Earth Girl - Janet Edwards Review

(Yes, ironically the only day I have enough time off to write a blog post is Christmas Day. Also, while I hate to post 2 five-star reviews in a row, the books I've been reading lately are just so good I can't help it.)

Earth Girl - Janet Edwards

Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: August 16th, 2012
Rating: 5*
Pages: 358
Source: Borrowed ARC

Synopsis: A sensational YA science fiction debut from an exciting new British author. Jarra is stuck on Earth while the rest of humanity portals around the universe. But can she prove to the norms that she’s more than just an Earth Girl?

2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. While everyone else portals between worlds, 18-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can’t travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She’s an ‘ape’, a ‘throwback’, but this is one ape girl who won’t give in.

Jarra invents a fake background for herself – as a normal child of Military parents – and joins a class of norms that is on Earth to excavate the ruins of the old cities. When an ancient skyscraper collapses, burying another research team, Jarra’s role in their rescue puts her in the spotlight. No hiding at back of class now. To make life more complicated, she finds herself falling in love with one of her classmates – a norm from another planet. Somehow, she has to keep the deception going.

A freak solar storm strikes the atmosphere, and the class is ordered to portal off-world for safety – no problem for a real child of military parents, but fatal for Jarra. The storm is so bad that the crews of the orbiting solar arrays have to escape to planet below: the first landing from space in 600 years. And one is on collision course with their shelter.

                                                                                                * * * * *                                                                                                          

I knew I'd like Earth Girl from the start. The title and gorgeous cover of the ARC copy certainly helped, as did a recommendation I'd seen in KISS magazine, but I think it was the blurb - the first paragraph of the synopsis above - that got me. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. I mean, I've read books about space and I've read plenty of futuristic YA, but the way this presented was just brilliantly original and catchy. 

An interesting part of Earth Girl was its focus on history. Most of the futuristic YAs have seen - well, they do world-build, of course, but Earth Girl was different in that we were given this neatly described future and then the main character, Jarra, was actually interested in the past; so we get to live vicariously through her as she learns. Interestingly, right now (i.e. the 2,000-2300s) was referred to as prehistory, and that was the time she was interested in studying. 

That led me on to probably my favourite thing about the book. Jarra is such a well-rounded, fleshed-out character. She's a great example of character-driven action. She applies to University Asgard - you know, the one everyone says she can't get into - because she wants to. The plot elements don't just happen to her - she drives most of the things that affect her. Plus, she has her own ambitions and wow is she driven.  I don't think I've read of a YA heroine who wants to become a historian before. 

And okay, maybe she is a bit of a Mary Sue with her mad skillz and talent at everything she puts her mind to, but her personality is flawed so I think it balances out. And her personality flaws are realistic - I can easily understand her anger and frustration when the rest of the galaxy sees her as handicapped. 

The supporting characters were well done too. I think Janet Edwards used them to overturn bucketloads of high-school tropes, with people defying stereotypes (for better or for worse). Jarra and love interest Fian develop such an interesting (non-romantic) relationship from the start since she's tag leader and he's tag support, so he has the responsibility of swinging her out of danger on excavation sites. It wasn't handled in a damsel-in-distress way at all either. 

The plot alone would probably merit a 3.5* rating as it's not perfect, but instead of solely sci-fi adventure we also get a lot of self-discovery for Jarra. Like seriously, her character arc is brilliant, and I think it comes from all the choices she has to make and the fact that she faces consequences decently. 

Finally, Earth Girl was great fun to read. I must have genuinely laughed out loud at least 20 times throughout - the author has a great wit and it shows through in her characters. The book just flowed and - although I didn't read it very fast - was just so enjoyable. What a debut - highly recommended. 

P.S. I am very surprised that there's a sequel, but I'll get it and see what it's like. Also, warning, there are quite  few rude jokes. Nothing graphic though, and the futuristic slang helps disguise it.  And okay, the creationism bit was stupid (when is creationism ever not?) but it was only one line, ignore it. I wish I had time to go into detail on the world-building and colonising other planets. Just trust me, it's fab. 

