Dream Magic: Awakenings by Dawn Harshaw

Title: Dream Magic: Awakenings
Author: Dawn Harshaw
Publication Date: May 4, 2012
Length: 160 pages

When I read the premise of Dream Magic: Awakenings, I jumped at the chance to read it. It's being compared to Harry Potter, because it's about kids learning magic, but these kids are learning magic in their dreams. Basically, they have a shared lucid dream, where they learn different types of magic, which they use to fight their nightmares.

You know how Star Wars is sort of fantasy in a sci-fi setting? Well, this is like sci-fi in a fantasy setting. What I mean by that is that rather than the focus on character development and story that you usually get in a fantasy novel, this book is more like sci-fi, which tends to focus more on ideas, and how things work. This book is very focused on how the different types of magic work.

I was actually looking forward to that, going into the book, because learning how magic works seemed like a pretty cool idea. The only problem is, magic is really confusing! I get the feeling that Dawn put a lot of work into her theories of magic, which is awesome, but to be honest they mostly went right over my head. The characters often said that they didn't understand the explanations, either, but that they got some kind of intuitive understanding of it somehow. Unfortunately, I was not in dream land, so I got no such intuition.

So, while the premise of this story is awesome, I would have appreciated more in the way of character development, and a bit less in the way of really confusing descriptions of magical concepts.

3 stars.

Full disclosure: Free ebook copy received from the author.

Anthology I: The Other Side by Hamidah Gul

Title: Anthology I: The Other Side
Author: Hamidah Gul
Publication Date: April 20, 2012
Length: 122 pages

Note: I didn't finish this book, so this review covers only the first few stories.

Anthology I is a collection of short stories that are meant to be horror, but on the light and funny side.

The first story (in my copy; it seems to vary, judging by other reviews) was Come Home With Me. This story was really short, just a few pages. There seemed to be a ghost involved, who killed people. That's about all I could gather, because it was one of those short stories that has no explanation, just things happening, and then it's over, leaving me saying "uh, what?".

The next story was The Other Side. It's about a guy who has a near-death experience in which he travels to other planets and discovers that the Earth is going to be destroyed. Right at the beginning I got annoyed when he said two things: 1) He kept referring to Pluto as a planet. I mean, it's been years. I'm sorry, but Pluto is not a planet! 2) He says that we've visited all the planets but Pluto, which I'm fairly certain is not true, even if you count unmanned probes. After that, the story was fairly interesting, but seemed a bit stretched out.

What made me put this one down was not so much that the stories weren't interesting (at least the ideas seemed to have potential). The writing was just too hard to read. Hamidah Gul is writing in a language that is not her first, and that's made pretty clear. The phrasing is often awkward. Also, often people are speaking, but there are no quotation marks. I don't know if that's a mistake, or if she's doing it stylistically (which some authors definitely do), but either way, I hate it. I like to know when people are talking! If this book had gone through an editing process, that would have made a huge difference.

Full disclosure: Free ebook copy received from the author.

The Infects by Sean Beaudoin

Title: The Infects
Author: Sean Beaudoin
Publication Date: September 25, 2012
Length: 384 pages

The Infects is a zombie novel, but not your typical zombie novel. (Actually, I haven't read a lot of zombie novels, so maybe I'm not the right person to judge that.) What I think is atypical is that the people who are trying to escape the zombies in this book are aware of the whole zombie culture, so they quote rules, and talk about zombie movies, and compare them to what they see happening.

Nick is sentenced to a summer camp called Inward Trek, which is a camp for juvenile delinquents, after an unfortunate incident in the slaughterhouse where he worked. He's given the camp name Nero. As if the camp itself wasn't bad enough, they wake up the first morning to find that the counsellors have gone crazy and started eating several other campers. The ones who survive flee into the woods, and the rest of the story follows them as they run away from zombies, look for the girls who they hope have survived over in the girls' camp, and try to figure out what they're going to do and where they're going to go.

