Wrapping up ALL the rest of the Reading Challenges I did in 2015

If I include the Cannonball Read (and I really think I should), I signed up for and completed 25 separate challenges last year. I have not counted the regular Goodreads or BookLikes reading challenges, which I think of as just a tally for how much I've read at any given time of the year.

Last year, I spent a really long time, meticulously listing and linking every single book for every single challenge, which is really rather pointless for a lot of said challenges, when I've collected all the books for each challenge on separate shelves in Goodreads. The separate posts for the ones that I feel require detailed lists with links are now up. Here are all the rest.

The Alphabet Soup Challenge 2015, hosted by dollycas - Completed on the 20th of November

What an Animal VIII, hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews - I signed up for 13 or more books, and had the challenge completed by April 3rd. In total, I read 42 books that fit into this category.

Finishing the Series, also hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews - I signed up for the highest level - four or more series, completed by January 31st. In total, I finished 23 series, reading 48 books.

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Passages to the Past. I signed up for the highest level, 50 or more books and completed it on the 16th of November. In the end, I read 68 books for this one.

The 2015 TBR List Challenge, hosted by Bookish. I signed up for the highest level, 50 or more books and completed it by the 14th of September. I ended up reading 90 books. I don't want to know how many I added to the TBR pile over the course of the year, though.

The I Dare You to Challenge, hosted by the All Challenges All the Time group on Goodreads. I completed as much as I could by December 13th.

The Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge, hosted here. I signed up for the lowest level (12-24) and still only managed to complete 13 by New Year's Eve. So I completed it, but only in the nick of time.

The Women Challenge, hosted by Peek a Book, is probably meant for people who don't read primarily female authors. I signed up for the highest level, 20 or more books written by female authors, and decided I would never count the same author twice on the list. I had completed the challenge by the 26th of March and went on to read books by 77 different female authors in 2015.

The Dive Into Diversity challenge, hosted by Rather Be Reading, asked people to read more diversely. I signed up for 20 books initially, and completed the challenge by the 28th of July. In total, I went on to read 42 books that fit the categories, and I will try to read more diversely in the coming year too.

The New Author challenge, hosted by Literary Escapism was basically to try as many new authors as possible. I signed up for an initial goal of 15, which I'd completed by March 29th. I ended up discovering works by 46 new authors over the course of the year.

For the Historical Romance challenge, hosted by Herding Cats and Burning Soup, I signed up for 48 books, which in previous years wouldn't have been all that difficult. But this year, I read a lot more in other genres, and so didn't complete the challenge until the 11th of December. In the end, I managed to complete 52 books by the end of the year.

For my NetGalley/Edelweiss challenge, hosted by Falling For YA, I signed up to read at least 10 books. I had completed that by the 17th of April, but didn't do so well the rest of the year, reading only 12 books in total from my NetGalley ARCs. Going to try to be better this year.

The Let Me Count the Ways challenge, hosted here, was really all about reading a set amount of pages. I signed up for the highest level - over 10000 pages, and had completed it by March the 1st.

There was the RIP X challenge, running only in September and October, hosted by the Estella Society. I completed it by the 28th of September.

You Read How Many Books? was hosted by Book Dragon's Lair, and I signed up for 100 books (because occasionally I like to set myself achievable goals). I completed it on the 28th of September and went on to read 159 books that counted for the challenge.

Last, but not least, I signed up for the Reading Challenge Addict, for the highest level (16+ entered and completed). I think I more than covered that.

#CBR7 Book 152: "Longbourn" by Jo Baker

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Quick question - can you give me the name of a single servant in Pride and Prejudice? Despite having read the book multiple times and having just finished the audio version of the book, I certainly couldn't do it. Jo Baker has taken the classic novel and imagined what the lives of the invisible people behind the scenes, so to speak. The very essential people who wash the mud out of Lizzie's petticoats after she's been walking the countryside, who help the Bennett sisters do their hair, make the beds, empty the chamber pots, sweep the floors, cook the food, tend the horses, open the doors, run errands no matter the state of the weather, carry messages back and forth and make life so much easier for the main cast of Pride and Prejudice.

There's the housekeeper, Mrs. Hill; her husband, the butler; the maids Sarah and Mary (who because the middle daughter of the family is also a Mary is forever called Polly instead). There's also the mysterious and newly hired footman, James. Their lives' work is to make things as comfortable and effortless for the family they serve, but they have hopes and dreams and pasts of their own. Sarah, orphaned at an early age and taken into the household after a stay in the poor house, especially dreams of travelling and seeing the country, not content to be a servant her entire life. She's suspicious of James, the ruffian who showed up from nowhere and was suddenly hired on as a footman. All the other servants seem to adore him, and Mrs. Hill dotes on him, but Sarah's sure he's lying about his past and is determined to figure out what he's hiding. Both James and Mrs. Hill are concerned when Sarah seems to form an attachment with one of Mr. Bingley's handsome and exotically dark-skinned footmen.

The servants, like everyone else, hope the elder Bennett sisters will make good matches, and worry when Lizzie spurns Mr. Collins, who after all will be their new master at some point in the future. They all think it would have been easier if he married a Bennett daughter, but can see he should have set his sights on Miss Mary, who was a much more suitable match for him.

While the Bennett women and all their acquaintances seem charmed by the dashing Mr. Wickham, the servants are not so easily fooled by his looks and easy charm. They recognise a predator when they see one and when he shows a very worrying interest in little Polly, James forgets all his hard-earned instincts to keep his head down and steps in to protect her. Wickham shows just how dangerous he can be and causes great upheaval in the household. Both Sarah and Mrs. Hill are shattered by the aftermath.

The book is divided into three parts, and the third part is the one that's the most removed from the main plot of the source novel. In this part we discover more of Mrs. Hill's past, her connection to James the footman and why he wished to keep his past hidden from everyone. It offered a perspective on the Regency period you certainly don't see in the romance novels, not just because it concerns the lives of the working classes, but because it's easy to forget when reading about balls and dresses and courting that the Napoleonic wars were also raging at the time. While so many romances are populated by officers back AFTER the Napoleonic wars, with varying degrees of PTSD, they rarely show any of the realities of the actual fighting, and certainly not what it would have been like for the foot soldiers. Longbourn, however, doesn't shy away from such unpleasantness.

This book is a very interesting take on what I think of as "literary fan fiction". I really liked the different interpretations of the already known characters from the beloved novel, as well as a fascinating look at all those servants who get completely forgotten about, but were oh so necessary for the wheels of society to turn. At first, I was worried I'd find the book boring, but I pretty much raced through it, just as invested in the lower born protagonists that I was reading about Lizzie and her sisters finding love.

I'm not entirely sure I liked some of the choices Baker made in the book, however, and wish that Mrs. Hill's past could have been handled differently. I did like that Baker continued the story past the pages of the original, with glimpses of Lizzie's life as Mrs. Darcy and showed what life might be like for a maid at Pemberley. I can't really fault Sarah for the choices she eventually made, although I doubt I would have chosen the same if I were in her situation. There have been several very favourable Cannonball reviews of this in the past, I'm glad I finally got round to reading it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 146: "Ms Marvel, vol 1: No Normal" by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

Page count: 120 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Kamala Khan is a pretty ordinary geeky teenager from Jersey City, until she's suddenly given the extraordinary powers of the superhero Ms. Marvel. She's both excited and confused. Can a Muslim girl even be a superhero? She certainly feels that the outfit could be a bit less revealing. How is she going to combine the responsibilities of fighting crime, rescuing people and righting wrongs if she also has to worry about obeying her parents and keeping cerfew?

Before she's even entirely aware what she's doing, she uses her powers to save a class mate. The press catches wind of it, and soon everyone is wondering about the identity of the new Ms. Marvel. After trying to rescue her friend Bruno from a botched convenience store robbery, he discovers her new secret identity and promises to help her in any way he can. There's some hints about a sinister new villain, but as this trade only collects the first five volumes, it's mainly an origin story.

