Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

The Final Gambit

By Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

Previous book here. 

I feel like I was having Reading Funk again in that I was going through the beginning of this rather slowly and then finally speeded up as the book went on. I'm not going to be able to write too much about this, when I'm in that mode (sigh), but I liked how things finally felt like they lined up and organized and I finally had it down as to who was secretly related to who, why Avery was put in the position she was in (and we finally got more posthumous info on that), who the real enemy is, where missing people are, and how Avery is good enough to strategize exactly which chess games to lose and which to win. I was pretty impressed.

I'm happy the love interest stuff sorted out and is happily resolved without ugly love triangle drama, and we actually get to meet one missing dad, who's pretty cool. Avery manages to outscheme and outgambit, create a happy resolution to the "I inherited way too much money to be reasonable" situation, and all goes well. I left the series satisfied. Four stars. 

Oh, and no sooner did I finish that than I saw there's a fourth book coming out this year....

Mysteries of Thorn Manor

By Margaret Rogerson.

This is a novella sequel to Sorcery of Thorns.  It's kind of a sweet little story that happens in the happy-ever-after, in which some weird stuff starts happening at Thorn Manor--the place shuts them in, and the ghost(?) of Aunt Clothilde seems to object every time Nathaniel and Elizabeth kiss. They deduce that Aunt Clothilde/the house/um, whatever (see spoiler space) will be appeased if Nathaniel does some traditional courtship of Elizabeth, which they then do in adorable ways. It's all very sweet. The relationship between the couple is sweet, as is their relationship with Silas. Plus there's fun stuff like animated clothing and snappy grimoires that just need some love and a hidden ballroom. 

I admit I did seriously wonder if Elizabeth was also "in love" (not just "I love him" in general) with Silas, who also seems quite fond of her. I think they are more or less going to be a threesome of a family as is, but I did wonder if this had the potential to uh...go sexual and maybe they all have a threesome. There's a dance scene and a scene in which she finds Silas's artwork in particular that made me wonder. And Nathaniel is bi (or at least made out with a dude once).... Then I thought, "Silas raised Nathaniel, never mind THAT thought." 

Anyway, it's all very sweet and cute and charming and romantic. Four stars. 

With and Without You

By Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka.

This is a very thoughtful and interesting book. 

Siena and Patrick have been together for three years of high school. They are pretty much an ideal, perfect, happy couple...except for how Siena is having the teenage equivalent of the quarterlife crisis. Am I too involved with Patrick? Do I have my own identity or do I just do Model UN because Patrick does Model UN? Maybe I should break up with him and see what it's like to be Single Siena again, she thinks. So she plans to break up with him. However, this gets thrown awry when Patrick tells her that surprise, his family's moving a few states away for his senior year!

You'd think this would make Siena be all "Sweet, here's a good excuse to break up!" but instead, she finds herself in a bit of a panic and committing to an LDR. Which....actually kind of works for her on some level in the relationship? Absence is making the heart grow fonder (and hornier), and theoretically this gives her some breathing space to quit Model UN and find her own thing...whatever that may be. (I loved her thing, btw.) Patrick obviously misses home and Siena, but is managing to find new things and people where he lives too.

I rather liked that these two didn't break up....well, I have to vaguely spoiler this one but you might have guessed it given the title: for most of the book, they stick it out despite whatever weird feelings one or both of them may be having. These two are thoughtful and caring towards each other, even if finding where they are different and not just PatrickandSiena has some weirdness to them. They seem pretty well adult for 17-18-year-olds and even if there's some pre-quarterlife-crisis-angst going on, they find their way through, and I really appreciated that. I don't think we see too many romances where the couple have been together enough to feel "stale" and then realize they still do want each other, but the authors make it work.

Four stars. 

This Is Not The Jess Show

By Anna Carey.

Jess Flynn lives in Swickley in the year 1998. She's got a crush on her best guy friend, Ty, even though everyone she knows keeps pushing her to date Patrick, the town hero (who she finds boring). Her sister Sara is dying of  Guignard's Disease. And a bunch of people are apparently sick with some kind of virus in town lately. 

Then things start to get weird: one of her friends drops a strange apple-logod device....and one day when she comes home, her dog isn't her dog any more, doesn't recognize her and bites her, and nobody knows what to say when Jess points that out. Remember that music teacher who started going on to her about the nature of reality and then disappeared....?

The rest of this review is a total spoiler and has to go below the spoiler cut. I'll say it's four stars, though. 

Caraval

By Stephanie Garber.

I'm not sure what is going on with this. 

