Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan

TL;DR PERCY'S NARRATION IS BACK, THANK THE GODS

(finished 10/2/15)

I talked my grandmother into buying this book for me back in, like, February, made it most of the way through the book, and then let it sit until October. I am a horrible PJO fan. (My copy also has a terrible "Target exclusive 20% off" sticker on the dust jacket. If you needed any more proof.)

Anyway, because my TL;DR for once is pretty useless, Percy Jackson's Greek Gods is Percy narrating a bunch of different Greek mythology stories. Like what they teach in 6th grade history, but better, because it's Percy. All that sass that people say they miss from the Heroes of Olympus? It's back!

Honestly, there are a bunch of different stories included in this, so I'm not going to tackle them individually. The stories go in a vaguely chronological order (though I think some overlap, so it gets a little convoluted by the end). My very limited experience with Greek mythology before Percy Jackson was pretty boring, so let me tell you, this would've been amazing to have back in middle school.

(I said 6th grade history, since I know we learned about ancient Greece (and Rome and China), but for the life of me I can't remember if we actually touched on any mythology. Which is stupid, since that's a big part of their culture, but whatever. I went to public school.)

The book covers a lot of Greek mythology, and I've learned a ton, even more than I thought I learned from the PJO books. Schools should incorporate these books into their world history classes if they cover Greek mythology. I can't think of a better way to get kids' attention than disguising actually learning something with Percy's constant sass.

There are also pictures, too, which is really nice. The book is the size of a coffee table atlas, which is really unwieldy, but it didn't seem like it took forever to read. I actually think I got through a page in this book faster than I did with These Broken Stars, but that might also be because the text wasn't as densely printed. Percy's comments also definitely made it really engaging. The only reason it took me so long to finish is because I buried it in my room for half a year under all the stuff I've brought home from conventions and haven't put away yet.

There's also Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, which I got the chance to flip through when I spent the night at my friend's house a while back. (Which was also the reason I finally sat down and finished Greek Gods.) I'm hoping to get a copy of Greek Heroes eventually, most likely after the new year when my "Fall releases to buy" list finally ends and I finish reading all of them.

I feel like I didn't establish much in this review. But do I really need to? C'mon, it's Percy Jackson and it's educational. You don't need any more than that. I literally could not have asked for anything better than this.

NaNo Plans 2015

It's that time of year again!! (ﾉᐛ )ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

I got lazy with the design. Don't judge me. 

If you're new here, NaNoWriMo is essentially a challenge to write 50,000 words for a story in the month of November. This is my fourth time attempting it and hopefully my third win! (My first attempt back in 2012 was really half-hearted and I can't even remember which story I worked on for it ...;; )

The past two years I worked on Aperture; in 2013 I wrote 70k as part of Marissa Meyer's NaNo challenge, and in 2014 I wrote just over 50k. I have well over 200,000 words in total for Aperture (this calendar year alone) and I still have no real "novel" to prove for it. This is mainly because of where I draw my inspiration from and the fact that I keep going back and tweaking the plot and creating butterfly effects.

A lot of Aperture's inspiration comes from my life, and because of that, I've hit a metaphorical wall with it recently. I crossed the two a little too closely and I feel like I have to take a step back and re-evaluate a lot of things. (This has happened at least once before, so I'm not too worried about it.)

Because I'm feeling so conflicted about Aperture, I decided to use one of my numerous other story ideas I've been collecting since sophomore year. Back when I started Aperture, I had no idea it would last this long; I had a tendency to start and abandon projects quickly. I grew to love Aperture too much to do that, so I focused solely on it up until senior year.

Even with my focus on Aperture I still hoarded new ideas like they were going out of style. I have about four or five now that I've developed past hypotheticals and actually started writing for. (These line up almost exactly with the Pinterest storyboards I have.) This is a huge accomplishment for me and I'm excited to explore a new world past the couple thousand words I have per said new projects.

So, what am I going to be writing this year?

I decided to work on Casanova this year because it was the idea with the most solid plot at the time. It's a compilation of a couple different plot bunnies I've had, and I'm still working on a lot of the details, but I'm really excited to get this story out.

The basic premise: Toni earns back Carter's soul after it's wrongly taken by a demon known as the Casanova.

So far my writing playlist is all country songs, mainly picked up from when my dad listens to country radio stations while he's working, but I have a feeling I'm going to be adding some Halsey songs in, too. The strongest inspiration songs so far have been "American Kids" and "Cowboy Casanova" (go figure).

