readingrobyn's reviews
738 reviews

As a long lover of the Spellman family I was not surprised when this latest read disrupted my already odd sleeping hours. This installment has carried the same amazing writing and insane situations shown in the first two books. This time around focusing on the new changes of the each character and Isabel's relationships in and outside of the family as we still deal with the aftermath of the previous book.

Of course there's also case #001, which brings it's own set of over the top problems and detours, along with the new rift between Rae and Henry.

I loved every second of reading this book. The wonderful combo of humour, mystery and problems much more complicated then my own make reading the series something I just can't not enjoy. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Spellmans problems are farther explored and perhaps concluded(?) in the next book.

The Garden is a retelling of the the biblical story of The Garden of Eden. Now, if we take a second to ignore the fact that this story is the basis of God creating the universe and is considered religious text, this book is just another retelling. Granted, it's not about Cinderella or Pride and Prejudice but it follows the same format of taking a story that already exists and retelling it from a different point of view.

Now, I am not Christan or even very religious, so for me personally I didn't have a problem in reading this. For some people this book will cross the line. Although I didn't find anything said to be particularly insulting to Christianity, it's not exactly the perfect story if you find yourself easily offended. And the part God plays does make me want to say that this isn't for the faint of religious heart.

The plot takes us throughout the original biblical version through the eyes of Eve as she gradually makes her way towards her fate. The more I read, the more attached I felt towards Eve as a character. She's so new, like a child who is somehow already a woman. The story is also expanded upon with the interactions Eve has with the Serpent, God, and Adam.

The writing does sway towards the fact that womanhood of the past is nothing like womanhood of the present. Getting the short end of the stick is a fact of history and the writing of The Garden does not gloss over that it started out that way.

Overall, I found The Garden to be incredibly interesting, if not a little unexpected. I mean, of all the retelling you come across not many people have the balls to go to religious text and say, "Here's how it could have happened." It was at times very harsh to read but it has this effort to it that shows how the author was really trying to take these characters and flesh them out.

Not something I would recommend but it was at least interesting to see someones attempt at writing such a story.

Drink, Slay, Love is possibly one of the most creative vampire concepts that I have ever come across. You can tell just from the synopsis that mixing vampires and unicorns is bound to be at least somewhat interesting. I was however, not prepared to spend almost the entirety of today with my head in this book, entranced by Pearl's unusual circumstances of vampire turned daywalker.

With the saturation of vampire fiction of both the good and the bad, Drink, Slay, Love is always going to stick out for me. Durst grabbed me with her characters. Pearl is not only interesting to read about but her behaviour and her personality came to life in the story. (Ha! See what I did there "came to life".)

The same can be said for the plot which built itself up in an obvious way but still managed to be incredibly unpredictable. (Turns out unicorns are not predictable creatures, who knew.)

Sprinkled with banter and loved up with some good old fashioned murder I found myself head over heels for this book. When reading it was like slipping into a nice pair of comfy pj pants after a long day. The story wasn't overly complicated, the writing wasn't trying to be as flowery as shakespeare (although some shakespeare is involved) and I could just let myself have fun getting sucked in (ha!) by every bit of funny dialogue.

I absolutely drank up this story and highly recommend that you at least give it a taste.

This is the final Sherlock novel for me to read, now with all four under my belt, I'm excited to say that this one was probably my favourite.

The Hound of the Baskervilles has a mystery that edges on the supernatural as our Sherlock and Watson duo go up against a Hell dog in the bleak English country side. This mystery was just plain ol' fun to get into. I loved how the idea of the Hell dog constantly hinged on reality. If a hound is really involved how would such madness actually translate to murder?

Much to my surprise most of the book is spent with just Dr. Watson solo (as Sherlock is predisposed) and I found that this worked really well. Watson sort of comes into his own, he's still just the observer, but is decidedly working to collect facts and clues without Sherlock's guidance. That fact alone really played into the mystery, we didn't always have Sherlock looking two steps ahead. Instead we were introduced to a situation where the murderer is still lurking, and with a doubt planning to strike again, without Sherlock there to see it coming.

This book has a very different feel then my second favourite Sherlock novel [b:The Valley of Fear|736131|The Valley of Fear |Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177850131s/736131.jpg|1343585]. This one is a continuous story, more about the chase and trying to pin down the killer then understanding the crime. The reason this book is probably my favourite has a lot to do with the ending, so I won't go into that here, but the excitement created with those final events was excellent!

