Switched by Amanda Hocking

TL;DR changeling troll princess

(finished 7/19/15)

Oh, man. I have to disagree with all the reviewers I follow -- I did not enjoy any of the aspects that they raved about. If paranormal romance isn't your thing, stay well away from Switched. It's very typical YA paranormal romance. And I didn't like that. (To be fair, their reviews are late 2011 / early 2012, which was a different YA climate than now.)

I'm gonna start out with mentioning the Trylle. They were a pretty interesting concept, considering writing about trolls doesn't scream "swoon-worthy romance", but it was unique. I wish they passed as a little less human, but then again, I guess that kind of ruins the whole changeling scheme they have going. That part was interesting to read about. I like the setup of it.

On to everything else. I did not like any of the characters. The only ones I appreciated were Tove, Rhys, and Willa. And, unfortunately, they're only side characters. I did not find Wendy endearing, Finn was creepy at the beginning and inconsistently characterized, and Matt's behavior was borderline creepy. I did not like Finn as a romantic interest and Matt's possessiveness over Wendy came off less as "protective older brother" and more as "toeing the line of sibling abuse". He was unrealistically possessive of Wendy and it honestly creeped me out. I guess part of it could be explained by the fact that their mother tried to kill her, but most of the Matt-Wendy interactions (if not all) showed no sibling dynamic and more "father overprotective of his young daughter". Ew.

Wendy, from about page 11 onwards, decided that she liked Finn. Despite the fact that she's only known him for a week and their only interaction at that point was him staring at her in class or maybe the weird conversation they had. That is a very poor foundation to base a crush off of. There was no build-up to their romance. It just kind of was. It sprang into existence out of nowhere. Very insta-love. There was nothing that made me support their romance. Honestly, the fact that Trylle society said they couldn't be together almost made me hopeful that Wendy would wise up and move on, but nope. That doesn't happen.

The plot's pretty meh. I liked the concept of Wendy becoming acclimated to the Trylle culture, but there wasn't so much "acclimating" as there was "Wendy digging in her heels and refusing to cooperate." Most of it was to be expected, especially because she wasn't exactly there of her own free will, but I wanted to see more of her sucking it up and accepting what was going on.

Part of that problem is also that Finn and Elora do a god-awful job in trying to get her acclimated. The few questions that Wendy does actually pose on her own get pushed off until they're completely unavoidable; Finn's kind of patronizing in teaching her; Elora just flat-out ignores Wendy's opinions and dictates all the choices regarding her while explaining nothing. Elora's an even worse parent than Wendy's foster-mother who tried to kill her. (Who maybe should've just finished the job. Kimberly was at least an interesting character. Nobody else really was.)

The whole thing with the Vittra wasn't explained, either. The little short story that was included in the back of my library copy just raised more questions than it answered, and I probably would've been better off without it. I don't understand what their need for Wendy is. Just kill her and be done with it. (Or maybe I just feel that way because of how unsympathetic Wendy is as a character.)

I initially rated the book three stars, but in writing this review, I have no idea what I based that off of. I went back and changed it. The preview for the next book looks even more uninteresting and infinitely more frustrating than where Switched left off, so I have no desire to continue reading the story.

I typed up my sticky notes into a spreadsheet like I've been doing recently. There's a big gap in the middle of the book and I'm not sure if it was out of laziness or disinterest.

TL;DR the only thing that sets Switched apart from any other YA paranormal romance is that it has trolls. I'm not interested in reading the subsequent books (though I probably will anyway.) If you do like paranormal romance, this is probably a book for you.

Sweet by Emmy Laybourne

TL;DR weight loss supplement promotion goes horribly wrong

(finished 7/18/15)

Sweet was addicting. Almost as much as Solu, believe it or not. I read it in 24 hours after I finished Monstrous Beauty. I totally had a book hangover immediately after finishing and that's probably gonna influence a lot of this review. I apologize for that in advance if I don't go back and edit some of it out. 

Let me also preface this by saying that Sweet is not contemporary or realistic. That's kind of the reason I liked it. It wouldn't have been nearly as interesting without the turn of evens that transpired in the book. 

Sweet seemed nice enough starting out, but I should've known better than that from Emmy Laybourne. From what I remember of Monument 14, it was hella depressing. Good, but one of those books that I have to read a fluffy book afterwards to recover. For some reason I wasn't expecting Sweet to take a Monument 14 turn and I was completely wrong. I didn't have a craving for a fluffy book, though, so it's not as dark as Monument 14. 

