In episode 35, we review The Lost Lieutenant, Christian historical romance by Erica Vetsch.
Also available on Spotify:
Book Review Podcast Episode 35
Book Review
Book Review: In the Light of the Sun
In the Light of the Sun
by Angela Shupe
My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Historical fiction
Rosa and Caramina Grassi, Italian Filipinas, are both extraordinary singers. Rosa, the older sister, lives in Italy with their grandmother, who was also a famous singer in her time, and attends a music school to develop her gift. Younger sister Caramina is only 14 and still at home in the Philippines, but dreams of one day following her sister to Italy. But as war comes to both Italy and the Philippines, both sisters are forced to re-examine their priorities and fight just to survive.
I don’t think I have a lot to say about this book, good or bad. It was just kind of okay, to me. Both of these angles of WWII are fairly fresh—I especially have never read a book set in the Philippines when the Japanese invade. The horrors they endured there were no less horrible than what was going on in Europe, and the author did a good job of showing some of that without getting too dark or graphic. However, the overall pacing is really slow, which might have been partly to do with the fact that the book covers a few years. But I think the author also focuses on details now and then that just aren’t that important to the story. Though each of these stories could have been interesting on its own, I’m not sure the choice to go back and forth between the basically completely disconnected sisters was the right one. The sisters are fairly similar in personality and actually even experience some very similar situations, so some of it felt really repetitive. There is even some romance involved, but it’s all so broad-scope, I found that I didn’t particularly have much interest in it. Overall, I could see a lot of people really loving this book. The writing is smooth and easy to read, and I really liked some of the side characters. If you’re interested in these less-explored aspects in WWII fiction and don’t mind a slower-paced book, I encourage you to check this out.
Thank you to Netgalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Find out more about In the Light of the Sun
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
November in Review
I read 10 books last month, which is more than it felt like. Between Thanksgiving and participating in a writing challenge all month, I didn’t spend as much time reading or listening to audiobooks. So 10 is a pretty good number!
Here are the books I read in November:
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How to Speak Dragonese by Cressida Cowell (4 / 5)
Finding Phoebe by Ellie Katz (3 / 5)
The Minor Rescue by Meredith Davis (3.5 / 5)
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz (4 / 5)
Resistance by Jaye L. Knight (3.5 / 5)
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (3.5 / 5)
The Sea Before Us by Sarah Sundin (4 / 5)
Muzzled by David Rosenfelt (4.5 / 5)
Power by Kristi Drillien (5 / 5)
The Godhead Complex by James Dashner (2 / 5)
This list includes 2 ARCs and 2 re-reads. My favorite book from November was Muzzled. I started 3 series, continued 4 series, and finished 1 series. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.
I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.
Book Review: The Godhead Complex
The Godhead Complex
The Maze Cutter #2
by James Dashner
My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: YA dystopian
The Flare, the Cure, Cranks, the Maze, the Remnant Nation, the Godhead, the Evolution, pilgrims, villas, Orphans…I don’t know what is going on in this series anymore, it’s just so convoluted and bloated with characters and plot threads. The pacing is slow enough that even in this 2nd book in the trilogy, I feel like nothing really happens until near the end. That’s not to say that actually nothing happens, but it all felt so underwhelming. By the end of the previous book, I knew so little actual information, and then in this book, almost everything I thought I knew turns out to be either wrong or at least suspect. I still am not entirely sure who the good guys and bad guys are (maybe they’re all bad? or neutral? or just trying to survive?). And I really don’t care about any of the characters enough to want to hang in there to figure out what I don’t understand when everything is so messy.
I really wish that someone had explained to Dashner or any of his proofreaders that every single use of “god(dess)” in this book should have been a lowercase G. It’s a minor detail, but it grated on me that Alexandra, the our main connection to the Godhead (at least this is something of a title, so I guess the capital makes sense) in these books, is always referred to as a God with a capital G, amongst other uses of the word. I’m going to finish this series, but only because I jumped the gun and requested an ARC of the 3rd book in the trilogy. Considering my track record with this series, I can’t imagine the final book is suddenly going to make everything better. At this point, I wouldn’t really recommend this continuation series to anyone, whether you’ve read the original trilogy or not. (On the other hand, if you enjoyed the entirety of the first trilogy, that probably means that what bothered me about it doesn’t bother you, so there’s a decent possibility that you’ll enjoy these newer books more than me.)
