Early Graphic Novel Review - Hunchback of Notre Dame (1/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Graphic Novel/Classics
Size: 48 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release Date: July 31, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1595829528
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley through NetGalley.com
Rating: 1/5 stars


I got a copy of this for review through Netgalley(dot)com. I am going to be extremely blunt here and say this is one of the worst graphic novels I have ever read. There is nothing about this novel I can recommend.

This is a retelling of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The retelling is very straight forward and one of the blandest interpretations of the story I have ever read. I am not sure what age group this graphic novel is intended for; but I would definitely not recommend for children or young adult. There is torture, sexual abuse (although not graphic), an implied sex scene, and more torture.

The drawing is...well...really bad. It is done in an impressionistic style. At times you can’t tell what is going on. You can’t even see facial expression of the characters and faces are lumpy and misshapen (and we aren’t talking about the Hunchback’s face here). The characters look completely different from frame to frame...it is very odd. The whole thing look hastily put together and poorly drawn. I really did not enjoy it.

Next let’s talk about characterization...or the lack of. I was incredibly disappointed in Esmeralda, who after being rescued by a guard from the Hunchback’s gropings in an alley, immediately sleeps with the guard and then begs him to say he loves her. It was pathetic, demeaning, and definitely backwards thinking. The priest is your typical, I want to have sex with a beautiful woman but shouldn’t so I will try and blackmail her in secret, kind of guy. Again not someone I want to read about.

All of the characters were cardboard cut-outs, 2D, and did nothing for the poorly rendered drawings. The dialogue was stilted and awkward sounding throughout.

Overall I am really not sure why this got published. The drawing is horrible, the characters are horrible, and the dialogue is awkward and difficult to read. Definitely not recommended. Also only for adults.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- Graphic Novel Challenge
- 150+ Books Reading Challenge

DNF Early Review - Fractured Light by Rachel McClellan (1.5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Size: 312 pages
Publisher: Cedar Fort, Inc.
Release Date: February 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-1599559421
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in a new series?
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 1.5/5 stars

I got an eGalley of this book to review through NetGalley(dot)com. It was describe as a YA fantasy read and I was excited to read it. Unfortunately it really isn't what it was marketed as; this is more of a teen paranormal read. There were a number of things I disliked both about the writing and the story. I read about 40% of the book and then gave up.

Llona Reese is an Aura who can manipulate light. Normally her life calling would be to help people and use her light to make people's lives better. Her mother was killed by the Vyken and after that Llona is determined to play it safe and stay alive. She is determined to stay out of the limelight in school and determined to be insignificant so that she can hide what she is.

There was a lot I disliked about this book. It is marketed as a fantasy but ends up being a pretty typical YA paranormal fare; there is a lot of high school drama in the book and of course hot guys that Llona is drawn to despite her best efforts. That right there is enough for me to kind of not like that story but there were also a number of technical writing errors in the story.

Technical errors can be forgiven somewhat since I read this as an advanced reading copy (ARC). I have to say though, outside of self-published novels, I don't think I have ever read an ARC with so many mistakes. After multiple spelling errors and reading about a lady's high heals (they were supposed to be shoes) I started getting irritated. I mean seriously if you are going to market this book to the masses, the least you can do is make sure spelling and punctuation doesn't have too many errors.

I tried to look beyond that but the dialogue between characters was awkward and didn't sound at all natural. Then there were staging errors...let me explain. Llona's best friend would be in up in the bleachers and Llona would be talking to this boy while she was standing on the other side of the gym. Then all of the sudden there is someone else talking with Llona and the boy; who is the mystery person? where did they come from? Ends up it was Llona's best friend, who magically drifted all the way across the gym to join the conversation without the reader even knowing it. Things like this happen a number of times; its like the author isn't exactly sure where her characters are located in the settings. It was confusing and hard to read.

So, were the characters engaging? Not really, Llona is your typical whiny girl who is different and has powers but is trying not to stand out. In an effort to not stand out she starts using her powers to make people feel better; which will totally not make you stand out. The boys (I can't even remember their names) are super hot and one of them is really nice to Llona and gives her a lot of attention that she is leery of, yet enjoys immensely.

