Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

★★★★½

source: galley from Random House

publication: August 4, 2015, Knopf

**all quotes are from the uncorrected proof**

Told via a dossier of files documenting three central intergalactic events—the destruction of the planet Kerenza, the takedown of space freighter Copernicus, and a...nother incident that happens at the end that I won't spoil—Illuminae is essentially the story of Kady Grant and Ezra Mason, teenage exes on separate ships who are trying to figure out what the heck is going on. At 600 pages, this is an expansive, imaginative, and at times heartbreaking tale filled with characters you can't help but feel for. Even the would-be villains will capture your heart in these documents. It's real weird, chum.

I hadn't really planned to read this book when I did. I was between books and picked it up, expecting the format to make it easy to put it down and pick up something else. I thought there was no way I'd be able to get into all the different types of documents and that I'd end up skimming some of them, thereby making myself confused about what was going on. This was a miscalculation; every single page of this book is interesting and necessary, either for the characters' personal stories or for the larger story of, like, spaceships and war and disease. You know. Because just one of those things was not enough.

The characters in this book are my new best friends, you guys. I love them. I want to hang out with them and be their lookout when they're doing illegal things. Even though they do pretty well without me, I think it would work out. Kady is sofrickinawesome. She hacks systems and sasses authority figures and saves, like, hundreds of people, all while she's basically an emotional wreck because she thinks she only has one person left in the entire universe. Her journal entries are heart-wrenching; her conversations with people will put a satisfied smirk on your face; and the surveillance video reports on her show you what a badass she is. The best part might be that she lets everyone underestimate her, because if they didn't underestimate her she could never get any of it done. All of the awesome crap that she does depends on people not knowing she can do it, not paying attention to her because she's small and a girl and seventeen years old. Not only does she refuse to let being a tiny young female stop her, but she uses it to her advantage. Kady Grant is a master manipulator; just watch and learn, grasshopper. It's marvelous.

They don't need this girl in neurogramming, they need her in psych-ops, eyeball-to-eyeball with the guys who need to see things a little differently. Just saying. What she says must be an excuse, and it works. [...] As the door hums shut, subject is visible pivoting and blowing a kiss back toward the server room. I don't blame her. She just plundered that thing. 

It took twelve ------- minutes. And she's just strolling away.

And then there's Ezra. He is, for all intents and purposes, your average teenage boy. Maybe a little smarter. He doesn't take anything too seriously, he's loyal to his friends, and he loves Kady (because, let's be real, who wouldn't love her... except maybe authority figures). I was completely sold on him by page 41, wherein Ezra writes a wonderfully drunken email to her (and thank you, Jay Kristoff, for being method enough to actually roll your face across the keyboard). But let me tell you one thing, I have rarely, if ever, been so entertained reading from the perspective of a teenage boy before. His dialogue just makes him so lovable and in addition to that, he's competent. That's ultimately what makes his relationship with Kady believable; ain't no way she would be with someone she had to carry all the time. They are each good at different things and we get to see them shine at those things independently since they're apart for the entire book, but it never really feels like they're on their own. Their relationship keeps them going when planets explode and ships crash and disease takes over and everything else seems hopeless.

The secondary characters somehow manage to catch my attention as well, which is a feat considering, again, this book is a dossier of files. I cried over their deaths and then wondered if the fictional corporation the dossier was meant for cried over them, too. Probably not, those coldhearted -------s. Go die in a black hole, BeiTech.

If you're wondering whether this format will confuse you, like I did, just don't even worry about it. Trust me, I'm not big on space books or generally anything with "high-octane" in the synopsis because I find them ridiculous or confusing or just uninteresting, but Illuminae is none of the above. You might feel like you don't know exactly what's going on or what everyone's motivations are at first, but it becomes clear by the end of the book—certain information is purposefully withheld. It makes the reveal more intense and satisfying. The last 25% or so of this book was nothing short of mindblowing. The most beautifully written passages are—get this—from the point of view of the battlecarrier Alexander's artificial intelligence system AIDAN, who which had previously killed hundreds of people and tried to kill hundreds more. But they're thought-provoking and poetic and unbelievably powerful:

I cut the feeds to spare him the sounds his people make as they die. Am I not merciful? 

At the apex of callousness, she finds only ones and zeros. And with no hope to hold it in check, grief finally steps out to take its place on the stage.

