color black, but how were these dragons stopped? What happened to the rest of the US? Why are the dragons confined? Why aren't they locked up or completely destroyed, instead of being in research zoos. Why are they left completely alone otherwise? Why are they so poorly secured that a bunch of drunk teenagers can break into a dragon holding area?!
These dragons have killed 80 fucking million people! Why aren't we more careful with them?!
80 million people have died! What happened to the rest of the world?! What happened to the government? Why are we living in a military town? Why is the fucking military town so poorly secured that it takes one little dragon attack to demolish the whole town. IT'S A MILITARY TOWN. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE MORE SECURE.
The dragons breathe fire! They breathe ice! Why are they so fucking docile all of a sudden after HAVING KILLED 80 MILLION PEOPLE? Why are they allowing themselves to be imprisoned with their full powers intact AFTER HAVING KILLED 80 MILLION PEOPLE? Why are we even giving them a chance AFTER THEY KILLED 80 MILLION PEOPLE? How many fucking dragons are left on earth anyway?! We don't know anything! What kind of weapons did we develop that's so special and awesome to defeat the kind of fire-breathing, smoke-spewing dragons THAT KILLED 80 MILLION PEOPLE?
They're like cuddly happy warm little carebears happy to talk to telepathic humans who are on their side. The humans who befriend and talk telepathically to these dragons aren't normal people, they're fucking dragon fanboys. Furthermore, these dragons are tremendously fucking boring. They don't say anything of importance. They don't remember anything. They're pretty much useless, which makes me wonder HOW THE FUCK DID THEY KILL 80 MILLION PEOPLE?!
From what I read, there were no point to the dragon colors. They might as well be like brown or golden puppies, because despite the distinguishing colors, there were little difference between them. There was no dragon lore, since the dragons don't remember anything about where they came from.
Don't get me wrong, I love dragons! I've loved dragons ever since I was a child. If you're going to give me a book about dragons, don't make them boring! Make them destructive, sure. Make them bloodthirsty, cruel, demonic. Awesome! Don't make them boring! Pokémons are cuter and more interesting than these creatures. That's just a fucking travesty.
All of a sudden, we have these reality TV shows where dragons are hunted. The guys who hunt them are celebrities, like those in Dog, the Bounty Hunter. REALITY SHOWS, WHAT THE FUCK?! It's been 5 years since the war against the dragons ended. 80 MILLION PEOPLE DIED. It's like having a reality show about hunting the Taliban after 9/11. It's a fucking dumb idea, and you can't tell me that this sort of shit would fly in an alternate universe.
Where's the mourning? Where's the emotion? All the emotions in this book is ANGER ANGER ANGER ANGER KILL THE DRAGONS UGLY DESTRUCTIVE ASSHOLES versus the insurgent OMG MAGICAL HAPPY BEAUTIFUL LORD MASTER DRAGONS. Where's the wonder? Where's the history? Is there any sort of introspection about the legend of the dragons in our mythology and lore versus the cold, hard reality at all?
The dragons can talk. They might as well have been mute. They're all telling and no showing, because there was nothing to them. They're like lions who have been bred and raised within a zoo. Powerful potential. Interesting to look at. No personality. No complexity. They eat. They breed. They get fawned over. Oohed and aahed by the humans with twinkles in their eyes who have conveniently forgotten that THESE DRAGONS HAVE KILLED 80 MILLION PEOPLE.
Roar about us dragons, roar about your god, roar at yourself if you must, roar as loud and long as you can until there is nothing left to roar about. Send all the badness away.
^ Says the dragon. What the FUCK does that even mean? So this is the equivalent of dragony purple prose.
The Makeover: What the fuck?!
I thought I recognized the girl in the mirror before, but this one I’ve never seen. Her hair’s blond and falls in glorious curls around her shoulders. Eyebrows are also dyed, what remains of them. Smoky eye shadow. Enough foundation to fill a grave. Skin a shade between gold and bronze. Midnight-red lipstick to offset the silver circlet nestled in her hair.
After Melissa is captured and imprisoned and given crappy food and put into solitary confinement with a single nasty toilet that doesn't flush...all of a sudden, she gets a fucking makeover. And then given some kind of...I want to say Hunger Game-esque pin? Is that where this book is headed? I don't know, I don't care.
