Books and Sensibility

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★★

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

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  • Release Date: 11/08/16
  • Audiobook Length :  14 Hours 34 Minutes
  • Genre: Fairytale
  • Publisher:Macmillan Audio / Feiwel & Friends

Katherine Pinkerton knows better than dream of owning her own bakery baker, she knows her destiny lies in becoming the queen of a wacky, quirky, surreal little Kingdom of Hearts. On the night she is to be betrothed she sets eyes on the handsome court joker, who has more than cards up his sleeves.

Unlike the Lunar Chronicles where the fairytale aspects are subtext and set in a modern world, Heartless is an overt-played-straight prequel to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Meyer digs into the Kingdom of Hearts and all its little oddities. It’s a place where animals talk, playing cards are courtier and if one bring something back from a dream. . . well then so be it. 

What we don’t really get to dig into in this novel is the plot. Plot points in the novel are hung like painting with no nails, there are a lot of them, you want to see them. . . but they have a tendency to fall off. One of the many plot in this book is about a forbidden romance that never really started for me. There is also a beta romance, a monster, intrigue,  war and magic. . . but we never get fully invested in any of it.

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The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

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Since I’ve started blogging and paying attention to the adult lit world I have heard a lot about Margaret Atwood. She’s mostly known for her feminist writing and disturbing dystopic features. And while this book feature some of this, it’ just so ….bizarre. I really had to do some research to see what others were saying to make sure I understood it. The book editor of the Washington Post called it a “silly mess”… and it kind of was this for me. I have no idea how to really review this, since I don’t have much to compare it to, but here goes.

 

In an economic collapse in the Northeast, married couple Stan and Charmaine have lost everything. They live in their car, fearful of looters and the next day to come. When they have the opportunity to be apart of an economic experiment that requires them to move into the town of Consilience , an idyllic 50’s style town where everyone is given housing and work.. The only catch is they have to alternate a month being prisoners inside Positron prison and a month being a citizen in Consilience, leaving their home for their Alternates.


As you may suspect all is not what it seems and Stan and Charmiane get involved in a bizarre plot that include sex robots, a house of Elvis impersonators  and adultery. So much adultery. The thriller-esque plot they get involved in just didn’t make sense. I’m not sure if this novel is satire or something. I feel like if I didn’t know who wrote this I’d be like, this is kind of misogynstic but because it’s Atwood it’s maybe satire. It just seemed like all these strong capable women had this plan and then they leave it to a bumbling man as their linchpin.

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Fairest ( Lunar Chronicles #3.5) by Marissa Meyer

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  • Release Date: January 27th 2015
  • Genre: Sci-Fi/Space Drama
  • Audiobook Hours: 6 hours and 36 minutes
  • Publisher: Macmillan Audio

I’ve never DNFed an audiobook, but let me tell you Fairest came *this close*. It wasn’t so much that the book was bad it just didn’t have the heart or fun I’ve come to expect in this series. The plot threads and world-building elements that hold the series together started to unravel for me.

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Book Review : Suddenly Royal by Nichole Chase

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  • Release Date: April 23rd 2013
  • Genre: New Adult/ Women’s Fiction
  • Pages : 464
  • Publisher: Avon

The story of an American woman who discovers she is a duchess  sounded a lot more interesting when I started this book than when I finished. This concept of normal women finding themselves mixed up with royalty is nothing new with movies like The Princess Diaries and The Prince and Me but I couldn’t find the same  charm in Suddenly Royal.

 

Samantha Rousseau is a graduate student working towards her PhD and taking care of her cancer stricken stepfather. Her life is turned upside down when it’s discovered she is a long lost duchess from the France-expy country Lilaria. Suddenly this American girl is plucked from obscurity and into the world of royalty, paparazzi and fame all while  keeping her eyes out for Prince Alex aka Prince Yummy.

Chase executed the premise well, explaining how the families are being brought together but there wasn’t much of a follow through as far as plot was concerned.

