book reviews Archives - Page 12 of 17 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

I’m a Fangirl

By Brookelorren on December 14, 2018December 13, 201810 Comments

I recently finished reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I had been seeing it on a lot of Top Ten Tuesday lists and decided it sounded good. When it became available on audiobook, I had to read it, because it seemed like a story I could identify with.

Cath is starting her first year of college. She has an identical twin sister that wants to live on her own this year. As a result, Cath feels… lost.

She also has a difficult time talking to people, and she writes fanfiction. Wow, you could say the same thing about me! Only Cath is way more successful at writing fanfiction than I am, and she really has a difficult time talking to people. She has such a difficult time talking to people that she’d rather hang out in her room eating protein bars than ask someone how to get to the dining hall.

Throughout the story, Cath finds love (who I’m saying I won’t say), deals with being a fanfic writer when her professor thinks it’s unprofessional, and deals with family difficulties. Most of the excitement happens towards the end of the story, and that’s when I really didn’t want to put down the book. I was just okay with the story at the beginning, but when it picks up, it really picks up. I loved it.

The characters were great. I could identify with Cath, but there were so many other great characters. Her sister Ren is a typical college student who gets a little too into partying. Her roommate, Reagan is the brooding, moody type with a good heart. Levi is one of those really friendly but not so smart types. Nick from Cath’s fiction writing class makes a good writing partner. Cath and Ren’s dad is a little wacky. They all make this a great story.

If you’ve ever been to college, thought about going to college, or have written fanfiction, you should probably read Fangirl. It’s an excellent story.

Since I read Fangirl on audiobook, I have some comments about that. I was NOT a fan of the audiobook quality. The voices were outstanding, don’t get me wrong. My problem with the audiobook was the editing. It was horrible. Half the time, when a new section of the book took place, the first few words of the sentence were cut off. Not acceptable. I took music recording classes in college, and I seriously could have done a better job editing this audiobook as a college senior. There’s no excuse for cutting off words in an audiobook.

My True Love Gave to Me Adds Holiday Cheer

By Brookelorren on December 13, 2018December 13, 20186 Comments

Tis the season to be jolly! And to read a holiday book or two! This year, I read My True Love Gave to Me, a YA anthology featuring several authors whose books I’ve read this year (and some that are new to me). If you’re looking into reading some short stories to get you into the holiday mood, you might want to read this one.

This is a companion book to Summer Days and Summer Nights, a book I reviewed over the summer. If you’re living in the Southern Hemisphere, you might want to look into that one as well.

As with most anthologies, My True Love Gave to Me contains some stories that you will enjoy more than others. My favorite story from the book was “Midnights” by Rainbow Rowell. It is a sweet story of a couple of friends who realize how they feel about each other over time. I really liked almost all of the stories though.

One of the nice things about reading anthologies like this one is that you get to try new authors that you haven’t read before, and sometimes you get to read authors writing in genres that they don’t normally write in. For example, I’ve read Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince, but she has a story here called “Krampuslauf” which is more contemporary than fantasy, and although I’ve never read To all The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han, I doubt that those stories involve elves like “Polaris is Where You’ll Find Me” does.

My True Love Gave to Me is definitely a holiday anthology worth checking out, especially if one of your favorite authors has written a story here, or if you don’t want to invest a lot of time reading an entire holiday novel. The stories are sweet and they might just get you into the holiday spirit this year.

City of Heavenly Fire was Heavenly!

By Brookelorren on November 28, 2018October 17, 20182 Comments

City of Heavenly Fire cover This summer, I started reading Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series. I recently finished the amazing conclusion, City of Heavenly Fire. Having read all the books, I can tell you that this is a series that you will want to read.

Because this is the sixth book in the series, there may be some spoilers to previous books.

At the beginning of City of Heavenly Fire, Sebastian is on the loose, and he’s beginning to cause trouble again. Around the world, Institutes are being attacked. None of the shadowhunters are safe; they all decide to retreat (temporarily) to Idris. This leaves the downworlders vulnerable.

