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Blood Heir – The Book and the Controversy

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments
Blood Heir cover

I was so excited a little over a month ago when I was approved to read Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao. It sounded amazing: a Russian-inspired fantasy! And look at the cover! Almost immediately after I downloaded the book, it suddenly became controversial.

Today’s post is partly a review of this book, and partly a discussion of the controversy surrounding this book. Unfortunately, the author has chosen not to publish this book for the time being. I was given an advanced reader copy of Blood Heir in exchange for an honest review.

Our hero, whom I’ll call Ana, was framed for a murder she didn’t commit. She teams up with a con man (Ramson Quicktongue) in order to seek revenge. In the meantime, both Ana and Ramson discover that they sometimes have to make difficult choices between right and wrong, while at the same time fighting off corruption and discovering a much larger conspiracy…

The Controversy

This isn’t one of the fairy-tale books you read in your childhood, where the hero always wins in the end.

Blood Heir ARC, ~loc. 5586

I think this quote from Blood Heir sums up my feelings on this controversy. In case you don’t know what happened, Ms. Zhao was accused of racism because of some of the content in the book. One of the characters, a girl named May, ends up getting killed after being rescued from a slave auction. Slate wrote an article about this. Yes, there is slavery in Blood Heir, but despite some people saying that the book was referring to African slavery in the 1800s in the US, most of the slaves in this book weren’t even black.

Yes, I can see how some people might be upset because May ends up dying, and it wouldn’t really be very good optics to kill off your main black character after a slave auction, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that May wasn’t even black. She has ocean-colored eyes, to give one example.

The book had so many good things to say about corruption, and powerful people taking advantage of the less fortunate… it breaks my heart to see this book with such a beautiful message be taken away from public access. There’s a whole dedication page at the front of the book where the author says why she wrote the book… because she sees the racism and hatred that people have for “the other” and wanted to try to combat that. Anyway, from a messaging perspective, I am very sad about what happened. I hope at some point this book will have another chance.

The Book

Overall, Blood Heir was an interesting story. The characters had depth, and even though they were trying to do the right thing, had plenty of darkness inside of them as well. The book kept me interested and I needed to know what happened next. Even after finishing the book (which was originally supposed to be a trilogy) I’d still like to know what happens next.

There was some phrasing that I personally wouldn’t have kept, but I’m probably just being nit-picky because I’m in the middle of editing my book… so editing mode me seems to always be in full gear. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment though.

The book was meant to be Russian-inspired. This was one of the things that drew me to the book in the first place because I speak Russian and go to a Russian meetup group every week. There was some beautiful Russian worldbuilding: the Taiga biomes, the domed buildings, the governmental setup, but there were some things about the Russian inspiration that I think would be distracting to readers. Some of the “Russian”-ish words were very difficult to pronounce, even for someone that speaks Russian (many of the Russian sounding words weren’t Russian). This is a fictional world, so it doesn’t have to follow Russian conventions; the author probably could have made the names a little simpler.

Overall

My conclusion about this book: it was enjoyable, the book shouldn’t have been pulled off the shelf, but the Russian inspiration could have used a little work. I would recommend this book if it ever is published, I would read the sequels to this book, and I would definitely read more work from Amélie Wen Zhao again. I was blessed to have the opportunity to read this book and I wish more people would have been able to read this as well.

Prodigy (The Graphic Novel)

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
Prodigy Graphic Novel cover

This week, I’m reviewing the Legend series graphic novels by Marie Lu. Today, I’ll be reviewing Prodigy The Graphic Novel, which is the second book. Since this is the second book in a trilogy, there are some spoilers for the first book here.

In Prodigy, June has just helped Day escape from his execution, but what’s already been done cannot be reversed. Day will never get his brother and mother back. As the book begins, they’re on the run from the colonies, and they need help from the Patriots, a group that Day has always shunned because of their more violent methods. When the Elector Primo dies, things are about to change. Should Day and June support the new elector, or should they support the Colonies? You’ll have to read either Prodigy the Graphic Novel or the original book to find out.