Casanova is going to be a challenge for me in a couple different respects, but I'm really looking forward to tackling it. I've got a lot of research and worldbuilding ahead of me since I decided to set the story in Texas and I included a little too much religion in my initial ideas. It's also going to be difficult to switch gears from Aperture to Casanova for an entire month, but I'm also looking forward to it.

So far, it's been really fun to work on preliminary world- and character-building. I've mostly moved out of that phase for Aperture and only started to scratch the surface with all my other ideas. Casanova's been the only one recently where I've had to sit down and anticipate stuff that might come up in the plot that I should know beforehand. I also have a few days' worth of writing from before I decided to use Casanova for NaNo this year.

Keep a lookout on my Casanova Pinterest board and my NaNo stats page! I'm going to be updating both a lot over the course of November, and I'm (hopefully) going to have a mid-NaNo blog post go up around Nov 15th.

Good luck to everyone else participating in NaNo this year! Please feel free to add me as a writing buddy ♥ None of my friends seem to have made plans to do NaNo this year, so I'd love to have company!

Love by the Morning Star by Laura L. Sullivan

TL;DR WWII era identity mixup

(finished 10/3/15)

Love by the Morning Star was actually a really lucky library pick for me. It wasn't on my TBR, and I'm actually kind of surprised by that! It was really nice, and the only reason why I think it wasn't on my TBR is that I don't look at historical fiction often enough to go through and find related books. 

The plot was definitely unique, which I really liked. I don't think I've ever read a story about mistaken identities like this before. It definitely had tension running the entire time and kept everything going, but personally I kind of felt stressed about it. Not like super-bad stressed but like "how far into a hole is everyone gonna get before this is resolved". It stayed interesting despite mainly being about the characters' mundane day-to-day lives, which was actually pretty impressive to pull off. The pacing was good enough to establish the mundane stuff without having to really focus on it; you knew it was happening but you didn't have to suffer through it. 

The characters were nice! A lot of them seemed close to tropes, I guess, with Hannah being able to ramble without a problem and Anna being very proper, but they still had unique qualities and flaws that made them more human. Teddy was also a very nice love interest. It frustrates me a little bit that all the characters ended up letting the identity mix-up happen, whether by accident or by a lie of omission, but that was also most of the plot.

And it all worked out in the end. The climax was a little unreal with how everything turned out, but at least it was interesting. It all wraps up a little too nicely by the end, but that's to be expected from a standalone.

As for the romance, it's nothing extraordinary, and I don't know whether it's more funny or sad that the two main romances were also victim to the mistaken identity thing. The two couples were just all-over clueless. 

The reviews on Goodreads are pretty mixed. I went into it expecting something fairly light-hearted and almost kind of sitcom high jinx-y, so I was happy with what I got. I have to agree with a few reviewers though that it's a little anachromatic (though I'm sure that's not quite the right word I want). Hannah didn't seem as worried as she should've been about her parents' well-being. I don't know if this is because as a reader I've learned stuff that Hannah had no possibility of knowing at the time or because Hannah trusted her parents to manage their own safety. Anna's father also put a lot of responsibility on her without actually explaining what all he was expecting her to do, which I don't think someone in that position would've done. He would've made it a lot more clear what end goal he was working towards instead of just sending his daughter off with some vague instructions. 

TL;DR if you're not actively looking for a historical fiction, it's a pretty good fluffy book. If you're looking for a historical fiction, you should probably skip it.

What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick

TL;DR fluffy contemporary romance focusing on (mis)communication

(finished 9/22/15)

Disclaimer: my standards for fluffy contemp / character-driven books are different than plot-driven books. I'm much more lenient with these than with other books. 

I really enjoyed Fitzpatrick's My Life Next Door, so I was pretty optimistic about What I Thought Was True, even in the beginning when I didn't feel very interested in it. It's been a little bit since I read a fluffy contemporary romance book, so I had to find my groove again.

The first thing that comes to mind is that I appreciate the fact that What I Thought Was True doesn't feel like My Life Next Door. Fluffy contemp books -- especially Sarah Dessen-like ones -- have a tendency to be the same plot and almost identical characters, and that wasn't the case. At least for comparing the two books to each other. Granted, it's been a year and a half since I read My Life Next Door, but the situation was different and I didn't feel like I was just reading about the same characters given different names. 

