The Forbidden Orchid by Sharon Biggs Waller

TL:DR lucrative flower hunting was a thing

TBR #1330, added Jul 18 2015

finished 7/21/16

I honestly didn't think I would finish The Forbidden Orchid. Historical fiction isn't really my type in the first place, and I had a whole bunch of motivation issues trying to read anything, let alone the library books I'd already renewed and not touched. 

The book was really slow to pick up steam. I also hated how Elodie had no autonomy -- which I understand is a result of the time period, but it was frustrating nonetheless. I'd read up to page 80 and still didn't have much of a reason to continue on because her society was like "lol nice try, being a girl in this day and time." 

(And yet somehow the world still feels like that sometimes. It's awful.) 

The book does pretty well at keeping the pace up once Elodie comes to the decision to go with her father back to China. Elodie makes some decisions and meets some people and it became much more interesting for me after that. The plot was definitely more concise and directed. 

I'm totally unfamiliar with the history of plant-hunting, or even the time period in general, so I can't say how historically accurate it is. It felt accurate to me, but I'm not a reliable opinion for that. 

I wasn't really sold on the romance aspect, but I could appreciate the relationship they had otherwise. They seemed like a good pair. (Also, I'm a sucker for the trope they used. I thought it was done nicely.) There were hints of a love triangle at times, but it was refreshing in that it never became a Team vs Team thing. It was a true triangle. More than once if you really think about it, but hey, I never felt bitter about the inclusion of them, and normally I despise them. I think it was done tactfully and realistically. 

TL;DR I wasn't really in the target audience in terms of preferred genre, but it was still a solid 3 stars for me. I think it would be enjoyable if you like 1860s (right?) England and the aesthetic of exploring uncharted territory Lewis-and-Clark style. 

(I probably mixed up two different significant periods in time. Feel free to correct me. I liked history class but I've never had a great sense of time itself, if you couldn't tell.) 

I Woke Up Dead at the Mall by Judy Sheehan

TL;DR teenagers misusing the afterlife

TBR #867, added May 11 2014

finished 7/24/16

I am apparently extremely in the minority about this book, at least on Goodreads. It took me until page 3 of the reviews to find one I agreed with. I did not enjoy this, and honestly I should've just DNFed it. 

This is going to be a really bitter review. I apologize in advance. 

The premise itself was interesting enough, but the execution was anything but. Starting with the setting of the Mall of America. If all these kids in the story are from NYC, why are you sending them to Minnesota? And why are there only four kids throughout most of the story? I find it really hard to believe that only two kids from the city died and ended up there over the course of the book's time period. New York is huge. You can't tell me only two kids were murdered in the (weeks? months? who knows!) since Sarah was murdered. 

(I also don't think the Mall of America was used to its full extent. Sure, I haven't been there since middle school, but I never experienced any kind of nostalgia for it. The setting wasn't built up enough to feel anything more than "okay, they're at a large mall. We get it.")

And oh man, I hated Sarah's narration from the beginning. It didn't feel authentic at all and felt like it was trying too hard to be ~cool~ and ~teenager-like~, more like MG narration by someone who doesn't actually know how kids sound in real life. It was choppy at times and honestly, Sarah was not a sympathetic 1st person narrator. 

None of the characters were sympathetic, really. They never felt like real people. They were too one-dimensional for most of the book, and then when they did actually change, it didn't feel earned. I couldn't tell you what specifically had led to their character changes. (I mean, this could be because Sarah wasn't there at the time, but I think there could've been other ways to show it as well.) 

Nick was interesting when he first showed up and was all flirty, but there was nothing supporting the romance Sarah had with him. He never did anything that really earned him this affection. He just kind of existed and got Sarah to fawn all over him. Their romance only influenced the plot negatively and got them into situations that a) could've been easily avoided and b) weren't helpful to advancing the storyline. Their one big fight also had little to no basis and felt forced in order to move the plot along, rather than make a point about their relationship.

