Corinne Morier's Blog, page 8
February 24, 2019
Book Review–American Panda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was such a fun read! I’m giving it a solid four stars.
I first picked up this book because I saw it on “Top YA releases of 2018” or some other list like that. The description (and let’s face it, that adorable cover) convinced me to pick it up.
As always, I’ll give three good aspects of the book and three bad, so as to be fair and honest in my review.
Good stuff
Mei is a likeable, funny protagonist, and her voice is fun to read. I feel like she’s a “love me or hate me” protagonist; other reviews on this book quote her as kind of annoying, but I loved her. Her passion for dance, her quirky germophobic nature that bordered on comedic at times, her desire to do right by her parents vs. her secret love for dance and her aversion to anything science.
At the cost of sounding repetitive, because I say this a lot, this was a fun, fast read. Some of you might consider that a bad thing, like “Oh, I’ll only get a few hours worth of reading enjoyment out of this book,” but I consider that a good thing because I have SO MANY OTHER SHINY BOOKS I WANT TO READ! So when a book is a fast read, it just means that I can get to the next shiny book that much sooner!
Shiny books I got for Christmas!Mei, her family, and most of her friends (see my note below for the ones who don’t) felt like real people, and I kept turning pages because I wanted to see what would happen next.
Bad things
Some characters faded into the background, and their “vital moments” didn’t come through properly. Examples (avoiding spoilers) include Helen, a friend of Mei’s from high school, Joyce, an old acquaintance who was basically the catalyst for the denoument, Nic, Mei’s roommate, and Ying-Na, a stand-up comedian who inspires Mei. As a result, many of these characters just felt like filler, as opposed to proper plot points that contributed to a real arc of any sort.
The romance itself was a little insta-lovey and tropey. It was neither swoonworthy nor cringeworthy. Darren (Mei’s love interest) had pretty much no personality, and he could technically be replaced by a living, breathing piece of cardboard–nothing would change. So at times when Mei was all over him, I was like “Really? Why do you like him again? Because he’s hot?”
There was a significant lack of setting. For example, at one point Mei mentioned the snow on the ground and I was like “Huh, what? It was snowing? How come this wasn’t a thing?” I’ve never been to Boston or MIT, and the author didn’t really set the scene for us at any point, so I had trouble understanding what certain settings looked like. I guess what I’m trying to say is, there was a severe lack of description and I didn’t get to experience the world through Mei’s eyes like I wanted to.
In conclusion: A fun, fast read, cute, featuring an adorable, realistic Taiwanese-American protagonist.
Also, random question. Xing was excommunicated from his family because his girlfriend couldn’t get pregnant and his parents were mad he still wanted to be with her, right? So what would have happened if Xing himself had been the infertile one? Like, if he’d been the one unable to have children for some medical reason. I think it would have also been interesting if Xing had been left infertile because of something his parents did (for example, he got measles because his parents didn’t vaccinate him, and the measles made him infertile, and so when they excommunicate him for not producing grandchildren, he throws it in their face that “it’s all your fault I can’t give you grandchildren lol.”)
If you want to give this book a try for yourself, you can buy American Panda on Amazon and follow Gloria Chao on Twitter!
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Corinne 乙女
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February 17, 2019
Special Guest Interview: Sevaine the Cat-Elf
Another Sunday and another interview is upon us!
I feel like To Court a Queen is going to become my new Where Carpets Fly, where I shove it down my blog’s throat constantly. 
February 10, 2019
Special Guest Interview: Sir Devin Carlton
Happy Sunday, everyone! Today we have a very special guest joining us for an interview.
This week’s book feature is To Court a Queen by H.L. Burke. She is an amazing indie author, a mommy to a very hilarious cat by the name of Bruce, a fellow dragon lover, and a good friend! Her newest fantasy novella, To Court a Queen, hits Amazon February eighteenth, and you can preorder the Kindle and paperback links now! (links at the end of the post)
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Please excuse me for a sec while I squee excitedly at that gorgeous cover…
Okay, now that that’s out of the way… I hear some of you in the comments saying “Who in the heck is H.L. Burke??” Well, let me tell you…
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H.L. Burke is the author of multiple fantasy novels including the Dragon and the Scholar saga, the Spellsmith and Carver series, and The Nyssa Glass YA Steampunk series and Coiled. She is an admirer of the whimsical, a follower of the Light, and a believer in happily ever after.
Today we have a very special guest.
Tell us a little about yourself. What is your name and age, and
what do you do for a living?
