(A Very Ranty) Review: The Girl of Fire and Thorns, by Rae Carson

Title: The Girl of Fire and Thorns (Fire and Thorns #1)
Author: Rae Carson
Publication Date: September 20, 2011
Genre: Fantasy

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness. Elisa is the chosen one.

But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will.

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.

Most of the chosen do. -Goodreads

1 Star

I have put off this review long enough. It should be telling enough that to this day I preserve a place in my heart that severely abhors this book; it has left that much of an impact on my anger me.

I Am Not Oppressed.

Since I'm already annoyed, I've decided I'd let out my anger in the form of a blog post, on a topic that really gets me heated.

Check this out: (click to enlarge)

It's a list of books featuring covers of girls donning Hijabs. That fact in itself is completely fine (yay for intercultural awareness!) but check out the list yourself, and scroll through the covers. Notice a pattern? Most of the girls are either wearing a Hijab (hair covering), Niqab (Hijab with face covering, but eyes show), or a Burqa (complete body covering) and are depicted as being despondent, miserable, and oppressed. Many, dare I say most, of the novels cover the topic of child marriage or something of the like, normally written by a Western author.

Rant/Review: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart

Title: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Author: E. Lockhart
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Genre: Contemporary

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:
Debate Club.
Her father’s “bunny rabbit.”
A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:
A knockout figure.
A sharp tongue.
A chip on her shoulder.
And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.

Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: 
Possibly a criminal mastermind.

This is the story of how she got that way. 

1 Star

The synopsis should have set off sirens in my head.

From the summary alone, what does this seem like? The story of a Mary Sue obsessed with herself. Oh, goody. *eye roll*

In reality, this was a book about a girl who thinks she's better than the entire female population and spends the majority of her high school career trying to prove herself to guys.

Snarkfest: Overly Badass Heroes & Heroines

I'm sure most of us, if not all, love a heroine/hero with a considerable amount of "spunk." Girls like Katniss and Celaena makes us girls proud, and guys like Ash and the Darkling make us swoooon.

But.

For some, there comes a time when you encounter a hero/heroine who is just WAY too badass and extremely unrealistic. Yeah, yeah, it's fiction, but we crave a character with flaws, who isn't perfection incarnate, and who makes mistakes. Sometimes, I think, authors take the badassery way too far and end up creating a character whose only purpose is to defeat the bad guys. There's no personality, no imperfections, NADA.

City of Heavenly Fire & Other Rant-y Things

1 STAR FOR YOU.

DNF at page two-hundred or three-hundred and something

Once upon a time there was a twelve-year-old girl who loved reading. She read anything she could get her hands on - but unlike other girls her age, she refused to read Twilight. No, she was far too good for that. Instead, she devoured the Mortal Instruments series, which she believed was far more well-written, more complex than that worthless Twilight.

Fast forward two years later, and Summer is eagerly waiting for the next installment in the series, City of Lost Souls. The previous one wasn't as good as the others, but she believed that this would be the one. To kill the time, Summer browsed a website she recently discovered: Goodreads. Mind you, she did not make an account, but she did spend a considerable amount of time reading reviews of her Favorite Series of All Time.

Ignorance of the YA Genre.

Recently, I came across an article that made my blood boil. Said article is THIS, in which Chloe Grace Moretz, the actress playing Mia in the If I Stay movie adaptation, talks crap about the young adult genre. I'm sure many of us have encountered this insulting article, and I'm here to state my opinion.

We have all come across those people. I'm referring to those judgemental, stereotyping, pretentious snobs who think "true" literature is limited only to literary fiction. Other genres are deemed "unworthy" and have "no true literary value." What. What. *punches wall*

Review: Second Star, by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Title: Second Star
Author: Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Genre: Contemporary
Publication Date: May 13, 2014

A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers. Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete's nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she's falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up--and the troubled beauty trapped between them. -Goodreads

1 Star

You'd think a novel set so very locally to me would instantly make it appealing. You'd think.