In regards to the characters, I can honestly say that the one I liked the most was Cass. (Which was highly influenced by the fact he is a "map geek", as Gwen puts it. Like, dang is Cass a boy I never expected to see in YA.) I also liked that he was honest -- though he still committed some lies of omission. And man, Gwen and Cass' sense of sass. I think all of the characters could've been a little more human, but they were believable within the context of the book.  They were believable teenagers. They only vaguely felt like cardboard cutouts. I also liked Grandpa Ben, Emory, and Mrs. E. They were cute characters. 

Some of the relationship stuff definitely felt staged, especially what happens between Viv and Nic towards the end of the book. At the foreshadowing point I was like "heh it'd be funny if ..." and then when my assumption was actually true I just kind of stared at the book. I didn't actually want to be true on that one. So I'm not too keen on the romance part. Gwen and Cass' relationship also felt like it worked out a little too nice. Or convenient. I'm not actually sure what to call it, but if it was a real relationship, they probably would've had a lot more issues with each other. I appreciate the relationship they ended up having, but it wasn't all that realistic. 

So the plot was basically about miscommunications. All over the board. And, you know, that can be really frustrating to read about. It's not a very compelling plot, but it works for a fluffy contemp. The book is definitely character-driven. I really wish all the characters would've been more open with each other, but of course, that would eliminate the plot, so ... 

I think a lot of the negative reviews I've seen have to do with how character-driven it is. Like, nothing really happens for much of the book, but I didn't mind that because I liked the characters to just read about them going and doing their everyday thing. That's why I read fluffy contemps. Sometimes I need escapes from actual plots. 

The remainder of the negative reviews focus on the fact that Gwen doesn't actually explain what happened between her and Cass until well into the book. I mean, it can be assumed easily enough, but I do agree in that her explanation was kind of overdue. And in the fact that she was kind of an idiot, but hey, she was a high school junior. I think she's allowed to be stupid and misjudge people. Melodrama like this isn't exactly rare in regards to high school relationships. 

Also speaking of the plot, it was pretty unstructured up until the end, where everything kind of happened all at once and then was resolved by the epilogue a few chapters later. I didn't like that part as much. I kind of appreciated how unstructured the plot was because it reflected real life a little better (though not really) and then how everything was just nicely wrapped up by the end kind of felt like a cop-out. But it's also a standalone, so I'll give it that. 

What I Thought Was True was also kind of awkward to read in school, especially considering it's a romance book that portrays teenage relationships fairly accurately, but that's really my own fault. I should've thought that through a little more. There was nothing indecent (at least not in indecent detail) but there were definitely a few scenes that I was like "why did I decide to read this in a public spot where someone could read over my shoulder". 

As a side note, some grammatical / continuity errors managed to make it into the final copy of the book. They're not really bad, but there's at least two little continuity errors within scenes and at least one "I changed my sentence and forgot to switch the comma to a period" and a word with a letter left off. So yeah, in a book that's from a big publisher that's kind of a problem, but I assumed they were human mistakes made by the editing / publishing team. Those happen occasionally. They didn't really detract from the story. (And I've gotten a little too used to dealing with them from the past couple ebooks I've read.) 

I typed up all my sticky notes into a spreadsheet. 80% of them are just me appreciating Gwen and Cass's sass and the fact that Cass is a fellow "map geek".

TL;DR it's a good fluffy, character-driven book, but if you're looking for teenagers making smart romantic decisions or a strong plot, you're probably not gonna like it.

Queen of Someday by Sherry Ficklin

TL;DR origin story of Catherine the Great

(finished 9/21/15)

Honestly, I didn't do any research into this until after I finished the book, so I am in no position to talk about historical accuracy. I didn't even realize it was fact-based historical fiction until I read the foreword (preface? idk) by the author mentioning taking some liberties. Everything I found on Wikipedia seemed to check in correctly, but I'm not all that big on Russian history, so I could be way off on that statement.

I got Queen of Someday as a free ebook through Bookbub. I think getting it as an ebook influenced my overall feeling of it in that I was comparing it more to the other ebooks I've read so far than the books I get from the library. (I've come to realize I am really not an objective reviewer. I apologize.)

Anyway, I liked Queen of Someday enough to finish it without dragging my feet at all. It was actually pretty compelling to read. The plot and characters aren't exactly the best, but hey, it kept me occupied and I at least felt a little compassion for Sophie and Rina.