Why did they give me this sense of self? Why allow me the intellect by which to measure this complete inadequacy? I would rather be numb than stand here in the light of a sun that can never chase the chill away.

I still cannot fathom her pattern. My brain the size of a city, and still she is beyond me. They are beyond me. These humans. With their brief lives and their tiny dreams and their hopes that seem fragile as glass. Until you see them by starlight, that is. 

Oh, AIDAN. You smooth talker.

AND THEN THAT PLOT TWIST AT THE END HELLO YES EXCELLENT now run

Anyway. It's become pretty clear to me that books blurbed by Marie Lu are usually a solid bet, and this one is no exception. I cannot wait to get my hands on a finished copy*... and also book 2.

*don't even THINK about getting this on your e-readers, guys. Buy the hardcover. For reals.

Review: A Thousand Pieces of You

★☆☆☆☆

I've decided to be more liberal with my 1-star reviews, because I realized recently that I haven't given a book one star in a few years. Why does the 1-star option exist, if not for books I couldn't even finish?

Which brings me to my confession: I did not finish this book. You can choose whether to take heed of my review or not. I mean, personally, I think the whole "You can't review a book if you didn't finish it" rule is totally invalid — people have reasonsfor not finishing books, and knowing what they are might stop you from wasting your time. Sometimes it's just a "This book wasn't for me" situation, but sometimes it's not.

This one was not.

"My hand shakes as I brace myself against the brick wall."

That, my friends, is the first sentence of A Thousand Pieces of You. Wow, what a rousing start. How am I ever going to put this book down after that?! Forget The Knife of Never Letting Go and "The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say." Forget The Night Circus and "The circus arrives without warning." This one clearly has them beat with that epic line about a brick wall. 

Snark aside: this first sentence tells you absolutely nothing, right? It's not specific to this book at all, which raises a red flag because it's a clear promise of bad writing.

And bad writing ye shall receive! Where do I even start? Okay, I know this book is YA, but here's the thing: I love YA. At least ninety percent of my favorite books are YA. But as a YA reader, I felt like Claudia Gray was talking down to me in this story. Every. single. thing. is right there on the page. There is nothing to infer, nothing to think about. Reading is supposed to be an experience where I can feel with the characters; I don't need their every emotion and question and thought spelled out for me. The writing in this one leaves nothing for me to do other than, well, read. And that's the most unsatisfying kind of writing there is. ("But, Paige," you might say, "you're not a teenager! This book isn't intended for you!" — to which I say, "BALONEY." All books are written for the people who like them. I like YA books, so this book is supposed to be written for me.)

All this transparency left nothing for me to attach myself to. Everything feels flat, like I'm being told This Is The Story You Are Reading instead of getting to feel like I was a part of it. I don't know if Claudia Gray (or whatever her real name is) has a degree in writing, but I'd venture a big no on that one — which is fine, because I don't think you need a degree in writing to be a good writer. But it would definitely help in her case, because reading this book felt exactly like workshopping a grad student's manuscript. It would have been easy to improve the writing quality and make it feel less like the author didn't trust the reader to understand, but nobody put forth that effort.

Unfortunately, the writing style wasn't the only bad thing about the book. The main character, Marguerite, is exactly as unbearable as her name. In the half of the book that I read, she did nothing but complain, contradict herself, fawn over her two love interests, and judge people. I think the fact that she's an "artist" (throw in a couple generic art references and bam! Your heroine is supposedly an artist!) is supposed to make her interesting, but we never actually see her doing any art. She doesn't look at the world with an artist's eye. Being an "artist" changes nothing about her perspective, other than making her the self-declared black sheep of the family, the special snowflake who likes art instead of science. Oh, the poor little runt.

The love interests were not much better. You've got the probable drug addict and the accused murderer, great! I could totally get behind that, if I believed that either of these guys were actually either of those things. But they're not. They're both Bad Boys Lite™, and Marguerite cares more about them than she cares about accomplishing anything. She starts off the book promising to kill Paul Markov, and then not even halfway through it he's all "But I'm innocent!" and she's all "Oh, okay." [implied: "What a relief because I never really intended to kill you anyway, on account of I am way too bland and also have no experience killing people. Also I think, maybe, not sure because apparently I haven't thought about it enough even though it's all I've been talking about, I might be in love with you."] They're both in love with her for some reason (I believe Paul more than I believe Theo, who's basically just a pathological flirt, but neither of them totally convinced me) and she's pretty much willing to go for Theo because he makes it more clear, until Paul tells her his feelings and that's the end of that. The bromance between the two of them totally could have hooked me — I am a bromance fiend, after all — but it was barely even there! Why do you promise me a beautiful platonic relationship and then not deliver?!

