Quick Review: Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Bethlylou

In another retelling of a fairy tale, Mechanica takes on Cinderella. Nicolette is forced to be a servant in her own home and is called Mechanica by her evil stepsisters. Nicolette is an inventor and thanks to her mother’s secret workroom, she starts to invent inventions that could one day buy her way out of her servitude. Along the way she meets the Prince and his best friend and they help her sell her wares. It’s a good idea for a novel. I like many changes from the story. Nicolette isn’t at home waiting for the Prince to come rescue her. She uses her own brain to create inventions that will help her win her freedom and there is a surprising twist at the end that has to do with her and the Prince. I won’t spoil it but it really took me by surprise. Either then that though, there isn’t really anything else to make this stand out. I kept waiting for the something more to happen. I like the message of the novel, though. That girls don’t need a boy to rescue her. They can do that themselves by using their own skills and smarts and that alone might be worth the read.

Quick Review: Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Bethlylou

I’m going to be brief because I don’t want to be spoilery and also want to wait until Kate finishes it to talk in more detail. I will say it was a truly powerful novel. A dystopian novel set on the African continent. Onyesonwu is born from rape and because of it is an outcast but she has a destiny that will change the world. I admit that I haven’t ready many books that take place in Africa so this was a new voice for me. At times it confusing and it was also horrifying. Nnedi Okorafor does not shy away from the ugliest and violent moments of the novel and it’s equal parts terrifying as it is uncomfortable. It’s an unflinching portrait of racism and sexism and how both corrupt a society. Onye is not only a woman but also Ewu, a child born of violence from an Okeke women and Nuru man. She is shunned by most and seen as both worthless by many more. When it becomes clear that she is more then normal, she repeatedly turned away from the local sorcerer not because she isn’t extraordinary but because she is a woman. One has to wonder, how differently things would have turned out if she started training when she first asked to but I guess we will never know. When she finally unleashes her power and saves the day it’s a sight to see. My favorite part of the novel is the friendship from Onye and Luyu. At first, they are just two girls who are in the same class, who are forced together thanks to a common experience shall we say but as they grow they become closer. They give each other strength and support. They each show bravery and different ways. I truly don’t believe that Onye would have made it through without her. Mwita may be the love her life and soulmate, more then a soulmate really but it’s Luyu who is the back bone. She keeps everyone grounded in a way. Her bravery is truly inspiring because unlike Onye and Mwita who have varying degree of powers, Luyu is nothing but human but she knows there are bad things happening and will do anything to help Onye stop them. This isn’t an easy book to read but what the characters go through are not meant to be easy. If you feel uncomfortable because it’s supposed to be uncomfortable. You should be horrified at the lengths people will go for an idea and belief. It truly was a great book.

Review: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Kate

I am halfway through my Pop Culture Homework Assignment!

This book repeatedly punched me in the stomach.

Eleanor and Park meet when Eleanor gets on the bus for her first day at the new school. Eleanor immediately gets on the wrong side of the cool kids on the bus by almost sitting in someone else’s spot. Park growls at her to just sit down next to him. Everything after that awkward and totally real meeting is beautiful and painful and awkward and wonderful. Eleanor and Park are so fucking cute together I actually just swore at you in a review of a YA novel. This was a beautiful, painful and real novel about teen romance. It was also a novel about negotiating identity (when you’re not really sure how to be what people think you are. Are you that thing? Are you not? Does it matter?), being there for your loved ones, and dealing with crappy things in your life.

This book was great also great because of the main characters. Eleanor is a chubby red head and Park is half Korean. Others have talked about the need for diverse characters in teen novels and I think this is a good example.

Spoiler alert and trigger alert: This book deals with domestic violence in a very honest and very real way.

More spoilers ahead.

Eleanor and Park’s relationship grows slowly over a few months. At first, they are just sharing a seat on the bus. Then, they are sharing comic books. Then, they were sharing comic books and music. (I’m actually making a mix tape inspired by the music mentioned in the book.) It just snowballs from there. Eleanor loves her time on the bus because she hates being at home with her Mother’s husband, who is an alcoholic and a wife beater. The story builds until it becomes obvious that the creepiest of the awful things that have been happening to Eleanor aren’t being done by the awful girls in Eleanor’s gym class but are being done by Eleanor’s step dad.