I can't say that the science behind Solu is realistic at all, but the whole thing is intriguing. I'm definitely interested more in how the logistics of it work. The latter half of the book is downright creepy and the blurb does the bare minimum in hinting what actually happens. (I don't know if I was able to guess from reading it or if I'd read what actually happened somewhere before sitting down with the book in my hands, but I'm not gonna mention it. You're gonna have to read it.) 

I really love Laurel and Tom as characters. Laurel is very body-positive and I was really glad to see that she was comfortable with herself and didn't feel the need to take Solu. There's been a really unfortunate trend in YA where the main characters talk themselves / their appearances down, so it was really nice to find a character who doesn't sell herself short. She's also not a pushover. Tom's cool in the fact that he's not some spoiled famous kid -- he's actually pretty level-headed. He's not a pushover, either. 

I think the romance was kind of fast, but I actually really enjoyed it. I don't think it quite counts as insta-love (but I can see that point being argued). They get together really quickly but it's not like they fawn over each other all the time. Not like they really had any chances to. They care for each other but it's not reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet like a lot of other YA couples unfortunately are. 

The execution of Sweet's plot was amazing. The pacing was great and for a while I wondered if I'd been wrong about what actually was the deal with Solu -- I was kind of afraid there'd be a sudden "oh no, everyone suddenly turns insane" kind of scene, but the lead-up into that worked perfectly. 

A lot of the negative reviews I'm seeing have to deal with the fact that they were expecting something contemporary or somewhat realistic. Sweet is neither of those. At all. Well, I guess it's contemporary time period-wise, but it's definitely nowhere realistic. I'm pretty sure Laybourne mentioned B-roll films in her acknowledgements. It's essentially like one of those, from what I understand of them. A really amusing B-roll movie. (I'm pretty sure B-roll isn't exactly a compliment, so I'm sorry if it comes off as mean.) 

Another thing I really love is that Tom and Laurel's chapters are clearly distinct. Their typefaces are a little too identical, both serif fonts with only slight width differences, but it helped. (Along this line, if you've ever read Legend, let it be known that I love how the split narration was done. Especially design-wise.) Tom and Laurel have different voices, too, which I really appreciated after reading Echo and Mystic back-to-back. Even without the typeface differences, their grammar usage and thought patterns are unique. 

I've actually been in the same room as Emmy Laybourne! I actually happened across the LA stop of a Fierce Reads tour she was on. I walked into The Last Bookstore about ten minutes late, though, so all the seats were taken. I just stood at the back for a couple minutes and listened before carrying on to explore. I'm also surprised that our library got a copy of the book so soon after its release. 

I'm really hoping there's a sequel, because the cliffhanger Laybourne left off on is killing me. I cannot deal with the stress of imagining what the backlash of said cliffhanger will wreak in book-world. I'm gonna be upset if I hear nothing more from the Sweet universe. I need to know what happens!! 

TL;DR I really enjoyed Sweet but it takes a good amount of trusting that Laybourne knows what she's doing, and also an enjoyment of the not-quite-realistic. If you like your stories to be grounded in real-world logistics, then Sweet's probably not your thing. 

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

TL;DR a slightly convoluted mermaid mystery

(finished 7/17/15)

I just realized that Elizabeth Fama also wrote Plus One. The entire time I was reading I was trying to figure out why her name sounded familiar. It's because she wrote a book I read less than half a year ago. Oops. This is why the internet helps. 

Monstrous Beauty is a really intriguing mystery book. I'm not really one for mysteries, but I've been on a mermaid YA kick recently. I'm not quite sure how to comment on the mystery aspect of the book considering I rarely hunt those kinds of books out, but there's enough information given that you'll figure everything out before Hester does. Take that as you will. (I guess it's normal to know more than the character? Maybe? I'm not sure.)

Hester was an okay character. A little slow, maybe, but that might also just be from an outsider's opinion. Syrenka was pretty interesting but she only comes into play in the flashbacks. Out of everyone, I think I liked the Scottish pastor guy the most (but not enough to remember his name OTL).

It was really fun watching the whole mystery unfold. The chapters generally alternated between what Hester was doing and what Syrenka had done in the past, so it was kind of like getting both ends of a story and working your way to the middle. (A little. Or starting at two different points on intersecting lines.) Everything worked out a little too well, but I think that's to be expected as a standalone.

I would actually be really interested in a story simply about Syrenka and her sisters (friends? Are they actually all related?). The most interesting part to me was the climax, but of course that didn't last very long. I want to know more about the mermaids and their culture and that really old one that rules over everything and sounds kind of like an Ursula.

TL;DR I liked it. I don't have all that much to say about it, tbh, but it was good.