At first I found the characters hard to keep track of. They were all sort of introduced and described at once, and then never again. At the end of the book you can read the police reports for each of them, and I found that I was picturing several of them completely wrong. But once a few of them had died, they became easier to keep track of, and some of them were quite entertaining.

The ending really made it all worthwhile to me, even if it was rather weird. It was also just so delightful. That's all I can really say while keeping this spoiler-free. :)

Also, am I the only one who finds it really weird to see super-modern references in books? Maybe I'm just used to reading books that are slightly older? Every time I see Facebook or Occupy Wall Street mentioned in a novel, it's a slight shock. Maybe I'm just weird that way.

3 stars. I actually feel kind of bad about this rating, because I feel like maybe I would have liked it more as a paperback. The ebook I got through NetGalley was so horribly formatted that I'm sure it negatively affected my reading experience. It's tough to read a book when all the important words have several letters missing.

Full disclosure: Free e-book copy received from the publisher through NetGalley.

Quarantine by John Smolens

Title: Quarantine
Author: John Smolens
Publication Date: September 5, 2012
Length: 336 pages

In the late 18th century, a ship pulls into the harbour at Newburyport. The people on the ship have come down with a terrible fever, so the ship is put under quarantine. But the sailors are idiots, so some of them sneak ashore anyway, and before you know it people all over town are getting sick, and most of them are dying. Since this is the 18th century, none of the doctors really understand science, so they argue about things like bloodletting, while one doctor thinks that the fever is God's punishment for sinners, so they shouldn't be treated (which makes me wonder why he became a doctor). Add in some people who see an opportunity for profit in the city's dire situation, and you've got plenty of characters to be mad at, and an enjoyable story.

Right from the start of this book, I loved the writing, and I quickly grew attached to several of the main characters, particularly Leander and Giles. The fever itself is rather terrifying, and it's so frustrating knowing that if it happened today, at least there would be doctors who could diagnose it and know what to do to treat it!

This is not an uplifting book. LOTS of people die. There's not much in the way of science, due to it being the 18th century, so there's a lot of blundering about, desperately trying to stop the constant death. But I didn't really feel depressed while reading it, either. It's emotional, powerful, and a definite page-turner.

4 stars.

Full disclosure: Free e-book copy received from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Enchanted Truth by Kym Petrie

Title: The Enchanted Truth
Author: Kym Petrie
Publication Date: September 18, 2012
Length: 40 pages

The Enchanted Truth is a short gift book, which tells the story of a princess who is always finding herself with the wrong guy. All she sees at first is his good looks and fancy new carriage, and it's only later, when she's having her heart broken, that she realises what a jerk he is. When her fairy godmother shows up, the princess hopes that she will give her the prince of her dreams, but instead, she gives her a toy frog, and instructions to write a list of qualities she's looking for in a man.

This is a pleasant little story about how you don't need a handsome prince to complete you. Over time, as the princess learns this, her list of qualities she's looking for in a man grows longer and longer, and she starts to notice men's fatal flaws a lot earlier on, before they can break her heart. In the process, she learns to enjoy life on her own, and with her girlfriends.

I think this is a good book for young girls, and sometimes older ones who need a reminder. So much of what we read centres around the girl desperately trying to get the guy. I think we need more stories about girls who learn that they don't need the guy at all. Or at least not right this minute.

4 stars.

Full disclosure: Free e-book copy received from the publisher through NetGalley.

Review Copy Cleanup - Wrap Up

The August 2012 Review Copy Cleanup Challenge is over! To sum up, I kicked this challenge's butt. I mean, I didn't actually catch up, because I got a whole bunch more review copies during the challenge, but I read way more than I planned to, so I consider it to be a huge success!

At the start of the month, I had 7 review copies, and my goal was to read 5 of them, along with 2 books I needed to read for other challenges. I read 6 of those original review books, plus another 5 review copies I got during the challenge! Wow! Altogether I read 16 books, 11 of which were review copies. Basically, I'm sick of looking at my Kobo, haha. One thing I've learned in the last month is that while I don't mind ebooks, I have my limits!