Sebastian and his Endarkened forces attack the fortress of the Iron Sisters. It’s almost a massacre for the shadowhunters that show up to fight, but Jace turns out to be an extraordinary weapon. The Endarkened are vulnerable to his heavenly fire, as is Sebastian. Unfortunately, the heavenly fire makes it difficult for him to get close to Clary.

As our adventure continues, the teens from the New York Institute make a journey to end Sebastian once and for all… and may have to give up a little more than they would like. You’ll just have to read this amazing book to find out what happens.

I love how this book expands on setting elements that we saw in previous books. In City of Lost Souls, we first hear about The Wild Hunt. In this book, we hear more about it. We are also introduced to places in other dimensions. The book is full of imagery from Biblical and classical sources, which adds a little bit of color to this series.

I continue to grow more in love with these characters and their relationships. Jace and Clary, Simon and Isabelle, and Alec and Magnus continue to have their relationships develop in different ways. We are also introduced to some new characters, some of whom we will see in both The Infernal Devices and The Dark Artifices books. I plan on reading both.

Part of me was sad to see this amazing series end, but I’m glad that there are other shadowhunter books to read. I already have the first two books from The Infernal Devices on hold at the library. I have to take a short break from this series while they become available, but I’m sure it will be worth it. At the time I write this, there was a great sale on Lady Midnight, so I’m all ready to read that when the time comes.

The Young Adult Writer’s Journey Begins… Here?

By Brookelorren on November 26, 2018Leave a Comment

I recently finished reading The Young Adult Writer’s Journey by Janet Schrader-Post and Elizabeth Fortin-Hinds. It is a book written for authors who would like to write young adult books. I thought the book was useful and well-written, although I don’t exactly think that this book contains a lot of information that you wouldn’t find elsewhere.

The newer you are to young adult literature, the more helpful I think this book will be to you. It goes into The Hero’s Journey, what teenager’s lives are like, and general things to keep in mind when writing young adult books. There’s also information about marketing your book (because you are going to need to market your book, whether you self-publish or go the traditional route with an agent).

There’s a lot of information here that is pretty basic, especially if you have been doing your research for a while (and I recommend that). One of the biggest recommendations that I have if you’re going to write YA books is to read YA books. The authors of this book don’t place a lot of emphasis on that, but it really helps you get a feel for the books that people are actually reading these days. YA is a rapidly shifting genre, and if you read a lot of YA books and read this book, then you might think that there’s a little bit in this book that’s slightly outdated.

While The Young Adult Writer’s Journey does have some good information about story arcs, promotion, and the like, I wouldn’t stop my learning with just this book. Get on book Twitter. See what actual teen book readers are saying about Young Adult books. Read actual YA books. While this is a quick read that you might want to use for reference now and again, it is by no means complete, nor does it represent the latest in YA.

Get Lost in City of Lost Souls

By Brookelorren on November 22, 2018October 4, 2018Leave a Comment

City of Lost Souls is the fifth book in Cassandra Clare’s series, The Mortal Instruments. I didn’t want to put it down. This series just continues to get better and better.

Because this if the fifth book in The Mortal Instruments series, there may be spoilers for the first two books.

As the story begins, Jace is missing. Along with Sebastian’s body. The Clave is looking for them, but other, more pressing matters pop up, and the search for them loses priority. Clary and her friends are not going to give up on him, however. Especially Clary.

We find out that a demonic force has bonded Jace with Sebastian. If one is hurt, then so is the other. Even though Sebastian has evil plans in mind, he can’t be killed without Jace being killed. The search turns into a quest to separate the two and eliminate Sebastian.

I love the relationship development in this book. Jace and Clary make this series for me. Although Jace isn’t quite himself for the majority of this book, they still love each other and have some great scenes together. Simon and Isabelle seem to be working their relationship out as well, which is nice to see. I also like to see Jordan and Maia, a couple of newer characters in this series, as they work towards rebuilding a relationship that they once thought was over. Alec and Magnus are having difficulties in this book, but that’s pretty typical for real relationships.