I really liked Kamala and while I've seen a lot of people claim that all the other characters are stereotypes, I'm not sure I agree. I would assume that since G. Willow Wilson herself is a Muslim, she's a bit more sensitive to the cultural stereotypes than some other authors might be. I work with teenagers from many religions, and thought most of the teen characters rang true. Stereotypes are built on generalities, but a lot of girls of Pakistani descent DO have protective parents. Their brothers are traditionally allowed a lot more freedom and it can be a tricky thing to have a foot in two cultures.

The comic is fun, but not perfect. I'm still not entirely sure how or why Kamala actually got her superpowers, that bit was a bit vague. I am assuming that the supporting cast will be fleshed out as necessary in future issues and that readers will also discover the motivations of the villain. I don't know a whole lot about the Marvel comics universe, having only really watched the films, but am unsure if this is the comic that will really make me more familiar with the whole of it. I supect it will mainly focus on Kamala's adventures in Jersey City. The series certainly seems more diverse in its representation than a lot of comics, and is clearly aimed more at a middle grade to YA audience. It's still refreshing to see a comic about a young woman that doesn't play up the physical aspect or overly sexualise her. I liked the writing and the art, and will be looking for the next volume soon.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 133: "Hex Hall" by Rachel Hawkins

Page count: 337 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Sophie Mercer is a witch and because of the various bad incidents her magic has gotten her mixed up in, she and her mum have moved a lot during her lifetime. After Sophie seriously misjudges the oomph of a love spell at her current high school's prom, and there is a huge scene, Sophie's normally absentee father, a European warlock of some kind, gets involved. Sophie is sent off to a boarding school. On a remote island, where she will stay until she graduates at 18.

Hex Hall, as it's known among the kids there, is a magical reform school where wayward witches, shapeshifters and faeries are sent until they come of age. As an attempt at greater inclusion, there is currently also a vampire attending the school. Jenna the vampire also just happens to be Sophie's new roommate. After Jenna's former roommate ended up dead under mysterious  and suspicious circumstances (with two little holes in her neck) the year before, Jenna is pretty much feared and/or shunned by the whole school. Sophie doesn't want to jump to conclusions, however.

Before her first week is up, Sophie and Jenna are starting to bond; a trio of powerful Mean Girl witches want Sophie to join their coven so they can maximise their power (and are NOT pleased to get no for an answer); Sophie has detention for the rest of the term and an inconvenient crush on the most popular boy in school. She also learns that her father is in fact the head of the Order that sent most of the kids to Hex Hall, and as a result, he (and his daughter) are not really popular. Sophie is rumoured to be just as powerful as him, but having grown up around normal humans, never interacting with other magically abled, things that others consider child's play are completely new to her. She finds the most basic spells incredibly challenging and on top of that, she has to try to survive magical high school intrigue.

Sophie refuses to join the crusade against Jenna, which gets more intense after another girl is attacked, with Jenna having been one of the last to interact with her. Sophie wants to solve the mystery behind the attack and get good enough at magic that she can tell the coven to stuff it. At least she gets to spend lots of quality time with Archer (her crush) during their detention sessions. Now if she could only make him forget about Elodie, his current girlfriend and her nemesis.

Hex Hall is fairly highly rated on Goodreads and when I saw it cheaply in an e-book sale, it seemed a fun enough read. As an added bonus, the X in the title would allow me to finish my Alphabet Soup challenge for the year. It's a fairly generic YA paranormal fantasy, where the usual high school intrigues are made a bit more interesting as there is magic, witches, ghosts, various shapeshifters, faeries and possibly an evil demon on the loose.

Sophia is a likable, snarky, independently-minded heroine. She doesn't really fit in with any of the popular kids and has a tendency to speak before she thinks. This sometimes backfires badly. Despite her disgust at being a cliche, she can't help but fall for the ridiculously handsome Archer Cross, and the more time she spends around him, discovering that he's actually smart, funny and kind, as well as well-liked around the whole school doesn't help. His only flaw is dating Elodie, the head of the coven, whose main goals seem to be to recruit Sophie to enhance the coven's power and to get Jenna expelled from the school.

There are some fun ideas here - Lord Byron being a vampire sentenced to teach at the school. Detention is being forced to catalogue magical artifacts, that move to a new area every day, in a huge creepy basement. Supernatural teens who can't keep under the radar being sent to magical reform school at a remote location.

I also like that Elodie, Sophia's initial nemesis and the Regina George of the coven, turned out to be a bit more multi-faceted than she seemed at first. I liked Sophia's fish out of water experience. The friendship between Jenna and Sophie was also a nice feature, and the revelation that Jenna was gay made sense without just seeming like a "insert token LGBT character here for diversity" thing.

I didn't really care about the many shadowy groups who are out there trying to destroy the supernatural, although it's clear from the synopsis of the next book (and to anyone who's ever read a narrative) that they'll play a more significant part in the sequels. Sophia turning out to be the only child of the head warlock, with a legacy of super special power was a bit too convenient.

Not sure I got invested enough in this world and the characters to bother reading the sequels any time soon. I won't rule it out if I find them at a decent price in a book sale, but I doubt I'll be seeking them out in the immediate future. The book didn't stand out enough for that.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 129: "Winter" by Marissa Meyer

Page count: 824 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

WARNING! This review WILL contain spoilers for earlier books in the series. Do NOT keep reading this review if you're not caught up, having read all three previous books! There are also some minor spoilers for this book, but if you skip my list of dislikes, you'll avoid them.

Winter was one of the books I was most anticipating in the second half of 2015. Marissa Meyer's retellings of Grimm fairy tales with a clever YA sci-fi dystopian twist just kept getting better with every book. I was extremely pleasantly surprised by the first book in the series, Cinder, where Cinderella is a cyborg mechanic who falls for the son of the emperor, and turns out to be the long lost, believed to be dead princess of the moon. In book 2, Scarlet, we meet our Red Riding Hood, French farm girl Scarlet Benoit, looking for her missing grandmother. She meets Cinder, now an international fugitive on the run with spaceship captain Carswell Thorne. Scarlet also falls for a biologically augmented Lunar super soldier, her Wolf and they both join in Cinder's seemingly impossible quest to reclaim her throne. In book 3, the little band of rebels liberate the evil Lunar queen's secret weapon, tech genius Cress (our Rapunzel) from a spy satellite orbiting Earth. Cress and a blinded Thorne have to traverse the desert together to reunite with the others, and Cress' initial crush on the captain, based on fantasies she made up when alone on her satellite, become actual infatuation as she spends more time with him.

When Winter begins, Cinder has prevented Queen Levana's wedding to Emperor Kai by kidnapping him. He is working with Cinder and the others on a plan to depose Levana and restore Cinder (or Selene - her birth name), but the rebels have also lost someone dear to them. Scarlet has been taken prisoner by Lunar soldiers and the gang don't know if she's alive or dead. She's actually being held captive in the zoo in the Lunar capital, kept alive by the kindness of princess Winter, Levana's stepdaughter.

Winter is our Snow White, "fairest of them all" on Luna, despite, or possibly because of the scars marring her cheek (forced on her by her jealous stepmother). Winter is the only Lunar who refuses to use her gift to manipulate the minds and perceptions of others, never using glamour or trying to influence actions, and as a result, she is slowly going insane. She has moments of lucidity and is clearly quite clever, but also episodes where she has to focus to hold it together, as she vividly feels herself turning to ice and shattering or sees the palace walls running with blood. More alarming than your run of the mill panic attack. The daughter of a palace guard, Winter became a reluctant member of palace royalty when her father married Levana. Crazy or not, she's forced to be present in the throne room every time her stepmother sentences anyone, making herself seem unaffected by the bloody spectacle.

Winter is terrified that Levana will execute Jacin, the royal guard she grew up with and has loved pretty much always (Winter, not Levana obvs.). Jacin is accused of treason and siding with Cinder and the other rebels, but manages to convince the queen that he was spying on them after he reveals some very incriminating information about them. He is punished, then re-instated as a royal guard, given the task to personally guard Winter (and make sure she is kept under control and from making scenes in public).