I now have 7 review copies, which is the same number I had at the beginning of the challenge, so technically I didn't actually catch up. But this month I definitely got more new review copies than usual! I got a few new NetGalleys, plus a couple physical copies I'd requested ages ago, and a few authors contacted me with review requests. So it's been a busy month. I'm super happy with my progress, and just want to thank Vicky and Celine for organising the challenge again. You guys are awesome!

Talisman of El by Alecia Stone: DNF

Title: Talisman of El
Author: Alecia Stone
Publication Date: May 20, 2012
Length: 364 pages

Note: Various aspects of this book caused me to put it down without finishing it. Therefore, please keep in mind that this review has been written without any knowledge of the last half of the book.

Charlie is a boy who has nightmares that come true. Derkein is a young man who finds himself aging rapidly after being attacked by invisible beings. Alex and Richmond are just a couple of normal kids along for the ride. Together, they go off in search of Arcadia, a hidden world.

I really thought I'd like this one, but I ended up giving up on it. There were too many things irritating me about it. One big one was the info dumping. Once the kids got to Arcadia, and people started explaining the mythology to them, I quickly became lost, because so much was being explained so quickly that I couldn't follow. I didn't feel like it was being revealed in a natural way at all.

Also, the characters said and did things that were so annoying, I couldn't feel any positive feelings for any of them, except maybe Richmond. Sometimes. For example, at one point, Alex (a female character, mind you) says this:

"Hunter?" Alex said. "But she's a girl!" As though she remembered something, she shook her head and said, "But she's not a human girl, Alex. I need to write this stuff down."

Umm, excuse me? That same character is also randomly mean to other female characters, presumably because she likes Charlie? Or something? And she sees other girls as potential competition? I don't know. But I didn't like it.

And then there's Derkein. I don't know if his exact age was specified, but I got the impression that he was a young man, like maybe early 20s? But for some reason, he thinks this age difference (the others are in high school, I think) is enough for him to be in charge of them, to the point where he keeps telling them to go home while he goes on to Arcadia. He's bossy and annoying. Oh, and he has a stupid line, too:

“This will be the greatest discovery since the extinction of dinosaurs.”
“Assuming dinosaurs did exist, that is,” Derkein said.
Alex shook her head. “Couldn’t just let me have this moment, could you?”

That gave me the uncomfortable feeling that I was reading a book written by a creationist, of the variety that thinks maybe fossils were planted by God as a joke or something. The existence of dinosaurs is not up for debate. And this was just thrown into an otherwise normal conversation.

I won't give this book a rating, since I didn't finish it, and for all I know the last half is way better. But I did not particularly enjoy the first half.

Full disclosure: Free e-book copy received from the publisher through NetGalley.

Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle

Title: Lucretia and the Kroons
Author: Victor LaValle
Publication Date: July 23, 2012
Length: 104 pages

Lucretia is looking forward to an afternoon of fun celebrating her birthday with her best friend Sunny, who is dying of cancer, though Lucretia seems to think she's getting better, when her brother tells her about the Kroons. He says that they were a family of crackheads who lived in apartment 6D, and that even when the cops boarded up the door, hoping to starve out the family, they still never left and never died, because they'd turned into monsters. Later, Lucretia sees one of these monsters, which has apparently taken Sunny, so she follows it up the fire escape and into 6D, where she finds a strange version of the real world inside the apartment.

This was one strange story. It's one of those stories where you don't really know what's real and what isn't, which I sometimes enjoy but sometimes just confuses me. I mostly liked it in this book.

I loved the setting. The creepy version of a nearby park inside apartment 6D was neat, and the playground, which is ruled by a flock of New York rats with pigeon wings, was delightfully weird.

One thing that bothered me was that I didn't really care that much about any of the characters. I liked Lucretia well enough (she has a bit at the beginning where she tells off some other girls that made me take a liking to her right away), but I felt like I never really got inside her head. Maybe it's just because the book is so short, or because it's written in the 3rd person, or both. And Sunny is just plain unpleasant, I think. I thought I'd like her, because she's this little kid who's really tough, but to me she just came across as mean, even to her friend.