The characters functioned within the book, but they weren't all that dimensional. They were pretty predictable and standard romance characters. I feel like Peter and the empress weren't exactly characterized consistently, but I think that's also because of the facades they used, so I'm still kind of torn on how I feel about their sudden demeanor changes.

I had a little sympathy for Sophie, but honestly, the one I sympathized the most for was Rina. I don't think she really deserved any of what she got (although it definitely could have been worse, so at least it wasn't that.) I empathized with Sophie because she felt human enough, but she made stupid decisions despite knowing they were stupid, so I didn't feel all that bad when her stupidity caught up with her.

And honestly, as awful as this is to admit, I'm really happy her stupidity caught up with her. She didn't get an undeserved happy ending and yet she still managed to survive (so far in the series).

In regards to the romance, I have absolutely no idea what was going on with that. I feel like I've gotta give it props in regards to being fairly unique, but c'mon, three love interests is a little excessive. And none of them really had any basis to them. Sure, she's supposed to marry Peter, so I can understand affection for him, but the other two romances were essentially insta-love. I didn't support any of the romances in the book. And they were unnecessarily sappy, too.

Sophie's romantic complications can maybe be explained by the fact her childhood seemed especially sheltered and I doubt she's had any chances for romance before (and the fact that she was 15 for most of the book), but if you're not that optimistic, then I can't help shed any light on this. I do think that being able to throw in three love interests into a book and still compel me to read to the end says something positive about the book, but I think that ties in slightly to the "watching a train wreck" phenomenon. (Not saying that the book is a train wreck. Sophie's romantic tendencies, maybe, but not the book itself.)

Also in regards to Sophie being 15 / 16, I don't know if this is just me or what, but she seemed kind of unnecessarily thirsty. Maybe it's just because of the time period. Maybe I'm just ridiculously ace and don't understand romance. Who knows.

I don't have any plans to go out of my way to buy the subsequent books, but if I can get my hands on them, then I'm definitely going to continue reading. I'm honestly really interested in what happens now that I've played Wiki Adventures with Catherine the Great. There's a lot of good story potential in that.

As of 10/13 Goodreads is telling me that the Kindle version is free, so I think this is one of the series where they make the first book really easy to get your hands on. I can't promise that it's going to be free forever, but my philosophy is to not turn down a free ebook that looks interesting (proven by my, like, 50 unread ebooks on my iPod).

TL;DR historical fiction about Catherine the Great that was fairly interesting and easy to read. And free. You should read it.

This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

TL;DR don't let companies try to terraform

(finished 9/18/15)

This Shattered World was #1070 on my TBR. I reviewed These Broken Stars back in October last year, but it's honestly felt like it's been more than 11 months since I read it.

Like I mentioned with These Broken Stars, TSW was a big book with tiny print. It felt like it took forever to read it (even though it took me less than a week). It also took me longer than I would've wanted to become invested in the story; the plot and the characters are good, but it wasn't until the 70% mark that I actually really cared about what was going on.

I liked the characters, but like I said, it took longer than it should've for me to really care about them. They were just characters for a good majority of the book. Lee and Flynn's relationship also didn't seem to have much development to it, though I'm kind of figuring I may have just missed it considering how obvious Lilac and Tarver's development was in TBS.

Also speaking of Lilac and Tarver, TSW took a lot longer than I expected to connect back to the previous book. I actually kind of forgot they were in the same universe until about 60% in when Lee calls her former captain for advice. I can understand that the connection had to wait that long in order to establish Avon and what was going on, but I honestly forgot about TBS for a good while.

Wow. I really feel like I don't have much to say OTL Despite everything I've said so far, I ended up rating TSW four stars. It's really just me as the reader that's unimpressed; it's a good book. The characters are pretty solid and the plot and setting are interesting. I think it was put together well. I think it's really just the fact that I had such trouble trying to focus on the book when it took me a significant portion of time to read a spread of pages.

Something I do remember thinking about is the fact that I don't know how the science really checks out, between the terraforming and the space travel stuff, but I didn't notice anything terribly wrong. (I'm also not a scientist. Please forgive me.) I haven't read many books in regards to interstellar colonization -- something I mentioned in my TBS review -- so I really don't have any experience in regards to stuff like this.

TL;DR it's a good sci-fi but I had trouble focusing on it because of how huge the hardcover is and how tiny its print is. Probably not your thing if you don't like very science-y stuff.