I was confused as fuck, and I'm still confused as fuck. Without any ceremony, she's thrown in front of a camera. It's a reality show. They're going to make a documentary out of her. They put her underaged brother on camera. They're filming everything. It's the dumbest fucking thing in the world.
The Characters:
When [my father]’s past the fire pit, I give him the finger, turn around, and march right up Dragon Hill. “Bullshit. You—” “Watch your language, missy.” “Bullshit, bullshit, bull—”
Melissa is a little snotty, bratty, shrieking, perpetually unhappy and angry bitch. I hate using the word bitch, I really do. I hate a word that specifically targets a girl or a woman as petty, snippy, perpetually angry, ball-breaking for no reason at all, but it is so perfectly fitting for Melissa's personality.
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The Romance:
“Strong spirit, fragile mind.” His expression grows serious. “I thought it would be a run-of-the-mill recruiting trip, but when I met her, she absolutely floored me.” “How so?” “Look at her,” James says. “Not the hair or the makeup or the dress. Look into her eyes. There’s something magical in them. I’ve never met anybody like her.”
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James is a fawning insta-lovey-dovey nitwit of a yelping puppy. There was absolutely no point to the romance whatsoever. There was zero chemistry.
I'm gonna go reread my beloved Dragonriders of Pern series so I can erase this book from my memory. Hell, Puff, the Magic Dragon makes more sense plot-wise than this book....more
MC: I need to find someone to marry so I can keep my fortune! Love interest: Marry me! I will claim to resDNF @ 60% because it was excruciatingly dull.
MC: I need to find someone to marry so I can keep my fortune! Love interest: Marry me! I will claim to respect you and allow you full control to your fortune if you will only allow me to use all your money repairing my broken-down estate. (You're gonna lose interest in being a controlling harpy after I fuck your brains out anyway! Who needs brains when you have babies!) MC: *oblivious* Ok! Lady's Maid: I have a bad feeling about this. Vicar: Hmm. Lady's Maid: That Vicar is annoying, but he's kind of cute. Maybe. No, he's not. Love interest's twin sisters: WE ARE ADORABLE TWIN GIRLS WHO WEAR PANTS AND ACT LIKE BOYS! LOVE US! MC: Okay! Love interest: Well, I've been fucking her brains out and she STILL wants to control the money. Shit. Ugh, stupid cow. MC: Man, everything's going so smoothly within our marriage! *MC redecorates the estate, Love Interest repairs shit, complains about money. They fuck* *Lady's maid bickers with the vicar* *twin sisters raise hell* *MC redecorates the estate, Love Interest repairs shit, complains about money. They fuck* *Lady's maid bickers with the vicar* *twin sisters raise hell* *MC redecorates the estate, Love Interest repairs shit, complains about money. They fuck* Lady's maid bickers with the vicar *twin sisters raise hell* *MC redecorates the estate, Love Interest repairs shit, complains about money. They fuck* *Lady's maid bickers with the vicar* *twin sisters raise hell* *MC redecorates the estate, Love Interest repairs shit, complains about money. They fuck* *Lady's maid bickers with the vicar* *MC redecorates the estate, Love Interest repairs shit, complains about money. They fuck* *twin sisters raise hell*
To give you an impression of how much I hated this book, I will read the Halo trilogy in its entirety several times over rather than finish tDNF @ 20%
To give you an impression of how much I hated this book, I will read the Halo trilogy in its entirety several times over rather than finish this. There was nothing good about this book, and there is so much that is bad that I can write an entire fucking rant review based on the little that I've read.
To sum it up (details further down):
1. The writing is atrocious
2. It has every romantic trope in the book
3. The main character is fucking dumb and judgmental
4. The angels are fucking dumb
5. The demons are fucking dumb
The Summary:
This class is way over my head. Half an hour of this and I swear my notes were penned by a retarded monkey who is just as confused as I am.
Sophia St. James has delusions of going to Stanford one day. She's not only stupid, she's judgmental, offensive, and can't keep her fucking mouth shut.
“What kind of obtuse podunk outfit is this anyway? Supersized, narcissistic Rent-a-Cop!” I sit back and realize the cop has returned to my window. Aw crap.
Sophia has just moved from California to Connecticut, where they speak with weird accents, and words like "asshole" is pronounced "eh-hole."
His voice is rich with a funny eastern accent, which under lighter circumstances I would find amusing.