Sir Devin Carlton. I’m twenty-four, and planning to stay this age. It suits me. I’m a knight by title. I have some family money, so I don’t really do it for a living, but I prefer it to sitting on my family estate, reviewing farming reports.
Where do you live? Recommend us something to do if we were to visit there.
I move around a lot. I guess technically my family estate is home base, but I haven’t been there in a few years, so it’s wherever the roads take me … I’d recommend some good inns, but I owe the best ones too much money, and if the innkeepers knew I sent you, they probably wouldn’t let you in.
Tell us about a specialty food of your hometown.
The cook at my family estate makes the best meat pies … local ale’s not bad either.
What is your opinion of the queen?
She reminds me of the pretty, vain, wealthy/titled women who flit about human courts, except with the ability to turn men into frogs and order people to face certain death … power goes to the heads of certain types.
Do you speak any languages aside from English? If so, what is a word in that language that can’t be translated into English without losing meaning?
Not really. I bluffed my way through Latin class by repeating whatever the student reciting before me said … I wasn’t my teacher’s favorite.
Tell us about a typical day in your life.
I despise nothing more than “typical.” If something is typical, it’s boring. Every day in a different place. Every night in a different bed, that’s my ideal.
Are you currently in love with anyone? Tell us about that special person. 
February 3, 2019
Book Review: The Buddha in the Attic
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Buddha in the Attic is a historical fiction novel by Julie Otsuka, focusing on the experiences of the Japanese-American women who came to the US during WWII to be mail-order brides for (what I assume are) Japanese men. This book was recommended to me by one of my professors at university and I really enjoyed it. I am especially interested in Asian American history, which is why he thought I would like it. I give it 4/5 stars.
As always, here are three good things and three not-so-good things about this book.
Good
This book gives a firsthand account of the Japanese-American experience during WWII and the internment camps. Personal accounts really help you to feel what these people were feeling at the time, and it’s quite accurate to what actually went down in that period of American history.
This time in history, which is often sensationalized in the media, is given the proper respect and care by the author, rather than “she just took advantage of this thing to make a quick buck.”
This is subjective to me, and anyone familiar with me and my review style will understand this, but this is a short read, which means you can finish it quickly and go on to the next shiny book! I devoured it in maybe ninety minutes start to finish, and it really isn’t that difficult of a read.
Bad bits
According to some other reviews I’ve seen of this book, the writing style can get rather annoying. It gives three or four pages of a “slice of life” type of story and then whisks you a way to a completely different time and place. I didn’t mind it; it reminded me rather of Shizuko’s Daughter by Kyoko Mori, but depending on who you ask, it’s not such a good thing.
Yes, it’s a short read, but that’s also a disadvantage because it leaves you wanting to read more. It doesn’t give very many details about what happened in a certain scene, and I often wanted more. More stories of the women who were tricked into coming over and ended up as domestic labor and sex slaves by their husbands. More of the women who raised their children in the heart of San Francisco’s Japantown. More of the women who were sent away to internment camps.
Again, depending on who you ask, this might be a good or bad thing, but I didn’t mind it. There are no individual characters to connect to. In my case, I thought it was a clever storytelling device by the author–many of the Japanese-Americans who were unlawfully arrested during WWII were treated as mere numbers, statistics. The government, the non-Japanese, etc. all treated them as “the Japs.” So in essence, not having a single character to be able to relate to as in a traditional story was a way for the reader to experience the marginalization of these people.
In summary: A short little read that does a good job showing what WWII was like on the homefront for Japanese-Americans.
This will be my last book review for a while, everyone–next week and the week after that, you will certainly see blog posts from me, but they won’t be reviews. Instead, I’ll be interviewing a few very special guests here in anticipation of an upcoming release! So stay tuned!
Have a good week, everyone!
Corinne 乙女
January 28, 2019
Book Review–Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend Book Review (via Youtube)
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Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend is a psychological fiction/suspense novel featuring a protagonist, Max, who has Asperger Syndrome. Told through the eyes of Max’s imaginary friend Budo, this is a real page-turner featuring a realistic Aspie character that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good suspenseful contemporary or a book featuring a realistic character with autism.
As always, with my reviews, I’ll discuss three good things and three not-so-good things that led to my rating.
Good
Max is such a realistic, interesting kid. It’s easy to watch shows like The Big Bang Theory that perpetrate stereotypes about autism/Asperger Syndrome using characters like Sheldon, but Max is realistic without perpetrating any stereotypes and it was so refreshing, especially considering that I also have Asperger Syndrome. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing who I used to be twenty years ago.