At this point I don't think I need to get started on the plot, so I'll just say that it was half-assed at best. So many things go unexplained in this book: questions that characters can't answer because the author couldn't answer them. Other reviewers have mentioned this, so just read the other 1-star reviews if you need examples. I'm off to read something that's actually worth my time.

Shame about that cover, though. It deserved better.

Review: The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings

★★★☆☆

The first half of this book was great. It was the kind of great where I had no idea what was going on, but I was interested in finding out. In the battle between questions and answers, questions were dominating. But I was ready for answers to rebound, thinking they'd lose the battle but win the war. I was on board with the no-prisoners-taking heroine and the strong, weeping hero.

And then I started wondering if I was actually going to get any answers.

And then the questions kept winning battles, because when the answers came to fight, they weren't armed with explanations.

I think there is a particular brand of science fiction that I just don't get along with very well. It's the kind that makes good science evil, and lets it take over the entire story. When all of the background information and even the character histories revolve around the futuristic science of the book, I can't deal. I need more than that. I need characters to be people and have relationships, not just experiments whose relationships are defined by their world. I need subtlety and complexity built into every character, in the ways they act and react, in the way they treat others and how they communicate, and in the way they see the world. I need to know without a doubt that in a given situation, this character would not do anything differently. I need a string of affection or hatred or some powerful connective emotion to attach me to a character. 

These characters have the strings, ready to tie themselves to me, but they never quite got around to the tying.

As for the plot... well. This book was so bloody and action-packed it's almost like nothing else mattered. Aptly, people drop like flies in The Murder Complex, and our heroine is so busy cracking necks and thrusting (not shooting!) arrows through eyeballs that I think she's trying to distract us from the scatterbrained plot and the fact that all but one of her relationships are one-dimensional and boring. When I wasn't asking myself, "What the flux is going on?" I was asking myself, "And I'm supposed to care about this... why?" Absolutely nothing about this book was subtle. There were no undertones, no characters worming their way into my heart, it was just. constant. ACTION. At one point I was exhausted for Meadow, when I figured it was finally time for her to rest and suddenly her father* wanted to do some training. What did she do? She kept going. Kudos to you, Meadow, but I'm human, and I'm a fan of sleeping after I've been running and fighting and killing all day-- no, all week. 

Basically, there wasn't anything about this book that didn't keep me interested. It was just that there also wasn't anything that kept me caring. It was all action and science and bad guys, and not a whole lot of human moments. And the human moments are kind of why I read in the first place.

*her relationship with her father is the one I mentioned that is not one-dimensional or boring. Her judgment is so clouded that she thinks he doesn't love her because he's always only cared about training her-- but she slowly comes to realize, why does he train her so hard? Because he needs her to survive. Because he can't lose her. He doesn't show affection because he thinks it toughens her up. Brilliant.

Review: These Broken Stars

A cover that is actually 100% true to an actual scene in the book! Le gasp!

*I received a copy of These Broken Stars from Disney Book Group in exchange for an honest review.

Summary: Lilac is an heiress, a socialite, the privileged daughter of the protective founder of a company that explores and develops space. Tarver is a war-hero soldier from a modest but close-knit family, who is all but unaware of the ramifications of smiling at the pretty redhead across the room. When the spaceship in which they're hurtling through space suddenly breaks down and everyone aboard must flee to their lifeboats ("pods") a la Titanic, Lilac and Tarver end up in the same pod, crash-landing on a seemingly abandoned but strangely developed planet. They're the only humans in the entire world, but strange things begin to happen and secrets about Lilac's father's company are slowly revealed while the two of them struggle to survive.

Review: You guys, this book is what Beautiful Creatures should have been. What?, you're saying to me, Beautiful Creatures is not science fiction.

Yes, I know. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the written-by-two-authors-with-two-equally-important-protagonists thing. This book does it right. Why, you ask? Because Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner understand that with two authors and two leads, it makes so much more sense to tell the story from two points of view. I don't know how they broke it down, if one author wrote Tarver and one author wrote Lilac, or if they split it a different way, but I don't care-- because it's obvious that they worked together on this.

