Review: The Too-Clever Fox

The Too-Clever Fox by Leigh Bardugo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



4.5 stars

Ooh, this one made me shudder a little bit when the ending neared. I had a feeling there'd be an interesting twist.

Loved it!



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Review: Siege and Storm

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


March 29, 2013

I'm glancing at all the raving and the five stars and the first line of reviews that I don't want to read yet...

I NEED THIS BOOK NOW! Counting down until it's official release in June... Can I whimper?



June 21, 2013

4.5 stars

There's nothing more intense than reading a book and feeling all your emotions rise and fall with the characters as the story progresses. I have little to say about Siege and Storm only because, much like the first book, I couldn't formulate words outside of these particular thoughts:

"I have no words because this was so awesome!" and "Now I have to wait another year for the last book!"

I'm going to admit that the reading of the second book took a little longer than intended for two reasons:

1) I didn't want to read everything in one sitting and be left with that stupid empty void you get after finishing a great story. So I allowed other distractions to keep me at a steady reading pace, but every time I picked up that book, I just wanted to keep going until I finished and that whole "One more chapter then I'll go to sleep" mantra was really just standard hopeful drivel for my book reading marathon binges when I'm in love with the story I managed to get my hands on.

2) I won't deny that I might have let the expectations and my own hype of this book overwhelm me. A certain part of me was severely afraid that things would go wrong and I would end up disappointed. But contrary to that unfounded fear, book number two of the Grisha trilogy truly held up to all the expectations I'd put in place for it.


I truly have no words.

Or well, maybe I DO have a few.

The one negative I found is really my own personal bias. I'm hard-pressed to pay attention to things related to politics and war and so there was a section of the book where the war strategies and political controversies left me a little blah. But that's not to say that I didn't enjoy them or that it wasn't written well, because everything still progressed smoothly and wonderfully. I'm just a little less drawn to those things. In contrast, I had enjoyed Alina's growth into her powers and her journey of self-revelation in the first book a lot more.

Aside from that, everything else about Siege and Storm was nothing short of wonderful awesomeness. "Awesome" being the best way I could ever describe any book since I can't think of a better word for how much I loved it short of tossing around a lot of:

OMG, THIS BOOK WAS SO, SO AWESOME!!!!!!

But I'm a rather monotonous and laid back person, so we'll leave it at that (loud CAPS and many exclamations points and all).

Lastly, something I never got to do was review the first book since I finished it so quickly I never had time to put my thoughts together outside of those same few words in bold faced CAPS and exclamation points (see above).

But the one thing I wanted to make mention, which applies to both the first and second book, is the world that Leigh Bardugo has created in the Grisha trilogy. There's nothing I love more than being able to pick out background bits and pieces and actually see a truly formulated world without even trying. If you kick the main characters out of place, that world still stands on its own with its on histories and lore and cultures. This, in itself is one of the most amazing things that a truly talented author is able to do. Too many times do you read through a lot of books only to find that the foundation is based so much on the immediate story and the main characters that if all of that were gone, the world would probably cease to exist. But with a well-developed world, you could throw anyone into it and still have a whole new and different story to tell. In fact, you could pick and choose from a lot of the side or background characters and see their entire story vividly.

This is one of the things that I love finding out the most with a lot of authors I've come to love.

That being said, along with the excellently created characters, the story progression, the writing, and the story itself, everything seems to be falling into place with the Grisha trilogy. I'm not even sure how I'm going to last the next year until the finale is released, because I'm already feeling jittery.

Finally, if I loved the characters from the first book, I most definitely loved them even more with all this new development. Because these aren't static characters and their very human, ever-changing lives that show through in each subtle shift of the stories trajectory touches me. From Grisha, to royalty, to the Darkling as well as all the newest introductions, the world came together so cohesively that I rarely questioned the purposes of anyone at all. I loved the addition of Tamar and Tolya and the idea of rogue Grisha. It gave insight to human nature's rebellious instincts.

Alina's continued struggle with her own personal demons as well as her hopes were satisfyingly bitter sweet. The loneliness she felt as well as the echo of her connection with the Darkling was wonderful. I love this girl for her strength, but at the same time, my heart hurts whenever she seizes the opportunity to be less than a saint. Her only hope is that she knows when her thoughts have gone dark and familiarly sinister, and yet at the same time, the humanly instincts of greed allow her to give into her less than noble intentions.