Favourite Quote: 
"My immune system can't survive anywhere other than Earth. I'm in prison, and it's a life sentence." - Pretty good summary of Jarra's feelings. 

''We were adults, we were free, and we were scared.'' - Ooh, soundbite. Coming of age, duh.

Bye for now, and Merry Christmas!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor Review

Publisher: Hodder (UK)
Pages: 418
Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy
Rating: 5*+
Source: Bought, Waterstones.

Synopsis: (Bear in mind, this book was much much much better than the synopsis would suggest, so don't pay too much attention to it).
"Errand requiring immediate attention. Come.

The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. 'He never says please', she sighed, but she gathered up her things.
When Brimstone called, she always came."

In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she's a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in 'Elsewhere', she has never understood Brimstone's dark work - buying teeth from hunters and murderers - nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn't whole.

Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.

Review: 

Wow, where do I even start with this book? It utterly blew me away, and it left we gobsmacked at the end in the way I adore. It is the only paranormal I have ever unequivocally loved, and I have literally been ranting and raving to my friends and lunch times, forcing them to read/buy/love it with me. No seriously, I literally hadn't even finished the first page before I started praising it.

Oookay, where to begin. First off, I love love love the main character, Karou. Even her name is brilliant - it's like having a good Tumblr url, if you have a good name you'd better have good content/character to back it up. Her hair is blue! It grows straight out of her scalp, blue! (We do learn the reason for this, by the way, and damn is it a good one). She's probably the best-realized character I've seen since Hermione Jean Granger. The other two main characters, Zuzana and Akiva, were stunning. Because of Zuzana, this book passed the sexism test (no easy feat): do the female characters have a single conversation throughout the course of the novel that doesn't revolve around boys or shopping? Yes? Pass! Zuzana is small, and loves puppeteering, and has a sense of humour and a fiery temper, and we see all of this instead of just being told it.

 Akiva is completely unexpected. In every early appearance of his he surprised me, and continued to do so - sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad, but always in a way that tied me ever closer to the story. The stereotypical paranormal roles of human and demon/human and angel are pared back to their bare bones and brought in an entirely new direction. The chimaera and the seraphim were brilliantly imagined, so that their description was genuinely awe-inspiring - not disappointing.

Even the minor characters had their own little quirks. Most importantly, they had purpose and hell, the characters had character! Zuzana's musician boyfriend is one. Also, how cool is it that someone other than the main female protagonist actually had a love life - a life of her own, that Karou wasn't the centre of the universe and that Zuzana rightly called her out when she deserved it?

Another thing I loved was the prose. It's been said in every review I've read, but it's so true. Laini Taylor is a miracle worker! This was the only paranormal book I've ever wholeheartedly loved, and that's probably because she writes so beautifully that the book takes on a sort of fairytale air. The words were literally a pleasure to read, and that is not an exaggeration. It could so easily have been butchered YA, and instead it was incredible. And fun. Seriously, not only was it beautiful but it was also fun to read.

There is a huge twist near the middle, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I'm not going to say it because it would be a huge enormous unforgivable spoiler, but wow. You'll understand what I'm saying when you read it (and you will read it, won't you?) - the semi-new character introduced as a result of the plot twist, whose name stars with Mad, is made likeable even in the short amount of pages there are left to describe her. admittedly, I would've liked a little more from *Karou*'s perspective, but this was brilliant as well so I won't complain. It also gave rise to some of the most tragic, beautiful lines I have ever read. You'll see.

(Here, have one of the less tragic ones: 'Until a few days ago, humans had been little more than legend to him, and now here he was in their world. It was like stepping into the pages of a book -- a book alive with color and fragrance, filth and chaos -- and the blue-haired girl moved through it all like a fairy through a story, the light treating her differently than it others, the air seemed to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place was a story about her.' I mean, how cute is that?)