Budo is a very compelling narrator. His voice keeps you drawn into the story, on the edge of your seat (or in my case, staying in bed way past any reasonable hour to be awake and moving in the morning) wanting to know what’s going to happen next. From cover to cover, this book just pulls you in and doesn’t let go.
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It is also a fast read. This is quite subjective depending on your reading preferences, but for me, I have a lot of books I want to read at any given moment, so my first priority is FINISH THIS BOOK AS FAST AS I CAN SO I CAN GO ON TO THE NEXT SHINY BOOK. I finished this one in about three hours and some change, so if you’re like me and can’t resist all the shiny things, this is a good one to read. Or if you’re trying to add another book to your reading challenge/goals it’s super-good and is a shorter one to get through.
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Bad
There were two characters in this book, one an antagonist and one a helpful person. One was named Mrs. Palmer, another Mrs. Patterson. I really wish the author had chosen one of the other 25 letters of the alphabet to name one of these two women so it was easier to keep track of which one was which.
This is a semi-nitpicky thing, but some things in the last half of the book didn’t get a proper setup. Ex. during the denouement, Budo compares Max to Rambo, and at one point, convinces another character to help Max based on the fact that Budo tells all these stories about Max and this other character thinks that Max is “the bravest kid ever.” It could have been really great characterization for both Max and Budo to have them watch Rambo together in the first few chapters and Max mentions that he wishes he could be as brave as Rambo and Budo thinks, “Oh, but you are,” but instead it just fell flat. In addition to that, the character Teeny was introduced during the last 25% and was instrumental in helping Budo and Max in their situation, but she never got any sort of setup and it just felt like a deus ex machina to have her come in all of a sudden and start ordering people around.
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Last but not least, this story committed one of my all-time least favorite pet peeves: telling us something (for example, “This tree is red like an apple.” (this doesn’t appear in the book, but it’s just an example)) and then telling us verbatim the exact same information only one or two pages later. (“This tree is like an apple, it’s so red!”) It happened several times, so I assume the author did it on purpose to make Budo seem like the kind of character who thinks the same thing over and over (after all, one symptom of ASD that Max certainly exhibits is he likes to do the same things over and over and relies on routine, so since Budo was birthed of Max’s imagination, he would also think the same things over and over again.)
In conclusion: A good solid story with just a few nitpicks that is a really fun read featuring a realistic ASD kid protagonist. Definitely worth picking up if you’re not averse to suspense/psychological fiction. (In fact, I think this would be a good introductory book for someone who wasn’t familiar with the genre; it’s not hard to read at all and has the flavor of a mystery novel!)
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(PS: Thank you all so much for your patience when it turned out I couldn’t release this review yesterday. I was unexpectedly called in to work and didn’t have enough time to polish this up to where I was confident releasing it. I really appreciate your support and I will do my best from now on to release my reviews on-time!)
Have a good week, everyone!
Corinne 乙女
January 20, 2019
Book Review–Where Carpets Fly
Where Carpets Fly by Elise Edmonds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
An immersive page-turner by a promising new author!
Anyone who knows me knows how much I constantly rave about this book. I’ve read this one cover to cover multiple times, and on my most recent read (during downtime at work—I work in customer service and my boss is okay with us reading when there’s no customers) I breezed through it in one day and completely forgot I was still on the job!
January 13, 2019
Book Review–Tell Me Three Things
Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Like Alex, Approximately, but actually good!
Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars.
Seventeen-year-old Jesse moves to a new town after her mother dies and her father hastily remarries to a woman in LA he barely knows. Soon after her arrival, she gets an email from young man who offers her advice and friendship, and the two develop a connection that we see deepen over the course of the story. This young man calls himself “Somebody Nobody” and refuses to tell Jessie his real name.
I won’t say the actual identity of who “Somebody Nobody” actually turned out to be, but I will say THANK GOODNESS it was the guy I was hoping it would turn out to be. For about 100 pages near the middle of the story, Jessie convinces herself that SN is actually Caleb, a 2D carboard cutout piece of man meat,and I was just like
But then it turned out to be Ethan, and then I was like
As always, here are three good aspects of this book and three not-so-good bits.
The good bits
1. The romance
Well, for a book marketed as “romance,” the main romantic relationship has to be good. And it was. I wouldn’t call it swoonworthy by any means (manly due to my issues with Jessie, see my note below) but it was believable, clean, and healthy, based around the deep connection that two people share instead of sex or abuse or what have you. We got to know the real life SN at the beginning of the story, which was one of my main issues with the similarly-premised book Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda. As such, when we finally do get to know who SN actually is, it’s a pleasant surprise rather than a WTF like Simon.
