Review - "Sucktown, Alaska"

Sucktown,Alaska
by Craig Dirkes
rating:☆
published: 1st May 2017
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I was really looking forward to this one - the premise sounded like it could be good and I was hoping for some murder mystery type story. Did I get that? Not in the least.

The prologue had me hyped. Eddie was being shot at by some mysterious stranger, for some mysterious reason, so naturally I was intrigued.

The rest of the book? Was a bit of a disappointment, to be honest.

The plot, essentially, goes like this. Eddie Ashford flunks out of college. To get back in, or at least have a chance of getting back in, he heads out to the arse-end of nowhere, Alaska, to work in a newspaper. There, he meets this girl (we'll get to her in a moment). Said girl rejects him, at which point he decides he absolutely has to get out of the place. Because he's been rejected. (I don't get it either.) But he doesn't have the money. So what does he start to do? He starts smuggling weed. But, there is, in the arse-end of nowhere, Alaska, an, if not thriving, then extensive, bootlegging trade. And he manages to step on the toes of some of the major players, and wind up in trouble.

So. Not a murder mystery.

My major problem with this book was how the narrator talked about women (or rather, one woman, Taylor, the one who rejects him). To start with, he says (on first seeing her):

Ho. Lee. Shit.

Standing there might have been the hottest girl I'd seen. Ever. Anywhere. On TV, in person, in a magazine, in a movie, on a billboard. My ding dong went from zero to boner faster than a car's airbag can deply. I untucked my red flannel shirt to hide it.

The girl looked exotic. I couldn't pinpoint her lineage. Whatever she was, it amounted to a luscious mishmash of every female physical characteristic I held dear. Tall? Check. Long, straight blond hair? Check. Olive skin? Check. Pouty lips? Check. Hint of a buttchin? Check. Big bombs? Che - actually I couldn't tell. The light blue sweater she wore was too bulky. But with how perfect the rest of her was, it was fair to assume she was holding a nice rack of sleeper boobs under there.

Charming, right? But wait. It continues.

They get into emailing each other, as friends, or at least on her part. He on the other hand, is only in it for sex. He calls her emails boring, when they are telling him about her, because they aren't flirty. He "sees red" when she talks to another guy, even though they are just friends, even though he is nothing to her. Then she rejects him, and there comes the part where he wants to get out. Because she just wants to be friends with him.

Next comes this guy's "pussy complex". I am just as baffled as you are. He explains it like so,

I'd always had a major pussy complex. It all started when I was little, watching my dad and Max do guy stuff I wasn't mentally or physically capable of doing. They fixed cars, landscaped, finished basements - you name it. Growing up in Zimmerman never did my complex any favours, because every guy was a hard-ass. They knocked my dick in the dirt ever time a story of mine printed in the junior high school newspaper. Writing was art, and art was for pussies.

Lovely.

But I endured more. Even as every sexist quote made me want to tear my eyeballs out, and burn a copy of this book in effigy (which would have been quite hard given it's an ebook, but I would have found a way).

But wait now. A steam? With Taylor? And Bristy and Hope? With them naked? With me naked? Was this a joke? A mom suggesting that a horny and half-hard-already me strip down with her gorgeous daughter, inside a tiny, hot, steamy dark room?

This comes after he gets rejected, when he decides actually being friends could be OK. Because he's a sleazeball. Next is,

The girl of my dreams was sitting five feet in front of my face, naked. No bra. No panties. No nothing. Not even a bracelet around her wrist. Naked.

Insta-bone. I got the biggest one I'd ever had. It grew so tall, so fast, I thought it might smack my chin like an uppercut.

Boys are gross.

Thankfully, after this point there wasn't much more I objected to, and the last 50 pages actually saw the story pick up a bit. Too bad that couldn't make up for the previous 300.

Review - "Nowhere Near You"

Nowhere Near You
by Leah Thomas
rating:☆☆☆☆☆
published: 7th February 2017
spoilers? some slight ones

Goodreads

I breathed in through my nose. Thought of your video to the masses. Thought of the womble you sent me. Thought of you calling me good. Thought of you, just you-

Galley provided by publisher

Because You'll Never Meet Me is one of my favourite books, and I was all set for it to be a standalone, for Moritz and Ollie never to have contact beyond letters, for there to be a maybe less-than-satisfactory conclusion to their story. And then there came this.

If the first book was good, then this one was great. Everything steps up a notch, with Ollie out in the world for the first time, and Moritz also, in his own way. At the same time, almost every page I read made me want to cry. There's Ollie keeping secrets and how he feels from Moritz, trying to make his letters upbeat. There's Moritz having trouble with his boyfriend, and moving to a new school. Basically, I was a mess.