Mystic by Alyson Noel

TL;DR everything's a mess in the aftermath of Echo

(finished 7/16/15)

I managed to find Mystic in the library trip after reading Echo, so I figured "why not?" and checked it out. It was actually the first book I read out of that haul. (It was also the only one I had any real interest in since I wanted to read it before I forgot details from Echo. The rest are standalones or the first in their series.) 

Honestly, for the first half of the book, essentially nothing happens. All hell breaks loose at about the 70% mark, but at the 50% mark I sat back and tried to figure out how to put what happened into words. And essentially it came down to "not much". It never got boring, per se, and it did take me up until 50% to realize that nothing had really happened, but the reality is that it's just laying the groundwork for the climax without doing anything exciting.

(My World History teacher used to say "but the reality is, is that" and it used to drive me crazy. I honestly tried to avoid using that phrase right there but that was the best I could come up with. Please forgive me.)

So yeah, once Daire manages to find Dace again, all the action in the book starts. A lot happens in the span of about a day in the book. (I think Mystic only takes place over about a week, anyway.) People on Goodreads mention that they feel like Mystic is really only a set-up book for Horizon, and I can definitely see that. The setup to the climax isn't too bad but it all felt a little too convenient. I'm not even sure why I feel that way, other than the fact that (again) Daire and Dace don't really communicate and their narrations sometimes betrayed what was going on or held back key information until they were talking about what happened a couple chapters later. There was stuff that they mentioned later that would've been cool to know about during the scene, but I guess maybe that would've ruined the mood of what was going on. I don't know. 

I have very little to say about Daire and Dace, but that's mainly because they spent most of the book separated from each other. The sex scene is definitely a lot later in the book, and I feel like the lead-up into it is better. They also do trust each other more (at least, Daire trusts Dace with what he's doing), which is definitely an improvement. They still drive me crazy and rank very low on my current "YA couples I've read" list, but hey, at least they got better slightly. I still wish they'd quit acting like Romeo and Juliet, though. It's a little sickening. 

Xotichl got a pretty big chunk of the narration since essentially nothing was happening with Dace for the first half, and I actually appreciate her chapters. Xotichl's definitely my favorite character. She's a strong female character who doesn't need to kick butt to stand on her own. I want a book just about her. Not Daire. Xotichl is more interesting. 

I made another spreadsheet with all the sticky notes from the book if you're curious. (There are spoilers. Like always. Keep that in mind.) I didn't use as many sticky notes as Echo, but jeez, Dace and Daire can be so ignorant sometimes. 

TL;DR I kinda read Mystic because of the whole "watching a trainwreck" thing regarding Dace and Daire, but it was better than Echo. If you read up to Echo, you may as well continue reading. You're already halfway through the series. 

My Old Town Alexandria Day Trips

This post was initially gonna be about Otakon, but then I decided I didn't feel inspired enough to write an entire blog post about it. TL;DR the con was really fun and super chill.

I've actually taken two day trips down to Alexandria this summer: the first one was with my mom's cousin when she was in town, and the second one was as a birthday celebration since I wanted to go back to Old Town. I didn't expect to enjoy it so much!

I'm not sure I'm happy with how this looks, but I made this entire post the night before it went up, and I'm tired enough from walking up and down King Street that I kind of don't care it looks amateur-ish. Forgive me? 

This post is really image-heavy.

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier

TL;DR having magic sucks

(finished 7/10/15)

I initially read this series back in elementary school and I actually remembered a lot from it, but I'm pretty sure I read the books out of order. It's been so long since I've read them that I forgot some things but managed to remember others. What managed to stick with me has no rhyme or reason. 

(Ha. That's a pun because the main character's name is Reason.)

The concept of the book is awesome. However, Magic or Madness feels hella slow. There's not too much plot stuff happening the first third of the book, and very little ends up getting explained, even by the end. I'm sure that would've driven me crazy if I didn't already know the end. 

The characters are pretty unique, but I'm not sure if I would really feel invested in them if I didn't already know them. (There's gonna be a lot of mentions of my past read. I apologize.) Reason is actually half Australian aborigine, so she's a POC main character, and Jay-Tee is POC as well, but I'm not sure if she's Latina or what. I'm not really sure if Reason's grandparents are both white or not, so she doesn't fall totally into a POC category, but she's not white-washed. Tom is definitely white (and super red-headed, from what it sounds like) and is worryingly thirsty for a fifteen year old. 

It would be dead easy for them to kiss. pg 67

This crossed Tom's mind while he was giving Reason a piggy-back ride, and they've known each other for maybe a day. He never makes any inappropriate moves or anything, and I guess this could be pretty typical for guys, but it kind of stuck out to me as odd. Reason also didn't seem like the brightest kid, but I guess that could be because she's fifteen and never really been in school. (I thought she'd be smart enough to not down a whole bunch of champagne, common sense and all, but nope.) 

