Review: Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch

these covers are so beautiful

★★★☆☆

source: ARC from HarperCollins

publication: October 13, 2015, Balzer + Bray

**all quotes are from the uncorrected proof**

I gave both Snow Like Ashes and Ice Like Fire 3 stars, but I gave them each 3 stars for different reasons. The reasons for book 1 can be found here, but basically it was 1. The book was too surface level, 2. It was predictable, and 3. I didn't love the love interests.

Somehow, I didn't have these problems with Ice Like Fire. I still didn't love either Theron or Mather, but we get chapters from one of their POVs in this one (would it be a spoiler to say who? I'll refrain) and it made me like him much, much more. He wasn't a Peeta or a Will, but he was kind of a Mal (Mal haters to the left ok he's fantastic and you're wrong) or a Dorian (my preciousss). I picked a side in this love triangle, and sorry to those who like the other guy but that pretty much means she's going to end up with him. I always pick the right one—it's a special skill. *shrugs*

BUT ANYWAY. That's not to say this book didn't make me want to smash my head against something hard, because it did. Probably even more so than the first book. Namely, Meira: she was insufferable, and I don't make blanket negative statements about female characters unless I've thought it through. A lot. I loved Meira in book one. Girlfriend got stuff done and didn't care what anyone told her to do. But in Ice Like Fire, she's invented all this pressure on herself to be a Queen with a capital Q, the type of Queen all other Queens have been in the past, which is to say: nothing like Meira, the orphan. She still wants to be herself and is struggling to balance the two, but the struggle comes off more as incessant whining about not being allowed to be herself. Newsflash, Meira, YOU ARE THE QUEEN. NO ONE OUTRANKS YOU. YOU CAN BE WHOMEVER YOU DARN WELL PLEASE. You can be the queen who carries a chakram, or scales walls, or refuses to ally with morally reprehensible people. You can be the queen who changes people's conception of what a queen should be. Say it with me: I. AM. THE. QUEEN.

Now, let's talk about the plot. Meira is sent off with Theron to do something or other, and along the way she decides to make allies with the other kingdoms. Now, I get why she wants to do this, but I don't think I needed to read about it. It could have been something that happened between the books and was summarized at the beginning of book 2, for all I cared about how she made her allies. It's not like she's preparing for war and facing enemies left and right; she's just looking for people to support her in making Winter independent. The whole process was super boring. Don't even talk to be about the magic, because if we start talking about the magic I'll start thinking about how convoluted it is and then I'll start thinking about how there are too many kingdoms to keep track of and do they all have magic or is it just some of them and why doesn't Meira just use her magic against her enemies like what is even the point of having it if you're just going to sit around wishing there was no such thing as magic and could we just cut out like half of the things that are going on in these books or

Ahem. So, my next gripe is with the clunky writing. There are so many extra words in every paragraph, I could probably go through it with a red pen and make the book at least 20% shorter. Gems like "he lays his lips across mine" could be shortened to something like "he kisses me" because honestly everyone freaking knows what kissing is you don't need to spell it out like that (it kind of takes the romance out of it, too, when you make it sound like something he could have done accidentally). There are a lot of words that feel like they were taken from a thesaurus to sound prettier but they end up just sounding wrong. There's too much description of what things look like and not enough of how they make the characters feel. Half of the book feels like it's Meira seeing stuff and discovering stuff and experiencing stuff but not actually doing stuff.

To end on a positive note, I will say that I loved the Other Character's POV chapters (it was weird that they were in 3rd person past tense when Meira's are in 1st person present tense, but whatever). I liked what he was doing and how it showed his character. I liked the ending of this book, because finally we got a little lasting conflict between the characters instead of the kingdoms. There was an emotional bit toward the end that actually made me feel things, which never happened in Snow Like Ashes. Should I be hopeful that the third book will have more stuff like this, since it came at the end of the second? Who knows. But I might as well read it.

Review: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

★★★★☆

source: galley from Random House

publication: May 19, 2015, Del Rey

I'm just going to do a mini-review of this one because there's not really much I can add to the myriad of fantasy authors who have already put their stamp of approval on this book.

