Review: Invictus

Review:

Review: Invictus

 

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

I snagged this one as a read it now title. I'd heard a lot of buzz on this book and to be honest it didn't really interest me having seen a lot of Firefly comparisons and I've never seen an episode or been interested in the show. But then I saw it as a read it now and I've enjoyed the authors work before so figured why not give it a try?

 

I tried. It was certainly creative, an interesting take on time travel agencies. The hero of the novel is an anomaly who was born outside of time - his mom was a famous pilot and on a job when it happened - and the hero has gained a somewhat infamous notoriety. He’s charming, witty and snarky though appears to have an attitude with authority. Nothing particularly new there where YA heroes are concerned (at least not to me anyway). Dude has done his training and is ready to take his final exams so he can become an official part of the space and time program that run the show.

 

Left with little options he finds himself taking a risky job of basically going through time and retrieving select objects requested by the boss for huge sums of payment. He gets to pick his own crew and name his ship. Each crew consists of the captain, the historian, the doctor and the math guy. Bonus points for diverse characters. The only really memorable character for me was Imogen the historian who changed her hair colour every day.

During a mission a new comer hijacks the object the the crew are after sending the mission into a tailspin. And causing of course, all sorts of other problems. Something to do with parallel words comes up half way through and at this point I sort of lost interest and started skimming. The technical side and sciencey side of things were a little bit too much for me and I got rather bored.

 

I found the plot getting rather silly by the end as well and rolling my eyes a lot. Though one interesting thing about it was it was a standalone which is really rare inYA sci-fi. Everything concluded though it was left with a possibility that it could continue. Some times sci-fi with time travel works for me, sometimes not.

 

Unfortunately I just didn't like this one much at all.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown Books for Young Readers for the chance to view the title.

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1634937/review-invictus

Review: The Hanging Girl

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

A fun twisty YA mystery novel.

 

The heroine, Candi “Skye” Thorn, goes by her middle name “Skye” (can’t say I blame her there) does tarot reading for her classmates at school as a way of making some extra cash. She and her best friend Drew have this idea that when they graduate they’ll finally be able to ditch their small home town and head off to New York and live in an apartment together. BFF comes from a wealthy family, Skye lives in a crappy apartment with her mom and money is an issue.

 

So Skye has a regular job and reads tarots for extra cash. Skye is fake, she reads off intuition and good guesses. She’s not part of a crowd, pretty much a loner and has a somewhat blunt personality I quite liked. She’s a lot more down to earth than most girls her age, and has a fairly logical sense of reality. (I.E. not all convinced that this dream of going to New York is really going to happen) Skye does come across as rather cynical. But given her circumstances it’s believable for her character arc. Her mom is actually convinced she is a real psychic. And appears to be kind of a flake.

 

When a popular, rich girl of a local very important Judge, Paige goes missing, Skye starts having “psychic” visions relating to Paige and her disappearance. She winds up working with the police one really grumpy and dismissive detective and one who seems a lot nicer and more inclined to listen to what Paige has to offer. Especially when some of Skye’s “visions” start panning out and yielding actual results. Basically the old good cop, bad cop routine. And of course Skye’s mom is thrilled her daughter is exhibiting “psychic” abilities.  And eventually Paige’s parents come into the plot.  Along with an angry ex boyfriend of Paige’s who doesn’t believe a word of what Skye says and is convinced there is more going on.

 

He’s not far wrong.

 

Skye has gotten herself involved in something that turns out to be darker than she had ever imagined. Initially it seemed like a good idea to make a bundle of money. Only the drama has escalate and things are going badly wrong and people are turning out to be nothing like she expected. Nothing goes according to any sort of plan and then a dead body turns up. And now Skye is thrown into a murder investigation.

 

Which reveals even more twists. It was quite a tense and fast paced plot, and very well written. Interesting characters, and I will say I didn’t actually guess what was going on in this one. The last few sort of twists were pretty damn good, and I liked the way it all wrapped up and concluded.

 

I’ve liked everything I’ve read by this author so far so this is definitely one that will be going on my auto-buy list.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Bonnier Zaffre/Hot Key Books for approving my request to view the title.

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1632795/review-the-hanging-girl

Review: Bad Girls with Perfect Faces

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

A dark YA thriller about friendship, obsession and jealousy taken over the top and everything going horribly wrong. Sasha and Xavier have been best friends for years. Sasha is not the most likeable character in the world, she’s cold, blunt and frankly, kind of a bitch. The only person who gets her moods and can handle her is her BFF Xavier. Who this reader found kind of dull and rather bland. But he and Sasha connect pretty well, they hang out, have their own sense of humour and inner jokes. They get each other.

