Daughter of the Centaurs

Daughter of the Centaurs by Kate Klimo (Ross?)

The amazon summary to get my bearings: "Malora knows what she was born to be: a horse wrangler and a hunter, just like her father. But when her people are massacred by batlike monsters called Leatherwings, Malora will need her horse skills just to survive. The last living human, Malora roams the wilderness at the head of a band of magnificent horses, relying only on her own wits, strength, and courage. When she is captured by a group of centaurs and taken to their city, Malora must decide whether the comforts of her new home and family are worth the parts of herself she must sacrifice to keep them. 
Kate Klimo has masterfully created a new world, which at first seems to be an ancient one or perhaps another world altogether, but is in fact set on earth sometime far in the future." Amazon Link

First off, I need to talk about how this book read. It's in third person, centers around Malora, and was thick like a history book. The humor in it's pretty subtle, but if you give the book a chance, it picks up. Malora reads at first as a child that's curious about things before she seems to develop the attitude of 'I have learned enough, now let me be a grown up.'

This all takes place in the future, but in a future that's without electric technology. Think the stone age, but they have books left over from our time.

The story picks up as her town where the People live (humans) are attacked by Leatherwings; creatures that have human heads, and basically the bodies of giant killer birds. I imagined vultures, but I'm not entirely sure if that's accurate.

Anyways. So the men are first killed by the Leatherwings who swoop down upon them after they are returning to the village after a hunting excursion. Malora witnesses their deaths and one horse survives, Sky, and Malora brings it back to the village tells them what she saw. Soon, the bones of the dead men and horses begin to sprinkle into the village a little bit a day. Really freaking creepy. The village tries to protect themselves, but after being slowly picked off, Malora's mother sends her off into the Plains to survive. Malora's mother forbids her from returning to the village.

Malora lives with Sky and she slowly accumulates more wild horses before she's traveling with a herd of horses. She beings to long for the village, and against her mother's wishes returns. She discovers that the village died as they poisoned themselves and offered their poisoned bodies to the Leatherbacks. Malora discovers many Leatherbacks dead next to humans.

While Malora is up in the remains of her village, the centaurs have closed in as they want her herd of horses. The centaurs manage to capture her, and end up bringing her back to their home.

That is when it got REALLY tedious for me to read. I think too much time was spent on the centaurs going "GASP, A HUMAN?!?!" at her and not enough time on them being freaking centaurs. The book seemed to drag us through the damn mud when she reached the home of the centaurs for too long. In truth I have been reading this book for three days because I struggled to get through the middle section so much. Then it finally moves on to more interesting things that would be all the spoilers.

Something I would like to touch on is that while Malora is being educated by being taught how to read and write as well as mathematics, a character lists off the greatest romance writers of all time (in her opinion) and FREAKING INCLUDES STEPHANIE MEYER. NO. NO NO NO. NOOOOO. While I will admit I was a sucker for the series, that by no means makes it good writing. FREAKING PANTS.

...URGH.

Anyways. ...but still URGH.

So with this book, if you enjoy the discovery of culture stories, third person writing, and horses; this would be a good book for you. I tend to stray away from the overly-accurate historical fiction books, but this is new fiction. I mean, I really want to know what happened that drove the humans back from their technological advances that they clearly reached at one point to the stone age. Was there an ice age? A plague? Had the centaurs murdered everyone smart? What happened? Sadly, none of those questions are answered.

This is book one of a series, and perhaps when I can invest a few days into reading the second book, I will pick it up. But at the moment, I'm not entirely interested.

Happy reading!

Cinder

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This is definitely a very creative re-imagining of the fairy tale Cinderella. I kind of like it. Kind of. My understanding is that Cinder is the first book in a series which is going to embark on re-imagining many fairy tales all in the same world. Much like Fables by Bill Willingham sans the graphic novel part. I don't know if I appreciate the modernization of the fairy tale knowing what is supposed to happen according to the true fairy tale. I digress.

So Cinder takes place in the future where cyborgs, androids, hovering cars, and Lunars run rampant. Cinder is the narrator, and she is a cyborg. She is an orphan, adopted by a man who dies shortly after adopting her, and she has no memory of before she was eleven.

There are many stories within this story.

