Review: The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

Publisher: Scholastic
Published: September 9, 2014
Pages: 299
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 2 Stars

Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. 

Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail. 

All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him. 

So he tries his best to do his worst - and fails at failing. 

Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future. 

The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .

In short: Unfortunately, The Iron Trial just smacked of unoriginality to me.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's certainly true, and it may have been the thought process behind The Iron Trial, the first in a Middle Grade series by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare with a storyline that is remarkably similar to that of Harry Potter. We've seen how successful the story of the young boy going to magic school - marked at birth for greatness by an evil dark overlord who wants to be immortal - has been with Harry Potter, so why not just repeat this exact same storyline and make a few changes along the way?

I probably don't need to tell you that I'm pretty crazy about Harry Potter and its premise and concept. It's everything to me. But do I need to see it repeated almost exactly in another book? No, there's no point to that. The Iron Trial just smacked of unoriginality to me. It was hard not to constantly be making comparisons to Harry Potter while reading it. And what's more, not only was it an HP doppelgänger, but it was not a particularly great one. When compared to Harry Potter - which as I mentioned, is impossible NOT to do - The Iron Trial is undoubtedly the weaker of the two.

Would I have liked The Iron Trial if I had read it in a world where Harry Potter didn't exist? Yes, absolutely, the premise and concepts in that case would have seemed wholly original. And I find I can always appreciate the work that Holly Black and Cassandra Clare put into the engaging personalities of their characters. I still don't think I would have LOVED it though because I still found The Iron Trial to be missing that extra special something in the end. Overall, I'm sorry to say I was pretty disappointed by the unoriginality of The Iron Trial and I will not be continuing with this series.

Other Reviews:
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Review: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Publisher: Tor
Published: 1985
Pages: 324
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 2 Stars

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

In short: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is WAY overrated.

What does it mean that I - a self-proclaimed sci fi fan - ended up disliking the classic of science fiction, Ender's Game? Can I call myself a sci fi fan anymore? Did I miss the mark on this one? I don't know, maybe I just didn't get it; I didn't get why Ender's Game is considered to be a classic and why it has such a cult following. Granted, it IS pretty cool that Orson Scott Card came up with all these technological advances in 1985 and that some of them ended up becoming true. And certainly, Ender's Game has a very neat and compelling premise, one that I was very excited for. But I couldn't help but feel that this book is WAY overrated.

For one, Ender's Game is poorly written and the pacing is very slow. Events at Battle School repeat ad nauseum and for a premise that promised to be riveting and interesting, it sure got tedious fast. In the last few pages we finally see the climax, but the ending struck me as very anti-climactic in the way in which Orson Scott Card chooses to tell it. Furthermore, the characterization was very shallow. Yes, the characters are children, but they're geniuses and act like adults and yet they come across as very two-dimensional.

I had expected to love Ender's Game because it is supposedly Sci Fi 101 and I LOVE modern sci fi, but this one missed the mark for me. To be honest, I can't rule out that I may have been predisposed to dislike Ender's Game because I am no fan of Orson Scott Card's values (made all the more disturbing by the fact that Ender's Game is laced with prepubescent homoerotic undertones - ICK!). So it's possible that I am biased in some way... but I also feel quite strongly that I would have disliked Ender's Game, even if I was unaware of Orson Scott Card's feelings on homosexuality, for the reasons stated above. Feeling very disappointed right now!

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Review: This Wicked Game by Michelle Zink

Publisher: Dial
Published: November 14, 2013
Pages: 368
Source: For Review from Penguin Canada
Rating: 2 Stars

Claire Kincaid’s family has been in business for over fifty years.
The voodoo business.
Part of the International Guild of High Priests and Priestesses, a secret society that have practiced voodoo for generations, the Kincaid’s run an underground supply house for authentic voodoo supplies. Claire plays along, filling orders for powders, oils and other bizarre ingredients in the family store, but she has a secret.
She doesn’t believe.
Struggling to reconcile her modern sensibilities with a completely unscientific craft based on suspicion, Claire can’t wait to escape New Orleans – and voodoo – when she goes to college, a desire that creates almost constant conflict in her secret affair with Xander Toussaint, son of the Guild’s powerful founding family.
But when a mysterious customer places an order for a deadly ingredient, Claire begins to realize that there’s more to voodoo – and the families that make up the Guild – than meets the eye.
Including her own.
As she bands together with the other firstborns of the Guild, she comes face to face with a deadly enemy – and the disbelief that may very well kill her.