Half Bad by Sally Green

TL;DR MC is the only witch classified as both "good" and "bad"

(finished 9/14/15)

Half Bad was #596 on my TBR. It's been there for a long time. I've gotta say, I really enjoyed reading it, but I don't think it was quite what I was expecting. I don't even remember exactly what I was expecting, and Half Bad managed to impress me even despite that. 

It definitely stands out from the very beginning, starting with a 2nd person POV. I can't say I've ever really read a book that used that before. It only lasts for one section, later switching over to 1st person, but it was a really cool way to get me involved and invested in the story. 

The premise and worldbuilding are definitely unique, too. I kind of wish there was more in regards to the witch vs fain history and how they ended up getting to the point that they were at, but that's really just me. The scariest part is that Nathan's treatment by both the Council and people in general is believable -- it's cruel and completely heartless, but I honestly don't think it's any different than some of the treatments minority and persecuted groups have experienced in the past. (And there are some terrible things in history.) It really made me sympathize for Nathan and his family, as well as anybody who's faced similar situations in real life. 

Honestly, I waited too long to write this review, so I don't remember all the other points I was going to talk about, OTL. The characters were good and the plot was solid. It was easy to finish and I don't think I ever really felt like I was dragging my feet to get to the end. I'm definitely going to read the next book, since there's still a lot of stuff I want to know about. 

(Hopefully at some point I'll go back and add onto this review, but I feel so short-circuited right now and I don't even know if I returned the book yet or not.)

TL;DR it was good but apparently not all too memorable a month after the fact. But that's also due to my terrible memory soo I think you should still read it nonetheless. 

The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

TL;DR MC is betrothed to the prince and is also the kingdom's executioner

(finished 9/9/15)

So with this past trip to the library, I noted where each book was on my TBR before I switched it over to my currently-reading shelf. The Sin Eater's Daughter was #1146, which, out of a current 1500-something TBRs, is a fairly recent add. Apparently I added it back in November. (Wait, that's close to a year ago. Holy crap.)

I probably should've checked whether or not The Sin Eater's Daughter was a standalone before I started reading it. Goodreads lists it like it's the first book in a series, but there are no other books listed, which is kind of deceptive. (Of no fault of their own; I'm pretty sure anybody can tweak the information that shows up.) Anyway, my point is that I was expecting more story. I started suspecting it was a standalone at about the 75% mark. It's actually a really good standalone, especially considering how much worldbuilding was necessary, and I'm not sure I would continue with the story even if there was more, anyway.

First up: worldbuilding. I actually really appreciated everything that went into setting the story for The Sin Eater's Daughter. Stuff like what a Sin Eater is or the history of their country. It did really well with establishing everything that needed to be known and laying the groundwork for reveals that would come later without being overbearing. I enjoyed that the Sleeping Prince story introduced towards the beginning was elaborated on later on, but I feel like it didn't really get too much justice.

The characters were pretty standard. They were all interesting, and I didn't hate any of them, but I don't really have anything to gush about. (Honestly, though, my recent reading streak has made me really appreciate any characters I don't want to kill.)

The romance was kind of strange, to say the least. Like, not strange, but it's definitely not a standard kind of YA romance, and I appreciate that fact. The romance worked well with the plot and didn't detract from it at all (considering it was half the plot). I appreciate the fact that I haven't read something like it before. I didn't quite enjoy how touchy-feely Twylla and Lief got with each other, but that's just me. It wasn't really bad or anything. #ace problems

The plot twists, though. Those were really good. They felt kind of rushed, but I guess that's also because it's a standalone and everything had to be established before you could turn around and say "lol nope you were wrong". Especially the last 25% or so. There was a lot going on. They were all really good, though. I didn't see any of them coming. (Maybe I'm just oblivious. I don't know.)

I honestly wasn't all that happy with the ending, which was mainly the reason I said I wouldn't continue reading the series even if there was more to it. One thing I can say about Twylla is that I wished she'd have been more decisive, and while I can appreciate that she finally made a decision by the epilogue, it wasn't the one I was hoping she'd make. I honestly don't really get why she made the decision she did. I was content with the epilogue up until the last two sentences or so, and then I was disappointed in her.

TL;DR it's a pretty solid story. Not exceptional, imo, but I enjoyed it. I'm open to reading other books by Melinda Salisbury based on the plot and narration style. And the characters that don't make me want to throw the book. Those are always a plus. 