The paranormal aspects also missed a lot of their potential. Sarah's "Knowing" was only used conveniently, despite how she saw it, and was more like a convenient plot point than anything useful or hurtful (like she swore it was up until the last, like, three chapters). The Boy was disappointing as a character and was honestly useless as an authority figure considering how much the kids disrespected their (and Bertha's) commands and got away with it. I also don't think The Boy and angels should've been used as concepts in the book when there's no other mention of any religion or religious ideas / figures. Ghosts to me are a very anti-religious concept and the mall-walkers and other broken-record-ghosts don't mesh with what I know about various religions' concepts of afterlives. (I guess you can make an argument for Purgatory, but it didn't feel much like that in the story.) 

The ending was also super dissatisfying after all the book built it up to be. Sarah spends all this time trying to do something, and even gets the other kids on board with helping her with her narrative while rarely helping theirs, and then the solution they finally complete is lackluster and doesn't wrap anything up that well. 

TL;DR I was consistently disappointed by how the book was executed and I'm upset that I made myself read the whole thing only to find a fall-flat ending and unsatisfying character growth. 

This is also my first one-star review for this year. I'm surprised my good-book streak lasted this long. 

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

TL;DR Monty is a metaphorical shaken-up soda

TBR #1560, added May 7 2016*

finished 7/21/16

I am ashamed of the fact that I had this book checked out since May 18th and only managed to get around to reading it after renewing it twice (the limit at my library) and forgetting to return it on time. I finally got around to reading it because it was a day overdue and I had to run an entire load of laundry before I could get dressed for the day.

(On a related note, you can get through this in about 2 hours. It's a good light read.) 

I'm glad for the company it made while I was waiting for the laundry to finish, but I'm not sure I would've had the motivation otherwise. It was a good contemporary novel that felt real in that the plot progression felt organic, but the downside to that is that the plot didn't feel entirely unified. I didn't quite understand the point of the book until I reached the end. 

Which could go either way, depending on if you like being along for the ride over reading with a purpose. 

(To clarify the plot progression thing: I've found with a lot of contemporaries that if there's a chapter that ends with the MC saying something like "everything was perfect" or "in this moment, I was content", there's a 99% chance that the next chapter is immediately something to ruin that. There was never a setup like that in Saving Montgomery Sole and I wasn't able to tell by the narration setup whether the next chapter would bring something good or bad for her. Which is good! I don't like whiplash chapters like most contemps have around the climax.) 

The characters didn't quite feel organic, though. I think the book was a little too short to explore anyone with any depth. We got to see some of them in different lights but it was never as long as I would've liked. I did appreciate the background for Monty's parents explored within the context of the story. I was glad that we got to see her parents as a happy and established couple, and how they fit into the world, but that it wasn't the entire story. I feel like so many LGBT+ books focus so much on the troubles of being gay that we rarely ever explore them just being happy and existing like people.

Honestly, my favorite thing is that there was no romance for Monty. I didn't realize it until I'd finished the book. It was just so natural that I never noticed it, and I really wish more books were like this. This story worked perfectly well without a romance and I loved that the focus was on Monty's relationships with her family and friends. So many contemporaries focus heavily on love interests, too, and it gets really tiring as an ace girl. Saving Montgomery Sole gets major thumbs-ups from me for that. 

TL;DR it's most likely not your thing if you don't like character-driven plots, but it's a contemp with no romance and I'm gonna be happy about that for a long time. 

(I'm a little deprived.) 

*I added this book to my TBR after I read its Google Play sample. I was lucky enough to find a copy at my library soon after that. I can officially say that downloading a bunch of Google Play samples at once did actually help me find a book I enjoyed. 

The Devil's Intern by Donna Hosie

TL;DR death and time travel paradoxes

TBR #853, added May 8th 2014

finished 7/18/16

I picked up The Devil's Intern for about the same reason as I did Devil and the Bluebird. (That about encompasses the amount of YA books my library has about Hell, so at least this streak was short-lived.) I don't think I realized it was already on my TBR when I checked it out.