It's one of the few books where I didn't mind that there are sequels. Yes, I'm almost afraid that these won't live up, but if they do then they'll cement my new view of Laini Taylor as my favourite author. Also, I want a movie from this book. Naow.  Please.

The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey Review

The 5^th Wave – Rick Yancey Review

I went into this one with high hopes – most of which were, sadly, dashed. It has so many rave reviews and recommendations from bloggers I trust, so I went out and bought it in my local bookshop for my birthday. And I liked it at the start, I really did. It had lots of cool astute little observations that made me think, ‘Hm, why didn’t I notice that before?’ and like the author more for it.

Unfortunately, it mostly went downhill from there. It just wasn’t as ... brilliant as I was expecting it to be. The prose was easily functional, and very pretty at times, and I felt sure that The 5^th Wave would become one of my favourite things, but some of the big story-wide things just weren’t right.

The thing is, it’s difficult to discern exactly what I didn’t like about it. I really enjoyed some of the character’s POVs (although main character Cassie became annoying with her fixation on Ben Parish in the middle of a bloody apocalypse), like Zombie (hint: not an actual Zombie. Zombies do not feature in this novel, thankfully) and Sammy. Many reviewers were annoyed by Sammy’s point-of-view sections (he’s five, so he sees things pretty simply) but I found them very sweet and quite endearing actually. If only Cassie’s sections had endeared me to her a bit more. I adored the front cover. I loved the imagination behind each of the four/five waves (although I preferred the first three; the details behind the last two were too sketchy to really get any satisfaction from).

I think the way the plot was executed was what let the book, and me, down. It’s such an interesting and tantalising (although not entirely original) premise, but the way it plays out – well, let’s just say that it took me about a week to read. That long a time means a book is certainly not keeping me gripped to the page. It dragged in the middle. A lot. She was wandering and being shot and having to spend weeks recuperating and it wasn’t skipped over. Instead we read about every excruciating detail – all of which were just intended to set up and carry through an utterly ridiculous, fake, non-swoonworthy relationship that just stank of plot tropes.

Lest I go off on a rant about YA romance, I’ll just pull myself back and state the facts.

1.       That romance was creepy, simple as. Just stalkerish – first there was the whole changing-her-clothes-while-she-sleeps thing, and then there was the standing outside the bathroom door for no apparent reason other than to ensure her safety. To ensure that she doesn’t trip and die in the bath, just like Edward and a certain brunette Mary Sue with a name that rhymes with Shmella.

2.       It was just terribly contrived. Yes, obviously they were desperate in this big bad apocalyptic world to find some companionship, but it was just annoying to see them do it that way. Also, Evan, when she says no to a kiss that means no, okay? Not that you paid any attention to that in the book.

3.       I don’t intend to spoil this for anyone planning to read the book, but that ‘plot twist’ was a) predictable and b) tiresome. Just don’t, Mr. Yancey. Please don’t.

Okay, onto some good things. I really liked some of the one-liners in here. Cassie is supposedly the witty one, but I actually really liked Zombie and Ringer’s lines – their military training gives rise to plenty of dramatic and hugely cinematic lines and scenes. Cassie gets some good ones in too, though – take the well written one with them carrying the world on their shoulders - but that’s mainly because she has about half the narrative.

I went into this after being told by a fellow blogger that is was a standalone. Nope. It’s the first in a trilogy... which does explain the ending I despised. There were no answers. Nothing got resolved – in fact, everything just got turned upside down all over again. Not exactly the reward I wanted after getting through hundreds of pages. Also, whoever made the dust jacket: please don’t compare it to Ender’s Game.

3.5   stars for the good bits.

P.S. Bear in mind that these were my personal opinions. This book has had phenomenal success, and there are plenty of great bits in it – there were just more that weren’t to my taste.