Sebastian has nice character development in this book. We know that he’s evil, but evil people usually don’t think that they’re doing wrong. His mind was obviously twisted by his father and by his demonic blood, but we also see that he’s a lonely boy who is trying to do good (although he’s going about it the wrong way). He also seems to have a strange fixation with his sister. While Jace and Clary fought against their attraction when they thought that they were siblings, Sebastian seems to disapprove of Jace and Clary and seems to want Clary for himself.

Clary also develops as a person in City of Lost Souls. She has to make some difficult decisions throughout the book. Jace asks her to go with him in the book, and she chooses to go with him. She sees it as the only way to save him, even though she knows it might be dangerous. Later on in the book, she makes a selfish decision that could have turned out disastrous. In the end, she chooses to put someone else’s wishes above her own, even though it might not have worked out for her best personal interest. It was also great to see her developing skill as a fighter.

I loved reading City of Lost Souls, and can’t wait to read the final book in the series.

I Fell For City of Fallen Angels

By Brookelorren on November 15, 2018October 4, 2018Leave a Comment

After waiting for several months, City of Fallen Angels became available at my local library. It is the fourth book in Cassandra Clare’s series, The Mortal Instruments, and the wait was worth it.

As with any book that is not the first book in a series, this review may contain spoilers for previous books.

City of Fallen Angels begins a few weeks after City of Glass. Everybody is back in New York, and it seems like life is getting back to normal. As normal as life can be when you’re a shadowhunter, at least.

Clary and Jace are having problems, and they won’t speak to each other about it. For much of the book, we don’t know why either. They both love each other, and it’s apparent that whatever problem is going on is affecting them. They’re both having trouble sleeping and even eating. This leads to one of my favorite lines in the book. Simon is wondering whether Jace wants to break up with Clary, and his response is “Break up with her? Are you insane?” Okay, so that’s not the problem. We do find out later what is wrong, but in the interest of not giving out spoilers, you’ll just have to read the book.

Simon is having his own issues. After being that nerdy kid for most of his life, he now finds himself interested in two girls. Neither of them know about Simon’s relationship with the other one. Oops. And they both expect to go with Simon to Luke and Jocelyn’s wedding, which is rapidly approaching. As if girl problems aren’t enough, he’s being tracked down by people who want to kill him, and his mother discovers that he’s a vampire and he has to leave home. What a mess!

Valentine might be dead and gone, but there are still other monsters to contend with. Throughout this story, we find out what is bothering Jace, who is trying to murder Simon, and what else this new villain is up to. Our story doesn’t completely end with a happily ever after, but that’s why this series has a fifth (and sixth) book.

I loved this story. This story, like many of the other Mortal Instruments books, incorporates myths and Bible lore into its story, and it makes it quite interesting. If you’re reading this far into the series, you probably are already invested in the characters and care about what happens to them, and of course, I wanted to find out more. Even though I was supposed to be reading another book to review at the time I was reading City of Fallen Angels, I couldn’t put it down.

I absolutely love this series, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Other reviews in The Mortal Instruments Series:

Crow Flight Soared

By Brookelorren on November 12, 2018October 5, 20192 Comments

Recently, I read Crow Flight by Susan Cunningham. The description looked interesting. “The curious flight patterns of crows lead a teen computer programmer down a path of mystery and romance.” Just like earlier this year, when The Kiss Quotient had me at math (LOL), Crow Flight had me at computers. I majored in computer science in college, and have been programming computers since fifth grade, so I immediately had something in common with the protagonist of this book.

I was fortunate enough to have been given an advanced reader copy of Crow Flight in exchange for an honest review.