Hint: Eastern people don't really have accents. Newly arrived in Connecticut, she not only gets into trouble with the law, but she witnesses a strange guy hovering over a scene of a car accident. Cue insta-love. Sophia feels a "second heartbeat."
His head is now turning slowly, methodically, and he is looking at me as though I’m one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
He looks at HER with concern!
His concern for me is palpable, like a hand caressing my cheek.
She looks at HIM with concern!
He could feel her concern for him radiating like a lighthouse.
He vanishes!
It turns out that Mysterious Boy is Michael, named after the Archangel. He's only a Guardian Angel himself; he lives with his "brothers," Raphael, and Gabriel. They're all extraordinarily handsome, and they are so well-disguised (not). Way to stay the fuck under the radar. He is incapable of love! He shouldn't love! It is beyond his capacity for a heavenly being...but Michael can't help it! For the first time...he feels...EMOTIONS for the sexy Sophia.
No, not just hot but sexy as hell and— Wait, what? Sexy? Where in the hell did that come from?
But Michael is not alone in his desire for Seductive Sophia. There is a Demon Knight in Hell, and he wants her, too. Specifically, her soul, because why?
He had been tracking his lost lover’s soul and found it in Sophia.
So Dante has to go to HUGE GREAT DESPERATE STEPS in order to come back to Earth and win over her soul. He's not alone, his cohorts, Vaughn, Santiago and Wolfgangare coming with him to Earth. THEY MUST GET SOPHIA'S SOUL.
But first, they have to worry about what to wear. Vaughn, well...
So his wardrobe was chosen with care: black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt buttoned at the throat. And for good measure, he wore a long black duster, a favorite from the old days.
Santiago's a little more down-to-earth. So to speak.
He opted for black skinny jeans with multicolored Converse high tops and a black T-shirt that said, I DIED FOR AN IRON MAIDEN.
Wolfgang...
He wore black jeans rolled at the cuffs, black combat boots, and a tight black T-shirt over his beefy chest. His hair had been cut shoulder length and gathered at the back of his head with a leather, noose-like strap.
Finally, Dante! He's got to look sharp for his long-lost lover.
Dante changed clothes three times before settling on black designer jeans and a charcoal mock turtleneck. After all, this was a special occasion. He should look nice and sophisticated but not like he was trying too hard.
*chokes with laughter*
AND FINALLY, NOW THAT THEY'RE ALL DRESSED, THEY CAN FINALLY LEAVE FOR THEIR MISSION.
“Now we go to America!” Dante announced the command he had been waiting years to say.
Or not.
Dante clenched his teeth. “Fine! To Italy. And then to Connecticut without another delay.”
Now do you see why I'm DNFing this book?
The Writing:
He seems disjointed from the others like a curious bystander.
Teeeeeeeeeeerrible. Littered with some mind-blogging metaphors...
- "Controlling Wolfgang’s demon was impossible, like taming a lion with a wet noodle."
- "That’s when it hits: a painful explosion in my chest like I had dynamite for dinner and it’s just now digesting."
- "I can already imagine my evening camped out on the couch, an array of books scattered about like a litter of teething puppies."
- The scar in my eyebrow? A sleeping caterpillar. I’ve checked it continuously for two weeks hoping one day it will turn butterfly and flit away.
Factual errors: Eastern accents are barely detectable, if at all. Los Angeles High school does not have a junior class size of 250. Try twice that. A person who can't breathe does not actually turn blue. They only have a blueish tinge to their face.
He was blue!” “As a Smurf!”
Spelling errors: Coco Chanel is the name of the woman who started the brand, it's not the brand itself. Furthermore, it's spelled Chanel, not Channel. A psychiatric ward is shortened to a "psych ward," not a "psyche ward".
Terrible dialogues: From outrageously absurd characters:
- “She’s their cousin. Hashtag—most fun person in the world!"
- "What’s up, teacup?"
- “Holy horndogs, Batman. I got Jordan. I’ll be sure to Brinks secure my thong.”
Sophia: The main character is fucking dumb. She wants to go to Stanford when she goes to college. I'm sorry to tell her she doesn't have a special snowflake's chance in the deepest pits of hell. She is a pastor's daughter who doesn't see the significance between all the supernatural shit she's been seeing and the fact that there are three angelically beautiful young brothers in her town with the names of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. She cries at the drop of a hat. She is nasty, mentally calling people names, like a "Rent-a-Cop" with a "McBelly."