Talented by Sophie Davis

TL;DR a very weak and melodramatic excuse for a spy novel

(finished 9/8/15)

I tried to give Talented a chance. I swear I did. Talented, however, did not even try to reciprocate the effort. I would DNFed within the first 25% of the book had it not been for my friend reading ahead of me -- we both got the ebook (I got mine free through bookbub, idk how she got hers) and we were going to try and read it at about the same pace, but around chapter 13 I hit a wall and had to force myself through the rest of the story. 

I would say that I'm going to try and go easy on Talented the same way I tried to with Just Breathe, but I'm not even going to lie. I need to get it off my chest how frustrated this book made me. I was very tempted to throw my iPod a couple many times. 

Let's start out with Tal. I can honestly say I like her even less as a main character and narrator than I did Daire from the Soul Seekers series, which is really sad considering I could at least get through four books with Daire. I could barely get through a third of the book with Tal before I wanted to launch her into outer space. 

Tal is ~special~. She's got this ~special ability~ that's so ~rare~ and she's so ~strong~ and does not shut up about it. I can understand stating it once or twice at the beginning of the book (in a subtle way) to establish her power, but nope. She does it nearly continuously, and good lord, I have never read about a character as ridiculously overpowered as she is. A limit to her power was never established, so she can:

• read other people's minds
• project her feelings and emotions onto others
• control people telepathically, including giving them false memories
• move things telepathically
• lock and unlock doors
• blow up a cabin

I wish I was kidding about that last one. I really am. I can understand a character having one or two of these things, but all of them? No. That's ridiculous. Nothing ever stood in her way, and what fun is that? It's no fun reading when I know she's going to get her way no matter what because of how stupidly ~strong~ she is. 

And also in that regard, good lord does she have a ridiculous plot shield around her. (All the other characters, too, but I'm focusing on Tal for right now.) Like, she blows up a cabin, repeatedly mouths off to the director of the program she's in (who may be the president, too, I'm honestly not sure), and he does absolutely nothing to reprimand her. She somehow ends up with two love interests, gets mad when her original boyfriend cheats as she's having feelings for another boy, and then gets jealous of other girls liking boy #2 when they're not even together yet. 

I wish I could say I liked the secondary characters, but I don't. The one I only vaguely appreciated was Penny, and even then, she felt like a weak cardboard cutout of Honey Lemon from Big Hero 6. Which is really sad, considering Talented came out around two years before. Penny just ~magically~ became good friends with Tal and I honestly cannot figure out how or why their relationship grew so close. Penny was really only used to fulfill the "supportive best friend" trope and had no development of her own, nor consistent characterization.

The boys didn't have consistent characterization, either. Donovan seemed like a pretty solid boyfriend until Tal just happens to walk in on him in bed with another girl, and there's no indication of it beforehand. Like, I know you can't always know your SO is cheating on you, but if Tal is ~so special and strong~, why couldn't she pick up on him cheating the many times she looked into his head? 

Henri and Erik were almost impossible for me to keep straight (ha), and at about 70% of the book I mixed up their names and got really confused when the one I thought had a boyfriend was flirting with Tal. Erik and Tal's romance felt like it came from completely out of the ballpark, not even just left field, as did a lot of Erik and Donovan's interactions with another. Erik became unreasonably defensive of Tal even when she was still with Donovan. 

Also! Y'know the big bad guy, Ian Crane, who supposedly orchestrated the murder of Tal's parents? Yeah. He's a big baby. He begs and grovels at Tal's feet for her to hear him out. I cannot even begin to understand how he staged what is essentially a second civil war in the making and yet doesn't even have the guts to put his foot down in response to this spoiled brat that just waltzes right into his high-security compound and breaks into the even higher-security research basement. 

Did I mention Tal's a spoiled brat? Now I did. She gets everything she could ever ask for and yet still decides to complain about it. I understand there's a certain level of privilege to be expected, but the fact the she just completely disregarded how much the agency gave to them. Everyone had an excessive amount of space, technology, and room service to their disposal, and yet they never thought twice about any of it. I really did not enjoy reading about such spoiled brats. I know it can be hard to recognize and acknowledge privilege, but good lord did Tal talk down to the other Talented people who "didn't score high enough to get a TOXIC job" and ended up doing manual service jobs around the property. Like, you think they can't get jobs anywhere else? I'm sure even people that don't have strong ~special talents~ are in positions to get better jobs than to run room service orders to spoiled teenagers.