Scarlett and (Donna)Tella are sisters with an abusive father, living on some kind of captive isle. Scarlett is obsessed with Caraval, some kind of magic show/game/thing her grandmother told her about it. She's written letters to the guy who runs it, Legend, asking that he come to her isle for years. But once she writes to tell him she's engaged (to some nameless count who writes nice letters), she finally gets an invite to Caraval, if she can just get herself to some other island. A suspiciously helpful "random" sailor named Julian helps the girls escape and then follows Scarlett into the game, for reasons of his own. The game turns out to be "find your sister 'cause Legend kidnapped her," and everything is mysterious and weird.

I can't say that things come out of nowhere in this one--I feel like things are set up in world and this stuff isn't out of the blue--but at the same time, things are confusing-ish, I suppose? Other players in the game don't really matter since the whole thing seems set up to deal with Scarlett's family drama. Weird, mysterious, magical things happen like having to literally die for a few days to get a dress (not worth it, I say). It's supposed to be all beautiful and mysterious and magical and mostly I was just "....I dunno, I feel as confused as Scarlett here." 

Scarlett's perennially vacillating between desperately trying to find her sister and developing the hots for Julian even though she doesn't want to. Julian's motives are god only knows what,  but he's hot and kind of helpful and Scarlett somehow trusts him anyway? They do give great hormones, though. Tella's not in the book much, but frankly she's kind of self-centered (even Scarlett thinks so) and probably not worth this much bother. However, I did enjoy a twist at the end regarding her that gave me much more respect for her character instead of always being a selfish bimbo-y girl. 

...I don't know. I wasn't quite in love with this one and wasn't sure if I was going to finish it? Maybe it's just a Not For Me But For Other People sort of thing. Three stars. 

All Our Hidden Gifts

By Caroline O'Donoghue.

This is an odd book.

Maeve is an Irish lass at a Catholic private school. While having to clean out The Chokey (yup, they call the closet this), she finds an odd deck of tarot cards that she has an affinity with, and starts doing readings for all the girls at school. Except there's one extra card called "The Housekeeper" in there, and she's got a knife, and the card will magically show up in the deck even if Maeve takes it out.

Maeve dumped her best friend Lily for popularity reasons, and feels guilty about it. When people harass her into giving Lily a reading, it goes terribly, and much like in Home Alone, Lily soon disappears. Did Maeve make her disappear? Or was it The Housekeeper? What the hell is going on here? Maeve appears to be a witchy sort of girl, and this seems to tie in with a former student at the school decades ago as well. She comse to the conclusion that Lily was somehow magicked away, and plans on getting her back.

In other fun news, someone else who appears to be magically gifted on the dark side and a total bigot is getting people to join his creepy group, The Children of Brighid, and they start committing hate crimes. 

Maeve also gets romantically involved with Lily's...presumably transgender/genderqueer/non-binary brother Rory, a.k.a. Roe. Their romance is very sweet and cute and fairly insta and cuddly, which I enjoyed. Though I admit I was totally confused as to how Roe appears to feel about gender (i.e. name change, women's clothing) vs. still going by male pronouns. Maeve pretty much calls him her boyfriend. I really, really expected Roe to change pronouns/officially go by something other than male and that felt HEAVILY foreshadowed, bit that never happened, which surprised me. I'm just another cisgender straight Karen so what do I know on this topic, I suppose. Others in the anything-but-straight community may have a more correct understanding/opinion on that one than me though. Maybe that's normal? 

As for the ending, I'm not sure what's going on, exactly. The main conflict gets more or less resolved, but some definitely creepy stuff is left open, possibly for a sequel? I guess we'll see?

I'm not really sure what to make of this at all. Three and a half stars, I guess. Intriguing but a bit confusing. 

 

How Not To Fall In Love

By Jacqueline Firkins.

"I'm thinking maybe you should take a break from dating for a while. At least slow down. Stop falling in love with every girl who lets you buy her an ice cream cone. Get to know someone before you name your future children."

"I don't. I didn't."

"Okay, without naming your future dogs, then."

"I like dogs. And Gimli's a good name for a pug."

Harper is the adultified child of a single mom who pretty much shepherds her mom through her mom's wedding business. Mom got knocked up as a teenager and apparently never really wanted a relationship again, and isn't the world's best at business running, so Harper seems to be involved a lot. Harper's pretty sick of bridal drama, reasonably so, though she likes her one coworker Pippa.