She was abused by an ex-boyfriend. It doesn't feel real, and I am the first person in the world to hop onto the victim-defending wagon. Her abuse feels superficial. The mental scars do not feel real. She only brings it up from time to time when she remembers it. There was no point to the inclusion of the abuse, and I found it offensive to victims of true abuse.
The Angels: Fucking dumb. Heaven can't see fit to give them a collective brain, much less three. They are so well-hidden that they can't think to disguise themselves under any other names but the three most famous motherfucking Angels in the Bible. Way to stay under the motherfucking radar. They can't hide how gloriously handsome they are? They're so fucking stupid that they can't save a guy who's choking on a piece of food.
I look and see Casey James laughing at his own joke. A moment later he stops, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish. His eyes gradually bulge in panic. Before I can think the words, He’s choking, Michael is there, wrapping his arms around Casey’s waist and hauling him out of the chair.
Three motherfucking Guardian Angels can't save a guy who's choking. What the fuck kind of incompetency is this? Casey James died. And the motherfucking angels are so fucking good at staying under the motherfucking radar that they bring the dead guy back to life in front of the entire fucking school.
“But he was dead!” I whisper. “And Raph didn’t do CPR!” We stop at my locker and I throw my books inside. “Well, he must have done something, right? I mean, Casey choked to death.” “But...Raph didn’t. You saw that he didn’t, right?”
The Romance: It has every romantic trope in the book, including a love triangle between a Guardian Angel and a Demon Knight. There is insta-love between the MC and the Angel. There is a hint of reincarnated soul mates between the MC and the Demon.
I cannot recall a damn thing that is memorable about this book. I can't even begin to tell you what the plot iPossible DNF. Very brief review to come.
I cannot recall a damn thing that is memorable about this book. I can't even begin to tell you what the plot is because it is so forgettable and dull.
It is a spaghetti western that's the equivalent of riding in a bus full of tourists to Las Vegas and looking at the scenery outside the window (hint: there's nothing there but desert shrubs)....more
I'm so sorry for the way you died. I hated the way you were branded witch, whore, traitor; I shudder in horror at how you died, beheaDear Anne Boleyn:
I'm so sorry for the way you died. I hated the way you were branded witch, whore, traitor; I shudder in horror at how you died, beheaded, reviled by a nation, betrayed by your own husband.
But man, the alternative if you had lived is so fucking dull.
After your death, you've been the subject and inspiration of many works of poetry, literature, films. You are now a legend, everything from the aforementioned witch, to temptress, to innocent woman caught in the middle of a vast web of manipulation. I'm sorry to say that your horrible, untimely death granted you your current mystique.
But had you actually given birth to a son, things would have sucked. For readers, that is. For, you see, your beloved Tudor Court is now usurped by a fucking Mary Sue. Her name is Minuette. And she's the most adorable thing in the entire world.
Minuette is the daughter of your imaginary French maid, now your ward. Her real name is Gwendolyn. She is lovely beyond words. Minuette is so fucking darlin' that the 3-year old Princess Elizabeth gives her the nickname of "Minuette" when she can barely pronounce the actual word she intended to use, which is "mignonette."
Elizabeth thought me too little for the name my French mother had given me. She attempted to call me Mignonette—meaning dainty and darling—but her three-year-old tongue did not pronounce it properly. I have been Minuette to my friends ever since.
Never mind how a three-year old can even SPEAK French. D'aww! Isn't that just fucking cute and improbable! Tas de merde!
She's so cute and charming and adorable and charming and beautiful and charming and lovely and charming that she charms eeeeeeeveryone in the whole fucking world.
Did I forget to say say she's charming? She is ^_^ . Minuette is adored by everyone she meets. Minuette is not only beautiful, but charming, and so nice and naive and innocent that nobody can hate her. EVER!
Minuette had always had charm—not the studied, showy type, but natural as breath and as much a part of her as her honey-coloured hair.
Elizabeth might have hated her for that charm, if Minuette weren’t so utterly without guile.
JUST TRY TO HATE HER, BITCHES. Let's see, who loves Minuette?
- Dowager Queen Anne: The orphaned (of course) Minuette is so beloved that after her mother's death, Queen Anne takes her on as her ward, to be Elizabeth's lady's maid and playmate.