Mal's conflicting desire to have purpose in his life, to remain by Alina's side, or to just give up his own hopes altogether really wrings the heart even more. If I thought he was just the lovelorn soldier pining after his first love with no other purpose from the first book, he really changed things around with a snarky yet charming personality in spite of his personal conflicts -- this boy has won my heart (but in his defense, he had very admittedly less scene-time in the first book than he did this time around). Even with little movement, he manages to tell you everything that's going on in his mind and makes your heart hurt for him at the same time, yet in some roller coaster instances, you continue to love him for who he is.

And the addition of Sturmhond was just icing on the cake. As much as I loathe his bipolarism, his many masks and personas, I loved his charm, his wit, his resourcefulness, and yes, even his calculating schemes. This guy was pure awesomeness!

However, I WILL not have him overshadowing Mal any longer! The boy may be a brooding ass, but I've grown to love him, oh so much! *sigh*

As Alina had put it to Mal, "Do you practice being wonderful?" Because I'm sure his charming loveliness CANNOT be anything less than an art.

Anyway, as always, what started off as a few words have become a longer post than intended. When will I ever learn that once I start charging into a review post, there is no way for me to keep it less than 1000 words?

And now, I'm off to that horrendously LOOOOONG wait. In the meantime, at least I know there will be plenty of other "OMG I NEED THAT NEXT BOOK NOW!!!!" options awaiting me within the next few months.


On a last note:

Mal: "I just pictured the Darkling being cornered by a sweaty duchess trying to have her way with him." Yes, Mal! This is why I love you so much! Witty, charming, and scandalous.


And on another end note, this is why I've decided that I love Leigh Bardugo equally as much:

Nikolai laughed. "Next time, bring a flask. Every time he changes his mind, take a sip."

I groaned. "I'd be passed out on the floor before the hour was up."


A drinking game! In the book itself! Legendary!



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Review: The Nightmare Affair

The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



To begin with, a lot of elements in this book reminded me of Harry Potter. But a lot of factors in this book had a whole new potential of a world on it's own. I will admit that I loved the concept: a school for fantasy creatures and magickind, all hidden within the world of or "Ordinaries". I like these types of stories because there is potential for so much to happen and so many books to be written within this one world alone.

I liked the characters and the conflicts between characters. Dusty is fun and sarcastic, Selene is down-to-earth and an awesome best friend; Eli gets to be the typical good guy friend and potential love interest (on that note, I kind of like that our romance took a slight back seat in this book since Dusty's emotions were all over the place anyway). The story had great potential.

And this is where we end our awesome-ness-es. The word "potential" went through my head multiple times while reading this book. I like where the world creation is going, I like where the character creations were going, and I like the idea and the mystery basis of the story. But somehow, a lot of things fell short, for one, the writing and progression of the story itself.

Dusty had a very documentary-like, monotonous tone for her narrative voice. She did a LOT of telling. It's not that I didn't enjoy the things she was narrating, because the ideas were there and I liked them. But the entire time I was reading this story, I felt extremely detached... like Dusty was reading someone else's quickly written first person account of the events going on. It felt choppy.

Next, the characters had potential, but in a way, they felt kind of underdeveloped. I had this nagging feeling that there was something missing from each of these characters... like maybe the heart that should have been there. Not that the characters didn't have hearts, but that the creation behind the characters seemed a little bland. On paper they sound excellent; as story characters, they seem flat.

The murder mystery was predictable as well. It didn't take me long to pinpoint who the mysterious "F" was, and to hand-pick the villains from the rest. A lot of the surprise twists were a given.

So this is my take-away for The Nightmare Affair. It was an excellent book on many levels, but it had potential to be even better and yet kept falling short. Potential is the word of the day here. Nonetheless, I AM looking forward to the next book based on the ideas, the characters and the possible potential of this world's direction.



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Review: The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I really liked this one. Review to come when I get my thoughts together after my vacation. On that note, ready for the next book... RIGHT NOW.

Also, I'm sure I love Gansey.



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Review: The Unbound

The Unbound by Victoria Schwab

My rating: n/a



Oooh, another mystery premise. I am SO onboard! The wait will surely undo me.



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Review: Unhinged

Unhinged by A.G. Howard

My rating: n/a



So it's not so much a retelling anymore now that we've established a whole new premise with Alyssa and it looks to be new adventures. I'm curious to see what'll happen since the first book wrapped up rather conclusively and nicely. Nonetheless, with a synopsis available now, I'm becoming even more excited about the release of the second book!



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Ugh...

I just feel like ugh today... That's all.

