Review: Dark Guardian by Christine Feehan

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The Carpathians are an immortal race that live off blood, like vampires.  Except, they’re not the undead.  They have souls.  The males lose all emotion and the ability to see color until they find their life mates who restore these to them.  They’re bonded forever.  
I should have stopped reading this book at the prologue and when I heard this explanation and thought, “NOPE!”  
I get that I might not be the audience for mainstream romance.  And, I get that media lets us explore situations and relationships that my interest us, intrigue us, turn us on, or whatever but that we don’t and shouldn’t do in real life.  I get that novels, not just romance novels, are an escape.  I get all of that.  
But, I can’t even think of an appropriate list of swear words to describe how terrible this novel was.  Seriously.  It was so bad that I can’t even swear at it.  
But, I can tell you what I didn’t like about it and why.

Massive Spoilers Ahead!

First, of course, was this idea that men (well, Carpathian men) are emotionless monsters that women have to save.  Nope.  Feelings are a human thing.  We all have amygdalas and emotional centers in our brains and anything that continues to perpetuate the stereotype that women are the ones that feel and men aren’t harms women, harms men, harms us all.  Second, after introducing our immortal badass vampire hunting Carpathian dudebro we’re introduced to Jaxon the heroine by looking into her life at ages 5, 10, 15, adulthood.  Jax was raised on a military base by her Mother (who wasn’t super maternal) and her father, a Navy Seal, and his Seal buddies were very involved in her life.  Until her Dad died and her Mom married his Seal buddy who then turned into an abusive pyscho and the descriptions were awful.  Psycho Step Dad then stalks our fair Jax and torments her by hurting people she loves.  Oh, but before we get there we are treated to these flashbacks where young Jax tells adults that her Step Dad is abusive and no one believes her.  I thought there was mandatory reporting of these sorts of things?  Like, if a kid tells her teacher that her Dad hits her Mom that the teacher had to tell the school and get Child Welfare involved?  Anyway, Jax grows up into an emotionally stunted police officer who has to keep everyone at arms length because Psycho Step Dad might be watching.  (At least that was a fun twist:  for once the psycho step parent wasn’t the mother.)  Then, her Carpathian dudebro inserts himself into her life, removes her from her friends and chosen family, disregards her concerns, commands her to stay in the house in the name of her safety (and gets violently upset when she disregards his commands and asserts her own autonomy), and initiates the life mate binding process without her consent and then completes it without ever explaining anything to her.  Being stalked by a Navy Seal is terrible.  Being swept up by an immortal who needs you to maintain his emotional life for him is also terrible.  
And, folks, I didn’t even get to the end.  I got the completion of the binding ritual and she started freaking out and Carpathian dudebro started mansplaining how they were meant for each other and she just needs to roll with the (irreversible) changes and I was like:
  

So, the only good choice with this book is to just not pick it up.  0/10.  Do not recommend.

I checked this book out from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Libraries.

Review: Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

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Featured image**May Contain Spoilers**

Okay, this isn’t really a review.  More of an appreciation post.  An appreciation for Rick Riordan and his books.  There are many things I love about his writings.  I love his characters, especially since many of them are quite sarcastic and sassy.  I love how he writes characters with diverse backgrounds.  I love the imagination of them.  Taking stories that we are familiar with and some we are not and updating them or making them new but also staying true to the myths. I can tell that he has done his research on these myths and stories, whether they were well known or obscure.  I think the most impressive thing is connecting these old stories with todays world and not making them seem outdated.  He’s had some mix results.  The Kane Chronicles is based on Egyptian mythology.  I know next to nothing about Egyptian Mythology and if I were to guess most of his readers didn’t know much too.  For that reason, this series was a little harder to get through.  The first book, The Red Pyramid, spent almost more time trying to explain who the major Gods and Goddess of Egypt were and how they are relate to each other.  That the story sorta came second but as the trilogy progressed it got better.   The humor of his books.  Again, I love the sassiness of his characters.  He gets my humor.

But really, it’s his diverse characters are what I love the most of his books.  With the exception of The Kane Chronicles, his other series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus and now Magnus Chase and Gods of Asgard take from Western Europe.  I think we all have an idea what they would or should look like.  White.  Yes, Percy, Jason, Annabeth and Chase are all white.  Piper is native American.  Leo is latino. Hazel is Black. Frank is Chinese Canadian. Sadie and Carter are biracial.  Sam is Muslim.  It’s not just racial diversity either.  In House of Hades, Nico is outed as gay.  That tsurprised me.  Not because I didn’t see it coming or that I was upset but because this is a children’s book after all and I was afraid of how it would be received.  Even more surprisingly, it seems it was received pretty well or with little to no controversary.  At least not that I read about.  And that is awesome!  We have mention before on this blog about the movement to have more diverse books and characters in Kids and Teens books and why this is important.  Mr. Riordan could have played it save.  He could have all his characters be white and say well they are demigods based on Greek and Roman and Norse myths who were also white but he didn’t.  These Empires and traders may have started in Europe but they didn’t stay there.  Rome stretched into African and Asia and the Vikings also traveled as far south as the Middle East and west as North America.  And these books take place (mostly) in the US.  The idea behind these books is the Gods follows power.  So whatever country that is the Superpower in the world, that’s where they set up shop.  (At least true for the Greek and Roman Gods) So it would make sense that the Gods and Goddess would interact and mate with people from all backgrounds as we in the US are from all different backgrounds.  So the demigods needed to reflect that.  The Gods didn’t really have a type.  I mean, Posiden is also the father to Pegasus after all.  Loki has a horse, a wolf and a snake as his children.  So what would they care if their current human paramour is Black, White or Asian? All of his characters are strong and brave.  For his readers, they can find at least one demigod or magician to relate to and say I can be as strong and brave as.  That’s important and shouldn’t be overlooked.  So for that I love his books.