Kai is returned to his home in the next level of the plan to topple Levana and restore Cinder as Luna's rightful queen. He convinces Levana to move the wedding to Luna, allowing his ship to smuggle Cinder and her crew along. Of course, everything starts going pretty seriously wrong shortly after the ship lands in the Lunar capital and Cinder and several of friends are separated. Kai is taken into house arrest, safe at least until after the wedding, as Levana isn't going to let the chance of becoming Empress pass her by. Trying to quash the rebellion of her niece, Levana gets more and more frustrated with Winter's continued popularity amongst the common people.

She gets one of her chief goons to propose marriage to the princess, who is shocked and creeped out and refuses, thus sealing her death sentence. Levana demands that Jacin prove his loyalty once and for all by murdering Winter, claiming that at least he will make sure it's quick and painless. Jacin manipulates security footage so it looks like he stabs Winter, but instead frees Scarlet and makes her promise that she will take Winter to safety, joining Cinder and the gang, currently hiding out in a remote mining settlement.

Thus Jacin and Winter get irrevocably connected with Cinder and her rebellion and from there on out, they become supporting characters in a book which has so many characters and plot lines to keep track of. Cinder's plan to convince the populace of Luna that she is the long-lost princess Selene, incite a revolution, dethroning Levana and becoming the rightful ruler is poorly thought through, to say the least and for much of the book, it seems like pure luck that they get anywhere at all, rather than brutally mowed down by Levana's security troops.

I really liked the first three books in this series and had such high hopes for this book. Generally I found this book a disappointment. Here's why:

• At more than 800 pages, it's more than twice the length of the first book in the series. Yet so much of what happens in it feels rushed, confusing and chaotic. There is far too much plot crammed into this book - making it a very hectic read.
• In previous books, the action has taken place on Earth or in space, for the most part. This is the first book where the plot is mostly set on Luna. Lunar society, with an artificially created and extravagant capital, full of dolled-up nobility without any sort of social conscience, and the many remote provinces full of oppressed commoners creating resources for the capital - it all got very Hunger Games-y. 
• Just as Cinder's rebellion felt a bit like Mockingjay. So much of it felt like things I'd read before, elsewhere, which is sad, because in the previous three books, that has not been the case.
• In the previous two books, while the newly introduced characters were woven into the larger framework of Cinder's story, they've still had a chance to shine, and Meyer has successfully re-imagined three different fairy tales. Winter and Jacin, who should have had their chance to shine in this book, are almost buried in all the other stuff that happens. This is a great shame, as Winter seems like a delightful character and her interactions with Jacin, as well as their whole relationship, is pretty much solid gold.
• Cress, who I loved in her own book, spends much of this one being terribly self-conscious and annoyingly insecure, mooning over Thorne in a really frustrating way.
• The climax of the book got incredibly confusing. There is too much repetition of the same things over and over again (one or more of our characters are in peril, probably manipulated by a Lunar into attacking one of the others, situation gets resolved - rinse -repeat)
• Wolf's capture and the alterations made (don't want to say more and spoil things) seem like they are very easily worked around. If they are, why was his capture such a big deal?
• Levana - just not scary enough. She has utterly terrifying power, yet seems tedious most of the time. For complete and utter mind control done right, see Kilgrave in Netflix and Marvel's Jessica Jones. That's how scary mind control should be. Why isn't it here? 
• I'm also not at all keen on the way Cinder and the others felt that the video of Levana without her glamour should be the thing that really helped them incite rebellion. Surely there are a lot worse accusations that could have been levelled at Levana to get support from the common people, rather than just expose what she looks like under her glamour?

So what did I like?

•  Finally getting Winter's story and all the clever sci-fi-twisting of the Snow White fairy tale. I also really like that Winter is dark-skinned, adding further to the diversity of the series.
• Winter and Jacin are super adorable. I didn't like Jacin much in previous books, when he was being used as an antagonist, but he is wonderful whenever he is around or thinking about his princess.
• Seeing more of Luna and discovering where Wolf came from was nice.
• All the cool fairy tale twists reminds me how creative and clever Meyer can be.
• It was certainly a roller-coaster of a read. Soo many cliff-hangers.

The previous three books show how good a writer Meyer can be. There is so much potential in this book, but ultimately, it just tried to do too much. I think maybe it should have been split into two, so we could have had more focus on Winter in this book, leaving the final rebellion and grand conclusion to the story to happen in a fifth book. There was so much that needed to happen in this last book. It just all got a bit too much of a muchness. It's by no means an awful book, but absolutely the weakest in the series and a disappointing end to an otherwise fun and original sci-fi ride. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 120: "Sorcerer to the Crown" by Zen Cho

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Bought and liberated as a child, and later adopted by the esteemed Sorcerer Royal, Sir Stephen Whyte, Zacharias Whyt now has the honour of being the first dark-skinned Sorcerer Royal of England. In a time when English magic is waning due to some mysterious restrictions from the Faerie courts and the country is still facing threats from Napoleon on the Continent, Zacharias is also facing personal challenges, with a seeming majority of the members of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers (gentleman magicians) accusing him of having murdered and usurped Sir Stephen and having destroyed his faerie familiar. They are plotting to having Zacharias removed and replaced, in a process that won't really end well for the poor man.

In this stressful time, Zacharias is persuaded by a friend to go give a talk at a girls' school in the countryside, where he discovers that contrary to the popular belief among the Society, that women are only capable of minor hexes and cantrips to help them in the home, many of the young gentlewomen at the school are vastly skilled and are being taught modified curses to drain the magic out of themselves, because it's deemed unseemly for women to possess or use magic at all. He also meets the formidable Miss Prunella Gentleman, and orphan of uncertain parentage (but it's clear that her mother was of Indian persuasion), who appears to have more magic at her ready disposal and control than all of England's male magicians put together. She is also in possession of a magical treasure of untold value and Zacharias feels he has no other choice but to take her with him to London, to tutor her so she doesn't run around uncontrolled.

Of course, once Prunella, used as she is to fixing, sorting and managing everything, discovers the extent to the troubles Zacharias is facing, she's determined to help him sort them out. The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers won't know what hit them.

Sorcerer to the Crown is the debut novel of Zen Cho, a Malaysian fantasy writer. It's the first in a planned trilogy, but never fear, it has a perfectly satisfactory ending, with no pesky cliffhangers to mar your enjoyment until the next book in the series comes out. Clearly inspired by the writing style of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, the language of the book is quite formal and the plot progression is slow. There is a romantic subplot that I found delightful, but there are no passionate declarations or steamy love scenes here, so look elsewhere if that's what you're after. There is the sly wit and humour of both the best of Austen and Heyer, while both being a lot more feminist and diverse than either of those great ladies' books.

In a book where the protagonists are a freed slave and an orphaned, mixed-race, probably illegitimate woman and the main plot involves just how badly the male magic users of England have underestimated the women, not only of their own country, but that of other nations, it makes for a delightful change from a lot of still very male-dominated fantasy. Zen Cho also manages to make her points without it feeling like she's beating you over the head with her "agenda", and while the plot was slow, I very much enjoyed reading the book.

Poor Zacharias clearly never wanted the responsibilities that have been thrust upon him, but grateful to his adoptive parents, he's going to carry out his duties, even knowing that many of his fellow wizards suspect him of murder and manipulation and are plotting to have him killed and replaced as Sorcerer Royal as a result. He would like nothing better than to retire to the countryside as a lowly scholar, but instead he has to negotiate with the Faerie court, try to fend off the demands of the English government who want magical aid in foreign conflicts and then has his entire world view turned upside down when it becomes clear that women can be just as capable of using magic as men, possibly even better at it.

Prunella Gentleman has never known her mother, but knows she was dark-skinned and therefore not exactly desirable in polite society. After her father killed himself, she was raised in the girls' school, on charity, but despite dreaming of balls and suitors and the other things her fellow gentlewomen dream of, it becomes very clear to her that she's seen more as a servant, despite all the help she's given the proprietress over the years. Not one to dwell on disappointment and betrayed feelings for long, pragmatic and ambitious Prunella takes her newly-discovered magical legacy and intends to follow Zacharias to London. Once she saves his life from a magical assassination attempt, he feels indebted to her, and offers her tutelage. She, in return, feels protective of him and determines to help him sort out his troubles, as he's clearly not capable of taking care of himself.