In the end, this book has gotten me really looking forward to reading more Sherlock and getting into those short stories sooner rather then later!

Rating: 4.5 STARS

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone surprised me. Of course, I had heard the high praise and looked quizzically at the beautiful blue cover, but I had virtually no idea what the story would actually contain. All I knew was that it was supposed to be good, and that I should absolutely read it. So, I did!

Now that I've finished, my emotions are buzzing and my thoughts are scrambling to form into something scenical. Needless to say, I loved it. But the process of my loving it has been an odd experience.

At first I was pretty tentative, Karou's world in Prague is interesting but didn't hold my attention. Things were pretty fair sailing and it was this build up, without having much of a clue if it was worth what it was building to, that had me wavering. But during this first half, I was enjoying how the writing was setting the scene, and of course, introducing our main dame, Karou.

She was wonderful from page one, full of the spunk and energy that I like to see in female characters. Her friends, her art, her ex-boyfriend, and even her choice of hangouts, all endered her to me.

This was was pretty key for me as the fantastical elements of the story began to emerge, she made it all so easy to believe in. Her narrative wasn't spent trying to convince me of her world, instead she told her stories so earnestly that I really could immerse myself in them. Brimstone and Issa stand out in my mind as characters more so then creatures, which was important when it came time to connect to the chimera world.

Jumping ahead, something similar can be said about the angels. The way that they are described and introduced made me connect with them in a manner that felt more natural then the normal hoe-hum of an author trying to set up a mythos.

Right about when the character of Akiva is first introduced, is I really got into the plot. Things were slowly moving forward and Akiva ended up playing a much larger role then I could have ever at first imagined. When the romance between Karou and Akiva started up, I wasn't impressed, mostly because it felt so instant. Sure, this is one crazy situation, but should you guys really be getting so comfortable, so quickly? I remember feeling like it was unnecessary, I mean does there have to be a romance between them? Not as far as I could tell. But the way that their connection to each other plays into my favourite part of the story, and also the ending of the book, worked exceedingly well! With that said though, I do wish their interactions felt like they had more purpose while they were happening and not just in hindsight of later events.

Speaking of later events, I LOVED Madrigal and her story! I found her to be so much more interesting then Karou (still love ya though babe!) and the chimera world was fascinating through her eyes. It felt like such a classic tale, one of those stories of love and betrayal that has all those basic elements but speaks to something more. It gave me a better understanding of what was going on with Akiva and Karou, while also bringing the ideas of war and life to the forefront of the book.

I have to give some major credit to Laini Taylor, what really pulls all these different parts of the story together is the writing. This book had the chance to be as confusing and cookie-cutter as hell, but her writing worked so great with the style of the story that it was easy to enjoy. Calling it world building sounds to much like brick and mortar for what Taylor accomplishes here.

This blew me away and kept me up all night to finish it! I will eagerly await the next book in the series, to see if this good work continues. I always get nervous when the first book of a series gets such amazing hype behind it, so I am a little cautious, but we will have to wait and see!

After picking up the ill fated [b:Roll with It|11370182|Roll with It|Heather J Wood|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1305423514s/11370182.jpg|16301153] I felt the need for some more YA derby action. And of course, Derby Girl-Whip It was just sitting so precariously on the library shelf that I couldn't help myself.

This book manages to be a combination of a lot of things that I love dearly:
1. Roller Derby
2. Austin, Texas
3. Quippy Misfit Girls
4. YA Shenanigans

It also has however, a couple things I don't love so much:
1. Bad YA Parenting
2. Bitchy Popular Girl
3. Music Hipsters (and I don't even like the word "hipster" but it totally applies here)
4. The Boyfriend Bait and Switch

So, maybe it's a little bit more of a surprise that I ended up enjoying this as much as I did. The good things about this book definitely won out over the what has annoyed me so much in the past. Following along with Bliss was really entertaining.

