THE CURE FOR DREAMING | Cat Winters

THE CURE FOR DREAMING

Cat Winters

source: netgalley

pub date: Oct 14th 2014

♠.♠.♠.♠.♠

I'm a bit in love with this book. The Cure for Dreaming is the story of Olivia Mead, a strong-willed woman in the age of the suffragette movement who lives with her very strongly anti-suffragette father. Olivia meets and becomes friends with a young hypnotist, Henri, and their lives are twisted together when Olivia's father hires him to suppress the desire for suffrage within her through hypnotism.


This is not my first five star rating for a Cat Winters book, and it's probably the galley that I have so far been most excited to be approved for. Cat Winters has a gift for twisting together the historical and the magical and creating a bright, vivid world that is accentuated by the pictures that she gathers for inclusion in each book. The Cure for Dreaming is full of images of women fighting for their rights, the fears of a changing world, and the desires for something otherworldly, both through the images and the words that Cat has woven together.


As a feminist reading this book it was very, very easy to become angry with those characters who were against the suffragette movement, but it was also quite easy to see their reasoning. Not agree with them, but understand them to a certain extent. I love the way that Cat writes her characters, even the minor ones have life to them, they're not just shallowly drawn archetypes. Olivia is a relatable heroine, Henri is a desirable love interest, and every character who wears the role of the villain at one point or another is genuine in their presentation.



This is definitely one of my favourite books of 2014, and I am very eager to see what Cat does next.

THE BLOOD OF OLYMPUS | Rick Riordan

THE BLOOD OF OLYMPUS

Rick Riordan

source: own paperback

pub: October 2014

♠.♠.♠.♠

I am so attached to the world of Percy Jackson, I wish I adored about the long-anticipated final installment of Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus series the way I love the rest of the books. There were some wonderful things in The Blood of Olympus, but there were some aspects that let me down.

This review will assume at least basic knowledge up to the end of the previous book, House of Hades, and basic knowledge of character points of view in Blood of Olympus, but will otherwise be spoiler-free.

Blood of Olympus opens with the seven demigods of the Great Prophecy on their way to stop the evil earth goddess Gaea rising in Athens, while Reyna and Nico deliver the Athena Parthenous to Camp Half-Blood, to heal the historic rift between the Greek and Roman camps and heal the gods’ split personalities.

It was a lot to fit into one book. The narrative momentum was good, but characterisation definitely suffered.

What’s frustrating is that Rick Riordan can do better. The cynic in me assumes that the gang over at Hyperion has started taking shortcuts in the structural edit because they know any Riordan book is going to make a killing.

The Heroes of Olympus series has a kickass ensemble cast who have all, throughout the series, been shown to be complex, well-drawn, endearing characters. While Blood of Olympus didn’t showcased that as well as previous books, I hope that most fans of the series will be satisfied with how the story ended.

Nico’s chapters were definitely a highlight – not just because they are the narrative voice of a queer character in what is otherwise a very heteronormative series, but also because they exist within a literary landscape in which straight kids all meet their soul mates at fifteen. That’s all I’m going to say about that, because I’m straying into spoiler territory.

I can almost forgive Rick for how little he’s done with Leo since The Lost Hero (that’s an unpopular opinion, I know; feel free to ignore it) because of the girls. The girls.

The female interaction in this book is to die for. This is what pushed my rating to four stars. Representation of positive, nuanced, meaningful female friendship in media is SO IMPORTANT, and Blood of Olympus delivered very satisfying examples.

Piper has progressively been moving away from the anti-feminine, anti-pretty ‘not like other girls’ line she took in when we first met her, and that happened AGAIN and BETTER in this book. Traditional femininity is not weak, emotions are not weak, Piper is fierce and strong and I love her a whole lot.

Reyna’s chapters were the stuff of dreams. Everything about her perspective, her backstory and her interaction with Nico was fabulous. I want an entire series about her.

Blood of Olympus is by far not the strongest of Rick Riordan’s novels, but please don’t let my critical wannabe-editor’s eye put you off the book or this series. I think deeply about things I care about deeply, and I care about this series a lot because it’s really good.

If you haven’t already, you should get on it.

.

This is a guest post by Sophie Swancott, who you can catch on Twitter @SophieSwancott9.

OH YEAH, AUDREY | Tucker Shaw

OH YEAH, AUDREY!

Tucker Shaw

source: netgalley

pub date: 14th October 2014

♠.♠.♠.

This is a cute book, it's one of those quick to read, easy to jump in to kind of books. Protagonist Gemma is obsessed with Audrey Hepburn, particularly the incarnation of Audrey Hepburn that Holly Golightly represents. It would be fair to say that she is obsessed with Holly Golightly specifically looking at the events that unfold in the novel itself but while the focus is on Breakfast at Tiffany's there is plenty of mention of Audrey herself and her other work (including her humanitarian work).



