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.