 I don’t know if it was the cookie cutterhero or the low ball conflict but the more I thought about it the more I realized this wasn’t the kind of story I expected. We get a lot of Sam going to Lilaria and about her responsibilities,  but honestly it wasn’t that interesting. . . just a lot of people telling her things.  I wanted something more akin to the  first season of Downton Abbey. I wanted more awkward dinner parties, culture shock,  witty banter and actual tension between the leads.

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Mini Reviews : New Adult Novels

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New Adult or NA novels seem to be taking over! Every week it seems like more and more are being released and this week I take a peek at two NA novels.

The Space Between by Victoria H. Smith

This New Adult novel follows the relationship of a pair of 19-year-olds from two different sides of Chicago; Derek, the privileged adopted son of a Senator and Lacey, a struggling opera prodigy from the wrong side of the tracks with a mother dying of cancer. When these to meet in a blaze of passion, they have to overcome racism, class and their own family to be together. Seeing a romance that focuses on a biracial girl and Korean guy was definitely a first for me and I liked that Victoria wrote about this type of relationship. The plot relies a lot on insta-lust and I was kind of annoyed of how Lacey is constantly described as desert with chocolate eyes and caramel skin. Falling on the steamier side of NA, so there are quite a few scandalous scenes. This is the first in a series, so I’ll be interested to get the other ones if I stumble across them. Also how great is this cover !-  ★★★



If You Stay by Courtney Cole

Pax Tate is a selfish, trust fund baby with an addictive personality and Mila Hill is an orphaned artist living a quiet life with her sister. Their first encounter is anything but romantic when Mila discovers Pax overdosing in his car. This gruesome meeting unravels into a NA story that is the rather standard good girl meets broken bad boy with a fair share of steamy moments. The story packs on the melodrama and angst with everyone having dark secrets. After about the third revelation it started to feel a bit… soap-operatic ? This book also has healthy a bit of slut-shaming, which I think I’m just getting used to in YA/NA fiction at this point. I don’t know if this is done to create foils for the main female characters, but if you are an openly sexually active female, chances are bad things will happen to you. If you want an angsty, steamy romance this may be your kind of book. I think this story had  a lot of potential in the beginning, but if you’ve read any kind of NA before this story will seem generic. Also,a  month after reading it, I barely remember anything about it. –  ★★ + .5

 

Mini Reviews : The Night Circus , Insurgent and How To Ruin A Summer Vacation

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Audiobook : The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 

Jim Dale, infamous for narrating the Harry Potter audiobooks, brings dynamic performance to The Night Circus. This is my second time encountering this story of a magical circus told through the eyes of a romance. Once you get away from the idea of “main characters”, this book has so much to offer. The Night Circus has a way of breaking down the usual
fantasy elements; magic, glamour, spells, and clairvoyance and lets them shine in a new light. While probably not historical accurate once you step into the settings and watch  Morgenstern perform her storytelling, you might just be ready to run away with the circus. –★★★★

Insurgent by Veronica Roth 

It’s sequel time! Honestly, I wasn’t sure Insurgent could hold up as a sequel, but Insurgent is an action-packed novel with plot twists and surprises around every corner. I read this book over the course of a few months and I was able to easily get back into the plot each time. I enjoyed how the relationship developed between Four and Tris. I found them to be the only characters in this book who I could really care about. There were so many side characters I couldn’t remember who was who. Either way the stakes are higher in this novel and I officially can not wait for Allegiant! – ★★★★




How To Ruin A Summer Vacation by Simone Elkeles 

Amy Nelson’s summer vacation has been ruined. Instead of attending tennis camp, she will be spending three months in Israel with her estranged father to meet her paternal family for the first time. Like most American teens all Amy expects to find nothing but deserts, guns and bombings but what she finds instead is love, family, and respect. Amy’s narrative is snarky, headstrong and carefree as she deals with the culture shock. This book has a few good moments that touch on the difference between American and  Israeli teenage life, but overall the book keeps a light tone with little conflict. I found Amy’s voice a little less charming and in the middle of the book and at some point she came off as a bit ignorant. The romance was sweet but overtly predictable. ★★