Review: A Tangled Web

A Tangled Web by Mercedes Lackey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was short, sweet and cute, and made for a quick read for a boring afternoon. Not much to say about it, but the re-visioning of the Greek gods was interesting, to say the least. I didn't mind seeing more of Leopold and Brunnhilde since they only appeared briefly at the end of The Sleeping Beauty, though I would have liked to see more of how they'd met and fallen in love. Romance, unfortunately, doesn't seem like a very strong factor in the Five Hundred Kingdoms world since most of the books seemed to lack very exciting romances; they keep falling too flat for my liking.

Nonetheless, it was enjoyable.



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Review: Thread of Fear

Thread of Fear by Laura Griffin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I've got notes and more notes, mostly about some things I feel like nit-picking, though not so much about the story itself as much as about the characters... and some of the story. There probably won't be a full review, but I've got a few opinions I can just do a quick blurb on this book. But for now, it's bedtime for me.

Take note, at least there was enough anticipation and suspense to keep me hooked until the conclusion, and it didn't feel tedious; this is always a good thing, though after I have the chance to get my thoughts together, my impression may not have changed much.

Review to come soon.

***

Okay, so here it is. I've got a lot of quibbles with this story altogether. I'm leaning more towards a 2.5 star rating, but the fact that I DID get caught up in the overall premise gave it a good one star. I liked Fiona enough, but a lot about her personality bugged me. She get's half a star. The pacing was also a good plus and with a few things here and there, it gets a whole of one more star. Tallied up: 2.5 stars total. And so that I'm fair, I took off about two stars just for Jack Bowman alone, because I just can't stand him. Normally I like a lot of the main male characters in romantic suspenses, but Jack... *sigh*


The good parts of the book I've already mentioned. The story started off rather slow, but as the case progressed, I got into it and couldn't put it down for good reasons. I didn't have any "I can't wait until this book is over" moments, which is always a good thing. The murder mystery had a lot of promise, basing off of an eleven year old crime and trying to connect it with some present day crimes and some unknown missing persons cases. And I also liked the Forensic Artist angle as well. We've seen all aspects of the investigations surrounding detectives and agents, but I like seeing other aspects of the forensic scene become involved as well (i.e. medical examiners, forensic scientists, crime scene investigators, criminal profilers... the like). And I KNOW that the investigative process usually doesn't include the other branches following leads, doing their own investigations, and interviewing witnesses. But I also realize that these are works of fiction, and the suspense is in the fact that our other branches like to overstep their bounds a little bit, thus effectively putting themselves into danger (a la suspense crime novels).

I'll buy it because it makes for some decent crime thrillers.


And now, my quibbles about the story... a lot of it seemed to have been left out in the cold. And there was a lot of interweaving of story lines that didn't seem to have anything to do with one another. I will admit, I enjoyed the Shelby kidnapping case, but it could have been a whole other book on it's own since it had little to do with the main crime that was being investigated. Then there's Courtney's side anecdote involving Nathan and stuff ensuing... I'm not sure where we were going with that, but if it was supposed to tie into some later parts of the series or other books... well, I'm still confused.

The side characters (even the main culprit) were all bland. Courtney had an explosive personality, which was fine as Fiona's little sister. But we also hint at some sort of mysterious, traumatic past that happened during their childhood... and then it just disappears. Will it show up in the next book? Or are we done with flashbacks?

Fiona was a slipper/doormat/swaying blade of grass combination. I wanted her to be stronger and pursue what SHE wanted for herself. It irked me that she allowed other people to influence what SHE wanted to do with her life. If you want to be a painter full time, go be a painter full time. If you can't let go of the Forensic Artist job, then don't look so pained to have to take a new case every time. I couldn't really tell if she finally ended up in the place where she's finally happiest. Or maybe that was the point of the story. I don't know. Because her constant giving in to taking new cases made me feel bad for her, thinking that maybe she was just someone who had a hard time letting others down so didn't know how to say "no" to them. In the end, I wasn't sure what to make of her, especially when it came to her personal life and it seemed like she really, really just made it a point to let people walk all over her.

Courtney pushed herself into Fiona's life and left messes left and right. I'm all for sisterly love and all, but it's not really healthy for the elder sister to let her younger sister just traipse around getting into trouble all the time without saying anything. This made Fiona meek and a bit of a pushover. And then she goes and let's Jack Bowman into her life so that he can manipulate and manhandle her whenever he feels like it. He lies to her, keeps her at a distance, comes on to her whenever he feels like it, lies to her, leaves her hanging, treats her like an outsider, lies to her, and he makes it perfectly clear that he's really just interested in sex. Oh, and did I mention that he lies to her? A lot?