I cried and cried and cried throughout this book. The relationship between Eleanor and Park was wonderful. Eleanor’s relationship with DeNice and Beebi was great. Park’s parents were A+ and their attempts to interact with their son’s first real girlfriend were awkward and beautiful and also very real. Sabrina, Eleanor’s mom, was heartbreaking. (At one point she tells Eleanor she’s so lucky and good for staying away from boys and then implies that there are two types of women in the world: women who are with a man and brave women who aren’t. I think my heart is still breaking from that interaction between mother and daughter.) Eleanor’s brothers and sisters were also heartbreaking.

God, this book. It was so good. It was so good, I’m still crying over it.

Review: Losing at Love by Jennifer Iacopelli

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Bethlylou

This was a good follow up to Game. Set. Match. With the French Open now behind them, Penny, Indy, and Jasmine look to make the quick turn around of Wimbledon. Probably the most underrated difficult thing to do in any sport, go from the super slow clay courts of Roland Garros to the lightning fast grass courts of Wimbledon. True, over the years, The All England Club has slowed down their courts in an attempt to encourage more rallies but it’s still unbelievable achievement to win the French Open and Wimbledon back to back. Borg did it multiple times, Nadal has done it twice and Federer only once. Ok, so you get the point.

All three girls are in very different places. Indy had a successful French Open, in more ways than one. She won the juniors and got Jack. Penny beat the World number 1 again but sprained her ankle in the process. And poor Jasmine, crashed out the first round of the juniors and now is being pushed to play college instead of going pro. All of their careers are going in different directions and the stakes are getting higher. How does one balance friendships when your playing for thousands of dollars in the most prestigious tournament in the world?

Now, there are a few things I do have a problem with from a tennis fan perspective. Indy and Jasmine have to qualify to make the women’s doubles field but when Indy is given a wildcard, she pulls out. The reasoning is her coach and agent think that she can’t play qualifying and focus on her singles. For someone who has followed tennis as long as I have I feel this in inaccurate, for lack of a better word. Young players are often encouraged to play doubles when they are younger. It gives them more match play, a chance to get real life experience of playing in tournaments. It gives young players a chance to compete and learn how to compete on a more consistent basis while their singles game improves. Winning is winning. However, I understand from a drama point of view, why Miss Iacopelli would decide to go this way and really, I’m being nit picky here.

I do like the friendships. I like that they are messy. I like that for the most part, when they do fight, it’s not about boys but about their games. They all may have dramatic love lives but for all three of them their tennis comes first. I think it’s important to show that girls can be ambitious, that they can have drive but also have the love and respect of a man. I hope that there are more of these because now that Wimbledon is over I can’t wait to see what happens at the US Open.

Review: The Walls Between Us by Nova Ren Suma

Posted on June 13, 2015 by Bethlylou

There are some authors that other authors just swoon over. Nova Ren Suma is one of them and I really don’t get it. Her prose is quite beautiful but I’ve always had a hard time getting into her books and they are not that memorable after I have read them. The only thing I remember about the other book I have read by her, Imaginary Girls was that it had a good ending and I think one of the girls died for the other. The common thread of these books is that her characters are shrouded in mystery. I’m not sure what I’m missing. It’s not that I don’t like her books but I don’t find them to be as wonderful as I they are supposed to be. Then again, reading is subjective. What someone likes someone else might not.

The Walls Around Us is the story of three girls. Amber is in a juvenile dentition center for girls, serving time for a crime she may or may not have committed with little chance of getting out anytime soon. Violet is a ballet dancer, who is on the verge of getting everything she has ever wanted. She just graduated high school and is about to start at Julliard for more training. Orianna is the link between the two of them. As the story unfolds, we discover who did what and who is innocent and who is guilty.

