Review: Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11)

 Title: Dead Reckoning (Goodreads)
Author: Charlaine Harris
Series: #11 of the Sookie Stackhouse books
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Adult
Age restriction? (Much) Older Teens, 16+
Published: 3 May 2011
Recommended for: Die-hard fans of Sookie and/or Eric and/or Beel
Buy: Dead Reckoning @ Amazon

Disappointing. Weak story, weaker characters, lots and lots of telling. I wouldn't bother unless you're already a fan.

DESCRIPTION: Well, if you need a description, you probably don't want to read this book. Seriously. Sookie and Eric have trouble in their relationship. Sookie messes up. Lots of people (and non-people) are out to kill Sookie. Vampire Politics Plot. Fairy Politics Plot. Cue Curtain.

REVIEW: Dead Reckoning left me feeling flat. I've enjoyed all the books in the series so far (yes, even 9 and 10, which fans bitched about), but this? This was beyond pale. Weak, flat story with no real action, danger or mystery. Predictable to the extreme and all of it told instead of shown. No character development at all. 

A flicker of interesting happened when Sookie went with Hunter to size up his new school, but once again, everything was told and then it's the last we hear of Hunter (whose relationship with Sookie could be a really invigorating change to what's become a plot-by-numbers series). When I say "everything is told", I mean "everything is told". Almost zero showing going on. Like with Tara's baby shower, we are told there are some women and a few names are mentioned, and we are told Sookie is told a really nice story about her gran and we're assured that this makes her feel better. 

Yeah. The whole book is basically like that.

I don't know, it's as if the TV series has sucked the blood and originality out of the books, which is funny considering that they're only similar in an "inspired by the books" kind of way, and it's almost as if Charlaine Harris herself is getting bored with it all.

THIS IS WHY SERIES SHOULD END AT SOME POINT. Ahem. Just sayin'. 

Still, I did find it intruiging enough to finish, and it had one or two fun moments, so two stars it is.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Die-hard Sookie book fans (not the series, the books), who hope that the next one will be better or will finally end the damn series.

Review: Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Pretties (The Uglies)


Title:Pretties
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Series: #2 of The Uglies
Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy, Dystopian,
Age restriction? Teens, 12+
Published:11 November 2008

Very promising beginning, but fell flat at the middle and just got worse and worse.

Description: Gorgeous. Popular. Perfect. Perfectly wrong.

Tally has finally become pretty. Now her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are awesome, her boyfriend is totally hot, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted.

But beneath all the fun -- the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom -- is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important.  ...more 

REVIEW: When I started reading this book, I was like "YES! This is what I wanted Uglies to be! Thanks Scott!" Tally's unease in her new life, her nagging feeling that there's something more, something other than partying and being pretty all the time. Suddenly, Tally's shallow self-involved cowardice and dullness which so irritated me in the first book fit perfectly here, and together with the nebulous but unshakable knowledge that there's something more, that being "pretty" isn't everything, isn't all it's cracked up to be but her inability to put her finger on exactly what, serves to make her sympathetic to the max - with the understanding, of course, that she'll learn and grown and grow out of these things.

Right?

Sigh. Sadly not, it turns out.

For a long time I strongly felt that the beginning of this novel should have started the series. You actually care about the viewpoint character, you are shown the disconnect between what she knows subconsciously and what she is told to believe, you get sucked into her life and root for her all the time. Even her love for Zane would have made a great triangle once she got back with David.

However, I am very sorry to say, that is exactly where the problem came in. Suddenly, now that she's all prettied up, now she loves Zane more because, according to Tally, they had 'shared so much'. Sure, they did, and I like Zane a lot too, but David and Tally went through so much more and shared such a special connection that I came to the same conclusion that David did - she was sticking with Zane because he was pretty and he wasn't.

Further, the unconvincing use of anorexia to escape the City, the gratuitous physical mutilation and danger to achieve and maintain a sense of "realness" and release and the overall shallowness - it was all just a little too casual, just a bit too flip. The emotions, consequences and reality of these elements were just nowhere to be found, for me. Further further, the of the point of view character. Oh good grief. She never grows up, never learns anything other than how to make everything work out nicely for herself, never willingly sacrifices anything. No, with her it's all "what's in it for me?" and it frustrated the crap out of me.