I’ve already given my opinion on the original Legend Trilogy, which is one of my favorite series ever, so I’d like to mainly talk about the graphic novel adaptation of this book. While I think it was well done, there were a couple of things that I thought it could have done better.

Sadly, one of my favorite scenes from Prodigy, where Day and June kiss in the bathroom in Las Vegas, was left out of the graphic novel. One of the things that I appreciated from the Legend Graphic novel was how much attention was paid to detail. While there was still a lot of detail in this book, there were a few things that were missing. When they get to Las Vegas, as an example, June’s hair is supposed to be spray-painted scarlet and Day’s hair is covered up by his hat, while it isn’t in the graphic novel (they do have June’s temporary face tattoo, however). Kaede’s vine tattoo seems to have disappeared as well (which I’m pretty sure was not temporary).

While tattoos and hair color are just little details, it does reflect how much attention was paid to the original novel. There isn’t any real reason to get it wrong.

Other than these small things, Prodigy the Graphic Novel stays faithful to the original novel. It still has the same basic story and the same ending. If you loved the original novel and need a quick reminder of the story before Rebel comes out, or just want to see this book in graphic novel form, I recommend it.

Legend (The Graphic Novel) Is Adorable!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
Legend Graphic Novel cover

One of my Christmas presents to myself last year (with my gift card money) was getting a copy of the Legend graphic novels. I’m not really a graphic novel reader, but these were so adorable that I couldn’t pass them up. Besides, as a book reviewer, I’m starting to try new things.

Legend (in case you haven’t read the original novel) is the story of Day, who grew up in a poor family, and June, who grew up in a wealthy family, in the dystopian future country, The Republic. Fun fact: Day is related to Asher Wing from Warcross. Anyway, after June’s brother Metais dies, she goes to look for who she thinks is the killer. Things aren’t exactly as she thinks they are, and they end up on an adventure together.

The first thing that I notice about this book is that it’s adorable. The first few pages show 10-year-old Daniel (Day is a nickname) taking his trial, which is used to determine things like what high school (if any) you get into. 10-year-old Daniel is just so adorable you want to reach into the book and give him a hug, especially when you find out what happens to him.

Most of the book happens after they both turn 15 in this book. Legend the Graphic Novel follows he original storyline fairly accurately, although the order the story is told in had to be altered a bit to fit the format, there is less detail, and it’s not told form the 1st person perspectives of Day and June like the original novels.

One of the things that I appreciate about Legend the Graphic Novel is that it gets a lot of details from the book correct (unlike some movies that I’ve seen of popular movies ::cough cough Divergent::). The hair and eye colors seem accurate, most of the clothing seems accurate; even Kaede’s vine tattoo is correct. As someone who has written Legend fanfiction and strives to make sure I get the details correct, I appreciate that the graphic novel was done so well.

The fourth Legend book, Rebel, is coming out this fall.  If you don’t have time to reread the original series and want to review everything before you read it, you might want to try Legend the graphic novel.  It doesn’t take that long to read, goes over all the major details, and is cute on top of that.  Happy reading!

Sky Without Stars Gets Five From Me

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Sky Without Stars cover

When’s the next book coming out? You can’t just end it like this! That was my first reaction when finishing Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell, a story about three people living on the planet Laterre based on Les Miserables. It was an amazing book and I have to read the next one. I was fortunate enough to get a copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sky Without Stars follows three characters with vastly different lives: Chatine, the girl who disguises herself as a boy and steals whatever she can to survive; Marcellus, a high ranking military officer who always feels like he has to prove something to his grandfather; and Alouette, who has been living in a library for most of her life. Their lives begin to intersect on the eve of what looks like a revolution.

As the book unfolds, we discover the truth about what’s really going on in this country. Each of our main characters has their eyes opened to what is going on, and they will have to make decisions to either be selfish, or act for the greater good of society, which might not be in their best interests. Unfortunately, the problems don’t get resolved in this book, so we have to wait for the next one. Is the next book out yet?