Major spoilers ahead Continue reading →

Series You should Check Out: The Tiger’s Saga by Colleen Houck

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Bethlylou

I have finished reading Reawakened but since it doesn’t come out until August I’m going to hold my review of it. So instead, I’m going to talk about Colleen Houck’s other series The Tiger’s Saga. The as-of-now four piece series follows Kelsey, your normal American teenage girl who travels to India to try to break a 300 year old Indian Curse. In the first book, Tiger’s Curse, Kelsey gets a summer job working for a circus, whose main attraction is a white tiger. She is immediately drawn to the tiger, not realizing that the Tiger is actually a 300+ year old Indian Prince named Ren. Ren was cursed by the evil Lokesh, who was trying to take over his kingdom and take the mysterious Amulet. He has been trapped inside a Tiger’s body ever since and is only himself for 24 minutes a day. Kelsey and Ren set out to solve the prophecy and break the curse under the watchful eye of the Goddess Durga to free Ren from his bondage. Of course it’s not that simple. Lokesh is still out there, searching for the amulet to gain the ultimate power. Ren’s brother, Kishan was also cursed, though he has been living as a tiger in the Indian jungle. And the tasks to breaking the curse are fraught with danger, magic and myths. They take them to places all around India and even Nepal and even mythical places like Shangri-La. With each successful completion of a task the brothers gain more time as themselves until they break the curse and no longer can become a tiger.

I fell in love with the series. It’s kind of a mix of Twilight and Indian Jones. I know an odd mix. It has the romance element but also the action and adventure element that keeps it exciting. Kelsey falls for Ren but is reluctant to express her feelings. Her parents died a couple of years ago and has since had trouble opening up to new people in fear that they will also leave her. Ren is an honest, sweet man who wants to do the right thing for his kingdom and others but after centuries as a tiger, you can’t blame him for fighting for what he wants. Their chemistry is apparent from almost their first meeting, which I’m counting as a Tiger. Complications of course happen when they meet Kishan. Ren and Kishan were not on the best of terms when they were cursed. There are obviously going to be some bad feelings when one brother tries to steal the other brother’s fiance. Even 300 years as tigers is not enough time to heal those wounds. Of course it doesn’t help that they both fall in love with Kelsey. It’s your classic love triangle. The good girl, who falls in love with the good brother and the bad brother. Their tiger’s fur even signifies who’s who. Ren is a white tiger and Ren is a black. As the series progresses, they become more than just good and bad. Kishan has lived in the jungle for all those years because he can’t face what he did. Houck makes a good case for why each brother would be a good match for Kelsey but there is never any doubt who she truly loves and will eventually end up with. As for the villian, Lokesh, he’s your typical bent on world domination villian and the lengths he will go to get what he wants are kinda frightening. Ren and Kishan have been supported by Mr. Kadam. His parents personal guard, who continued to live thanks to part of the Amulet he was given from the family and Nilima, Mr. Kadam several greats granddaughter. They provide a stability to the story. Nothing would get done without them.

So I recommend this to anyone who likes both romance and action/adventure. I don’t know much about Indian mythology so I can’t say to it’s accuracy but it does bring a richness to the story. Kelsey is likable. Yes, she at times falls in the annoying habits that all teenage girls do but when she is called upon she is fierce. Ren is a true prince and Kishan is definitely charming. There is supposed to be a fifth book but it as yet does not have an release date. I assume it will focus on the brother that doesn’t end up with Kelsey since, the series was wrapped up pretty nicely for Kelsey in the fourth book but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see on that one.

Review: Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Kate

A woman wakes up burned, shot, and with broken bones in a cave. She can’t remember who she is. She can’t remember how she got there. She can only remember the pain and some instinctual things like a need to eat. Slowly, she’s able to find food and put some things together. She finds the remains of a burned village. She hunts some deer. She wanders down a road and meets Wright and slowly starts to put the pieces together of who and what she is when she bites Wright and drinks his blood. She is part of a vampire race but she is special. She has been genetically engineered with a little human DNA so that she can be alert during the day and she has much more tolerance to the sun. She’s also dark-skinned, something that isn’t true about her people. Without knowing who she is or what happened to her (and the others? are the others like her?) she has to figure out what happened to her home. While trying to figure out what happened to her to make her have amnesia she meets her father who tells her that her name is Shori and explains why she is so special. Shori and her father begin the investigation into what happened to her and her family. Clearly there was a fire, but what caused it? Shori is put on the the path to solving the mystery of her destroyed community and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

This was a thrilling vampire novel, certainly the best one I’ve read since Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Since the main character has amnesia, we discover things about her species and her world as she does. You start to wonder pretty early on if what has happened to her is garden variety people hunting vampires, or garden variety people being racists asshats or something worse. When she is shocked and horrified by the behavior of humans and other vampires, we are, too. There is so much to say about this book but I don’t want to spoil anything (and I really want to do it justice if I’m going to analyze the themes of the book) so I won’t go into details. I will however say that this book could be a model for all of paranormal romance (even though it wasn’t a romance). I was so pleased with how it dealt with issues of consent that are so often missing from novels about vampires.