Not surprisingly, the upper classes of English gentlemen are completely unprepared for a female of uncertain origins in their midst, disproving once and for all that women shouldn't use magic. While the plot moves slowly, the final third gets quite action-packed, with Prunella discovering the individual behind the magical attacks against Zacharias and helping sort of the diplomatic tangle that England has got itself tied up in. While the book ends on a satisfying conclusion, there is more than enough hints as to what is to come in the series, and I for one, am very eager to see what Ms. Cho has planned for us next.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 119: "Six Impossible Things" by Fiona Wood

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Dan Cereill (pronounced "surreal", NOT "cereal") is not having an easy time of it. He and his mother are left shocked, abandoned and nearly penniless after Dan's father simultaneously announces that his business has gone bankrupt and that he's gay. Dan's great-aunt Adelaide recently passed away, the terms of her will stating that Dan and his mother could live in her house (although the house and it's contents were left to the National Trust). The house is ancient, drafty, cold as hell and reeks overwhelmingly of urine, but Dan can cope because it's also next door to his dream girl, Estelle. By accident, he discovers that the two houses have connecting attics, and Estelle has made herself a sort of refuge up on her side. Lonely, miserable and conflicted, Dan can help himself from snooping through Estelle's private things, including her notebooks and diaries, seeing how much they have in common.

He makes a list of six impossible things he hopes to achieve, the most important of which is that he wants to kiss Estelle. Of course, he gets completely tongue-tied and awkward talking to ANY girl. Estelle is so far out of his league it's not even funny, and he's deeply ashamed about the fact that he snooped through her diary, betraying her trust before they'd even properly met. His parents' sudden financial difficulties means his mother is trying to make money by starting a wedding cake business. She doesn't really sell any wedding cakes, instead more often than not breaking the couples up after their consultations with her. Dan therefore needs to get a job, in an attempt to help out with bills.

He also has to leave his fancy prep school and get used to going to public school, where he manages to make himself a target for bullies on his very first day. He struggles to make friends, admiring Estelle and her friends from afar, cursing his bad luck and painful lack of cool or social skills.

While Dan reading Estelle's diaries early on is a very bad thing to do, he clearly feels extremely bad about it, and he's in a very bad place emotionally when he succumbs to the temptation. So while it can seem a bit stalkery and inappropriate, he is very sorry and tries not to do it again (too much). He's adorably clueless about girls, and extremely annoyed that his reputation as a prep school kid marks him out as some sort of sad nerd. When he befriends Lou, who seems to be the female flipside of his best friend Fred, it's clear that his penchant for saying exactly the wrong thing to Estelle has more to do with nerves and anxiety than anything else.

Dan feels very betrayed about his father's revelations and feels abandoned by him. He stubbornly refuses to speak to his dad at all, or open the birthday present his dad sends him. He tries as best he can to help his mother, who is very effective at breaking up affianced couples, but not really in securing a single client for her baking business. When she's not making brides reconsider marriage, she mainly mopes around, obsessing about Radiohead. Money is clearly very tight, which becomes more of a problem when Howard, the elderly dog Adelaide left them needs some serious vet's attention. Dan manages to get a part-time job, but discovers that a 15-year-old waiter doesn't exactly make a fortune.

Going for runs with Howard and lifting weights in his room, not to mention some advice from Oliver, the cool market analyst who lives in the mansion's carriage house, means Dan slowly builds both muscle and confidence and as the school year progresses, he starts fitting in better at school. The bullies mainly leave him alone, and as he works in the same café as Janie, Estelle's best friend, he is eventually roped in to help in a harebrained scheme to get Janie to Sydney without their parents discovering. While their parents discover their deception and Estelle and Janie end up grounded for ages, it means he's finally earned the trust of the girl he adores. She uses their shared access to sneak into Dan's house and they spend a lot more time together.

By the time the big dance comes around, Dan is going mad with jealousy because he knows Estelle is taking someone else. When he discovers she's going with a girl from a different school, he finally summons up the courage to show her how he really feels. His guilty conscience about killing her diaries is nearly killing him, though. Will he ruin all his chances with Estelle just as he's finally managed to get her to really see him as a romantic prospect?

Some aspects of this book reminded me of Rainbow Rowell's Attachments, mainly the fact that Dan gets to know Estelle and falls for her by reading something very private to her, the way Lincoln falls for Beth by reading her e-mail correspondence with her best friend. The way Dan works hard to make himself fit and healthy and tries to improve himself looks wise also reminded me of Lincoln. The similarities certainly don't make me like this book any less.

Dan's by no means a perfect guy, and in many ways a very typical teenager. He goes far too long before talking to and forgiving his father and gives his mother a hard time occasionally, feeling very sorry for himself (not entirely without reason). The sixth goal on his list of impossible things is to be good, however, and most of the time, while he doesn't think so himself, he manages very well.

I first heard of this book years ago (not entirely sure where), but it wasn't available in print or e-book outside Australia. Recently, it was released in both print and e-book in the US, though and I finally got my hands on it. I'm glad to see it was worth the wait.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Books 116-117: "Rat Queens, vol 1 and 2" by Kurtis J. Weibe and Roc Upchurch

Total page count: 256 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Rat Queens, volume 1: Sass and Sorcery
Rat Queens, volume 2: The Far Reaching Tentacles of N'rygoth

Meet the fierce and fearsome ladies of the Rat Queens, although calling them ladies is probably to exaggerate. There's Hannah the Elven Mage, whose parents are both necromancers; Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, who shaved her beard off and left her family because she wanted to brawl; Dee the Atheist Human Cleric, whose family are Cultists of the giant Squid God of N'Rygoth and last, and while least in size, by no means any less formidable, Betty the Smidgen Thief, frequently drugged to her eye balls on sugar or hallucinogens. What's a Smidgen, you ask? As far as I can tell, some sort of fantasy mix of a midget and a hobbit.

The four members of the Rat Queens are only one of the bands of adventurers/mercenaries (the others include the very Gothy Obsidian Darkness, another band of lady-dominated fighters, the Peaches, and the Four Daves (my favourite group name!)) in the town of Palisade. At the start of Sass and Sorcery, they are in the town jail, after yet another destructive bar brawl, and Sawyer, the captain of the City Watch (and occasional fuck buddy of Hannah) has an ultimatum from the Mayor for all of them. The various bands can go off and perform the quests assigned, or be banished from the town forever. The Rat Queens are told to rid a nearby cave of goblins and reluctantly agree. Turns out, the missions are traps, with each of the groups ambushed and attacked by one of the dark, ninja-like warriors from the Black Khali. Few of bands make it back intact, but the Rat Queens will not be stopped, by goblins or legendary fighters.

They try to investigate who might be behind the assassinations, but have to join forces with the other surviving adventurers to defend Palisade from a horde of vengeful goblins. Once the battle and subsequent victory celebrations are over, Dee discovers that ninja assassins may be the least of their problems, however.

In The Far Reaching Tentacles of N'Rygoth the readers are given more back story into each of the Rat Queens, and they face a much bigger threat than a horde of goblins or some Black Khali assassins. Someone has a serious grudge against Sawyer, the captain of the City Watch, and is not afraid to summon some truly dark powers to get even. Dee is visited by an individual from her past, come to tell her that the ceremonial Death Mask of the High Priest of N'Rygoth has been stolen. In the wrong hands, it can unleash murder, madness, chaos and horrible tentacled monsters in the skies. The Rat Queens and the other warriors in Palisade have to band together to fight against unspeakable horrors, before their town is completely destroyed.

Rat Queens is a great comic, full of violence, adventure, sex, humour and swearing. The protagonists are fast-talking, foul-mouthed, hard-hitting and great friends. Not only is this comic very diverse, I would be surprised if it didn't pass the Bechdel test in every issue. I was given the first volume as a Christmas present by my husband, but didn't get round to reading it until a while after volume 2 came out. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy, role-playing games, adventure or just good comics.

 Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 111: "American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition" by Neil Gaiman

Page count: 656 pages
Audio book length: 19hrs 39 mins (Full cast edition)
Rating: 4 stars

Shadow is serving time in prison, patiently keeping his head down and counting the days until his release. He longs to get home to Laura, his travel agent wife and passes the time learning coin tricks and dreaming of what they will do together once he's out of jail.