King Dork - Frank Portman Discussion

Hello! I wanted to start another type of book post, one that’s a little less formal than my reviews. I’ll call it a book discussion and probably do it for books that aren’t recent and aren’t being promoted. Maybe I’ll even do some of these in tandem with my proper reviews, exploring a certain issue within them ... and feel free to join in in the comments, I’ll take whatever you say into account!

This particular specimen came from a shelf in my room reserved for books I felt ...meh about, the ones that I feel deserve a re-read if I’m ever in the mood for them. That’s what happened with this book. It did move up the ratings chart on the second reading (because I could actually understand a lot of it now that I couldn’t at eleven or twelve) from two stars to three point five.

So. King Dork is basically a big mystery involving this teenage boy’s dead father, Catcher in the Rye, lots of giving out about high school and, well, teenage angst all over the place. Not a love triangle in sight – wait. There was one, actually, and it ormed a pretty big part of the story. It just wasn’t a carbon copy of all the other YA ones, and that made it less annoying.

To be quite honest, I didn’t really care about the plot that much (I’m seeing a pattern here). I was much more interested in the really cool substories and funny little details. Yes, I wanted the mystery the whole thing was building up to to be solved. Obviously – the author certainly spent so much narrative time on it, it really had to be the major theme.

One subplot that I found distasteful at twelve but well, interesting (hey, it’s good to know how the male psyche works) now was the one with King Dork’s (admittedly limited) interactions with girls. But believe me, he really should’ve been older in that book. As a 14-year-old (!) he went WAY too far. Just ... go with it, you’ll enjoy the book more.

Then there was my favourite part, his ‘band’. He and his best friend Sam Hellerman are in a ‘band’ together – they make up a new one all the time and devise a band name, album names and covers. The only thing they don’t do is actually write/play songs. Uh oh. I must say though, some of those names were hilarious – they’re even included all together in a handy section in the back! Here are a few great examples, all quotes from pgs. 327 – 331 of King Dork.

Some Delicious Sky, aka SDS

Treble and Vocals: Squealie

Thick Bottom and Industrial Arts: Sambidextrous

Green Sabbath

GUITAR: Monsignor Eco-Druid

BASS AND INDUSTRIAL SABOTAGE: The Grim Recycler

DRUMS, PERCUSSION, ACOUSTIC AND SEMI-ACOUSTIC DRUMS, CYMBALS, TAMBOURINES, COWBELLS, CHIMES, GONGS, TOMS, SHAKER EGGS, BONGOS, STICK CLICKS, WOOD BLOCKS, PERCUSSION, PERCUSSION AND MORE PERCUSSION: Todd Panchowski.

FIRST ALBUM: Our Drummer is Kind of Full of Himself

Balls Deep

GUITAR: Comrade Gal-hammer

BASS AND EMBROIDERY: Our Dear Leader

REAL FANCY AND IMPORTANT PERCUSSION: The Lonely Dissident

I like how you can remember the story of the book from seeing a band time, each representing a point in King Dork’s life (there are 23 over the course of the story).

There were loads of funny little things that popped up around the place. Like teachers mispronouncing things (a theme that’s carried through to the mispronounced glossary at the end to comic effect) and so, so much Catcher in the Rye in different forms. Another bonus for King Dork is that it was very light reading – fairly big text and spaced pages, great for a break between heavier books. And the glowing recommendation from John Green can’t hurt.

I do have one gripe that dropped it 1.5 stars in my mind. The mystery isn’t solved! Threads start to come together and it all looks really promising and then in the end it’s utterly inconclusive. What a pity.

Still, quite an enjoyable read, if not very tasteful because it so very realistically portrays a teenage boy’s mind. Just go into it for fun, if you go into it at all.

I finished my novel!

I know, so late. But I have a good excuse (two actually, but the other one's for another post.)

I finished the first draft of my novel on the 27th of August! It's 100,000 words (400 pages) long, and I wrote it during the summer after my Junior Cert (and during it. Whoops. Wonder what effect that had on my results coming out on Wednesday?). I must say, I'm very proud of it - I've always wanted to write a novel. Besides, it makes me feel good that I accomplished my goal for the summer (write 90,000+ words in 90 days).