In short: This Wicked Game by Michelle Zink had the potential to be original and special, but instead was an insipid, whitewashed version of what it could have been.

One mention of voodoo was all it took to have me chomping at the bit for This Wicked Game. The history and culture of voodoo is SO intriguing to me and I was curious to read a YA story revolving around it. To say I was disappointed with This Wicked Game is a bit of an understatement. As far as I can tell, the subject of voodoo is wide open in YA and thus so much can be done with it to create an original and provocative story. This potential was squandered in This Wicked Game.

The protagonist, Claire, somehow managed to be both a Mary Sue and TSTL. She decides to play teen detective without approaching her parents or any of the other higher-ups in the Guild and miraculously and inexplicably makes it through dangerous circumstances she never thinks through. The other characters are similarly two-dimensional and bland. There is nothing in This Wicked Game for romance-lovers either: Claire's relationship with Xander develops before the start of the story and is completely lacking in tension or passion.

But even the flat characters and romance were not as hard to take as the lifeless plot and setting. I was excited to read a book set in New Orleans, but very little effort was put into bringing such a unique and rich cultural centre to life. It could have been any other city. And I'm frankly at a loss as to how the traditional African voodoo culture could have possibly been translated to rich, white families in control of the "voodoo business." Way to take away all the culture and essence out of voodoo! I wanted to see traditional raw and gritty voodoo, not this whitewashed, insipid counterpart.

Though I found fault with much of This Wicked Game, it is to Michelle Zink's credit that she at least wrote a fast-paced plot with easy language that made the reading experience fly by. Without that, the dull story surely would have bored me to tears long before the ending. But even then the plot was far beyond saving. By far the biggest issue I have with This Wicked Game was that it had the potential to be fresh and special, but instead was a dummed-down, whitewashed version of what it could have been. Very disappointed.

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Review: Icons by Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Little, Brown Book for Young Readers
Published: May 7, 2013
Pages: 428
Source: For Review from Hachette Book Group Canada
Rating: 2 Stars

Your heart beats only with their permission.
Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.
Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.
She's different. She survived. Why?
When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.
Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths.

In short: Unfortunately, Icons by Margaret Stohl failed to impress me with its standard and slow paced plot, its botched scientific explanation, and its flat characters.

I struggled with Icons, which was frustrating because I could see the potential in the concept. Aliens (or "Lords") invade Earth and teens with special powers (the "Icon children") help protect humanity. It was a premise that I should have found interesting and gripping, but instead I found that I just couldn't get into the story. I can't decide if it was just me and the mood I was in when I read Icons or if my issues with it are legitimate concerns. I kind of think it's a bit of both.

I made the false assumption that we were going to see aliens in this alien invasion novel. But we never see them and we are given such limited information about the Lords that the alien invasion aspect of Icons might as well not have been included at all. As such, without the inclusion of any sci fi interest, Icons was a pretty standard dystopian. Not a bad one certainly, but I've read so many of them at this point that Icons fails to leave an impression in the face of much better dystopian fiction, unfortunately.

Like I said, the Icons' concept has a lot of potential on the surface. There are four Icon children and each of them is the embodiment of one emotion - Sorrow, Rage, Love, and Fear - and they are thought to be the key to destroying the Icons that control humanity, as having these heightened emotions somehow gives them special powers. Now, I like a unique concept as much as anyone, but my problem with this one is that I needed a valid explanation for how it works and I never got one. Margaret Stohl only attempts a vague and nonsensical scientific explanation that did the concept no favours. I would have preferred she had called it what it was - just plain magic - instead of attempting a half-hearted and botched scientific explanation.

With the plot of Icons falling to pieces, one would hope that the characterization would make up for it, but unfortunately, I had just as big a problem with that as I did with the plot and concept. I'm not sure if it was because the Icon children were each the embodiment of one emotion only, but this led to some very flat and static characters. Dol, Icons' protagonist, is likeable enough, but her character was pretty unmemorable and bland, which thus made it hard to relate to her. There is also a love triangle here and it is both unnecessary and lacking in chemistry on both sides.

Overall, Icons failed to impress me with its standard and slow paced plot that couldn't keep my interest, its botched scientific explanation for the concept behind the novel, the flat and static characters, and its unnecessary love triangle. I am quite sad about this because I do quite like Margaret Stohl as a person and author and I love her humour. I still maintain the she has great ideas and is a talented writer as I did enjoy the idea and writing for Icons. But I just couldn't get into it. I do think that some of my issues with Icons were quite personal though, so I feel like lots of people will - and have - like it considerably more than I did.