Only a few days before he's due to be released, Shadow is told that Laura was killed in a car accident, along with Shadow's best friend Robbie, whom Laura was apparently having an affair with. As Robbie was supposed to give Shadow a job once he got out, there is suddenly no longer anything for Shadow to return home to. All his dreams for the future are shattered in one fell swoop. Hence, when he meets the mysterious and enigmatic Mr. Wednesday on the way to Laura's funeral and is offered a job, there is nothing to keep him from accepting.

The job as Mr. Wednesday's driver, body guard and general helper is quite a lot different from what Shadow was expecting. Travelling across America, they meet up with a large group of strange and eccentric individuals. There is a storm brewing, a reckoning to be had. There is going to be a war, between the gods of the old worlds and the gods of the new America. They all need attention and belief to thrive and Mr. Wednesday is rounding up as much support as he can for the old gods. What is Shadow's role in all of it? Why won't Laura's ghost leave him alone? What will happen when the storm finally breaks?

American Gods was first released in 2000, and I own the hardback of the original edition, which I read way back when it was new. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the book, a deluxe edition with ten thousand extra words (an author's preferred version) was released, initially in a very limited print run, and later given wide release. I kept thinking I wanted to re-read the book, but with so many shiny books out there, I just never got round to it.

Then it was announced that Starz had the development rights and that Bryan Fuller, visionary show runner of great shows like Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies and most recently, the stunning and incomparable Hannibal is set to turn it into a series, and my motivation for re-visiting the book increased. I got the Full Cast edition of the audiobook on Audible some time before I clumsily fell on my way home from work and concussed myself, but stuck with nothing to do but listen to things and knit, I got through the last two thirds of the audio in about a day.

In this book, Englishman Neil Gaiman explores America, the country of immigrants, and what has made the country it is today. In between the main story of Shadow and Mr. Wednesday and their road trips to recruit more old and nearly forgotten deities around the country, there are little "Coming to America" chapters, highlighting the many different and diverse groups of people who came to the continent, from the very first nomads who crossed the land bridge in the north of Alaska, to the Norsemen, the slaves, the immigrants in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, all bringing the beliefs of their former homelands with them.

It's a sprawling book, with great scope and ambition. While Mr. Wednesday is a secretive character who keeps his cards extremely close to his chest, Shadow himself is quite a cipher. As the book progresses, we discover more about why he was in prison, and what in his past may have brought him to the attention of Mr. Wednesday in the first place. It's been so long since I read the book that I didn't remember many of the finer details of the plot at all, and certainly not the major revelations in the climax of the book. So while this was a re-read, it was more like discovering the book again. I still think Mr. Gaiman is at his best when he writes shorter fiction, be it the single issues of his magnificent graphic novel Sandman, his short stories or his books for children. American Gods is probably still his most impressive novel for grown-ups, though, and I'm very much looking forward to what it's going to look like on screen.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 110: "Rock Redemption" by Nalini Singh

Page count: 349 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

This is the third book in the Rock Kiss series, but it can easily be read without any previous knowledge of the other books or characters.

Noah St. John is the guitarist in world famous rock band Schoolboy Choir. Due to some really dark shit in his past, he's incredibly messed up and has tremendous difficulties trusting or connecting to people. He doesn't really feel comfortable around anyone but the other guys in the band, who he's known since he was a kid in school with them. One notable exception is Katherine "Kit" Devigny, a struggling to make it actress the band met when they were all starting out. The other guys in the band pretty much adopted Kit as a sister, but the chemistry between Kit and Noah was always too volatile for friendship to blossom easily. Yet they become true friends, moving towards something more, a change Noah can't handle. He makes sure that Kit walks in on him in bed with a random groupie, completely shattering her trust or any affection she felt for him.

Haunted almost nightly by nightmares, one-night-stands and meaningless hook-ups seem to be the only thing that drains him enough to sleep peacefully for a few hours. It has rightly earned Noah a reputation as a notorious womaniser. His only other escape is the music, but now the band in between tours and albums, and the ghosts of the past constantly threaten to destroy what little peace he manages to summon.

It's been years since he destroyed Kit's good opinion of him, and she's no longer a struggling soap actress, but an Oscar-nominated and very sought after star. Photographed together at a big media event, the gossip journalists assume that Kit and Noah are finally a couple, and the positive press is extremely beneficial for Kit's career. She needs all the good media cover she can get in order to secure an audition for a sought-after film, and Noah agrees to play her adoring boyfriend to help her. He desperately wants to make amends for his previous actions, but is also terrified that Kit, the woman he adores, will discover his darkest secrets, convinced it will drive her away forever.

Nalini Singh's Rock Kiss series has been quite hit and miss for me. The first one, Rock Addiction, where the vocalist fell head over heels for a the half-sister of the band's publicist after a one-night-stand, was merely ok. I liked the second one, which was more of a long novella, Rock Courtship, where the band's drummer after a long and patient campaign wins the heart of the band's publicist, a whole lot more. The heroine in book 1, Molly's best friend, Charlotte, gets her own book in Rock Hard, (which really is only very tenuously connected to the rock stars or their love interests) where there is a subplot involving stalking, something that's also an important subplot in this book. While on the surface Kit seems rich and successful, most of her money was sunk into a new house with very secure grounds and a security detail after her stalker broke into her previous home. She can make ends meet, but needs a couple of big contracts to make sure she actually has enough money to keep paying for her house and her bodyguards.

I find a good friends to lovers plot very satisfying in romance, and I find reconciliation stories can also be very effective. Singh sort of combines the two tropes in this book. Kit and Noah were incredibly close, until Noah got spooked and did his very best to drive Kit away. Because she's such an important person in the lives of his band mates, though, it's not like they can avoid seeing each other, and Kit is constantly reminded of the calculated cruelty with which Noah chose to show her "his true self".

Noah is the modern equivalent of one of those rakes who are so dissolute and jaded that it's hard to see how they'll ever make for a satisfying romantic lead. Of course, the reason for his wild behaviour is found in his dark past, and while I had my suspicions of what he was so terrified of Kit discovering, it was actually in some ways worse than I had expected, and I can see why he was so incredibly messed up. When the truth comes out, Noah's warped world-view and his huge trust issues make it very hard for him to believe Kit could still care for him, let alone want to be with him.

Kit has been a supporting character in more than one of the previous books, and her fraught relationship with Noah has been simmering in the background. The daughter of a supermodel and a tennis pro, she deliberately chose to act under an assumed name, to make sure she made her way in the business through her own achievements, rather than coasting on nepotism. The child of parents who loved each other so much they barely noticed others, she frequently felt alone and it's clear that the three other guys in Schoolboy Choir are the brothers she wishes she'd had growing up. Having had difficulty forming other female friendships, Kit now has a few really good girlfriends she can count on and who help keep her stable and grounded. I suspect the "behind the scenes" stuff about acting and the pressures put on young actresses is probably very carefully researched by Singh. The way Kit has to manouver to secure herself new parts certainly felt very believable.

I don't do trigger warnings, but readers should know that there is a lot of pain and darkness in Noah's past, and there are reasons why he tries to find oblivion in meaningless sex, keeping nearly everyone, including most of his band mates, oblivious to his true suffering. If I hadn't liked Kit as a heroine as much as I did, this book would probably just have been 3 stars. It's not my favourite of the series, but a much better read than the first one. All signs suggest that the next book in the series will be about Abe, the fourth and final band member, whose ex-wife features prominently in a subplot in the final half of this book. It seems very likely that there may be another reconciliation story coming up.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 108: "Carry On" by Rainbow Rowell

Page count: 529 pages
Audio book length: 13 hrs 42 mins
Rating: 5 stars

Oh, Carry On, how do I even begin to do you justice? I'll just have to muddle through and hope for the best.