You'd think a novel with such a compelling blurb would call to me. It did. And boy, was I displeased.

I think I shall dissect that synopsis sentence by false sentence just for the fun of it.

"A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers."

Was there love? No. Was there loss? Only if you count a loss of my precious time. Were there lies? Sure, but I don't see how this helps market the book. There was NO adventure, only whining about everything that can possibly be whined about.

Snarkfest: Types of Relationships in YA

One of my bookish goals for this year was to start a new feature. I decided to combine two of my favorite things: books and snark, and just ramble on and on about anything that has to do with books. It's not a regular feature, and is going to be posted randomly, maybe 3-4 times a month.

This first topic I chose to do is the types of relationships in the young-adult genre. To keep this short, I'll stick to overused romantic relationships, especially since this aspect is usually what makes or breaks a book for me (commonly, it breaks the book).

Review: Defy, by Sara B. Larson

A lush and gorgeously written debut, packed with action, intrigue, and a thrilling love triangle.

Alexa Hollen is a fighter. Forced to disguise herself as a boy and serve in the king's army, Alex uses her quick wit and fierce sword-fighting skills to earn a spot on the elite prince's guard. But when a powerful sorcerer sneaks into the palace in the dead of night, even Alex, who is virtually unbeatable, can't prevent him from abducting her, her fellow guard and friend Rylan, and Prince Damian, taking them through the treacherous wilds of the jungle and deep into enemy territory.

The longer Alex is held captive with both Rylan and the prince, the more she realizes that she is not the only one who has been keeping dangerous secrets. And suddenly, after her own secret is revealed, Alex finds herself confronted with two men vying for her heart: the safe and steady Rylan, who has always cared for her, and the dark, intriguing Damian. With hidden foes lurking around every corner, is Alex strong enough to save herself and the kingdom she's sworn to protect?

1 Star

*Thank you Scholastic for sending me this copy via Netgalley.*

Blergh. DNF at 85%.

Book Talk: How I Review/Blog

A feature hosted here I started to talk about bookish things. Written sporadically, of course.

This topic has been springing up among blogs recently, and I thought I'd give it a shot. 

One thing I learned: I'm probably the most unorganized blogger out there. I mean, reading about how my fellow bloggers review, and how they have a set schedule for all their posts, I realize how much of a foreign concept this is to me. If I had an organized, well-thought out blog schedule, blogging would become ridiculously tedious after a while, and what's the fun in that?

Plagiarism in the Blogging World?!

Recently, an incident occurred that still has me fuming to this very moment. Never, in the past 8 months that I have been blogging, would have predicted that an occurrence like this would ever occur. Naturally, being the naïve girl I am.  

Some, upon reading this blog post, may assume that I am overreacting. Causing drama. Being a meanie. Well, you obviously don’t take plagiarism as seriously as I do.

Writers, and us bloggers more specifically, take our work very seriously. For this reason, we tend to get enraged by an event like this. An event in which a fellow book blogger/reviewer copied my review practically verbatim --with a little paraphrasing here and there-- and called it her own work.

I won’t name any names; but I will include the review of this particular person.

It began as I was browsing the reviews for a book I had recently read. I came across said review, and noticed that it sounded oddly familiar. After a few reads of the review, it hit me that it was just like my review. Stupidly, I assumed that I had somehow mistakenly copied that review, but when I looked at the date, it had been published four days after my review was written.

So, I decided to handle the issue in a polite, mature manner. I informed the reviewer that she had copied my review. She then replied that she didn’t copy it, and that people “share opinions” on books. Because I have no life, I broke down our reviews bit by bit, compared the two, and explained why it was plagiarism. She even said that all reviewers do this, and that if “this is copying, then all reviews are plagiarized.” As expected, she repeatedly denied what would be obvious to anyone comparing the two reviews. I kept attempting to explain to her that this is plagiarism, plagiarism is wrong. Clearly, it fell upon deaf ears.

