Category Archives: Challenges

Book Review of Linda Boulanger’s Dance With the Enemy

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Dance With the Enemy

I grabbed Linda Boulanger‘s Dance With the Enemy from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
The time has come for Elenya to meet the man she’s belonged to since she was three, the man whose blood flows through her veins. In the midst of the maidens, the King’s warriors are released; each forced to find the woman chosen for him through her scent, resulting in a half-mad frenzy that heightens already aroused animalistic needs. Elenya is terrified, especially when she realizes what the warrior searching for her does not – that she’s been marked with the blood of her family’s enemy.

As the leader of the King’s elite forces makes his way toward her, she ignores the pull of the marking and darts out into the night … into his territory. She has to get to the Masters so they can right this wrong. A mistake must have been made. Surely fate would not force her to dance for a lifetime in the arms of her enemy. And if it did, would his blood flowing through her veins be enough to unite their hearts?

Mildly Spoilerish Review:
I thought that this book seemed fairly well written, if you like the sort of thing. I generally liked all of the characters and even the plot, in the broadest sense. However, there were just some very basic aspects of the story that I personally disliked. I acknowledge up front that these are personal preferences and plenty of people won’t share my opinion. Some will probably even be like, ‘are you kidding me?’ But I’m giving the book 3 stars, because though a lot of it made me cringe and grind my teeth I’m not claiming it’s a bad book in any fashion.

In some ways this is a fairly cookie-cutter piece of fluff. Young, innocent virgin is forcibly (in this case socially) claimed by a hardened warrior. His beastly heart is then melted by said maiden’s (and yes she is referred to as a maiden) genuine, open heart, fiery temper and guileless sensuality—absolutely predictable.

Where Boulanger tried to add a little variety was in the cultural necessities that brought Elenya and Tahbruk together. I can appreciate the effort here. It’s and interesting idea. But I hated the incredibly sexist patriarchy created. Women seemed to hold no value beyond breeders and whores—glorified whores, courtesans even, but whores all the same. This sexism was highlighted, at least partially, to provide a challenge to be overcome. Again, I get that. But I still had to read 300+ pages of it. Conversely, since the marking ceremony was exclusively for the nobility, I was left wondering how men who weren’t noble warriors, say a baker, found wives. This was never addressed.

Now, here’s the Catch-22 that meant I was just never going to be the right reader for this book. Part of the plot was that some of the characters thought these same ceremonies, leading to this mistreatment of women, were out-dated and needed to be abolished. A good thing, yes? No. Not for me at least. I mean it is, but…one of my literary pet peeves is watching socially or morally superior characters, especially outsider characters, declare otherwise accepted cultural practices wrong. It’s one thing for a whole society, or even a portion of society to be struggling for the improvement of the laws and practices that affect their lives. It’s another to see one person telling the same society it’s doing something abhorrent. How arrogant is that? Even if that character is correct by modern western standards, do they really have the right to judge others? And when such social change is easily affected the anthropologist in me wants to cry.

The, admittedly contrary, result was that I enjoyed neither the existing social setting of the book nor the stories attempt at improving society. It just struck me as baseless optimism. There was no social push for improvement, just one or two individuals who apparently decided everyone else was socially stagnant. What’s more, I could have done with a little more world building outside of the mating rituals. For example, many characters pray to the ‘good Lord’ but religion is never touched on. So who is this deity everyone keeps calling on?

Add those big personal no-no’s to any number of smaller irritants, like my dislike of seeing otherwise good men driven to dastardly deeds by the loss of a platonic love, and this book and I just never had a chance. Again, I’m not calling it a bad book. The writing was fine. I don’t remember any editorial issues. The sex wasn’t gratuitous, which was actually surprising since I started the book thinking it was erotica, and despite being the first of a series, the book actually ended. So, not a bad book, just a bad book for me.

Silent Symmetry

Book Review of J.B. Dutton’s Silent Symmetry (The Embodied Trilogy #1)

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Silent SymmetryAuthor, J.B. Dutton sent me an ecopy of his novel Silent Symmetry.

Long Description from Goodreads:
The Embodied glide through the busy streets of New York, uttering barely a sound.

Their eerie beauty comes from their perfect symmetry. Are they flawless humans, the epitome of evolution? Are they a genetically modified super-race? Are they extra-terrestrials? Once prep school student Kari Marriner becomes aware of their existence, she is driven to find the answer and finds herself ensnared in a web that reaches further than she could possibly have imagined.

Kari’s earliest memory is her father’s death in a car crash back in small-town Wisconsin. Now, 12 years later, her mother has been hired by a pseudo-religious organization in Manhattan called the Temple of Truth (a.k.a. the ToT). At Chelsea Prep, Kari develops a crush on classmate Cruz. But when she realizes that Noon, another attractive guy at school, is involved with the ToT, her curiosity gets the better of her.

Kari stumbles upon a secret tunnel leading from her apartment to another in the building, where an ancient book holds images she can scarcely believe, and a cavernous room contains… something inexplicable. As Kari pieces together the incredible evidence, she discovers that the ToT is run by other-worldly beings called The Embodied who influence human behavior and have established a global long-term human breeding program. But why? And what is her role in all this?

Just as she starts wondering whether the love she feels for Cruz is genuine or if her emotions are being controlled by The Embodied, her mother is kidnapped and Kari has to figure out who is human, who is Embodied, and who she can count on to help rescue her mother.

Somewhat spoilerish Review:
Silent Symmetry has an interesting premise and I enjoyed that about it. I also enjoyed Mr. Dutton’s writing. However, there were also quite a few aspects of the book that left me baffled.

First and foremost, the clues that Kari followed in order to recognise that there was a mystery to the Emboldened seemed nonexistent. I get that a lot of it was supposed to be gut instinct, the lizard brain so to speak, on Kari’s part. Though that left very little for the reader to follow and go, ‘oh yea, that is weird, I wonder…’ I had the exact same response to her feelings for both Cruz and Noon. They glanced at each other and BAM! Suddenly there were emotions flying all over the place, abrupt kisses, and even the occasional he “cares about me.” Um…how does she know? Again, that lizard brain is whispering to her, but it left me lost. 

The character descriptions seemed a bit on the light side too. I honestly don’t know what a single one of them was supposed to look like, except that Cruz was of Puerto Rican decent and therefore dark complected. As a result, I had a hard time visualising any of them. 

Next, some of the language made me want to scratch my eyes out. Things like Oh. Em. Gee—Not OMG or Oh My God, but Oh. Em. Gee. Yes, it’s teenager speak, but it’s wrong teenager speak (in my opinion, at least). Then there was the whole Eff thing. Eff or Effing was used instead of Fuck or Fuckin’. Every time this came up I found it jarring. Not just because it seemed out of place, or because it was so frequently used, or even because that’s kind of a linguistic habit one person might have, but not multiple characters, but because other curse words were used without alteration. I counted crazy-ass, ass, shit and shitting. So why not Fuck?

Lastly, since this is the first in a series the book ended without me feeling like I had any real resolution. I kind of followed who the Emboldened were, but not really what they wanted with Kari. Is it the same thing that the Rebels wanted with her? If so, what was all the fighting about? And what of poor Cruz? Is his position secure? What of Emily? The book ended on a cliffhanger, not a seriously precipitous one, but still too early for the reader to feel any real sense of conclusion. This never makes me happy. 

Again, the book is well written. I don’t remember any real editorial issues. The plot seems interesting and the cover is eye catching. So even though I have some complaints I’m not really disparaging the book. It’s worth picking up.

Review of Michael Wharton’s Electric Pigs

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Electric PigsAuthor, Michael Wharton sent me an ecopy of his new novel Electric Pigs.

Description from Goodreads:
Stan Wragg is sublimely happy in his life as a slaughter man’s mate, stunning section, second rate. He was born to zap pigs, and fate has kindly arranged for him to be employed in that exact capacity at Hopes abattoir in Drearly, just north of Birmingham. Everything is as it should be and all is well with the world, until one day, malign and cruel forces outside of Stan’s control or comprehension decide that things must change.

Review:
Oh, this is a hard book to review. It’s strange. I mean, like, WTF weird. It also mercilessly refuses to allow anyone to avoid, ignore, or sweep away human ugliness. It’s there, and Electric Pigs doesn’t let you forget it for an instant. And while there were moments in which I considered declaring it a pretentious piece of pseudo-intellectualism disguised as ironic absurdism, that wouldn’t be fair to it. It simply isn’t, and not just because a meaningful conclusion is eventually reached.

I would hazard a guess that forcing the reader to face the generally and socially ignored grotesque that surrounds us is part of the author’s goal. I’m not going to pretend to know this for certain, but it’s certainly how I read it.

While I could have done without Stan’s inventive solution to constipation, or half the descriptions of human bloatedness, or the somnolent bestialitism fantasy play, the book wouldn’t have been the same without them. And Stan’s innocent, child-like splendour wouldn’t have had the grimy backdrop on which to shine. Stan makes all of the horridness of his environment worth suffering through. He and his admittedly dysfunctional and cognitively deficient family are marvellous.

This book won’t be for everyone. Heck, having read it I’m not even sure it’s for me. It’s not an easy read, and I suspect the audience will be limited by its focus on the repugnant as well as the number of people who are able to look past the seemingly juvenile obsession with sex and fecal matter. There will undoubtedly be those who do deem it a ‘pretentious piece of pseudo-intellectualism.’ I’m just not one of them. I’m fairly certain I found meaning in the apparent randomness.

For those who can look past its ugliness, Electric Pigs presents a well-written, snuggly plotted piece of literary fiction. I sincerely hope that it can find the appropriate audience in front of which to stand tall and garner the praise it deserves.