YA

Book Review: #NotReadyToDie

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#NotReadyToDie
by Cate Carlyle

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: YA suspense

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A school shooting at a high school in Canada is shown from the perspective of one of the students. She’s forced to think past her perceptions of other students to do the best she can to help others trapped in the classroom with her.

I didn’t find very many redeeming qualities about this book. My favorite thing was the way that each chapter ended with a tweet from various sources–usually either the local news station or one of the students in the school. I liked reading the updates as time went on (and missed them when they weren’t there), though I wished I could see reactions from the characters to some of them. They were mostly removed from the narrative. The writing was clear and easy to follow. And I liked the relationship between the narrator, Ginny, and her mom. That’s the extent of my positive notes. These are the main reasons I gave the book 2.5 stars.

There was a secondary main character named Kayla who, frankly, would have made a much better main character. She was compassionate, brave, forgiving, and had knowledge of medicine. I don’t mean to say side characters can’t be better at anything than the main character, of course, but in contrast, Ginny was judgemental, a bit harsh, and too often focused on the entirely wrong things during this crisis. The main character doesn’t have to be the “best,” but for a story to land well, it certainly helps for the reader to be able to identify with the MC…and I just didn’t. Ginny spends the entire book calling Kayla by an insulting nickname, but it’s okay, because she says it “with love” after the two start to become friends. Just…no. There are other things that happen with Ginny that either don’t make sense to her character or are pretty big personality flaws.

And speaking of characters, the book is so full of cliches. In the classroom during the lockdown, there are only 3 main groups of people identified: jocks, cheerleaders, and nerds. I get the over-simplification of background characters in a setting like this, but maybe go against the trend of those commonly used groups? The main person who acts selfishly and is disliked by the MCs is a jock. Maybe change it up, make him something less cliched.

This might count as a spoiler, so be warned, but one specific thing that really bugged me was later in the book, Ginny makes a comment about one of the other students that leads Kayla to tell her maybe she should work on not judging people so much. After initially snarking back to Kayla about this comment, she admits to the reader that Kayla had been right (yeah, we know…considering that you have been calling Kayla, who is supposedly becoming your friend now, “Barbie” since the beginning of the book). Then later, when talking about the “jerk jock”, we’re told that Ginny prides herself on having a pretty good feel for people. Except she’s spent half the book finding out that she’s misjudged at least 3 different people in her class. But since we all agree that the jerk jock is a bad guy, I guess we’ll let that little contradiction slide.

Here are a few other stray thoughts, which contain some spoilers (which I’ll try to cover with black): From my limited knowledge, I’m pretty sure most school shootings are a lot shorter than the time it went on for in this book. The shooter weirdly taunted this classroom, which I never really understood. There wasn’t much suspense for me, considering the final chapter title, the book’s POV and tense, and the fact that I wasn’t really connected to the MC (note: I am not at all saying that I didn’t care if she died, especially considering the subject matter of this book). Finally, I don’t think it would have bothered me to not be told the motivations behind the shooting if the students hadn’t speculated on it so much along the way. Because of that, I did find myself wanting to know, which we don’t find out. I know that the motivations aren’t always clear in real life either, but this is fiction, so I would have hoped for at least a more definitive speculation from someone in authority by the end.

The subject of a school shooting intrigued me, which is why I chose to read this book. Though I know there are other books like this out there, I haven’t read any. However, so much of the characterization was just so off to me, I had a difficult time finding it very much of an exploration into the minds of students in this terrible situation. I don’t think I can come up with any types of readers I would specifically recommend this book to. It was short, so I should have read it much more quickly than I did, but instead found myself stopping and going back to my other book that I was really enjoying, and it’s not because of the difficult subject, but because…it just didn’t hold my attention very well.

Thank you to Netgalley and Common Deer Press for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Publication date: October 1, 2019

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Book Review: The Novice

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The Novice
Summoner Trilogy #1
 by Taran Matharu

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: YA Fantasy

A young blacksmith apprentice stumbles onto a magical book that he can’t resist reading from, which summons a small demon from another world. This is an ability only certain people have, which makes Fletcher special (he can also cast spells, and just to be clear, the demon is basically an otherworldly animal). Shortly thereafter, he is forced to flee his hometown and basically stumbles upon a school for summoners. There, summoners are trained to become battlemages, so they can fight in a never-ending war against orcs.