So, it was a quick read, and a neat little adventure, and I liked the writing, but the characters made it fall a bit flat for me.

3 stars.

This book counts for the 2012 A-Z Book Challenge.

Full disclosure: Free e-book copy received from the publisher through NetGalley.

What I Didn't Say by Keary Taylor

Title: What I Didn't Say
Author: Keary Taylor
Publication Date: May 11, 2012
Length: 307 pages

Jake has never worked up the nerve to tell Sam that he loves her, at least until he's drunk at a party, and his friends convince him to go and finally tell her how he feels. Unfortunately, the friend driving the car is also drunk, and they soon find themselves rolling off a cliff. Jake ends up with a t-post through his throat, which rips out his vocal chords. Now he has to deal with the major life change of becoming mute, and the fact that he'll never be able to "say" what he wanted to say to Sam. Meanwhile, Sam's dealing with some serious crap of her own, but they could each be exactly what the other needs to get through this year.

This book had some serious tears welling up in my eyes. It's so sweet and romantic, which I don't always like, but in this case it was done just right. The main characters are both really likable. While Jake occasionally gets a little whiny, I can't really blame him, given the circumstances, and it never reaches the point where it's annoying. And the way feelings develop between Jake and Sam is so perfect. They've already known each other for years at the start of the book, so there's no instalove going on. I feel like it was really realistic, because they're both going through hard times, and they support each other, but they're not unrealistically selfless, as characters can so often be. They felt real to me.

There were enough little twists and turns in the plot to keep it interesting for me, which I appreciate, since straight up romance isn't generally my thing. Overall, it's a good YA read. Very sweet.

4 stars.

Full disclosure: Free e-book copy received from the publisher through NetGalley.

A Tale of Two Mommies and A Tale of Two Daddies by Vanita Oelschlager

Titles (this is a review of two books): A Tale of Two Mommies and A Tale of Two Daddies
Author: Vanita Oelschlager
Publication dates: Sept. 1, 2011, and Apr. 1, 2010
Length: 40 pages each

A Tale of Two Mommies is a conversation between three children at the beach, about how one of the kids has two mommies. The other two children ask all sorts of questions about who takes various roles in the boy's life.

A Tale of Two Daddies is a similar conversation between a girl who has two daddies and another kid.

The problem I had with both of these books is that I don't think kids would ask these questions. Am I wrong here? What kid thinks that only one of your parents is there when you scrape your knee? Or that only one of them would help you take your bath? I'd be sad if a kid had gender stereotypes built into their brain at so young an age that they assume only dads can build treehouses or only moms can bake birthday cakes.

On the other hand, I do like the answers to the questions. I noticed that the author does not make it so one of the parents is doing all of the traditionally masculine work with the other doing the traditionally feminine work.

My favourite parts were when both parents do something. Of course, both moms help look for a lost kitty, and both dads are there when you need to talk.

So, despite their flaws, these are still nice books. They'd probably be more appropriate for kids who don't understand LGBT families, rather than the actual kids they're about.

3 stars each.

Full disclosure: I received free e-book copies of these books from the publisher through NetGalley.

Bandwidth by Angus Morrison: DNF

Title: Bandwidth
Author: Angus Morrison
Publication Date: 2010
Length: 232 pages

I didn't finish this one. It's not even that it was bad, I just wasn't feeling it. And goodness knows, with my TBR list, I don't need to spend time reading things I'm not really into.

I see this as personal growth on my part! I'm just learning to put aside something I don't really want to read. It's a good skill to learn.

Review Copy Cleanup - Starting Line

The time has come! It's time to read nothing but review copies, and get through that pile once and for all!

I ended up reading two review copies in July, but getting five more, so I've got quite the pile going now. Here they are, in (roughly) the order in which I plan to read them:




Bandwidth by Angus Morrison

Publication date: December 2010 (so, don't ask me why it's on NetGalley, but oh well!)









