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review roundup
Feb. 4th, 2014 09:37 amVicious, VE Schwab. Unlikeable assholes do stupid and awful things in pursuit of/in response to having superpowers. The blurb said it "turned superhero tropes on their heads", which, yes, you certainly *can* write a book about superpowers in which there are no heroes and we don't care about the outcome, but why would you want to. After about 150 pages, when I still didn't care about anybody, I skipped to the end, skimmed that, and never finished the rest.
Friends With Boys, Faith Erin Hicks. YA graphic about a homeschooled girl attending high school for the first time, and her new friends and family relationship and the ghost haunting her. Sort of a cross between other recent YA graphics Anya's Ghost and Drama but I think I liked it best of the three for some powerful family stuff (there was a page that made me cry).
The Unsung Hero, Suzanne Brockmann. Romance with action plot. I liked the contemporary romances well enough, found the flashbacks to the historical one tedious. Weird to be reading a book written in the late 90s in which our heroes are trying to stop "the largest terrorist attack on American soil" and it's a threat to some hundreds of people in a small town. Also weird ending where after spending the whole book showing us how the pediatrician and the Navy SEAL can understand each other because they both take their careers seriously and try to save people and might have to drop everything and run when the phone rings, the HEA is the pediatrician abandoning her patients and following the SEAL to California? Whatever. I think I'm really only interested in contemporary romances that have humor in them, which this didn't.
Doll Bones, Holly Black. Middle-grade with ghosts. Perfectly fine, some good bits, but I wasn't excited about it.
A Color Of His Own, Leo Lionni. Picture book. Super-heartwarming; I'm not sure if I ship those chameleons as a friendship or a romance, but either way, was more invested in "We will still change color wherever we go, but you and I will always be alike." than in the entire three hundred pages of the pediatrician and the SEAL. (And certainly the superpowered assholes, UGH.)
Friends With Boys, Faith Erin Hicks. YA graphic about a homeschooled girl attending high school for the first time, and her new friends and family relationship and the ghost haunting her. Sort of a cross between other recent YA graphics Anya's Ghost and Drama but I think I liked it best of the three for some powerful family stuff (there was a page that made me cry).
The Unsung Hero, Suzanne Brockmann. Romance with action plot. I liked the contemporary romances well enough, found the flashbacks to the historical one tedious. Weird to be reading a book written in the late 90s in which our heroes are trying to stop "the largest terrorist attack on American soil" and it's a threat to some hundreds of people in a small town. Also weird ending where after spending the whole book showing us how the pediatrician and the Navy SEAL can understand each other because they both take their careers seriously and try to save people and might have to drop everything and run when the phone rings, the HEA is the pediatrician abandoning her patients and following the SEAL to California? Whatever. I think I'm really only interested in contemporary romances that have humor in them, which this didn't.
Doll Bones, Holly Black. Middle-grade with ghosts. Perfectly fine, some good bits, but I wasn't excited about it.
A Color Of His Own, Leo Lionni. Picture book. Super-heartwarming; I'm not sure if I ship those chameleons as a friendship or a romance, but either way, was more invested in "We will still change color wherever we go, but you and I will always be alike." than in the entire three hundred pages of the pediatrician and the SEAL. (And certainly the superpowered assholes, UGH.)