Simon Snow is an orphan, forced to spend his summers in various group homes around Britain. The rest of the school year he spends at the Watford School of Magicks, where he's just returned for his very final year (but not before having to behead a goblin trying to kill him on the way there). Simon Snow is the Chosen One of wizardkind, but most of the time, he can't even perform basic spells. He's so full of magic and barely restrained anger that when he really lets go, things explode or catch fire. Sometimes both at once. He didn't ask to be the Chosen One, destined to save all of magic from the ever-growing threat of the Insidious Humdrum, a mysterious force wearing the face of his eleven-year-old self. He knows that he's unlikely to survive their final encounter.

His best friend, Penelope Bunce, is one of the best witches at the school and she does what she can to help Simon in every way. She worries about him when they are separated for the summer, and she tries to avoid thinking about what is likely to happen after they finish school. What she most wants to do is take Simon somewhere and get a little flat, far away from magical intrigue and his inevitable showdown with the Humdrum. Not that she fancies him in any way, a fact she wishes Simon's girlfriend would understand - she just wants to take care of him, like any loyal friend would.

Simon's girlfriend is Agatha Wellbelove, the prettiest, most graceful girl at Watford. She and Simon have been going out for the past three years, and Simon always spends Christmas with her family. She doesn't really particularly like magic, and would happily go to a normal school with her normal friends, and she certainly doesn't relish the fact that she risks being collateral damage every time the Humdrum sends something horrible to endanger Simon. And then there is Baz, Simon's darkly handsome and mysterious roommate (and sometimes nemesis), who intrigues her so. Not that her parents would be happy if she dumped the Chosen One for a Tory vampire.

Simon's mentor and the headmaster at Watford, the Mage, is barely present at the school, always off somewhere looking for new magical artifacts or texts to fight the constant dangers, but when he does return, he suggests Simon may want to leave Watford, and hide away somewhere. But Simon can't do that. Everything he knows and loves is there, and if he leaves, he won't be able to keep an eye on Baz, who for mysterious reasons hasn't returned for the fall term. Just before Simon and Penelope were magically whisked away by the Humdrum at the end of last term, Simon saw Baz and Agatha holding hands in the woods. Now Baz, the pompous and devious git, hasn't even returned to Watford. Simon is convinced he's plotting against himself and the Mage, and can't seem to eat or sleep properly, combing the grounds looking for him. What sort of nemesis just leaves?

Like a lot of others, I suspect I found the Simon Snow parts of Fangirl (both the "official" Gemma T. Leslie sections, and Cath's fan fiction) the least interesting part of the book, and when I listened to the audio book during my convalescence from concussion, I frequently skipped them. Yet I was intrigued when Rainbow Rowell, one of my favourite authors, said that she couldn't get Simon and Baz out of her head, and was writing a book about them. Not her fictional author Gemma T. Leslie's version, or her fictional fan Cath's extended fan fiction, but in a very meta way, a kind of fan fiction of her own previous creations.

I tried to avoid too many interviews, as I didn't want to get spoiled, but since I've loved every single thing she'd previously written, Rainbow Rowell writing YA fantasy was going to have to be pretty awful for me not to enjoy it. It turns out I was so eager for the book, I completely failed to realise that I pre-ordered the book TWICE - once on Amazon and once on Kobobooks. Because I am getting older, I can't actually stay up until the early hours of the morning reading, and then going to work to teach the young, so I wasn't able to finish the book until the day after I got it. Once I did, I had the biggest book hangover, though. I had fairly high expectations for the book, and it surpassed every single one.

To anyone who has ever read a Harry Potter book (or not lived in an isolated cave for the past few decades, because really, who hasn't heard of the Harry Potter universe?), the influence here is very obvious. Rainbow Rowell has said that she loves Chosen One stories, and wanted to explore what it meant to BE chosen in her own book. Of course any such individual in their right mind wouldn't exactly love that their ultimate fate is probably to fight and die to save the greater good. Simon tries very hard not to think too much of his time after Watford, as he is very unlikely to survive to see it.

There are so many clever references here, some calling back to Fangirl, but also a whole host of other YA literature, most obviously Twilight. Simon spent his entire fifth year trying to prove that Baz was a vampire, and his confrontation scene with his roommate had me laughing out loud. The ever-present YA love triangle is also present, but dealt with very deftly and the romantic tension in this book was the main reason I was so frustrated I couldn't actually stay awake long enough - I wanted to get to the kissing! It was all extremely worth it, though. I don't want to reveal how many times I may have re-read the chapters where the kissing first happens, but I read a lot of romance, and YA fiction rarely takes my breath away. It was pretty swoon-worthy, and my inner 14-year-old squeed.

If you've ever enjoyed any sort of book or film or TV show, where the Chosen One constantly ends up endangering his friends and/or family, is struggling with the fate of the world and the safety of humanity on his or her shoulders, where there is a love/hate-relationship between the protagonist and the love interest, you should read this book. I was practically glowing with happiness when I completed the book, and once the doctor decreed that I wasn't allowed to do anything more taxing with my brain than listen to audiobooks, I promptly got this (a book I'd already paid for twice, mind you), just so I could experience it again. Euan Morton does a good job with all the different accents and voices, but sounds a bit too old for all the teenage characters. Since I always listen to books on x1.25 or even x1.50, that wasn't a problem for me, and I can very much recommend it as a great listen.

It's always much harder to not just gush incoherently when reviewing a book you really love. This book completely blew me away, and will without a shadow of a doubt be high on my top 10 of 2015. If this is Rainbow Rowell's first attempt at fantasy, I can't imagine what she could do if she decided to play in the genre again some time.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR7 Book 106: "Darlah - 172 timer på månen" (172 hours on the Moon) by Johan Harstad

Page count: 376 pages
Rating: 3 stars

NASA announces a historic lottery to help fund their new lunar expedition. Teens of between the ages 14 to 18 can sign up, and three lucky someones will be selected to train with the astronauts and come along on for a trip to the Moon. There is already a moon base they can stay at, DARLAH 2, established in the early 1970s for research and observation, but never actually used, for reasons the higher ups with the right security clearance would prefer not to answer. The same goes for questions about what the fate of DARLAH 1 was. There is an old, senile man in a quiet nursing home, who used to be a maintenence worker at Area 51. He sees the news broadcasts about the lottery and the upcoming lunar expedition and something inside him is screaming in terror. No one must return to the Moon, the lunar expedition is a terrible idea! Unfortunately, his illness is far enough advanced that he can't actually voice his thoughts and fears to anyone, and explain why another mission to the Moon may be disastrous.

The three teens who are selected are Mia from Norway, who plays in an all-girl post punk rock band, mainly acts stroppy towards her well-meaning parents. The only one she seems patient and nice to is her mentally disabled younger brother. She doesn't actually want to join the lottery, and is incredibly upset when she discovers that her parents signed her up. When it turns out that she's been picked out of the millions who signed up, her band mates are the ones to persuade her to finally go.

Antoine from Paris signs up for the lottery after his girlfriend dumps him and he wants to be anywhere else. He's very interested in historical planes, and develops worrying stalkerish tendencies where he goes up to the Eiffel Tower to use the binoculars there to spy into his ex-girlfriend's bedroom window. By the time the kids have completed their NASA training, he and Mia seem to have fallen for each other.

Japanese Midori doesn't feel like she fits in with most of her peers, and spends most of her free time making costumes, hanging out with other social outcasts in the Harajuku area of Tokyo. Her biggest dream is to leave Japan, like her older sister who moved to London. When she's picked for the lottery, she hopes to be able to persuade her parents to let her stay in the US after the lunar mission.

All three teens experience mysterious and ominous events before the arrive for their training with NASA. Antoine sees a plane apparently crashing into the ocean; Midori and her parents can't seem to find the correct gate at the airport and a ghostly voice in a rest room tells Midori not to leave Japan; Mia meets a strange homeless man in Central Park with strange writing on the back on his hoodie.

Darlah, or 172 Hours on the Moon was awarded several literary prizes in 2008, when it was first published and in 2014 it was voted the best Norwegian young adult of all time by a panel of teenage readers and book journalists. The book certainly seems to appeal to a lot of the teens I teach, especially the girls (because sadly, most of the teenage boys in our school don't read unless they're forced to). One of the girls in my current class said it "made me look at reading in a completely new way" and I couldn't really refuse to read the book after an endorsement like that.