Gin is a computer genius who’s starting her senior year of high school. She loves computers, especially computer modeling. She’s taking a computer modeling class with a world-class teacher this year, and hopes that excelling in the class will help her get into Harvard. When she is paired up in her computer modeling class with Felix, the cute new boy, their model on the flights of crows uncovers something unexpected and potentially dangerous.

I loved this story. Not only could I identify with Gin on the whole computer thing, I could also identify with her and her feelings for Felix. She likes him, but there couldn’t possibly be any way that he’d like her, right? He’s rich, popular, and other girls like him.
The does he like me or doesn’t he is only part of this wonderful storyline. Gin has a friend that she’s always hanging out with, and their friendship is strained when boys get in the way. There’s also the mystery about the crow model itself. While a computer model on crow flight patterns might not sound interesting, it is when there’s potentially a crime involved. While I did guess some of what was going on, it didn’t ruin the story for me.

You’ll just have to read this book if you want to find out what happens between Gin and Felix, or what kind of trouble the crow model gets out heroine into, but you won’t be disappointed if you do.

I can’t really think of anything I didn’t like about this book. Maybe the only downside about Crow Flight is that it’s not getting the hype that it deserves. I highly recommend this book, and hope that more people find out about it.

Legendary was Just That

By Brookelorren on November 8, 2018October 4, 20183 Comments

Legendary finally became available to me at the library, and I was so happy to be able to read it. It is the second book in Stephanie Garber’s Caraval series. Finale will be out next year.

After Caraval, Tella and Scarlett end up going to another Caraval. Usually, there is only one a year, but this year, there is another one in only a few more days, held in honor of Empress Elantine’s seventy-fifth birthday.

Legendary is told from Tella’s perspective. Tella discovers that her mom is still alive. With the help of her “friend”, she’s trying to find out where her mom is and to save her. In order to save her mom, she needs to find out who Legend is, which means she has to participate in and win Caraval.

It’s not all that easy.

A few complications occur along the way. First, Tella is forced to fake an engagement with the Empress’s heir. Then, the stakes are raised even higher: if she doesn’t win Caraval, she discovers that both she and her mom will die. And then she falls in love. To make matters worse, if she saves her own life and that of her mom’s, she might just hurt the boy she loves. The decisions seem impossible.

We don’t see a lot of Scarlett in this story. While Caraval focused a lot on the relationship between siblings, Legendary focused on Tella’s feelings about her mother. Scarlett is away for much of the time, trying to sort out the things going on in her life (I don’t want to give away spoilers here, so I’m not saying what).

Legendary kept me wanting to read from the beginning until the very end. Like Caraval, Legendary is full of magic and mystery. I love how we got to see more of Tella’s character. She’s much more impressive once you get to know her. I love the decisions that she makes, and I wish the best for her. I will definitely be reading Finale once it comes out next year.

Jack Jetstark’s Intergalactic Freak Show

By Brookelorren on November 5, 2018Leave a Comment

Come one, come all, and get your freak on for Jack Jetstark’s Intergalactic Freak Show!

That could have been how this story begins. This book, by Jennifer Lee Rossman, has a lot of fun moments to it. Although the writing style was fun, it wasn’t my favorite book of the month. For me, it was a book that started off strong but finished just okay.

Jack Jetstark is a circus performer who travels throughout the universe with a small band of “freaks.” Set in the far off future, there is a set of conjoined triplets, a girl with angel wings, and a mutant whose ancestors described the destruction of earth. Like most circus acts, there’s a catch to the whole thing. They only become these mutant creatures for a short period of time each day, when a song plays over their speakers.

As the story progresses, we discover that his former lover, Diantha, is the person that has been performing these songs for the past several years. When she stops performing the song, the circus ends. Oddly enough, all of these people start turning into their freak show selves.

That was the part that I enjoyed most about the book.