As per the first book, both Ollie and Moritz are amazing characters, but I loved seeing more of the "Blunderkids", as Ollie takes to calling them. As a supporting cast, they were amazing. Molly had to be my favourite (her and Klaus was so great, I loved them), but Bridget and Arthur followed close behind.

I read this while I should have instead been doing reading for an essay, and every time I finished a chapter I thought to myself, maybe I should start that instead. But the lure of the next chapter was too much and I inevitably continued reading. It's one of those books, one that you don't want to put down because each chapter solves one mystery but reveals another and you just want to know exactly what's going on. And also whether Moritz and Ollie will actually get to meet. (And whether Auburn-Stache will actually tell Ollie the truth and stop hurting him by not.)

Long(ish) story short, this is probably one of the best books I've read this year.

Review - "The Sun Is Also A Star"

The Sun Is Also A Star
by Nicola Yoon
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 1st November 2016
spoilers? no

Goodreads

What I care about is you, and I'm sure that love is enough to overcome all the bullshit. And it is bullshit. All the handwringing. All the talk about cultures clashing or preserving cultures and what will happen to the kids. All of it is one hundred percent pure, unadulterated bullshit, and I just refuse to care.

Galley provided by publisher

This book made me tear up (and that's all I'm going to admit to!). The writing is so beautiful, and the characters were all amazing and nuanced and so real that I could even stand the instalove (which there is a lot of. I mean, it's the whole premise!).

There are a lot of different points of view in this one. The two main ones are Daniel and Natasha, but their sides of the story are interspersed with the points of view of several other side characters - Natasha's father, Daniel's father, Irene the security guard - all of which add to the story and make it that much better.

One of my favourite things about this book was that it subverts that "boys like science, girls like art" trope, which I really hate. Natasha was all into science and Daniel into poetry and this is honestly the kind of thing I love seeing. Every now and then there were interludes based on scientific concepts, and seriously, I am a sucker for science in books. Maybe one or two were a little simplified but that's understandable. And it didn't break up the flow of the book either; they slotted in easily.

On occasion, I found Daniel to be a little cringey (going on about all that meanttobe stuff, for example), and Natasha seemed, to begin with at least, a bit too invested in not being passionate and believing that doing art subjects was setting yourself up to fail, but then by the end she'd changed her tune (which was great character development, and I loved it, even if she did start heading down the Daniel cringeyness route).

Basically, it was great and I can't wait to read more of Nicola Yoon's books.

Review - "The Firebird's Tale"

The Firebird's Tale
by Anya Ow
rating:☆☆☆
published: 6th December 2016
spoilers? a few

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

The Firebird's Tale tells the story of a prince who has to marry whomsoever can make him smile. Unfortunately, the person who manages this is not only a thief, but not even human at all, and this is particularly problematic in a land where humans have all but eradicated magic.

The story mixes elements of Russian folklore with other Germanic fairytales, which I wouldn't say worked all too well. On the one hand, you have Koschei the Deathless making an appearance, then the next page there's Snow White (not literally making appearances, though). It's a little dissonant at times. Not to mention it appears to be set in some sort of alternative Russia, because it borders a country they call "the Orient", which seems to encompass the whole of Asia. Again, a problem.

If I'm honest, I was expecting this one to be more of a slow burn than it was. That's not to say I didn't like the direction it went, but I did feel that maybe in the context of the story, it was perhaps more necessary. Within about 40 pages Aleksei (the prince) and Nazar (the firebird) were kissing. But at this point, they didn't even seem to like each other. So you're then stuck with a strange relationship, where they don't really like one another but they're married and apparently that means they have to have a sexual relationship. All this somewhat obscures the way that they could possibly be gaining feelings for each other. Which was a disappointment.

In addition to this, the story didn't really pick up until about two thirds of the way through. Sure, it was easy reading up until that point but nothing really happened. Then when something does happen, you'd think that it'd drive some sort of division between Aleksei and Nazar (it is that Nazar is keeping secrets, and pretty important ones at that, from Aleksei) but Aleksei isn't even angry. Which is not really in keeping with his character in the rest of the book. He seems to spend the book switching back and forth between being this ice-prince kind of character, who gets annoyed at Nazar quite often, and someone friendlier. What I think would have worked better would have been to see him start of as the former and slowly become the latter.

But despite all that, I did enjoy the story to an extent. It left it on a bit of a cliffhanger too, so I'm hoping there's another book just to see how everything pans out.

Review - "The Whole Art of Detection"

The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
by Lyndsay Faye
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 7th March 2017
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I have never been Sherlock Holmes' biggest fan. Sure, I read them (or rather, my mum read them too me, and freaked me out a little), but I've not read any Holmes stories in at least 10 years. Lyndsay Faye's take on Holmes and Watson is wholly refreshing and, although some stories worked better than others, totally in the vein of the originals (or, what I can recall of the originals).