However, the author did delete her review. That’s not to say that she admitted to her fault or anything.

The reason why I am making such a big spectacle out of this is because I want to make it known that plagiarism will not be tolerated by anyone under any circumstance. And the fact that a fellow book blogger did something like this? That is just sickening and brings shame upon us book bloggers’ names.

I want to make it clear; there is a difference between “sharing opinions with others” and plagiarizing off another person. This is called plagiarizing:

My review:

“More like 2.5 stars.

It seems that I've been cursed for the past few weeks or so, as I have read some pretty horrible books. This book wasn't exactly horrible, but I didn't enjoy myself while reading this.

I understand that this is an ARC, but there are way too many spelling and grammatical mistakes, to the point where it distracted me from the plot. I can't count how many times 'your' and 'you're' were mixed up.

At the beginning of every chapter, there was a few pages of back-story on the Fae. In my opinion, they were a bit useless. The only thing they achieved in doing was that it prevented the plot from moving forward, and nothing really happens until the very end.

It was frustrating how much Caroline kept denying Devilyn's feelings. She noticed and acknowledged them one second, then the next, she would be questioning whether or not he liked her. It got pretty annoying.

One thing I don't understand was why Devilyn took so long to actually tell her of her heritage. Ultimately, it would have kept her safe, and would have prevented a lot of the bad stuff from occurring. Really, why put it off?

Heck, I'm starting to think the author did this just to cause other events to happen and to complicate the plot. In reality, it could have all been prevented very easily, and I found it hard to take the story seriously.

Devilyn was annoying as well. All he spoke of was Caroline, Caroline, Caroline. Dude, obsessive much? That’s pretty much all that ensued during his point of view.

My main pet peeve: There was a lot of high school stereotyping here. A lot. Not everyone who is a cheerleader/jock is a total jerk, FYI.

With a slow-moving plot and characters that I feel indifferent to, I find it hard to give this book higher than 3 stars. It wasn't very entertaining, and didn't make good use of the topic of the Fae as much as I had hoped it would.”

Her review:

“To be clear, this book wasn't bad. The prologue really pulled me in and the story was very interesting and pretty cool too, but I just can't get around all the typos. I know, this is an ARC but still. If you ask me, most of the typos have to be gone in the ARC copies.

Next to that, I liked the background stories you got on the fae before each chapter, but it was a bit useless. They were really interesting and fascinating, but they prevent the other plot from moving forward.

I didn't like the characters that much either. Caroline just frustrates me most of the time. The way she kept denying Devilyn's feelings over and over again. One moment she acknowledged them and the next she's questioning him again. Really really annoying and frustrating. And why it took Devilyn so long to tell her about her heritage, I'll never understand. And he was a bit obsessive. The main thing he talked about in his POV was Caroline.
Then you got the High School stereotypes. Those are one big no for me.

I feel like this book could have been much better. It was a good idea, good story, just poorly executed.”

What do you guys think about this entire problem? Do you think something like this should be made public, or ignored?

Review/Rant: Forbidden: Discover the Legend, by Tina Smith

Title: Forbidden: Discover the Legend
Author: Tina Smith
Genre: Paranormal
Pub. Date: July 20, 2012

When Lila unwillingly moves to the country town of Shade, she can’t imagine the life-altering events that lie in wait for her. Shade has a curfew and has always been surrounded by myths. A central feature of the town is its famous statue of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, whose spirit is said to protect the innocent.

Lila falls in with a group of intriguing teenagers with luminescent eyes and soon she is drawn into the shadowlands of fantasy and reality, where destiny collides.

A mysterious local girl, Cresida, warns her to stay away, but Lila is drawn to them like a moth to a flame.

