Review of Easy by Tammara Webber

I didn't want to read this book at first. Yes, it's true that I want to try more new adult books, but the college setting makes me leery since I'm only a year removed from living in that setting. Tammara Webber managed to win me over with a truly excellent love story, much to my surprise.

The book opens with our heroine, Jacqueline, very narrowly avoiding getting raped by her ex-boyfriend's frat brother. Her rescuer, Lucas, is sexy, mysterious, and everything her ex-boyfriend was not. The attack has made Jacqueline feel like a victim, especially when her attacker starts following her and telling lies about her. With Lucas there to support her, Jacqueline finds perspective, strength, and power against helplessness.

The relationship between Jacqueline and Lucas is simply precious. I found their emails and texts really charming. Jacqueline initially comes off a bit judgmental, labeling Lucas (because he has tattoos and piercings) as a slacker and a bad boy. To her credit, though, she seemed all too willing to be proven wrong. Once she sees him in the right light, she's eager to help him slay his personal demons (and he's got some serious demons). What I enjoyed most, though, was the fact that Lucas is protective. Not just that he's protective, really, but that he wanted her to be able to defend herself, and he fully believed that she could. The care he takes in giving her the empowerment of self defense is as emotionally impactful as it is practical.

Now, perhaps the only downside to the book is the fact that it gets a bit heavy handed with its message. Not only does it preach self defense and personal safety up, down, and sideways, but it also returns time and again to rape and how rapists should be treated--it's a huge part of the plot, and it's a little bit after-school special. Even as I write this, though, I can understand that their are teenagers and young women that can never hear these messages enough--they need to hear that rape is not the fault of the victim, that rape needs to be reported, that rapists need to be apprehended. Yes, I'm quite certain there are young readers who need to marinate their brains in these thoughts until they sink in past all of the rape culture we've been stewing in. For me though, I must admit, I got sick of it.

To sum this book up, it's a lovely romance and a nice contemporary story with awesome intentions. If the messages felt a bit tiresome to me, the characters made up for it by being adorable and sexy. Highly recommended. 4.5 stars.

Review of The Elite by Kiera Cass

I've talked a lot about how I'd been sort of reluctantly looking forward to this book. Reluctantly, because when I stop and analyze The Selection, it was a very flawed book. Unfortunately all of the flaws from the first book were only magnified in this book, and while it was still oddly readable, it left me with such a feeling of hollowness and frustration. I have long since accepted the fact that the premise of this series is gimmicky at best and downright stupid at worst, but that's kind of part of the charm for me. So why do I keep expecting something more from it?

The Selection has now been narrowed down to six girls, The Elite, who are now supposed to be really working and learning what it will mean to be a princess and eventually a queen. One of the points in favor of this series is that it acknowledges that, on some level, there is more to the job than wearing a nice dress and living happily ever after. This book delves a bit into political power and duty--I'll talk more about that later. To get back to my point, the premise has now shifted focus so that America should be competing in earnest, and not just going along for the ride while getting over a bad break-up. She should be putting her head on straight and making sure her heart is in the right place before committing to marriage to a major world leader. But that's not what America does, because America is a little girl who doesn't understand anything.

I'm not even going to touch on the fact that I have a problem with the love triangle and America's inability to decide between two boys, because that subplot is stupid and overdone and pointless as hell, so it goes without saying that I hate it. What I really want to get at is the ultimate question of: Do you want the throne or not? Because regardless of your feelings about the prince, whether you love him or just like him as a friend, what's really at stake here is enough power to slowly but steadily change your country. America does not understand this concept. She grew up in one of the lower classes, but she's only just now (now, at the worst possible moment) realizing that the caste system is brutal and unfair. What? I'm sorry, how did that basic fact escape your notice when you were freezing and eating lousy food?

But, alright, she has this epiphany that her country might have an unfair caste system. Guess what, sweetie? You're in a competition that would put you in an excellent position to help people. Yeah. You could become a princess and feed the poor and shelter the homeless and sow the seeds of change to make your country better. But this fact totally escapes America because she's all caught up in the romantic drama of whether or not she likes Maxon or just likes him. Or hates him. Whatever. Then, when Maxon appears to have betrayed her, she figures she wants to leave anyway, and tries to make a totally pointless grand gesture on live television. Maxon calls her out on this, too. He tells her, and I paraphrase a bit, yes we can and should change things, but for anything to work you have to be subtle, quiet, and not dumb as a bag of hair. And she is. Dumb, that is. Or at the very least, she's so naïve and so unworldly that she has no idea what to do with herself. It's sad.

The romance? I think it may have died for me, and I have no idea whether the third book will revive it or not. I didn't get the sense that any of these characters know who they are, let alone what they want, and I was deeply discomfited by the idea that all of this is going to culminate in a marriage. None of them are marriage ready.

So, to wrap this up, this book is a mess of characters that are becoming steadily less likable. At times it felt like it was trying to say something deep or important, but it chokes because it still just wants to be a soap opera teen drama. I'll read the final installment, but without much excitement. 3 stars.

A DNF Review of The Downfall of a Good Girl by Kimberly Lang

When the Harlequin's new Kiss series came out, I bought all of them. I was pretty optimistic that they would be good, fluffy fun. This one, however, was something of a cliche filled mess.

The basic premise is that Vivienne and Connor are in a contest for charity, to see who can raise the most money--Vivi is the Saint, while Connor is the Sinner. Connor is a famous musician, while Vivi is a beloved community darling and former beauty queen. The two have a history, and so the whole community is eager to see the showdown as heat erupts between them.

I got a little over halfway through this book before I ultimately through in the towel. To begin with, I thought the premise was silly. I didn't imagine I could become invested in the race to raise money through charm and popularity, and I was not wrong. I found it impossible to relate to Vivi, the pretty, popular, and obsessively involved paragon. I couldn't find any depth in her, although admittedly I wasn't looking that hard.

And then there's the cliches. Now, let me be clear: tropes and cliches can work for a book. They can. Authors can find ways to write inside and outside and all around the box, mix things up, and put new spins on familiar cliches so that they don't come across as tired. That's pretty much all that good authors do. This book does not use it's cliches to it's advantage, though. The fun, bad boy hero needles the supposedly uptight heroine in the most obvious way possible. They don't end up coming across like real people, and the supposed "history" between them is too hollow to improve on that. So they trade a lot of very forced dialogue (the dialogue in this book is crappy overall), and they make each other's naughty bits tingle for some reason.

The scene that broke me was one one where Vivi and Connor get trapped in a closet together. A cliched scene based on the laziest of lazy writing. Writers like this cliche because of the forced intimacy it generates and, again, it can be done well. In this case though, I was already pretty frustrated, so having our couple play awkward boner in a broom closet was enough to destroy my resolve to finish the story.

To conclude, I of course recommend against this book on the grounds that it is poorly written and terribly unimaginative. I will not be reading any future offerings from Lang in the Kiss line. DNF

On Saarantras: A Review of Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Wow, okay. This took me over a week to actually finish, but not because it's bad. More because I've been busy and...the pace is honestly a bit slow. But we'll get to that.

The story is about a girl named Seraphina, who possesses and incredible amount of musical talent. She lives in a kingdom where a tenuous peace exists between humans and dragons after years of war. As the anniversary of the peace treaty approaches, Prince Rufus is murdered in such a way that many believe dragons are to blame. Seraphina ends up caught up in the investigation.

Positive Comments

This is, in many ways, a novel about self-acceptance. Seraphina's emotional journey is extremely satisfying. She starts off hating herself and everything she is. Her connection to the dragon world makes her a secret misfit, but also provide her with unique talents and the ability to understand both cultures.

I especially enjoyed being inside Seraphina's head, quite literally, as we explore the psychic world she has built in order to contain visions and maternal memories that plague her. I found this world and it's inhabitants to be the most intriguing part of the book.

I liked Phina's interactions with Kiggs, the captain of the guard and fiance to the prince. It's not precisely a full-on romance, but there is a flirtation and a friendship that I really enjoyed.

The writing is, in itself, beautiful. The author has a real talent for clever syntax, and for building vivid imagery in very few words.

Critical Comments

The only real flaw is the aforementioned pacing issues. There are a lot of slow parts dealing with court drama, solving the murder, and so forth. Not exactly action packed, and so it drags, and so it takes patience to finish. Just be warned of that.

Recommendation

It's technically a YA, but more importantly it is a classic style fantasy novel with a great story. I would recommend it to any fantasy fan. 4.5 stars.