Firstly, I think getting as many fantasy authors as they did to blurb this book was a bit of overkill. It ramped up my expectations too much—which, maybe, was my fault for being an easy mark, but still. None of this is to say I didn't like the book, because I did, but it dragged a bit for me, especially toward the end.

I absolutely loved the first half of Uprooted. I loved the character development and being able to see where Agnieszka might go in terms of her character and her power. I loved her friendship with Kasia and that comedically tense relationship she had with the Dragon at first. I loved that that relationship changed in nature but stayed the same, how the two of them grew to respect each other but still bickered, her stubbornness and smiles coming up against his obstinance and scowls. One reviewer on here complained about the Dragon's personality, but I found him entertaining and endearing (and their relationship is definitely not unhealthy. *eyeroll*). He is my kind of character, especially when paired with someone as indefatigable as Agnieszka.

All of this said, the second half of the book became a bit of a chore for me. I would put it down after a chapter and not pick it up again for a week. I can't tell you how many other books I finished while I was trying to get through the second half of this one. Maybe it's personal preference, but the secondary characters made this novel less enjoyable for me, and distracted me to the point where I didn't really know what was going on anymore. I would read entire pages and then have to read them again because I felt like my eyes had glazed over them without comprehending. Possibly the most frustrating part was that I knew how the book was going to end, and I almost didn't feel the need to find out how it would get there.

I really liked the magic in this story, how it felt so very tied to the land and the people. It almost seemed more like magical realism than high fantasy for me, which is why I feel like the political things got in the way—especially since I didn't care about the characters involved in the politics. Heavy political elements usually work in high fantasy novels, and I am all about it when characters I adore get swept up into such games, but I'm not so interested when it's about a prince who almost raped the main character. I don't care about who is king when, no matter what, he's going to be the kind of idiot who argues with an ancient wizard about the ancient magic that's coming to destroy his kingdom.

That's not to say they ruined the story; they just didn't help me connect with it. Which was fine, I guess, because I had no problem connecting with the other aspects of it. The writing is fantastic: beautiful and accessible at the same time, and again, Agnieszka is an awesome protagonist. The Dragon and Kasia—oh, Kasia, how do I love thee? let me count the ways—are just the kind of people a story like this needs.

Overall I would say this novel definitely recalls a more classic fantasy style, and if you're into any of the authors whose blurbs surely can't all fit on the cover, you'll love it. Come for the magic, stay for the main characters.

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: the Summer series by Jenny Han

I just read this entire series over the past 48 hours because it's the end of February and I'm so tired of cold and ice and snow that I needed summer.

Which is funny, because I had been saving this series for when it was actually summer so that I wouldn't die from longing.

I'm gonna break this review down by each book, since I didn't give any two of them the same rating. You'll notice that overall, the series kind of fizzled out for me.

The Summer I Turned Pretty ★★★★★

I really loved this book, you guys. It was perfectly light and fun and cute, but it also had a lot of heart that I don't think very many books like this get enough credit for. Belly is a perfectly relatable character, and honestly I wasn't even expecting to like her. The main reason I decided to buy this series in the first place was because so many reviews on Goodreads had called her annoying and insufferable—which are not the kind of words that compel most people to read a book, but I love buying books to spite reviewers who call the female protagonists "annoying." Annoying is not a meaningful criticism, and it's used toward girls almost exclusively; I can only think of one book I've seen whose male protagonist has been called "annoying" in a review. (It is so rare, in fact, for a male character to be referred to this way that I actually remember the exact book: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss)

So anyway, I went into this book expecting Belly to be, much as I hate the word, annoying. I expected whiny and selfish and indecisive, but what I got instead was a normal teenage girl. Belly felt so real to me; I was nothing like her in high school, really (she is much more of a wide-eyed idealist than sarcastic, analytic me ever was), but I related to her as a girl whose family was important to her. I related to her as a girl who didn't like that growing up meant things had to change, and as a girl who both wanted people to see her differently and dreaded it at the same time.