The first story is about Cinder herself; her life, goals, dreams, and the weird tangled mess she eventually finds herself in.

The second story is about the world itself and it's ongoing struggle with a plague that Earth cannot find a cure for.

The third story is about the impending war between Earth and the Moon. The moon has been populated by people who have become 'Lunars'. Lunars look like humans, but due to their lives on the moon, they have adapted a unique ability to manipulate the bio-electric signatures of people in different ways.

There are many more mini-stories that take place within the story of Cinder, but I will probably not touch on them as it would most likely require me to recount the entirety of the plot of Cinder. Let's say it together, SPOILER LAND!!! I'm going to try and not take a trip to spoiler land with this book as it's very intricate.

So a little back story on the world in which Cinder takes place.

Cinder seems to live in what used to be known as China; the city she lives in is called New Beijing but the country is known as the Commonwealth. There are twelve provinces of Commonwealth. There are six countries in the world which I suspect we will learn more about as the series goes on and different stories take place in different countries or parts of the world. They still call it Earth which is nice and grounding. Technology is very present in Cinder's world; Cinder herself is a Cyborg who is less than 75% human. Androids are common place and given false personalities they can extensively develop over time. Their cars hover and no longer rely on combustion to transport. In the Commonwealth there is still a monarchy.

So Cinder is adopted into a family where her stepmother Andri despises her as she doesn't know why her deceased husband adopted a cyborg of all things. On a sidenote, cyborgs are treated as second class citizens; there is a lot of negativity towards cyborgs in general. Everyone on Earth is also hateful and horribly opposed to Lunars. Yay class-ism and racism covered! MOVING ON.

So her adopted mother and adopted sisters (Pearl and Peony) are kind of terrible to her, except Peony actually is her only 'human friend'. Cinder interacts with an android called Iko. Cinder's life seems to perk up when Prince Kai visits her booth and requests she fixes an old android for him due to it's sentimental value. They kind of have a nice conversation that's filled with lots of cheery smiles before Prince Kai has to return to his princely crap. Cinder goes home, gets yelled at by her step mom to fix things, and sets off to the scrap yard to do so while being accompanied by her sister Peony. Cinder's life gets turned upside down when her sister Peony contracts the plague while at the scrapyard with Cinder. Peony is taken away and miraculously Cinder is plague free. Did I mention Cinder is a mechanic? Man this book is complicated.

That's enough summary.

So I kind of liked how a lot of details in this book really tied together if you were paying attention to the smaller details. I kind of liked how the characters were truly different from each other. I sort of kind of liked the book.

There were some elements of the book that I just wasn't on board for (and no I will not go to spoiler land to reveal those elements). There was also a GIANT moment at the end of the book where it was kind of like a "Whoops, did I forget to mention THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT OF THE BOOK THAT WILL TIE EVERYTHING TOGETHER? HELLO?" It was pretty damn obnoxious. It was tried to be played off by the character being all 'Hurk durk, I'm forgetful LOLOLOL' but really dude? NOT COOL.

I suppose all in all I wouldn't necessarily recommend Cinder unless you're head over heels for fairy tales. Than hey, have at it. I would warn you that the tale doesn't closely follow with Cinderella yet, but it might tie back in with the future books. I would say that it was a very nice future dystopia read if you can read it purely in that sense. There's also something that's just kind of neat about being able to pop a foot off and replace it with a new foot.

I did not get all the technology jargon that was thrown around, but I did not find that hindering to my reading. There were a lot of times where I would have found a moment in the book to make much more of an impact if the emotions of Cinder had been expounded on.

The book kind of flat lined for me overall.

Happy reading!



I do not own the image that I used in this blog post. Please do not sue me. I used it purely as a reference in which it would be clear as to which novel I wrote about.

Rage

I have to take a moment and put my serious face on. Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler deals with the serious subject matter of self-mutilation in the aspect of taking a razor blade to the skin. If that subject matter is uncomfortable or is not of interest to you, I suggest not reading this review.

Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler

I would like to say again, that if the subject matter of self-mutilation makes you uncomfortable or is not of interest to you, I suggest not reading this review.

I have to state a few things to get my buzzing mind a little more focused.