Also in regards to the quote: the narration style is pretty unique for the book. Reason's POV is first person, but a couple chapters in it switches to third person to show Tom's POV, and later it adds Jay-Tee as well. It's not bad, but it can be kind of jarring. I completely forgot about it. There's also no indication of whose chapter it is, but it's pretty easy to tell considering they're only together as a trio for the last couple pages. You can tell whose chapter it is almost immediately. It also switches between American and Australian slang depending on who's narrating, and there's a glossary at the back of the book. I actually remembered a lot of it!

So like I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago, you really don't know what's going on in the first book. Nobody tells Reason, and Jay-Tee and Tom's narrations only hint at stuff. Not a good book if you hate mysteries or being just as lost as the main character. 

The copyright on the inside of the library's copy is 2005, so Magic or Madness also falls into that "pre-2010 MG/YA fuzzy divide" category I've mentioned in, like, my past three reviews. I honestly think that it pushes more MG than YA because of the narration and the way the plot is set up. The library has a YA sticker on the spine. (The copy I checked out this time is new enough that it doesn't have the stickers on the back where they'd stamp the due date, which they phased out around the time I started middle school, I think.) 

The story isn't really dark or anything, at least not in the first book. I remember it being a little depressing once the established rules and boundaries of the magic start coming into effect, but that might even be more towards the third book, and not even the second. (The second is Magic Lessons and the third is Magic's Child. I'm amazed I remembered the titles.) 

Fun fact: Reason taught me about the Fibonacci series! My Pre-Calc teacher brought them up in class back in sophomore year and I was like, "Oh hey! I know what that is!" (Reason uses the Fibonacci series to remember a phone number and I sticky-noted that page because that was something I remembered from my first read.) 

TL;DR it raises a lot more questions than it answers, but the system of magic that's set up is unique and I still haven't found one like it in the years since I read Magic or Madness the first time. Give it a chance if you can.

Aperture Quartet

I know that for a while Aperture has been this thing I bring up but explain to the extent of "[vague waving hand motion] it's a thing that exists that I created", and I figured I'd finally change that a little bit! I want to become more comfortable talking about Aperture to people outside of my immediate friend group. (My friends usually hear me talk almost non-stop about Aperture ...)

The day that this goes up will be my final day as a kid -- Wednesday the 12th is my 18th birthday. I figured that was the most auspicious day that I could publish this post. (Or, y'know. To give me something to focus on other than the fact I'll be an adult. I'm still in denial.)

I'm only going to talk about the stuff that's established around the beginning of the book and not any of the stuff that the characters wouldn't tell someone they just met. A pretty big theme of Aperture is secrets and the versions of truth that people tell each other and I don't want to spoil anything!

In making this post, I realized that Quinn and Nate ended up with names similar to the faceclaim actors I found, and I cannot figure out how the heck that happened. Both of my characters are two years old and I only found their faceclaims within the past year.

I tried my best to find the original sources for these photos, and I'm sorry if I miscredit or made a mistake! I actually had to pass up pictures I'd pinned in the past because I couldn't find even a somewhat-credible source for them. (I spent 20 minutes on a picture of Nate that just kept linking back to itself. I still cannot figure out who it was of.)

actress Molly Quinn (image url / original post)

Name: Quinn Hart

Birthdate: 6/21/97

Height: 5'1"

Ethnicity: Irish-American

When I combined the two story ideas that became Aperture, Quinn had a much smaller part than she does now. As I tried to make the two plots mesh together into one coherent one, though, I kept getting ideas that focused on her, and I decided to make her the main character. June 21st is actually the day I came up with her as a character, right after sophomore year ended and I tried to figure out what to do with my summer without internet.

Quinn is the middle child of her family; with four other siblings, she's found the right balance of effort that she doesn't get in trouble for her laziness nor praise for ambition. She's very sarcastic and often tells the truth because she knows nobody will take her seriously. She also decides to ignore problems for as long as possible rather than worry about them, which occasionally backfires on her. 

actor Colin Ford 

(image url / original post)

Name: Nate Collins

Birthdate: 2/28/97

Height: 5'5"

Ethnicity: Israeli / Italian / Greek

I found this picture of Colin Ford on Pinterest through someone's character inspiration board and my jaw just about dropped because holy crap he looks exactly like Nate in this set of promotional pictures. Button-down shirt with rolled up sleeves and all.