As for Sword of Summer, fans of his other books are going to love it.  I’m not as familiar with Norse Mythology as I am with Greek but I know enough to know the major players.  Magnus is in the mold of Percy as he is definitely a smart ass and I love it.  He is also the cousin to Annabeth.  The poor Chase family.  You have one brother who had a child with a Greek Goddess and one sister who had a child with a Norse God.  Both of kids were runaways.  The Chase family knows drama.  One can only hope that after all this they Chases’ have an easier time. Anyway, Magnus is joined by Sam, a Valkiyre and daughter of Loki. Blitz the Dwarf and Hearth the Elf.  Another thing that the Chase cousins have in common is they both have been to the afterlife, though Magnus actually died.  Magnus and friends must find the Sword of Summer, aka Jack and delay Raganok from happening.  No pressure.  Like his other books, our Heroes have to go through many trials, have run in with other Gods and Goddesses and other demigods and deal with a short window to complete their mission.  You would think that it would get predictable but it doesn’t.  I think a new set of Gods helps.  Riordan also is not afraid to kill off characters either so don’t get used to some of them.  I’m liking this series and I can’t wait to read more.

Real or Not Real

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“Real or Not Real” may not be as romantic as “I know” but to me it’s pretty darn close. (It’s also possibly my next tattoo)   There was something about the way that Peeta and Katniss say it to each, particularly at the end of the book just filled me with such bittersweet glee.  (it’s a little hard to feel another other then bittersweet)  I was always a Katniss/Peeta shipper, I’m just going to put that out there.  The final Hunger Games movie comes out later this month and with it comes that line.  Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we are given a sneak peek at Peeta and Katniss saying it for the first time and I’m not disappointed.

What do you think is the most romantic line from pop culture?

Cover Reveal: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

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The final book in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle, The Raven King was supposed to be released later this month.  Unfortunately, Maggie said that she needed more time for editing so it has been pushed back until April.  Gah!  Five more months!  What are we going to do?  Well for now we are going to have to console ourselves with gazing at the gorgeous cover of The Raven King, revealed yesterday.

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Like the covers of the previous books it’s beautiful but doesn’t give much of way of plot or clues besides a deer will somehow play a part in the story.  In the meantime, we all can spend time theorizing over what is going to happen.  Are Blue and Gansey finally going to kiss and be the doom Gansey?  Are Ronan and Adam going to get together? What about Maura and Butterscotch?  Will they find Glendower? And what is up with Henry and what role does he have in all of this?  Stay Strong.  April will be here before we know it.

NaNoWriMo

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To celebrate National Novel Writing Month, we at Stacks Exceeds Life Expectancy are going to make our own attempt.  We are going to try to post a blog every day in November.  (This may be cheating but I’m totally counting this as today’s)  So check in every day to see if we make it.

It’s the first of November, and so today someone will die

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Since it’s the November 1 I thought we would take a moment and look at Maggie Stiefvater’s best book, The Scorpio Races.  I mean all of her books are good but this one is the best.  It’s filled with so much atmospheric goodness that’s it’s just luscious.  Every year they race on the sea horses. Some live and some die.  Sean is the defending champion.  The youngest ever but much older then his years.  Puck is the first girl to compete but circumstances make her take the chance.  I can’t speak highly of this book and I’m sure that Kate would agree with me.  If you are looking for a good book to read by the fire with some warm apple cider then you really can’t do any better then this.

Review: Marked by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

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In Zoey Redbird’s world, humans are made into vampyres after they are chosen by the Goddess Nyx. They leave their families and go to live at the local House of Night which is a training ground/school for fledgling vampyres. But, that’s just background noise because she has to deal with whatever her best friend is babbling about, and her ex-almost boyfriend, and her mother’s new husband who is a elder in the People of Faith and who has taken over her mother’s life (and subsequently destroyed her relationship with her Mom.)

Did I say it was background noise? I meant it was exposition. Zoey Redbird is marked in the first chapter and has to go to vampyre school. She is visited in a dream by Nyx and she is asked to be the Goddess’s very own eyes and ears in the school. Talk about responsibility.

The rest of the book is taken up with typical school story narrative. People are terrible and fledgling vampyres don’t buck that trend. There are mean girls, there are the cool kids, there are the people you are lucky enough to have as friends. And, there is a mystery of dead or maybe not-so-dead fledglings. Zoey has to navigate the halls of the school and investigate the mystery.

This is the first book in the series, and as discussed in my Saturday Reads I liked Zoey Redbird very much. The second half of the book involved a lot of description of ritual, and while I liked that, it felt a lot using non-Christian cultural practices as a way to make the vampyre world seem exotic and interesting and special instead of pushing the plot forward by character development or by divulging more about the mystery. And, that’s lazy at best and appropriative at worst. Also, a lot of the references felt really dated or forced. Zoey and her friends make a lot of pop culture references.

Even with the low points, I liked the characters and I’ll probably read at least the next one in the series.