Which brings me to Jack. Oh... Jack. I decided that he is a Grade A Jack-Ass.

He's pushy. I give him props for being a good investigator and being persistent. Sometimes you have to be persistent. And if he'd just had that trait going for him, then it would have been fine. But Jack goes beyond persistent and just become forcefully pushy... and manipulative. Okay, so I'm fine with him being a bit persistent and manipulative to get what he wants. Women do it all the time.

But then he starts to supply his double standards everywhere.

He needs Fiona to help him with his case so that he can get his big break. This is a cold case and he needs all the help he can get. He misleads Fiona into interviewing a woman who had been victimized eleven years ago; while angry at first, Fiona agrees, but lays down her disclaimer: eleven years ago is already too long ago and we may not find anything useful, these conditions aren't ideal. He wants her to try and sketch the possible suspect anyway. And then the results come out exactly like she'd predicted... so now Jack is disappointed with her. Really?

But that's okay, because he's sexually attracted to her, so let's keep her around for a little longer anyway so he can get his sexual frustration taken care of. And, you know, it's all about sex anyway, because he doesn't really mention anything about her personality or the like... he just keeps looking at her boobs and her butt. That's fine too. Sexual attraction is totally legit.

But now that he's gotten to know her, suddenly he knows what's best for her? He's not happy that she's trying to help him some more? Following leads? Interviewing another witness and sketching another possible suspect? No. He wants her to stay out of the case; this isn't a field for her and she should just go back to her paintings and her art galleries.

Excuse me? First, you drag her into your case when she's adamant about staying out of the law enforcement scene. Then you make her uncomfortable by trying to sleep with her. And then you decide that maybe you're "da man" after all and you need to keep your woman away from the dangers of law enforcement? Where the heck does he come off making those decisions for her in the first place anyway? You're just the guy who wants to sleep with her because she's got a luscious ass and big boobs. You have no say over her life, so even if she wants to put her life in peril by following up on a few leads that might help your cold case investigation because you couldn't think about those leads, you have no right to tell her to stay put.

And the lying! But I'll be frank. Maybe Fiona should have been a bit more forthcoming about how she feels about people lying to her. If she didn't like it, she should have said so since to her, lying comes too naturally with police officers. And when he lied to her the first three times, maybe she should have just walked away. Instead, she lets him continue to lie to her, continue to omit information, and just lets him get away with it.

At first, I figured, you know, it's not a big deal. You guys are working on a professional level and the lying is just standard "this is a confidential case" type of deal. And about his personal life, it's really none of her business anyway. But then he started getting personal and the lying continued into their personal interests and THAT was where I just... well, I planked.



SPOILER PARAGRAPH
And then there's more lying, not more than mere moments after sleeping with each other. And while we know and even Jack knows that he's hurt her feelings by being a lying sack of shit, he still waltzes right back into her life like nothing happened and he's all macho alpha male who saves her life and takes care of her while she's recovering... What the heck? Where's the groveling and the redemption? When did Jack even confront his feelings for Fiona? Because as far as I read, his interest in her was two things: 1) Professionally as the best Forensic Artist known; and 2) sexually because she's hot and has big boobs. So I'm stumped with this relationship.
SPOILER PARAGRAPH OVER


Anyway...

Now that my rant is finished... well, I guess as far as the subject matter went, I DID enjoy the book to an extent. If I didn't get all headed up, I probably wouldn't have much to talk about. Needless to say, I admired Fiona and her talent and skill. I admired her on and off independence. But I don't really admire her personal life much. And I just didn't like Jack.

I have plans to read the rest of the series, which, to be honest, I'm only reading because I'm interested in the Tracers series and these two books are prequel-like books that lead into Tracers. But this particular book left a lot of things open-ended that I hope get addressed in the next book... though I'm sure won't happen since it would be a bit out of place.

Hate me and my review, for I like happy endings and relationships that I can actually understand. And is it really too much to ask for a couple where the partners respect each other enough NOT to be Jack-Asses about it?



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Review: Thread of Fear

Thread of Fear by Laura Griffin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I've got notes and more notes, mostly about some things I feel like nit-picking, though not so much about the story itself as much as about the characters... and some of the story. There probably won't be a full review, but I've got a few opinions I can just do a quick blurb on this book. But for now, it's bedtime for me.

Take note, at least there was enough anticipation and suspense to keep me hooked until the conclusion, and it didn't feel tedious; this is always a good thing, though after I have the chance to get my thoughts together, my impression may not have changed much.

Review to come soon.



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