1. I did not know that Rage was a sequel to Famine but would be intrigued to read it. That being said, I believe that Rage could easily be read and understood without reading the first book. Also, it seems that Rage is the second book in a series of four.

2. I think Rage was a very interesting read for me because it dealt with the topic of self-mutilation. Being a quirky person myself, I've met quite the variety of people in my life with various quirks. I've known a few cutters very well and have never truly understood the motivation or thoughts that go into it. I can hear them, try to understand, but it is something that I have not partaken in nor do I plan on ever doing so. Rage illustrated a much more intimate picture of the notions, environment, and beliefs that fall into it.

3. I'm not one to know much about Christian beliefs, this book deals with the forming of the four horse men, in particular the horse men War. There might be a lot of religious connotations that I missed, but I believe I've grasped the basic concept of the four horse men story. If I'm not mistaken, the four horse men lore says that when the four horse men are united and ride together, they usher in the apocalypse. That's probably the most simple way to put it, but that will suit my purposes.

NOW THAT I HAVE ALL THAT OUT OF THE WAY.  That was a lot of serious face. URGH.

Moving on.

Rage centers around Melissa Miller, a sixteen year old soccer player that likes to wear a lot of black, is trying her damnedest to be the starting goalie for her soccer team, and is a cutter. Melissa goes by Missy, has a sister Sue, and two workaholic parents that have never been to one of her soccer games. At school, Missy is friends with Erica whom she tolerates but minimally participates in conversation with, and an ex-boyfriend Adam who has seen her scars from her cutting and shared that information with the school. He's one of the most whoorribleist characters I've come across in a book in a bit. Adam is a jerk. He's a jerk that publicly shames Missy whenever he can, and gets his troupe of friends to participate in the ridicule. Grade A obnoxious character.

The book begins with a prologue of sorts; it is revealed that Missy killed her cat and Death tells her she has blood on her hands. He gives her a white box and she slams the door on his face and shoves it on the top shelf of her closet, completely weirded out by what happened.

The book is rather short but packs a powerful story. I'm only going to discuss the first forty pages or so.

Basically, the story progresses and we are enabled to see that crap life that Missy has at school, the daily punishment her peers dole out and the emotional build up that eventually leads to her cutting herself craving the release. It seems to be that Missy cuts herself for control over her emotions, although she seems to have a very precise control over her actions and words. So the story begins to get more intense as Erica invites her to a party, which Missy reacts indifferently to with the secret decision not to go. Then Adam invites her with a tempting kiss and Missy melts a bit and decides to go. At the party, she sees Erica, listens to her for a bit before moving on and Adam swoops in on her. He kisses her and one thing leads to another and they're up in a bedroom. Adam basically commands Missy to get naked and she agrees as she flushed with lust. After she's completely naked and has a notion that Adam has accepted her finally, he tells her to pose for her. She does, and that's when all the other party goers burst in and snap pictures and videos of her naked body. Mortified doesn't begin to describe the situation.

Shortly after that event, Missy flees home and cuts herself, but she cuts too much in her emotional frenzy. She begins to die, and with death's encouragement, she manages to get the sword of War from her closet shelf and thus begins her journey to be one of the four horse men.

It would seem a little morbid to say that I liked this book, but I thought it was an understanding portrayal of one person's story with self-mutilation. Every person has a different story as to why they self-mutilate, and I think Missy's story is not only a good teaching story about bullying and the affects of bullying, but also a good teaching story about how to cope with the various forms of anger.

I'd recommend this book for those interested in the subject matter, and I know I spent a lot of time talking about the self-mutilation aspect of the book, but there is a lot more that centers around the aspect of her journey of trying to become War. The more fantastical elements of the book were easy to understand and the suspension of disbelief was easy despite some of the subject matter.

Again, I do not own the image I used above; I am merely using it to illustrate the subject matter in which I wrote about.

Shadowcry

Shadowcry by Jenna Burtenshaw

To give this book a leg to stand on before I decimate it a bit, I will provide the summary amazon.com gives it. 
"The Night of Souls—when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest—is only days away.

Albion is at war . . . and losing.

The wardens have descended, kidnapping innocent citizens for their army, but looking for one in particular.

And fifteen-year-old Kate Winters has just raised a blackbird from the dead.