While trying to make sure I read plenty of sci-fi and fantasy books because that is the genre I write in, it’s difficult to wade through what’s out there. I’ve not read much of either genre in the past, as mystery books were my favorite genre for most of my life. I am finding that I still don’t particularly enjoy large amounts of world-building or complicated settings. I also don’t care for dark, gritty worlds, which seems to be in abundance in speculative fiction.

After setting aside a few of the books I picked out to read for various reasons, some of which is mentioned above, The Novice was a refreshing change. It is YA, which might just lend a lot to its simpler nature, but I’ll freely admit that I have always been one to enjoy things below my age level. Still, this book had clear language and a lighter world than the others I’d been presented with recently.

By halfway through the book, I described it as Harry Potter meets Pokemon, though I’ll say that the demon pet aspect didn’t end up being as pronounced as I expected it to be (I still wanted one of my own though). Throw in some elf/dwarf/orc stereotypes straight out of something like Lord of the Rings or even World of Warcraft, and you have this book. I personally enjoyed the way these elements came together.

Race and class warfare are a large part of what drives this book. This book of the trilogy focuses on the Fletcher learning about his newfound magic and training to compete in a tournament, the winner of which gains a coveted high officer spot in the nation’s military. But being part of a larger series, it’s clear that it’s being set up for bigger, more important things to come.

A few downsides I want to mention–some parts of the book are a bit predictable, but plenty of it was unexpected. The biggest issue I had was with some of the writing, especially the dialog tags. Even this is a small issue overall, but characters so often “growl” their dialog, and it started to become distracting to me. There was at least one other commonly used dialog action that was strange to me, though I don’t recall what it is now. Also, characters are often whispering into each others ears, even as they’re walking, and I’m imagining them hanging on each other while they’re talking. Again, a minor thing, but it did bring me out of the story at times.

I was very unhappy with the ending–not because it didn’t make sense or didn’t have every reason to happen. It does set up the 2nd book. But I didn’t like where it leaves the second book to start, so after enjoying the rest, I was disappointed by the ending. However, this is not a statement of bad writing or storytelling, just something I found myself disliking. I’m still looking forward to reading the next book (which I’ll come back to after reading a few other books).

What originally drew me to the book was the very first line of the jacket blurb, which said that the main character was a blacksmith apprentice. One of the main characters of my books starts out as a blacksmith apprentice, which is somewhat drawn from the fact that my own dad is a blacksmith. Though that turned out to be a small part of the book, I’m glad it got me into this trilogy.

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Book Review: The Curious Conspiracy on Gamma Ceti

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The Curious Conspiracy on Gamma Ceti
 by Nemo West

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

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Gamma Ceti is a planet in another galaxy, with a remote colony of vaguely religious people living in a vaguely 20th century world. Dex is an outcast in his class, which essentially means he’ll be an outcast for life, because of the closed-off and tight-knit nature of this community. When a new girl arrives from Earth, he’s infatuated by her, but too timid to approach her. However, it’s not long before an encounter with a bully forces Dex onto Tabitha’s radar, and then life really changes for Dex. He and Tab spent a lot of time alone together, which she eventually admits started as an attempt on her part to try to uncover some strange happenings in the school. What neither of them ever expected was to encounter a massive conspiracy involving brainwashing, a conspiracy that those involved would kill to keep secret.

When I first decided to read this book, I expected a fun YA adventure with a mystery to unravel. There were some interesting elements to the mystery as it unfolded, and I appreciated the way that the main character had some real drawbacks, even as he started to evolve through the story. Even Tab broke some stereotypes I expected from her character.

Unfortunately, I was distracted by a few issues. One was the amount that the two main characters had frivolous conversations in the middle of dire circumstances. I’m not saying that the conversations themselves were unimportant to the characters, especially in high school. However, running away from bad guys, or trying to escape a secret lair, are not the best times to have arguments about relationships. Maybe this was a result of the author wanting to keep the action going, while also trying to resolve the relationship, but to me, it just made absolutely no sense. At one point, the characters even stopped moving toward their escape to have one of these discussions!

Another thing that bothered me about the book was the writing. Maybe it’s only because I read the entire thing over the course of a day, but I noticed such a repetition in character actions and dialog tags that it grew distracting by the end of the book.