I didn’t dislike Jack Jetstark’s Intergalactic Freak Show, but I wasn’t as enchanted about the part where they were trying to sneak onto Diantha’s world in order to save the rest of the “freaks” (who were actually genetic experiments). There were questions about whether Diantha was good or bad, and I didn’t really find myself caring as much, because we didn’t get to interact with her that much. Her daughter did have a fairly big part in the book, and I liked her.

The book also had a couple of weak romances in it. I just didn’t see enough of the love interests together to care all that much. There was a love triangle in the book as well, but again, I didn’t see enough of the characters interacting to care too much about their relationship.

I did like the message that Jack Jetstark’s Intergalactic Freak Show was trying to convey. Just because someone is different doesn’t mean that they are lesser people.

Overall, I found this book good, but not amazing. If you read a lot of science fiction books and need something for your TBR, this book might be for you, but if you’re only going to read ten books this year, I probably wouldn’t make this your highest priority.

Blitzball ist Sehr Interressant

By Brookelorren on October 29, 2018October 21, 2018Leave a Comment

What would happen if Adolf Hitler were cloned? Blitzball, a new book by Barton Ludwig, attempts to answer that question. This is the story of Addie, a soccer player for Reichfield High, and his discovery that he was not who he thought he was. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Every weekend, Addie plays soccer against North Prep, their rival school. As our story begins, Addie and his best friend Thomas have debilitated the star player on the other team so he can’t play. Shaylee, a girl, ends up playing on the team instead.

As a reader, you might notice something strange about their little town. Reichfield High is nearly all white (with the exception of one Jew). North Prep is predominantly non-white. The students at Reichfield High are encouraged to have racist viewpoints. They refer to themselves as “Aryan” and have a lot of unkind things to say about people of other races. They also don’t like homosexuals or transgender people. Reichfield students also learn German. This is a typical Nazi town, located in a modern neighborhood in a place that looks a lot like the United States.

Addie begins to have feelings for Shaylee, which he fights initially, because she’s not Aryan, and Addie has been taught that you really shouldn’t develop feelings for people that aren’t white. Together, they discover that Addie was a clone of Adolf Hitler. Addie doesn’t even know who Hitler is at first; for some reason people that live in Addie’s town don’t have access to the Internet, although Shaylee and her classmates do. As he discovers the truth about himself, he tries to defy his genetics and upbringing and become his own person.

What I Liked

There were a lot of things that I liked about Blitzball. Addie was an interesting character. He behaved a lot like you would expect someone to behave if Adolf Hitler grew up today. In a way, the story reminds me a lot of Er ist Wieder Da, a really funny movie where Hitler resurrects in a German park and is found by a photographer, who treats the guy like he’s a joke. Addie grows as a character throughout the book, which is pretty important when you start off a Nazi. By the end of the book, he becomes an enemy of the Nazis in this story.

The setting of this story was unique. It reminded me of The Truman Show. Addie lives in this small “country” where life pretty much revolves around him. The people at his school are in on it. Not only was he a genetic clone of Adolf Hitler, he is being raised in similar circumstances to him.

What I Liked Less

While I found Blitzball to be interesting overall, there were parts of this story that I liked less. The last part of the book seemed to be a little too much, although I liked the epilogue. We also never find out why someone created a genetic clone of Hitler and went through all the trouble of raising him to be another Hitler.

There are a lot of German words in this book (mostly swear words). As a German speaker, it didn’t really bother me, but it’s possible that non-German speakers might find that it makes reading the book more difficult. I’m not a very good judge of this because I am literate in German, but it’s something to be aware of.

Final Notes

I wouldn’t recommend this book to younger YA readers. There are some situations that aren’t really appropriate for younger readers. In addition, the characters of Reichfield High have very racist attitudes; someone with less maturity might not realize that these students are supposed to be the bad guys.

Overall, Blitzball was an interesting book that I enjoyed, but I can’t really put it on the same level as some of the more amazing books that I’ve been reading this year. If you find the premise interesting, I recommend reading it, but it’s not a book that I will rush out and tell everybody that they need this on their TBR right now.