My favorite characters in this book are Marcellus and Chatine. I like Alouette as well, but I’m more attached to the other two. All three of them have facets that I like, but I hope I get to see Marcellus and Chatine together in the next book. We’ll see. There really isn’t a love triangle in Sky Without Stars, but I do expect to see one in the next book.

One of the things in this book that I thought was pretty cool was the French influence of it. A lot of the words were french-ified, which didn’t make it difficult to read, but gave it a different vibe. There are some French words smattered among the text; even though I speak some French, I didn’t understand every word at its first use, but that’s okay. Sky Without Stars makes it clear what the terms mean when it uses them. The royal family is a lot like King Louie and Marie Antoinette, and there is even a contraption that is similar to a guillotine. Of course, there’s also the threat of revolution in the air.

I highly recommend this book! The only think I don’t like, I think, is that I have to wait to read the next one.  The book doesn’t come out until March 26th, but you can pre-order it today.

Twisted Roots

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Twisted Roots cover

I recently read Twisted Roots by Shelly Goodman Wright. For full discosure, I know the author and was given a copy of this book.

Jessica is living a nightmare. Her mother is evil and wants her to marry this creep, and her father is in a coma. In order to keep her mother from ending her father’s life, Jessica feels that she has to do everything that her mother wants her to. When her father dies, she figures that she’s had enough and decides to escape. After she leaves, she finds a group of people in the Okefenokee swamp that treat her more like family than her own family.

The book was interesting enough. The characters are likeable, and I thought the family-type dynamic was pretty cool. The villains can be pretty creepy and I definitely hate some of them.

This is Christian fiction, so there is a good vs. evil storyline in here, and it’s also a clean book, so you don’t have to worry about a curse word or sex scene that you’re not interested in seeing. Since it is Christian fiction, there may be elements that bother people if it’s not their thing. Jessica meets a guy that she’s interested in, and their relationship develops slowly, with a few bumps in the road to make it interesting.

While I liked the story overall, it’s not without it’s problem areas. The book could have used another run-through by an editor. I found quite a few mistakes while reading the book (granted, I find mistakes in lots of books, but it’s usually one or two per book). There were also some places where I was unclear how a few of the characters found out some of the things that they did.

It wasn’t my favorite story, but it was a pretty good read nevertheless. I would consider reading the next book in the series, but I’m not going to rush out and put it at the top of my TBR.

The Waking Forest

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
The Waking Forest Cover

I recently had the opportunity to read The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees (thank you Netgalley). I love that cover! So spooky. I have mixed feelings about the book though.

The Waking Forest is divided into two parts. In part one, the chapters alternate between the story of the Witch of Wishes, who lives in an enchanted forest and grants wishes to visiting children, and a family of homeschoolers who are a little strange (the main character, Rhea, has visions). As the story progresses, you eventually find out what these two storylines have in common. Part two builds on the first part, and I don’t wish to give spoilers.

This book does have a lot of good things going for it. Ms. Wees has a very descriptive style, somewhat like Laini Taylor. Although some of her descriptions are beautiful or clever, I wouldn’t exactly describe her words as beautiful prose like I do with Taylor. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the descriptions, which help the story come to life.

I really enjoyed the first part of the book, where we read about the Witch of Wishes in the forest, who befriends a boy who visits her disguised as a fox, and the family who lives next to the beach and have names that all start with R. It was fun to see the similarities in the stories and try to figure out how they were related. This part of the book would have gotten a solid four stars from me.

After we find out how these two storylines converge, part 2 was… just okay to me. While the descriptive prose remains, the action was a little muddy and I didn’t find it to be all that interesting. Sometimes things were a little confusing.

The other part that I found to be a little confusing was all the names in the family whose names started with R. It was hard to keep track of all of them, and they don’t have a small family. Amazon says this book is only 298 pages. With such a small space devoted to the family, it was really hard to get to know what all of their personalities were like. Fewer family members or more pages devoted to getting to know them would have probably helped with that.

Overall, I thought this story was okay.  I’d consider reading future books by this author, but The Waking Forest isn’t one of the best books I’ve read this month.