- (The late) King Henry: So sweet, so charming, that even little itty bitty baby Minuette is adored by King Henry VIII over his own child, Princess Elizabeth.
Though he’d complimented Elizabeth’s mind, it was nine-year-old Minuette who had disarmed him. When the formidable, enormous King Henry had left, it had been Minuette whom he’d hugged goodbye.
Henry's just a big ole' softy, isn't he?!
- Princess Elizabeth: Minuette is now Elizabeth's lady's maid, and she has Elizabeth wrapped around her wee adorable charming fingers.
“William has given you leave?” Elizabeth let her annoyance leak out. “You are a member of my household.” “And you would never say no to me.” Minuette smiled triumphantly.
- King William: That's right! Queen Anne had given birth to a son, after all. His name is William and he is England's 17-year old king. Who is head over heels in love with Minuette.
“I can’t see her yet. Not yet, Elizabeth. I need time to...” To forget the smell of her hair and the taste of her skin and the feel of her body against mine. To forget that I wanted her so desperately I’d have overthrown all honour to have her at that moment, with [a dead body] lying dead not ten feet away.
*gag
- Dominic: William's young mentor and best friend, his most trusted advisor---AND EMBROILED IN A LOVE TRIANGLE WITH MINUETTE! Bros before hos? Hardly.
When he at last entered the great hall, his eyes went straight to Minuette with the unerring instinct of a man besotted.
- EEEEEEEEVERYONE: Courtiers, noblemen, ambassadors, everyone adooooooores Minuette. She can be anyone, play anything, act as a perfect fucking spy because nobody ever suspects the butterfly.
She's got the whole world in her pretty, pretty, ever-so-charming hands.
“One does not argue with His Majesty’s wishes.” “Really? I argue with his wishes all the time.” Minuette positively dazzled as she added, “And I always win.”
So yeah, with all that beauty, with all that intelligence, Minuette doesn't need to do a single fucking thing when she has a big strong man to do it for her.
Her first thought was Dominic...because he was the steadiest man she knew and she needed someone steady to tell her what to do.
So Queen Anne, not only did you living curse us to suffer this...creature of the light's existence, but now your brilliant daughter, Princess Elizabeth has been reduced to a really boring normal royal princess; a wasted, pampered, worry-free life. She no longer needs to fight for her life, she no longer needs to worry about politics, about reclaiming her throne, about whether Queen Mary will kill her next...Liz is free to just chill, be the Princess, be spoiled by her brother, be his personal secretary (because the King has more important things to do than to respond to letters from his subjects)...and instead, spend time pining over that which she cannot have.
But for all that, Elizabeth knew she might have been severely tempted to plead with her brother to consider such an uneven match—if not for the simple fact that Robert [Dudley] was already married.
You gave birth to one of the most interesting, illustrious, intelligent, manipulative rulers that England has ever known, and Elizabeth is just completely wasted in this alternate history.
You know what they say? Like father, like son? Well, sorry to tell you, but William ain't much better than his dad.
He would wed for practicality, and take his pleasures where he could. For all the unorthodoxy of his parents’ marriage, that was the way of kings.
The only difference is that unlike Daddy, Willie boy doesn't have a tendency to take people's heads off.
Yet.
He's still a philandering brat, though. I mean, I can't blame him, in some sense. Imagine yourself as a darkly handsome young man with the Boleyn looks, and the Kingdom of England at your feet. I don't blame him for wanting to fuck everything with a hole. And that he does. Will really doesn't give two craps about people's feelings. To him, and to this "alternate reality" women are there to be used, bought, and sold. If they open their legs to him, it's becaues they want something, so he can fuck anyone he wants. Even if said woman is married. Even if he's the one who forces her into a marriage. But it's ok, because she would have wanted the marriage anyway!
“Have you given any thought to the lady, beyond what you desire?” William hovered on the point of real anger before shrugging it off. “I assure you, Eleanor is quite content with the arrangement. No matter how long she … however long we … she will be the daughter-in-law of one of the premier dukes in England. It’s more than her family ever dreamed.”
And for some fucking reason, he just falls in love with Minuette. But it's ok, because, as I mentioned above, eeeeeeeeeeeeeveryone falls in love with fucking Minuette.