Find out more about The Godhead Complex
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
Book Review: Muzzled
Muzzled
Andy Carpenter #21
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner
My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Mystery
When a fellow dog helper brings a conundrum to defense attorney Andy Carpenter, an ensuing sequence of events ruins his attempt at retirement when he ends up defending a man of murdering two people and faking his own death in a boat explosion.
As much as I enjoy the formula in this series, it’s nice to see it turned on its head now and then, and that happens big time in this book. Andy’s wit and snark is still wonderfully intact, as is his team of investigators and the tendency toward conspiracies in this series. The story overall isn’t a stand-out, and the main bad guy (at least the one we are aware of the most) doesn’t have quite the dangerous feel I’m used to. I think that’s because he actually doesn’t show up much. But there definitely still is danger, and Marcus’s services are fully warranted. In fact, Marcus has an incredibly rare special moment in this book! Grover Gardner continues to portray Andy perfectly. If it’s not clear, I recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, as well as the books that precede it in the series (and probably all that follow it, but I’m still working my way through).
Find out more about Muzzled
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
Book Review: House of Many Ways
House of Many Ways
Howl’s Moving Castle #3
by Diana Wynne Jones
read by Jenny Sterlin
My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy
Charmain just wants to be left alone to read her books, and when she’s sent to house-sit for her great uncle, she think she’ll finally be able to read as much as she wants. But this is no ordinary house. Charmain’s great uncle is a wizard and his house is full of magic, which, along with the young apprentice who shows up looking for Great-Uncle William, encroach on Charmain’s reading time.
I liked this book a fair bit more than the 2nd in the series, but not quite as much as the first. It did bring back some of the charm of Howl’s Moving Castle, but Charmain is not a terribly likeable character. She’s naïve and fairly selfish, though I can’t that it’s all her fault, since she was clearly brought up to be entirely helpless. Like the other books, the story meanders for a while, which got a little tedious for me. There are hints at the plot here or there, but nothing particularly solid, at least until it started to come together further into it. Plus, characters from the first book show up around halfway in, and I certainly enjoyed that (and they’re more “present” than they were in the previous book). Overall, it’s not a bad follow-up to the whimsical first book in the series, and for others who have read the first and wonder if they should read more, I’d say at least this third one is worth it. For me, I may someday re-read Howl’s Moving Castle, but I won’t feel the need to re-read the rest.
Find out more about House of Many Ways
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
Book Review: Resistance
Resistance
The Ilyon Chronicles #1
by Jaye L. Knight
My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Christian fantasy
When the self-proclaimed emperor of Arcacia begins to crack down on the worship of Elôm instead of the nation’s moon gods, it leaves many of Elôm’s followers scrambling to hide their faith or hide themselves. Kyrin has been trained since a young age to serve the emperor, but drawing too much attention to herself right now is not a good idea, given her faith. Jace is half ryrik, a race that is believed to have no soul, which means that many believe he can’t have a soul either. But he has also come to believe in Elôm as the one true God, though he can’t help but wonder if Elôm could possibly care about him. Both find a possible home at a camp for fellow believers of Elôm and hope that they can keep their new home safe.
The overall idea of this book is good, sort of a take on the time of Nero persecuting Christians, set in a medieval-like fantasy world with at least 5 different races. I particularly liked Jace’s story arc, but Kyrin’s was underwhelming in comparison. Some exciting things happen with her for sure, but it just takes a really long time to get into it. I felt like a few hundred pages could have been cut from the book and details in those pages could have been either cut completely or sprinkled throughout the rest of the book in flashbacks, memories, general backstory. Most of this excess was probably Kyrin’s story, which is likely what makes me feel like her arc was underwhelming. But there’s also the fact that there are something like 8 POV characters, which is far too much. Too many people to try to get to know, especially considering that several of them are minor characters and thus do not need their own POV. And at least one of them just seems to be there to reinforce what we’re already learning about Jace, so again, unnecessary. If I were rating just the part of this that felt like the meat of the story, it’d probably be more like 4.5 stars. But man, it just took so long to get to it.
