The E.M.M.A. Effect

The E.M.M.A. Effect
by Lia Riley

Avoid! 

Rating: 1/5

Snowglobe

Snowglobe

by Soyoung Park

translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort

Eww. AVOID!

Chosen

 

Chosen

by Shade Owens

 

TL;DL: Avoid this book. It's a blender version of Hunger Games, The Handmaid's Tale, 1984, Brave New World, etc... and it's only the stuff that floated to the top after the blender was off for a day or two. 

Rating: 1/5

The Comeback

The Comeback

by Lily Chu

 

Ariadne "Ari" Hui is a Chinese Canadian working her way up the ladder at a prestigious law firm that her dad helped her get into. She's devoted to her job and works constantly to get ahead. But two things suddenly get in her way. First, her clientele are reassigned to the new caucasian associate who was literally just hired. Second, her roommate's cousin, Jihoon, comes to stay at their apartment after a "breakup" and Ari starts to fall in love. 

Hopes of becoming more than friends get dashed when she finds out that he's an "idol". He's one member of a worldwide phenomenon K-pop group and people have figured out where he's been hiding. 

Now Ari has to choose what is more important to her: her life in law and her reputation or her possible future with one of the members of Starlune and all of the baggage and fame that comes with it.

Final thoughts: Too much tell with not enough show. No real chemistry between Ari and Jihoon. And it feels like she's being very honest with her reservations, while he never listens but blames her for running.

Rating: 2/5

Bookish and the Beast

Bookish and the Beast

by Ashley Poston

 

TL;DL Retelling of Beauty and the Beast filled with references to books and movies of the past. Tropes are poorly used and characters aren't realistic.

When Life Gives You Vampires

When Life Gives You Vampires

by Gloria Duke

After a night that she doesn't remember, Lily awakens to discover that she's now a vampire. Apparently made undead by accident, Lily and her maker, Tristan, must navigate vampire politics and try to avoid being killed permanently.

Between her BFF and font of all fiction vampire lore giving her advice, a work colleague who suddenly seems to really hate her, a backstory that Tristan refuses to share, and a master vampire threatening her, Lily has quite a bit to learn and she must learn it in just a few days.

Final thoughts: Messy. No chemistry and the constant use of the phrase "obvi" is extremely frustrating by the end. This could have been cute but it just doesn't gel.

Rating: 2/5

Big Bad

Big Bad

by Lily Anderson

In an alternate dimension Sunnydale, the skies over the town are permanently dark and the vampires and demons rule the newly named "Demondale". As the Trio work together to try and help Warren ascend, a teen girl appears and Warren ends up in pieces around the room.

The teen girl is Buffy and she's determined to destroy all demons in all dimensions.

It's up to Jonathan, Andrew, Anya, Angelus, Spike, and Drusilla to try and save their dimension and all the demons and vamps who live there. 

With all of the various characters from the Buffyverse making appearances, they must work together to stop the slayer.

Final thoughts: This is mediocre fanfic that's jammed up reference after reference, which takes away from actual storytelling. Pretty much every demon and vamp who Buffy fought over seven seasons are at least mentioned in this novel. The ending doesn't feel like it fits in with the character who we've grown to love over seven seasons. Those who don't know the Buffyverse and/or aren't fans won't get into this and those who are fans may just be distracted by the references without being able to enjoy the plot.

Rating: 2/5

Untouchables

Untouchables

by Ivy Smoak

 

How to Snag a Shifter

How to Snag a Shifter

by Karin De Havin 

Rating: 1/5 (AVOID THIS BOOK)

The Last She

The Last She

by H.J. Nelson

(I can't write about this... I had to rant instead)

Hush

Hush

by Dylan Farrow

Shae lives in a time of banned books. They are banned, not because of the words but because of the ink on the page. The Ink is the cause of a terrible plague known as "The Blot" so books and writing have been banned everywhere in the country of Montane.

After Shae's little brother catches and dies from The Blot, Shae and her mother are virtually exiled and ignored by most of the town. They are pariahs in their own town.

When Shae starts seeing things around her and accidentally making things happen, she fears that she has contracted The Blot and seeks help from the Bards who control the magic of the land. 

Before she can get their help, her mother is murdered and the town covers it up by saying it was a landslide. This is the final straw for Shae and she runs away to find the Bards to save her from her curse and to find her mother's murderer.

What she finds outside of her tiny town is much more than she ever could have believed.

Final thoughts: Another good premise that is poorly done. The world and characters just aren't built well. The plot is pretty predicable and the hidden villain is really pretty obvious. I feel like this was only published because of the author and not because it's actually good. Not worth the read and not worth going to the next book in the series.