Nate's grandparents live next door to Quinn's family. He and his dad lived with his grandparents when he first started school, but they later moved to California when his dad got his footing as a single parent. Nate's dad sends him back to live with his grandparents for reasons Nate refuses to elaborate on. He and Quinn have trouble at first adjusting to seeing each other every day again after losing contact.

actress Katherine McNamara (image url / original post)

Name: Fel Skayhill

Birthdate: 4/4/97

Height: 5'5"

Ethnicity: Canadian French

Fel was the first character I created that still exists in the story, and she was initially supposed to be the narrator for Aperture before I tried a dual POV with both her and Quinn and eventually cutting her POV. Her personality has changed a lot since the first draft I ever wrote.

Fel and her sister were both born in Montreal, but they moved to the US when their parents got jobs with the Smithsonian museums. She and Quinn have been friends since elementary school. Fel is the mom figure of the group and is the one everyone turns to for advice or to make the final decision on anything, which is a position she takes very seriously. She practices rhythmic gymnastics (though she doesn't compete) and is an awesome photographer.

Edit: I initially listed Suki Waterhouse as her faceclaim (image url / original post).

actor Tyler Posey (image url / original post)

Name: Sol Dunst

Birthdate: 10/3/96

Height: 6'1"

Ethnicity: German-Puerto Rican

Before Aperture, Sol was actually a girl! I completely changed Sol's character design so the cast was more balanced. The only thing that stayed the same was the nickname and having a German parent. 

Sol lived with his dad in Germany for a while before he decided to live with his mom and younger brother in the US. Sol and Fel clicked almost immediately when they met in middle school and they've been a steady couple for a few years by the time the story starts. He plays varsity basketball and sometimes struggles with trying to balance three languages between school and home.


So there you go! These four have been what got me through junior and senior year and I can't imagine where I'd be without them. I could probably go on forever with some really sappy story that'd probably bring me to tears trying to type it up (not gonna lie, that's happened more than once ;; ), but I'm gonna leave it here for right now. If you're still curious about Aperture, check out my Pinterest board for it! I'm hoping to write up more posts in the future about the plot and more side characters, but I don't know when I'll get to those or where they'll fit into my post schedule.

Thank you for reading and letting me share my bbs with you!! ♥ 

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black

TL;DR fae politics, an alcoholic mother, and a "mature" 16 year old

(finished 7/7/15)

While I rated this 2 stars on Goodreads, it's not a bad book. It's actually fairly decent. It depends on your standards. Because this was published in 2010, I'm treating it differently than I would if it was published this year. (This goes back to the middle / high school publishing date divide that I need to explain in detail at some point.) 

I feel like Glimmerglass doesn't exactly have a sense of realism, but the story functions without it. Everyone seems a little cardboard cutout-ish but they at least have a little bit of depth to them. Except maybe the villain, who I'm gonna hopefully not reveal because I'm not sure if it's considered a spoiler or not. The characters definitely don't seem like real people but there was at least an attempt. They resemble people. They don't act like it, but they try. 

The plot's a little mediocre because it's basically Dana continually running into security issues, but nothing huge really happens. There's very little that's been established by the end of the book in terms of things happening. Mainly, big political leaders want her on their side, she keeps getting attacked, and her necklace obviously means something. Maybe it's because the book doesn't even pass 300 pages. There's less room to really establish anything good by the time you set up the world and the characters. (Shh. I'm trying to be more optimistic in this review.) Some of the events that happened were definitely just for a shock factor than for actual development, which kind of sucked. They weren't even all that shocking either. The setup for the scene I noticed this for was practically nonexistent and there was very little repercussion of it. Everything was essentially back to the way it had been within a few chapters. Not really how you're supposed to go pulling that off. If you're threatening big danger, carry it through at least once. The scene doesn't have too much impact when I know the character's going to survive somehow by some act of plot. I don't remember the term for that. 

So like I said, the characters had nothing too unique going for them, and I can't say that I connected with them much, but they're not bad. Just not exceptional. Dana seemed juvenile but I can see that being written off as a result of the time it was published in. The main characters in YA books published before 2011-ish feel like they're trying really hard to come off as "real" to the reader, and it kind of has the same effect as when adults try to sound hip and say things like "yolo" all the time. This could very well just be an effect of reading it five years after its publication or a reflection of what I personally do and don't like in books. I'm sure there are probably 16 year olds out there like her somewhere. 