2. It had a good, interesting plot with realistic, flawed characters
Yeah, this was just a really fun read start to finish. Never once did I get bored with the story or want to DNF it like I do with so many other books. Considering I have a very high standard for what constitutes a “good book,” I’d say this is one of those “good books.” The plot is interesting and easy to follow, the characters are unique, real people, it wrapped up perfectly (also to this book’s credit, it knew when to lower the curtain, rather than Simon, which dragged on its ending forever) and there’s just not much else to say on that front. I really enjoyed this book from page one to the end.
3. The friendship between Scarlett and Jessie is ADORBS
This book features a strong female friendship between Jessie and Scarlett, her BFF from back home in Chicago. While in LA, Jessie is in constant contact with Scarlett, and though Scarlett gets forgotten for about 100 pages in favor of Adrienne, I like how this led to a conflict between Scarlett and Jessie and Jessie had to come to terms with the fact that she’s kind of a needy friend, using Scarlett as a shoulder to cry on or a validation of her feelings instead of it being a two-way street and letting Scarlett occasionally steer the conversation or talk about herself.
The not so good bits
1. Constant sex/drug use by main characters
I won’t say that YA novels can never have sex or drugs in them, but this one had underage sex, drugs, and alcohol, all partaken of by sixteen year olds.
And all with no consequences, I might add. None of the adults find out what the kids are doing, they don’t come to realize the error of their ways, and the only consequence we ever see is that the girls are adamant about using condoms and going to the gynecologist, which I mean, promoting safe sex, I guess? *shrug*But it also promotes kids smoking weed without a prescription and drinking so much beer they get blackout drunk, so there’s also that.
2. Caleb (and a few other characters, but mostly Caleb) had no reason to exist
At one point, we meet a young man named Caleb who befriends Jessie, and he was literally stuck into the story to be a red herring. He had no personality, no presence, no motivations relating to the story, nothing. He was just there for Jessie to drool over. Why did we need him? We really didn’t.
3. Jessie is an annoying b*tch
Yeah, you read that right. She is literally the reason I gave this book four stars instead of five because she essentially ruined the story. At every opportunity, she was drooling over any cute guy she saw. She apparently loves reading, but we never see her actually taking part in this or any other hobby. She has no motivations or goals in the story apart from “Find Somebody Nobody and make out with him.” She didn’t really have an arc, for the most part. Oh, and here’s the kicker. Every single cute guy in the vicinity wanted to get in her pants because she’s just the ultimate Mary Sue. Caleb, the exist-for-no-reason hunk, wants her to go out with him. So does her poetry-loving cutie pie classmate Ethan. And it’s not as if Liam broke up with his girlfriend in order to ask her out… oh, wait, he did. This girl has no personality and I really do not like her. Her fawning over every single guy before actually figuring out who Somebody Nobody is was the single reason I didn’t like the romance as much as I should have.
In summary: A fast read that I couldn’t put down, ruined only by the presence of our Mary Sue protagonist and side Gary Stu possible love interest for her. Pick this one up if you’re looking for a good You’ve Got Mail retelling with a solid conclusion. If you think this book would be a good read for you, you can follow Julie Buxbaum on Twitter and add this book on Goodreads!
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What is your favorite trope in romance stories? Mine is the “online relationship turned real” one! I hope to see you back next Sunday for another book review!
January 6, 2019
2018 Bookish Survey
2018 was an interesting year for me book-wise. It’s the year I started my book review blog, the year I discovered that e-books are not the root of all evil but I still prefer paperbacks/hardcovers when I can get ahold of them, the year I realized that audiobooks really aren’t for me because I have a very limited attention span and I need to have something visual to keep focus on (and no, I can’t just hold the book and read as the audiobook narrates because I read faster than audiobook narrators speak and it irritates me), and the year I entered and subsequently finished a substantial reading slump. So let’s take a look back at some stats and go over some standout books from this year. Original survey taken from Perpetual Page Turner.
Let’s start with 2018 Book Statistics.
This year, I read fifty books, totaling 14,436 pages. (Phew, that’s a big number!)
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The most popular book I read was The Princess Bride, which 1.195 million people have also read. (I DNFed it at about 40% through and gave it one star. Sorry to all the Princess Bride fans out there! Though this book is on my radar of “Give it another try someday”!)
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The least popular book I read this year was Tales of Aldura, which only two other people have read. This one I also DNFed, giving it two stars.
