Author Archives: Bethlylou

Pop Culture Assignment for Kate: Horror and Suspense

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I had a hard time coming up with an assignment for Kate. My originally thought about assigning her first books in four different series but I had a trouble narrowing it down and  most of them are series that she would totally have read if she hadn’t been so busy the last couple of years working on PhD.  Which kinda defeats the purpose since the assignments are supposed to be of books that we normally wouldn’t read on our own.  So I decided on four different standalone horror and suspense novels.  All four of these books I enjoyed for different reasons.  I think it’s good to have a scare every now and then but also like how genre can comment on social issues without being in your face about it but also to an audience that normally wouldn’t seek out such material on their own.  So I’m excited to see how she like them.

cryers cross Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann

I’m starting off Kate with Cryer’s Cross.  I would say is kinda of a ghost story.  Kendall loves her small town in Montana but she has dreams of going to school in New York. When tragedy strikes and her friends start to go missing, she teams up with the new boy to solve the mystery.  Race, mental disorders and small town secrets all come into play in this well written mystery.

coldestgirl The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Holly Black is a master story teller and this is in my opinion one of her best books.  She takes the vampire genre to a new level with this one.  I have to say it’s right up there with Sunshine by Robin McKinley.  Cities have been walled up to quarantine off vampires from the regular populations.  Tana wakes up the day after a party to find herself the only survivor of a vampire attack with the vampire and her ex-boyfriend both tied up.  She must make the decision to take them to a Coldtown.  Depression and the search for fame are also examined as they make their journey.

the waking dark The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman

They called it the Killing Day when regular citizens go on a killing spree out of nowhere in a small town in Kansas.  Five teenagers from different parts of town are thrown together as they try to survive the night and the mysterious virus goes through the town.  Social classes, privilege, abuse all play apart of the narrative as they figure out what’s going on and how they can escape it.

scowler Scowler by Daniel Kraus

I changed my final book.  I originally was going to have Kate read another Holly Black novel but it didn’t really fit the whole horror theme.  This one kinda gave me nightmares.  So good Luck, Kate.  Ry and his mother and sister are trying to save their Iowa farm when a meteorite hits nearby and their past comes back to haunt them.  Their abusive father is on the loose and Ry must rely on his old imaginary friends to helped him survive his father before.  Can they do it again?

I hope Kate and everyone who chooses to read along will enjoy their Summer of Horror and Suspense.

 

Review: Inferno by Julie Kagawa

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inferno The final book in the Talon Saga was kinda of a disappointment in the sense that I didn’t really love it only liked it.  It took a really long time to get going and for the final book the lack of urgency was a strange.  The characters kept telling each other about how the end is coming soon but really didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to prepare for it until they had no choice to and then things Finally got going.  But damn, we had to go through a lot of things to get there.  There was the unnecessary trip to Brazil to meet an ancient dragon that was never mentioned before and there was another trip to Asia for the that we all knew how it would end up.  There were past mentioned characters showing up and taking up time for no reason but fit in one more heroic arc?  I don’t know.  The finale however was worth it though.  The final battle between the Rogues, St. George and Talon made up the lackluster beginning.  It had drama, suspense and melodrama all wrapped into one.  I appreciate the theme of the series being that even though we may be different, what we all want out of life is the same.  We want to live in peace and have freedom of choice.  And authoritative governments are bad.  The best way to bring down an oppressive regime is to overcome our differences and work together and learn from each other.  I very important message for today.  That’s what you should take away from this series in the end. I just wished the last book wasn’t so bogged down in so many side trips.

Quick Review: Bruja Born by Zoraida Cordova

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bruja born I received this as an ARC a month ago.  Thank you to the publisher for making it available.

I’ll admit I didn’t like it as much as Labyrinth Lost because I thought this was a continuation of Alex’s story not that we didn’t see Alex’s story progressed but she wasn’t front and center.  Her older Lula took center stage.  It was interesting to read about her she dealt with the traumatic experience of surviving Los Lagos and losing her identity but I wanted to know more about Alex and how she was dealing with her new powers as an ecantrix and exploring her bisexuality.  Her relationship with her best friend, Rishi was so wonderfully set up in the last book, it was disappointing not to see more of it in this one.  While we are told that they are still together and happy, we only get one scene with them together.  I understand why she wasn’t included in the narrative as a sinmago, she had nothing to add to the story but I still wanted to more.  In the last book I found Lula to be shallow and not that interesting and she started out that way. I have more of a connection to her now but I’m still only meh on her.  The one trait that Lula and Alex have in common is that they are stubborn and will do what they want even if it’s the absolutely the wrong thing to do.  I got frustrated about how many times she was told, not to do that but she wouldn’t listen because it wasn’t what she wanted to hear or she thought she knew better or could figure out a different solution and the end others we left to deal with the consequences of her actions instead of her.  Ugh.  Oh well, the next book is going to focused on the youngest Mortiz sister, Rose and she has very intriguing powers.  I’m looking forward to that one.