The good news is, there's very little romance! There's some, but it's definitely nothing close to Echo. There's mutual attraction, but neither of them tried very hard to establish a relationship in light of what all was going on, and I gotta give Ethan tons of credit for backing off when Dana was not conducive to any advances. He learned. I am very glad for YA boys like him. They are apparently pretty rare to find. Dana herself is still pretty boy-crazy, which irritated me a little bit, but she also stood up for herself and chewed Ethan out for the things he did. Their relationship obviously isn't very strong or built on the best foundation but I definitely like them better than I did the couples of Echo or Altered, which is kind of sad considering you're actually supposed to root for those guys. Ethan's kind of set up as a bad guy from the beginning even though that's not his intention. 

In reading reviews on goodreads, I have been reminded of the incredibly poor foundation their relationship is based on. I actually glazed over some of it because I rarely read more than a few pages at a time and because Dana considerably downplays what happened. More than I think she should have. The sad thing is that I still like Ethan as a love interest more than I do Dace or Sam from the aforementioned books. >:| I think I may honestly only like Ethan in light of the other books I've read recently. Had I read this after a 4 or 5 star book, I'd probably immediately be like, "no." (Also in reading reviews: there is setup for a love triangle but it's not executed at all. I noticed the introduction of the love triangle but it's so terrible that I didn't even notice that the guy was an actual love interest and not just some hot guy Dana decided to get all flustered about.) 

I was also glad that Dana and Kimber had a good friendship! I was a little worried at first based on Dana's first impressions of Kimber, but they ended up with a very good mutual respect for each other. I wish Kimber had played a little bigger role in the second half of the book, but I'm not really sure what could've been done in the situation. She does kind of fall into the "token best friend" trope but I'm mainly just happy they didn't end up bitter rivals like I feared. 

The narration was pretty iffy, but yet again, this goes back to the whole "published in 2010" issue. It's very on par with what I remember reading back in elementary and middle school. Her narration isn't too eloquent and sounds pretty childish at times. No matter how mature she keeps saying she is, she's obviously not the brightest kid if she decides to run away to a different country to meet a parent she's only been talking to for maybe a few weeks. There's definitely more telling than showing in terms of how she's able to "function like an adult." I honestly can't point you to any proof that she could function as a legal adult and not get herself into trouble in a pretty stupid way. I also think she should've gotten CPS involved instead of letting her mom get away with her terrible drinking habits, too. She's also a little ridiculous for believing she can be trusted and treated as an adult after all that she's pulled, but hey, it's a YA book. She gets away with it. 

TL;DR it's a fairly light and easy read and I enjoyed it a little more than I did Echo and Altered, which were the previous two books I read. I'm actually fairly intrigued as to what's gonna happen in the second book with the way the epilogue was set up, so I am planning on continuing the series eventually. 

Echo by Alyson Noel

TL;DR lots of melodrama about "destiny" and "true love", tbh

(finished 7/3/15)

As a disclaimer, I read Fated quite a while ago. (Goodreads says I read it back in Jan 2012, but also that the book was published May 2012, so I'm not sure how that works considering I bought it from a thrift store and it definitely wasn't an ARC.) I remember very little of Fated other than the fact that I wasn't impressed enough to keep my copy. It may still actually be in the house, though. I'll have to check and re-read it if I find it.

Let me also say that I don't think I'm really in the target audience for this book. (This seems to be happening a lot recently.) I'm gonna nitpick a little bit because I have different expectations in books than what I saw in Echo. This doesn't mean that it's necessarily a bad book -- I just didn't personally connect with it. I'm sure a lot of people enjoyed reading it. (In fact, it's got close to a 4-star rating on Goodreads, so that's a pretty good indicator that I'm in the minority here.)

I'm also going to go into spoilers to explain some of my frustrations. This is probably also going to talk about stuff established in Fated that I have since forgotten about. I'm not really sure what can be considered spoiler and what can't after all this time.

Anyway, Echo was about as fun to sticky-note as The Selection was. Because I remember so little of Fated, I'm mainly gonna be treating the book as its own entity as opposed to a sequel. I was only 5 sticky notes short of how many I used for The Selection, and that's mainly because those 5 were still stuck in Altered. (I had to pilfer one of them.) I have typed up all my sticky notes the same way I did for The Selection, which you can see here. Unfortunately, there is also more of questioning the methods of how the book was written, not just the characters' decisions. I'll talk about that a little more below. The Google Spreadsheet has some spoilers, so please keep that in mind!!

First up, Echo probably has the fastest buildup to a sex scene I have ever seen in a book. Seriously, it's only on page 42. I know that there's more of a precedent because of Fated, but still, not quite what I expected. It's only about a page and it's not too graphic, and part of me wants to give the book credit for being sex-positive and that nobody shames Daire for expressing her sexuality, but jeez. Also, I'm pretty sure Dace and Daire are both sixteen, and on page 204 (at least a few weeks later) that it was their six week anniversary. That is really quick in a relationship, imo. Take this as you will, considering I am hella asexual and I'm making no assumptions that my peers are anywhere near as chaste as I am. But still.