My average rating for books in 2018 was 2.8. Well, that’s to be expected–I was in a reading slump and hating everything I was picking up.
I reread two books, excluding pretty much the entire Warriors series. (I guess when I reread those books, I forgot to add that I had read them again, so Goodreads didn’t count them in the above stats, and therefore, neither will I. Plus I shove that series down my blog’s throat a lot, so I figured you guys could use a break from me talking about them so much.
December 23, 2018
Book Review–The Naiad’s Trial
The Naiad’s Trial by A.K.R. Scott
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
If I was given the opportunity to give this story a new title, it would be Hunger Games Ripoff That Has More Problems Than The Savior’s Champion.
Yeah, this one had all the problems and I didn’t like it one bit.
Before I jump into the meat of the story, I’d like to mention a few things that struck me before I’d even opened the first page.
1. The cover is a genre mismatch. The story itself is a light fantasy adventure with a similar feel to something like Hansel and Gretel; yeah, there are occasionally “OH SH*T” moments but the cover, which is more typical of a dystopian/sci-fi/urban fantasy with a dark color scheme that implies a sad ending, makes me feel a disconnect from the actual ending of the story, which is a typical fairy-tale HEA (Happily Ever After).
2. The book is only 10k words, which is incredibly low for a fantasy story. Previous times I’ve read fantasy short stories have seen me incredibly frustrated with the lack of worldbuilding or character development that one would expect from a fantasy story. One rarely sees a fantasy story that’s shorter than novel-length, by sheer virtue of the fact that fantasy stories rely on their worldbuilding along with the usual plot, character development, etc. So I have to wonder if this story, at 10k, will be too rushed in its pacing, or too shallow in its worldbuilding, or too lacking in its character development.
3. The main character is named Teiran. Now, the only way I can think of to pronounce that name is “Tay-RAHN.” Y’know, the same as the city Tehran.
…Yeah. The author really should have considered this association and named her character something else so the reader wouldn’t constantly focus on it.
None of these affected my reading experience in any way, though it is worth noting that when I see something as novice as a cover that seems a mismatch for its genre or typos on the very first page, my editor’s eye is on high alert, and I’m actively looking for mistakes rather than enjoying the story. (hint: there were typos on the very first page, meaning that I never got the opportunity to turn off my “editor brain,” and also hint: it was too short with not enough worldbuilding, and bonus hint: I never got over the Teiran/Tehran thing)
Oh, and this is also where I add that I got a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, but my opinions are entirely my own and are not influenced by anything.
Though that should be kind of obvious; if I was being influenced, I would have given this book five stars instead of pointing out all the flaws.
Let’s start with the good parts of this book. What did I enjoy the most about the story?
…
Nothing.
Yeah, there wasn’t anything good about this story that I enjoyed. I didn’t like a single bit of it. In fact, if it hadn’t been a short read, I would have DNFed it as soon as morally possible.
So let’s examine some of the reasons why I gave this one star.
First off, we have Was this book really even edited at all?
There were so many editing errors on almost every single page. Typos, formatting, prose issues… Pages display differently on Kindles depending on how big or small your device is, but Amazon estimates this at 44 pages, and I found multiple typos and editing errors on every single page. Really have to wonder if the anthology where this story was first published got properly edited or not.
There were so many typos all over the place that it was nearly impossible to just read straight through. Instead, I was constantly stopping and starting to decipher a sentence meaning, or to cringe when a sentence read “heard or (horses)” rather than “herd of.”
Okay, but if the story itself is good, that can make up for it, right? Except that it didn’t make up for it because it wasn’t good. Let me go over a few of my favorite logical contradictions…
On page 8 (ish; might be different on your Kindle), we have multiple inconsistencies (at least three) including, but not limited to, the mayor reminding everyone that only the first person to find the pool is going to be blessed with the naiad’s water but we don’t know how he or anyone else knows this, as well as Teiran directly contradicting history by saying that most people wouldn’t want to be immortal yet history shows multiple times of humans trying to prolong their lifespan no matter the cost and it’s in our nature to try and defy death, and then Teiran seeing “the spice merchant from her dream” when we don’t even get a good description of him when she dreamed of him nor when she sees him in real life so how does she know he’s the same one from her dream?
