A Bunch of March Books

Welcome to “Reviews in a Minute”! These are the previously titled “bite-sized reviews”, but they’re the same thing. Just a different name.

So… if you were looking for the end to my flails, we’ve reached them. These weren’t necessarily bad– in fact, some of them I really liked- but… my six star days are on hiatus for now. 

On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis
Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate
A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann
The Great Hunt by Wendy Higgins

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On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis
Published by Amulet Books on March 8th 2016
Pages: 464
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

January 29, 2035. That’s the day the comet is scheduled to hit—the big one.

Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter outside their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise’s drug-addicted mother is going, they’ll never reach the shelter in time.
A last-minute meeting leads them to something better than a temporary shelter: a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth behind to colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But everyone on the ship has been chosen because of their usefulness. Denise is autistic and fears that she’ll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister?

When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

Welcome to another round of “The Good and the Not-As-Good”, which incidentally sounds like it would be a really awful soap opera, no? Can we call them the “Plusses and Minuses”? Or the “Ayes” or “Not the best, matey!” I’d really like that. Let’s be pirates today, mmmkay?

Aye, me Hearties!

• Diversity is such a win! Denise is biracial, her sister is black, and there are people of every background you can imagine involved. Not in a way that seems contrived though- just in a way that seems normal, which is good, because it is normal. And autism? Count me in! I think it was handled really well (which I describe more below). There’s also Iris, Denise’s sister who is transgendered. It’s not made out to be this huge “thing”, it’s simply who Iris is, and I loved it!
  Sidenote: I worked with a boy with autism for almost four years, and he is the kind of person who just…  he shines. Yes, he had autism, and there were loads of things he struggled with. But he’s funny, and kind, and other kids just gravitate toward him. So the portrayal of Denise as a person, and not a stereotypical autism case was huge for me.
• The apocalyptic conditions and politics seemed pretty realistic. I love an apocalyptic book, but sometimes the settings can be hit or miss. This one was pretty great. It was bleak, yet had a semblance of hope. It was honest, because the upper echelon of society bought their safety, and to hell with everyone else.
• FAMILY. This book is incredibly family centered. And that makes so much sense! Because really- if you’re in the midst of the end of the world, who can you trust if not your family? And I don’t even just mean Denise and her family, everyone in the book is worried first and foremost about their families. It’s very honest, and very refreshing. Of course, Denise’s mom is a drug addict, and she is a really hot mess. Denise has to weigh her family loyalties against her own will to survive, and it’s pretty intense!

Not the best, matey! 

• I felt like the first half was fabulous, but the second half was a bit slow. Now, it wasn’t bad, it just was slower. And when the second part is slower than the first, that makes it feel extra slow, if that makes any bit of sense. It just felt like some things in the second half were getting kind of repetitive (see point below for one of them) and I just wanted some kind of action.
• I was getting really sick of Denise’s mom. I mean, I get that she was a drug addict, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that Denise goes back and forth with her so often that I got bored of that particular storyline. I just wanted to slap mom, and move on, or something.

Bottom Line: It’s a good book. It handles diversity really well, and is an interesting- and plausible- story. While it didn’t completely blow me away, it was a solid book and I think it’s worth the read. 

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Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate
Published by Amulet Books on March 8th 2016
Pages: 352
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

Paloma High School is ordinary by anyone’s standards. It’s got the same cliques, the same prejudices, the same suspect cafeteria food. And like every high school, every student has something to hide—whether it’s Kat, the thespian who conceals her trust issues onstage; or Valentine, the neurotic genius who’s planted the seed of a school scandal.

When that scandal bubbles over, and rumors of a teacher-student affair surface, everyone starts hunting for someone to blame. For the unlikely allies at the heart of it all, the collision of their seven ordinary-seeming lives results in extraordinary change.

.

Seven Ways We Lie, as you may have guessed, has seven POVs. They represent the seven deadly sins, but really, they’re typical kids with your basic issues- granted, some of them a little more… consequential than others. I won’t tell you about each POV, because that would take forever. But some of the kids are dealing with some pretty heavy issues like sexuality, and a big old school scandal, and family/home issues, and bullying, and all kinds of stuff that people (young and not so young) deal with every day.

Some of the characters stood out more than others, and some I liked more than others, which is to be expected. Lucas was my favorite, he just seemed so… relatable, real, funny. And he talks about how diversity is so underrepresented in their high school- and even the diverse people who do exist try to hide it away. He calls the guys at school “aggressively heterosexual”, which is pretty accurate considering how they act. It’s unfortunate, and probably all too familiar for kids in some schools.

Claire is one of the POVs I liked the least. She slut shames Olivia at every turn, both internally and externally, even though they’re supposed to be great friends. While Olivia tries to explain how shitty it is when a guy is super aggressively hitting on her, Claire is completely unsupportive.

“‘Okay,’ I say, still not getting it. If she stopped sleeping around, guys wouldn’t expect anything from her anymore, right? Isn’t that the obvious fix?”

With friends like that… anyway. So there’s the school scandal, and I feel like I may be ummm wrong to not think it’s that big of a deal at all? I mean, I can see how it could be mildly troubling, but really… no. Maybe that’s just me? Anyway, there’s a few potential romances, and they’re all cute enough, if not completely ship-worthy.

Bottom Line: I liked it. I enjoyed the stories of the characters, for the most part. I liked how they developed over the course of the book. Some of them fell a bit flat, but with seven points of view, I think that’s bound to happen.

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A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann
Published by Greenwillow Books on March 15th 2016
Pages: 464
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Edelweiss

Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she's been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780's to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries.