My first thought on starting the book, within the first paragraph, was how uncannily similar to Arthur Conan Doyle's writing the style is. Lyndsay Faye has managed to mimic his style so closely that it reads as if it would slot into his stories with ease. If I had any problem with the style it would be that, occasionally, the descriptiveness of the writing didn't suit the context it was in, like in the first few stories, where it's just Watson and Holmes recounting stories, the speech seemed somewhat stilted because it was very descriptive. But that problem disappears for the most part after the part one.

The best stories were, in fact, the ones that were written as entries into Holmes' diary. These were amusing, and managed not to seem condescending, as can happen when your detective is a Brilliant Detective who is a genius and therefore sees links mere mortals would not.

Part three was the saddest of the parts, as it follows Holmes' "death" (which, I'll admit, I never read), and this is where Lyndsay Faye's ability to make me emotional comes into play. It's very subtle; most of the time it's just a sentence thrown in almost carelessly, which is able to just force you to stop and think. It's a skill that most of my favourite authors appear to have, and she repeatedly does the same in her Timothy Wilde Mysteries.

Overall I think this is a great set of Sherlock Holmes stories which stay true to the characters and style (it's clear that she has done copious amounts of research, and is a huge fan of the original stories herself), and should satisfy both avid fans and those who are perhaps less so.

Review - "Timekeeper"

Timekeeper Timekeeper #1
by Tara Sim
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 1st November 2016
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

Timekeeper was one of my most anticipated reads this year, and it definitely does not disappoint. It's an unusual mix of mythology and alternate universe history and fantasy, but it works together so well, and the whole thing goes off without a hitch.

Timekeeper tells the story of Danny, a clock mechanic in a world where specially trained mechanics who can see and manipulate the threads of time are the only ones trusted to protect and repair the clocks which allow the world to run smoothly, whose father has been stuck in a town for three years after the central cog of the clock disappeared and time Stopped. Just over two years later, Danny was repairing a clock when a bomb went off, leaving him injured, and the story picks up just as he's getting back into work.

Sent out to repair the clock tower at Enfield, Danny meets a mysterious boy who turns out to be the clock spirit. As the clock keeps breaking, Danny is sent there time and again to repair it and he and the clock spirit, Colton, form a bond. All the while, Danny is agitating to join the crew in charge of building a new clock tower in the town where his father is stuck, in the hopes that it will restart time. But someone is going round destroying other clock towers, and Danny comes under suspicion.

This book is a unique mix of genres, and that's what first captures your attention as the reader. It's perhaps a little hard to understand the world, because it's more than just an alternative Victorian era. It has thrown into it a whole different history and mythology behind the creation of time, and is also a bit more modern than you might it expect. To be honest, the more modern alternative universe kind of threw me for a while, but the author's note at the end clears it up. It's a very well constructed world and eminently believable, as are all the characters.

If there was one thing that made me not give this 5 stars, it's that it was actually kind of slow for the first 60% or so. It almost dawdles along, with Colton and Danny getting together (which is cute and all, don't get me wrong, if a little underdeveloped maybe?) before suddenly bursting into action for the last third.

But with world set up and the characters all well-established, I have high hopes for book two.

Review - "Something In Between"

Something In Between
by Melissa de la Cruz
rating:☆☆☆
published: 6th October 2016
spoilers? a bit

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

For me, this book suffered simply because I wasn't in the mood for it when I first started reading it. I'd come off the back of two really good murder mysteries and so that's what I wanted to read. And then I hit a reading slump which did not help this book's case. I thought maybe if I made myself read this book, it'd work some magic and get rid of the reluctance I felt about reading it. That was not the case.

My major issue, and probably the reason I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to, was that I didn't like the writing style. On occasion, it felt stilted and the speech sometimes felt a little unrealistic - there were a couple of points where a character felt like a mouthpiece for an information dump, but that I understand given the topic of the book, and its likely audience. It was the parts where it wasn't an info dump, where the speech appeared a bit contrived, though thankfully these numbered not that many.

Another problem I found was that the romance between Royce and Jasmine was just a little on the wrong side of instalove for my liking. They meet once, exchange numbers straightaway (if someone came up to you and said you're pretty, can I have your number - or something along those lines - would you say yes?), text for a bit, and the next time they meet they're kissing. That being said, they were cute, so I can mostly forgive the instalove. But then there was also the seemingly constant "get together followed by break up and Jasmine hurting Royce followed by a get together then they break up again and the cycle repeats" going on. (I exaggerate, it only happened twice.) And also the "knowing she's the One" thing. Hmm.

The book dragged a little too much for me to fully like it - the only part where I wasn't counting the pages go by was about 70 pages from the end where all of a sudden I got into it - which was frustrating. There were parts of it I would rate 3 or 4 stars, but these interspersed parts where it was too slow for me and I would rate it 2 or maybe even 1 stars. That being said, I would still rec it, because it's an important book and story.