Plus, there's the setting. My god, did I want Belly's life. The beach house, the traditions, the way it all felt like it could have been part of my own childhood even though I spent my summers nowhere near a beach, and the boys. I was fascinated by Belly's relationships with all three of the boys—Conrad, Jeremiah, and her brother Steven. And to be clear, she could never have had those relationships with them if she had been any different, if she had been less "annoying." Because being "annoying" to the boys was how she got to know them so well. It was how they developed their actual relationships instead of just having crushes on each other. If she had been quiet or aloof all those years, Conrad and Jeremiah would have had crushes on her the whole time, and it would have been over before it started.

Which brings me to my last point: the romance. Not romanceS. It's pretty clear in this book that Belly has eyes for only one boy, no matter how much she tries to convince herself she's into someone else. And I'm usually pretty good at picking the boy that the girl will end up with, but the little details about Conrad were so well-done that I totally believed in Belly's love for him even if I didn't understand him at all:

Conrad got up early to make a special belated Father's Day breakfast, only Mr. Fisher hadn't been able to come down the night before. He wasn't there the next morning the way he was supposed to be. Conrad cooked anyway, and he was thirteen and a terrible cook, but we all ate it. Watching him serving rubbery eggs and pretending not to be sad, I thought to myself, I will love this boy forever.

I mean, the boy is super closed-off and quiet and Belly might not be able to tell what's going on in his mind, but she notices things about him that completely justify her endless, occasionally hopeless crush. She kind of has a knack for seeing the good in everyone, honestly, but especially Conrad.

And let me just mention that in this book, it was clear that Conrad was the one who had always looked out for her, treated her like an actual person instead of just a little sister. Jeremiah didn't, no matter how much he'll pretend he did in the following books.

It's just. Ugh. This book—actually, the whole series—is so full of those moments, you know? The ones that make you go, Yes. This.

The ending of the book was perfect and probably could have stood alone.

It's Not Summer Without You ★★★★☆

I was disappointed to find out that her relationship with Conrad had slowly imploded, but then I thought, Well, Jenny Han is the master of the teenage crush. Maybe that's her thing. I was sucked back into Belly's feelings for Conrad independent of their failed relationship, and no matter how much of a jerk Conrad was being. Which, ahem: colossal jerk. *glares at Conrad*

And in comes Jeremiah, who we know has feelings for Belly now that she's pretty (harsh? oops), but who doesn't do anything about it until the book is almost over because he knows, he knows that she'll always choose Conrad. When he finally did act on his feelings, I was kind of like, Well, aren't you a glutton for punishment. Because, like I said, he KNOWS SHE WILL ALWAYS CHOOSE CONRAD.

I lost a bit of the respect I had for Jeremiah in this book because, while he spent most of the book acting the way one should when one is rejected, he eventually went back to trying to avoid the friendzone at all costs. Which, no.

I still loved this as the second book in the series; it kept me interested in the characters and where they were going, but I felt like it didn't answer quite enough questions, especially about Conrad. I assumed he acted the way he did because of Susannah dying, but I think the book needed his point of view more than it needed Jeremiah's. I got tired of reading about Conrad from everyone's perspective but his own, especially when they didn't understand him either.

Throw in Belly's apparent lack of romantic interest in Jeremiah until the very moment he kisses her and not only did I feel out of the loop, but I felt uncomfortable too.

Buuuuut a few things saved the book from a 3-star rating: Belly's missing Susannah (the part where she wanted to talk about the boys but not with her mom, and all she wanted was Susannah, ugh); the moments when Belly and Conrad were together and being nice to each other; and Belly's mom totally pwning Mr. Fisher.

We'll Always Have Summer ★★★☆☆

3 stars, for me, usually means "It was okay," or "I didn't really like it." Honestly, this book just confirmed my suspicion that The Summer I Turned Pretty didn't need sequels. It felt a little superfluous and a lot ridiculous.

Because Belly and Jeremiah have been in a relationship for 2 years, and then she finds out that he cheated on her (kind of), and then to make it up to her, he proposes??!?!?

AND SHE SAYS YES????!!!!

Like, what the actual f. I'm sorry, but this makes no sense. Is she really so desperate to become a Fisher that she'd marry the wrong brother (she knows he's the wrong one, let's be real), who she knows cheated on her, and whose faults she's been picking at incessantly? He orders the most expensive dinner. He snores when he's drunk, which is too often. He doesn't take his life seriously enough. Etc. etc.