On page I DGAF anymore, we never see how, aside from the 100 years of the naiad’s pool thing, the naiad actually affects the villagers or their lives. How do they even know about the pool and its effects in the first place? Like, did the naiad come out of her forest and be like “HEY EVERYONE I HAVE A MAGIC POOL SO COME FIND IT ONLY THE FIRST PERSON GETS IT ALSO YOU MIGHT DIE IN THE PROCESS ANYWAY LOL”
A bit after that, Teiran tells us that the naiad’s pool was in the center of the forest, due west of the gate… yet she shouldn’t know this. She’s just spent 3,000-some words telling us how the location of the pool is unknown, but whatever, f*** logic, right?
On that same page, she’s noticing how the sun is rising, yet the sun was setting when she entered the forest and according to the story, only about thirty seconds have passed since then. But again, f*** logic.
On page who even gives a crap anymore, Teiran has to stop herself from drinking the naiad’s water. But this makes no sense because it’s not as if there’s not enough water for both her and her mother. Also as far as we know, the naiad’s water won’t stop working if Teiran drinks it, so we’re just left wondering why she doesn’t drink it and also give some to her mother.
One of the later pages near the end: Teiran reflects on having faced the three trials, but there were only two trials: the door and the canyon. The only other thing Teiran did before meeting the naiad was diving into the water and that wasn’t a trial, just a WTF moment. But who cares because F*** Logic, right?
There were more than this, but I don’t want to make this review too long or ranty. Let’s just move on to our next category… STUPID STUFF!!
Teiran has insta-love for the spice merchant who doesn’t even get a proper description. Later on, he gets killed and I totally saw that coming because he got no characterization or setup, so it was kinda like this.
Except that it was also like “I really couldn’t give two craps about him,” y’know?
Then we finally learn that there’s a series of “trials” in order to get the water. Either this bit about trials was mentioned earlier and I forgot about it, or else it wasn’t mentioned at all and this comes out of nowhere. Either way, I have to give this a sin because this needs to have been a constant presence throughout this whole section. Otherwise it’s just kind of Goblet of Fire-esque: wander around till you find what you’re looking for.
One of the trials our main character has to face is to get a key out of a vase that’s too skinny for her to reach into with her hand.
HMM I WONDER HOW SHE’S GOING TO DO THAT.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. There was once a crow who accidentally dropped a shiny pebble into a skinny vase that was too tall for him to get his beak into. He stood by the vase for a while, contemplating how he was going to get the pebble out. The vase was also too heavy for him to pick up and turn over to get it out. Then he realized that if he filled his beak with water and spit it into the vase, eventually the pebble would float to the top. He began doing just that, though it was discouraging when he had to fly back and forth hundreds of times between the closest river and the vase to even make the water level in the vase rise just a little bit. But his persistence paid off, and he eventually got the pebble to rise far enough out of the vase so he could pluck it off the top of the water.
Sound familiar? That’s a traditional Aesop fairy tale, paraphrased a little bit. Yet while the Aesop story has a moral of persistence having the ultimate payoff, Teiran ignores the obvious solution of just picking up the vase and dumping out the key and uses her Mary Sue powers to keep the plot moving.
Except that we’re not told what kind of key it is or how big it is, so we’re imagining an old-fashioned “key to the city” deal. So when Teiran pours all her water out of her flask into the vase to make the vase float to the top, I’m just like “Ignoring the fact that that’s impossible, way to be original and steal right from Aesop in a book that’s already a ripoff of Goblet of Fire, Hunger Games, and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles!” Meanwhile, it would have been way more interesting if the author had done something more original. Like if the naiad created individualized trials for everyone, psychically reading into each competitor’s individual strengths and weaknesses. In fact, I might not have hated this book so much, because then we would have been able to see more character development from Teiran. This is normally where I would suggest something the author should have done to exploit Teiran’s weaknesses, but Teiran was a f*cking Mary Sue and had none.
Her Mary Sue powers come into play AGAIN when she crosses a flaming canyon or something (we never even get a proper description of the canyon so we don’t even know what it actually is) without so much as a scratch or breaking a sweat.
After she “finishes” this “trial,” we learn what the faces are on the trees: they’re the faces of the people who’ve died in the forest.
(Mai HIME used this same concept and did it about 1,000,000,000,000 times better)
The whole reason the naiad set up the trial in the first place was because she was lonely and when people don’t win, she has an excuse to steal away their spirits to keep her company. I’m not even going to touch the bullsh*t going on in that logic.
Immediately after this, Teiran is freaking out because (we assume) that she’s terrified of the naiad killing her, too. Behold:
“What of me?” Teiran’s voice quavered as she spoke.