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Review: Black City by Elizabeth Richards

Publisher: Penguin
Published: November 13, 2012
Pages: 384
Source: From Penguin Canada
Rating: 2 Stars

In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-olds Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong.
When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.

In short: Black City by Elizabeth Richards may cause a serious eyeroll sprain.

This is one of those situation where the book just wasn't for me and thus my criticisms will be very subjective and specific to my personal tastes and not necessarily reflective of the general opinion. So let's start with the positive: Black City has an interesting premise that, while not completely original, at least presented something intriguing to draw you into the story right away. I won't deny that Black City definitely had that addictive, easy quality to it that kept me reading right to the end. Also, that cover? Gorge.

And now for the not so positive. Black City was terribly cliched. Eyeroll inducingly cliched. In fact, I was kind of sort of impressed by how many of the overused teen book stereotypes that Elizabeth Richards was able to fit into one book. Let's see, we have not only one, but TWO instances of insta-love... within the SAME love triangle!! Ugh - I can't even. And it's not even that I've never enjoyed a love triangle before - because I have (as rare as it is) - but this one was so weak and both relationships were so underdeveloped and fast. And they were utterly lacking in any good romance squees and swoons. I had no interest in either.

And I can't say I particularly cared for any of the characters. Natalie especially - Ugh. At one point she actually uses the dreaded line - and I'm paraphrasing here - "if Day can't support my relationship with Ash then we can't be friends" and then she proceeds to dump her only friend for a boy she met and fell in love with in under a week. Natalie and Ash don't even have a good relationship - they were hot and cold with each other pretty much the entire book! I just have no tolerance for these incredibly juvenile and petty teen relationships. Can we please put an end to them?

I also wasn't impressed with the rather hamfisted allegory present in Black City - it was too literal and blunt. As for the writing, I feel like Elizabeth Richards has room for growth and I hope that she continues to improve. I would probably give her writing another try sometime, but not any sequels to this series. I want to stress that a lot of people have loved Black City and I would recommend it to hardcore paranormal romance lovers. But for those of us who have gotten tired of the same old cliches, Black City will leave you with a serious eyeroll sprain.

Other Reviews:
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Review: Blind Spot by Laura Ellen

Publisher: Thomas Allen and Son
Published: October 23, 2012
Pages: 336
Source: For Review from Thomas Allen and Son
Rating: 2 Stars

There’s none so blind as they that won’t see.

Seventeen-year-old Tricia Farni’s body floated to the surface of Alaska’s Birch River six months after the night she disappeared. The night Roz Hart had a fight with her. The night Roz can’t remember. Roz, who struggles with macular degeneration, is used to assembling fragments to make sense of the world around her. But this time it’s her memory that needs piecing together—to clear her name . . . to find a murderer.

In short: Blind Spot by Laura Ellen was not the riveting murder mystery I had hoped and instead had too much of a focus on high school drama than I am a fan of.

Blind Spot was not the book I had been expecting from the synopsis - it sounded like an intense psychological murder mystery thriller. What I got instead was a whole bunch of high school drama, the mystery taking a back seat for most of the novel. Because I tend not to be a fan of teen drama, Blind Spot was a bit of a disappointment to me. It's a shame because I think the basis of a good murder mystery was there, it was just underdeveloped in favour of some seriously cliched and immature teen feuding.

Roz has macular degeneration, a condition that causes her to have a "blind spot" in her vision. For me, how Roz deals with living with this condition was the best and most interesting aspect of Blind Spot. From what I understand, Laura Ellen herself has experience with living with this eye disease, and it showed - the difficulties that arose for Roz seemed very astute and accurate for what you might expect situations to be like. It made me sympathize with Roz and the bullying she had to endure, and it also made me realize how much I take for granted having - relatively - good eyesight.

Now for what I didn't like: I did not like ANY of the characters in Blind Spot, I'm sorry to say. What an utterly immature, selfish, and pitiful lot! Perhaps some of these characters were meant to be unlikeable, but I highly doubt Laura Ellen meant for all of them to be. Some characters are pathetic, some are clearly exploiters (though Roz is oblivious to this), and one in particular is INFURIATING (and not in a "it's fun to hate them" kind of way). And my sympathy for Roz with her condition extends only so far.

Blind Spot contains a series of nauseatingly repetitive "he-said, she-said" moments that had the characters forming alliances with one another in one moment and then fighting with each other only a few pages later! The romance between Roz and her love interest was especially frustrating. Sure, they were sweet for the little bits they were together, but they went back and forth so many times over the course of Blind Spot that I found myself wondering why I should even care or want to see them get together in the end.