What I liked:
- The actual premise of the book
- Midori seemed like a perfectly nice character
- The NASA astronauts were cool
- Mia's family were nice (the other two teen's parents may as well not have existed for all the time the book spends on them)
- The slowly increasing tension and growing feeling of unease in the book
- The clever ways in which the book plays with genre conventions. There are a lot of fun pop culture references. 

What I disliked:
- The book has a very slow start. Far too much time is spent with the teenagers before the results of the lottery are revealed, mostly dwelling on details that have nothing to do with events that become relevant later. The book would have been more engaging if it got to the point faster.
- Mia really isn't a very likable character. She appears like a spoiled, ungrateful brat and I didn't really see why her friends wanted to spend time with her or why her parents didn't just tell her to snap out of her sulk. The slow beginning of the book just emphasises these negative qualities.
- Antoine's stalker tendencies. This is another way in which the lengthy unneccessary exposition at the beginning was more detrimental than beneficial. If so much time hadn't been spent on showing Antoine and Mia as dislikable, I would have been more engaged with their budding relationship later in the book as well.
- The horror aspect of the book. I had not realised that this book was both a sci-fi AND a horror novel. The horror was very well done, but I'm a big ol' wuss and it just made me uncomfortable.

I don't want to reveal too much more about the book, because that would spoil the story and it's best to go into the book without knowing too much. I can absolutely see why this is extremely appealing to young readers, but for someone who is as easily creeped out as I am, this is just not for me.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 97: "Why Not Me?" by Mindy Kaling

Page count: 240 pages
Audio book length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
Rating: 4 stars

Back in 2012, before the husband and I had spent a few weeks of the summer catching up on what was then available of the American version of The Office, I read Mindy Kaling's first book Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? and liked it, and her, a lot. Once Mindy Kaling got her own show, The Mindy Project, I even watched all of the first season and about half of the second season before I got distracted by other shows, reading and computer games. Any sitcom the husband and I don't agree to watch jointly tends to get forgotten about, because if I'm at home by myself, I read, fritter away time on the internet or play computer games.

I noticed a while back that Mindy (I'm going to assume I'm allowed to use her first name, since I spent nearly five hours of my life recently listening to her talking directly in my ear) had a new book coming out, but didn't really feel like it was a huge priority, not like Felicia Day's memoir or Jenny Lawson's new book (which I'm listening to right now (well, not RIGHT now, I'm currently blogging, but you get the general idea)). So what changed my mind? This very positive review from fellow Canonballer ModernLove, combined with very enthusiastic Goodreads status updates followed with a good review from my book twin on the internet, Narfna. It didn't hurt that I had free Audible credits to burn, either.

I don't regret buying the book or the time I spent listening to it. There's a lot of good stuff in the book, and it's clear that Mindy Kaling has become a more proficient writer, willing to share more of herself in the book than in her last one. She talks about the success of her new show making her famous in a way being a writer and supporting character on The Office never did, and in what ways that has changes her life. A lot of women, especially young ones, look up to her and consider her a role mode and it's obviously something that Ms. Kaling takes seriously. I always like these celebrity-written books more when they mix the light and the frivolous with the more weighty, open and serious topics. Here we get Mindy's style tips, insight into her time at college, some ruminations on her close friendship with her ex-boyfriend, fellow writer and actor B.J Novak, juice cleansing, stories of the time she was invited to meet President Obama, and other fun anecdotes.

She also writes about the pressures of body-image in the industry, of being a bad sport, judging others too harshly, about her work ethic and how nothing comes effortlessly, even when it may seem that way. The chapters are short and the book is a very quick read, even in audio form. I'd seen the chapter where she writes an alternate reality for herself, where she never became an actress, but ended up teaching Latin in a prep school on the Upper East side mentioned as a particular highlight. I agree that it was delightful. Unfortunately, listening to this chapter in audio got a little bit annoying, since the whole thing takes place in e-mail conversations, and the constant repetition of e-mail signatures and e-mail headings got quite repetitive. Her love of and affinity for romantic comedy really shines in this chapter. Overall, this was a fun book and I liked it better than her first one. I also want to go back and catch up on the seasons of The Mindy Project I haven't seen yet.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 96: "Archangel's Shadows" by Nalini Singh

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is book 7 in an ongoing series, and as such, not the place to start reading. This review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, because it's impossible not to mention some of the things that have happened before this book began. The first book in the series is Angels' Blood and I highly recommend it.

After the devestating attacks on New York, archangel Raphael and his consort Elena are trying to re-group, rebuild and calm the population. When a dessicated body is found, it looks like it was killed in a way reminiscent of how Lijuan, the insane archangel who tried to destroy New York, Raphael and his people, would drain her victims completely of life force to gain strength. Releasing the news of the body would only cause panic, so the death needs to be investigated with subtlety and stealth. Ashwini, one of Elena's old Guild Hunter colleagues is recovering from a near-fatal cut she sustained during the battle and is eager and willing to do some investigating. Like all Guild Hunters, Ashwini is a skilled tracker and can handle herself in a fight. She's also gifted and sometimes haunted with the ability to sense the secrets, memories and experiences of those she touches, often suffering terrible nightmares after just brushing against someone by accident. With older immortals, like some of the angels or vampires in the city, she doesn't even need to touch, their mere presence is enough to trigger her visions.

One of the few people who doesn't affect her in such a way is Janvier, the centuries old Cajun vampire who has sometimes been her target, but more often her ally. He has wanted Ashwini since the first time he saw her, and as the years have passed and they have sparred, flirted and co-operated more frequently, his feelings for her have only grown. She keeps him at a distance, but after she nearly died in the battle for New York, Janvier is determined to never leave her side. He knows that there are secrets in her past that make her reluctant to take their relationship to the next level, but having lived for centuries, he's not averse to waiting a while for her to make up her mind. Now they need to track down the monster who slowly tortured and murdered a young woman, making sure her killer doesn't hurt anyone else.

Unlike in most of the books in this series, Ashwini and Janvier already know each other well by the start of the book. Their first encounter involved Ashwini having to hunt down the vampire, who had gone rogue from his angel master and him leading her on a merry chase through the bayou of Louisiana. Over the course of the series, Janvier has gone to work for Raphael, the archangel of New York and he and Ashwini are allies rather than antagonists. There has always been strong attraction and sexual tension between them, but due to her abilities, Ashwini keeps herself from getting too close to anyone. While Janvier is one of the individuals she can be around, and who seems to actually keep her grounded, she can't bring herself to actually initiate a relationship with him, as there are secrets in her past that make it impossible for her to commit to anyone.

Janvier loves Ashwini and is none too happy that she nearly died recently. He wants to spend the rest of his immortal life with her, but due to the effect of older immortals on her abilities, Ashwini hates the idea of being turned into a vampire. She's worried it will amplify her powers, causing her to go insane from the sensory input. So she keeps flirting with Janvier, but taking it no further. Her near-death experience and the tender care that her Cajun took of her while she was recovering makes her want to tell him the full truth about why they can't be toghether. She's just terrified that the truth will drive him away forever.

While a lot of the previous books in the series (especially the ones focused primarily on Raphael and Elena) have driven the story arc forward, this is a quieter book, with a murder investigation in its centre. While trying to negotiate the new status of their relationship, Janvier and Ashwini try to identify the withered husk of a woman they found in a dumpster, so they can narrow down the suspects and discover who murdered her. Because the way she was killed is so similar to Lijuan's power, the Tower is very determined to track the guilty party quickly. As they keep investigating, it seems the murder of the young woman might be connected to a strange new drug that causes uncontrollable blood lust among the vampires in the city. All signs point to someone further trying to destabilize Raphael's territory, making his subjects feel unsafe.

There have been some hit and miss books in the series, but the last few, this included, I have very much enjoyed. I liked that Ash and her Cajun already knew each other well and that they just needed to figure out a way to really be together, without any of the drama of falling in love and acknowledging their new feelings. There is a big, established supporting cast in these books, including Raphael and Elena, and the vampires and angels that make up Raphael's most loyal followers, the Seven. Now several of them have spouses of their own, and it's clear that Naasir, the most feral and mysterious of all of them is ready to find a special someone of his own. I like that Elena is so determined to discover what he is, which seems to be some sort of cat shapeshifter/vamprire hybrid. I'm very much looking forward to discovering the truth behind his origins and who his intended turns out to be.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 94: "Black Heart" by Holly Black

Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is book 3 of a trilogy. This review, and even the book summary, is likely to contain spoilers for previous books in the series. Skip this until you're caught up.

