Shadow Scale - Rachel Hartman

Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Before reading this, I thought maybe all the low ratings were due to high expectations, and I lowered mine, telling myself that I didn't mind if Seraphina was traveling a lot - she would meet new people and learn new things. But that didn't help. I still found myself beginning to hate this book during the second half but didn't understand why.

I was still expecting a generally positive fantasy story with worthy characters, new and old friendships, knowledge gathered and used for good, self-discovery, and triumph against the bad dragons and the bad people who don't like half dragons.

What bothered me about this book was that all the good characters and relationships were systematically poisoned or stripped away. There was so much potential, but the whole story became centered around a character who had been abused as a child and is now determined to punish the entire world with their insidious, advanced powers. They're mentally and emotionally abusive in that mind-twisty way that makes you question your own sanity.

This manipulative character takes over the entire book, derails all plot points, and steals all hope. They are so powerful that no one else can achieve anything. It's both frustrating and disturbing. I hated that I was experiencing this. It was far too close to ugly reality for me. The constant tearing down and the very personal vindictiveness really weighed on me. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

At least the right people triumph in the end. But the ending isn't nearly good enough. There's still too much loss. What was this, YA grimdark fantasy in disguise?

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Lonesome Dove is a gritty, realistic depiction of life on the old frontier, where death is random and swift and brutal, and so is life. This book does a very good job at taking you there and forcing you to experience every ugly aspect of the old West, which is probably why it has such high ratings and won a Pulitzer Prize.

For me, however, these types of books are not enjoyable, especially when the point seems to be to show the capricious nature of life and death. I didn't like any of the characters, but the ones I sort of liked a little bit mostly got killed off completely senselessly. This is one of those books I would have thrown at a couple points if I still read paper books. That's one aspect of hard copies that I truly miss. I had to internalize my outrage, and it will probably give me an ulcer.

I kept hoping that in the end there would be a point of redemption for any single character that would make it all worthwhile, but the ending left me feeling unsatisfied for pretty much every character that was left alive (not many). I didn't like any of them, and they all ended up worse than they were when they started. The bottom line is that this was just too realistic for me - so depressing. This is officially my reading feat of 2015 - to make it through all 1100 pages of this heavy piece of work.

Enchantress - James Maxwell

Enchantress by James Maxwell
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

My experience with this book:

✔ Cool cover.
✔ Prologue is intriguing.
✗ Nope, prologue is a lie - it's not even about that character, and we don't get to know them at all. Clue number one about the rest of the book.
✗ Amateurish writing.
✔ Light fantasy tone with cozy, comfy clichés, which are good sometimes.
✔ Girl who's going to study to be an enchantress.
✔ Brother who's learning the sword.
✗ Except we don't get to see any of the actual learning.
✔ Until we do!
✗ Except it's just so that we can have a reason to witness...
✗ Sudden, gratuitous death (murder!) of an innocent, stray animal.
✗ Followed shortly by sudden, gratuitous death of characters that you just barely start to know, let alone like. What?

Now it's just going downhill fast.
✗ The random-seeming gruesomeness of the deaths seems out of place with the tone of the rest of it.
✗ Who to be invested in?? What's the point of anyone??
✗ World-building all over the place, too many names and places that mean nothing.
✗ Starting not even to care about the main characters because of the choppiness.
✗ Where is this even going, and what's the point of anything?
✗ Now we're going to war and don't understand the world we're at war with because the world-building is so bad, and death is sure to follow, and sure to be meaningless.
✗ The knowledge that more random gruesomeness is to come. More characters that you glimpse and start to like will inevitably die just because you thought you might like them. You don't even have time to care.

Yet all is relayed in a light tone.

Incongruous and jarring...

DNF.

The Infinity Concerto - Greg Bear

The Infinity Concerto by Greg Bear
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I quit at 29%. If this wasn't a book club read, I would have stopped a lot sooner. It's too dark for me. The main character is too isolated, the world too hostile. It's all grayscale in my mind. Faerie shouldn't be ugly and colorless and full of death and despair, even when dangerous to humans. There should at least be an alien beauty to it. But this was all ugliness and hardship.

