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taste

Book Review: Taste, by Kate Evangelista

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Author, Kate Evangelista sent me an e-copy of her new YA novel Taste.

Description from Goodreads:
At Barinkoff Academy, there’s only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.

When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud.

Review:

I’m gonna just say up front that this review is based on my personal opinion, likes and dislikes of Taste. I say that because I have no real qualms with the writing, plotting, or pacing of the novel. In all areas it was fine. However, I find that I really didn’t much like the book. Given that the basic structure of the book was appropriate my dislike can only be caused by personal likes and dislikes, which can be expected to be different for everyone. What rubs me the wrong way might delight another reader.

I really expected to like Taste. I love The Vampire Knight and the plot sounds so similar…mysterious, beautiful night students attending an upscale private academy. But there the similarities end.

To start with I generally dislike pathologically stubborn heroines who mouth off in the face of danger. I didn’t like it in Bella. I didn’t like it in Luce and I didn’t like it in Phoenix. I really really disliked Phoenix. I get that she is tough and fearless, with real authority issues. That came through loud and clear, but surely you would expect her to have at least a little sense of self preservation. Nope…none, none at all. In fact I would call her actions suicidal. Each time she displayed a complete lack of self-control and allowed her mouth to almost get her killed or chaffed at being given life saving instructions I found myself thinking, “I really don’t want to read this.” Seriously, Phoenix’s anger at being told what to do (or not do) is comparable to someone getting angry and stepping into on-coming traffic just because they’ve been told not to. Then because they miraculously managed not to get killed, acting like their actions were reasonable and their anger over being given an instruction just.

She really rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a main character who was quite so selfish. Her sob story about her dead mother and distant father was no where near enough to soften my feelings for her and tempt me to forgive her behaviour. She showed a complete disregard for the fact that she was endangering herself and EVERYONE around her. She was angry when she wasn’t given information she had no reasonable reason to be entitled to. She had the arrogance to think that based on nothing more than a brief overheard conversation she had the right to start interfering in the lives and politics of a nation she knew NOTHING about. In her dealings with Calixta she proved herself to be both jealous and cruel. I didn’t like her at all. Which is a real shame because I really liked everyone else. Luka was playful and mysterious. Demitri was wonderfully conflicted and just as sexy as he was meant to be. Dray made a great loveable buffoon of a mad scientist. I even liked Yana and Preya. If I could have cut Phoenix out of the picture I would probably have really liked the book. I don’t think she deserved her happy ending.

Next, love triangles drive me insane. Especially when the girl in the middle doesn’t seem to have done anything to warrant the attention of two men (in this case, not just two men but two beautiful, powerful crown princes no less). The reader never does really find out what about Phoenix is so appealing. There is the whole bond between her and Demitri to contend with, but his attachment to her seems to predate that. Why?

I did appreciate the detailed social structure of Barinkoff City and the Zhamvy society. Evangelista obviously put a lot of time and thought into it and it shows. I liked that contrary to the norm, the male lead was willing to at least say the people are more important that me or you…yes the whole is generally more important that any single piece of itself. I also thought that the occasional use of teenage vernacular from the narrator along the lines of ‘Dude I’m so high right now’ matched the character from whose point of view the story was told.

I like a good paranormal romance as much as the next person, but Taste seemed to take the characteristics of the genre and distill them until so strong they were difficult to stomach. It just wasn’t for me. However, I think that those who not only liked, but loved Twilight or Fallen will adore Taste. It even has the one word title to ease its transition into the clic. For those people I strongly recommend it. For the rest of us, I’m not so sure.

Book Review of The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain: Elven Resurrection

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Oldman Brook (or his representative) sent me a beautiful copy of The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain: Elven Resurrection. I say beautiful because I really love the cover.

Description from Goodreads:
Elven boys Finn and Beezle enter a time portal just before their race is wiped out by an otherworldly warrior and his goblin army. Travelling 3,000 years into the future and arriving in snow-filled lands, the boys are saved from the cold by two shape-shifters sent by Greybeard, the wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain. Out of their time and depth, Finn and Beezle are enlisted to join Greybeard and his friends on a quest to save the world of Everlast from the very same otherworldly warrior….