What I Didn't Say by Keary Taylor

Publication date: May 7, 2012









A Tale of Two Mommies by Vanita Oelschlager

Publication date: September 1, 2011









A Tale of Two Daddies by Vanita Oelschlager

Publication date: April 1, 2010










The Blueprint: Averting Global Collapse by Daniel Rirdan

Publication date: June 22, 2012









The Infects by Sean Beaudoin

Publication date: September 25, 2012










Quarantine by John Smolens

Publication date: September 5, 2012







I'm hoping to get through at least the first five of my seven review copies. I would call that caught up! In addition to these, I'll be reading Animorphs #3: The Encounter by K.A. Applegate for the Read Your OWN Library! Challenge, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch #14: Spying Eyes by Nancy Holder for this month's Random Read.

August 2012 Review Copy Cleanup

Another Review Copy Cleanup is coming! Books, Biscuits & Tea and Nyx Book Reviews are once again hosting this challenge. The goal is to get through your review copies during the month of August. This is coming at the perfect time for me, because I've been feeling a little weighed down by my review copies lately, and was hoping to get caught up this summer.

I currently have 4 review copies, all from NetGalley. I'm hoping to read some of them in July, if I have time, and I may or may not have acquired more by August. So I'm not posting my list just yet. This is just to let everyone know that I'm doing the challenge, and you should join me, if you have a pile of review copies of your own (or even just a towering TBR pile, which we all have)! Come on, it'll be fun! Who doesn't love a challenge? :)

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publication Date:
Length: 387 pages

Cinder is a retelling of the classic Cinderella story; it took an old fairy tale and made it brilliant. Linh Cinder is a talented mechanic, and a cyborg. She lives in New Beijing, where a deadly plague runs rampant, and cyborgs are drafted to be used as test subjects in the search for a cure. At the same time, Lunars, the cruel race of people who live on the moon, constantly threaten the Earth with war. When Cinder meets Prince Kai at the marketplace, her life suddenly gets a lot more interesting.

First let's look at Cinder's family. I found it interesting that one of the stepsisters, Peony, is actually nice to Cinder. The other sister, and the stepmother, however, are just as you'd expect in a Cinderella tale, only worse. I swear, my heart rate would actually rise when I read scenes with Adri, Cinder's guardian. She was just so AWFUL. Like, painfully so.

I love how this book added so much more to the classic tale. The fact that Cinder is a cyborg in a society that treats cyborgs as sub-human, provide a great framework for Cinder's horrible mistreatment by her "family". The plague and the threat of war with the Lunars provides the opportunity for Kai to have some nice character development, taking him way beyond the nameless Prince Charming. But don't worry, he's still totally charming. :)

The one sub-plot that I found weird was the whole thing with the car. I guess it was supposed to be a kind of pumpkin coach metaphor? It just seemed weird to me that Cinder has all these important things to be doing, yet she still spends time trying to fix a car in hopes of escaping. I mean, I get that she wanted to escape, but seriously, can't you wait a little longer and deal with the immediate crisises first?! But in the end I was for the most part pleased with the decisions everyone made, so it's all good.

Speaking of the ending (don't worry, no spoilers!), oh my goodness why would you write this ending and then make me wait for the second book?! No fair. And the expected publication date of book 2, Scarlet, is 2013 (what month? That makes a big difference!). This is why I hate starting brand new series!! I have zero patience.

5 stars.

Full disclosure: Free copy received from the publisher.

The Whipping Club by Deborah Henry

Title: The Whipping Club
Author: Deborah Henry
Publication Date: March 1, 2012
Length: 334 pages

The main character in the Whipping Club, Marian, is a Catholic woman in 1950s Ireland, who gets pregnant before she's married. Her uncle, a priest, convinces her to go to a home where she will carry the baby to term in secrecy, give birth, and give the child away for adoption, hopefully to a nice American home. She agrees to this, even though she's engaged to the Jewish man who impregnated her. After this horrific time in her life, she marries Ben, they have another child, and life goes on, but she never gets over the pain of losing her son, Adrian. When it comes to light that he was not sent to America because he was half-Jewish, and was instead sent to an orphanage in Ireland, Marian and Ben try to get back custody of Adrian. Much pain and suffering ensues.

