Booking It

A twist on the popular YA paranormal subgenre, Every Other Day promises its readers a “strong female protagonist,” action, romance, and comedy - does it deliver?

Thanks are due to EgmontUSA and NetGalley for allowing me to pre-read this title.

Ugh. That’s all I can say. Oh, and this: at least it doesn’t have some girl’s face on the front.

Title: Every Other Day

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Page Count: 352 (Hardcover)

Publishing House: EgmontUSA

Publication Date: 27 December 2011

Teenaged protagonist Kali D’Angelo is half-Italian, half-Indian. She’s also half-human, half-zombie-slayer. And half-shy, half-kick-your-butt. As the title would suggest, she spends every other day as an ordinary human girl - and every other other day as some kind of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, blood-thirsty bounty hunter with an insatiable desire to decapitate paranormal creatures skulking in her neighbourhood. When pretty, popular schoolmate Bethany is marked for death by a parasitic paranormal creature called a “nibbler,” Kali has twenty-four hours to save her.

I’ve tried my best (and I think I’ve succeeded) in not spoiling the book, because a lot of the elements involved are supposed to come as a surprise. However, the basic gist of the book is that Kali spends one day as an average girl and wakes up the next morning with superpowers that last only until she wakes up the day following that. This is supposed to sound cool, I think, but it just sounded weird to me. I wasn’t so crazy about the premise, and I was worried about how Barnes would handle this and whether her explanation for the “superpowers” would be good enough.

The plot involves her attempting to discover who, or what, she actually is, while saving the life of this cheerleader named Bethany as well - all under a time limit. Now, the plot of the book was pretty tight. The pace was good, and the “time bomb” element helped to manage that. There were twists and turns and a lot of things I definitely wasn’t expecting to happen. I didn’t think she really pulled off the “every other day” thing - her explanation was flimsy and weak to me - but aside from that I really liked the fast-paced, action/adventure-driven plot. There was a little romance, but nothing that really bogged down the story. And I appreciated that.

My major problems with the book come in terms of the characters. At first, I loved Kali. She’s snarky, she’s clever, she’s a teenaged girl who kicks zombie butt. What more could you really want? I thought her voice was really unique.

Then I realized that it totally wasn’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a snarky, clever teenaged butt-kicker as much as the next YA reader. And Kali was like that.

But so was everyone else. 

Her friend Skylar, characterized as naive, chirpy, annoying and adorable? Well - that’s what Kali tells us she’s like. In reality, she sounds exactly like Kali. 

Bethany, characterized as a spoiled, ditzy cheerleader? Again, that’s what Kali TELLS us she’s like. But she acts exactly the same as Kali.

I like spunk, okay? I like snark. But every line that came out of every character’s mouth sounded like it was coming from exactly the same person. They were all exactly the same, wrapped in differently coloured packages. Kali’s narration is telling us one thing, but the characters turn around and behave exactly the way Kali would and speak exactly the way Kali does. This is just poor characterization. Not everyone is snarky, clever, and kick-ass. While it’s fun to have characters like that, don’t tell me one thing and show me something else. People don’t all speak and behave the same in real life. I know there’s only one Jennifer Barnes writing this book, but the idea is to create the illusion that there’s more than one distinct personality at work here.

The writing, aside from this huge glitch, was something I really loved about this. Everything from the sarcasm, to the pacing, to the really direct, no-nonsense-no-frills-no-adjectives prose was really great and added a lot to the action movie sort of atmosphere. That’s one of the things I like about boy books - and while this isn’t a boy book (the paranormal subgenre stamp and female main character are probably enough to steer a lot of young boys away from this, sadly) it reads like one in spots. And I like that.

This was, all told, a solid read. The characterization bugged me a lot. But aside from that, this was a really fresh take on the done-to-death “paranormal” subgenre of YA fiction. It had dragons and explosions and car chases and snark, and I love these things. Solid read, especially if you love the paranormal but are tired of the “ZOMG a hot demon boy goes to my school” plotline.

Final Breakdown:

Premise & Originality: 0.5 Stars

Plot: 1 Star

Characters: 0 Stars

Writing: 1 Star

Enjoyability: 1 Star

Total: 3.5 / 5 Stars

A Christian-fiction retelling of Beauty and the Beast, this novel was alright, but nothing particularly special. The CF angle isn’t for me, but I’m to blame for not looking into this closely enough. I did read the whole thing, and thus, my review.

Meh.

Title: The Merchant’s Daughter

Author: Melanie Dickerson

Publication Date: 29 November 2011

Publishing House: Zondervan

About halfway through this novel, I suddenly realized “Surprise! It’s Christian fiction.” This has happened to me twice. Clearly, I need to read the summaries of these books a little more closely. While I usually avoid Christian fiction, I don’t have any problem with it necessarily. It just isn’t what I reach for. Despite that, this was a pretty good, if extremely safe, Beauty and the Beast retelling and will likely appeal to young adult fans of Christian fiction. I can’t just decline to review it because it isn’t a genre I read (I’ve actually never finished a Christian fiction novel before. So I give myself props for reading this one!).

I love Beauty & the Beast. I love retellings of it. I keep trying to write one, and I keep failing on principle because I’m just not good enough to do it justice. I went through a phase of compulsively reading every B&B retelling I could get my hands on, and it’s safe to say it’s probably my favorite fairytale. Why? Not sure. The Merchant’s Daughter by Melanie Dickerson is one such retelling, set in England during the feudal period. Beauty is Isabelle, a pretty merchant-class girl whose mother and two brothers care for her little. Beast is the new feudal lord of the manor, whose eye was taken out in an accident years prior. Isabelle offers to serve in his household as a maid to repay the family’s debts, and they bond, eventually falling in love with one another. Of course, because this is a Christian fiction novel, the book is liberally sprinkled with passages from the Bible, and the two characters share the Christian faith, which brings them together. I have nothing against Christian fiction, so this aspect didn’t bother me - the lengthy Bible excerpts were slightly agitating though. The author could perhaps have paraphrased? I’m not sure if this is a trope of CF, not having read any myself.

Now, okay. It’s a B&B retelling, so of course the plot is going to follow that general structure. We know what the story’s going to be like, and how it’s probably going to end, before we ever open the cover (or in my case, the PDF file). BUT the point of a retelling is that the author adds an extra element, a twist, a unique feature, or something of that nature, which keeps the story fresh. The best retellings I’ve read always have something else to them besides the original story. 

This book, though, kind of fell flat on that. It was sweet. Beauty and the Beast is a sweet fairytale. The plot has pretty much been provided for you. And it’s a good plot. I love B&B, so obviously the plot type works. But there’s no twist. This is less a retelling than it is a simple rewriting. It’s even watered-down from the original - the “beast” merely being a guy with a bad arm and a beard. 

The characters, too, were types. This is usually where a retelling should add something new, something unique and surprising. But the Beauty was Beauty. The Beast was Beast. They both like to read the Bible, because it’s Christian fiction, but that’s pretty much the only change that was made. They’re true to type - the types work within the story. They’re alright. Likeable enough. But a bit… flat. Un-unique.

The writing was like this for me, too. Good enough - just not great. Serviceable. Sweet. A sweet story. Just… not new. There was nothing that the writing added to the story, nothing that leapt out at me yelling “THIS IS COOL!” 

It isn’t so much that there’s anything wrong with this book. It was okay. It wasn’t horribly boring, I didn’t hate the characters. It’s just that there wasn’t really anything right about it, either. Nothing surprising and unique. It was so… safe.

When an author decides to take a myth or fairytale and retell it, they should have some incredible new angle to add to the story or at least some really great writing skills to back up the decision to redo a done-to-death story. Despite my intense love for Beauty and the Beast, it’s definitely been done to death. So unless the new take is something incredible… why bother writing it?

It’s a story that works. It’s really hard to mess up. But it’s also really easy to write something unspecial - something bland - something safe, that doesn’t take risks, doesn’t add a twist, doesn’t have anything new to say. So this was an okay book. If you like Christian fiction (I’m not a huge fan, but to each their own) have a go. But don’t expect anything mind-blowing.

Final Breakdown:

Premise & Originality: 0 Stars

Plot: 0.5 Stars

Characters: 0.5 Stars

Writing: 0.5 Stars

Enjoyability: 0.5 Stars

Total: 2 / 5 Stars

This is an example of a book I’d never pick up on my own. It’s short, it’s about “real life” teen topics… And I liked it a lot more than I thought I would?

Thanks to Harcourt Children’s Books and NetGalley for allowing me to pre-read this title

Pretty colours… But sort of meh? This cover is also definitely going to turn off potential male readers (and yes, the book is geared to teen boys as well as girls, which makes that unfortunate).

Title: Wherever You Go

Author: Heather Davis

Publication Date: 14 November 2011

Publishing House: Harcourt Children’s Books

Heather Davis’ Wherever You Go is what I would call a “serious issues” novel. The kind of teen novel you might study in ninth or tenth grade English class, that’s supposed to teach you about grief and coping and life issues without coming off as preachy. And for that, it’s much more successful than a lot of the other novels of this type I’ve read.

Wherever You Go deals with three major characters: Holly, a teen girl who helps her struggling single mom deal with an eight-year-old sister and a grandfather whose Alzheimer’s is slowly growing worse and worse; Jason, a boy in her grade whose mother is going through a divorce; and Rob, Holly’s dead boyfriend. As if that weren’t complicated enough, Rob and Jason were best friends; Jason’s now interested in Holly; and Aldo, the crazy grandpa, is the only one who can see, hear, or communicate with Rob’s very pissed-off ghost.

When I first read the summary for this, I thought it sounded like a recipe for hilarity - touching and poignant, but funny at the same time. So be warned: this is not a funny book. There are a couple of jokes in it, but there are a couple of jokes in just about everything if you look hard enough. It’s very serious, and it’s handled in a serious way.

The plot of the novel was a bit slow-moving for my taste, and because of the split between three main characters who were quite loosely connected for the first portion of the book, it didn’t feel as though there was any true focal point. I was actually very surprised (but pleased!) when Davis narrowed her focus toward the end and settled on the development of one character. I won’t say who - cause that’ll spoil the surprise. However, I also had problems with the level of melodrama. I understand that it’s a tragedy, but it just seems like nobody can get a break. Everyone is going through everything - not a single character isn’t overburdened with an unrealistic amount of issues and baggage. People do have issues. Mi comprende. But I’m just saying that the level of melodrama reached at certain points was kind of distracting in it’s unrealistic scope. If the novel had focused on one or two “real life” issues as opposed to trying to cover almost all of them it would have been a lot stronger, especially because the book’s just a little over 300 pages. Pretty much the only thing that didn’t go down was teen pregnancy. But that was like the only thing.

Characters were a strong point of the book for me. I loved Grandpa Aldo, and I thought Rob’s ghost was portrayed in a really interesting way that made it a bit easier to swallow that one paranormal element in an otherwise realistic novel. Holly and Jason were likable, if a touch bland. There came a moment in the book, however - during the “big reveal” of the plot, if you will - where I felt Davis stepped way out of line on Holly’s characterization. Again, I won’t say exactly what because it’s a huge spoiler, but I just felt that when the author revealed to us the truth of an incident that happened a while previous, I felt that Holly’s actions in the situation really did not line up with the girl I thought she was. The problem was that this wasn’t treated as a big deal for her character - just as a matter of fact - and she continued to act in a way that was consistent to the Holly I knew. So it was very strange for there to have been that “WHOA! She did WHAT? That doesn’t sound like her at all!” moment. 

The real stand-out in this book was the writing. A lot of authors try to do alternating perspectives and FAIL completely - the characters sound exactly the same, there’s no point to changing from first-person (I’m looking at you, Magnolia League - I’m looking at YOU) or there are other blips that make it messy. I thought Heather Davis totally nailed it. Holly’s portions are written in first-person, Rob’s in the greatly-underused second-person, and Jason’s in third-person. While it was an adjustment at first, I eventually got into the flow of it - and there’s definitely a reason she chooses to use the perspectives she does. Overall, I thought this was a really neat tactic for differentiating the characters, and she never slipped up! 

So. This was an enjoyable book for me. Not my style by a long shot, but still enjoyable. I was surprised by how much I liked it, actually - while not a great book, it’s a solid read and that’s largely due to the really interesting writing style used. While there were character slip-ups and plot glitches, I managed to overlook those in favor of the book’s high points. Crusty old men = awesome.

Also - did I mention it’s a standalone? It gets a special shout-out JUST for that. I commend you, Ms. Davis. I truly do.

Final Breakdown:

Premise & Originality: 0.5 Stars

Plot: 0.5 Stars

Characters: 0.5 Stars

Writing: 1 Star

Enjoyability: 0.5 Stars

Total: 3 / 5 Stars

Book Review: Gone by Michael Grant

Jumped onto the Gone train. Pretty nice train, I must say. Anyway, filmed this after I filmed my last video. Filmed a bunch of other videos - accidentally deleted them. Which was so depressing.

Grade: A - 

Musique: Sun of a Gun by Oh Land

I keep using copyright material in these videos. Just keep that on the DL. 

* Just a note: I’ve read this book before, once. I kind of promised to review everything I read for my 50 Book Challenge (which I might just up to a 100 Book Challenge - thinking about it :/)… Hence “Second Thoughts.”

Alright. So. The book is a high school comedy-drama. Usually, I don’t do those. Mind you, I’ve also said numerous times that I “don’t do” YA paranormal romance - and we all see how true that turned out. I’ve been reading a surprising amount of it lately. Reading it - not really liking it, but reading it. Most free galleys are that genre and I’m all about free books so, hey, I’ll swallow a load of vampire bullcrap if I don’t have to pay for it. 

Guess who’s off track?

Synopsis: Basically, this is a novel about three Australian girls - best friends Cassie, Lydia and Emily - who attend a swanky private high school. Every year, the juniors at Ashbury High participate in a pen-pal project for English class, in which they’re paired up with a student from the neighbouring crap school, Brookfield. Wacky hijinks ensue.

Grade: A

Dislikes: Pretty much nothing. Is this book deeply intelligent? Brilliantly written? Wrought with emotion? No, not really. Is it still awesome? Yep. I’ll explain why.

Likes: Pretty much everything. I loved this book so much when I first read it that I went out and bought my own copy. It’s funny, it’s smart, and it’s unique. Enough said. But I’m going to say more because if I didn’t beat the dead review-horse, I wouldn’t be me.

Writing Style: Part of the book’s originality and freshness comes from it’s format. It’s an epistolary novel (in case you didn’t know, that means it’s a novel written entirely in letters, diary entries… the kind of stuff you could actually find and read, if it existed). This lends it some verisimilitude, but also allows information to be concealed and revealed in an interesting manner. Lydia’s “How To Be A Writer” Notebook, Emily’s yammering letters to Charlie, and Matt Dunlop’s extremely violent but brief notes are all written in unique character voices and allow us to get into the characters’ heads. Humor’s also present, in great quantity. So - no, okay, it’s not Jane Eyre. But it’s quirky and cute and fun :)

Plot: There are three plotlines with three very different leading ladies, and they frequently switch out. The plot was easy to follow, but contained a couple of interesting and unanticipated twists, which is always appreciated. Even reading it for the second time, I was drawn into it - in part because of the fast (but not too fast) pace and the sharply drawn characters. The book contains some romantic undertones, but they weren’t the focal point - I felt they served as a complement to the story without overpowering the central story of Cassie Aganovic overcoming her father’s death.

Characters: All six main characters are sharply defined individuals with unique writing styles and perspectives. That’s probably what gets me on this book - it’s light, it’s quick, and it’s fun, but the characters seem very organic despite their quirky weirdness. All three of the main female characters were relatable, but in different ways. 

I don’t really know what else to say in regards to this book, but if you like this sort of thing, read it! Even if you don’t, I’d give it a try. The plot and characters, as well as the unique writing style, really make it stand out from other light teen reads of this type. It’s not deep or soul-plumbing or anything, but it was a lot of fun to read, and sometimes you need that, ya know?