The chapters alternate between Tarver's point of view and Lilac's, but you don't have that sense of constantly being jolted between the two, right when you were getting into the flow of one character's narration. It's done cohesively, and the scenes are written such that it makes sense for Tarver to narrate this scene and for Lilac to narrate that scene, or vice versa. There are no chapters where you go, man, I wish I were in the other character's head for this part, the way I did for oh, 95 percent of Beautiful Creatures, wherein every chapter is all-Ethan-all-the-time despite the fact that Lena is by far the more captivating character.

But I digress.

These Broken Stars is not your average science fiction novel. It sparkles. It's sparkly. I don't know how else to describe it. And, boys, if you're reading this, stop making that face. Sparkles do not a girly book make. There are spaceships and aliens and soldiers and vast amounts of sarcasm here, too. The girl in the dress on the cover is just that: a girl in a dress. I've never known a boy to hate girls in dresses in real life, so I'll never understand why they avoid books with girls in dresses.

The characters in this book are few, I will say, but they are vivid and dynamic and they have so many facets that you don't need any more characters. Lilac is privileged and occasionally shallow, yes, but she is also whip-smart and fiercely protective of the people she loves. She knows more about the technology of her world than just about anyone, and she's an equal match for Tarver, the war hero who knows more about survival than just about anyone. Tarver is sarcastic; he doesn't respond well to stupid questions, and his mental quips about Lilac will get you through the first half (maybe less) of the book while the two still mostly dislike each other.

My favorite thing about Lilac is that she could have been entirely selfish, having been raised in a privileged environment where she was coddled by everyone who dared to get to know her, but she isn't. She is, for the most part, selfless-- and not in that Bella way that makes her entirely useless. She has intelligence to back up her selflessness; when she needs to help someone, when for any reason someone is counting on her for their survival, she knows how to handle the situation. Girlfriend gets things done.

My favorite thing about Tarver is that he can be both amusing and serious. After Lilac treats him like he doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as her, he thinks, "Duh, I should have known," but then he thinks about it some more and decides she does not have the right to treat him that way. He's respectful to her, but condescendingly so, which I love. Not knowing her motivations for her cruelty, he has every right to mentally complain and make jokes about being stuck with this girl on a strange planet with nobody else around. But at the same time, he expertly balances the fact that she saved his life before they got here with the fact that now it's up to him to keep her alive too.

As for the plot, well, honestly there's not much of it. It's a subtle thing that creeps along and builds tension and then explodes in your face (it's a contained explosion), but for the most part of the book it's a whisper in your ear. It's something that demands your attention, but you can't really say why. All you know is that you want to keep reading. And the romance? Not really a slow-burn, but not really an insta-love situation either. Tarver and Lilac just work. They're a good team, and once they get past the I-hate-you, I-hate-you-more stage, it's actually endearing that the majority of the book focuses on their relationship.

I don't know where the next book is going from here, but I'm sure it will take me with it. I hope it shines with the same subtle intensity as this one, and I hope we get some more awesome characters like Tarver and Lilac. Sparkle on, Starbound series.

★★★★½

Review: Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan (spoiler-free)

A little story about the cover: I like my covers to match.
I was upset when I found out it would not match the first book.
I still like the original cover of Unspoken better, but am happy to accept this one.

Oh, lawd, this book broke me.

And put me back together.

And broke me again.

Several times.

What is there to say about Sarah Rees Brennan's writing that I didn't already say in my Unspoken review? The woman is hilarious. This book may be even funnier than Unspoken. But the woman is also evil, and Untold may also be even more heartbreaking.

Characters

I'm a sucker for a good character. Any good character, really. But these aren't just any good characters. You're going to wish you had a Kami Glass, Lady Sleuth, in your life. Kami is not only witty and entertaining, but she has the endearing quality of being so objective that she sees both the best and the possible worst in everyone. She's no damsel in distress, but she's not an invulnerable stone either. You're going to simultaneously want your own Jared Lynburn and hope that you never, ever get one. He's a bad boy but he doesn't really know why. He's full of anger and despair but also lightness and vulnerability similar to Kami's. You're even going to love the overly-boy-friendly Holly, who most other books would have turned into a teenaged nemesis in a frenzy of girl-hate. She's wide-eyed but also logical, friendly but also lonely. All of the characters are so beautifully complicated, I could go on and on, but I'll spare you. Just. Yes. Good.