 

It’s worked for years, they live in a small town, are outcasts at school and pretty much just have each other. Until Xavier got a girlfriend, Ivy. Ivy was even more of a brat than Sasha. Ivy came from a very wealthy family, she has an outgoing personality, but she’s also the type of manipulative bitch who knows how to push people’s buttons and wrap them around her finger and make them think everything she does is okay, no matter how wrong it actually is. She plays with Xavier pretty much breaks his heart.

 

At the start of the novel what Sasha doesn’t know is that Xavier has started seeing Ivy again. What Xavier doesn’t know is Sasha has fallen for him and has no idea how to tell him. Naturally she’s worried that if he doesn’t feel the same way their friendship would be ruined. And it doesn’t help that Ivy is now back on the screen.

 

Sasha and Ivy can’t stand each other. Not surprising really, their personalities clash and they are both epically jealous of the other’s relationship with Xavier which in a way is kind of understandable as both girls get different sides of him. Only made worse by Sasha’s feelings now boarding on obsession as she worries over what Ivy’s going to do to him this time.

 

So Sasha comes up with a plan. She invents an online profile of a guy to trap Ivy and convince Xavier finally that she is a cheater and no good for him. Which is sort of cringe-worthy to read and with the feeling of malice and foreboding in the story, it’s clearly all going to go wrong at some point. The novel is told in three different viewpoints – Sasha’s, Xavier’s and Ivy’s. Then when a plot twist happens another mysterious view point appears with no name, someone else who knows something has gone wrong and is doing their own investigation.

 

The psychological mind sent of the three different characters was quite interesting over how Xavier, and Sasha both displayed obsessive behaviour, while Ivy was obsessing over the fake profile guy she was getting to know and revealing sides of herself she usually keeps hidden.

 

Of course everything goes hideously wrong and Sasha finds herself in a very bad situation she doesn’t know how to handle at first. It all gets a bit ridiculous here. Xavier ends up tagging along without realising what’s really going on, Sasha’s got another secret she knows she’s never going to be able to keep for long without giving some sort of explanation and that it could potentially ruin her friendship with Xavier. To make things worse someone else has figured out Sasha is up to something and is on their trail.

 

The drama is a bit over the top but there is a definite rise in tension in this bit. Nerves are stretched to breaking point and it comes through clear in the writing and makes things very uncomfortable. I was quite impressed with the ending. Didn’t see it coming, and the way it concluded was actually quite believable.

 

It’s definitely a page turner, and while a little silly in some of the plot twists, there’s a compelling element about it that makes you have to keep going to know what’s going to happen. It’s a great example of a good book about unlikeable characters. The characters are well fleshed out and well written even though they are mostly horrible people.

 

I wasn’t overly impressed with the first book I read by this author, but I really liked this one. I bought a finished copy from iBooks.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Electric Monkey/Egmont Publishing for approving my request to view the title.

 

 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1631738/review-bad-girls-with-perfect-faces

Review: The Truth and Lies of Ella Black

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

I’m somewhat ambivalent on this one. On the one hand I actually finished it, (I barely got 20 pages into the last book I read by the same author) the plot was interesting enough, but at the same time repetitive and unbelievable. Yet there was something in the story telling that made me interested enough to want to know how it all ended.

 

Will be spoiler filled as there is so much in this plot that I want to rant about.

 

It’s a UKYA novel. Ella lives a pretty normal life, goes to school has good friends, but has a secret darker side of herself, a voice in her head that she sees a separate personality that takes over from time to time she calls Bella who makes her do bad things. Get violent, talk back to authority figures, etc. The Bella side of her personality seems to be getting worse and coming out more and more and nice docile Ella seems to have a hard time controlling Bella.

 

Then one day while she’s in school she’s pulled out of class and into the Head Mistress’s office where her mother is there, and her mother is pulling her out of school for a few weeks without much of an explanation, the grownups seem to know something they’re not saying. Ella’s mum is taking her to Rio for an extended vacation. It’s always been a dream of Ella’s to go to Rio. And everyone seems okay with just going. Her parents don’t tell her anything, just whisk her off to the airport and to a hotel in Rio. They’re worried and suddenly very protective. Ella wants to explore.

 

Naturally she wants to know what the hell is going on. Why now? They’ve taken her phone, her passport, and locked them away in a safe in the hotel room. She’s confused. Who wouldn’t be? Exploring and doing touristy things with her mum and dad Ella catches sight of a gorgeous boy, Christian, in the lobby of her hotel and after several passes at making gooey eyes at each other they finally meet.