I also have to mention the cringe-worthy items for me. First, there was the f-bomb right off the bat that made me realize the book would be just as language-heavy as the adult books I’ve been reading lately. Then there was the rather graphic sex scene with two teenagers that was very unwelcome and uncomfortable for me. That blind-sided me in particular, considering the YA/Teen shelving and the cartoonish cover art (though I didn’t notice the blood on Dex’s sock until after I’d read the book). I would not want my teens reading this book.

By about halfway through the book, the characters had hinted at what was going on, and it never really deviated from that. I expected some sort of twist, or final reveal, but outside of a few small unexpected things, it followed through to the end much like I expected. And there was no real resolution, not even a firm answer about whether what the characters hinted at is what was even going on. It looks to be the beginning of a series, but I don’t know which thread the continuation will follow, so for now, I just feel let down. In some ways, this is what you want from a book in a series, and to be honest, it did its job. I will look for the next book in this series and give it another chance, going into it this time with an understanding of what I’m in for. That’s the main reason I am giving this book 2.5 stars, when originally I planned to give it 2.

Final thoughts: The book is a strange mixture of being too mature for teen/YA (in my personal opinion), but too juvenile for anything above that. I honestly couldn’t recommend this book for teenagers, but for people who enjoy sci-fi that is less complex and tech-heavy, it could be worth a read.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an ARC of this book.
Publication date: Aug 20, 2019

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Book Review: Weave a Circle Round

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Weave a Circle Round
 by Kari Maaren

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: YA Fantasy

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Freddy doesn’t have the most pleasant life–she doesn’t get along with her siblings very well, her parents are basically non-existent, and her friendships are fragile at best. When Cuerva Lachance and Josiah move in next door, and Josiah starts going to her school, I’d imagine she longs for the simpler days when those relationships were her only problems. The new neighbors just don’t seem to obey the laws of physics, and worse yet, they end up sucking Freddy into their bizarre lives, which just happen to involve time travel.

I enjoyed most of this book. Though I didn’t connect with the main character or her family in the first section of the book, the mystery presented in the second section had me coming back to it every chance I got. I also enjoyed the way the author looped the time traveling, especially when it related to “present time.” My sense of foreboding grew along with the main character, as the time travel played itself out. However, the ending of the book didn’t deliver quite the punch I was expecting. I didn’t follow some of it, and for the rest of it, I was a little out of my element regarding the fantasy elements. There was one moment that I really liked, that called back to the very beginning, but I can’t say more than that. I appreciate Kari’s mind toward continuity within a story.

Overall, I’d say this book is worth a read, especially if you enjoy fantasy, fairy tales, and mythology.

I also want to again mention Kari’s web comics, West of Bathurst and It Never Rains. The former has some fantasy/fairy tale elements, and the latter is more sci-fi. Both have long-running plots (as opposed to a gag-a-day type format).

Find out more about Kari Maaren and Weave a Circle Round

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Book Preview: Weave a Circle Round (currently reading)

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Following my shameful admission earlier this week, I’ll add this one: a friend of mine published a book a year and a half ago, and I’ve owned it for much of that time, but I hadn’t even read the first page until this week.

I am very quickly remedying this, though, as I have already finished over half of Kari Maaren’s Weave a Circle Round since I started into it on Monday. It is a fantasy novel in the YA range. I have been enjoying it so far, but that’s all I’ll say in that regard until I finish it.

I will at least say that I strongly identify with the main character, 14-year-old Freddy Duchamp, at least when it comes to her introverted tendencies. One particular line in the 1st chapter jumped out at me, explaining my own desire to avoid confrontation in a way I had never consciously thought of it: “Confronting people was just another way of drawing attention to yourself, which wasn’t the best thing to do when you weren’t even sure you were right about anything.” This is me to a T.

I will have more to say on this book next week, as I expect to have finished reading it by then, but for now, let me point you in the direction of Kari’s other works of fiction. I have been a reader of her web comics for 5 years now, reading West of Bathurst from the start right after it ended. I enjoyed it immensely, despite being a bit lost about things specifically related to the setting. Then she began a new web comic, which is still going on now, called It Never Rains. I recommend both of them, especially if you’re a fan of fantasy or sci-fi. (Also, I’m sort of in It Never Rains, which I forgot about until right now.)

Find out more about Kari Maaren and Weave a Circle Round