Warning: Minor Spoiler

The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain: Elven Resurrection is an epic adventure very much in the style of Tolkien. Humans, elves, shape-shifters, dwarves, wizards, dragons, goblins and more vie for power and survival in the land of Everlast. Most of which contribute at least one colourful character to the cast of the book. I really found the characters themselves enjoyable, though I found their mannerism and flippant lack of sentiment toward their enemy equally disturbing. Let me elaborate (hopefully without spoilers). Greybeard and his crew set out on a quest to save the world essentially. Who is friend and who is foe is fairly clearly delineated. Warrior and his goblins are bad, Greybeard and his army are good. However, both sides treat the lives of the enemy with frightening disregard. This is, perhaps, to be expected in a dehumanised enemy, but not in those that are presented as the representative of the morally superior. An example: at one point the ‘good guys’ callously joke and laugh as they watch the enemy being incrementally and, almost certainly, painfully burned alive. Not funny and more to the point not appropriate in a children’s novel.

If  The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain was written for adults, who can be expected to think deeply about such things, I might find this ubiquitous callousness an interesting addition. It might prompt readers to remember that histories are written by victors, who have a tendency to gloss over the cruelties of their own. In a children’s novel, however, I find it dangerously close to suggesting that it is ok to kill another as long as they are an enemy, which is of course a subjective classification, making the actual lesson ‘it’s ok to kill just so long as you think you are on the right side.’ I have no doubt that the Hitler Youth were taught a very similar lesson along the way somewhere.

This is my only real complaint though. A whole host of varied and interesting characters are introduced in an unusual narrative. It is told in present tense, which takes some getting used to, but I liked it once I had. The writing is clean and uncluttered for easy reading, and though the first in a series, the book wraps up nicely so there aren’t any unbearable cliffhangers. Its well worth a read.

Review of D. M. Fife’s Light & Dark: The Awakening of the Mageknight

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Author, D. M. Fife sent me a review copy of Light & Dark: The Awakening of the Mageknight.

Dany Firoth is an average thirteen-year-old who finds himself at the beginning of his eighth-grade year, struggling with some of the more common oncerns that plague a boy of his age: bullies, homework, and his mother. Sabrina Drake is the new girl. She is beautiful and spellbinding, but carries a fantastic secret.

Accepted into the White Rock Academy of Illumination, a school for young squires destined to become Knights of the LIght and battle the forces of the Dark with magical weapons called Bondeds, Danny joins his five closest friends in the training of their lives. Honed in the techniques of blade work by an Elvin sword master and educated by a colourful assortment of knightly instructors, Danny and his friends are placed on the path to becoming knighted members of the Light. However, the Dark may have other plans as they unveil a sinister plot in this fantastic tale of dragon-riding adventure, sword-wielding action, and coming of age drama.

Light & Dark: The Awakening of the Mageknight follows the eventful life of thirteen-year-old Danny Firoth and his friends as their world is turned upside-down by the sudden realization that creature of myth might not be so mythical after-all. After a slow start the book moves along at a nice clip. An interesting assortment of characters pepper the pages, some of them more sympathetic than others. I was particularly fond of Calador and Chris, but had little attachment to Doug or Matt. The perpetrator of the sinister plot isn’t too hard to guess, but neither is he/she so obvious as to make finishing the book obsolete. There is just enough misdirection to make you doubt yourself. The writing is generally crisp and easy to follow. My only complaint is Fife’s REPEATED use of the same phrases, most notably “for but a moment,” “did as bid,” and “kept his council.” There are a couple other ones that show up too often for the repetition to go unnoticed, but they weren’t as quite as frequent.

Be forewarned though, this is apparently the first in a series. Unless I know before starting that a book is part of a series I’m always a little disappointed to reach the end of it only to discover it isn’t actually the end of the story. The book is already 312 pages long, so I understand why it had to be broken up and though threads are left open for continuation it isn’t too much of a cliffhanger. I’d definitely be interested in seeing where Fife goes with it. I would consider this middle grade or lower young adult, but I enjoyed it all the same.