As her home is torn apart by the wardens, Kate's discovery that she is one of the Skilled—the rare people who can cross the veil between life and death—makes her the most hunted person in all of Albion. Only she can unlock the secrets ofWintercraft, the ancient book of dangerous knowledge. Captured and taken to the graveyard city of Fume—with its secret tunnels and underground villages, and where her own parents met their deaths ten years ago—Kate must harness her extraordinary powers to save herself, her country, and the two men she cares for most. And she'll make a pact with a murderer to do it.

Those who wish to see the dark, be ready to pay your price." Amazon link for source.

So, I would like to express some frustrations.

The book has a few main characters in it: Kate (alright), Edgar (Alright), Artemis (Oh, well, uh, I guess that's cool), Silas (Um, did someone just sneeze? What is that?), Kalen (Kinda normal I suppose), and Da'ru (WHAT IS THAT. WHAT IS THAT). The book seemed to play the game of "One of these things does not belong" but with all the character names. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the selection and any characters that we come across like Tom or Mina are also very hit and miss. The trend seems to be the younger characters are relatively normal in name, and the older characters are jacked up. Except Kate's parents have vaguely normal names even though they're DEADDDD.

So here's my synopsis: Kate Winters lives in a weird country by the name of Albion which is at war with THE CONTINENT (ooo so original). The reason the country is at war is kept hidden from the readers for well past halfway through the book (because that builds interest and tension and not frustration right? No? Whoops, OH WELL, THERE'S THE ENTIRE BOOK). So Kate lives with her Uncle at their book shop when the town of Marvone (where they live; again jacked up name but at least original??? Don't quote me on that) is under siege from the wardens. The wardens release a giant swarm of black birds on the city that are all poisoned and intent on battering themselves into things. Artemis reveals that this technique is how they find the 'skilled'.

Then a series of weird events happen that spiral everything into weird places.

A lot of things just unsettled me about this book. For example, there seems to be some form of technology in the country as there is a train that runs through every major city of Albion; yet no one owns a gun. No warden owns a gun at least which seems to be the military of the town; everyone just kills each other with swords or daggers. So there's a technology disrupt.

Then there's the name thing, which I went over above, which was just maddening. BLEH.

LET THE ACTUAL SPOILERS BEGIN.

So Edgar has this weirdly complex back story even though he's seventeen that's revealed over the entirety of the book. I don't want to talk about it because it's maddening how long he kept it secret to find out it's not REALLY that big of deal. Edgar didn't come across as a very believable character either. Kate's back story is basically boiled down to her parents died when she was seven and her uncle Artemis ran away and all shame faced returned to raise her. Kate's parents knew they were skilled, but somehow Kate never figured that out or clued into it?

Also, the timeline is jacked up beyond all belief. Like Marvone gets raided ten years ago (so when Kate was seven) and then again when she was seventeen. But the way Kate remembers her parents (foggy at best) makes it seem like she was three or four when they died.

Silas is Snape. I SAID IT. Silas is this oddity that knows all the weird information that it doesn't make sense that he knows it except when he reveals that Du'ra has been tormenting him for the last 12 years ever since she killed him and half-brought-him-back-to-life? Question mark? Silas is explained that he was murdered, and then Du'ra 'ruined' his soul by only bringing half of it back into his body and leaving the rest of it in the Veil or Half-life.

I'm not sure if the Veil and Half-life are the same. No clue.

ALSO, THIS STORY IS ESSENTIALLY ABOUT NECROMANCERS. WHAT. It's like the book is trying to run away from the fact that every 'Skilled' is a Necromancer. They deal with the dead. Therefore, Necromancer.

How lame is the name of 'Skilled'? That's a horrible way to identify people with abilities as people can be skilled at archery but not be 'Skilled'. LAME.

And Kate is this horrible I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM, BUT I'M GOING TO KEEP DOING THINGS WITH MY POWERS BECAUSE I USED MY WILL??? WHAT? IS THIS ORIGINAL?

I found Kate annoying and too swept up by the forces around her (the wardens, Silas, Edgar, whoever is within five feet of her and the author takes time to name).