Belly did not actually, legitimately annoy me until this book, but what annoyed me more was that the entire plot revolved around wedding planning. Which is not interesting to anyone except the people actually doing the planning—honestly, this is what I'm the most angry about. Too much of this book centered on caterers and invitations and the fricking carrot/chocolate raspberry cake, I almost went out of my mind.

And then there's Conrad, who's no longer being a total jerk and it's clear that Belly still has feelings for him, and yet she keeps stringing Jeremiah along and Jeremiah knows it, and nobody is doing anything about anything. Conrad is the only person in this book who did the right thing, and he ends up being depicted as the bad guy because the truth happened to break up the wedding???

There should have been more Conrad chapters because I was just so fed up with everyone else. Maybe then we could have seen more of his life in the past two years and why he never stopped loving Belly and how hard it was for him to be away while Jeremiah and Belly saw each other every day. We could have found out sooner why he pushed her away.

Anyway, the book was still written by Jenny Han so it was still good—like, the characters stayed true to themselves (mostly. I feel like Jeremiah acted a little out of character sometimes—petty toward Conrad and dismissive toward Belly), and I'm still in love with the insights and the setting and all that. I loved when Conrad talked to Laurel for Belly because it was one of those Yes, this moments, and I loved that Belly and Taylor were so close in this one.

But. Jeremiah deserved to be kicked where it hurts, Belly needed to be slapped upside the head, and that epilogue needed more build-up. If you ask me, the first half of the book should've been the almost-wedding, and then there should've been more of Belly and Conrad's relationship leading up to their actual wedding. It's not that it was too vague; it's that I didn't get to see any of the good stuff.

Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

I don't even need to add a caption about how beautiful that cover is.
You see it. You know its beauty.

★★★☆☆
source: galley from HarperCollins
publication: February 10, 2015, HarperTeen

I'm struggling with a solid rating on this one because, while there were elements of the book that I hated and almost couldn't tolerate, I liked it overall. I will read the next one. I will probably buy the book in hardcover because a) my ARC is a bit beat-up, and b) The hardcover is shiny. We all know how I love a shiny cover.

But. Here we go.

I've seen a lot of people on Goodreads talking about how similar the plot synopsis of Red Queen sounds to Red Rising. I haven't read Red Rising yet, so I can't speak to that, but I can speak to a similarity that I did notice that no one else has mentioned:

The bones of this book, a lot of the elements that kept the plot moving forward, are straight from The Hunger Games. At first I thought, "Okay, maybe it just starts out sounding like District 12, and then the main character leaves and it turns into something else." But no. The parallels became so consistent and obvious that I started a list of them in my phone:

We start out with main character Mare, who earns for her family by doing something illegal, much the way Katniss earns for hers by hunting illegally. Mare's method of choice is thievery, and her partner in crime is her best friend Kilorn, who she also seems to kind of hate at first. She thinks he's useless or something. There's even a Greasy Sae character, Will, who buys the things she steals in exchange for things her family actually needs.

Mare is jealous of her sister, Gisa, the less prickly sister, but would also do anything to protect her. There we have our Prim character, who's mostly just in the beginning of the story, of course. There's also a conscription that serves as a kind of Reaping, because it takes teenagers from their families to go fight for the government, and arenas where Silvers (upper class people with silver blood and powers) fight /almost/ to the death, but luckily they have people who can heal them. 

Mare gets plucked out of her impoverished life to live with the royal family and, when it's discovered that she has powers even though she's a Red, she is betrothed to the younger prince and forced to pretend that she wants it. Enter, fake romance to please the masses. We've got the rebels who tell Mare that they need her, that she is their only hope, and they even use the words "face of the revolution." They tell her she doesn't understand what she could do with them, much like how Peeta says that Katniss "has no idea, the effect she can have," and they use the metaphor of a drop that breaks the dam instead of a spark that starts the inferno. Change the metaphor all you want, but it's still the same.

Moving along, we have someone telling Mare that she is a pawn in someone else's game, which is a similarity that I probably don't even need to explain. We've got Mare's etiquette coach who doesn't get a lot of screen time but is clearly the Effie Trinket in this scenario, and her trainer, Julian, also known as Haymitch Abernathy. When the royal family leaves court to return home, they gather crowds and force them to listen to speeches, while Peacekeepers—I mean officers—beat anyone who steps out of line or causes a disruption. Victory tour, anyone?