I will not be reading the third book, as I'm sure I'll just be further frustrated. I was so hopeful when starting this book that it feels like an extra-large letdown that Tally remained the same shallow, heartless, power-hungry conformist that she always was.

I'll be reading the next book just to see if the flicker of character Tally finally showed in the last chapter will be realized, but I don't have much hope.

Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies (The Uglies 1)

Title: Uglies
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Series: #1 of The Uglies
Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy, Dystopian,
Age restriction? Teens, 12+
Published: 10 May 2006

 While this is a serious and thought provoking book, I just didn't enjoy the character or the story at all.

Description: Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.  ...more

REVIEW: I wanted to enjoy this book. I mean, a critical look at and deconstruction of our appearance obsessed culture and a dystopian glance at the extremes to which it can be taken - YES PLEASE. As the mother of two very young daughters, my heart withers daily as I see the glorification of impossible beauty standards and the ridicule of those not conforming them, always knowing that this excessive obsession with appearance will damage them, the question is just how much.

However, I'm very sorry to say that I just couldn't get into this book. First off, I found Tally to be completely unsympathetic. While I understand that she is the product of her culture and society (aren't we all?) and I enjoyed her adventurous side, I found her cowardly, untrustworthy and just dull. Maybe if she was just a bit more like her friend, Shay, in the beginning at least asking questions or wondering about the status quo and how it's all supposed to make sense - because it doesn't, not really, how can a society like that function? - before being thrown into a situation where she's shown how it doesn't make sense, I would have felt differently? I can't honestly say.

I also found the plot desperately predictable and unsurprising and the writing mostly uninspiring. While I did enjoy the other characters Tally met during her stay at Smoke (Yay, Croy!) and the conversations with David about appearance, it was all very predictable and formulaic. Even the "shocker" cliffhanger-ish end was something I saw coming from miles away. 

I feel bad for giving it only two, but I really just did not enjoy the book at all.

Review: Spirit Thorn

Spirit Thorn by Zacharias O'Bryan

Genre: YA, science fiction, fantasy
Age restriction? None. "Clean" fiction.
Pages: 92
Edition: Kindle
Published: August 7, 2010
Publisher: VeraVoz, LLC

An intellectual and pretty abstract read - I just couldn't get into the plot or the characters.

Description: Do parallel worlds exist? Searching for proof, Professors Rodger & Cassie Swift vanish. Kestrelle, a spirit girl claiming to know their fate, tells their son Braden he must brave a whitewater, tooth-sprouting river into a land where wise vultures predict the future and blue minds inhabit lava caves. Only two powers can help: Kestrelle's Blood Thorn and Braden's vine-painted guitar.

REVIEW: I wish I could give half-stars, because while Spirit Thorn doesn't quite merit three stars for me, I feel kind of bad giving it only two.

So, story synopsis: Braden's parents, who were world-renowned physicists working on incredibly complex and provocative research regarding the physics behind parallel universes, disappeared without a trace year ago. Determined to find out what happened to them, Braden concocts an elaborate plan to recreate the exact conditions of the night his parents vanished, hoping to join them. Instead, he is pulled into a race to save not only his own world, but possibly all worlds.

I loved the premise of this story and kept hanging on, hoping that eventually things will start making sense, but it just didn't.

Maybe I'm just not the intellectual target of the book? This book assumes a basic knowledge of complex physics and physics theories, like String theory. Braden himself is intellectually superior to anyone else his age and his parents had tutored him in these matters since he was little, so there isn't really anyone to explain the foundations of these concepts to those of us who do not, in fact, understand basic physics.

While the plot and pacing are carefully executed and maintained throughout, it was difficult for me to follow along with the action and the plot felt weak to me. Things seem to happen without any explanation or motivation, which made both the character arc and the action arc of the story incomprehensible to me.

The writing, while beautifully evocative at some places, was quite abrupt at others and to me it felt a little heavy on the dialogue and a little light on the exposition. It does discuss advanced and probably intruiging theories regarding space, time and things like that, although I couldn't really relate to or follow along with those discussions.

It was easy to identify with Braden's character initially, though Kestrelle remained distant and alien to me (which may have been the author's intention). Braden's growth throughout the events is not really shown, though, and the unfolding of the plot was just too staccato and abstract for my personal tastes.

Who would like this book? Young adults and adults with a love and appreciation of physics and sci-fi or fantasy.