I really wanted to like this book. It sounded so good, and the reviews I read of it were stellar. Everyone talked about how powerful the story is, and how moving. So, I'm not going to say objectively that this is a bad book, because obviously a lot of people loved it. But I did not like this book.

Through pretty much the whole thing, I had no clue where the plot was going. It meanders about, changing points of view, having the occasional flashback (with no change in voice or anything to let you know that you're now reading about the past). You don't actually see the "whipping club" until approximately 2/3 of the way through the book. I assumed the orphanage was the whipping club, but nope. Just a huge pile of lead up to the actual plot. And some of the points of view didn't really seem to add a whole lot to the story. Take Nurse, for example. First of all, I feel like I don't know this character at all, despite the fact that she does a decent amount of narrating. She might be mentally ill, or maybe just disturbed from working in a horrible orphanage. Some of the things she says and does make no sense, but not even really in a consistent way, and while her story is interesting, it's not really fleshed out, so it's pretty much just a tangent.

As for the horrific subject matter: I already knew that there was abuse in Catholic orphanages. So just telling me that doesn't really impress me. I didn't feel like there was much oomph put into it. Just telling me that a boy has a swollen face from being beaten doesn't make me feel anything more than I would just reading an article on the subject. So I don't really know where people are getting this impression that the book is hard to read because of how powerful it is.

The writing is all right. Like I said, my main complaint was the lack of signal that we're changing times of points of view, which made reading confusing at times. But there's also the occasional line that makes me groan. I kid you not, an angry man was described as being "filled with poisonous venom". Umm, ok. By definition, a poison is something you ingest, and a venom is something that's injected into you, often by a bite. Venom cannot be poisonous. I know this is, like, metaphorical and stuff, but still. Even if venom and poison were the same thing, this phrase would be redundant, so I still wouldn't like it.

1 star. Obviously, judging by other reviews, your mileage may vary.

Full disclosure: Free e-book copy received from the publisher through NetGalley.

RCC Challenge: Cuddle Up With a Book

Whoops, almost missed this one! I'm a bit behind on both my blogging and my Google Reader reading! Sorry, things have been a bit hectic lately, but I'm still here!

The purpose of this challenge is to share our favourite reading spots. I have two. First, my bed! Most of my reading is done at bed time. I go to bed, and then read for often an hour or more before going to sleep. Meaning I usually go to bed at a good time but still don't get nearly enough sleep. :)

My bed!

I also often read in my chair in the living room. This is where I spend most of the read-a-thons! An important feature of this spot is that blanket there, which is soooo comfy! It's one of those ones they've had on sale at Chapters, where you get it for $30 if you buy $50 worth of books (come on, gimme a challenge, Chapters!). The picture's not great; the only light in the living room is that lamp beside the chair, and I took this picture in the evening, so all the light's behind the chair.

My chair!

Where do you like to read?

RCC Challenge: Show Off Your Pile!

It's time for the first challenge in the March 2012 Review Copy Cleanup! All you have to do is show off your pile of review copies that you plan to read this month.

I don't have too many, so I'm hopeful that I'll get through them all this month! I've only got one other book planned for March, so most of my time will be devoted to these.

I've already started The Whipping Club. That and Cinder are my priorities, since they've already been published! I try to get review copies read and reviewed before the publishing date (though in my defense, Cinder had already been published when I got it in the mail). Wish me luck getting through my pile! :)

March 2012 Review Copy Cleanup

I don't have a huge pile of review copies (as a fairly new blogger, I don't get that many of them), but I have fallen behind on them simply because the last couple months I've been rather busy and my reading has slowed down a wee bit. So, I've decided to enter the March 2012 Review Copy Cleanup challenge, hosted by Books, Biscuits & Tea and Nyx Book Reviews. Click the image above for the full details.

According to the challenge schedule, March 2 is time to Show Off Your Pile, so I guess I'll save my list of review copies until then!