Bliss is our main dame and she is fabulous. Her narration is just so honest and easy to get into that her story really had a way of coming to life. She was herself in every moment and had a great balance of wanting to just fuck it, going against the grain and yet still feeling like she doesn't want to let people down or lie to them. I could imagine a real teenager acting and thinking like she does and that was what really sold all the side characters also. Each of them was an exaggerated personality but I could still imagine them as being real. They were over-the-top, but never crossed the invisible line that would make them feel completely unbelievable.

This feeling was probably also in part due to the setting of the story. Anything can happen in Texas! And Austin specifically is like my own little Wonderland. Anything that is unbelievable can be believed if only it's in the vicinity of Austin, Texas.

...Well, that may not necessarily be true, but I've got nothing to prove it otherwise! So there.

Derby however, is not solely played in the Texas arena. Inspired by the book I did some googling about my local scene and Vancouver has a set up of its own. Although I would never dream of slapping on a pair of skates myself, (I have no sense of balance or coordination!) but I am really interested in going to a bout and seeing what the room is really like.

Also, reading this has even motivated some interest to finally seek out the movie and see what that's all about as well.

But getting back on track, I didn't step away from this totally glowing.

The story had a bit of an issue with flow. There was a couple of short snippet chapters about a third of the through that felt more like a montage of events then part of the continuous story. It was in these spots of "Quick! Move this along!" writing where Bliss's narration and characterization suffered.

My second problem was in the form of our boy meat, Oliver. I won't go into his plot line too heavily, (as to avoid spoilers) but what happens there was a pretty obvious bait and switch. If this was the route that the story needed to take, I only wish that it was done in a way that matched the clever tone of the book instead of making it so obvious.

I should mention however that on my above list, I also mentioned a few other things. The bad YA parenting, the mean girl, and the music hipster-ness, but these things were actually handled quite well. They worked within the world that the book was presenting and actually made the plot better in some places. Although I still want to see these things stay out of my YA, if it works then it works.


Overall, I really enjoyed this book for what it was. It was light and fun, with a side of sarcasm, and I liked almost every minuet of it. If only because I'm on some sort of Roller Girl kick right now.

Roll With It is a decent Canadian young adult novel that is quick and easy to read but lacks a lot in terms of developed story telling.

The ideas are there, the plot is there, the potential for interesting characters is there. The only three things we're missing is compelling writing, good dialogue, and a proper editor.

Neddy is a figure skating girl who has just discovered the world of roller derby. Throughout the book we are introduced to the different technical elements of both sports, from derby terminology to a semi-behind the scenes look at figure skating. I found this aspect of the story to be interesting, the author does a good job at giving enough knowledge to set the scene without sounding instructional.

Neddy is a pretty good main character. Her internal dialog gives her a pleasing voice but also never really gave me anything serious to bite into.

The other characters peppered throughout the plot were somewhat of a hit or miss, their personalities were interesting and unique but the lack of good dialog limited their impact.

Plot wise the concept is interesting but fell flat with the complete and utter lack of conflict. There was no real conflict that wasn't solved within the follow page. There was some internal strife but Neddy's struggle never felt very gripping and was not enough to carry the entire story. There needed to be an arc to the plot, a build up to something satisfactory, otherwise it just felt very one note.

What bothered me the most after I had finished was that there are some really good ideas in this book and part of me wonders why it feels like this was never looked at by an editor. This needed some solid direction and improvement to the flow. Both of which I attribute to a proper editor.

But with all of that said, If you're a fan of those made for TV figure skating movies, or are looking for something by a Canadian author for a middle grade audience* then this may very well be a book worth checking out for you. Otherwise, it was an adequate read for something light and quick, but nothing to write home about.

*There is a brief mention of sex but nothing down and dirty.

Shadowland takes us on an introductory ride of ghostly encounters, California beaches, and a heroine that's ready for almost anything!

The plot of Shadowland was solid for a first book in a series. A lot of the story was focused on just setting up all the elements to introduce the characters and locations. For the most part I didn't mind, it made it things very easy to consume, which was nice for some light reading. I also liked the arc the story took and how the overall design opens up a lot of future possibilities. Right now, I'm hopeful for the complete series.

The I-see-dead-people aspect was handled very, very well. It was simplistic enough to leave room for speculation but was complex enough to get behind. I enjoyed reading about how having to deal with the dead effected Suze (our main dame) over her many developing years. Her past encounters rounded out her motivations rather nicely.