 

And it’s a very annoying case of instalove. After one night of partying together Ella’s obsessed with the boy, she knows nothing about him, just that he’s gorgeous and fun and can make her forget about her weird circumstances of being in Rio. It’s eye rolling and irritating. Ella gets herself alone in her hotel room and manages to open her parents safe and finds a shocking secret that her parents had kept from her.

 

Spoilers but a huge part of the plot.

 

[spoiler]

Ella is adopted. There’s a letter from a lawyer going about legal changes for adopted babies when they turn 18. (Ella’s 18^th birthday is coming up very soon). Her birth mother is looking for her.

[/spoiler]

 

 She freaks out. She doesn’t know how to handle this information at all. Her reaction to me seems a little over the top, drama for the sake of drama to add to the plot. I can imagine it would be a bit of shock discovering something like this type of secret and you would most definitely have all sorts of questions. I can understand being angry that no one actually told you this secret. There is probably a valid reason for it. In the heat of the moment and anger Ella is clearly not thinking logically. The angry Bella side of her personality is coming out.  In a fit of rage she breaks a beer bottle and attacks her dad and a waiter, cutting the waiter. So she runs.

 

She’s confused, angry and frightened. She has her phone, her passport and a credit card she helped herself to from her parent’s safe. She figures out the PIN and can get cash to start. Her thoughts are going round and round in circles as she tries to escape from them and loose herself in the depths of Rio.  There are some wonderful descriptions of Rio and you really do get a great sense of place and Ella’s confusion as to who she is. She’s lost her identity and has no idea how to react and what to do. Unfortunately, it’s so repetitive, it’s the same worries over and over again.

 

Ella can be quite manipulative, she’s charming when she wants to be and works out quickly how to use people to get things she needs when she starts running low on cash. She’s not stupid, she know that her parents will be looking for her, and possibly the police as well. (And of course while all this drama is going on she’s moping over Christian who she’s still desperately in love with). She sweet talks her way into borrowing a boy’s laptop where she looks up some of the info she found hidden in her parents safe. The name in the lawyer’s letter.

 

And the plot gets even more ridiculous.

 

[spoiler]

Ella’s real parents are serial killers. Her father was the killer, her mother used to chat up the victims, young women, befriend them and lure them back to her boyfriend who tortured and killed them. Her mother never actually killed anyone, but was convicted as an accomplice and is now out of prison. She was pregnant when she was arrested.  Ella is horrified but sort of makes sense to her as to where the nasty, cruel Bella side of her personality comes from.

[/spoiler]

 

She can’t face anyone. She decides to lose herself in the slums of Rio, where no one will look for her. Her passport and credit card are stolen. So she resorts to a little self-help. She learns to take advantage of people’s kindness to a struggling young girl. After sleeping rough a few nights she talks her way again into finding places to say and sees her picture on the news. She can’t speak a word of Portuguese but knows she needs to run again. Eventually she finds herself at a school teaching English to local children and adults. She makes friends and finally starts to develop a sense of self again.

 

The second half of the novel I found to be stretching the sense of belief a bit, this 17 year old going around Rio with no funds of her own.

[spoiler]

The school she starts working at is a volunteer organization where people come from all over the world to work and help but they pay the school. Ella has no funds, no identification. She got into the programme because one of the residents found her sleeping on the step and was kind to her. Ella managed to talk her way into a position there, despite having no experience. Then all of a sudden her fees are paid off. And another ridiculous twist – the birth mother shows up and has been watching her the whole time Ella has been in Rio. The woman who just got out of prison for helping her serial killer boyfriend find his victims. Urg.

[/spoiler]

 

To be fair, while it’s stretching my sense of belief, there was a quite uplifting feeling when Ella starts settling into a regular routine at the school she starts teaching at. She’s making friends and you get the sense she loves the job, she’s teaching art which she has a knack for and is really good at working with the children. She’s making friends and learning the local culture and language. Definitely something she could make a future and a career out of. She’s starting to feel grounded again after so much running around and drama.

 

Then the drama starts again. Oh, and Christian, the boy Ella’s still pining for is the only one from her old life who can find her and is completely understanding when Ella tells him everything that happened.

 

The plot was interesting enough even though a little silly in parts. And in some parts the writing as weird and repetitive as Ella falls apart. The descriptions of Rio from party town to beaches to slums was brilliant, very atmospheric and easy to picture. The romance with Christian and Ella was just annoying instalove. I did have trouble connecting to the characters. Too much over the top reactions and drama with Ella and everyone else seemed very one dimensional. Something was missing from this one for me.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House UK Children’s books for approving my request to view this title.

