Review - "The Book of Phoenix"

The Book of Phoenix
by Nnedi Okorafor
rating:☆☆☆
published: 5th May 2015
spoilers? no

Goodreads

"To know someone's pain is to share in it. And to share in it is to relieve some of it.

Who Fears Death has been on my to-read list for a while, and I picked this one up in the bookshop, not realising it was the prequel to that. Overall, I enjoyed this one, although I found it hard to get into and the writing seemed a little choppy at times.

The Book of Phoenix tells the story of Phoenix, a genetic experiment created in the mysterious Tower 7, following her as she realises that the Big Eye (the people in charge of Tower 7) are not as good as she originally believes and works to destroy them.

It reminds me a lot of X-Men, for one, and I think that's mostly because Phoenix had wings and made me think of a combination of Storm and Angel. For the most part though, it wasn't that interesting. Not a lot seemed to happen for most of the book (or at least, it seemed to happen at not a particularly frenetic pace, which seemed kind of unrealistic given what was going on) and I found it kind of hard to get through (I was also snowed under with work and exam revision, so that may have contributed, but I still managed to read some other books in that time).

Also, at times, the writing seemed choppy and didn't flow very well. This mostly happened with speech - a lot of the time it didn't feel like how someone might actually speak, and that made it a little difficult to read easily.

Anyway, I did like this book, and I'm definitely going to be reading Who Fears Death when I can get my hands on it.

Review - "You Know Me Well"

You Know Me Well
by Nina LaCour and David Levithan
rating:☆☆☆☆☆
published: 6th May 2016
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

"The heart is a treacherous beast."
"But it means well."

Galley provided by publisher.

Back at the end of last year, I was scrolling through my Twitter feed when I saw a link to the first two chapters of this. It piqued my interest because I had relatively recently read Nina LaCour's Everything Leads To You and loved it, so of course I had to check this one out. I read the first two chapters and when I got to the end, I realised two things: 1) this was a book that was pretty much guaranteed to break my heart, and 2) I definitely wanted to read it. I've been eagerly waiting for You Know Me Well since then and when I got the chance, I read it within about 4 hours.

I think this might well be one of the best books I have read or am going to read this year (and yes, it is only March. That's how much I liked this book). I loved the characters and the plotline, even if I did spend about 40% of it on the verge of tears.

Unrequited love is one of those tropes that breaks my heart every time. I don't know what it is about it, but it's always angsty and it never ends the way I want it to (with the characters getting together). And it's always a thousand times worse when they're best friends. Ryan and Mark ticked all those boxes, and so from the off, I knew it was going to be one of those books.

Another thing I loved was Mark and Katie's friendship. There are so few friendships between boys and girls in YA literature that this one was so refreshing (and also that it didn't end up something romantic, which is always nice, even if that was only because they were both gay). My favourite scenes were between those two characters, especially the ones where Violet was also present. I don't quite know how to describe just how much I adored them as friends, but they were so amazing, and the way they supported one another was great. I wish there were more friendships like this in YA lit.

The relationships didn't all turn out exactly how I would have liked (Ryan and Mark, mostly. I didn't particularly like Taylor, if I'm honest, but that's probably entirely because I only saw him from Mark and Katie's points of view), but I was so happy Ryan and Mark, and Lenha and Katie remained friends and sorted their problems through. I can't stand it when books leave arguments between friends unresolved, even when the resolution is likely to be the end of a friendship.

So overall, this book was amazing. It's definitely going on my favourites list for this year, possibly for all-time.

Review - "The Square Root of Summer"

The Square Root of Summer
by Harriet Reuter Hapgood
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 6th May 2016
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.

Galley provided by publisher.

The Square Root of Summer has been on my to-read list since last November, and was one of my anticipated reads for this year. The synopsis intrigued me, especially the promise of time travel mixed with a YA contemporary, and the book itself did not disappoint.

The book follows the story of Gottie Oppenheimer, a year on from the death of her grandfather. She's just getting over his death, and the subsequent break-up between her and her secret boyfriend, who just so happens to be one of her brother's best friends, when her dad tells her that their ex-neighbour, and her best friend until 5 years before when he moved to Canada, is coming to stay with them. Gottie hasn't talked to Thomas since he left, even though they were best friends and inseparable, even though they made a blood pact the day before he moved away.