Harper had a wonderful summer love last year, but the dude dumped her immediately at the prospect of long distance, which kinda crushed her. Meanwhile her next door neighbor, Theo, is always constantly falling into insta-relationship with any girl he has interest in for like a minute. Theo sounds like a great, sweet, cute supergeek anyway, but he is also Dude Who Constantly Texts You Until He Scares The Girls Off. This leads Harper to the title premise: basically getting Theo to CHILL DA FUCK OUT and not dive into the deep end of the relationship pool. This pretty much does not work at all, I note, since Theo WANTS to be the guy who jumps into a relationship, darn it! But when Pippa, who's had her eye on Theo for awhile even if he's young for her, finally gets a date...could that work out, or just make things super awkward at work? 

Harper, on the other hand, finally starts dating Felix, the cute jock she's been eyeing for awhile. Felix is genuinely sweet and nice and wants commitment and love and I think he's great. BUT....

This is one of those Romantic False Lead/the whole "Edward vs. Jacob" thing where it's very obvious from the getgo that Guy A is going to win, no matter how great Guy B is. Therefore you're just killing time with Guy B while waiting around for the heroine to get her head out of her butt and go for Guy A. I'm not a fan of love triangles in general, but if one must write one, I feel that you need to establish both why Guy A is The One AND why Guy B, no matter how great he is, somehow quite isn't. Maybe he's Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle and they're 'two rights make a boring," maybe he's Patrick Dempsey in "Sweet Home Alabama" where the only thing wrong with him is his mother. (That said, I vastly preferred Patrick to the husband character, who was an immature wanker and I did not root for him to win the girl. And I say that as someone who always feels neutral on Dempsey.) Like I may not agree with that last one, but at least there was a reason to not end up with that guy. 

In this book, there's nothing wrong with Felix, and that's pointed out in the book itself. He's really great. I really liked him. I rooted for him. Not that I didn't root for Theo on some level as well, but Harper was sexually attracted to him. They have a cute relationship. There's literally nothing wrong with a Felix/Harper pairing except that...he's not Theo. SIGH. I felt so bad for Felix. He deserves better. 

As for Theo, this is one of those "typical" "friendships" where oh gee, I never realized he was so darned attractive before! I somehow never realized how we snuggle together a hell of a lot more than any "platonic" relationship ever has! (AGAIN, RELATING TOO MUCH TO MY LIFE ON THAT LAST ONE.) It's pretty clear that on Theo's end, he just wants love already and he keeps throwing himself into other girls because Harper's never been openly interested. 

On the plusses of this book: the author writes great romantic heroes. They're both very sweet, nice dudes who deserve better. Harper has whopping sexual chemistry with both. And even if this isn't a book that's gonna go All The Way In Detail about teenagers making with the nookie, it's pretty emotionally hot, and I like that. I enjoyed Pippa (who thankfully isn't too fazed at how her own Romantic False Lead turn goes) as well. The final romantic resolution--at a Renaissance faire--really worked for me. 

On the minusses of the book: There's the Felix situation, as previously mentioned. Also I did kind of wonder why Harper's mystery dad and her mom's lack of interest in relationships came up periodically if the author ah, didn't really have any intention of making plot hay with it? 

And...I'm gonna go into spoiler territory, but it's a romance and frankly, y'all already know who's going to win pretty early on. Harper breaks up with Felix, wants to be with Theo, there's a bit of an incident...and then Theo bugs out of town for a month and is all "Let's just be friends" when he returns. I felt like this was Dragging Shit Out unnecessarily and I found it annoying. 

A note re: the cover: Harper appears to be a woman of color from descriptions in the book (mostly re: her hair), but the girl on the cover is a white cartoon. Marketing department might want to have thought about that one a bit? 

I'm conflicted here. Three stars overall, I guess. 

Before We Disappear

By Shaun David Hutchinson.

Jack and Wilhelm are two teenage boys living parallel lives (of sorts) in 1908-1909.

Jack was orphaned at age seven and was taken in by a magician/con artist (mostly going by "Evangeline Dubois" or "The Enchantress") as her more-or-less adopted child/assistant. She also took in an engineering genius, Lucia, a few years later. Jack is more or less pretty content working for Evangeline even though he knows she's kind of emotionally divey, but Lucia is pretty well cheesed off at not getting credit or getting the "well" treatment Jack gets by comparison. Jack's used to being a rolling stone and never gets too attached to any guys he's dating before he leaves again and hasn't thought super much about what else he might do with his life without working for Evangeline. 