However, Suze's personality did a lot of bouncing around throughout the book. She's a tough cookie but it was clear that Cabot was also trying to show (without much subtlety) that underneath all the tough talk she's still just another teenage girl. Sometimes this worked, but other times it felt like I was reading about three different girls.

Girl One can talk the talk, walk the walk, risking her life like it's no big deal, and licking her wounds like a big boy.
Girl Two really likes the boy meat! The dead boys, the live boys, if it's talkn' and has a nice set of abs this girl shall be there to ogle and/or feel slightly conflicted about her lack of experience. Insert hormones here.
Girl Three is of the thoughtful sort. She cares about family, doing the right thing, and sitting down to laugh and watch the sun set with friends.

The transitions between these three aspects of her personality were not always smooth from scene to scene and left me less connected. I mean, ass-kicking/name-taking Suze was excellent, I could have done with even less of Girl Two then there already was, and Girl Three gave me just enough of a soft underbelly. I just think that the book should have connected the dots between these girls for me, instead of making me try to tie them all together myself.

Although I should say, Suze is still a winning character for me. Her wit and charisma is undeniable, and I definitely found myself rooting her on as she faced the dark forces of the story. I just think some of her characterization was lots in the transitions of the writing.

My biggest complaint of the book though is a big one, specifically the over-abundance of boy meat. Now, I call them "meat" because that is essentially their only purpose in the story. It was like you've taken a handful of male characters and told them just to stand there and look pretty. I'm being told I should care about these guys, I should want to take each of them and pair them up with Suze, but a lot of the time I just didn't care. I don't feel like I was ever given a reason to care. The only two of the men I found the least bit interesting was "Doc"/David, the youngest (and most endearing) of the step-brothers and Father Dom, our friendly neighborhood priest.

And Cabot, I see what your doing with the whole love-interest thing and I will have you know that you have to work a little bit harder then just giving the boy an accent, a hero complex, and a tragedy to get me to like him. Maybe that would have worked two years ago but I'm wiser now! I like my men to have personalities, interests, motivation, etc.

Needless to say, Jesse did not impress me much. Which is never fun, because I want to like this guy! I know I'm going to be seeing a lot of him, at least give me something to work with here.

Right now, although this review has mostly been me griping, I did enjoy this book and am completely committed to reading the next one in the series. Hopefully I'll attempt to do this in a timely manner but we'll have to see. I'm going to try and pick up #2 next time I see it on shelf.

As a side note, I have to mention that I really like this cover art! The way that it's carried throughout the series is pretty cool and it's nice to see a graphic design cover done both well and consistently.

I am so very conflicted right now!

On one hand I really didn't like the majority of this book.
On the other hand, I really did like the last 100+ pages!

I feel like I'm missing some pieces of the puzzle and yet have a bunch of extra pieces that belong in an entirely different box. My biggest problem with the entire book: the story telling didn't match the intensity of the events themselves. The author spread himself so thin that the the plot had no focus, no direction, and no point.

The way that Charlie gets played up as this 15 year old who has all of these traumatic experiences is difficult to adjust to. He's like a small child in his impossible naivety and fragileness. Yet, I know that teenagers can be just so resilient that I had a hard time accepting Charlie's narrative.

I'll admit that this is largely contributed to the fact that I'm use to characters taking struggle and trying to tackle it with strength and courage. But in Wallflower, this is a side of trauma where the victim isn't strong, but instead behaves in a manner that makes you feel like something has gone terribly wrong in his mental development.

Now, this sounds interesting in theory, a character with so much potential, but the writing hinders this concept so incredibly that as a reader it was difficult to connect. You're being forced to rely on an completely unreliable narrator to try and give you some hint as to the motivation of his own actions. Does he have a mental illness, Is this some manifestation of trauma, What from?, and Why these specific behaviors?

Honestly, it felt like the author wrote the first bit of the novel and as he was writing was still making up his mind about what exactly happened to this kid. This means there are a lot of miscues where things happen that you think explain events up till that point, but instead only bring up an entirely new array of issues. It's like commentary tangents, where eventually you just stop caring and are waiting around for someone to get to the point of this entire mess.

There were events that didn't quite fit, that should have had a impact on the story but never do. Some of the events in this story were clearly added for shock value or to add more to the issues head-count. This hurt the flow of the plot to such a degree that it was pure frustration. Just pick one issue and focus already!