Thomas coming back seemingly coincides with the fraying of the spacetime fabric resulting in the creation of wormholes that Gottie keeps slipping through into her past, and into memories she doesn't want to relive. While Gottie tries to figure out what is going on, and how these wormholes are being created, she has to navigate through all the relationships in her life, from dealing with Thomas' return and Jason ignoring what they had together, and her other best friend, Sof's desire to start hanging out again.

One of the major things I loved about this book, was the subversion of the "girls are good at art and boys at science" trope. Gottie was amazing at physics and maths, but terrible at art, while her brother Ned, was the artist. I will happily read any book that includes this.

Another great thing was that the physics that was used to describe how the wormholes formed was all correct (and complete with diagrams to explain it) and not simplistic or explained vaguely (as in some books I might mention). It was all solid physics (if a bit tenuous because there's no way of proving it and it's all theoretical but that's just an issue I have with theoretical physics in general).

This book reminded me a lot of I'll Give You The Sun which was one of the best books I read last year, and high up on my all-time favourites list. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone who liked that. Actually, I think I would recommend this book to anyone because it was so good I read it in one morning and I already want a reread.

Review - "Willful Machines"

Willful Machines
by Tim Floreen
rating:☆☆
published: 20th October 2015
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

I don’t think I chose to be gay, if that’s what you mean. In fact, I didn’t choose a lot of things. Like being the son of the president. Or coming to Inverness. Or even being in the closet, really. All in all, I’d say I have about as much free will as an espresso maker.

As far as I can tell, I'm in a minority for disliking this one. I was really looking forward to it, too, not least because the evil robot was called Charlotte and I have a weakness for books where characters share my name.

I think part of my issue was that I kept comparing it, unintentionally, to Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, which, despite the slightly iffy title, is an amazing book about a robot apocalypse (which not enough people have read, therefore I will always recommend. Please go read it). Willful Machines is, obviously, a completely different book, but I always have trouble with comparing books that sound similar (see, The Wrath and the Dawn vs A Thousand Nights).

It wasn't that this book was badly written or anything. I mean, once everything got going, I enjoyed it well enough. But it took a while for everything to get going, and I don't really have patience for books like that most of the time (there are, of course, exceptions, but this was not one of them).

Also, the relationship was very very much instalove. I'm pretty sure they had like, 3 conversations before they decided to come out with the "I love you"s. Sorry, but I just can't believe it. That Nico was in fact a robot was pretty obvious too, which was annoying.

I liked that it was a story about a gay main character without it being a story about coming out though. Even if there was a slightly awkward bit at the end with Lee confessing he loved Nico. Calm down, boyo. You've known this guy for what? A month, maximum?

Basically, I was pretty disappointed, especially after hearing so many rave reviews (it has an average rating among my Goodreads friends of ~4.3, so I had high hopes), but that's life I guess.

Review - "Signs Point to Yes"

Signs Point to Yes
by Sandy Hall
rating:☆☆☆
published: 20th October 2015
spoilers? no

Goodreads

She knew she needed to get home before anyone noticed her absence, but each of her limbs felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, and her brain was clouded with worry. She sat on the bench a little longer.

I've seen pretty mixed reviews of this book, and I can see why. The writing isn't great and the characters are maybe bordering on one-sided, but the book is cute and the relationships are pretty good.

I had a few issues with this book though. For one, Ravi was a gross sexist pig and he didn't develop at all in the book. He just stayed in his gross sexist piggishness. And also he hated Jane for no reason whatsoever. The first reason that is given for his dislike is because he thought she was stupid. And then it turns out it's because one time they worked together on a group project and only got a B. I can't believe this, it is ridiculous. If Ravi had developed so that he liked Jane I could forgive that, but he doesn't. He remains a gross sexist pig and I hate it.

Jane and Teo were cute though, and I loved how they dealt with Teo's little sisters together. Margo and Kara were so cute too and I wish there had been more of them. Like, so much more. There was one scene where they were caught kissing, and another where it was mentioned they had been kissing, but nothing more and it makes me sad. Margo referred to herself as bisexual too which was great because that hardly ever happens (and in YA lit too!!).

Overall, it was a pretty cute read but it wasn't particularly special.

Review - "Cambridge Blue"

Cambridge Blue, DC Gary Goodhew Mystery #1
by Alison Bruce
rating:☆☆
published: 1st January 2009
spoilers? no

Goodreads

You lose a child and you do understand each other's grief at first, but if you get out of step with each other, it's all over. Suddenly each of you is alone.