Furyborn

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Furyborn cover

When I first heard of Furyborn last spring, it sounded interesting. Two queens fulfilling a prophecy over thousands of years? Sign me up! Then I started to hear mixed reviews and I decided to hold off on it.

My review will be slightly mixed as well.

The first queen, Rielle, seems like a very nice girl. Her family has kept her sheltered because she has magical powers that she has trouble controlling. As a child, her powers got out of control – with deadly results. When she sneaks out of the house and ends up using her powers to save the prince, the whole kingdom makes her go through trials to prove that she’s the prophesied (and eagerly anticipated) Sun Queen. You root for her, but you know from the prologue that she’s actually the Blood Queen – the other prophesied queen that people have dreaded.

The other queen, Eliana, is not even in the nobility in this book. Eliana is an assassin with a strange power: she can’t be damaged. As a reader, you know that she has to be the prophesied Sun Queen, but how? While Rielle seems to be so nice, Eliana is not really.

My thoughts on this book are mixed, probably because it took me a while to warm up to this book. The book switches POVs between the two girls, and for several chapters, just when I start to care about one girl, the POV switches and… I don’t care as much? I’m not sure if it’s because I listened to this in audiobook format and I was a little confused about what was going on or if it just wasn’t amazingly exciting, but it took me a while to get the two girls’ stories straight and become excited about what was going on.

Nevertheless, as the story progressed and I got to know the two girls, I became intrigued. How did sweet Rielle become the monster that the people in the second timeline know her as? How did Eliana the assassin become the Sun Queen? Alas, you won’t find out in this book.

Despite the fact that it took me a while to warm up to Furyborn, I do want to find out what happens next. I won’t rush out to pre-order the next book in the series, and I’ll probably get it from the library, but I do plan on reading it. This book may not be one of the best books I read last year, but it was nevertheless enjoyable.

The Dysasters was Anything But

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

One of the good things about having a real-life friend at work to fangirl over books over is that you can talk about books at work! One of my coworker’s favorite authors is P.C. Cast, but I had never read anything by her. When I saw The Dysasters on Netgalley, I had to apply to review the book. My coworker was so jealous!

Anyway, the book was pretty fun. About as fun as a book featuring disasters can be. I’d consider reading more by this author.

Foster is a girl who has been on the run for the past year. She lives with her foster mom, Cora. As the book begins, they’re supposed to meet someone. That someone just happens to be the cute but annoying jock that Foster had a slight altercation with at the beginning of the evening.

The evening turns out to be… well… a disaster. Soon, Foster and the jock, Tate, are on the run. Oh, and they also discovered that they have this amazing power to control the wind. Foster thought her bio-dad had died, but it turns out that he’s become this evil mad scientist instead. Dun dun dun! They’re being chased and they have to escape four other people that can control the elements.

When they finally get to this place of safety, they discover that there are other people in their shoes that they need to go out and save. Will they be able to do that in time? Read to find out!

There was a lot of death and destruction in this book, but I still saw this book as fun, not dark. Maybe that wasn’t how I was supposed to see it, but that’s how it came across to me. The characters went through a lot of things that should make them grieve, and although they do grieve, they are also involved in trying to save the world. There are pop culture references and they’re singing “Rockin’ Robin”. Foster is afraid of the horses she refers to as “dinosaurs.” I couldn’t really take it too seriously.

I liked the characters, but I don’t know if they were supposed to be taken too seriously either. Tate’s “G-pa” was pretty funny. The villains seemed like the superhero villains from old cartoons. Tate and Foster’s enemies to lovers was superficial but fun.

The cast of characters in The Dysasters was diverse. They came from all over the country, were from different races, and there was even a transgender character.

Overall, I thought this was an enjoyable story and I’d consider reading the second book in the series. It’s probably not what you’re looking for if you’re in the mood for something dark and serious, but if you’re interested in a low fantasy where the characters float to the ground while singing “Moon River” and making out, you might like The Dysasters too.