The above is a direct quote from my Unspoken review. Every single sentence of that still applies, but this time I won't spare you. Because now I have to talk about Angela, Rusty and Ash too. I love Angela because she's a total badass without even trying-- no, really, she does not try. If there's something that Angela has to try to do, she does not do it (I had a kind friend point out that Angela and I are spirit sisters in that way). That's the Montgomery way. People are scared of Angela because one glare says she can end you and then immediately take a nap-- not because it took so much effort, but because being awake isn't really her thing. Angela likes having people scared of her, because it means they won't mess with the people she loves. Rusty is similar in that if you make him do a thing, he will request a snack and a nap. He takes exactly two things seriously: Angela and Kami. If you make one of them cry, he will punch you. And then he will make a joke about his dashing good looks and irresistible charm.

As for Ash, I was never quite sure how I felt about him before, but I know now. He is a beautiful squishable puppy dog. He is the non-Lynburn Lynburn, where Jared is the Lynburn non-Lynburn. Don't make that face at me! I am making sense!

Pacing, plot and all that good stuff

Well, I stayed up until 3:30a.m. to finish it. So.

The hacky sack

I already mentioned the breaking and the putting back together and the re-breaking. The hacky sack is back. Literary masochists, I call upon thee to preorder this book right now! You will not be disappointed! You'll laugh (a lot), you'll want to strangle some people (mostly Jared, "the most infuriating idiot in all the land"), you'll dance with glee and throw imaginary sparkles into the air because finally everything seems good and right, and then you'll realize there are too many pages left. Too many pages. TOO MANY PAGES.

And once again you'll be lying on the cold, hard ground, shaming no one but yourself because you knew SRB was trouble when she walked in. You let yourself hope for too much, and then she did that thing she does, because she gets her lifeblood from your tears.

But it was fun, and I'd do it again. And not just for the part where Jared and Ash both decide they want Rusty.

★★★★★

Review: Icons

Welp, that happened. Unfortunately.

It's always interesting to see how an author fares as a solo act when for so long she has been part of a team-- and a rather popular team, at that. I wanted to know if I'd like Margaret Stohl's writing on its own, not because I was such a huge fan of Beautiful Creatures, but because I was not. I was expressly indifferent (even antagonistic, sometimes) toward that series and toward MC Ethan in particular, and I wanted this to be more up my alley. I wanted to like a story told by Margie Stohl because I have met her and she is awesome.

Alas, you don't always get what you want.

It's hard to review Icons because it didn't really even feel like a story to me. It felt like a bunch of characters thrown into a situation they didn't understand, with some people tossing facts at them until suddenly they think they've got it all figured out. I, however, still don't have anything figured out. What are the Icons, exactly? Why did the House of Lords come? Why are they called that? Why does the Embassy work with them? What are they doing that is so horrible it incites a Rebellion, and why have they gotten away with it for so long? What does any of it have to do with Dol's and Ro's and Tima's and Lucas's powers?* These questions should have been answered in book one. Book two should be about progressing the story along, not filling us in on the background information that the first book left out. This book does a horrible job of explaining itself, to the point where I was so confused I felt like I was trying to swim to the surface of the ocean with no knowledge of which direction was up. I wanted to just give up, stop swimming, see if maybe I'd float to the top somehow despite the fact that I'd been down so long that all the air was gone from my lungs. Holy extended metaphor, Batman. I'm just trying to give you a sense of how I felt reading this book-- that it was neverending and even a little suffocating.

[*It's possible that if I read the book again, I'd find the answers to at least some of these questions. But I am not going down the read-a-book-a-second-time-to-see-if-you-like-it-better road again.]

I haven't read very many alien books, so I can't tell you which ones come out on top of this one, but I can tell you that there are many of them. Even as someone whose experience with alien books pretty much starts and ends with The Host, the concept behind Icons did not seem groundbreaking to me. Coupled with the snoozefest of a narrator and the barely-interesting other main characters, that pretty much makes this a no-go for me. I didn't like it. 

I give this two stars because I did start to care a little about the characters toward the end. Lucas, especially. I have a soft spot for the morally confused, the ones who are torn between two different versions of right and wrong. Dol got a whole lot more empowered and became less of a looking glass in the last few chapters, too, at which point I breathed a sigh of relief. I saw what Ro and Lucas saw in her (and no, you're not going to see me complaining about the love triangle. They happen; get over it). Also I was told Ro underwent some kind of "change" that made him more endearing, but I would've preferred to be shown this change, because I don't actually know what it was. And Tima-- well, Tima was always pretty awesome. If a little obsessive and weird.