I just couldn't figure out what it was aiming to be. It was so scattered that I couldn't pin down the direction it was going in and that resulted in me feeling like the book was just pointless.

The first half of the book was so weak. I kept thinking: This is not a town I would want to live in and these are not people I would like to meet.

This sort of uncomfortable-breaking-boundaries tone sometimes works to great effect, especially in the later half of the book. The situations the character is narrating, (despite being difficult,) can be worth while, rewarding, and entertaining. However, for the first section of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it was not that any of those things.

For me, Charlie's narration took a lot of effort to ingest and I found it difficult to force myself to keep reading. My thoughts were however, that I can't write a review about how the story has no pay off if I don't stick with it and see where this actually goes. So I stuck with it till the bitter end and it was around the 110 mark that I actually started to enjoy Charlie as a character. He still has his eccentricities, his sensitive nature, but it felt like he was finally starting to figure things out. He came across like a 15 year old, like a teenage boy trying his hardest and not the small prepubescent boy I had just forced myself to read through.

At this point the writing hit it's grove and started to tell an actual story. I enjoyed all the secondary characters, at the beginning they seem like shells of people but by the end your hoping things work out for them just as much as you hope they work for Charlie. They help mould him as a person, and take him out of this constant mental state of mind. There are ups and downs for everyone and it all felt very realistic.

When the story finally got that direction it still held onto that mysterious overtone. How did Charlie become Charlie, and can he really change for the better, or even hope for better? This was all handled excellently and the ending took all the scattered ideas throughout the book and tied them all back to what makes Charlie tick. It is the definition of a character driven plot.

What really amazed me in the end is that this somehow won me back. I was just wanting this to end, it lacked any sort of appeal and yet somehow I ended up liking some of it. I was not expecting that. I expected to have nothing to nice to say and yet here I am saying nice things!

The question now is, how do the positives and negatives compare? What can I possibly rate this? I liked this, but I also really, really didn't like this. I mean, I have a laundry list of complaints! Some of which I've even had to edit out of this review, but 100 pages of enjoyment is 100 pages of enjoyment. Thus, I am conflicted.

I think I'm going to go with 2.5 STARS but I could easily come back to this later on and charge my mind. I don't like to go back on ratings but I'm going to keep this open and let it settle in my brain for while and see if I up this to a full 3 or 2 by the end of the month. Maybe, maybe not.

I would not recommend this. If you're really set on reading this, whether it be interest in the upcoming movie (with Emma Watson as Sam), an interest in the popularity of the book, or an interest in the social issues then I would suggest that you give it a go, but I would not go out and tell someone to read this based off my own experiences.

For a second book in a series, Ninth Key was fun to read but it didn't wow me. I expected this to pack more of a punch then it did and ended up having a couple very big problems with the way the plot of the story is developed.

Ninth Key has its good moments, especially when Suze is kicking butt, but there were to many instances when the obvious solution to a problem would be overshadowed by where Cabot wanted the storyline to go. The convenience factor of some of the events were just too obvious to ignore and these issues made it difficult for me to look back at the book now that I've finished and not instantly think of the negative.

I did however, have fun reading this in the moment. I love Suze to pieces. I felt like her personality was a lot more consistent and her narrative kept me engaged the whole way through. The best part of the whole book has to be how undeniable Suze's charisma really is. She has some excellent zingers and her dialog is always pretty sharp.

I would have liked to have seen more development of the secondary characters, instead of Suze just reiterating what was revealed in the first book. But they were all still a very interesting bunch. This also applies to our new baddies, yet again we are introduced to a handsome young man in immediate danger that sets Suze's hormones a blazin'. The way that storyline plays out was very over-the-top, but that is exactly what made those characters so much fun. Although, I still don't think "Tad" is a name. I need proof that anyone has every been called that in the history of ever before I submit that "Tad" is in anyway a first name, let alone an actual word.

Jesse deserves a bit of a mention since he has yet to really win me over as a love interest. I'm hoping as he gets more "fleshed out" that I'll find something that interests me about him. But there was nothing really new on that front.

This book left me with a lot more frustrated sighs then book one even came close to, but even with the problems I had I'm going to continue to see this series through. Book three here I come!