Review: The Space Between Heartbeats

Review:

I snagged a copy of this title from Netgalley when it was available as a 'Read it Now'. 

 

This was a bit of coverlust and a lovely title that caught my eye about this book. I read the synopsis on Netgalley and think I passed on it initially, then went back a week later or so and figured I would give it a chance. 

 

Unfortunately, I didn't like this one much at all. The plot showed some form of promise, and at least by the end the main character did show something that resembled some smidgen of character growth. However, Nicole was such an obnoxious brat it was hard to garner any sympathy for her whatsoever.

 

The initial ideas of the plot were a fairly good one - Nicole is a spoiled popular girl with a hot boyfriend, absentee parents and all the right friends. Something happens at a party and Nicole wakes up in a ghostly state somewhere between life and death and discovers some harsh truths about what her friends really think of her and what her boyfriend has really been doing behind her back. And to top it off, the only person who can hear her in this new ghostly state is the one boy she has been really horrible to, the school weirdo, Dale. 

 

For me it was a case of good idea, poor execution. The writing was also very simple. The characters were flat and uninteresting and the parts that were supposed to be emotional were sappy and ridiculous. The dialogue in some of the scenes was appalling and sounded like a made for TV movie.

 

There's one scene were Nicole stands in her kitchen while her parents are discussing her disappearance (they can't see her) and they're weeping and wailing about what horrible parents they are and how they never even noticed Nicole's acting out and struggling (this after her mother finds and reads her diary). We learn that Nicole had a Terrible Thing happen a few years ago and this changed her personality and her family completely.

 

I found Nicole so impossible to relate to or like in the slightest, in regards to this Terrible Tragedy that shaped her current personality, and her family into the state it's in, I felt nothing for her. The scene with the parents discussing how they behaved badly after the incident and not noticing how it effected Nicole was supposed to be a moving one. As I already mentioned, the dialogue was so over the top along the lines of oh noes, we're terrible people and if only we hadn't been so absorbed in our own pain we didn't even see how hard this was for our poor Nicole! It was so sappy it was more gag worthy than anything. 

 

Nicole,  it turns out as she and Dale start investigating what happened to her, used to be friends with Dale and a whole bunch of different people before she started high school and became Miss Popularity. She was nice and fun and likeable. The Terrible Tragedy changed her. Nicole doesn't like to talk about it. Understandable. But she also can't accept it when she hears her friends talking and what they really think of her. She also doesn't like the fact that Dale, who the popular kids make fun of can hear her, she argues with him, she whines. This is the only person who can help her and she fights with him! 

 

The were a few utterly ridiculous plot twists towards the end as Nicole finally finds out what really happened. She does warm towards Dale and finally gets it in her head that maybe being really popular isn't worth it with the type of people her so-called cool friends turn out to be. There are a few more gag worthy sappy scenes as Nicole struggles to choose between life and death. But then there's the ending. The ending was totally unbelievable, after everything Nicole goes through, every twist and turn when the truth is finally revealed her actions in dealing with it left me utterly baffled. Urg. It was awful. I think she was trying to take the moral high ground, but it was...stupid. At least to me.

 

In the end, I really didn't like this book at all.    

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1278159/review-the-space-between-heartbeats

Review: Daughters Unto Devils

Review:

I read this in a couple of hours during a long flight from London to Phoenix a few weeks ago. 

 

Once I started, I couldn't put it down. I'm not sure what I was expecting with this one, I certainly wasn't expecting to be anywhere near as horrific as it was. It tells the story of 16 year old Amanda and her struggling family in a historical setting. The story starts with Amanda having been seeing a boy, Henry for a while, they have been sexually involved for some time and she appears to be quite enamoured with him. Until she finds she's pregnant. Given the historical setting and the religious undertones in the novel, Amanda is quite freaked out. She's terrified of her family finding out...one more mouth to feed in an already full family and difficult situation. 

 

The setting is brutal, blunt and delightfully atmospheric. Amanda's father moves the whole family down from their mountain cabin, across the open plains to find a new homestead for them. There's a wonderful family dynamic in the novel, though not without problems. Something terrible has happened the previous winter, and is referenced a lot, though its not until much later in the novel that the reader finds out. All we know is something bad happened, and Amanda is very haunted by it. Also, her baby sister Hannah, was born that winter, though Hannah was born deaf and blind and screams and cries a lot and puts a host of added strain on the family. 

 

Amanda is torn between helping her family and keeping her pregnancy a secret and its a struggle. Not helped by the long journey down the mountain to the new homestead. The father's determination and resilience is quite impressive in the face of so many different troubles. He's very religious and seems to find strength in that no matter what. The younger siblings are best friends, and the other sibling not quite as old as Amanda but older than the children, Emily (I think or it might be Emma, can't remember off the top of my head) was always very close to Amanda, and their friendship is strained by the Amanda's secret pregnancy. Amanda can't tell Emily, but Emily knows something wrong. 

 

They find an unoccupied cabin to set up as their homestead. Right off there's something not right about it, the place is a mess and its got a whole host of bloodstains inside. Instead of saying a massive no and moving on, Amanda's father decides this is where they will stay and he will fix the place up. Which the family do. From them on things go from creepy to out right frightening.  Not recapping much as its too spoilery from this point on.

 

What the family go through is pretty horrific and it gets harder and harder to tell the difference between is this really happening or is Amanda simply losing her mind due to the move and the unplanned pregnancy which winds up having terrifying consequences. Family stress goes from bad to worse as things keep happening. Not helped by the arrival of a couple of new comers, as one would hope, a boy Emily's age and his father, a doctor. 

