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!

Divergent - Veronica Roth Review

Synopsis: In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her

Ah, Divergent. So, so much hype and yet I still didn’t read it until long after the sequel came out.  I could say that I was just trying to ease the pain of a cliffhanger but that would be an utter lie. It has just been something that I took far too long to get around to buying.

Fortunately, I did really enjoy it when I got it eventually. You probably know the drill by now: society split into five factions according (officially) to what a person believes stops war and (unofficially) to personality. Sixteen-year-olds must choose the faction they wish to devote their life to, and here our protagonist Tris comes in. Never mind that that wouldn’t actually make a safe society.

Tris, or Beatrice, is not actually a very likeable main character – which is why it’s so commendable that I liked reading from her perspective anyway. Born in Abnegation, she’s never fully fit in with their selflessness. So, of course, she goes and makes the choice with all the excitement and danger and explosions. Way to conveniently pull the plot forward, Tris!

Then there’s the romance. I hate romance most of the time, and in parts this relationship just annoyed me, but it’s grown on me. And by the sequel I was very afraid that they’d separate, purely for the fact that it added so much necessary tension.

It fell down on the world-building, especially when compared to, say, Matched. It gave all of these interesting details so that I badly wanted to find out more, and then it wouldn’t tell me. Like, for example, what the initiation is for Erudite. It was just bare on that kind of details.

Okay, cynical as that sounds, I did really really like the book.

Divergent won its way onto my Favourites shelf (where it resides alongside such worthy specimens as Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, Slated, Partials and The Hunger Games) by being so damn entertaining. And quotable, very quotable.

A clever thing done by this book is letting fans interact with it. Like Harry Potter, where you might declare yourself a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw, you could be Dauntless or Erudite. (I have always been Ravenclaw/Erudite, by the way).

Roth seems to have a truly brilliant imagination in dreaming up the different simulations and trials. They’re engrossing and entertaining –even if they don’t have much substance.

At this point I didn’t even care much about the (wait for it) dystopian set up, because I waited until the market was supersaturated with dystopians to read one of the best of them. I just loved the reading experience, and I can assure you now that that’s not objective at all.  

It’s actually a difficult one to analyse. I do think it lived up to the hype, but it’s not exactly one I’d find much pleasure in discussing. That privilege goes to its sequel , Insurgent. I liked Insurgent for all the reasons I didn’t like Divergent, and I will of course be reviewing it soon.

Hi! So, at the moment I'm still at CTYI but we're in the computer room today trying our hand at web journalism i.e. blogging. It's actually been mandated that we use Wordpress so I am, but as it's not co-operating at the moment I thought I'd drop in here, to my trusty Blogger.

CTYI is coming to an end, with less than a week left, and I will of course write down everything I can remember from it once I go home. I really wouldn't like to forget any of this, because it's been the best thing I've ever experienced.

Usually when I'm really looking forward to something, I blow it up in my head until it's reached such epic proportions that reality couldn't possibly match up to it. I was both astonished and elated to see that CTYI surpassed even my most ridiculous expectations. It has been, quite literally, magical. Often I feel like holidays/things I've been looking forward to pass too quickly, but the great thing about this is that each day has been so incredibly busy that it feels fulfilling. Still doesn't change the fact that I'm going to cry when it ends, but I'll know that it's been so worth it.

A lot of things follow the principle that 'you get out of it what you put into it'. I came here expecting that CTYI would be the same. In some ways it has been, but the amazing thing is that even the people who were a bit reluctant or shy seem to be having a great time. As far as I can see, there's no way you can't.

I arrived with a strange collection of things in hand, including a pirate sword, a multi-coloured dressing gown and 15 packets of Instant Noodle. Incidentally, these are common things to see in CTYI. I was shown to my room (I'm a residential student) and can I just say, it's gorgeous.

Back when I can, only two days left!