Except that the book again lives up to its alternative title of “F*** Logic” because Kesara is literal living proof that the naiad doesn’t kill the person who makes it to the pool. Teiran has every reason to believe that the naiad will let her go free (with the water, I might add) and absolutely no reason to believe the naiad might attempt to kill her. But f*** logic, right?
The naiad tells Teiran, and I quote
“And do feel free to help yourself to the pond water. It’s not magical, but you’ll need some if you want to make it out by sunrise.”
*takes breath*
WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K IS THIS SH*T. THIS GOES BEYOND A COOL PLOT TWIST AND IS INSTEAD JUST A BULLSH*T COME OUT OF NOWHERE THING. ALSO NOW TEIRAN DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO CURE HER MOTHER AND SHE’S NOT EMOTIONALLY RESPONDING AT ALL AND WHAT THE F**K WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS WHO APPARENTLY ‘WON’ AND HAD 100 YEARS OF LIFE! OR DID NONE OF THEM MAKE IT OUT ALIVE EXCEPT FOR KESARA?? AND HOW THE F**K DID SHE MAKE IT OUT ALIVE? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS “BOOK”?? I ACTUALLY WANT TO F**KING DNF IT RIGHT NOW EVEN THOUGH I SWORE TO MYSELF THAT IT’S SUCH A SHORT READ AND I CAN FINISH IT. I WANT TO JUST BURN MY COMPUTER TO THE GROUND RIGHT NOW.
So let me get this straight. Teiran, in her rush to get the water, threw Kesara onto some rocks and injured her. Okay… Then Teiran feels bad about hurting Kesara and wants to make sure they both make it home. Yeah, I’m with you so far. Then Teiran has the genius idea to… give Kesara the water so her injury will heal, and then they’ll both make it back out alive.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS STORY. Why did Teiran even give Kesara the water in the first place?? This comes so far out of left field it doesn’t even deserve to call itself a plot twist! FIrst off, how could Teiran have thrown Kesara hard enough to injure her that badly? I was willing to ignore that Second, Kesara was a f**king b*tch the entire time, so it makes no sense for Teiran to have given her the water. Third, Teiran could have given her some water and either gone back for more or saved some for her mother. Fourth, even if Teiran felt bad about hurting Kesara, it still makes no sense for her to have sacrificed her mother for this bitch! We need to see more of Teiran’s determination to remain ethically/morally right, like how she’d give THE ONLY CURE for her mother’s illness to her worst enemy! Ignoring the fact that THE NAIAD HERSELF SAID THE WATER WASN’T ACTUALLY MAGICAL ONLY ABOUT TWO PAGES AGO!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE H*LL IS WRONG WITH THIS BOOK!!!
Yeah, so that’s why this book got both a one star review and a “WTF ending” classification, because the ending was totally WTF.
Reviews are meant to be for other readers, so to other people considering reading this: don’t; it’s just a waste of time, and there are thousands of other, better books. Like Hunger Games, which uses the concept of battle royale but actually is a good story with merit. Or Goblet of Fire. Or if you want a story set in a magical forest, go read the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede. To the author, I would like to say: please next time proofread your stories and seek feedback from your target audience before hitting that “publish” button.
If you like this review and want more reviews with memes and GIFs, let me know by “liking” this review and sharing it on your various social media sites. Leave a comment below: what is your favorite fantasy trope/concept (eg. magic forest, pirates, mermaids, naiads, etc.)? Follow my blog and on my various social media sites: Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Come back on Wednesday for a review of a good fantasy adventure featuring a cute little anthropomorphic mouse and a snarky porcupine!
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December 16, 2018
Book Review–The Night Itself
[image error]The Night Itself by Zoë Marriott
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
The good bits
Accuracy, for the most part. There were a few bits here and there, like
Mio means cherry blossom–the cherry blossoms were speaking to me.
Um, it could? Not really, though. You haven’t told us with what kanji you use to write your name, but it could mean cherry blossom if you write it as 海桜, using the characters for “ocean” and “cherry blossom.”
The Nekomata demon is described multiple times as a cat-demon with nine tails. Only problem is, a nekomata in Japanese folklore is a cat demon with a forked tail. Meaning, only two tails. The nine-tailed version is called a kyuube.
The kitsune were somehow different from normal foxes, even though “kitsune” literally just means “fox.” Like, what’s the difference between the two? The direct translation of their name is fox, anyway, so…
But considering that those were the only actual mistakes I saw, for a girl fluent in Japanese, this one didn’t actually piss me off in that regard, because all three of what I’ve mentioned above could be simply written off as creative license.