So yes, I was misled by the synopsis and Blind Spot wasn't for me. I would recommend it more to readers who enjoy a healthy dose of teen drama. Just don't go into it looking for a riveting murder mystery as the mystery part takes up only about a third of the novel... and has a bit of a disappointing ending to boot. I also feel that Laura Ellen has a lot of room for growth as a debut author, and I sincerely hope she continues to improve in all her subsequent books.

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Review: The Blessed by Tonya Hurley

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: September 25, 2012
Pages: 416
Source: For Review from Simon & Schuster Canada
Rating: 2 Stars

Brooklyn teens Lucy, Cecelia and Agnes find themselves in the emergency room at Perpetual Help Hospital at the lowest point in their lives. Lucy, the superficial party girl; Cecelia, a drop out rock chick; and Agnes, a hopeless romantic. All rebels running from their lives and themselves, plagued by broken hearts and broken dreams. Enter Sebastian. Mysterious, compelling, seductive. He seems to bring each of them what they long for...
But in the battle for his heart, will they lose their souls?

In short: The Blessed by Tonya Hurley was a bit too strange and abstract for me, but it may be enjoyed by someone looking for an unusual read.

How do I even begin to describe The Blessed? This book is so utterly BIZARRE. I had no idea what I was going to be getting into when I started this book - the synopsis was incredibly vague. The Blessed has three protagonists - Lucy, Cecelia, and Agnes - with three unique and well defined personalities. They aren't exactly relatable - because they're not particularly likeable - but I don't believe Tonya Hurley means them to be in the beginning. These three reprehensible girls have been "chosen" to take up the roles of their namesakes - Saints Lucy, Cecelia and Agnes - by the enigmatic Sebastian, who believes he is a Saint.

The Blessed is just not my kind of read. The writing, the plot, the random interludes of poetic dreams - it was all so weird. Way too strange for my tastes. I mean, I like different and unique, but some scenes in The Blessed were positively hallucinogenic. I'm surprised I didn't end up DNF-ing this one at any point, but admittedly I was strangely compelled to read it through to the end, searching in vain for answers, anything to make sense of this psychedelic trip of a book. My overwhelming reaction upon finishing The Blessed was simply, WTF did I just read?!

So yes, The Blessed was a bit too abstract for me. I will say though that I think it has the potential to be enjoyed and appreciated by a certain very niche audience. I would recommend The Blessed to anyone looking for something different - like, WAY different - or looking to read outside their comfort zones.

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Review: Changeling by Philippa Gregory

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: May 24, 2012

Pages: 266

Source: For Review from Simon & Schuster Canada (Thank you!)

Rating: 2 Stars

Italy, 1453. Seventeen-year-old Luca Vero is brilliant, gorgeous—and accused of heresy. Cast out of his religious order for using the new science to question old superstitious beliefs, Luca is recruited into a secret sect: The Order of Darkness, commissioned by Pope Nicholas V to investigate evil and danger in its many forms, and strange occurrences across Europe, in this year—the end of days.     
Isolde is a seventeen-year-old girl shut up in a nunnery so she can’t inherit any of her father’s estate. As the nuns walk in their sleep and see strange visions, Isolde is accused of witchcraft—and Luca is sent to investigate her, but finds himself plotting her escape.     
Despite their vows, despite themselves, love grows between Luca and Isolde as they travel across Europe with their faithful companions, Freize and Ishraq. The four young people encounter werewolves, alchemists, witches, and death-dancers as they head toward a real-life historical figure who holds the boundaries of Christendom and the secrets of the Order of Darkness.      

In short: Though Philippa Gregory is well known and liked for her adult historical novels, I do not believe her writing and characterization translated well to her YA debut, Changeling.

The synopsis for Changeling is a bit misleading. I was led to believe it would be historical fantasy, what with the mention of werewolves and witches, but instead it is just plain historical fiction. Not that that's a bad thing - after all, historical novels are what author Philippa Gregory excels at. Changeling is set during the Crusades, a period of utter ridiculousness, which allowed for a plot that was ripe with possibilities for entertainment. Seriously, the stuff people used to believe - without any concrete evidence beforehand - is beyond insane and unfounded. Philippa Gregory makes sure to exploit the ridiculousness of the Crusades, with her expert knowledge of history, to its full extent.