So with all that said, with all due respect, I'm glad you died when you did.
Sincerely, Khanh
P.S. I'M SORRY, I KNOW GETTING BEHEADED MUST HAVE SUCKED SO BAD P.P.S. I REALLY AM SORRY!...more
I did not finish this book...there were several things towards the beginning of the story that just had me laughing, it was so ludicrous. For example,I did not finish this book...there were several things towards the beginning of the story that just had me laughing, it was so ludicrous. For example, the Big Bad Cajun Motorcycle Gang (also known as the Sharks and the Jets...oh, wrong story). They speak in heavily-accented Cajun patois, they have bikes with stolen, mismatched parts! They wear motorcycle jackets, their hair falls in greasy locks over their eyes! They rumble up to their new school in a crowd of big, bad, wolfery and start chatting up and soliciting all the pretty girls.
Aside from the dirt-poor, uneducated, rude Cajun stereotyping and the clichéd bad boys, nevertheless, I could have tolerated the minor absurdity if there had been some promise to a compelling story, but no. I'm not going to waste my time.
Here are a few quotes very early on in the story that made up my mind for me.
"Beside him was a couple on a bike—a kid in camo pants and a girl in a pleather miniskirt. The big boy helped her off the bike, easily swinging her up— 'Wheh-hell,' Catherine said, 'good to know her panties are hot pink. Shocked she’s wearing them, actually. Classy with a capital K.' Mel nodded thoughtfully. 'I finally understand who buys vajazzling kits.'
I foresee slut-shaming in the future. Not a fan.
"Then Weasel zeroed in on me with a smirk. 'Ain’t you dat jolie girl in dat Porsha?' His Cajun accent was as thick as any I’d ever heard. 'Turn around, you, and hike up dat dress, so I can tell for true.'"
...really? REALLY?
"'You’re laughing at me?' He clenched those big, taped fists like he was just dying to hit something. Most likely my face.
'Tu p’tee pute,' he sneered to my face. You little bitch."
The above quotes came from the projected love interest. A violent, misogynistic asshole. No. No. I'm just not going to bother....more
Nope. Couldn't finish this halfway through. Impossibly boring. What mystery?
The majority of the book deals with Nessa's grief and her coming to terms Nope. Couldn't finish this halfway through. Impossibly boring. What mystery?
The majority of the book deals with Nessa's grief and her coming to terms with her sister's mysterious death through running away from her life and living alone. I can't believe her parents would allow their under-aged daughter to do that, no matter how much they're grieving themselves. There was more about Nessa being a waitress/dealing with Queen Bee Waitress than of her being enmeshed in whatever mystery. Yet another mermaid book that has let me down....more
I have a great deal of respect for an author who chooses to go outside of his or her comfort zone, particularly when the tried and true formula has beI have a great deal of respect for an author who chooses to go outside of his or her comfort zone, particularly when the tried and true formula has been so ridiculously successful in the past. Richelle Mead's previous winners (and there have been many) have all featured strong, confident heroines who sardonic and sarcastic at times, but vulnerable and---the key word here--eminently likeable. The supporting casts tend to be no less memorable bunch, and the world building is clear and well-explained, in the case that the book is set in a paranormal or alternate universe. Sadly, none of the above was true with this book.
I have to give credit where it's due; I have tremendous respect for Richelle Mead for trying something new. In this case, it did not work for me.
There is nothing wrong with the quality of the writing, one could say there was nothing technically wrong with the book, my problems with the book goes beyond the technicalities. Actually, technical is the word I would use to describe what I read of Gameboard of the Gods. The world, the characters, the plot. Technical, sterile, cold, completely lacking in vivacity. Unlike Georgina, unlike Rose, unlike Seth, Dmitri, Adrian, I didn't feel a damn thing for any of the characters in the book beyond that of disinterest and mild disapproval. I can even say that I do not hate any of the characters; hate is a strong word, hate implies a strong provocation of emotion, and these characters lack the complexity and any sort of personality trait required to evoke any strong sense of sentiment in me, for better or worse.
The book's narration is third person, robotic, unemotional, and unengrossing. I hate to keep making comparisons with Richelle Mead's other books, but it can't be helped. I laughed, I blushed, I cried along with the characters in her other books. I rejoiced along with them, I worried for them...I felt absolutely nothing for the characters in this book, and I just can't adequately imagine the world in which they live.