Later, we are tricked into thinking that the rebels brought Mare and Maven to die in a radiation-soaked, abandoned area, only to find out—surprise! It's not dangerous or abandoned at all. It's rebel headquarters, and they've been manipulating the technology to make it look too dangerous to inhabit. This is presumably where the next book, Red Mockingjay, will take place, while the rebels tell Mare what to do and she begins to question their scruples.

And for one last nugget, someone takes a suicide pill on page 320. Because making it a poisonous berry would have been too obvious.

Listen. I didn't go into this book looking to find these parallels. I hadn't seen anyone else compare the book to The Hunger Games and I still haven't. I wish I could have stopped seeing it, but to do that, I would've had to stop reading.

I'm not saying that any of this was done on purpose, but I am saying that it is bad writing. It's bad writing to be unaware that you're ripping off one of the most popular series in the same age bracket as the book you're writing. It's almost worse than being aware that you're doing it, because it shows carelessness.

In fact, the writing is careless all around. It's heavy-handed and full of metaphors that don't work, descriptions that go on too long without managing to paint a vivid picture (because they're so chock full of metaphors that don't work), and hollow emotion. I remember one time specifically when Mare broke down crying for the first time, and I can't even remember what had happened or where in the book it was because I didn't believe the emotion behind it. A lot of Mare's reactions to things seemed to contradict her actual personality and beliefs, so much so that she seemed more indecisive than anything else. It became difficult to keep track of what she actually cares about; one minute she'll do anything to protect Gisa, then she's petty and jealous. One minute she's totally into Cal, then she hates him and Maven's her guy. She wants the Silvers to stop oppressing the Reds, sure, but she hesitates to do anything to make that happen if it means she has to hurt someone—even a Silver, all of whom she claims to despise. 

A few examples of this are: Mare decides she's willing to trade the Colonel's life for Cal's; Mare decides she's going to kill Cal herself; Mare doesn't trust Maven at first; Maven shows up at the Scarlet Guard meeting and Mare doesn't think maybe he's there as a spy for his mother?; Mare knows that the tax collector has to die for the cause and she's fine with it, but then she's sad that his hands will never touch hers again? Even though she's never met him before, doesn't know him, and has never touched his hands until now? And so on. She's so inconsistent with her feelings and her strategy that I did not understand what she was doing half the time.

Finally, my other issue with Mare is that she has no skills. Or at least, her skills are never utilized to their full potential. She discovers her lightning power and rather quickly masters it, but this power is not specific to her life the way Katniss's hunting skills are specific to hers. I wish that Mare would have used her thieving skills in combat somehow, tied her backstory up with the person she becomes, but instead she ends up dependent on her lightning and nothing else. Adapting her District 12 survival skills into arena survival skills is part of what makes Katniss such a well-developed character—not doing the same for Mare is a glaring missed opportunity.

Aveyard tries too hard to make her writing pretty, constantly repeating lines like "red as the dawn" and "the shadow to the flame" without realizing that half of them don't make sense. [Flames don't have shadows, they have reflections. They have light. You need something else, something blocking the flame, to create a shadow.] Some of the descriptive, figurative language works, but most of it feels weak and slippery; making sense of it is like trying to hold water in your hands: You think you've got it, but in the end it falls through your fingers. Most of the one-liners that are supposed to leave an impact would be effective if they did not get dragged out or if the author stopped trying to explain them so much. She doesn't leave a whole lot to the reader to figure out.

"The world is Silver, but it is also gray. There is no black-and-white."

Okay, fine. But... can I try something?

"The world is Silver, but it is also gray."

BAM. You don't need to tell me that the world being gray means there is no black-and-white, because a) Nobody ever said there was black-and-white, and b) I get it. Gray is gray. Gray is not black or white. Just the word "gray" carries with it the moral ambiguity that you're trying to get across. Leave the readers to work with connotations on their own! I picked this example by flipping to a random page, but it is by no means the only one—most of the figurative language, in fact, is written this way.