One thing I did appreciate about Kyrin, though, is that she’s still young in her faith and not perfect by any means. She’s trying to learn to lean on Elôm but struggles with fear, because she didn’t believe in Elôm and immediately become a perfect follower. That was a realistic angle I liked. The overall Christian parallel here is really interesting and well done. Because what I liked most came in the 2nd half or so of the book, I anticipate the story picking up from here and am looking forward to seeing where the series goes. My 15-year-old daughter read it first and recommended it to me, and it looks like the book is classified as “new adult,” so I do think that older teens up through adults who enjoy Christian fiction about persecution and standing up for one’s faith. You wouldn’t really have to like fantasy to enjoy it, I don’t think, since it’s fairly light on the fantasy.
Find out more about Resistance
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
Book Review Podcast Episode 34
In episode 34, we review Not if I Save You First, a YA suspense novel by Ally Carter. We’re joined by special guest, Stella the cousin.
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Book Review: Odd Thomas
Odd Thomas
Book #1
by Dean Koontz
Read by David Aaron Baker
My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Paranormal thriller
Odd Thomas can see dead people, but he can also see dark shade-like creatures that tend to congregate at sites of future disaster. Between these two things, Odd is drawn to help bring justice for victims and prevent future tragedies. He works as a short order cook in a small town in California, and when he sees a large congregation of these creatures, which he calls bodachs, interested in a particular customer, he does his best to investigate so he can try to stop whatever future catastrophe might have drawn so many bodachs.
Leaving aside the paranormal aspects, this book is a thriller mystery and a race against time to stop a massacre. Adding the paranormal aspects back in, and the overall story here is engaging and inventive. Odd himself is a sympathetic hero, if maybe a little too naïve and Gary Stu-ish. He tends to draw people to himself by being a nice, quiet guy and has more than one mentor-type character. The background Koontz shows us for Odd make me happy for him that he has these other people in his life to counter-balance some truly awful parents.
I’ve only read one Koontz before this, and I loved it, but this time, I found that his tendency to describe things in way more detail than necessary slowed the story way down. There was also a lot of focus on sex and references to body parts for a book with a main character that isn’t sleeping with his girlfriend. And a couple of the major side characters I did not particularly care for. They were just over the top in their personalities. I listened to the audiobook, and I don’t know if it would have been better to read it, so I could skim some of the descriptions or worse, because then I would have struggled to get through some of it and taken a lot longer to read it. Either way, I enjoyed the book more than not and was actually kind of annoyed with myself for not clocking the slight twist at the end before it happened. Also, I am very glad that I had already read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie before reading this book, because Koontz full-on spoils it! Overall, I like the world Koontz has set up here and Odd Thomas himself enough to continue the series. I think most people who enjoy paranormal thrillers would enjoy it, but just keep in mind the slowness.
Find out more about Odd Thomas
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
Book Review: How to Speak Dragonese
How to Speak Dragonese
How to Train Your Dragon #3
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant
My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy
When another Viking training exercise goes wrong, Hiccup and Fishlegs find themselves at the mercy of Romans and a nanodragon named Ziggerastica.
This was my favorite book in the series so far. The tiny-but-arrogant Ziggerastica is a lot of fun, Hiccup meets the heir to another Viking clan who also provides some enjoyable moments, and we get the return of a dastardly villain. Though I’m not a huge fan of the formula these books tend to have with Toothless and Fishlegs screwing up and happening upon something they otherwise wouldn’t, I enjoyed the overall journey more this time. I was considering stopping with the series after this book, but I enjoyed it too much to not keep going. Plus, I really do enjoy David Tennant’s narration, and even his interpretation of Toothless is growing on me more and more. For that matter, Toothless himself, though so different from the movie version I knew first, is growing on me with every book.
Find out more about How to Speak Dragonese
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
A Journey of Words 