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The Black Wolves of Boston

Book Review of The Black Wolves of Boston, by Wen Spencer

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I borrowed a copy of The Black Wolves of Boston, by Wen Spencer, from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
Silas Decker had his world destroyed when he was attacked by vampires outside of New Amsterdam. He rebuilt his life a dozen times in the last three hundred years—each time less and less successfully. Now he lives alone, buried under a hoarding habit, struggling to find some reason to wake up with the setting of the sun.

Eloise is a Virtue, pledged to hunting evil.  What she doesn’t know is how to live alone in a city full of strangers who know nothing about monsters.

Seth is the sixteen-year old Prince of Boston, ward of the Wolf King.  Now he is left in a city that desperately needs his protection with enemies gathering all around. 

Joshua believes he is a normal, college-bound high school senior.  His life is shattered when he wakes up in a field, covered with blood, and the prom committee scattered in pieces about him like broken dolls.  

These four must now come together to unravel a plot by Wickers, witches who gain power from human sacrifices and have the power to turn any human into their puppet. Four people who lost everything struggle to save Boston by saving each other.

Review:
This was utterly adorable. Seriously, it was one of the cutest books I’ve read in a while! I’ve been pretty burned out on YA lately, so I went into this with a bit of trepidation, but I sure am glad to have read it. Watching Decker, the 300-year-old vampire try and make his “puppy” happy so he’ll stay with him was too endearing for words. Similarly, seeing Seth, the “puppy,” settle and make a home was just as lovely.

I only have two complaints here. One is that the editing is a bit of a mess. I kept rereading sentences to verify, yep, a word really is missing or repeated. Lots of missing particles and things like, being able being to, instead of being able to. Second is that I felt the horror and trauma of watching 10 classmates being slaughtered and turning into a werewolf were seriously glossed over in lieu of the happier part of the storyline.

But for anyone looking for a cute book this summer, pick this one up.

There is also a little short story online, set in the same universe. You can find it here. It has the same editing habits. As an example, I pulled this from it: “His muzzleloader lay the dead leaves fifty feet back. He’d have to abandon it for now. ” But it’s still cute.

Book Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

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I borrowed a copy of Neil Gaiman‘s The Ocean at the End of the Lane from my local library. It was my book club book this month.

Description from Goodreads:
Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

Review:
I appreciate the way this wrapped around into something satisfyingly circular. I thought it was well written, with a good voice and thoughtful perspective. Seeing a seven-year-old’s perspective on things reconsidered with adult eyes was interesting. For the most part I really enjoyed it. It just felt a little too fantastical and weird at times. Like maybe Gaimen needed to reign himself in a little.

Book Review of Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, by Paul Krueger

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I borrowed a copy of Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, by Paul Krueger from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
College grad Bailey Chen has a few demons: no job, no parental support, and a rocky relationship with Zane, the only friend who’s around when she moves back home. But when Zane introduces Bailey to his cadre of monster-fighting bartenders, her demons get a lot more literal. Like, soul-sucking hell-beast literal. Soon, it’s up to Bailey and the ragtag band of magical mixologists to take on whatever—or whoever—is behind the mysterious rash of gruesome deaths in Chicago, and complete the lost recipes of an ancient tome of cocktail lore.

Review:
This was all right. I suppose if I hadn’t gone in with such high hope I wouldn’t have been disappointed. As it was, I liked it but thought I’d love it, which as disappointments go, isn’t too bad.

There were things I absolutely appreciated. The book is effortlessly diverse. By which I mean there is a diverse cast, but I never felt the author was tokenizing anyone for the diversity cookie. But there was a Chinese American main character (who has to deal with back ground fetishizing and people being insensitive to her culture and identity), a strong and important black female character, a disabled gay man, a foreigner and a trans character. And none of them had tragic back stories, died or turned out to be evil. Yay. Admittedly, there was some stereotyping. Like the Chinese American who just happens to be smart, detail oriented and studious, with a love of flash cards and post-it notes, or the overly effusive Canadian. But this was all mostly a yay.

The writing is clean and easily readable, plus it’s quite funny. So, there are some strong positive here. Where my problems started though was with the silly cocktail recipes interspersed at the end of each chapter. They felt gimmicky and really broke up the flow. Then, I just kind of got caught up in the whole cocktails as magic thing. Logistically, I couldn’t figure out how this worked. Did it have to be special liquor? It was inferred at one point that it did, but other times they just seemed to grab what was available. Why didn’t ‘civilian’ cocktails contain magic? If all bartenders and baristas are protectors, why didn’t anyone know about them. And yes, I understood about oblivium (erasing memories), but such a large population wouldn’t stay secret. Then, I couldn’t get past the uselessness of the council. No one could really be that stupid and function. And while I could and did manage to suspend my disbelief, it just got harder and harder to do as the book went on. Plus, the romance felt really shoe-horned in there.

So, while this was an ok read, I didn’t love it.