The plot, well I am not sure where it was going. Obviously Llona's life was in danger from some bad people and these bad people were getting closer to discovering Llona. I am not sure if this ends up tying in with a broader story (I hope it does) but it didn't in the first 40% of the book.

The only cool thing about this book was that Llona's power follow the cycles of the moon; so at some points she is super powerful and at others she really drags. Think Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (which I definitely recommend over this story) but a longer time cycle.

Overall I cannot recommend this book. There are so many great YA paranormal books out there. There are so many technically poor aspects to this book outside of the lackluster story. I would like to repeat that I read an advanced reading copy of thsi book, so the final book may have undergone a massive overall and be great. But what I read wasn't great, it was sloppy, confusing, and not all that engaging. Check out Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes or Nightshade by Andrea Cremer or any other of the millions of great YA paranormal series out there.

DNF Review - Chrystalia and the Source of Light by P.M. Glaser (1/5 stars)

Reading level: Middle Grade
Genre: Fantasy
Size: 296 pages
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Release Date: October 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1608322329
Stand Alone or Series: 1st in a series
Source: ARC from Librarything Early Reviewers Program
Rating: 1/5 stars

I got a copy of this book through Librarythings's Early Reviewer program. I was very excited to read it; it sounded like a wonderful middle grade fantasy adventure in a fantastic Alice in Wonderland like underground fantasyland. Well it wasn't. What it was was very difficult to read, confusing, and obnoxious. I stopped reading after 100 pages because it hurt my brain and because it made me sad. It made me sad that some poor kid might pick this book up to read and then never read fantasy again because of this book. I am very sensitive to the fact that kids picking up fantasy like this are very impressionable and think that quality stories should be targeted at that age group. Enough rant...on to the review.

Maggie and Jesse have a mother who is dying and are being forced to move out of their house because of her medical costs. Then one night their Christmas tree grows roots in the living room and opens the way into a magical crystal world full of crazy characters.

I am trying to think of something good about this book. The pictures throughout were very well done and fun. The book itself was a very nice package; nice cover, pages, and font. The idea behind the book is a wonderful one. Reading the synopsis made me excited to partake in this magical adventure.

Unfortunately it was incredibly poorly executed. Initially the language and conversations between the characters was a bit awkward but I was willing to overlook that as the adventure continued hoping I would get to the wonderful fantasy world I had been promised. Well, things just got worse.

When Maggie and Jesse enter the underground they apparently awaken some of the crystals down there. We don't know how this happens. Things aren't very well explained and that whole scenario is very hard to picture (despite the wonderful pictures). I was constantly re-reading to figure out exactly how all this magic was working and still didn't really understand what the author was trying to portray and picture. That is just the worst...a fantasy world that is so poorly described that you can't even picture it.

Still I was willing to wait to understand the world and continued reading hoping to get to the good parts. This is when things go even worse. A plethora of characters enter the book, they aren't well described and are hard to distinguish from each other. Then all these characters start to speak; Glaser has written the characters' words to phonetically represent the accents they speak in. So basically when the characters talk they each use a different set of misspelled words to represent their accents. It was almost impossible to read. I had to read parts of the book outloud just to figure out what the heck a given character was saying and even then sometimes the sentences didn't make much sense.

Can you imagine giving a kid a book with the majority of the words misspelled? It confused the heck out of me and I can't imagine what it would do to a kid learning to read. I thought maybe I was being dense and tired, so I gave the book to my husband and asked him to read a couple pages. His response was "What in the world does that even mean? Is this really a published book?"

Here is an example: "Yoo will be rooled IN, against, undt for. Rooled goot undt bad, right undt wrong, rooled here, rooled zere, up und down, und everyvhere!" That is the guy with the German accent speaking. Here is another quote from the next page "But they eeth th-thoft an' their out-thide eeth m-moofing', an' th-thee other were undereth'd, an' there eeth no r-rool for--" This is the guy with the lisp. I believe there is also a guy with a French accent; all of it is spelled goofy and impossible to read. My eyes are glazing over just typing the quotes in for you, yes they are really spelled like that...I double and triple checked them.