While there were some issues with pacing (see below) the plot was believable and easy to follow. Again, for the most part. See my notes below.
The not so good parts
The characters. I just didn’t care about any of them. I didn’t connect to any of them and I just was like “Meh, still waiting for the care switch to be turned on” until the very last page.
=
Descriptions during battle scenes and during the foray into the spirit world was confusing and it was hard to picture what was happening and where characters were in relation to each other and the setting. For example, at one point we get a scene of a security guard lamenting that he wishes they hadn’t set an episode of Dr. Who here, but we don’t know where “here” is. Is it a museum? A school? A restaurant? We’ll never know. And the characters apparently know where the Nekomata’s lair is and how to get there even though they shouldn’t have access to that information.
The pacing was a bit rushed. This book is only 200 pages and we jumped way too fast from one scene to the next. There was easily wiggle room to slow down and let the characters (and the reader) process what was happening. Not to mention the villains were all defeated way too easily.
Jack’s name is confusing–I thought she was a guy at first, then it turned out she was a girl. We never really get an explanation for why she’s called Jack (since it is such a masculine name), and when we finally do get it, it’s during a major battle sequence; another character offhandedly calls her “Jacqueline,” confirming my suspicions that it was a shortened form of Jacqueline, but still; being told for the first time what her full name is during a heavy battle scene is really distracting and I would have preferred to have been introduced to that during a scene that relies more on dialogue and character reactions. Which is worth mentioning, that’s the only bit of characterization she ever gets. She has no personality whatsoever aside from her nickname. See my note above about not caring about any of the characters. None of them really had a personality or a presence during the story.
Reading this was basically like reading a combination of LOTR, Twilight, and every other anime ever. There wasn’t really anything here that was like “Hey, this is an original concept on a familiar trope! Interesting!” We have the magical, ancient artifact that the protagonist has that she isn’t allowed to use but can’t stay away from…
…the evil creatures who suck blood from everyone like vampires…
…the ghost guy who only the protagonist can see and who is the main love interest…
…one of the characters fights using a glaive…
You get the picture, right? (Pun totally intended)
Brownie points for the early reference to Bleach, not so much brownie points for telling us that such-and-so character or situation is like such-and-so famous movie, TV show, or book. Like telling us a character is dressed up “like Bella at prom,” but I’ve actually never read or seen Twilight, so I don’t know what Bella at the prom looks like. Apparently, it’s this.
If anyone actually knows the answer to this, please comment and tell me.
At one point, a fox calls Jack a “half-breed,” and she gets pissed. But is Jack really a half-breed? Of what? We don’t know. She’s not a half-breed of a fox and a human. A half-breed meaning mixed race? Do the foxes even care about what race someone is? I thought they hated all humans equally. Was Jack even of mixed race? We’re never told anything like that. It’s like in the Harry Potter movie when Hermione gets upset about being called a Mudblood as if it’s bothered her her whole life, but it really hasn’t.
The stinkers
Oh boy, now we get into the stinkers. Let’s start with the insta-love.
Insta-love between Shinobu and Mio? Nope, not into that. Not even if Shinobu spent 500 years inside the sword and learned how to speak English because of Mio.
Insta-love between Hikaru and Jack? Even more stupid and cringeworthy. They’ve exchanged three words, known each other for literally two hours, and all of a sudden he’s kissing her and she’s swooning over him? Nuh-uh. Nope, sorry, buddy.
Also the glaring plot hole. We’re told constantly that because Mio didn’t wait until she was sixteen to take the sword, all this stuff happened and the world is in peril. Yet we’re never told the turnaround for that. Why is it so important for her to wait two more months? Wouldn’t all of this shit have happened anyway even if she had waited until sixteen? None of the events that happen would have not happened had she waited until her birthday. And that’s never, ever resolved.
Yes. Yes, it is.
And the death at the end was such a cheap trick. He died, then on the very next page, he revived again. Shoulda seen that coming.
The ending is also really unsatisfying. The plot hole I mentioned above is never solved, we never learn how (spoiler) comes back to life after being stabbed in the chest, Mio’s like “The battle isn’t over yet” and I’m just like “Yeah? How do you know this, and how do you intend to find out the identity of the Nekomata’s “Mistress”?” We never learn who the Harbinger truly is, or anything else. There’s a very fine line called “sequel baiting” and this book is really walking that line.
In conclusion
It was a book. Aside from the disappointing ending, it was neither good nor bad. You read it once, say “That was a story,” and move on. It neither impressed me nor made me angry that I’d wasted my time. Average read.