 

It gets gorier as the novel progresses. Though in spite of the terror, Amanda shows some remarkable strength as she has to pull it together to figure out how to save what's left of her family by the time the truth is revealed. Complete with an ending to send shivers down your spine as well. 

 

A fantastic spooky read. 

 

 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1277614/review-daughters-unto-devils

Review: The Scorpion Rules

Review:

DNF at page 186.

 

I snagged a copy from Netgalley with one of those read now for first five hundred member emails. I didn't get very far. I liked it initially, but couldn't seem to get into it. Sometimes with me, I just can't read certain things on kindle so I stuck it back on my Tbr list and bought a finished hardback. Didn't make much of a difference.

 

Some interesting concepts and rather unique world building. Yay for diversity and double yay for potential bisexual love triangle. I did grin and my interest picked up slightly when that first started to happen. However, I find the whole thing so flat and boring and I just don't care about any of these characters.

 

The first half of the book seems to be about the hostage kids doing farm work while one new boy comes in who defies the rules and starts making the main character, Greta realize things aren't as okay as they seem. They all know the situation, if their parents countries declare war, their kids die. No questions, negotiations. It's swift and brutal and seems to have been doing a pretty damn good job of making its point.

 

So the idea was certainly a unique and interesting one. While Greta certainly held herself well as a princess and don't shy away from any responsibilities...she had zero personality.. Hardly any of the characters did. There were some fairly dark turns that was just enough to keep my interest. I really don't care about their farming duties or the goats they keep. I'm an animal lover, but even the goats bored me to death!

 

Half way through, even though things were getting rather dark and twisty, war has been declared...but it's still so flat and lifeless and I realized that I wouldn't care in the slightest if any of these characters were killed as a result. So...time to quit for me. This book was just not to my taste in the end, I guess.

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1270804/review-the-scorpion-rules

 

That's me set for the afternoon 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1266219/post

That's me set for the afternoon

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1266216/post

Review: The Secret Fire

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

I put in a request for this title as soon as I saw it pop up on Netgalley. Stunning cover and a blurb that immediately got my attention. When I didn't hear back for what seemed like ages I pre ordered the book. And wouldn't you know...about two weeks later I got my approval email. By then i think my pre order had been shipped early. Oh well. So I wound up with a shiny paperback copy and a copy for my Kindle.

 

As it turned out, I would have probably got a kindle copy as well anyway, because I absolutely loved this book. I read in a few hours. Simply could not put it down. The basics of the plot were nothing particularly new. Studious boring girl discovers super power and may be "the chosen one" for...reasons. And a mysterious boy with his own issues and somehow they have to come together even though they don't seem to like each other at first to defeat the bad guys.

 

The plot was brilliant. Set in both a small English town and Paris, France, it weaves amazingly the two separate storylines of the heroes, English girl Taylor who dreams of studying history at Oxford University with her grandfather who is a professor there, and French boy Sacha who is a wiseass with an attitude problem. When Sacha is first introduced he's involved with some dodgy characters and seems to have some unusual abilities of his own. Taylor's life is fairly normal. She's told she has to tutor Sacha in English. He's less than thrilled about it.

 

The characters were densely layered, and there was so much more to each of them that meets the eye. Its impossible to recap without being totally spoilery. As Sacha and Taylor get to know each other via emails and on-line chats, each is having their own problems. Family issues, and things relating to their own unique abilities. The two intertwine and connect together as the plot thickens and more secrets and questions are woven into the story line.

 

The tension is gripping, there's a great mix of action. There's barely there hints of a romance which I'm hoping will be developed as the series goes on. There was a lot of information to take in, but the writing was so good, some of the concepts involving Taylor's unique power was a little hard to grasp, but it was well put together enough that it wasn't info dumping at all.

 

The last battle scenes where Taylor finally gets her head around what's happening reminded me very much of the end of the first 'Matrix' movie. (I was grinning a lot). By the end of the book there is definitely more questions and hardly any answers. A solid start to a brilliant series with a whole host of great potential. I loved it from start to finish and really can not wait to see what's going to happen next.

 

Thank you to net galley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for approving my request to view the title.

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1265429/review-the-secret-fire

Story Sprites Round 2

So today marks the start of a new board for Great Imaginations Blog Story Sprites Challenge 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I did so well on the first board, I'm going for the whole board again. As usual with challenges I like to have a plan. Sometimes I stick to it (sometimes not). So here's what I have planned so far. Some of these squares are quite tough and will require some thought.

 

Middle Grade Fantasy novel: The Land of Stories, Chris Colfer (kindle book)

Male MC: Polaris (Avalon 2) Mindee Arnett (hardback book)

Wtiches or Wizards: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling (Paperback book)

A classic book: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (kindle book)

A Book with a Mountain - The Shining by Stephen King (kindle)

Bram Stoker Award Winner - The Stand by Stephen King (kindle) 

Halloween Read - either Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett or Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Luavics

Set in Southern USA - Miss Mayhem by Rachel Hawkins or Compulsion by Martina Boone (both hardbacks)

Quiltbag Author - something from either my Poppy Z Brite or Caitlin R Kiernan collection. 

Character who is a Musician - Wildflower by Alecia Whitaker (hardback)

Photograph on Cover - The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen (paperback)

 

 

 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1262812/story-sprites-round-2