Bring Tissues to The Last Year of the War

By Brookelorren on 1 Comment
The Last Year of the War cover

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner is a really sweet story about two friends, one German and the other Japanese. I have to warn you though, you’ll want to bring tissues with you when you read this. I received an Advanced Reader Copy free in exchange for an honest review.

The title of this book refers to two wars that Elise ended up going through: the literal war that she lived through during her teenage years, and the war against Alzheimer’s disease taking her in her twilight years. She might not be able to remember why she walked into a room sometimes, but she can remember what she was doing during World War II.

Elise ends up in one of the American internment camps that were set up during World War II to house Japanese and German people that the government thought were threats. This is where she meets her best childhood friend, Mariko. Towards the end of the war, they are forced apart, never to see each other again. Until finally, right before Alzheimer’s is about to claim Elise and she’ll never have another opportunity, Elise finds her old friend on Google and makes a spontaneous trip to see her (hoping she won’t forget why she went on the trip in the first place).

The Last Year of the War primarily deals with their story as children. It’s easy to forget that this is a fictional story. Even though Elise and Mariko weren’t real, people really did live through circumstances just like theirs. The choices they had to make weren’t always happy ones, because it was a really dark time in history, especially if you were German or Japanese.

I cried a lot while reading this book. The passages from elderly Elise’s point of view were so sad, because in them you watched her memories creep away. Then when she finally sees her old friend… more tears. I didn’t cry much during the parts where Elise recalls her childhood during the war, even though they went through rough times, because I knew it would all work out for her.

This is a book I highly recommend, especially if you’re looking for a good friendship story or you want to see the world through the eyes of someone living through World War II. Even though it’s a fictional story, there is so much truth in this book that it will definitely help you see a part of our history that hopefully the world will never end up repeating.

Queen of Air and Darkness Changes Everything

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Queen of Air and Darkness cover

Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare is the last book of The Dark Artifices series. At 880 pages, this is a monster book. To be honest, it could have probably been two books instead of one. Other than the fact that it was really long and a little exhausting to read (of course, it didn’t help that I read three very long Shadowhunters books in the 9 days prior to starting this book), I loved it.

Thar be spoilers in this book review! Don’t proceed any farther if you don’t want some major spoilers for The Dark Artifices, and perhaps some spoilers for The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices.

When we last left the Shadowhunters, they were in the Clave meeting where Livvy was stabbed. This probably was really frustrating to people reading Lord of Shadows right after it came out, but for those of us who don’t have to wait, we can find out what happens right away. At any rate, Ty is devastated. He doesn’t want to accept her death, and tries to raise her back from the dead. Kit, his best friend, doesn’t want him to do this, but he goes along with his plans, hoping that Ty is going to come to his senses.

The corrupted Nazi-esque Clave is on a rampage, trying to silence anybody that disagrees with them. The people that know the truth are trying to stop them, but for a lot of Queen of Air and Darkness, I had to wonder how they were going to be stopped.

I love the ships in this book. Emma and Julian know that being in love as parabatai is dangerous, but there really isn’t anything they can do about it. They try to stay away from each other, but good luck with that. Christina realizes that she has a thing for both Mark and Kieran, in probably the most interesting love triangle I’ve seen. Both of these storylines will resolve in this book, and we have to wait until The Wicked Powers books come out to see more of them together.

You would think that you’ve seen everything in the world, but you haven’t. Clare continues to add to her world, and we are introduced to the land of Thule in this story: an alternate world where Clary died during the Dark War and the land turns very… dark. Here we are introduced to some alternate versions of characters we already know, like Thule Jace and Thule Sebastian, and another character I won’t mention because spoilers.

There’s a lot to Queen of Air and Darkness and the end of this book changes everything. It doesn’t leave you with a completely massive cliffhanger where you’re going to be upset for the next three years until you can read The Wicked Powers, but after reading this, you’ll know that nothing in the Shadowhunter world you’ve known about so far is going to stay the same.

There’s a lot more to look forward to in The Wicked Powers, whenever it comes out, but until then, there will be plenty of new titles coming out first. These books are so densely packed that I might want to do a reread between now and then. With the size of these massive books, that could take a while.