As for the plot, it was pretty conventional and I saw both of the plot twists coming before I was halfway done with the book, but I have no complaints past that. It's well-paced and I didn't think it was too light or silly to be taken seriously. Curiosity got me through a lot of it.

I'm not pandering when I say that I did like this book. It was entertaining and I liked that the characters had a semblance of moral ambiguity (even though it came across as moral inconsistency), and I'm interested in where it will go. I liked Cal because, what can I say, I'm a sucker for the boys with king potential and a lot of weight on their shoulders. But comparing this book to The Winner's Curse does no one any favors; it does not even come close to that level of complexity and strategy and emotional depth. It takes features from The Hunger Games but, unlike that series, doesn't have anything to say. This is definitely closer to the Selection end of the dystopia/fantasy spectrum, which is fine, but sometimes YA readers expect more. That's all I'm saying.

Review: The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

★★★☆☆

source: galley from Hachette

publication: June 2, 2015, Little, Brown

Summary: Elizabeth Grey is a witch hunter for the king—or rather, his uncle—until she is accused of witchcraft herself and sentenced to execution. When a rescuer comes to save her from the pyre and the jail fever that has taken hold of her, she discovers that he is none other than the most wanted wizard in the country. He brings her to his secret hideout, where she is thrown together with his band of rebels who want to see magic legalized, as it can be used for good, not just evil. Loyalties are questioned, secrets brought to light, and it's up to Elizabeth to save them all.

Review: I don't know if it's because I read too many fantasy/paranormal books in a row or if this one was actually as uninteresting as I thought it was, but I couldn't really get into it. It was fairly fast-paced and the concept intrigued me, but the execution fell flat.

First of all, it's set in the 1500s, which I was confused about until the date was finally mentioned toward the end of the book. I went into it assuming it was a medieval fantasy or set during the Salem Witch Trials, but the style of writing missed the mark for both of those. The author writes with modern language that clashes with the historical costumes, social constructs, and lack of electricity. Not to mention the specificity of the time period left me wondering whether the world was an alternate Europe or U.S. or if it's just completely made up? The mental images would not come.  Atmospheric, this book is not. And it should have been.

The main character, to me, was somewhat vanilla. For most of the plot, we have no idea why she is the one chosen to destroy the tablet and break Nicholas's curse, and it makes her seem like just another Special Snowflake YA protagonist. Nicholas might as well have told her, "You have to be the one to break the curse, because you're the main character."

Ultimately we learn why it was Elizabeth, but it was too little too late for me. Her romance with John was bland and undeveloped, and once again I felt like it was part of a formula for a marketable YA book. Don't get me wrong, I love and encourage YA romances when they're done right, but I'm beginning to tire of reading the ones that feel disingenuous or like they're part of a checklist to trick readers into getting emotionally invested. Like they're saying, "Look, readers! These characters care about each other so you should care about them, too!"

No.

I much prefer to care about the characters first and watch them grow into caring about each other.

I don't really have much else to say about this one. It was good enough. I gave it 3 stars. I'm not going to be raving about it on release week or expecting it to become the Next Big Thing, but it was an entertaining read when I managed to force myself to pick it up. The standalone factor might be my favorite thing about it.

Review: The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler

★★★★½
source: e-galley from Simon & Schuster
publication: June 2, 2015, Simon Pulse

Synopsis: Elyse d'Abreau was on the verge of stardom with her twin sister, Natalie, when a boating accident took her voice and sent Elyse fleeing her home of Tobago to live with her aunt and cousin in Atargatis Cove, Oregon. There she meets Christian Kane, infamous playboy and world-class charmer, who invites her to be first mate on his boat—which Elyse had been using as her hideout before he came back. He and his little brother, Sebastian, listen to Elyse more than anyone has since she lost her voice, and her relationship with Christian challenges her to get her voice back in whatever way she can.

Review: Okay, y'all, I'm gonna lay it down for you: this is Sarah Ockler's best book.

I don't know how I feel about that cover, frankly, because it doesn't do the book justice. Yes, this is a summer romance, but it is so much more than that. I appreciate that the cover did no whitewashing and that somehow it seems to reflect Elyse and Christian's silent communication, but when all is said and done it still looks like just another summer romance destined for the Pop Culture or Teen Romance section of your local Barnes & Noble.