(I'm moving on to another point because I'm sick of the word "spoiled" and yet I cannot come up with a better way to refer to Tal.)

The pacing was irritating, too. The plot is about Tal avenging her parents, right? Nope. For all I could tell, it was just about bragging about how ~special~ she is and how ~annoying~ it is to have two love interests. She spent at least twice as more screen time on a fist fight between her and Erik (or Henri, I don't remember which) than she did on a mission she went on. She's a spy -- I figured there would be more emphasis on being a spy than there would be on being a melodramatic teenage girl. Not that being a melodramatic teenage girl is necessarily bad, but it doesn't make for an interesting character or plot.

I'm actually kind of torn about the setting. Somehow I ended up with a book set on home turf again, so I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that they were in the DC area. However, there was some picking and choosing as to what actual geography was used. I appreciated that DC's building height limit was acknowledged when explaining the city, because otherwise I might've quit reading right then and there. But when you're somewhere in West Virginia, you don't have chilly days in May, nor is the closest "city" DC -- there's Cumberland, Martinsburg, Winchester, and Hagerstown in a closer radius than DC. Googling the given location of Brentwood Springs, WV gave me no results, but I used radiusmap.net to estimate "about a hundred miles west of DC" (screen 78).

Also, I just noticed a discrepancy saying the original program director "converted a military facility located in western Maryland [...] into a training facility known as The McDonough School for the Talented" (screen 68), but the Elite Headquarters are located in Brentwood Springs (screen 78). I assumed they were the same thing this entire time. Maybe that's my own fault -- but if I made it through a thousand screens without ever noting they're at least 30 or so miles apart, that's really poor worldbuilding.

All the negativity aside, Talented has a fairly good premise. I just don't think it was used effectively. I would say I'd read it if it went through more revision, but considering there are five-ish subsequent books already published, I think it's highly unlikely it's going to get re-written. I mean, I'm still curious about the Talented kids' powers and how the country ended up dividing, but those are mainly worldbuilding things and likely wouldn't be covered in a re-write, anyway.

I took a bunch of notes through iBooks, but considering how many times I used the comment feature, I'm not sure I'm up to the task of transcribing all of them into a spreadsheet. I might just make one with the worst offenders.

TL;DR I really did not enjoy it. The execution of the premise felt really weak to me and I didn't connect with the characters or the plot. To each their own, though. I think I'm in the minority out of all the people that've read this series. 

Fave New Music: August / September

It's that time again! I combined months (again), but this time time it was because I had very few new songs in August. September's been a pretty good month. (Ironically, this post was initially scheduled for the 1st, but I pushed it back because I hadn't finished it. I had two months and I didn't bother putting it together in time. But now it's done!)

This time I'm also leaving in the song title and author in the post, because YouTube videos have a tendency to go missing or break. And also so I know what song I'm talking about when I'm writing, since Blogger doesn't show me the titles of the embedded videos. 

Counting on Love -- Matt McAndrew

The video has minor sound effects. I usually try to avoid linking to such videos, but there's no official audio video for this, and the sound effects don't actually distract from the music, so I figured they're okay. 

I don't remember how I found this song. I'm pretty sure it was through Spotify. 

Lean On -- Major Lazer, MO, DJ Snake

I first remember hearing DJ Snake's music (or at least matching their music to a name) during our June vacation, which is why I associate this song with the vacation even though I added it to Spotify at the end of September. (I associate a lot of music with the vacation that I didn't actually hear until after the fact. It's kind of strange.)

Cecilia and the Satellite -- Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

I heard this for the first time on the radio Labor Day weekend and found it on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist that same evening, which I think was pretty lucky.

Beautiful Now -- Zedd

I heard this song a lot when I had the radio on all afternoon one day trying to finish my homework. I don't actually have it added to Spotify, but I thought it was worth mentioning. It's a chill song. 

Unbelievable -- Owl City / Hanson

C'mon how can I not like a new Owl City song? I really like the nostalgic feel of this song. 

Light up the Sky -- Yellowcard

Ironically, "light up the sky" is part of the lyrics of "Beautiful Now". 

This is one of two songs from the album Paper Walls that I associate with Aperture, the other being the song "Fighting". I don't remember how I tracked this song down. On a side note, I didn't realize Yellowcard was still coming out with new music. I'll have to check that out. 

