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Book Review of Pick Your Teeth With My Bones, by Carrie Newberry

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I won a copy of Carrie Newberry‘s Pick Your Teeth With My Bones through LibraryThing.

Description from Goodreads:
Tattoos. Scars. Wild black-and-silver hair. A near-permanent scowl. A collection of knives, and a vocabulary to make an oil rig captain blush like a virgin. Not to mention the tail. No one ever accuses shape-shifter Kellan Faolanni of being beautiful, but she’s very good at her job. Until now.

Kellan is a member of the secret Sankhain society, protectors of a deep and ancient forest magic, and their most devout warrior. When a man appears, smelling of Earl Gray tea and old books, he unravels secrets of the Sankhain that should no longer exist, secrets Kellan lives to protect. With the help of Tony, another Sankha, and her dog Galen, Kellan uses her unique sense of smell to follow the trail of lies leading to the traitor bartering Sankhain secrets. Answers hide in the very heart of the forest. What she uncovers there will shake her world to the core.

Kellan is over two hundred years old, and she’s living proof that you’re never too old to learn who you are.

Review:
This wasn’t wholly bad. It had an interesting idea, but it also had several elements that irritated me. The most obvious of which was the “strong woman” equals emotionally stunted, angry woman. I see this all the time. Authors want to write a strong, warrior woman, but they don’t know how to craft a warrior, except to give them male characteristics. As if a woman can’t possess female qualities and still be strong and warrior-like. The result is a woman so angry, sarcastic and emotionally illiterate that the reader is left wondering how she’s lived 200+ years.

What’s worse, she’d been in a sexual relationship with her boss for 180+ years without ever realizing that she wasn’t an equal in that relationship. She was so incapable of forethought and rational behavior that a 24(ish) year old boy showed up and she basically handed all decision-making off to him. Pair all this with the fact that she had lustful thoughts about every pretty man she encountered and formed unwanted attachments, and it made her feel stupid and child-like, as if she couldn’t control her temper, her thoughts, her actions, or her libido.

I’ll grant that a lot of the banter was funny and I do like the idea behind the world. I also appreciated the presence of some racial and sexual diversity in the cast. Even if of the four LGBT characters, the only gay man was mauled, one of the lesbians died and one turned out to be a villain. (That’s not really a resounding success for the LGBT crowd. There’s a trope named Bury Your Gays for a reason. This is sadly a rather common outcome of LGBT characters.)

All in all, I liked the idea of this book but thought it’s presentation was clumsy enough to detract from my enjoyment of it.

breaking away

Book Review of Breaking Away (Rabylon #1), by Cory Groshek

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I won a copy of Breaking Away, by Cory Groshek, through Goodreads.

Description:
Life is hard in the poverty-stricken village of Rabylon, where rabbits work every day from sun up to sun down, earning just enough carrots to survive-except for Mayor Monty Cottonsworth III, who lives in the lap of luxury as his villagers starve. Twin bunnies Remy and Rhea, fed up with working so long and so hard with nothing to show for it, desperately desire a better life, but don’t know how to achieve it. Just when they are about to give up hope, they are inspired by the story of a mythical carrot paradise that may exist on the other side of a big, green hill outside of their village. Now they face the most difficult decision they’ve ever had to make: Do they “play it safe” by staying in Rabylon and settle for a life of lack, loss, and limitation? Or do they risk it all-up to and including their lives-on the chance that out there somewhere is a life worth dying for?

Review (with spoiler):
This is middle grade or below fiction. Though I would suggest it be read by an adult, as I think some of the ideas too advanced for such readers. Basically, a man (or male rabbit) sells a town on the idea of a communist heaven and then enslaves them as soon as he has control of the resources.

As many such books, the plot is predicated on the idea that all knowledge can somehow be lost in a generation or two, if you just take away the books. I always have trouble with this idea. (As if parents wouldn’t teach their children what is safe to eat from memory, even if they don’t have a book, for example.) But we’ll overlook this. We’ll also overlook the strange feelings and mysterious ideas that pop into Remy and Rhea’s head from seemingly outside sources that I interpreted as being from God. (I’m not religious and didn’t find this a particularly welcome addition, but whatever.)

What I want to discuss is the ending. Remy and Rhea reach their magical carrot paradise. They have adventures and learn and grow in the process. This is all wonderful and allows for some good lessons for young readers. But that’s it. They reach the town and presumably live happily ever after. But….but what about their family and friends and everyone they left behind living under a tyrant? What good is all their hard earned knowledge if they don’t take it home and share it, don’t use it to right the wrongs in their collective lives? It left the book feeling pointless, IMO. I’ll grant that it is a first book in a series, so hopefully the bunnies go home in some future books. But there’s no clue that that’s the plan in this one.

The writing and editing seemed clean and easy to read though.

Trial by Desire

Book Review of Trial by Desire, by Courtney Milan

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I won a copy of Courtney Milan‘s Trial by Desire through Goodreads.

Description:
SHE CANNOT FORGET THE FIRE HE IGNITED …

In the three years since her husband left her, Lady Kate Carhart has managed to forge a fulfilling life for herself. But when Ned Carhart unexpectedly returns, she finds her tranquility uprooted — and her deepest secrets threatened. Though she has no intention of falling for Ned’s charms, Kate can no longer deny the desire that still burns in her heart.

OR THE PROMISE OF HIS LOVE …

Ned is determined to regain his wife’s trust by using unbridled seduction. But just as Kate surrenders to Ned’s passion, her carefully guarded past threatens to destroy her. Now Kate must place her faith in the only man she’s ever loved, and the only one who has ever betrayed her …

Review:
OK, I won’t say this is a bad book. I know Milan is quite popular. I’ve even read and enjoyed some of her books. But the simple fact of the matter is that I DID NOT LIKE THIS BOOK. That’s the truth of it.

I found Ned horribly selfish, from start to finish. Yes, I understood that he was young and fighting demons, that he regretted having left and was trying to make amends. My problem was that he returned just as selfish as he left. I didn’t find his fear a good enough excuse for the fact that he allowed his own wants to overshadow Kate’s openly expressed desires, over and over again, hurting her repeatedly.

Further, I didn’t understand why she continued to trust and love him. And that after the simple fact that after a 3 year absence (in a three month marriage), I wouldn’t have been inclined to forgive him in the first place, let alone over and over again.

Then, there was the domestic violence aspect. Milan spouts all the right words about it not being a woman’s fault, etc. But then she sculpted a heroine who laughed in the face of an abusive man. Yes, he was going to hurt her regardless, so why give him her fear. But it totally glossed over the fact that he very well could have killed her and purposefully antagonizing him isn’t admirable. Placation isn’t weakness if it keeps you alive. And of course the abused woman eventually stands tall and confronts her abuser. While I understand how this was supposed to be a triumph, if you really look at the inverse of it, regardless of what Milan espoused in the narrative, it all suggests that women who don’t laugh in the face of their abuser or stand tall because they’re so strong must in fact be weak. I was offended by the whole storyline.