Or so she thought.

But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths. . .

A genre-bending thriller from Stefan Bachmann for fans of The Maze Runner and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods.

You cannot escape the palace.
You cannot guess its secrets.

I… don’t completely understand this book. There were certain things I enjoyed about it, and then certain things that I simply didn’t get. Parts got incredibly confusing, and took some turns that I both kind of saw coming, but still had no clue about why they were coming. I know that may not be super helpful, but remember, I am a little lost myself. And also, spoilers.

Aye, me Hearties! 

• The historical part was fabulous. There were short chapters from 1789-1790 dispersed throughout the book, kind of talking about some of the history of these tunnels.
• The suspense was pretty great. I legitimately didn’t know what was going to happen in this underground chaos!
• I felt the darkness and claustrophobia of the setting, and I thought it was done really well. While I couldn’t always picture the rooms themselves, I still had a solid grasp on the overall feel of the underground, dark confinement.
• It’s an old underground palace. That in itself is a win, right?

Not the best, matey! 

• The aforementioned confusion was, well, confusing. See, this wasn’t just about this underground palace. There were all kinds of people involved, and random other groups of people who may have been on the side of that first group (I can’t tell you any of that, of course), and I really started getting lost. Literally and figuratively- because I also could not keep the layout of this place and all the rooms straight. The characters kept bouncing from one place to the next, and the way it was narrated made me feel like I was supposed to know where the hell Anouk was talking about. But I never did. So in my head, I would substitute whatever room Anouk was talking about for “Random Room”. Because I was getting basically too lost.
• The characters weren’t as developed as I’d have liked. Especially since they are trapped down there together, I kind of needed to like them. Anouk started off as this awful, whining girl, and then like, one chapter in does a complete one-eighty and starts pulling everyone together. And the guys… the only actual thing different among them were their names.
• Only one dude thought that none of this made sense. Because the very first question I asked myself as they all went to this underground chamber of creep was “who exactly thought that any of this was on the up and up?” Anouk didn’t exactly tell her parents, so that I could understand. But the others, whose parents were like “yep, this sounds zero percent weird”? Nope. Even Jules, one of the random guys, wondered why everyone was so chill about this:
  

  “‘D’you think it’s strange they’re letting teenagers into a find like this? I mean, they could have gotten some veterans. Famous art historians or something. Doesn’t it strike you as odd?’I squint at him. ‘No.'”

• Definite Parent-in-YA Syndrome. I mean, see above. They let their kids go off to… whatever. Like “Sure honey, go meet the strange man in the limo who won’t tell us why you’re going to France. See you in a few weeks, send a postcard!” How about no?
• I felt like there were a lot of loose ends. It wasn’t an open ending or anything, but there were so many questions unanswered in my mind, I think because there was a lot of different things going on in the story. Often, one was still left somewhat unanswered when some new thing came to light.

Bottom Line: I think if this was more coherent and a bit more developed, it could have been a huge win. It’s still an intriguing premise, and the history stuff was very enjoyable. But overall, it lost me in the confusion.

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The Great Hunt by Wendy Higgins
Series: Eurona Duology #1
Published by HarperTeen on March 8th 2016
Pages: 416
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Edelweiss

Kill the beast. Win the girl.

A strange beast stirs fear in the kingdom of Lochlanach, terrorizing towns with its brutality and hunger. In an act of desperation, a proclamation is sent to all of Eurona—kill the creature and win the ultimate prize: the daughter of King Lochson’s hand in marriage.
Princess Aerity understands her duty to the kingdom though it pains her to imagine marrying a stranger. It would be foolish to set her sights on any particular man in the great hunt, but when a brooding local hunter, Paxton Seabolt, catches her attention, there’s no denying the unspoken lure between them…or his mysterious resentment.

Paxton is not keen on marriage. Nor does he care much for spoiled royals and their arcane laws. He’s determined to keep his focus on the task at hand—ridding the kingdom of the beast and protecting his family—yet Princess Aerity continues to challenge his notions with her unpredictability and charm. But as past secrets collide with present desires, dire choices threaten everything Paxton holds dear.

Inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ tale, “The Singing Bone,” New York Times bestselling author Wendy Higgins delivers a dark fantasy filled with rugged hunters, romantic tension, outlawed magic, and a princess willing to risk all to save her people.

I really enjoyed this one, it was my favorite of the bunch! It started off a bit iffy for me, for two reasons: One, the idea of the “big scary monster” was kind of strange for me, and two, I felt like all the women were giving off a “damsel in distress” vibe. 

Legitimately what the beast looked like in the head of Shannon.

But as the book got going, I realized that I was curious about the monster, and while society may have seen the female characters as weak, and they did have to keep appearances, in no way were these women anything but strong. When the hunt first starts, there are no women involved. And it was making me mad. But then women showed up and they were the actual best. So like, in your face, all of the rest of society!

There’s romantic drama involved, which I feel like you’ll either love or hate, depending on how you feel about romance, and that hopeless, desperate sort of thing. I love it, so it worked for me. This quote kind of sums it up:

“All around her were the constant reminders of what each of them could not have.”

The hunt was intense, and grueling. Aerity was brave and selfless as the main character. In fact, all the women in her family were completely amazing. Speaking of, the family element was huge during this one too, so there’s another win. All the characters went through a lot of development too, as they had to deal with the external and internal beasts.

Bottom Line: Once I got into it, I got really into it. I absolutely cannot wait for the sequel! 

Have you read any of these? Want to? Want to just talk about the Beast GIF? Have an idea for more random “good vs. not good” lists? Hit me up!