I came close to returning it to the library without finishing it. The concept was interesting, but the book wasn't very compelling overall. I had to push myself to keep picking the book up until I got past halfway through. I was at least invested in what was going on by that point, but I wish it would've happened sooner.

The characters didn't feel all that deep to me, and I think the worldbuilding in general was a little lacking. The scenes were kind of generic in my head as I was reading and I would've liked to see more of the concept of Hell running as a corporation. (Also, there were very few details of where they were in the human world other than when they were in New York City. They went to DC and I feel like I only know where they were because I live here, and even then it was weak. There was no mention of the Mall or any of the other monuments besides just Capitol Hill.)

Honestly, I think I'm most disappointed in how Medusa didn't feel consistent. Her characterization kept painting her as bitter and I never got the sense that she felt anything nicer than mild irritation with Mitchell, let alone any romance. Also, she was unreasonably jealous over the girl Mitchell kissed for never telling him how she felt. She felt like a caricature of a teenage girl and I didn't connect with her even though I really wanted to. Teenage girls really aren't moody like that.

I also wasn't happy with the end result of all the time traveling. I liked the logic that was initially set up behind the time-turner's mechanics (I can't spell the actual word for the device), but I felt like the ending of the book completely went against all of the setup and unraveled the legitimacy of what they experienced. You can't mix different kinds of time travel easily without creating huge logical holes.

Looking at Goodreads, it looks I'm in the minority on how I feel. I don't regret reading it, but I feel like it could've been done a lot better. I forgot this is part of a series, and I do want to see if the concept is explored any better, so I am planning on continuing with The Devil's Dreamcatcher. I'm not setting my expectations bar that high though.

TL;DR it's a unique concept but I felt like the characters and the world in general were really underdeveloped and missed a lot of their potential to make the story hella. (Ha. I'm funny.)

Devil and the Bluebird by Jennifer Mason-Black

TL;DR Blue searches for her sister and finds herself, too

TBR #1392, added Jul 22 2015

finished 7/15/16

I was cised to get my hands on Devil and the Bluebird. I've been really interested in the "deal with the devil" trope in stories because of working on Casanova, and the premise is so good that I would've picked it up either way. 

Unfortunately I fell into a reading slump about halfway through the book and almost returned it to the library without finishing it x( But I didn't! I picked it up again after renewing it for a second time with the determination to finish it. Honestly, once I read a couple pages past where I'd been stuck, it was really easy to finish. 

I loved how character-driven the book was. Blue and her family were so compelling as characters, and I loved how their relationships were shown. They weren't perfect but they were still a family, and they fell victim to human nature. Blue's character growth was very organic and I enjoyed reading about her journey.

Though I have to be honest, the physical journey was hard for me to read. It confronts a lot about human nature, both good and bad, and I had to put the book down a few times because I didn't want to think too much about the negative aspects. So much has happened in the month and a half that I've had this book in my possession and I wasn't ready to face the struggles Blue did while facing the aftermath of terrorist attacks and police brutality in the real world. 

So that's a lot of the reason I had to put the book down for a couple weeks. I think Devil and the Bluebird handled its topics delicately, and it definitely shows such a positive side to human nature, too, but it was a little too much for me to handle for a period of time. 

I'm also really happy with the turn the book took shortly after I picked it back up. It got progressively more positive and uplifting after that point and it ended so perfectly. I came very close to crying when I finished reading. 

Devil and the Bluebird was also a much better experience with magical realism than I had with A Fierce and Subtle Poison. The magical aspects aren't explained much better, but in Devil and the Bluebird there are at least hints of where the magic comes from and how it is bigger than just Blue's journey. 

TL;DR it's a little gritty at times but it the ending is definitely worth it. Devil and the Bluebird is definitely a "the journey is more important than the destination", character-driven book. I loved it.