Gemma has run away from home for the day to meet up with friends she has met over Tumblr who share a love of all things Audrey. It's a fairly predictable book for its type, but that is definitely something to like about it. This is the kind of book that you want to read when you're sitting in the sun and you don't want to tax your brain. I found myself cringing over some of Gemma's choices but I did ultimately enjoy it.

Primarily because I myself have some level of adoration for all things Audrey.

BLACK ICE | Becca Fitzpatrick

BLACK ICE

Becca Fitzpatrick

source: netgalley

pub date: Oct 7th 2014

♠.♠

This was a frustrating read... let's see if we can do without whining.


Black Ice is the story of 17 year old Britt Phieffer who makes a series of terrible choices and almost gets herself and others killed on multiple occasions because of her terrible decisions. There were three things that really bothered me about this book;

1. From the beginning we know that Britt and her apparent only friend are in a super unhealthy relationship because her friend is always pitting them against each other in her head and Britt knows all about this but she just brushes it off and lets her friend be rude and derogatory towards her all the time.
   
2. Most of the book involved romantic sub plot about how she used to be in love with this guy which she is still so obsessed with she's chosen camping over Hawaii because she knows that he'll be there and it seems like she's over him but then she finds out that he cheated on her while they were dating and she still thinks about him constantly. WHY?
   
3. The main romance was when she fell in insta-love with the accomplice of the guy who kidnaps her so even though this guy never actually does anything wrong he is a witness to multiple robberies and multiple murders and does nothing about it. He doesn't even have a warped sense of vigilante justice, he just does nothing about it, and she falls in love with this guy.
   

No, no, no, no, nope.



Ultimately the rating is two stars because it wasn't painful to read, I did finish it without difficulty, but do not and would not recommend it, unless you like reading about teenage girls who make terrible choices.

Recently Read | October 2nd

Once there is more content on this blog I'm going to figure out how often to post a recently read, which will basically be a brief list of books that I've read and enjoyed (or read and hated) that I'm not going to write a full review on for various reasons. So here we go.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn [4/5]

• I ended up loving this book when I thought that I would hate it, just because I have heard mixed reviews but I've also had bad experiences with popular things in the past.
• I haven't seen the movie yet... but I will.
• I want to be friends with Amy Elliot Dunne and yes I maintain this desire after reading the entirety of the book.

the First Third by Will Kostakis [5/5]

• This isn't so much a recent read (I read it in July) as a read I feel deserves a mention but don't think will get a proper review because of time constraints.
• This book is delightful.
• So is the author, you should follow him on Twitter.

Every Breath, Every Word by Ellie Marney [5/5], [5/5]

• These were also read in July but the two books of the series that have been released both earned 5 stars so I had to include them in this list.
• Sleuthing! Sensible teen heroes! Sherlock Holmes references without being inelegant/overt/pushy about Sherlock Holmes references!
• Ellie also wrote this post about YA recently and it is brilliant.

the Collected Works of A.J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin [4/5]

• This book reads like a love affair to the short story told through the eyes of a collection of people who have learned to find themselves in books.
• It is a beautiful testament to the fact that reading is for everyone, and anyone, and the simple truth of this resonates through every sentence.
• (I started writing a review for this when I read it but never finished because the above opening paragraph was too good.)

There, that's five. Happy reading.

SILVER SHADOWS | Richelle Mead

SILVER SHADOWS

Richelle Mead

source: own paperback

pub: July 2014

♠.♠.♠.♠

Silver Shadows is the fourth installment in Richelle Mead's Bloodlines series (itself a spin off from her best-selling Vampire Academy) and I have to admit it is one of my favourite series. I will try and be as unbiased as possible in this review however I cannot claim complete nuetrality.


Silver Shadows picks up where the Fiery Heart left off, with Adrian and Sydney separated by the Alchemists, and ultimately this book was almost everything I wanted from it. It features wonderful scenes of Sydney being strong-willed and ingenious, Adrian having what can only be classified as a nervous breakdown (which, let's face it, we saw coming because even though Adrian Ivashkov has gone through some magnificent character development he is still at the mercy of Spirit), and many cameos from beloved VA characters.


One of my favourite things about this series has been the depiction of mental illness, while the cause is very clearly cited as the magical element of Spirit, Adrian displays a range of symptoms experienced by people with mental illness and the treatment of these is approached in similar ways. Most of the instances that I am thinking of occur in the Indigo Spell and the Fiery Heart (and I did re-read the first four books of the series before I made it to the Silver Shadows) but there is some displayed in Silver Shadows.


As the fifth book in the series Silver Shadows maintains the strong pace and content of its predecessors, though there is one thing that bothered me in a major way. I'm about to discuss a major spoiler here so if you haven't read it I suggest you avert your eyes.