Despite this, I can't say I was completely entertained and enthralled with Changeling. The story felt very disjointed as it was split into two completely separate story lines, one revolving around a nunnery and one a werewolf, and neither of them were particularly interesting. The characterization was also bland, save for a few secondary characters, making it hard to care much about what happened to these characters. And the writing, to be honest, left much to be desired, which was surprising because I was expecting a lot from Philippa Gregory. But at best the writing was bare-boned, without any flourish or interest, and at worst, kind of... well, bad. (Note: I really dislike describing an author's writing as bad because I am by no means a good writer myself, obviously, so my apologies for my hypocrisy here).

I have not read any of Gregory's adult historical novels, but I understand from their popularity that they are quite well done and detailed. It's unfortunate then that my first exposure to her work was though Changeling, her YA debut, as I do not believe Gregory's writing and characterization translated well to YA. As such, I will not be continuing with this series. It wouldn't feel fair for me to judge her writing just based off of Changeling though, so I would like to give her adult works a try sometime.

Other Reviews:
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Review: Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: April 24, 2012

Pages: 320

Source: For Review from HarperCollins/Edelweiss (Thank you!)

Rating: 2 Stars

Everything is in ruins. 
A devastating plague has decimated the population. And those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles to pieces around them. 
So what does Araby Worth have to live for? 
Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery make-up . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all. 
But in the depths of the club—in the depths of her own despair—Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club. And Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither boy is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does. 
And Araby may find something not just to live for, but to fight for—no matter what it costs her.

In short: Though I really wanted to like Masque of the Red Death by Bethanny Griffin, I couldn't get past the seriously TSTL protagonist.

Though I have not read The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe - and so cannot speak to the specifics of how well this book was adapted - I think Bethany Griffin manages to replicate the dark and creepy atmosphere present in all of his stories quite well in her own adaptation. Death and horror are present in abundance in Masque of the Red Death, as is inevitable in a story where a horrific plague has decimated the population. There were also some elements of steampunk, which combined with the dystopian-horror genre, created these sort of strangely and darkly beautiful images of ladies in corsets and porcelain masques and steam carriages and hot air balloons.

Unfortunately, and though I really, really wanted to like Masque of the Red Death because it very much seemed like my kind of book, I found much more fault with it than I liked it. The plot was a bit too reminiscent of The Chemical Garden Trilogy (Wither, Fever) by Lauren DeStefano. A dystopian world with a population decimated by illness, a girl with a twin brother and a scientist parent trying to find a cure, ways of avoiding the reality of life for the rich and complete hopelessness for the poor, and an overall dark and dismal atmosphere. I read so many dystopians that admittedly, many of them start to blend together, but I was still looking for more originality in Masque of the Red Death to really make it a great read.

The worst offense of Masque of the Red Death though is protagonist, Araby, who is Too Stupid To Live in the biggest and baddest way. Some of her TSTL moments include - but are not limited to - blindly following and betraying her family for a guy she just met without questioning who he is or what his motivations are, accepting a drink from the seriously evil Prince Prospero without thought and ending up poisoned, and falling for a guy who in one moment is holding her suspended over croc-infested waters, threatening her life, and in the very next second is confessing his love for her. I wanted a heroine to root for, to take control of the situation and to independently think on her own, and though I got a few glimpses of that girl, she was sorely lacking throughout the majority of the novel.

I really dislike writing negative reviews for books where the popular opinion is overwhelmingly positive; it makes me feel like maybe I am missing something, maybe I got this wrong. Still, I stand strong in my dislike of Araby, who pretty much ruined the novel for me. If I had to recommend Masque of the Red Death to anyone, I would say it may be liked by fans of Lauren DeStefano's Chemical Garden Trilogy. And of course, I recommend reading other reviews because even though Masque of the Red Death wasn't the book for me, it clearly was for most reviewers.

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Review: XVI by Julia Karr

Publisher: Penguin

Published: January 6, 2011

Pages: 325

Source: Won from Logan E. Turner (Thank you!)

Rating: 2 Stars

Every girl gets one. 
An XVI tattoo on the wrist--sixteen. 
Some girls can't wait to be sixteen, to be legal. Nina is not one of them. Even though she has no choice in the matter, she knows that so long as her life continues as normal, everything will be okay. 
Then, with one brutal strike, Nina's normal is shattered; and she discovers that nothing that she believed about her life is true. But there's one boy who can help--and he just may hold the key to her past. 
But with the line between attraction and danger as thin as a whisper, one thing is for sure... 
For Nina, turning sixteen promises to be anything but sweet.