Can't say I'd recommend this one for fans of alien invasions; instead, I predict that I'll end up recommending The 5th Wave, which grabbed me more in the first page than Icons did in the whole book.

★★☆☆☆

Book Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Guys. GUYS.

This is going to be another one of those times when I completely gush about a new book and say just about nothing negative in regard to it, because it is PERFECTION. Five stars, again. And trust me, it's really hard to get 5 stars from me. Yes, this is going to end up being one of those books that I put on a pedestal and turn all red in the face if ever I see or hear a negative word about it.

So this is a little backward, but The Raven Boys was my first Maggie Stiefvater book. I've never read the Shiver series, and I own The Scorpio Races but haven't read that yet either. So I went into this book completely blind and not really knowing what to expect. But HOLY CRAP is my mind blown. I'm writing this review two days after finishing the book because I've been having trouble even forming the right words.

Let me just organize my thoughts into categories here. Of course, I must start with my most important category:

CHARACTERS

The characters in this book are some of the best I've ever encountered. Like, they're so flawed and real but also still characters in the sense that they're exciting and new, and can't really be compared to anyone in real life. Of course these are just vague descriptions of a bunch of characters, so I'll go character-by-character.

First, there's the main character, Blue. I just love her. She doesn't take crap from anyone. She has a pretty leash-free relationship with her mother, and doesn't really listen even when her mother does tell her what to do. She stands up to the macho raven boys with a quick wit and no fear, which would be impressive even if she weren't a mere five feet tall. She isn't too keen on doing what's expected of her, but she always does the sensible thing. It's almost like she thinks about her feelings even more than she actually feels them, because she likes to be in control of them.

Then there's Gatsb-- I mean Gansey (sorry, my brain has involuntarily made connections between Gatsby and Gansey). I hardly even know how to explain what a perfect character he is, because he's so complicated and unexpected. Imagine meeting a guy who's been filthy rich his whole life. He goes to an all-boys' private school, uses his money to get what he wants, and condescends to people who aren't as rich as him. But the thing is, the condescension is completely unintentional. He doesn't realize he's doing it. And his relationship with money isn't quiet so simple either-- it's not just that he has so much of it that he doesn't think twice about throwing it at anyone who can do something for him; it's that he's never known any different. He's jealous of the people who haven't had money their whole lives, because he secretly wants to be normal. Sure, he's in-control, suave, confident Gansey. But he's also just Gansey, the boy who wants to carve his own path. The boy who gets excited about things, who wishes he hadn't been raised to use three- and four-syllable words that nobody else knows, or cherish ridiculous things like fancy cars and glass plates, or ride in private helicopters without realizing that it's a little excessive. And he cares so much about his motley little group of friends, because of the feeling he got when he met each of them-- that it was just right. He may seem like the type whose head guides his every move, but Gansey's heart is what really does it.

Then we've got Nic-- I mean Adam. The level-headed, "elegant"-looking kid from the not-a-trailer park, whose private school sweater has a pull on the shoulder because he can't afford a new one. The most trustworthy one for Blue, it seems, but oh, did I mention these characters are complicated? Yes, Adam has a dark side. I won't tell you what it is, but he's both the most innocent and down-to-earth raven boy of the bunch and possibly the most off-his-rocker. Gansey is the leader of the group, but Adam is the only one to whom Gansey ever defers. He respects Adam's opinions on all things, and Adam forces himself to see the best in Gansey, reminding himself that he doesn't mean to be condescending. His devotion is tested and tested again, and the beautiful thing is that I can't tell you it's never broken. Adam is not flawless, he has his weak moments, and he's all the more perfect because of it.

Then there's Ronan. The brute who nurses a baby raven back to health. The raven named Chainsaw who has also made appearances in his dreams, because his head is only a safe place for a chainsaw. He's got a secret and we don't know what it is. He seems tough and heartless, but he's also the person who tried to teach Gansey how to fight to protect himself, and the person who defended Adam in a situation when nobody else would dare get involved. Mostly in the first book Ronan is a mystery, but I have a feeling we'll be learning a lot more about him in the next one.

Then you've got a bunch of eccentric supporting characters, and I'll just say that you hardly even have to look to see who's talking because you can tell just by what they're saying. Which is a feat in itself.