The thing that bothered me was when they got married, and Adrian made sure that Sydney had the perfect wedding, or at least as perfect as they could make it. It seemed in character for the flighty Adrian but very out of character for the pragmatic Sydney. Though it led to the end showdown of the novel it seemed very unnecessary. Unnecessarily complicated if you will. 

That being said, it definitely wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, and I eagerly await the final in the series.

FORGET ME NOT | Stacey Nash

FORGET ME NOT

Stacey Nash

source: netgalley

pub: Feb 2014

♠.♠.♠

Forget Me Not is the story of Anamae, most often called Mae, who finds a pendant and brooch combination that allows her to become invisible. She and her best friend Will are swept into the world of the Collective, and those who work against them, including attractive freedom fighter Jax.


It took me a while to get into this, but once I did I read through it very quickly. It was an intriguing concept initially but I think it definitely could have used more development of the world and the characters. Instead of connecting with new characters I very much felt like I was just connecting with old familiar ones. Jax in particular reminded me a lot of Jace Lightwood but with less snappy one-liners.



As a heroine Mae wasn't bad, but she was ordinary, and I did struggle with that. It also seemed to me like she made some very stupid decisions and was very trusting of people that she hardly knew. I will be reading the sequel because I was approved for both on Netgalley and I didn't hate it, it just wasn't all that memorable. I think that maybe it didn't quite know whether it was trying to be science fiction or fantasy... and that was problematic. I'll see how I go with the sequel, but my hopes are not very high.

ALMOST DEAD | Kaz Delaney

ALMOST DEAD

Kaz Delaney

(source: own paperback)

♠.♠.♠.♠

Almost Dead is the story of Macey Pentecost, a teenage girl in the suburbs of Sydney with a turbulent home life and a recently acquired ability to see ghosts. When the ghost of a boy who claims not to be a ghost appears in her room and tells her that she is in danger, she is catapulted into a fast paced adventure involved a stalker, a new sister, and a very attractive Surfer Boy.


I bought this book a couple of months ago having read Delaney's previous book Dead, Actually (which is a companion to this one though they function well enough independently) with the understanding that I had very few light-hearted books on my to-read pile. When I did pick it up it was in the hope that it would be a quick, easy read, and I can confidently say that Almost Dead served the exact purpose that I hoped it would.


There were times while reading that I found myself a little irritated by Macey as a heroine, but this was no because of the way she was written, it was because she was a teenager and having very natural teenage responses to things. That's the thing about YA fiction, many teenagers in YA fiction come across a little more as adults, or they come across as an exaggerated stereotype written by an adult who has no concept of what the modern teenager is like. Macey Pentecost fits into neither of these categories.


The things I liked about this book were;

• the love interest
  
• the writing style
  
• the plot (which had moments in which it seemed a little far fetched but the whole premise of this book is that a boy in a coma astral-projects into her room so the element of far-fetched-ness is established from the get-go)
  

the things I disliked about this book were;

• typos, there were repeated instances in my copy of the word 'focused' being spelled 'focussed'... and it was quite jarring from a reader's perspective
  
• lack of foreshadowing, while I understand that the book was told from the perspective of Macey the final twist came out of the blue a little bit, most of the book indicated the stalker's motives in one direction but then it turned out to be something else entirely
  
• too many characters not enough development... this is primarily because when we found out the identity of the stalker I had to go back and see where they had turned up in the book before... I had no idea who they were.

Ultimately, I did enjoy Almost Dead, it was exactly the book I wanted exactly when I needed it, and I definitely recommend it for people who like humourous teen lit with an element of the unbelievable.



EDIT: I've been informed that 'focussed' is the accepted spelling in the UK and is supposedly the standard spelling in Australia... apparently my education has failed me.

So here's what's happening...

I'm currently in the process of setting up this blog, so it's going to look a little sparse and a little haphazard for a few days, sorry about that. In the meantime, here's some quick information that you may find pertinent;

Hi, I'm Elspeth, co-owner and contributer of this blog, my partner in crime is Sophie, and we are both University students in Sydney, Australia. The content that we post here is going to be primarily YA based as Sophie wants to work in Children's Publishing and I want to be Laini Taylor a YA writer. We're still hashing out the details but Sophie is probably going to write primarily for contemporary YA and I'm going to write for speculative fiction.

Until we get this all properly set up you can follow us both on Twitter or Goodreads (just me) and of course at this blog though the content will be sporadic and sparse. (Elspeth & Elspeth's GR. Sophie.)

Here's a list of the sort of things you can expect from Quiet Worlds,

• Cover Lust
• Reviews of recent releases
• Reviews of older releases ("May Have Missed")
• commentaries on movies made from books
• author interviews
• giveaways (once the blog is up and running, hopefully)
• etc. etc.