Overall, I pretty much detested this book...it is one of the worst books I have read this year. It made my eyes cross, my head hurt, and made me sad for any kid who has this book as their first foray into fantasy. Please go read Harry Potter, or Fablehaven, or Percy and the Olympians or The Books of Beginning....do not even try to read this book. I have no idea where all the positive review are coming from. Sure it is a cool concept but it impossible to read and very poorly written. The concept counts for something but not for everything.

Review - The Secret of the Water Knight by Rusalka Reh (1/5 stars)

Reading level: Middle Grade

Genre: Fantasy
Size:  100 pages
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
Release Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN-13:   978-1611090062
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Amazon Vine Program
Rating: 1/5 stars

I got an Advanced Reading Copy through the Amazon Vine program.  It sounded like a fun story, but was a complete dud.  I don't know if the story just didn't translate well or what, but as short as it was it was a struggle to get through.  I've given one star to maybe three books in the hundreds and hundreds that I have reviewed...and this is a one star book.

Kat is afraid of swimming.  Her parents take her to an island on vacation with the intent of teaching her how to swim. While there Kat finds a magic whistle and finds that she is destined to defeat a horrible curse put on the island by a villainous toad.  Will Kat be able to set aside her fear of swimming long enough the save the island?

I am trying to think about positive things about this book and am having trouble.   I guess it is kind of creative and had potential to be a fantastic story if you consider the general idea.  The idea of a girl running into a dolphin who is a Water Knight is interesting, yet we didn't get to see much of the Water Knight in the story.

First let's talk about the awkwardness of the writing.  The writing does not flow, it is fractured and simple.  Kat sounds more like a simpleton than a little girl throughout the book.  I don't know if the book was poorly translated or what, but it was horrible.  At 100 pages long this should have been a cinch to read, but it was a struggle.  It was one of those books where I just kept shaking my head and thinking "did anyone actually read this before it was printed?"  Seriously I want the hour that it took to read this book back.

Kat's hilarious father is just annoying.  Kat spends time dwelling on the Americaness of things on the island (bright water toys, loud tourists) but she is American and is on a Spanish speaking island; it comes off as confusing and odd.  Kat makes a number of decisions that don't seem to fit with her characters and don't make a lot of sense.  All of the characters are mere sketches, none of them are that interesting.  There is a lot of Spanish in the book and it is translated, I guess it might help your kid learn a few Spanish phrases but mostly it was just obnoxious.

Now let's talk about the numerous inconsistencies in the story.  At one point Kat talks about how mosquitoes sting people...umm okay but being from Minnesota this was a glaring error...they bite, they don't sting.  Then there is the man Kat meets with webbing up to the tips of his fingers...guess what he wears gloves all the time.  The author explicitly described the webbing and how it goes to the very tips of his fingers and then spends time talking about his gloves.  Ummm...okay..how do you get gloves on webbed hands?  This is talked about multiple times in the story and it annoyed the stuffing out of me...maybe the webbing is really loose and he tucks it down between his fingers?  I am not sure why this bothered me so much...it just didn't make sense.

Lastly lets discuss the final epic (or actually pretty non-epic) battle between Kat and the evil toad.  First of all Kat suddenly becomes one with the water and can swim after all the time of not being able to swim even a stroke.  Next she swims into an underground cave and (not only stays down there forever) but can talk down there and walk around.  So suddenly not only can Kat swim like a fish, she can breath underwater, stay under water indefinitely, and walk around.  Why is this?  As a reader we will never know.  I read it through multiple times and couldn't figure out if it was the magic whistle, the Water Knight, or maybe just that the stars were aligned correctly.  By the end of the story I had no idea what had happened...honestly though I didn't really care, I just heaved a breath of relief that I was done reading the most horrible book I have read this year so far (I've read 154 book this year so far so that is saying something).

Overall just a horrible book.  Poorly written, poorly edited, awkward language, an inconsistent plot, and dull characters.  The writing level might challenge a five year old but any older children will be bored.  The only interesting parts, where Kat interacts with the dolphin, are very brief.  Please don't let your child read this book, they may never want to read again.  Especially a middle grade reader.  Get them something wonderful and magical like Harry Potter, Percy and the Olympians, Warriors, or Fablehaven.  I can't believe this book is targeted at that age group and I can't believe that it is in print.  I almost never give one star reviews for books since for me that requires horrible editing, glaring errors, and an atrocious plot and characters...this book is the exception though, it had it all and not in a good way.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges.