Let's also talk about the wonderful ground Dace and Daire have built their relationship on, as well as both of their family histories. Paloma reveals to Daire that Dace was born the same day as her, and did Daire know that? No. She had sex with a boy before she even knew his birthday. They both rush into danger trying to "protect" the other, when in reality they just both jump straight into the fire because they're trying to do the same thing and both manage to fail at it. Seriously, the plot would be vastly different if they sat down to talk out their plans and not just pull some "stoic hero" move. They're willing to admit their undying love and sacrifice their lives for the other before their six week anniversary. I feel like that's toeing a little too close to Romeo and Juliet.

Yes, I understand that there have got to be couples like this that exist in real life. Do I think they make for good protagonists? No. Not really. I think the adults in the story need to talk a little more sense into them. It really came off to me that the adults are letting them be all Romeo and Juliet-like because of this prophecy, that their thought process is "well they're fated to be together, let's not give them any well-meaning talks that we would give to any other couples their age".

Jennika (Daire's mom) does give her the sex talk and "there are better fish in the sea" quip, which Daire just brushes off, essentially because "Jennika doesn't understand." And that really frustrates me. Yes, this is stereotypical teenage behavior. Jennika also makes a very good point, because she was sixteen when she became pregnant with Daire, so I feel like Jennika has every right in the world to lecture her daughter about the fact that she slept over at her boyfriend's house. Based on the fact that Jennika and Chepi (Dace's mom) were both sixteen when they became pregnant, I am honestly betting on the fact that it should happen to Daire as well; there is no indication that they took precautions. Honestly, if nothing else, Jennika should have punished Daire for sleeping at Dace's without letting anyone know where she was. Letting your mom and grandmother know where you are is kind of common courtesy so they're not staying up all night worrying about your safety.

On a slightly related note, neither Dace nor Daire refer to their parents as "mom" or "dad". It makes sense for Dace's father since he is nowhere near a father figure, and I guess for Jennika since she tries to come off all "cool mom"-like, but I feel like Dace isn't giving Chepi enough respect by calling her by her first name. Daire also refers to her grandmother by her first name Paloma, which stuck out to me. I guess it's because they never had a relationship before the beginning of Fated. I don't know.

I honestly don't feel like I can comment on the plot much, because for the life of me I cannot remember how it connects back to Fated. I have to give the narration credit for giving enough rehash information so I wasn't totally lost. (That might be annoying if you remember Fated better than I do. There's a good amount of explanations the first couple chapters.) The plot moved fast enough that I never really got bored, and I'm not sure that there were really any "down" points, because if they weren't facing the main issue, they were dealing with melodrama. If anything, I'm going to speak on the fact that Dace and Daire have terrible listening and problem-solving skills, as well as being pretty insubordinate. I have to give all the adults credit for not just locking them up in a jail cell somewhere, prophecy be damned, and solving the problem themselves.

I think that's all I have to say on the characters. I realize that characters reflect conscious decisions on the author's part, so I try to judge them on their own, as if they were real people. Here comes the harder line to toe: narration.

I'm gonna say that these are my opinions as a reader and not really as anything negatively reflecting directly on the author. These are also my criticisms because of what I've learned as a writer myself and what I've noticed in my own writing in the past. I know that writing is a super hard and complex thing to tackle and that everyone does it differently, and I'm trying to keep that in mind in my review.

Echo switches to alternating narration 81 pages in. I questioned why Allegiant added in Four's point of view when the first two books were only in Tris', and I still cannot really figure out why Dace's point of view was added other than the fact to show them both making the same stupid decisions. I get that they're lovesick; I don't think too much was added with Dace's narration. I mean, it did allow more coverage of what was going on in the story, but I don't think that the story would have really suffered by only having Daire's. (I honestly have no idea if Fated used different POVs per chapter. I may be completely off the mark here, and if I am, ignore all this.)

There is also almost no difference in their narration. I am very glad that their chapters are labeled, because I remember Allegiant's weren't. (Maybe I was wrong. It's been a while since I read that, too.) The only thing that tipped me off when I picked the book back up again was who the character were with or if they were pining over the other person. (This would be harder if they were a same-gender couple. They tended to leave off the other person's name, it felt like, leaving only he/she.)

There is also no difference in how anyone really talks, except Lita and maybe Xotichl. Dace and Daire tend to fall back on the oh-so-eloquent insult of "freak" when referring to Cade, and I noticed that Paloma and the other adults seemed to do the same thing with incomplete sentences that Daire (and therefore Dace) did in their narration. Some of it I could write off as how the characters perceived them--maybe Daire just processes everything all broken up like that, I don't know--but it was hard for me to believe that Dace would think in the same way.