Rating: 2/5

Kind of a Big Deal

Kind of a Big Deal

by Shannon Hale

 

Josie Pie peaked in high school but she just can't admit that. In high school, she was kind of a big deal, being popular, dating the popular guy, and getting all the juiciest roles in the drama productions. People recognized her and called her name in the hallways and around her tiny town. She was going to be BIG!

 

When her drama mentor convinces her to try out for a Broadway production in New York, she eagerly drops out of high school and heads to NY to make it big.

 

And she flops. 

 

Big time.

 

She barely gets by with a cruddy apartment, acting workshops, and a credit card that her mom got her, which she maxes out fast.

 

Josie Pie desperately takes a job to be a nanny and moves out to Montana with the single mom and daughter to try and get her life together and find a way to be the big deal she was always meant to be.

 

After visiting a strangely vibing bookstore, Josie sits down at the park to read and take her mind off her failures when she's suddenly IN the book with bandits, treetop hideouts, corsets, and more.

 

Once out, Josie wants back in. In the book, she was kind of a big deal again. That feeling is too good and Josie needs to feel it as much as possible.

 

So while her real world, friendships, and love life crumble around her, Josie dives into book after book, hoping to be the big deal she was always supposed to be.

 

Final thoughts: Um.No. I pushed my way through this book, mostly because I spent real money on it. Reading the book jacket, I thought this would be a Jasper Fforde Thursday Next type of book and it just turned out to be bad. Shannon Hale is kind of a big deal in YA lit so I don't really know what happened here, but everything was stilted and confused. The ending was completely strange and didn't fit with the reality of the book beyond that. I have no idea what happened here, but it wasn't good.

 

Rating: 2/5

Pixieland Diaries

Pixieland Diaries

by Christina Bauer

Calla is a faeling. This means that she has human parents who abandoned her because she was born with magic. She was born with magic because her parents lived just a little too close to the realm of Pixieland.

So, being "just" a faeling means that Calla has been fostered by the fae, raised by the fae, taught by the fae, but she doesn't have the evil intentions her parents hold dear and all she really wants to do is play pranks on others.

Well... that and stare at Darius "Dare" the Winter Court's heir apparent.

Unfortunately, being 16 and looking 9 mean that he doesn't ever stare back at Calla.

And it also means that people don't believe that she's anything more than a pest.

She'll show them...

Final thoughts: Nope. Not for me. Calla is an unlikable character who behaves like she's on a triple espresso dosed with speed and a ton of sugar. It seems like the writer may have been too since there are sooo many errors in this thing. Even for an ARC, this is riddled with things like the names changing between sentences, spelling mix-ups (i.e. not to drag instead of not to brag) and, in the middle of a sentence there was an apostrophe-s just sitting there. No reason at all. Just  's.  WHY???? The plot is random with things popping out of nowhere. The characters are bare. Why is she writing in her diary the entire time? Stuck in a void and unable to do anything at all? Write in her diary. HOW? About to go into battle! Stop everything so she can write in her diary!!!

And, the thing I hate most SPOILER ALERT!!!! When she finds out she's not a tiny pixie, but a full elf with the bod to match (the glamour she didn't even know she had being stripped away), suddenly Dare is more than a little interested. Tiny, flat pixie... ignore. Boobs and curves? Go for it!!!  Same person but changed appearance and suddenly he takes an interest. Ummm. No.

Rating: 2/5 (and that's pushing it)

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Elsker

Elsker

S.T. Bende

When Kristia decides to take a leap of change and take a year of university courses in Cardiff, Wales, she never thought she'd end up on a course to save all life everywhere.

It helps that there's a literal Norse God there to help her out.

Final thoughts: Ugh! This is almost a literal plot point by plot point retelling of Twilight with Norse gods instead of vampires. Why?? It's dull, repetitive, plodding, and the "insta-love" has no chemistry whatsoever. 

Rating: 2/5

A Conspiracy of Stars

A Conspiracy of Stars

by Olivia A. Cole

All of her life, Octavia has lived on her planet and loved where she lived. Her parents, however, were born on a different planet and came to Faloiv years before. They and others set up a tentative peace with the natives who live on Faloiv. Until now, that peace has seemingly been beneficial to the humans.

Unfortunately, between the fact that their ship was damaged, possibly beyond repair, and the fact that some people don't like not being the dominant species, tensions have been getting higher.

Octavia has been immune to most of this until the day she travels with her father to another area of Faloiv and her world changes completely.

Now Octavia knows that some humans are making dangerous decisions and those decisions could lead to everyone's destruction.