- 100+ Reading Challenge

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore (1/5 stars)

I found out (after reading this book) that it was the sequel to "Bloodsucking Fiends" and also had characters in it from "A Dirty Job". I didn't know that when I read it. I have read two other Moore books "The Stupidest Angle" and "Fool". I thought "The Stupidest Angel" was so so; I absolutely adored "Fool". I thought "You Suck"...well, I thought it really sucked.

I thought the first page of the book was funny and it went downhill from there. Tommy gets turned into a vampire by his girlfriend and his girlfriend is supposed to be getting out of town. But, Tommy bronzed the old vamp who turned his girlfriend into a vampire so that old vamp is still around. Then Tommy's friends go to Las Vegas and blow all their money on a Blue Hooker. That basically was the story. Does it make sense to you? Well it didn't really make sense to me and there didn't seem to be a point to it.

I didn't really like any of the characters that much; the only character worth speaking of is Abby the goth girl. She was funny at parts, but even her long slang filled journal entries got boring to slog through after a while. I never figured out what the point of the story was; there wasn't anything of interest (or even urgency) propelling the story forward. All the characters ran around in a confused daze with no purpose what-so-ever. Now remember I have read Moore a couple times before so I know that that is part of his charm, but this book was ridiculous.

I didn't find any of the humor to be particularly clever (unless you are a twelve year old boy - this is a general statement I am not trying to stereotype 12 yr old boys...). I had a really, really hard time finishing this book. I put it down and said "forget this waste of time" more then once. Then in the last fourth of the book things picked up, so I decided to finish it. Then there was the ending, which was just plain stupid and screamed that Moore didn't want to write this book and had no idea how to finish it.

This book really knocked Moore down a few points in my opinion. I probably should have picked a better book of his to read. I am still interested in reading "Lamb" because I love a good parody of religion as much as the next person. But I won't be reading any more Moore books for a bit until the disappointment of this book clears through my system. If I hadn't read "Fool" before this book there would be no more Moore in my future (sorry for the horrible more Moore phrases....).

Swoon by Nina Malkin (1/5 stars)

I got this book through Amazon Vine. I was excited to get it because I actually had this book on my wish list. Boy was I disappointed.

The concept is interesting. Dice has some psychic ability. When her friend Pen falls from a tree and dies for a moment; Pen's body is entered by the spirit of Sinclair (Sin). Sin was wrongly murdered many, many years ago and wants revenge against the town of Swoon (where they all live). Sins presence makes Pen act out and Dice tries to exorcise Sin; instead she ends up giving him a physical body that allows him to wreck havoc in person instead of through Pen.

Okay if the premise sounds interesting, it is. Unfortunately the execution of the story left a lot to be desired. All of the characters come across as stereotypical and flat. The story itself is inconsistent and disjointed; chapters end in the middle of a scene only to have new chapters start in a completely different setting. It leaves wondering if some pages fell out of the book or something. An example of this: a big deal is made about how Dice need to hitchhike to get someone to drive her back to New York city, she meets a psychic there. In the middle of their meeting the chapter ends. In the next chapter Dice is suddenly back in Swoon getting ready for a Halloween party. How did she get back to Swoon? A big deal was made about how she got out of Swoon, so how did she suddenly get back? What happened to her meeting with the psychic? I mean really would it hurt to have some consistency?

I also had a bit of a problem with this being dubbed a young adult novel. Throughout the novel drug use runs rampant. We are talking use of every kind of drug you can think of; it is casual use with no real purpose to the story. The drug use is such that every single character in the book casually uses drugs; it really gives the message that all young teens casually use drugs and I found it kind of disturbing. Which leads to the problem of the casual sexuality in this book too. I am all for liberal sex (big fan of the Anita Blake books here); but when you have young adults having loads of casual sex among themselves, trying to seduce teachers, and descriptions of casual sex between senior citizens...it was all just a bit weird for me. I would have been uncomfortable reading this as a "young adult".

