Category Archives: Challenges

Book Review of Shadow and Bone (The Grisha #1), by Leigh Bardugo

Leave a reply

Shadow and BoneI bought a hardback copy of Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo.

Description from Goodreads:
Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.

Review:
About two years ago I finished up my second Masters degree and decided all my tired brain wanted to do was read books that required very little mental involvement. YA books fit that bill perfectly. I subsequently went on a binge. I read a ton of them and bought even more. However, as I recovered my cognitive facilities, I grew bored with all the useless and frankly annoying teenage angst of these books and moved on. As a result I have a backlog of YA books sitting on my shelves (physical and digital) waiting to be read. Shadow and Bone is one such book. I’m not even sure why I picked it up this afternoon. The cover grabbed my eye, I think. (‘Cause it’s a great cover.)

To my complete surprise I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t full of Bella-esque drama and, while I’m not deeming Alina a wonderfully strong heroine, I didn’t find her too-stupid-to-live either. I also appreciated that it wasn’t a full love-triangle. I got scared for a while there, but it passed. The thing is though, while I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it either. I don’t even know that I liked it. And that’s a strange place to find myself. I fully acknowledge that this is a well-written, well-edited, creative book. I consumed it in an evening. It’s wonderful in it’s own way, but also kind of bland.

It’s like a store brand cheddar. It’s a perfectly acceptable cheese. I’ll slice it up and toss it on my sandwich and be perfectly happy with it. But it’s not Brie. It’s not my favourite. It’s not something I’m excited to have gotten to eat and will remember. But I’m also notably not dissatisfied with it. Are you sensing my vacillation and painfully middle of the road feelings, here? Yeah.

Again, very well written. Again, a heroine I didn’t hate. There was also a hero I liked (but didn’t know well), a villain that was truly bad but had hints of multiple layers (but only hints) and side characters that were colourful enough to not just be filler. All good ingredients, mixed into a somewhat blasé whole.

murder takes patience

Book Review of Murder Takes Patience: A Frankie Donovan Mystery (Friendship & Honor #3), by Giacomo Giammatteo

Leave a reply

Murder Takes PatienceI bought a copy of Murder Takes Patience, by Giacomo Giammatteo. It’s book III of the Friendship & Honor series. I previously reviewed books I & II, Murder Takes Time and Murder Has Consequences.

Description from Goodreads:
Even good people are haunted by nightmares. Some are kept awake by things they did in the past: Lies they told, people they cheated, laws they broke. 

The ones who lived the worst lives are haunted by more than lies or broken laws. Their sleep is stolen by the people they killed. 

Nicky Fusco isn’t like any of them. He’s not bothered by lies, or broken laws. Not even by the people he’s killed. 

Nicky is kept awake by the people he hasn’t killed yet.

A Pre-Read Note:
I just finished a book I didn’t enjoy. I disliked it so much, in fact, that I didn’t even bother with a blog post about it. But I don’t want to end 2014 on such a sour note. So here at the final hour, I’m pulling out a standby author, one I can count on to write a book that will leave me sated and happy. Giacomo Giammatteo has become one of my favorite authors and is probably in my top five favorite Indie authors (if you separate Indie and traditionals, which I do simply because I’ve had a lifetime to discover traditional ones and only about 2.5 to discover great Indies). G.G. don’t let me down now.

A Post-Read Review:
*Sigh* Yes, I’m a happy reader. Really I could stop right there. I read this book. I’m happy as a result. Something about Giammatteo’s writing always clicks with me and I long ago fell in love with Nicky Fusco and Frankie Donovan.

Nicky is something like Leon, from The Professional, in the sense that he is stone cold and somehow soft at the same time. It’s a heady mix. Frankie is the classic good cop who struggles with doing the right thing while honoring his older loyalties at the same time.

But there are so many layers and so much enmeshment between the two men that nothing can ever be straightforward again. Frankie’s ability to remain a clean cop often comes at the expense of Nicky’s willing ness to get his soul dirty. Thus, there is so much guilt and love and sacrifice and giving that goes on between these two men that the reader just melts.

I have to admit that I didn’t think this book was quite as well polished and finished as previous books. I noticed a few editing mishaps and didn’t love thing quite as much as in Murder Takes Time and Murder has Consequences, but this is still ranking in best of 2014 list.

Book Review of The Convergence Theory, by Lia Cooper

Leave a reply

The Convergency TheoryI bought a copy of Lia Cooper‘s The Convergence Theory, book 2 of the Blood & Bone Trilogy. I reviewed book 1, The Duality Paradigm, here.

Description from Goodreads:
Walking away from your soulmate is not for the faint of heart… 

Following the Matilde Walker murder, Detective Ethan Ellison is back working misdemeanors and minor crimes, but he’s only just begun to realize how much the experience has changed his life. 

Meanwhile, Detective Patrick Clanahan would give anything to get the memory of Ethan out of his head. If he can’t have him, and every sign suggests that he can’t, he sure has hell wishes everything at the station didn’t remind him of the other man.

Review:
This was one seriously frustrating read. The problem? I sooo almost loved it. It was so close to being a really good book. But it’s horribly unbalanced, concentrating in all the wrong places and skimming over everything I would have considered important.

The two main characters, Patrick and Ethan, don’t even get together until 50+% into the book and they are miserable for that time. Then there is the mystery to be solved. It’s ok, the mystery. It’s of sideline importance at most and you can feel it as the killer comes out of nowhere and is given very little attention.

Then after spending 200+ pages apart and miserable, the reader is given two brief sex scenes and one skimpy conversation to settle the men’s misunderstandings and future as mates. It’s nowhere, NOWHERE near enough of a payoff in the romance department. In fact, it feels very much like the author when ‘ta-da!’ there’s your sex scene, everything’s all better now. Um….NO! That’s not at all romantic and I feel very, very cheated.

I did still very much enjoy the writing and I like the characters, even the random female sidekick (who of course will turn out not to be so random in the next book, if I know my fantasy tropes) was fun. Patrick holds so much potential to be a heart-melting lead. I just know I could truly adore him if given the chance. Please, Ms. Cooper, don’t’ cheat us out of it next time. So, it was ALMOST wonderful, but disappointing instead. (Oh, and just like in book one, I have no idea what the title refers to. I wonder if book three will finally explain the titling.)