I was forcing myself to continue reading (because - book club), but I was getting depressed even when I wasn't reading it (NOT good, and completely against all the reasons why I read), so I moved onto something else and really haven't looked back since.

Not for me.

Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



I think I'm going to have to abandon this. I've already been skimming a lot, and I'm only at 46%. I'm finding it really boring and don't want to waste anymore precious reading time - or battery! I don't even feel like explaining what I don't like about it, I just want to be able to move on. Maybe I'll write more later.

This only confirms that my brother has completely different taste than me. This is not the first indication of that, though. Ha. We're opposite in so many things. Except he likes Fantasy too, so I forgive him.

The First Confessor - Terry Goodkind

The First Confessor by Terry Goodkind

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



Gosh, this was awful. I was really hoping it wouldn't be, but it just was. It is actually possible to do this review in one word: repetitive. But that seems too weak. If I could have two words, I’d add te-di-ous. But those words are not going to be enough. I need to rant.

Wow, this could really have used a vigorous editor. It seems like Goodkind believes we need to hear everything three times in a row to comprehend it, and that we forget what we just learned after 10 pages. At 500 pages, I skimmed at least 200 of unnecessary repetition and redundant phrases that were repeated too many times. Conversations and thoughts were explained over and over again. Concepts I had just absorbed were re-introduced in the very next paragraph so that I wondered if I was re-reading portions.

See how that just tripled my word count? Did your eyes start to glaze over with complete boredom? It almost became comical to note how many times the same information was repeated as I was skimming for anything that held a whiff of action or plot or any character actually being interesting.

Somewhere in there, there was a story I wanted to read, and towards the end it did begin to emerge. I was interested in the making of the Sword of Truth, and the first Confessor, and in the last 100 pages something actually happened with them. There are some other old familiars in there - references to the Boxes of Orden, the Temple of the Winds, the Sliph, and the world of the dead. But they are only talked about, not experienced like they would have been in the original series.

I had to trudge through so much extra exposition and junk dialog to get to the story, and the story was just not up to old standards. I honestly found it hard to imagine that the writing could be worse. I was bored out of my mind, and frustrated that just when I would start to get into it, I’d have to read/skim a couple of pages of repetition. Argh. It went way beyond the preachy exposition that he was fond of in the original series, and which I was able to ignore for the most part. The writing was just bad. It's the worst I've read in years and I'm amazed that I finished it. I feel as if I need to go re-read The Wizard’s First Rule to wash the memory of this away.


Nov 15, 2014:

Trying to decide whether to give a 2nd star or not. Maybe by the time I've written my review.

Review: Legacy

Legacy by Cayla Kluver

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



This was really terrible. The writing was incredibly tedious and overly descriptive, and the characters were all painfully ridiculous and unlikable. I can't believe it ended how it did - frustrating after persevering to get such a non-ending. But I honestly don't care what happens to any of these people next. If I'd known how it was going to end, I might not have bothered finishing it at all. I wish I could get the hours back.



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Review: The Curse of the Mistwraith

The Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



I'm not sure how I came across The Curse of the Mistwraith. It must be one of those Goodreads finds that unfortunately is not working out for me. I’ve fought to read this far, and I just can’t face it any longer. I took a break and tried to come back to it several times, only to find my determination to finish it waning with distance. Every time I try to start back up again, I get stuck. I keep trying to force myself through this one telling of the history of a sword, and it’s all very momentous sounding, so I feel like I can’t skip it (I get the feeling that would be like skipping the story of the Ring in LOTR). But I just don’t care and I’m bored and I don’t like anyone, and I don’t even really know anyone after 120 pages. This weighty tale is apparently a roadblock that I don’t have the strength to pass. I need to move on.

So what is so terrible about it, you might ask. The best answer I can give is that the narrative style is too scattered and random and too much is spent on background and history without forging any connection to the present and the main characters. The characters themselves are not very likable, and I really don’t care what happens to them. The POV switches all the time, most often using minor characters such as messengers, captains, servants, etc. to provide an outside view of the main characters. How are you supposed to tell who is important when you never know whether that character will be revisited again or not? How can you grow attached to the main characters when they are only seen through vignettes showing other people’s impressions of them from afar? And when you do actually get the primary viewpoints, it doesn’t help their case much. The two brothers are not very sympathetic when you get inside their heads. I did have hope that they would change, but I just don’t have the patience and don’t care enough to find out.