Uptown Funk cover -- Tyler Ward, Two Worlds

I found this cover through an acoustic playlist on Spotify, and almost immediately after it dropped from Spotify (for copyright reasons, I'm assuming.) But I found it on YouTube! 

Cool for the Summer -- Demi Lovato

This is one of the other songs I associate with our June vacation despite being pretty sure it wasn't out then. I don't know. I also associate this with my best friend, and for whatever reason I keep thinking the person the song is about is a girl. (I'm pretty sure those two points are related. I think it might've come up on the ride to Otakon this year.) But I actually like the song better assuming that Demi Lovato is singing about another girl.
 ┐( •̀ᄇ• ́)┌

Blue cover -- Cruise Control

I don't remember how I found this one. I feel like it was probably through a Spotify throwback Thursday playlist. Anyway, this is one of my favorite songs, and I'm pretty sure I didn't even realize this was a cover the first time I listened to it. (I also think I listened to the Kidz Bop version more than the original, so that probably has to do with it.)

Helsinki Art Scene -- Satellite Stories

I found this song through my friend when we went driving in his new Jeep. He has a really good mix of music, especially songs I haven't heard before, so it's always really fun to get to listen to his iPhone on shuffle. This one really stuck out to me for some reason and I managed to remember the title.

I have a feeling the Spotify embed to this will break. They tend to disappear between times I edit this post. 눈_눈

I had Cool For The Summer on here twice. I don't know how I didn't catch that in the first four times I worked on this post. 

Can't Feel My Face -- The Weeknd

I hear this a lot on the radio. I think I kind of associate this one with Aperture, too, though I don't know if that's because I associate it with the June vacation or what. (I'm not even sure. At this point I'm kind of figuring half these songs actually were out at the time, but I didn't write them down.)


Thunderstruck -- Owl City

So with some editing I think I've figured out that the Spotify links don't work if they're on a separate line than the title. I really don't understand why, and it messes with my zen, but I don't know of any other way to get them to stay in the post without disappearing. It's really stupid.

This is the other song on the album "Mobile Orchestra" that I really like. It's got a bit of a dubstep feel to it, but it's not obnoxious. It's actually a pretty nice touch. Come to think of it, I'm not actually sure I've listened to the entire album ...

Anyway, that's it! Let me know if any of the videos break or if you liked any of these!

I Remember You by Cathleen Davitt Bell

TL;DR like The Future of Us but with a fixed timeline and without Facebook

(finished 9/1/15)

Sorry if that tl;dr doesn't make too much sense (especially if you haven't read The Future of Us). Essentially, the guy starts gaining memories from the future after meeting the MC.

I initially loved The Future of Us when I first read it, which I think is a lot of the reason I decided to pick up I Remember You. They're a little similar in feel, but they're different in execution in terms of plot and character reactions. (I read The Future of Us back in freshman year or something, so forgive me if I'm remembering things wrong.) The biggest difference is that Lucas' vision of the future doesn't change during the course of the story. I think their history and his memories end up differing by the end, but it's not like in The Future of Us where they're trying to anticipate how things change based on every decision they make.

I liked the characters, but there wasn't anything super special or memorable about most of them. Dex I really liked as a side character, especially towards the end, and I can appreciate Rose as Juliet's best friend. I think some people have mentioned that they didn't like Juliet or Lucas, but I thought they were pretty okay. I didn't really have any complaints about them.

The romance is a little fast, but I feel like it's more realistic than, say, The Soul Seekers series. There's not really any insta-lust and things build up over the course of a couple of months, though with the way the narration condenses, it's not too long of the story.

The narration is interesting in that it becomes apparent that it's Juliet recording everything as a sort of memoir. I know this is kind of cliche but I haven't seen it done all that often, and I really like how the story read.

I feel like this review is really short because I don't have any complaints. That seems to be the trend for me recently. :c

The plot is very character-driven, which I liked, though I guess that can get a little boring for some people. The story spans an entire school year, so some of the stuff seems to blend together even when it's actually spaced out over a period of time, but I think it works well within the narration. I was also surprised with how everything tied together at the end. I really enjoyed the last chapter (or was it the epilogue? I don't remember).

Bonus quote:

"Besides," he went on , smirking. "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." (pg 65)

I'm figuring that quote doesn't originate from Welcome to Night Vale but dang was it a good unintentional Easter egg.

TL;DR if you really like The Future of Us and/or time travel(ish) with a fixed timeline, try it out.