Final thoughts: I definitely did not like this book. I read it for a class, so I couldn't give it up, but I probably wouldn't have selected it on my own. The one redeeming part of this book is that it is a sci-fi novel in which the main characters are all of color, rather than the whitewashed future often portrayed by the genre. Otherwise, the whole book is heavy-handed in its portrayal of the whitecoats (white hats), colonialism, and even vegetarianism. 

Rating: 1/5

Lucky Caller

Lucky Caller

by Emma Mills

It's Nina's senior year and everything is about to change. Not only is she getting ready for college, but her mom is getting remarried and moving the family out of the apartment they have called home for so long.

Since it's a time of change, Nina decides to take a chance on the radio broadcasting class offered at her school. What she doesn't expect is her ex-friend and current neighbor sharing the class with her, being in her radio group, and still giving her those feelings she'd had years before. 

She also didn't expect to suddenly have to come up with a celebrity guest for their radio show in time for the huge fundraiser that she and her radio crew accidentally fell into creating.

Final thoughts: This is cotton candy, but it's not really tasty. The characters are all pretty one-dimensional and the story is pretty predictable. There's a massive deus ex machina ending, which doesn't really fit the rest of the book; it feels like the author got herself in a bind and tried to have the cavalry come in at the last minute to rescue her protagonist. It was messy and not planned well. I didn't even remember Nina's name because it was mentioned just a couple of times, as if the characters themselves never said the names of the people around them. I don't understand the point of the sisters except to serve as contrasts to Nina and maybe give her some context, but it just felt forced. The romance was not very well done and there was just so much that could have been improved upon. Not a fan.

Rating: 2/5

ARC courtesy of NetGalley

The Babysitters Coven

The Babysitters Coven

by Kate Williams

Esme and her friend, Janis, are the last members of their local babysitters club. They work each weekend, taking care of the local children and making a little money on the side. It's better than getting a "real" job. 

But, except for her best friend and her babysitting, Esme just doesn't have much else. Her mom was committed to an asylum when Esme was young and Esme doesn't get along well with others. She's dealing with her life, though, such as it is.

Then Cassandra and Dion come into her life. 

Cassandra is nothing like Esme, but she seems to be determined to join the babysitters club for some strange reason.

It turns out Cassandra has her own home life issues and Esme may be the key to solving the mysteries that have surrounded Cassandra and her brother since their parents died.

When strange things start happening around Esme, she and Cassandra must work together to understand what's going on.

Final thoughts: Messy book. This is a bad combination of The Baby-Sitters Club and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's awkward and poorly written with very little to recommend. There is no build-up of anything, including tension. Things just happen without warning and then go away just as fast. Not good and not worth reading the next book.

Rating: 1/5

ARC courtesy of NetGalley

Bound to You

Bound to You

by Alyssa Brandon

Megan has always been a werewolf and she's dreamed for years about finding her mate. 

James has been a warrior werewolf all of his life and he has dreaded finding his mate.

When the two find each other, it's destiny, but it's nothing like either thought it would be.

Final thoughts: Short book talk because it's not really worth talking about. The characters were all boring and the events did not flow naturally; instead they came up as needed to further the very bland plot. I didn't care about anyone and definitely don't care to read the next books in the series.

Rating: 1/5

Zenn Diagram

Zenn Diagram

by Wendy Brant

Eva Walker has gone through life not touching people. Literally and figuratively. When Eva touches people in the literal sense, she can see "fractals" or geometric images and colors that make up their lives. This means Eva refuses to touch people figuratively so she doesn't have to take the chance of touching them literally.

Then she meets Zenn.

His jacket tells one story but his touch tells something else and that something else is what attracts Eva to him. 

They start off slowly but things speed up when they find out a secret neither even dreamed possible. Will that secret keep them apart or bring them together?

Final thoughts: There is literally no plot here. Nothing. It's a few months in the lives of a couple of teens. The whole supernatural fractals issue isn't really even effective here. There's no reason for it to exist except as an excuse for Eva (Eh-vah, not Ee-vah) to be a loner. People can be introverted and alone without some weird touch sensitivity to cause it. The story is slow and doesn't pick up at all until over halfway through. The characters don't really have any characteristics to make them matter. It's a slow plod with no point and the epilogue is just strange and completely out of place. Bland, dull, and pointless.

Rating: 2/5

Max

Max

by Sarah Cohen-Scali

Ok. No book talk on this one. According to my Kindle, I made it to 36% (finished chapter 13). I'm not even sure why I pushed that far. I just can't seem to care about this. Max is unsympathetic and just not relatable to me. Maybe some people love this, but I'm not one of them.