On top of the lack of character appeal, the world changes about 15% into it - as in, all the effort I’ve put in to getting into this story and learning about the first world is tossed out when the two brothers are sent through a portal to another world. They are apparently stuck there permanently, and this is where the true story begins. But having to start over at this point is disastrous because I haven’t learned to care yet, and I don’t want to wade through more history and portents and legends to find out what they’re doing there and how important they’re going to be. I still don’t like them, don’t know them very well, and POVs are still switching. Instead of building my attachment to the characters and this huge thing that has happened to them, the emphasis is on portents, legends, prophecies, background. I get it already. Make me care. Make something happen now.

I almost forgot to mention the excessive use of prologues and random scenes. Every freaking chapter has its own prologue. I kid you not. The flow of the main story, if it can be called that, is completely derailed by these diversions to other people, times, places that supposedly lend import to what is about to happen hopefully sometime in the next 600 pages. Then after each prologue, we get random flashes of scenes from other people, times, places that we have no idea who or where they are or whether / why they might be important to the whole. It just adds to the boredom, increases distance from the plot and characters that you're fighting to get to know.

It makes skimming difficult because you might miss something that’s actually important. What if a viewpoint that seems random and useless ends up being critical to understanding the whole? Everything has that portentous feeling, and yet somehow feels distant and trivial and is a complete slog to get through. And did I mention there’s not much of an actual story yet?

Clearly this narrative style is not for me.



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Review: The Merchant's Daughter

The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



The Merchant’s Daughter is a non-magical retelling of Beauty and the Beast, basically a historical romance set in the 1300s. It is also an ‘inspirational’ romance, meaning it’s the kind of book an evangelical Christian can feel safe reading. I’ve enjoyed some inspirational books in the past because you can be sure of getting the romance without the graphic sex, and the romance is usually more emotional than physical.

It does have its downsides, though, with characters who often go off into an aside with prayer or godly thoughts, or wait for God’s will instead of acting. Some inspirational authors are more preachy than others, using their characters to teach you how to live, but some don’t do this at all, and just tell a sweet story. Lately all of the ones I’ve read have had too much of the preachy aspect for me, and I think I’ve reached a point where the risk of the bad outweighs the (slight) chance for good in this type of book.

Because this was, hands-down, the preachiest book I’ve ever read in my life. I think half the book was some kind of sermon coming from the mouth or thoughts of the main character, and even worse, they were modern views being spouted from a supposedly Medieval girl. There’s more God-talk, prayer, Bible verse quoting, and WWJD thoughts than actual plot. The anachronisms made me cringe time and again. How I persevered to the end I will never know, but I do know I’m never going back to this author again.

The romance does have some sweet moments, which is probably how I managed to finish it, but the use of religion is so overpowering that it’s all I remember now. I do not appreciate having a historical fairy tale turn into an evangelical Bible study full of sermonizing. I can see religion having a place when it’s appropriate to the time-period (and not with the goal of teaching me lessons), but what we get here is inappropriate in so many ways - a brashly modern American evangelical view of Christianity completely out of place in 1300s England.

**Spoilers ahead**

It’s all because the heroine, Annabel, supposedly wants to be nun so that she can read the Bible for herself, and the entire book is driven by her consuming desire to know what the Bible actually says. It’s all wrong. Girls in the 1300s didn’t want to be nuns so they could read the Bible themselves. This is not a motivation that a merchant’s daughter in Medieval times would even think of. Prayer and contemplation, yes. Escape from the concerns of the worldly or a disagreeable marriage proposal, yes. Fathers needing to offload one of their daughters somewhere for safety or political reasons, yes. Even a desire to serve God! But the idea of what that meant in those times was not the opportunity for personal daily devotions.

So the girl’s entire character is based around this erroneous desire, and she is unstoppable about it. She is so impatient to read the Bible herself (not even able to wait for the convent), that she begs her local priest to let her borrow his Bible… remove it from the church and take it home for some nice cozy time by the fire... really? This is such unrealistic behavior for a young lady in the 1300s that I couldn’t believe what I was reading. How could this book possibly even masquerade as a historical novel?