Confusing world building: Unlike her previous books, this one is set in the future, in a new, likely dystopian universe. There is no slow building up of the world. We are plopped right into it, new vocabulary, new concepts, new world-building is thrown at us immediately with little explanation. Praetorians, RUNA, EA, castal, ravens, Gemmans, servitors? What the hell? And the explanations? Very few, very brief, very confusing, completely nonsensical at times, like the concept of genomic purity numbering was for me. I still don't know if a high number is considered good or bad; some of the explanations in this book were just downright confusing and contradictory.
I am fine with a gradual immersion into a dystopian world or a new concept of world building. I like developing my own theories and then have it be proven correct or false as more information is revealed throughout the book. Here is the problem. The information is never CLEARLY or TIMELY given out. Halfway through the book, I was mostly as confused as I started, and considerably more impatient. Not only were information dished out by the dropful, the book had gotten nowhere by midpoint and my interest has been considerably dwindling since the beginning. A good book keeps its reader riveted; this book does not hit the mark.
So many things do not make sense in this book, from the concept of racial purity to the explanation of the current world in which the book is set. Mae's racial purity and her prized bloodline, described almost Aryan-nation style; she is described as a "castal princess" so often. Castes, or rather, racial purity is so prized throughout the book and yet the Gemman nation is dedicated to stamping out inequality: "The RUNA held three things responsible for the Decline: biological manipulation, religion, and cultural separatism. All of the early genetic mixing had gone a long way toward stamping out group solidarity, and the loose Greco-Roman models the country had adopted had provided a new, all-encompassing culture that everyone could be a part of."
Maybe things are explained more clearly through the latter half of the book, but for me, I've reached my breaking point and I'm not sticking around long enough to find out more about a world in which our altogether unenthralling characters inhabit.
Mae: the perfect praetorian princess, she is almost Mary-Sue like in her icy princess perfection. I had a little horrified moment in the beginning of the book when I realized what I was getting myself into when Mae was described as being so beautiful she could command an entire room, and having hair "like winter sunlight." To top it off, she is a praetorian, artificially enhanced to have superhuman strength (and can eat whatever she wants because of her ridiculously elevated metabolism!), and prized for the untainted Nordic racial heritage. I'm a little baffled at this racial thing, to be honest. Richelle Mead never makes it so that racial purity is a major issue in society, but yet she emphasizes it so much within this book that I don't quite understand the point she's trying to make. Mae's perfectionism extends to her personality, she is so utterly without complexity and character, and I couldn't find myself caring about her or what happens to her. She's just a bodyguard, and in action, that's all she is; she's supposed to be one of the main characters, yet we see little of her that makes any sort of impression.
Sidenote: am I the only one who laughed at the name Porfirio Aldaya? In the beginning when Mae was mourning his death, I just wanted to stand up and yell "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"
Justin: another brilliant rake, dissolute, deprived. Mae's insta-lust (cue rolling eyes here). Supposedly grieving and reeling from the death of her love, Mae sees Justin across a room and feels "a sudden and unexpected physical attraction. Every man she’d met today paled beside this one." Ugh. Justin is supposed to be a genius, brilliant. Again and again, he allegedly possesses such intelligence and perspicacity that RUNA wants him back from exile. There's honestly no evidence of it. His examples of brilliance are hearsay, and described as such in the book repeatedly, but there is no evidence of it in his actions. "Justin latched on to small details, able to make astonishing deductions she never could’ve fathomed. His dedication to their case was fierce, and when he spoke of it and explained the psychology of religious groups to her, she couldn’t help but be fascinated." They're just that. Descriptions of his supposedly smarts, nowhere we see him demonstrate that intelligence. Justin interviews some people, and then takes a lot of drugs, then seduces some women and pisses off Mae. I don't mean he's passive. Passivity is not a bad quality, a quiet, unassuming hero (SETH!) I can bear and come to love. Justin is just not demonstrative in any quality, good or bad.
Tessa: is there a point to Tessa? Is there a reason for throwing a 16-year old "intelligent" provincial girl into the mix when she so far plays no role whatsoever in the plot besides as a further attempt to humanize Justin and give him a paternal quality aside from his drug-addicted, womanizing nincompoopery?
I'm done with this book for now...I might return to it at a later date but so far, there's little inclination....more