And this book is way too important for that.

I've been a fan of Sarah Ockler for years; she is an auto-buy for me, but somehow I've never really read one of her books and thought, "This book is why I read contemporary." Twenty Boy Summer made me cry, sure, but I haven't picked it up since I finished reading it 3.5 years ago. Fixing Delilah was always my favorite of her books, but I still only gave it 4 stars. Bittersweet was the weakest for me, The Book of Broken Hearts didn't leave an impression, and #scandal was a solid comedic effort (not to sell it short, I laughed a lot reading that book, and swooned pretty hard too). 

The writing in The Summer of Chasing Mermaids so far surpasses any of the others that I found myself wondering where Ockler had been hiding it for so long. Poetic, lyrical, metaphorical, figurative: Lauren Oliver meets Deb Caletti meets freaking F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Yeah, I went there.

Elyse is a strong female character, but not in the Strong Female Character kind of way. She's vulnerable and weak and we find her in the midst of her greatest tragedy: losing her ability to sing. Not being able to sing has led Elyse to recede into herself, to stop being the Elyse she was before, to stop using her inner voice as well as the outer voice she's lost. The sea is part of her and the sea broke her, and she's left trying to reconcile those two facts in a way that will let her become whole again.

Aside from the writing, what I loved most about this book was the fact that a boy does not come along to make her whole again. Her relationship with him, it says right there in the book, isn't what saves her; it's what challenges her to save herself. She and she alone realizes that she's trapped herself by not letting go of the accident, by not even admitting to herself that she will never speak again. To paraphrase Queen Elsa, only once she lets it go can she rise like the break of dawn.

Er, you know. From the sea. Where she's been drowning.

The mythology in this book is so well crafted and well-researched and almost makes the book feel like magical realism, like maybe the Queen of Mermaids is real and she has taken Elyse's voice. Maybe she will take Elyse, too, and our heroine will become Christian's siren and it will all be very tragic and beautiful. Thankfully, no, it's just mythology, but I love that it made me think that way.

What makes this novel important? Not only does it sympathize with and empower people who have been silenced in general, but it addresses gender roles specifically. Elyse faces a lot of misogyny from powerful men about her being first mate on Christian's boat, but she does it anyway. Christian himself, bless him, makes a lovely joke about hitting his head on the way out of the time machine and not realizing he was back in the 1850s. His brother, Sebastian, loves mermaids and wants to walk in the mermaid festival, but those same powerful men tell him he can't because he's a boy. The patriarchy is good for no one, you guys. [ALSO, I've been saying for years that "What Would Tami Taylor Do?" should be everyone's life motto, so thank you, Sarah, for Vanessa's mom.]

It addresses parental expectations and the very YA themes of living within the limits your parents have given you, even when they're telling you to grow up and be independent. It's that uncertain middle area when your life is still ultimately decided by the people who raised you but you're starting to break free of the mold they've created for you. Christian doesn't agree with or even like his parents, but at the same time he understands and respects them. His father tells him to prove himself and then takes away all the resources he needs to do so. It's one of the most direct approaches to this theme that I've ever read, but it works because it feels so real. A signature of being a young adult these days is that you're expected to leave home by a certain age but a college education doesn't guarantee you a job anymore, and it's nearly impossible to live on your own, and so many parents think that it's a reasonable expectation because they did it way back when. "Climb that mountain," the world demands, as it locks our climbing equipment behind a door whose key is at the top of the mountain.

My only issue with the book is that it may have dragged on a bit just before the regatta race; it felt like Elyse's hesitations and questions were starting to be so repeated that she herself should have been asking why she hadn't done something about it. I have felt this way about Ockler's books before, though, and it's really not a big deal in comparison to how much I loved this book overall.

Elyse might not have a singing voice anymore, but her poetry and her bond with the sea and her resilience were like music, a song that will speak to something in everyone.

"When one dream burns to ash, you don't crumble beneath it. You get on your hands and knees, and you sift through those ashes until you find the very last ember, the very last spark.
Then you breathe.
You fucking breathe."

God. I'm just gonna leave that there.