In the third and final volume of Holly Black's Curse Worker trilogy, Cassel has forced his older brother Barron into working for the Feds, and he's loving every minute of it, as he's able to use his memory working to get a whole load of cool fringe benefits. Cassel can't be officially recruited by them yet, as he's not 18, but the deal is that once he's finished his final year of school, he'll come work for them too. Now he's mainly using his practise missions to spy on Lila, the girl he loves and who pretty much hates him after the emotion work his mother forced on her wore off. Lila Zacharov is following in her father's footsteps, having quit school and become a gangster in training.

Having not seen or heard from his mother in a while, Cassel discovers that Lila's father has her under house arrest for stealing and fencing his most prized possession, the resurrection diamond, a stone believed to have belonged to Rasputin, and whose owner can never be killed. He's been wearing a fake for years, but would like the original returned, and Cassel has no choice but to agree to try to locate it. Anything to be nearer to Lila, who lives in the same flat where his mother is now imprisoned.

The Feds need Cassel's help in neutralising a senator, who after emotion work was performed on him by a number of individuals, including Cassel's mother, has become dangerously unstable. He keeps proposing mandatory testing of all citizens, wanting those who are proven to be workers fired from their jobs, and in some extreme cases, imprisoned. As the government also employs magically gifted workers, it's very much in their interest that the sentator is taken out of the equation. They want Cassel to change him into a dog, who they can keep contained. Every instinct Cassel has says this is a trap, and his brother's snooping confirms it.

There is also a fairly boring subplot involving a school friend of Cassel's, hiring him and his roommate Sam to help her retrieve some photographs she's being blackmailed for. I thought the whole plot dragged quite a bit. It felt like it, as well as the extensive relationship drama between Sam and his girlfriend Daneca had been inserted mainly as padding, because Cassel's two main story lines - his doomed love for Lila and his moral quandary about transforming the senator, weren't enough to fill out the book.

What I really like about this whole series is that it's mostly a contemporary fiction series, with just a slight magical twist. The various worker powers are interesting to me, as are the implications of what such powers and the fear of them would do to a society. The books explore prejudice, fear and discrimination in an interesting way, and there is a tremendous range of morality in the various characters. There is very little right or wrong, just a whole lot of grey areas. Cassel isn't a very nice person, and has a lot of bad stuff in his past and present, but he keeps trying to protect the people he cares about and protect them as best he can. Sometimes he has to break the law to do that, but he doesn't want to become worse than he already is. He's killed people, but only because his brothers used him and made him forget it. He's caused a lot of pain to people he cares about, especially Lila, and so desperately wants to make up for it.

I found Barron's slight redemptive arc in this last book both promising and with the reveal of the picture on his phone, and what Cassel did with it, a bit heart-breaking. Barron has clearly been a sociopathic dick for much of the books, but you do get the sense that the brothers love each other despite all that. Their relationship with each other, and their mother, is very dysfunctional. I like their grandfather though, he's a nice guy, for all that he's been a mob assassin for much of his life.

I liked Cassel's solution to the dilemma he faced, and the tension in the aftermath, where his smart-arse ways were suddenly not enough to get him out of a bind. It was nice to see that the trust he'd learned to put in others over the course of the series paid off and that by the end of the series, things were seeming to look up for him. I said in my review for Red Glove that this would make an interesting TV show - a sort of paranormal Sopranos for young adults. Cast it with hot young things and it would probably do really well on the CW.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 93: "Red Glove" by Holly Black

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in a trilogy, and as such not the best place to start. This review will contain some spoilers for book one, because it's impossible to write about this book without talking about things that were revealed in the first one. So if you are new to these Holly Black books, go find White Cat - that's where to begin the trilogy.

Cassel Sharpe lives in a world where a select percentage of the population have certain gifts. People who, if they touch your skin with theirs, can alter your luck or prospects, manipulate or delete your memories, alter or change your emotions, break your bones or heal your illnesses. Some can even kill. In the United States, there is heavy legislation against what is known as such curse working. Everyone has to wear gloves, because you never know who might be a curse worker, manipulating you in some way. Because curse working is mainly seen as a bad thing (despite the fact that the majority of workers mainly use their powers to bring good luck or can heal the sick and injured), those who discover they are gifted with such powers keep it very secret, or go on to join organised crime, because all the major crime bosses are curse workers.

On the flip side of having a cool superpower, there is the blowback. Every time a worker uses his or her abilities, they get a reaction. Physical workers who use their powers to hurt or heal get sick themselves, emotion workers get very emotionally unstable, death workers actually lose body parts and memory workers lose their own memories. 

Cassel believed he was the only one in his family of grifters and curse workers not gifted. His mother can completely change people's emotions, his older brother Phillip could break people's bones, his middle brother Barron can completely rewrite or delete people's memories and his grandfather is a death worker. Cassel himself is one of the rarest of workers, he can transform items or people, alter their appearances or even change them into animals or inanimate objects. His mother and brothers wanted to keep him unaware of his gifts until he got older, so his brother Barron started changing his memories, making him think he was just a regular human. Over the course of the first book, Cassel discovers that his brothers kept rewriting his memories, using his transformation abilities for their own ends.

After Phillip and Barrons tried to move up in the world by trying to assassinate Zacharov, the local curse worker crime boss, Cassel made a deal that saved their lives, but led to the death of Zacharov's nephew Anton. Because of all the blowback from his memory cursing, Barron's memory is a bit like Swiss cheese, and he has to surround himself with photographs, notebooks, post-it notes and note cards to remind himself of who he is and what his memories are. Cassel has used his forgery skills to make Barron believe they don't hate each other, and go for pizza every fortnight. Their mother is out of jail, and to "thank" Cassel, manipulated Lila, Zacharov's only daughter, into being madly in love with him. Now the girl Cassel has always loved and feels horrible about betraying (I don't want to reveal how, as it's very spoilery) is attending his school, watching him like a love-sick puppy and he can't touch her, as she's effectively given a really long-lasting roofie.

To add to Cassel's difficulties, he is approached by Federal agents who tell him his brother Phillip has been murdered. The security footage show a hooded woman entering his building, wearing long red gloves. They believe Phillip's death may be the last in a string of disappearances connected to the Zacharov crime family, and want Cassel's help in solving the crimes. Looking at the pictures of the missing men, Cassel is worried he knows exactly what happened to them. Cassel is pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place. He doesn't really want to actively work for Zacharov, but can't exactly turn around and work for the government either, as that would be seen as a betrayal of everything he comes from, and could lead to the death of Barron, his mother and likely Cassel himself.

Luckily, over the course of the first book, Cassel discovered he has friends he can really confide in and trust. His roommate Sam, who is a special effects wizard and Sam's girlfriend Daneca, who is very passionate about protecting worker rights, helped him prevent his brothers' misguided assassination attempt of Zacharov. They are now his most important allies. Cassel's grandfather is also firmly on his side, with no illusions about his various family members, but as he's been part of the Zacharov crime family and lost four fingers because of death curses he's performed in the line of duty, so Cassel doesn't feel he can tell him the full truth. He needs to use all the tricks he's learned as a grifter to hold both sides off until he figures out how he can work out what is best for himself.

I first read White Cat, the first book in the series about five years ago, and it didn't really make much of an impact on me. Then one of my friends read the whole series and rated them so highly, saying he actually wanted to see a paranormal TV series based on them, and I figured I really should give them another try. When re-reading the first book, I liked it better this time and many of the problems I had with Cassel as a protagonist come from the fact that he's such a introverted loner. Once he starts opening up and making friends, he becomes a lot more relatable and I cared more about what happened to him. Which is good, because there is a more engaging plot in the first book than in this one. I was still interested in seeing where the story was going and how Cassel was going to play both sides against each other. My friend is right, this would make a very cool TV show.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.