This book was so enjoyable and so wonderful and I can’t gush about it enough. Seriously. You should go read it. Now. You should read it now.

Quick Review: Instinct by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Bethlylou

I will say this for Nick Gautier. His life is never boring. He would tell you that is a bad thing but it’s way too entertaining. I don’t know even where to begin to talk about this book without spoiling the previous books so I’ll keep this short. I’ve already talked about this series before so you know how I feel about Nick and his friends. Instinct is no different. It’s the same snarky Nick as always. He gets into trouble but always talks or finds away out of it by staying true to himself. He’s not about to let destiny take control of him and his future. In the past books, he’s friends had to really step up and help him out but this one, he was basically on his own. It’s been two years since he found out who he really is and who his friends really are and is finally starting to come into his own. I know there are a couple more books to go but I feel like we are starting to see the endgame for the series. Also a bonus is that all of these books are very fast paced and fast reads. Nick is always tasked with multiple crisis’ that seemed to have nothing in common yet always do that keep him going back and forth between the two but the reader never gets tangled or confused as to what’s going on. You are there for the ride as is Nick. So Yeah! Well done. I’m looking forward to reading the next book.

Review: Rogue by Julie Kagawa

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Bethlylou

Ember is the kind of character that is likeably annoying. On the one hand she’s brave, loyal and fierce. Her wide-eyed curiosity is charming. On the other hand, she’s stubborn and doesn’t know how to listen to directions which usually leads to something bad happening. Whether it directly leads to it or is just enough to distract her friends that make them make stupid mistakes, It always leads to trouble. Despite her faults I’m still rooting for her. After the cut contains spoilers for Rogue and the first book Talon. So if you haven’t read Talon and planning on it, best not to read further.

Continue reading →

Review: How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper

Posted on April 11, 2015 by Kate

Mo is a Southern woman born to hippie parents and raised in Mississippi. She’s always lived close to home and her parents have always been a huge (and kind of overbearing) part of her life. Following on the heels of a breakup she decides to back up her life and move across the country to Grundy, Alaska. There’s a romantic element to that: striking out on one’s own, becoming self-reliant, living in the wilderness. Who hasn’t considered packing themselves up and going on an adventure? Mo rents a cabin in the woods and gets herself squared away. She finds a job cooking at the local tavern after the cook and co-owner injures himself. She makes friends with the co-owners wife. And, she runs afoul of the wife’s cousin Cooper Graham who hates outsiders. He’s sure that once the first snow sets in that she’ll pack up her stuff and move back to the lower 48.

While she’s settling into becoming a townie, she has some run-ins with the local wildlife. One night she awakens to a huge wolf with piercing eyes taking down an elk. She sees the wolf again within the town limits. And, there are a few hikers who go missing after what appears to be a wolf attack. Then one night she’s confronted with an unusual sight: Cooper Graham, naked, on her porch, caught in a bear a trap. I’d say spoilers, but if you saw the cover of the book and if you’ve ever read a romance novel you know who/what Cooper Graham is. He’s the werewolf love interest. He has to come clean about who and what he is while he’s healing from the bear trap on Moe’s rug. But, now there’s this mystery: Is he responsible for the missing hikers? Could he be a killer in wolf form? Also, will he ever stop being surly so that they can get this romance off the ground?

This was book was fun and it was also very funny. I immediately liked Mo and the other townies. I also liked surly and standoffish Cooper. The mystery unraveled a little slowly but it was a satisfying ending. This is the first book of a series set in Grundy, Alaska and I’m thinking about picking up the next one.

2 Women, So Many Books

Our "to read" stacks way exceed our life expectancy

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