Wilhelm is pretty obviously a fairy child (it's not spelled out here, but he's got magic powers and a whopping allergy to iron so you do the math) who was abducted at age four by "Theodore Barnes," a con artist/thief guy who's raised him/kept him imprisoned with iron the entire time. Teddy has been forcing Wil to rob things for him, as Teddy is hoping to become famous somehow, but so far his trait of leaving origami animals at the scene of the crime hasn't paid off for him. (This seems very Wet Bandits to me, just saying...) Teddy decides to change tactics and go from thievery to being a professional magician under the name Laszlo. 

Both magicians end up performing at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle for several months, where their respective assistants meet and get to know each other, and Jack deduces that Wilhelm has magical powers and that's the only way he could pull off what he does. Upon finding out what's going on with Wilhelm being imprisoned and threatened, Jack vows that he's going to take "Laszlo" down. 

The guys both make some great friends along the way. Jack befriends Ruth, an African-American performer who's looking to become a doctor someday. She's hard and tough and determined and awesome. Wilhelm befriends Jessamy, the other assistant "Laszlo" hires for his show, who's a lovely girl and a future detective/reporter. Of course she and Ruth fall for each other. (I do note that Ruth is getting sexually harassed by George, a guy who keeps hanging around and Not Taking No For An Answer, grrr. ) And Lucia is tough and stubborn but awesome. I really enjoyed seeing this bunch team up as a gang to help Wilhelm. It's a great crowd.

This is a pretty short summary for a pretty long book (nearly 500 pages), as the author takes his time with people hanging out and getting to know each other. Really, the only critique I have of this book is that it probably could have picked up the pace a bit and been a bit more urgent, though I certainly enjoyed it and kept on reading anyway. I really liked all the teenage characters and how smart and kind and loving they were (though clearly they're in a bit nicer of an environment as gay kids than they would have been in real 1909, sigh). The parallels between Evangeline and Teddy are pretty clear, with Evangeline being not-the-greatest-person and pretty self-centered/rude-ish to her "kids," but she still seems to kind of care about them on some level, at least. Teddy, well, wants Wilhelm's love and ALSO for Wilhelm to fear him, which he unfortunately isn't able to comprehend that aren't two great tastes that go together.  Jack sums them up well: "Laszlo's like a monster who remembers what it was like to be a man and has fooled himself into believing he still is one. Evangeline flirts with being a monster but hasn't got the heart to really commit." 

I have a comment on Evangeline and Teddy, but it's going to go below the spoiler cut.

Anyway, I enjoyed this very much and recommend it and give it about 4.5 stars. I'm not sure if this is the sort of book that would warrant a sequel or not--it both wraps up well as is but has potential for more--but either way, I'd be good. I like these people and would be happy to see them all again. 

Aurora's End

By Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.

Previous book here.

I haven't been quite as in love with this trilogy as I was with Illuminae, but this book is the best of the trilogy. It somehow levels up to me in a way the other two books did not. Review below the spoiler cut, but five stars. 

Only You in Everything

By Jennifer Ann Shore.

Cameron and twins Will and Bellamy Moreno, the boys next door, have always been very close. Though Cameron and Will got into a bike accident years ago that messed Cameron up some and messed Will up conspicuously (like, giant facial scar/leg issues). It's ah, entirely possible that Will has a complex about that. All three of them go to/work at a summer camp every year, and this is the last year before they go off to colleges. Last year Cameron tried to tell Will she's been in love with him forever and he shut it down and said he just wanted to be friends.

(Yup, that crap situation is why I bought the book. Relate too much.) 

Anyway, it's a pleasant read without that much plot?  There's a nice kid Cameron befriends. She's trying to figure out what art to make to win an internship or scholarship, something like that I can't exactly recall. Bellamy publicly changed genders awhile back and gets a girlfriend (Cameron's roommate, and isn't that cute). Cameron's sister and her shitty boyfriend show up on visiting day and the boyfriend acts like an asshole regarding Bellamy, and Cameron kicks him out and that's the end of that, pretty much. So, simple-ish and I felt like it could have used more oomph/plot/drama.

As for Will and Cameron: what did make me feel something in this book was Cameron and her feelings about Will. She's oddly fixated on his scar enough that it's kind of a motif in her art (that sounds creepy but I wasn't bothered), and she watches him and notices how he's feeling and doing, and I related to that. She does actually try to move on from him with another dude briefly. However, the resolution to this is pretty simple: Will admits he likes her, and there they go. Easy peasy. 

This isn't bad, but it doesn't have enough emotional oomph/plot to be memorable for me. Cameron's feelings for Will is what sold me on this, but otherwise I felt like it needed more? So, three stars.