Category Archives: books/book review

Book Review: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, by Nagaru Tanigawa

The Melancholy of Haruhi SuzumiyaDescription from Goodreads:

Haruhi holds the fate of the universe in her hands; lucky for you she doesn’t know it!

Meet Haruhi—a cute, determined girl, starting high school in a city where nothing exciting happens and absolutely no one understands her.

Meet Kyon—the sarcastic guy who sits behind Haruhi in homeroom and the only boy Haruhi has ever opened up to. His fate is now tied to hers.

Meet the S.O.S. Brigade—an after-school club organized by Haruhi with a mission to seek out the extraordinary. Oh, and their second mission? Keeping Haruhi happy—because even though she doesn’t know it, Haruhi has the power to destroy the universe. Seriously.

Review:

I’m pretty sure this is the first Japanese Light Novel I’ve ever read. Heck, I wasn’t even sure what qualified as a Light Novel before yesterday. I do now. I’m probably a bit old for it, but having seen the anime and read a few of the manga volumes, I snapped up the chance to read the novel that sparked the revolution when given the chance. The plot is almost identical to the anime, so if you’ve seen it, you’ll know what to expect. But it’s still worth reading the book so that you can experience Kyon’s sarcastic narrative. He is wickedly funny, as well as all the hormonally charged things you would expect a normal (albeit polite) 16-year-old Japanese boy to be. I did think Suzumiya came across a little crueler here than in the anime or manga, but still a lot of crazy fun.

It was occasionally difficult to tell who was speaking, and sometimes it was hard to decide what was meant to have been spoken out loud and what was just Kyon’s internal dialogue. (Is it a monologue if you’re talking to yourself?). All-in-all, though, the narrative style was easy and made for a quick, fun read. I’d be up for more.

mia banner

Book Review: Mia, by J.A. McCorkle

This is a replacement post, as the original seems to be missing. I believe the author, J.A. McCorkle, sent me a copy of the book.

mia cover

Mia Harrington’s life as a wealthy socialite is changed forever when a duo of deadly vampires attack her home in the middle of the night. Lucas Bradshaw, the handsome and powerful leader of a vampire clan, rescues Mia from the evil clutches of her attackers and vows that nothing will ever hurt this woman again. As Mia is exposed to the vampire world that she never knew existed, can Lucas really keep her safe? Especially when his clan is being threatened by the same vampires that attacked Mia?

As Mia recovers from that violent night, the attraction to the mysterious vampire leader grows. Will Mia be able to handle the intense attraction she shares with Lucas? Will he share more with her than he ever has shared with anyone before?

My Review:
Mia is just what it claims to be: a vampire erotica. Mia is a strong-willed protagonist who is easy to like. Lucas is every bit as powerful and sexy as you would want him to be. The uncharacteristic vulnerability he shows Mia endears him to the reader. There is no lack of steamy sex between them. The bad guy, Blair, is truly evil, and this is made abundantly clear by his cruel domination of the women around him. When he was around, the book often read like a cautionary tale of sadism and misogyny. I didn’t care for this, but that is more of a personal preference than an indictment of the book.

My only real complaints are the frequent tense changes and that Mia and Lucas have an instant, almost visceral reaction to each other that sets in motion the events of the book. But you never really find out why. Similarly, Mia has a fairly drastic change of opinion at the end of the story with no identifiable instigator. Despite this I would still suggest giving it a read.

Book Review of Mystic Ink, by Casey Wyatt

Mystic Ink

I grabbed Casey Wyatt‘s Mystic Ink from the Amazon KDP list. 

Description from Goodreads:
Welcome to Mystic, Connecticut, where a Satyr owns the local pawn shop, a Minotaur serves the tastiest pizza in town, and the nearest gate to the Underworld resides in the alley outside a tattoo parlor.

Nix–Sea Nymph, talented artist and proprietor of Mystic Ink–just wants to run her tattoo shop in peace and quiet. Peace and quiet, however, are the least of her problems. Mortal corpses keep springing up in her alley like daisies. Hades is angry that the mortals’ souls are missing. And to top it all off, the human authorities suspect Nix of foul play. 

Before long, the supernatural police force takes an interest. They dispatch Agent Calder Quinne to investigate. His assignment is simple: determine Nix’s guilt or innocence by observing her daily routine. Instead, he’s faced with an uncooperative Nymph who resents his presence and evades him at every opportunity. 

Nix finds Cal far too attractive and a challenge to her self-imposed ban on relationships. She wants him out of her life as soon as possible. When Cal’s soul is stolen next and Nix wakes up missing memories of the evening’s events, even she starts to wonder if she’s guilty. Now, she has only two weeks to locate Cal’s missing soul, or he’ll be doomed to spend eternity as a Shade.

Review: **Warning, slightly spoilerish**

Meh, it was alright. The writing was perfectly readable and it was well edited. I have no complaints on that front. But the story had a number of elements that I just plain dislike. For one, though Nix was the main character and the events centred around her, it wasn’t her who saved the day. Nope, Gods forbid the woman be in on the important action. Instead, she ran around from the start of the book until the end, encountering and being attacked by one mythological creature after another. Note, not intentionally doing anything but instead reacting to a presented stimulus. Then, in the end, all her male protectors went behind her back and saved the day. It was subtle, but all the impetus was taken by the men. At one point, Cal even asked her, Do you trust me?… Then hold your questions a little longer. In other words she not only wasn’t in on the action, she wasn’t even allowed to ask about it. This was all further exasperated by the fact that all of the power players were Gods. The only real Goddess you get to know is vapid and too busy with her facials and pedicures to be important.

Then there was the complete mishmash of pantheons. I get that this was intentional. The D.L. was, after all, an alliance of them. But come on, first we’re presented with the Greeks (including Sitars, Cyclops, Titans, Nymphs, Fates, Furies, Basilisk, etc), then the Egyptians. I’m still on board at this point. Then the Elves show up. Huh? And then Aliens! Really, WTF, it was just too much, too cluttered, too many disparate genres thrown together.

Then there was how easily everything wrapped up. The bad guy was defeated with absolute ease. More than once, problems were overcome almost miraculously. Nix being able to call in a favour based on winning the office raffle the year before, for example. Thats handy. Cal was given his prize and avoided a fate worse than death despite technically not completing his quest. Then, in the end, Nix rails at her father for three or four minutes and manages to convince him to change the rules that have been in effect for, presumably, millennia. I seem to recall stubbornness being a trait of the gods. Plus, these were pantheon-wide rules, so they affected everyone, not just her. It was just too easy.

Now I know I’ve bitched a lot. I was annoyed by the end of the book. But as I said, it was well written. There were some really fun characters. I especially liked Zeph and Devlin. I’m not discouraging anyone from reading it. Heck, I might even pick up the sequel if I come across it. I enjoyed the read, just not every aspect of the book.