Did I mention that everyone's obsessed with a book to the point where it seems to matter sometimes and not others? It's called Wintercraft (Kate's last name is Winters by the way; LOLOLOLOLOLOL) and there seems to be a mad search and desperation to find the book or keep it hidden, but also Kate's wanted because she's 'Skilled'. It turns out Silas knew there were a bunch of 'Skilled' hiding below the city the entire time and he says it and then is like "Yeah, whatever, SO KATE, I ONLY HAVE INTEREST IN YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE 'SKILLED'". It made me set the book down and say, "Wait, HOLD UP," and reread that chapter twice to make sure I didn't miss his weird derp.

I wouldn't recommend this book. I finished it. I wasn't happy with it. I thought a lot of the concepts were unoriginal and the entire book lacked cohesiveness. Hopefully tomorrow's book will be better.

Happy reading!




ALSO, holy crap I do not own any of the images used in this blog, I just google searched them and put them in here willy nilly. I should probably figure out a proper disclaimer at some point... uh..

Lola and the Boy Next Door

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

So there's a few crucial things that I need to get out of the way.
1) Lola and the Boy Next Door is the companion novel to Anna and the French Kiss
2) I do not think you have to read Anna and the French Kiss to get any part of Lola and the Boy Next door. However, I would recommend you read Anna and the French Kiss because it's a freaking splendid book.
3) If you read Anna and the French Kiss you get to see the story of Anna and St. Clair. IT'S AWESOME.
4) I was very excited to read Lola and the Boy Next Door due to the excellence of Anna and the French Kiss.

Alright, I think I was enough of a fan-girl there. Moving on.


So we meet Lola, who has an 'extremely' complicated cast of characters she interacts with but it all makes sense in the greatest way because damn it, Stephanie Perkins is amazing.

Some crucial things that we need to know about Lola.

Lola has a very loving family who is protective of her as she is seventeen and dating a twenty-two year old man by the name of Max. When I first realized this tidbit, I had all the narrowed eyes at Max. That is okay. Lola likes to dress a bit eccentrically which is COOL. She made a new year's resolution to never wear the same outfit twice and she seems to pull it off quite well. She doesn't just do the, "Red shirt with blue jeans? I'LL WEAR GREY PANTS. NEW OUTFIT." No, she is a strawberry one day and vintage dress the next. It's kind of awesome, and I'm a person who has relatively no interest in clothing/fashion other than to be sure I'm not naked.

Was that weird?

Whatever.

There's something wrong with Lola's love story. She has a mild panic attack every time a new neighbor moves in to the rental house next door and it's because of the Bell family.

OH MY GOODNESS THE BELL FAMILY. ...you can just read the book to figure out why I typed that. ENJOY.

HELLO. THE CALLIOPE PART IS THE
NON-ELEPHANT PART. WHEE.

Essentially, Lola had her heart broken by Cricket Bell as she believed they built this slow, meaningful love between the two of them when they were about fifteen. Cricket was forced to move away due to his twin sister Calliope as she is a hard core ice skater that is training to hopefully be a part of the Olympic USA team. Whenever I read 'Calliope' I immediately got the worst mutt mixture of circus music in my head. Ugh. Anyways.

So Cricket Bell turns out to be this charming oddity and Lola is all HOLY CRAP WHY IS HE BACK NOOOOO at him, BUT NOT REALLY BECAUSE SHE LURVESSSSSSSSS MAX. Did I fail to mention that this was a love story? It is. It's adorable too.

I have to cut myself off because I'm just being silly and images are fun to stick in here now that I've figured out how. BWAHAHAHAHA.

So all in all, Lola and the Boy Next Door was fantastically insightful for a bit of a peculiar girl that goes through a quest for love. I would highly recommend to read it.



I guess I'm not done yet. This is the book cover of Anna and the French Kiss which I believe is Stephanie Perkins first novel but I'm entirely unsure. I try not to write book reviews of books I've already read and loved unless I reread them to talk about it effectively.








On a side note; on November 19th I stated that I will be posting a new book review every day from December 1st to December 7th. Seven book reviews in seven days. I hope to 'make good' on this promise so here goes! :)

Now I can say HAPPY READING again! YAY!!!!! :)

It's the little things.




ALSO, holy crap I do not own any of the images used in this blog, I just google searched them and put them in here willy nilly. I should probably figure out a proper disclaimer at some point... uh...