I have to wait six weeks now to get some distance from it before I can start the second draft and editing and stuff. Not sure how that's going to go - my perfectionism will no doubt make things more difficult than they have to be.

I'll probably have a post detailing how I wrote it up sometime, but for now I just want to give a shoutout to the Sweeneys for being so supportive when I finished it. Guys, you're awesome.

It's funny, because for the vast majority of it (i.e. up to about 93,000 words) I was very strict with myself about writing 1,000 words a day (or a multiple of that, but never an odd number). Towards the end I was just so elated and desperate to get it done that I wrote around 3,670 words on the second-last day and 1,666 on the last. Both numbers I wouldn't normally put up with, but look - I got it done, didn't I? Oh yeah! and wow, it was emotional when I was typing THE END.

Then again, I haven't actually celebrated finishing it, and it seems like something that ought to be celebrated. any ideas? :)

Pure - Julianna Baggott Review

Genre: YA/Adult Dystopian
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Pages: 431
Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . . 
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . . 
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. 

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Pure is bleak, it really is. Startlingly so. It's a highly original and shocking dystopian set-up when set next to the YA market, and it has really powerful moments. and it's not what I thought it would be when I first saw it mentioned.It is a work of fiction that pares back all the lies to show an unflinching version of the truth. Inspired by nuclear warfare and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I found it frighteningly authentic and meaningful.

The world Baggott builds is brutal, devastating and phenomenally beautiful. Pressia's little ornaments, her  wire birds and butterflies, stand out as pinpricks of light in a desolate world. 

The author has the power to get us into the heads of her characters, to understand what makes them tick. We can go from liking the main characters to hating them to loving them in the space of one book, but they will always be far more real than we would care to admit. 

Partridge, a male lead and a Pure (as opposed to Pressia and Bradwell who are fused, wretches), has now become my fictional crush. I fell in love with him (and lived vicariously through Pressia's eyes to see him) when he was first introduced.  I could sympathize with him, imagining having to adjust to a completely new world outside his sheltered life in the Dome. He's like a child at first, utterly vulnerable in this dangerous new world that he's escaped into. But he copes admirably and becomes a brave, capable character (even if he is eclipsed by Bradwell in the end). 

I have to say though, I didn't like the amount of tropes used here. There's a simply ridiculous amount, and that includes the whole half-siblings thing and the not-actually-dead trope and '{Insert name here}, I am your mother'. But I could get over that. My one major gripe is this: it shouldn't be a series. I loved the book, I really respect and admire it. I don't care if it would have had to be an 800-page book, I wanted the sense of finality that would have fit so well with the theme. It doesn't need to be dragged out. Maybe that's a wise move commercially, but when faced with the vitally important issue behind this book I believe it should be a standalone. Not only are standalones refreshing, this book just deserved to be one. The only thing YA about it is the ages of the characters, and so I fear that the teenage protagonists will just becoming annoying in a series. And because of the way the blurb introduced them, I was really surprised when Pressia and Partridge didn't become love interests. 

But believe me, I'm only wishing it was a standalone because I loved it so much. Tough love. 

And for the record, the world-building was my absolute favourite thing about this whole book/series. I don't care what happens next, the world will still be beautifully imagined. It is a pity that the things she describes so elegantly are so repulsive.Four stars. And Pure? You deserve your place on Time's most notable books of 2012 list. 

Birthday Book Shopping Part 1!

There aren't many, but I've only completed phase 1 of the book shopping. Still, it's enough to keep me very, very happy for a while. Especially because these are all books I've been dying to get for ages.

Bought

Gifts

From my boyfriend

(Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor [Excited to read that prose!] should go in here but the image is not co-operating).

From my sister


I am absolutely delighted with all of these. Plus, Skulduggery Pleasant Book 8 is coming soon

and I still ahve half of my birthday money left to spend on (you guessed it) books!