Now let's briefly discuss Sin and Dice's "relationship". There is no relationship. Dice loves Sin (for no reason) and Sin constantly abuses her emotionally and occasionally physically. Still somehow Dice and Sin are supposed to be the ultimate star-crossed couple...ummm no, they are just dysfunctional. I found many of the characters' relationships with each other to be equally disturbing and unhealthy. I also never really got the point of the story.

Some of the above could be excused if the story was fast-paced, engaging, or fun to read. Unfortunately it is none of those. I had a lot of trouble getting through the book; believe it or not all of the sex and drug use was so prevalent it got very boring to read about. The whole time I read this book I was just counting down the pages, hoping that soon I would get to the end of it.

I usually try to find something positive to say about a book; but seriously I did not like this book and I have nothing positive to say about it.

Lucky Billy by John Vernon (1/5 stars)

This is another book I got from the Amazon Vine program. It sounded interesting; though not of the type of book I usually read. I was sorely disappointed in it.

It is very rare that I stop in the middle of a book. Unfortunately I had to stop reading this one. I knew I was in for trouble when I had problems getting through the first intro page. Then as I read about Billy's escape in the following chapter I decided that maybe the book would get better as we started to hear about Billy's history. Well it didn't.

Every page of this book was a struggle for me. I had trouble keeping all the names and places straight. When the characters were speaking to each other I had trouble figuring out who was saying what. I was even having trouble keeping events straight. I tried to look at the writing style as being stylized to fit in with the era it was representing, but in the end I think the writing was just bad. I kept pushing on in hopes that at some point this book would gel for me and make more sense. I finally admitted defeat around page 70 and, rubbing my eyes and head in frustration, gave up.

I have too many good books to read to waste my time on this. On the back it lists other books that this author has written and I wonder if those books are better. I am still trying to figure out how this book is getting published. I really intensely disliked it. The chapter with John Tunstall's letters was kind of interesting, it gave you a glimpse into the era. I thought maybe at that point I could get through this book, then it was back to difficult to read, cobbled together events.

I was sorely disappointed. Maybe if I was really into this genre I would have more interest and sympathy for this book. For now I am left trying to figure out what to do with it. I think it might get recycled.

Possession (The Turning, Book 2) Jennifer Armintrout (1/5 stars)

Okay I didn't really like the first book in this series much but I already had the second book downloaded on audio so I figured I might as well listen to it. I guess I can't say it was a waste of time because I was driving while I listened to it, but I can say I won't be reading any more of these books.

In this book Cyrus is brought back to life as a human and Nathan runs around mad possessed by something. There you have the majority of the book. Many pages are spent on Cyrus angsting about how he feels guilty for all he did as an "evil" vampire and him wondering how to atone for it. Nathan runs around killing people; as he is insane. This book is primarily about Max and Cyrus. Max comes to help Carrie help Nathan. There is a lot of time spent on Max's and werewolf girl's relationship. There is a lot of time spent on Carrie and her desperate need for Nathan to be alright and Carrie and her desperate need for Cyrus to be alright.

You here about Max not wanting to fall in love, about Carrie not being in love with Cyrus but loving him, and about Carrie loving Nathan but Nathan loving his dead wife. There really is not much plot development. I think you could have condensed this book down to maybe a page and called it done.

There isn't very much gore or violence in this book. There are a couple brief fight scenes. The amount of action is minuscule. Carrie proves herself to be as much of a victim as ever, despite her own thoughts that she has changed so much since killing Cyrus. She is still whinny and incompetent (both emotionally and physically). Even the new female lead character the werewolf woman; despite being less whiny and more competent, ends up needing a man to help here out and constantly shows her "vulnerable" side. This whole book was too much of the swooning woman and big man coming to help me type. I didn't like it at all; I kind of wished that Cyrus would go crazy and wipe out the whole lot of them. Of course, he didn't, he was just as whinny and indecisive as everyone else in the book.

I would recommend skipping this series altogether and reading something worth your time.
Here is a link to the book on amazon: