Review: The Iron Witch (The Iron Witch #1) by Karen Mahoney

The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney

Copy Courtesy of Flux
Already Published

Summary
Donna has iron tattoos all over her hands that she keeps covered with gloves so that no one else sees them. Her former classmates thinks she's a freak, but when the evil wood elves appear in the city, she may have to accept what she is and face them.

Commentary
There are books that tuck in pieces of world-building here and there, that weave the history of a place beautifully into the story, this is not one of those books. Donna has a best friend who is her very bestest friend, but his place in the story is really as a prop for Donna to tell the history of the story and for her to have someone to rescue.

There is never a sense that Donna has any idea what she is doing despite being trained in this mythical world for the last seven or eight years. There is all too much time spent telling the reader how Donna is and not enough time by far showing the reader. I think this is probably the biggest failing of this book.

I had really hoped this book would be good, but it seems that is not the case. Perhaps others will think differently, but I can't recommend this book.

Star Rating: 1.0/5.0

For an explanation of the Star Rating go here.

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Review: The Pace (The Pace #1) by Selena Shorts

The Pace by Shelena Shorts

Summary
Weston is not immortal, but he doesn't age. Sophie is strangely drawn to him, and she also wants to know why his body does such strange things. Also

Commentary
My biggest gripe with this book: UC Berkeley doesn't have a medical school. Really, how hard would it have been for the author to do basic research BEFORE writing this book. It's not like Berkeley hides what schools it has >.>

My other big gripe: it claims that the blood from an animal injected into a human will completely overtake the human system, change the cells - in essence all of the DNA. If this were presented as magical blood, I would've been OK with it, but NO it's an old science experiment that did this.

Also, the male love interest strikes me as a total pushover stalker, and there's love at first sight which is somewhat nullified by 'historical' stuff, but I still wasn't all that pleased. In short, I did not like this book; it made me angry.

Star Rating: 1.0/5.0

For an explanation of the Star Rating go here.

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Review: Possession (Possession #1) by Elana Johnson

Possession by Elana Johnson

Copy Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
Already Published

Summary
Vi knows she shouldn't be kissing Zenn, but he is her match so it can't be all bad right? Then she is captured, and the Thinkers who rule wants her to join them in controlling society. Along the way she meets another inmate, Jag, who also makes her skin tingle.

Commentary
Ok, I'm really not sure whether the final version had significant revision or not, but I do hope it had some revision because this had some issues. This was another one of those books where I really was pulled in by the cover :(

Biggest issue I had was that the story jumped constantly. I really had no idea what was going on for a lot of the book because we would be somewhere and then suddenly we would be in Vi's head or Jag's head without any warning or indication or it would jump to a new scene with no transition. Because of this constant confusion, I also had a hard time following character growth because sometimes I wouldn't be able to remember who had thought or experienced what.

I'm sure the society was interesting, but much of it wasn't really explored. I also wasn't really able to immerse myself in it. Perhaps you will think differently (especially if there were more edits). Also, apologies for taking so long to actually write this review heh~~

Star Rating: 1.0/5.0

For an explanation of the Star Rating go here.

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Review: Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes by Greg X. Graves

Bears, Recycling and Confusing Time Paradoxes by Greg X. Graves

Copy Courtesy of 1889 Labs
Already Released

Summary
A collection of short stories which are meant to give moral guidance. They cover many situations such as how to recycle and what to do when you have a vampire suitor.

Commentary
Now, I like odd and weird books, but this one really just confused me. Each story was only a few pages long and had a moral of the story at the end. It seemed like the author was trying to write stories with advice that should have been funny in the context of the story but completely missed the boat and simply ended up with morals of the stories that had me scratching my head.

I will admit that there are a couple stories that managed to just barely hit the mark of funny in context, but the rest were so... bad that I almost didn't finish the book despite it only being 168 pages long.

I think the concept could have been very entertaining as the synopsis promised all sorts of strange and silly situations, but it just completely failed to deliver.

Star Rating: 1.0/5.0

For an explanation of the Star Rating go here.

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Review: Bumped (Bumped #1) by Megan McCafferty

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Copy Coutesy of Netgalley and Balzer + Bray
Release Date: April 26, 2011

Summary
There is a virus that renders just about everyone over 18 sterile, which means the baby-making business is very lucrative for a smart, pretty teen like Melody. Until Harmony, her long lost twin sister, comes into her life and things get really complicated really quickly.

Commentary
Harmony chapters are basically a continuous ranting of a very deeply brainwashed cult member. While this is an interesting viewpoint, I was annoyed with its repetitiveness. Yes, she does some thinking about things, and there is some character development, but that development is shallow and very quick (in the time span of 1 day).

Melody is a similarly shallow character, who is highly intelligent, talks like a ditsy valley girl (her slang is changed to fit the world), and changes her mind about fundamental parts of her life in the span of a day. An example of a sentence "Wow, that dress was totally fertilicious I don't know why you're negging on it." After having to read this kind of dialogue for the entirety of the book, I wanted to chuck it out a window, but I read it on my Kindle which is not at fault and so should not have to bear the consequences of the bad books I read on it.

So, to summarize: 2 main characters that I can't stand and a story that is shallow and moves in an unrealistically quick manner. At least the premise was interesting.

Star Rating: 1.0/5.0

For an explanation of the Star Rating go here.

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Review: The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1) by Rick Riordan

I am really confused as to why this is such a popular book. The tone and writing style in general was not very pretty and rather annoying at intervals. I wanted to bash the main character (and some side characters) over the head for most of the book, and many of the elements felt very contrived. The twisted Greek Myth stuff was kinda fun and saved the book from being an utter wash.

I suspect many people read this as a way to continue the Harry Potter binge (with publisher's cashing in) although this book utterly fails to bring the sort of charm, wonder, and depth that the HP series had.

Please don't spend time reading this book. There are better ones out there.

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Review: Must've Done Something Good