Cresida knows their fatal secret and she is honour-bound to protect those who are endangered. But she underestimates Lila’s passion for the mysterious and charismatic clan of youths. Lila begins to feel a call she cannot ignore. Yet her heart is filled with vulnerable desires that begin to turn the underworld upside down, for both hunter and hunted, as she learns they have been waiting for her…

Inspired by the legend of the mythical femme fatale, Wolf Sirens is an intimate tale of unrequited and forbidden love in the underworld, a masterpiece of romance fantasy. -Goodreads

Putting it concisely: This book was a sloppy, horrible mess.

This book leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I have never read something like this before, and not in a good way. I don't want it to seem like I'm hating on Forbidden: Discover the Legend for the hell of it; it truly is this terrible and it's hard for me to conceal my anger towards this.

First and foremost, I want to put it out there that I was only able to bear about 65% of the book; the rest, I skimmed. I rarely skim books, which just displays how much this was a pain to read.

The Writing
The writing was amateur at best, childish at its worst. Filled with run-on sentences, unorganized paragraphs, and spelling and grammatical errors, I felt like I was reading a story written by a 12-year-old. It made the novel a million times harder to follow, in addition to the confusing plot.

Not only that, but Forbidden was jam-packed with unneeded mental questions the narrator/MC was aiming at herself. It got repetitive and tedious. Sometimes, there were paragraphs consisted entirely of mental questions.

C'mon, all these errors shouldn't be done by an author. It's all Writing 101.

Don't believe me? Here are just a few examples:

"I didn't pry further. I hoped as she had the key, that it wasn't stolen and she didn't seem the type. I wondered who had been pissed off enough to have keyed it. I learnt Giny was short for Giane--even though it was the same length, she told me with a laugh." And that is all in one paragraph, might I add.

"Hers were the deepest brightest blue I had ever seen and we weren't in the sun, but they sparkled."

"I was so pale I was green." Uh-huh. I never thought green would be classified as "pale".

Lila- The Main Character
Moving on to the MC with no personality, Lila. Or, if you consider being a snob as having a personality, I guess you could say she has somewhat of a persona. A shallow one, nonetheless.

Anyway, Lila, who the author wasn't bothered enough to have developed, was a judgmental snob. I like to describe her as a hypocrite, since she goes around judging people before she gets to know them and magically knows all their bad qualities-- qualities that she undeniably possessed.

Now, I want to make it clear that I don't have a problem with flawed heroines. In fact, I prefer reading of those than of Mary-Sues. But her. She is a different story altogether, It was downright irksome to have to be in her head for so many pages. That girl gave me a major headache. *takes ibuprofen*

Here's a quote that displays her judgmental self:

"She had a small gap in her front teeth which gave her more character than she appeared to possess before as she smiled widely at me."

Look who's talking about having no character! Besides this being judgmental and hypocritical, it makes no sense whatsoever.

And another great exhibition of her personality:

"As I gazed at him I unfortunately knew then that I found his friend, Sky, far more attractive, but if he was seconds, then I sure couldn't compromise."

So looks are far more important than personality? How could you be so shallow?

Oh, and my favorite:

"I was decidedly more like Giny, maybe slightly looking I supposed, otherwise he would date her, although he wasn't with Lily or Bianca either, and as far as I could tell they weren't otherwise taken. Perhaps I'd underestimated myself and I liked that thought."

Perhaps you are in dire need of a reality check to fix your shallowness, hon.

"The thought of becoming a werewolf appealed to me, not for Reid or the eternal life, or anything- but the possibility that then I would be beautiful enough for Sky."

I sincerely hope that there aren't actually people like this. I really do.

I won't even go into the under-developed supporting characters. I hate all of them. And I hate the plot, too.

Furthermore, why was Artemis even brought up in the Prologue? I'm really curious. It's not like she was mentioned at all in the rest of the book.

In the past, I have only read one other werewolf book prior to this, and that is Shiver by Maggie Steifvater. While Forbidden has nothing on Shiver, I didn't exactly like Steifvater's novel. So, I've learned my lesson. I won't be reading anything by this author, nor anything on werewolves.