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1629868/review-the-truth-and-lies-of-ella-black

Review: Breaking

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

I initially requested this one because I liked the previous book I’d read by the same author. I had no idea it was actually a companion novel to Burning until I was half way through and looking up something else on Goodreads.

 

This was an interesting book, after reading the first two or three chapters slowly, I read the rest in a couple of hours one evening. I just couldn’t put it down. I wasn’t completely blown away with the book, I can’t even say I really liked all the characters that much. There was just something about the story and the way the plot unwound that made me want to keep reading and just had to know what was going on and how it all wound up together.

 

Trigger Warnings: Suicide.

 

The novel tells the story of teenager Charlotte, starting off when she’s a very young child, her mother who is some sort of doctor giving her genius tests (which Charlotte is not very good at) her mother has certain expectations of what sort of girl Charlotte should be.  You get the impression that Charlotte doesn’t really care about her mother’s expectations, even at a very young age. Skip ahead to a teenager in a posh prep school. Charlotte is in the principal’s office one of her best friends Devon, has recently committed suicide in a very short time since her other best friend Ariel also committed suicide. Both were bright, smart and popular.

 

Charlotte doesn’t seem to fit the bill with the other smart kids in the school. The kids in the school are all very smart to genius. She’s struggling in her classes and not making the grade. Her mom is a very prestigious (and very rich) alumni. She’s about to pull Charlotte from the school on the principal’s advice, failing grades and the sudden deaths of her two best friends very close together and Charlotte’s attitude seems to be very blasé about everything.

 

Whilst packing her stuff Charlotte finds a package left by one of her deceased friends containing a strange note and a tiny bottle saying “Drink me”. Charlotte realises there must be something more going on, she can’t stop thinking about the note. She realises she wants to find out what it means and will have to be at the school to do that. When almost overnight her physical appearance improves and her (really bitchy) mom notices too. She uses this and manages to convince her mom to let her stay at the school for the rest of the semester contingent on her grades rapidly improving.

 

 

[spoiler]

 

 

Charlotte notices quickly that her grades are improving as well, she’s answering questions in class without studying, acing essays and vastly better at her fencing class than she’s ever been. And she’s not the only one who noticed. Her BFF Ariel’s former boyfriend Jack for one, when they start talking again over what happened it turns into more than talking and flirting. And a rival in Charlotte’s fencing class, Zoe, who is not happy at all when Charlotte kicks her ass in fencing.

[/spoiler]

 

The plot is fairly fast paced and there’s enough intrigue that kept me interested when Charlotte finds more notes and more clues left by Ariel and realises at one point that she found the notes and clues left for her in the wrong order. The mystery deepens, Charlotte’s relationship with Jack is getting more and more intense and she’s got the added irritation of fending off Zoe who seems determined to make things difficult for her.

 

The characters were kind of flat, I couldn’t really identify with Charlotte much, she was cold and aloof and had a sort of above it all vibe about her. There was an interesting morality grey area to the plot as it developed as well. It definitely takes a darker twist towards the end, and that’s where it ties in with the previous novel Burning. It can be read as a standalone, there’s very little that gives away anything to do with Burning’s actual plot but if you’ve read Burning there’s an “ahhh” moment when you realise the connection.

 

I also have issues with Charlotte and her two best friends, Ariel and Devon, the reader learns some pretty unsettling things about the two girls as Charlotte delves into the mystery as what caused them both to commit suicide within weeks of each other. These girls were supposed to have been the tight knit group that everyone wanted to be part of, yet there was a sense of underlying threat rather than close female friendship with Ariel as the ring leader and Devon following with Charlotte trailing behind. There was a sense of rivalry and tension that was supposed to be uncomfortable but more annoying than anything else.

 

There was an eye rolling side plot revolving around Ariel’s former boyfriend Jack who was close with Charlotte and Charlotte had always had a thing for but never did anything cause Ariel got there first even though it’s completely obvious Charlotte liked him. Jack is a typical nice guy, good looking with rich parents. His dad has an important job – senator or judge or something along those lines (can’t remember which) but Jack doesn’t seem interested in following those footsteps and like Charlotte doesn’t seem that interested in the classes at the prep school. He and Charlotte redevelop their friendship which of course develops into something more. She (of course) gets to see the side of him that no one else really gets to see.  Then Charlotte notices Jack starts rapidly improving in grades and stuff like she did. The romance angle was irritating.

 

It was a fairly quick read and definitely interesting, not something I would call a favourite but definitely worth a go if you like prep school mysteries and are intrigued by unlikeable characters.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for approving my request to view the title.

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1629095/review-breaking