To be honest, I only picked this book up because it was a murder mystery set in Cambridge. That was it. Waterstones had it on a table of books set in Cambridge (along with The Grantchester Mysteries which I love the TV show of) and so I figured I'd trust Waterstones and read this.

Not my best idea, I gotta admit.

I should probably have guessed as such. I already know that I'm seriously easily annoyed when it comes to authors who haven't got the simple fact of a language correct, so when it's a town I know and they haven't got it right? Uh oh.

Which was the case here. I don't get it at all though, because apparently Alison Bruce lives in Cambridge, but the Cambridge she describes is not the one I know. For example: there is no "Rolfe Street" in Cambridge, nor a railway bridge that has railings you can look out over if you're heading out of town (and given where he was headed I assume it was Hills Road Bridge he was referring to which definitely doesn't have railings). Bradwell's Court hasn't existed since 2006 and this book was published in 2008. It's Christ's Pieces, not Christ's Piece. The flats on the Fen Causeway are not white and fancy. (Sorry I got carried away.) I know all these things might seem picky but they actually affect how easy I find it is to read the book. I kept stopping while reading it because the descriptions didn't make sense and I couldn't just let them go by.

That wasn't the only problem I had with this book though. The writing wasn't amazing and seemed kind of clunky in places. Also, did it even have a proofreader? I picked up "exelsior", "futher", "definately", and "thougthfully". "Exelsior" even appeared twice in the same page.

Neither did the mystery grab me all that much. The murderer was pretty obvious (especially when right at the beginning there's this comment about the guy being possessive. Like, if that's going to be the case, at least try make it a little less blindingly obvious maybe?) although the conclusion seemed pretty convoluted and I lost track of what was actually going on (something about a little brother being killed, and a girlfriend, and there was some incest thrown in there for good measure?).

I did like Gary though. Even if there was a little of the Brilliant Detective Syndrome going on. And also that weird stalkerish behaviour with the receptionist I can't remember the name of. Even if he did admit to knowing it was stalkerish and deciding to stop, I'm still leery about it.

Anyway, I'm going to go foist this book on my mum so we can have Deep Discussions over the incorrectness of the Cambridge descriptions.

Review - "Kulti"

Kulti
by Mariana Zapata
rating:☆☆☆☆☆
published: 20th March 2015
spoilers? no

Goodreads

When something is broken into too many pieces, you can’t stare at them and try to glue them back together; sometimes you just have to sweep up the pieces and buy something else.

All hail Mariana Zapata, queen of slow burn romances.

Of all the New Adult lit I've read so far, I think Mariana Zapata is my favourite author. Having read this and The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, I can safely say she's definitely the best author of NA slow burns that I have read. Kulti was one of those books that I had to keep putting down so I could clench and/or bite my fists in sheer frustration that they weren't getting together yet. The tension was just too much sometimes.

Kulti tells the story of Sal Casillas, a professional footballer, whose team decides to employ her childhood hero, Reiner Kulti, as a coach. But Kulti doesn't turn out to be everything she expects, and before long, they're both antagonising the other.

Over the course of the book, they become friends though, and this is one of the many things I think that Mariana Zapata does so well. She has this knack of creating really believable friendships on the way to having the characters fall in love, unlike many other books I've read where it seems that the friendship comes after the falling in love. Sal and Kulti have such a great rapport as well, from Sal having Kulti saved in her contacts as "German Chocolate Cake" to the nicknames - I laughed so much when he called her "Taco" for the first time. (As a side note, my favourite part is the point where Sal attack-hugs Kulti and he's so surprised he just hugs her back.)

The minor characters are also amazing. Sal's dad is probably definitely my favourite of them all, and Sal's family in general has such brilliant relationships and they're so supportive of each other I'm crying. Honestly I love them so much.

I did have a couple of issues with this book (which is why it's a 4.5 rather than a 5). For one, the slutshaming was annoying. I can't remember exactly what happened but it kind of ruined my enjoyment of the book. Also, the fact that Kulti kept getting referred to as "the German" was a little offputting (especially during the sex scenes, even if I did skim read them. I'm glad Mariana Zapata changed her approach for The Wall of Winnipeg and Me). Actually, I couldn't read the sex scenes without laughing, but that's not to say they were bad. I can never read sex scenes without laughing, it's an issue.

This is one of the best books I read in 2015 despite that, and I'm putting Mariana Zapata on my list of authors for whom I'll read whatever they write.