PLOT

The plot in this book is extremely twisty and confusing and I wouldn't have it any other way. It was impossible to guess what was going to happen, because half the time you're still trying to figure out what just happened. You're waiting for Blue's prophecy (that her kiss will kill her true love) to come true, but at the same time it's possible that you've already seen it. You're wondering if she's really going to fall in love with Gansey (sure seems like it), or if that was a misdirect. You're wondering what's going on in the magical world and what it has to do with the real world. My favorite thing is looking for connections in stories, and this book gives me a whole crapload of that. So I'm happy.

ROMANCE

IT IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. Do not go into this book thinking it will be a romance novel, because you will be doing yourself a serious disservice. Yes, the main hook is the whole thing about Blue being destined to kill her true love, but it is not about the romance. At least not in the first book. In this one, Blue starts seeing Adam, and it's completely innocent and adorable but it also has dark undertones because Adam's got some issues that Blue doesn't know about, and Blue knows that she's either going to kill Gansey or fall in love with him. Her relationship with Adam, believe it or not, allows her relationship with Gansey to develop, because she gets to spend time with him as friends. She gets to learn about who he really is before simply assuming that she's going to fall in love with him. It gets to be her choice (no insta-love!!!!!!!!). Gansey becomes the only person she tells about the prophecy, because at this point, to her, he seems so detached from it. I felt like this was the perfect way to start their relationship without really starting it-- and without really confirming that there will even be a relationship.

SETTING

Unique, interesting, transporting, clear, and kind of a character in itself.

WRITING

Beautiful. Flawless. More, please.

I think I'm going to stop myself before this becomes ridiculously long and gushy. I just had to say something because I can't stop thinking about this book and these characters and their relationships and okay bye.

★★★★★

Book Review: Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan

You know how in every teen movie ever, there's always that party that gets way out of hand and giant dudes end up throwing around breakable things with no concern for their fragility? And 9 out of 10 times, that thing ends up smashed to bits? Well, Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan is a pair of giant dudes, and my heart is that breakable thing.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I think you should read the book. HEY, don't give me that look. I'm not crazy. I want you to read it because, sure, I am selfish and do not like to be alone in my misery. But also because I am selfless and want other people to experience good things. And Unspoken is a good thing. A very good thing. And also a thing that will use your feelings like a hacky sack. But let's start with the good things first:

HUMOR

This was, without a doubt, the first time I've laughed hysterically at a book (for what is probably not considered a normal amount of time) since I read the animal crackers scene in The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. And I still have times when I think about that scene at any random moment in the middle of the day and turn into one of those crazy people who seems to be laughing for no reason at all. So yeah. This book is funny (even if you don't have the memory of Sarah unbuttoning her cardigan whilst doing a dramatic reading from it, as I so vividly do). My favorite spoiler-free hilarity:

Kami strode through a froth of daisies to a half-fallen wall that might once have been part of a fortress, but was now a tumble of stones studded with spiky yellow blooms. She bent down, rummaging in the wild tangle of garden around her feet, and chose a pebble. A large pebble. Kami wound her arm back, took careful aim, and threw.
The "pebble" crashed through both glass and curtain.
There was the creak of an old sash window being thrust open, and Jared's head and shoulders appeared at the window. "Hark," he said, his tone very dry. "What stone through yonder window breaks?"
Kami yelled up at him, "It is the east, and Juliet is a jerk!"
*pause to get laughter under control* [I mean, she just smashed his window open and he pulls out Romeo & Juliet?!]
Jared abandoned Shakespeare and demanded, "What do you think you're doing?"
"Throwing a pebble," said Kami defensively. "Uh... and I'll pay for the window."
Jared vanished and Kami was ready to start shouting again, when he reemerged with the pebble clenched in his fist. "This isn't a pebble! This is a rock."
"It's possible that your behavior has inspired some negative feelings that caused me to pick a slightly overlarge pebble," Kami admitted. 

CHARACTERS

I'm a sucker for a good character. Any good character, really. But these aren't just any good characters. You're going to wish you had a Kami Glass, Lady Sleuth, in your life. Kami is not only witty and entertaining, but she has the endearing quality of being so objective that she sees both the best and the possible worst in everyone. She's no damsel in distress, but she's not an invulnerable stone either. You're going to simultaneously want your own Jared Lynburn and hope that you never, ever get one. He's a bad boy but he doesn't really know why. He's full of anger and despair but also lightness and vulnerability similar to Kami's. You're even going to love the overly-boy-friendly Holly, who most other books would have turned into a teenaged nemesis in a frenzy of girl-hate. She's wide-eyed but also logical, friendly but also lonely. All of the characters are so beautifully complicated, I could go on and on, but I'll spare you. Just. Yes. Good.