What’s even worse is that - guess what! - the lord of the manor has his own Bible when the priest doesn’t. And lucky Annabel, because he asks her to read it to him every night. And she somehow knows Latin well enough to do so! So now we have to read through pages - pages - of Bible passages, along with their personal interpretations of how it all applies to them. So the romance is based on this devotional style reading of the Bible and ‘what does this mean to me’ interpretations between the lord and a maid who fall in love over their godly thoughts together. Kill. me. now.

I don’t care what your beliefs are (or mine), I don’t want bad sermons in my books. Or Sunday school lessons. I’m not reading to ‘learn about how to have a relationship with God’, especially offered through the mouths of characters who have no business spouting these concepts. If I want a sermon (or a Bible study, for that matter), I know where to go for one.

Rant over.



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Review: The White Queen

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Why did I buy this book? Why, why, why? If I had only borrowed it, I would have abandoned it ages ago. But I hate wasting money on books so I've been forcing myself to get through it. Now at 61% I'm not sure it's worth it just because I own the thing.

This book is so boring. It's basically a listing of the back-and-forth struggles for the throne from the point of view of a woman who considers only her power and the power of her family. She is not a first-hand witness of most of the actual action, so it all happens in the distance and we just get told the results as they affect her and her family's claims to royalty. There is no emotional attachment to the events or the main character.

I stuck it out through a few changes in fortune, and when the next one commenced I just couldn't face more of the same. I hate not finishing books, but enough is enough.

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Review: Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story

Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story by Diane Setterfield

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



I got about a third of the way through, and it was just too much of a struggle to carry on. I struggled to get through the Thirteenth Tale when I read it as well, but I thought it was maybe just my frame of mind while I was reading it. I don't think so - I think I'm just not a fan. And I liked the Thirteenth Tale better than this one so far.

The thing is, Setterfield's books sound like ones that I would like. Some historical fiction with family secrets, mysteries, and a bit of the paranormal. But something in the way they're written - they're actually not my sort of book. I can't put my finger on what it is. For this one in particular, there are too many people who have died already, and I don't believe the 'tragic' events from the synopsis have properly started yet. The overall feel is going from bad to worse. All the while I'm actually kind of bored. And I don't want to stay with it.

I have too many other books on my to-read list to get stuck in one that I have to force myself to read. So I'm not. I'm sure there are lots of other people who will love this book for the same reasons I don't.

**Received free arc for review.

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Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercrombie

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

There was plenty of action in Before They Are Hanged, at least in part 2. Part 1 was kind of slow at times. But whether it was full of bloody, bone-snapping action or not, I found it dragged for me most of the time. I skimmed, I took breaks to read other books and came back, and then I finally forced myself to make it through and be done with it.

I could somewhat appreciate the first book of this series, even though it wasn't really my cup of tea. But this second book was all grit and toiling, and everything going badly for pretty much everyone. I can't think of a single sliver of positive. Any hope that you might be foolish enough to feel is systematically squashed (although I didn't hope anyway because it was too bleak for me to feel anything).

It's too much for me. I can't continue. I don't even care what happens in the end anymore. All I feel is relief that I don't have to read it anymore, and some perverse satisfaction that I didn't quit and leave myself another 'didn't finish', which I hate doing. Unfortunately, I don't feel that perseverance paid off this time. The end really wasn't worth it to me.

I can recognize the value of this type of fantasy existing - the gritty, dark, realistic sort that at least offers a fresh approach for readers who are tired of the classic heroic style. I personally prefer the classic heroic style, though. I haven't tired of the good vs. evil, farm-boy becomes hero type of plot yet. I don't worry about it being repetitive because there's always something new about the world or the magic system or the characters. Those are a great escape. This is not. I will be cautious in the future about reading anything with the world 'gritty' in the description. This is not a sub-genre that I can dig into.

Review: Once in a Full Moon

Once in a Full Moon by Ellen Schreiber

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



If you are a teenager who loves to read about high school drama with some paranormal insta-love dropped into it, this may be for you. Even if you are such a teenager, you still might find this just as shallow and pointless as I did. I can't believe I wasted time finishing it. I probably wouldn't have, but I received a free copy to review and felt I should at least finish it.

**Received free galley for review


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