Review: A Case for Jamie by Brittany Cavallaro

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case for jamie

**Some Minor Spoilers**

I’m actually sorry that this was only a trilogy as there are so many Sherlock Holmes canon that she could have played with but it was a satisfying ending.  The Case for Jamie takes place a year after the ending of The Last of August.  Both Jamie and Charlotte are still reeling from the events of the last book and the death of August Moriarty.   Jamie is back at school doing his best to get his grades up to get into a college.  He has a new girlfriend and is still playing rugby but really he’s just going through the motions.  He misses Charlotte but can’t bring himself to forgive her for what she did.  Charlotte for her part is doing what she does best.  Investigate.  She’s trying to figure out what Lucien’s next move is as she knows that they haven’t seen the last of him.  She’s doing her best not to fall back into her destructive behaviors and missing Jamie too.  Strange things start to happen to Jamie at school.  He’s already a little paranoid from his experience in the last year and starts to lash out and everyone around him.  It’s clear that he’s struggling with PTSD.  As things start to spiral out of control, it becomes clear that even though he and Charlotte are no longer together, someone out there wants to get the band back together.  We go back and forth between Jamie and Charlotte’s point of views as we piece together what’s going on.  As the reader who has the benefit of knowing both sides making it much easier to come to the conclusion faster than our heroes but it was so well constructed it didn’t take away from the mystery.  I felt actually quite proud of myself that I was able to piece it together before the formidable Charlotte Holmes.  *pats self on back*  I really liked both of these characters.  They were both relatable in through own ways.  Jamie being the clueless boy who just want’s to fit in and have friends and Charlotte the overachiever who is consistently looking for approval.  They’ve spent the last three books trying to accept themselves for who they are and not who people perceived them to be.  At the end they are still working on that as it’s not something that happens overnight but they have truly learned their lessons.  I also liked that after everything that happened they didn’t just immediately get back together.  While reconciliation is on the horizon, they both realized there were things about themselves that were not good for each other and took time work on themselves and get to know each anew.  It’s a good lesson for us to learn.  Mystery fans out there, I encourage you pick this series up.  I think you will love it.

Review: The Fates Divide by Veronica Roth

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fates divide I liked this one a little better than Carve the Mark.  I think maybe because the world was more established and the complicated relationship between each character was more set.  Also opening up the universe to new planets made and introducing more characters with darker skin as more than just warriors or brutal dictators also helped.  That doesn’t make some of the character development any less problematic but I do think that Veronica Roth listened to the criticism of the first one and took that into account while writing this one.  I’m also grateful that this is only a duology and not a trilogy.  Knowing that this was the last book, I felt the pacing was better, the story more concise loose ends tied up.  That being said, she did leave an opening to return to this world if she wanted to but I’m happy with how it ended.

The Fates Divide picks up right after the end of Carve the Mark.  Cyra and Akos, along with Ryzek, Cisi and Isea and Eijeh have fled the arena and leaving the Shotet in chaos.  With Ryzek presumed dead and Cyra leaving their is a power vacuum in Shotet that unfortunately gets filled by her once presumed dead Dad, who makes Ryzek look tame.  If that wasn’t enough, Isea is grieving for her lost sister and using her Chancellor position to take revenge with the help of the Assembly.  They also have those pesky little fates to contend with.  They must all overcome all these obstacles and succumb to their fates but at the same time create their own.  It’s tug of war.  Cyra really comes into her own in this one.  She has been told her whole life that she wasn’t worth it.  She had a gift that could only bring pain and for that reason she pushed people away and expected people to disappoint her.  Akos is rattled with guilt because he promised his dad to save his brother and that is almost impossible now.  They both are way to earnest and way to self-sacrificing for my liking but it is who they are.  In this one, we also get the point of view of Akos’ sister, Cisi and Eijeh.  Eijeh who is destined to be an oracle but after years of torture by Ryzek has changed him but through him we see how the oracles work and how unreliable they can be.  Cisi’s point of view gives us a glimpse of the other side of the Thuve and Shotet fight.  The first book was only of Cyra and Akos and the Shotet.  The Shotet are not well liked by and seen as pest because of their militaristic ways and constant scavenging.  We can see how quickly things can escalate when you stop looking at the other side as less then they are.  Our own hurt and pain blinds us to the hurt and pain of others and forces us to make rash decisions.  Cisi tries to be that moderating voice before real a catastrophe happens.

Overall it was a good series that I enjoyed.  I’m glad that the problems of the first book didn’t carry over to this one.