1 star

My Disliking of Divergent

I’m sure everyone who is reading that post title is thinking: Whaaat?! I know I’m in the minority for disliking Divergent, but after a re-read, I stopped liking this book altogether.

My rating: 2 stars

A year or so ago, I picked up a copy of Divergent, due to the huge hype surrounding the novel. I devoured the book in less than two days, enticed by the world Roth had created. Needless to say, I loved Divergent to bits.

Recently, I decided to pick the book up again for a reread, and was astonished to find that I didn't love the book as much as I did before. My opinion of Divergent lowered drastically as I began to notice the flaws in the book.

My theory for why I ceased loving this book is as simple as this; I've read better dystopians, ones which are much more deserving of praise than Divergent. My eyes have opened and I have been exposed to books that represent the dystopian genre more accurately than Divergent.

Divergent is known for its gritty action scenes and just the overall thrill-ride experience. I appreciate this, I really do, but other than that, it doesn't have much going for it. A dystopia has to have more than action, action, and more action. In my opinion, the fact that it was labeled “dystopia” did it more harm than good, as opposed to it being labeled a thriller/action book. It doesn't quite live up to the greatness of this genre, unfortunately. I would even go so far to say that it is a bit shallow in its portrayal of a dystopian society.

My first issue is that there is minimal world-building. We aren't given vivid descriptions of Tris’s world; I don’t know exactly how the dauntless compound looks. How can this be deemed as dystopia when it doesn't contain the basics—otherwise known as world building?

Another issue I had was the lack of a back-story. Roth just told us how things were; she didn’t bother to even allude to how this society came to be.

What probably frustrated me the most was the whole “factions based on personality/skills” deal. Putting it mildly, it didn't make sense. I mean, it would make sense for a society like that to arise if we had a problem like that in our society in the present day, but the fact of the matter is, we don’t. No one goes into conflicts based on their skills; it would actually make more sense if they were divided based on race or religion, which are actual problems presently. The idea of the Divergent society is very far-fetched. Which ties into my previous point; if we had a back-story, it would actually make sense.

As a reader, my standards for a book have become much stricter over time, and I have come to expect a lot more from my books. Divergent disappointed me and didn't have much depth to it, and I really believe this book is over-hyped.   

"Eeew You Read Books?": A Message to Book Haters

Countless times have I encountered people I call "Book Haters". You know, the ones who show unconcealed distaste when they see you reading instead of, I don't know, texting or going on FB?

I find it very ignorant of these type of people to automatically HATE books, when they have probably never read a book in their life, and disrespect the person reading the book.

Here is how a typical conversation would go:

*Me reading a book in the middle of class*
Girl: Eew, are you reading?
Me: No duh. I find it very enjoyable. I feel like I'm in another world, experiencing--
Girl: So, like, you have to read books because you're antisocial and a loner and will be forever alone?
Me: *Clenches teeth* It's a freaking hobby. Why is it any of your business what I like to do? And of course I have plenty of friends! *Mentally makes a list of all my friends, a majority of them being fictional*
Girl: Books are so old-school. It's the, like, 21st century! We have technology. Books are for, like, cavemen.
Me: Have you even read a book in your whole life?
Girl: Ya! I have read Green Eggs and Ham plenty of times! It's the only book that I like.
Me: Well, congrats to you. You have the reading ability of a genius. *Sarcasm dripping from every word.* 
Girl: Like, ZOMG. Thank you. It's a sign of my intelligence. I don't like books without pictures though. It gets on my pet peeves.
Me: Good for you. *Continues reading and ignores the girl*
Girl: Hello! I am talking to you! *Flips her hair and walk away*

See, this is how a typical conversation with an ignorant book-hater goes. If you are reading this, and you are a book hater (which I highly doubt), then I have a message for you: Pick up a freakin book for once in your life before automatically judging us book lovers. Please.

And for all those people who think reading makes you a nerd, and being a nerd is a bad thing, read this brilliant quote by John Green: