Tag Archives: challenges

Clear Water

Book Review of Clear Water, by Amy Lane

Leave a reply

Clear WaterI bought a copy of Amy Lane‘s Clear Water.

Description from Goodreads:
Meet Patrick Cleary: party boy, loser, and spaz. Patrick’s been trying desperately to transform himself, and the results have been so spectacular, they’ve almost killed him. Meet Wes “Whiskey” Keenan: he’s a field biologist wondering if it’s time to settle down. When the worst day of Patrick’s life ends with Whiskey saving it, Patrick and Whiskey find themselves sharing company and an impossibly small berth on the world’s tackiest houseboat.

Patrick needs to get his life together—and Whiskey wants to help—but Patrick is not entirely convinced it’s doable. He’s pretty sure he’s a freak of nature. But Whiskey, who works with real freaks of nature, thinks all Patrick needs is a little help to see the absolute beauty inside his spastic self, and Whiskey is all about volunteering. Between anomalous frogs, a homicidal ex-boyfriend, and Patrick’s own hangups, Whiskey’s going to need all of his patience and Patrick’s going to need to find the best of himself before these two men ever see clear water.

Review:
I think Amy Lane must be either an acquired taste or a basic matter of preference because, while I thought this book was funny and I liked the characters and even the plot, I thought the sweetness way over the top. I thought the gravitas and importance accorded sex over-played. I thought Patrick’s verbal diarrhea unappealing and I found the fact that no one had ever treated him well, even if only to get what they want from him, unbelievable.

Most of all, I was disturbed by how much Whiskey’s love was actually parenting. To the point that Patrick’s actual parent was asking Whiskey (not Patrick) for another chance. I don’t care how cute a character is, or how many tick’s his mental health provide. I don’t want to imagine him sleeping with a functional parent figure. Nope.

So, all in all, a middle of the road read for me. The writing was great. There was a lot of humor. The characters themselves were interesting and likable and they had their own voices. But I just thought the whole thing was taken a step too far to really enjoy wholly.

Book Review of U.S. Army Mage Corps: SWORD, by John F. Holmes

Leave a reply

U.S. Army Mage Corps: SWORDI downloaded a copy of  U.S. Army Mage Corps: SWORD, by John F. Holmes, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
What if … magic were part of every day US Military Operations? 

In a backwater Central Asian Country, a threat to Western Civilization is growing, unnoticed by the world. The men and women of the US Army Mage Corps, feared on the battlefield and despised back home, enter into a struggle which may cost them their lives and their country. 

Review:
This is another case of interesting concept, poor execution. Basically, I liked the characters, though they were never deeply developed. I liked it idea of magic in the modern army and honestly, the army bits are well done. But the story stops and starts, jumps around and isn’t particularly developed. There are also no limits or descriptions of the world or the magic, so creatures and abilities just seem to pop up willy-nilly. The writing is simplistic, POVs shift without warning and the editing is a mess.

I’m actually going to take a moment to address this last point, because I downloaded my copy of the book on May 11, 2015 and there is an author note on Goodreads saying, “As of 09/25, heavily edited to fix mistakes.” One would presume 9/25/2014. This is supported by a comment on an Amazon review in which the author states, “Uploaded a much edited version. Thank you for the comment.” That was Nov 3, 2014. So, I can only assume I have that newly edited edition. Now, Holmes may have fixed some errors, maybe even ‘heavily edited’ it, but there is no way this book has been in the hands of a professional editor. There are still a ton of mistakes, some of them things like zeros showing up in the middle of words. Things a standard spell-check should have caught.

So, in the end I think the book could have been better…maybe even could have been good. But it’s not there yet. It’s too rushed, there isn’t enough explanation of the magic limits, and there are too many characters and POVs to feel invested in the characters. Meh.

Rock

Book Review of Rock, by Anyta Sunday

Leave a reply

RockI bought a copy of Anyta Sunday‘s novel, Rock, in order to be part of a group read.

Description from Goodreads:
Igneous.
When Cooper’s parents divorce, he finds himself landed in Week About—one week with his mum and one week with his dad.
Only, it’s not just his dad he has to live with. There’s Lila, too: The other woman, the one who stole the rock-solid foundation of his life.

And then …

There’s Jace. Lila’s son. Lila’s smug, regurgitated-fish-scale-blue eyed son.

All Cooper wants is to have his family back the way it once was, but there’s something about this boy that promises things will never be the same again.

Sedimentary.
Resisting the realities of his new life, Cooper and Jace get off to a rocky start. But rocky start or not, after hundreds of shared memories together, they forge something new. A close … friendship.

Because friendship is all they can have. Although it’s not like they are real brothers…

Metamorphic.
But how does that friendship evolve under the pressures of life?
Under pressures of the heart?

Review:
This was a hard book for me to read. Part of it was circumstantial, as I picked it up at a time when I was a little emotionally compromised and therefore more susceptible to the turmoil in it. I joked that it felt like a death by a thousand cuts at one point. But part of the reason is just that it’s a difficult read. Families, parents are human and sometimes their best effort isn’t enough and children get hurt. In the beginning I had a very hard time letting go of Cooper’s anger that had become my anger. I resented everyone involved. As pages went by, Jace chipped away at that until eventually that forgiveness spread to the rest of the family.

Similarly, I spent a lot of time hurt and angered by Jace, wanting Cooper to inflict a lash or two in return. But as pages went by and Cooper’s understanding grew I was able to see that Jace too was suffering, just in a different way than Cooper. I think that must take a lot of skill for a writer to present a reader with one POV and still show growth in perspective without ever coming out and saying it. Part of it, especially when Cooper is young, is that he’s a bit unreliable and biased as a narrator, but I don’t know that that’s all there is to it.

I did think the mothers, both of them, were placeholders. The story here is really about the boys and their father. The book has these two shadows of amazing women and both feel like tragic cutouts. Neither of them were as well developed as the other characters.

I loved the writing style, the word choice and flow. I enjoyed the rocks as a running theme, though I didn’t really feel compelled to run out and look up meanings or anything. I just thought it was a nice thread running throughout the book. All in all, quite enjoyable.