My caustic remark causing Xotichl to pat my arm in an attempt to calm me, and Paloma to flash me a look that tells me that while she forgives my mood, she's not about to answer my question until I get a hold of myself. pg 64

Some of the sentences like this are easy to excuse, because I tend to write like this occasionally, too. However, there's a difference between using this effectively and abusing it. I don't think it was used effectively at all. Sentences like this don't make sense, and when you drop the topic or the verb off the sentence too many times, it can get annoying pretty quickly. (I was pretty patient, because I know that I still sometimes fall victim to writing like this. I try not to.) Leaving the topic / verb off back-to-back sentences breaks up the narration and can make it confusing as to what the narrating character is referring to. 

I opened the book to a fairly random page (a little hard with how many sticky notes I have) to find a different example.

I yank hard on the wheel--this ancient heap of rust and metal predates power steering by a decade. About to pull onto the street, when Daire's grandmother comes through the painted blue gate and looks right at me.

[Paloma says something]

I shrug. Rub my thumb over the wheel. [...]  pg 83

Dace and Daire both narrate like this, and I really wish that there was a better way to immediately tell whose chapter it was, instead of having to rely on who they were with or who they were pining over. Also on this line, there are four new points of view in the "epilogue", each adding about a page of narration. They sound the same, too. Paloma would not narrate the same as Daire!!

Okay. I think that's all I have to say. I actually did enjoy reading Echo enough to finish it, but that was along the same reasons as why I finished The Selection. The book was easy enough to pick up and start reading, but it was almost just as easy to set aside once my computer had finished booting up. I did go out of my way to read it a few times, which is fairly significant. Honestly, it's not a terrible book. It's just really not my thing, and having more experience than the characters (in the form of past books I've read), I feel that I can question the sanity of some of them. Most of them. I am fairly curious as to what happens in the next two books in the series, even if it's just to learn what else Daire and Dace screw up in the future. 

This is something related only to the design of the book: if the chapter ended on a right-facing page, the back of it was blank. I went back and counted 20 blank pages that were still included in the page count, which was already about 50 short of what Goodreads told me. There's only maybe 300 pages of content when you include the blank backs and the four ~title pages~ that are two-page spreads. 

TL;DR Honestly, if you're not as picky as I am, you might like the book. I did not connect with any of the characters (but I did care for them a little more than I did for Altered), and I wish the narration was better, but I was able to finish the book without a problem. If fated love and preventing world domination is your thing, then hey, go for it. But make sure you read Fated first and remember what's going on so you're not as lost as I was. 

Camp Nano Results July 2015

Who knows which number Camp NaNo this is I've done. It's like the fourth or fifth by now, I think. One day I should go back and actually count. Camp NaNos are always my favorite to do, since they happen twice as often as November NaNos do and they have flexible word counts.

Drum roll:

I won!!

The last couple days of the bar graph are missing since I wrote this blog post a little early -- we went on a mini vacation the last three days of July and I wanted to make sure I had the blog post written.

I use a monthly calendar from the Washington Post to keep track of what I write each day and how much, so here's what this month actually looked like! The word counts per day are up at the top, the red numbers are cumulative word counts from the beginning of the year, and green are cumulative for the month. 

As of July 27th, I had written 25,083 for the month of July and 175,401 words for the year. My Camp NaNo goal was 25k (as usual) since that's half the word count of a November NaNo. I'm really proud of how I did! 

The past couple Camp NaNos I've said I wanted to work on projects other than Aperture but I rarely actually did. This time I actually started out with a different project! I managed to work on the story I'm co-writing with my friend as well as two ideas that are completely my own, and I got a lot more than I expected. I worked on a total of four different projects, though the majority was still on Aperture. It gave me some pretty good groundwork to continue working on the other four though, since I got a better hold of the voices of each narrator, so I'm exited! 

Also, as a note for how my calendar works: all the words written in black are for Aperture. Words or phrases in parentheses mean they're chapters or scenes that don't have titles yet, but everything else not in parentheses (like Guess Who) means they're named chapters. The non-Aperture projects (Rewrite, Casanova, and Duality project) just had the story names since I don't know if I'm going to use chapter names for them. Those projects are still really young compared to Aperture and don't nearly have as many ideas behind them yet. 

Speaking of Aperture: I'm going to have a blog post specifically about it coming up in the next week or so! That's all I'm gonna mention right now ;) I'm really excited (and a little nervous) about it. Please look forward to it! ♥