PACING, PLOT & ALL THAT GOOD STUFF

Do not put this book down. It will start making irresistible weepy noises and begging you to come back to it.

You want an awesome concept for a book? Imaginary friend turns out to be real. He's got a weird family. Murders (both human and fuzzy woodland creature-- oh yes, she went there) abound and you think his weird family has something to do with it. Oh, and there's some weird magicky thing happening in the woods, and someone's trying to kill you. You know.

THE HACKY SACK

So, if you're one of those literary masochists (like me), who are not complete until a book has turned you into a puddle of emotions on the floor, I HAVE GOOD NEWS. The end of this book had me unable to form a coherent sentence about it for going on 3 hours. You see, throughout the whole thing, there are ups and downs-- moments that kind of lift you up and make you squee like a schoolgirl, followed by moments that throw that squee out the window and run it over with a large sedan. But nothing will prepare you for the end, when *something* happens and you're like FINALLY and you're walking on clouds and life is wonderful and you're about to slide down a rainbow and then suddenly it's all gone and there is nothing left and, nope, there's no parachute to soften this blow, so you're hurtling to the cold, hard earth that is the end of the book. And then, as my friend Will Herondale would say, you're left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember your own name.*

STOP READING THIS AND BUY IT

No, really. That's all I have to say about it. I hope I sold you on the book, and I hope you love it. But mostly, I hope you fangirl and commiserate with me.

★★★★★

*- I have found this phrase can apply to many different situations. For instance, Will used it to indicate how charmed Aloysius Starkweather would be by him. I have just used it to indicate how broken you will be by the end of this book. Just saying, it's a very versatile phrase.

Book Review: A Long, Long Sleep

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

I don't generally write reviews of books I didn't absolutely love or absolutely hate, but this one is on both ends of the spectrum for me. I'll start with the things I hated:

The main character: Okay, I realize that a lot of the things Rose feels and the way she deals with situations can be chalked up to things that are entirely not her fault, but I can't help wanting to smack her in the face a little bit. For at least the first 150 pages she's a whiny, self-loathing ninny. She literally falls for the first boy she sets her eyes on. I guess all of this could stem from the fact that this is sort of a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but really? Of all the things about a fairy tale that could've been changed, you chose to retain the meek, passive heroine?

The "science fiction": I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the author is not by any means a scientist. I had a lot of trouble getting past all the new technology, as it seemed to arise with convenience rather than with the setting, and the whole entire concept of the "Dark Times." It would have made sense to leave the "Dark Times" as merely an economic phenomenon, but it also included the resurrection of the Bubonic Plague and tuberculosis? If the science in this future society is so advanced, why are they even less capable than we are of containing diseases? I mean, the Plague is nothing by today's standards. Isolate, treat, prevent. I rolled my eyes and began skimming the pages at every mention of the Dark Times.

Overdescription: I skimmed so much of this book, and I don't feel like I've missed anything. There are pages upon pages of Rose considering her life, her options, and explaining her exact thought processes. This slowed down the most action-intense moments of the book and made me completely uninterested in what was happening.

Now on to what I actually liked:

The other characters: Namely, Xavier, Bren, and Otto. Although I feel like Bren and Otto could have been combined into one person, they still stick out to me as characters all their own. Xavier was a consistent character who I was always rooting for, even when I got to the bittersweet end of the story. I loved his passion, how he was the only person who knew about Rose's life and how screwed up her parents were, and he actually fought for her. He wanted better for her than she thought she deserved, and he was the one who turned her into someone willing to fight for herself. And the thing was, he didn't stop after they "broke up," or when they couldn't be together again. He was still the same person 62 years later, except the life he wanted for himself had been taken away, so he was a more hardened version of the Xavier Rose knew before. Believable. Heartbreaking. Necessary.

The ending: I know the ending scheeved a lot of people out and, yes, it certainly left me thinking "What in the world did I just experience?!" But at the same time, I really enjoyed it. Rose finally gives herself a little credit, and the repetition of "for now" at the end is the perfect way to set up for the next book. I may actually check the sequel out even though I didn't particularly like this book, just because finally I can deal with the main character. And I'd like to see where things are going.