In short: XVI by Julia Karr was an unfortunately obvious satire that suffered from awkward writing and a lack of urgency.

XVI by Julia Karr is set in a world where the government is controlled by the Media and girls are encouraged to seek out sex when they turn sixteen. This makes for a rather ham-fisted and obvious satire, unfortunately, and this was my main problem with XVI. It's not that I don't agree with the overall message presented, it's just that I don't need to be hit over the head with it. A more subtle approach would have been much more appreciated.

I did like Nina as the main character, however. She was a strong and moral girl, determined not to be just like every other teenaged drone. She had an admirable ability to stay strong and not break down in the face of terrible events and her love and protectiveness she had for her little sister was sweet. Still, she had a few TSTL moments.

Julia Karr's writing was a miss for me. It was awkward and repetitive. There was also a distinct lack of urgency throughout the novel that made for a bit of a boring reading experience. Despite the seemingly serious events that would routinely take place in XVI, Nina would be back to normal and hanging out with her friends the next day. And I lost count how many times Nina and friends would get together and rehash the situation again and again, barely progressing.

Overall, XVI didn't work for me. Though I appreciated Nina as a strong, female character, I was put out by the obvious satire, the awkward writing, and the lack of urgency. I will not be continuing with this series.

Other Reviews:
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*Read as part of the 2011 Debut Author Challenge
*The Letter X in the A-Z Reading Challenge

Review: Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: March 1, 2011

Pages: 304

Source: Won from Books Are A Girl's Best Friend (Thanks!)

Rating: 2 Stars

Lady Victoria Mansfield, youngest daughter of the earl and countess of Fairmount, is destined for a charmed life. Soon she will be presented during the London season, where she can choose a mate worthy of her status. 

Yet Tory has a shameful secret—a secret so powerful that, if exposed, itcould strip her of her position and disgrace her family forever. Tory’s blood is tainted . . . by magic.

When a shocking accident forces Tory to demonstrate her despised skill, the secret she’s fought so hard to hide is revealed for all to see. She is immediately exiled to Lackland Abbey, a reform school for young men and women in her position. There she will learn to suppress her deplorable talents and maybe, if she’s one of the lucky ones, be able to return to society.

But Tory’s life is about to change forever. All that she’s ever known or considered important will be challenged. What lies ahead is only the beginning of a strange and wonderful journey into a world where destiny and magic come together, where true love and friendship find her, and where courage and strength of character are the only things that determine a young girl’s worth.

In short: Unfortunately, Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney was unable to capture my interest and somehow managed to make even magic lame and boring.

Magic plus time travel. Can't go wrong, right? Unfortunately, much to my surprise and dismay, Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney didn't work for me. It was an amalgamation of things that didn't work but ultimately, I was bored. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters or the plot. Nothing inspired any stirrings of interest; if I was the type to DNF books, I would've done so within the first 50 pages of Dark Mirror.

The magical abilities that Tory and her friends have weren't even interesting, which I didn't think was possible. Talk about some of the lamest magical powers ever. One guy is an expert at moving clouds around; one girl specializes in heating things; one guy is particularly good at finding things. LAME. And they seriously thought they were going to be able to take on Napoleon's army with these powers? Don't get me wrong, it's noble and all that they want to fight for England, but they were clearly delusional.

I disliked the writing as well but I'm not sure I could put into words exactly what didn't work for me. It seemed a bit amateurish, though I know that's not true because M.J. Putney is a fairly experienced author. I guess I thought the writing was too simple and bare. I'm not saying I need writing to be extremely flowery and detailed all the time, but I like to be able to experience more fully the surroundings, the plot elements, and the characters' personalities than Dark Mirror allowed me.

One thing that I was impressed by was the setting: not one, but two historical settings were involved, 1803 and WWII. M.J. Putney demonstrates a great amount of knowledge of the eras, though I would've preferred had she not stated this knowledge so matter of factly in the novel. If she had interwoven the historical information more seamlessly into the plot (something that Rick Yancey, author of The Monstrumologist Series, does very well), then I would've been truly impressed.

Think you might want to give this one a try yourself? Enter my giveaway to win Dark Mirror and Choker (Hmm? What's that? You no longer have any interest in entering my giveaway now that I've trashed the book? Well, for what it's worth, other bloggers seemed to enjoy Dark Mirror more than I did.)

Other Reviews:
Books Are A Girl's Best Friend
Small Review
Tales of Whimsy

Author Links:
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*Read as part of the 2011 Debut Author Challenge