Personal Rating: 0.75 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.37 Stars Content Rating: Light R JANUARY 1 CURRENT STATUS: No job, no boyfriend, no permanent place to live, no car, and most of my clothes are held together with staples and duct tape. Bank account almost wiped out. Many of my former associates have expressed a desire that I never darken their doorways again for legal and financial reasons. She-Hulk got us got us kicked out of the Avengers Mansion. People keep posting videos online of her New Year's Eve shenanigans: twirling, flaming telephone poles in Times Square, climbing the Empire State Building while dangling Anderson Cooper... Saying there are two sides to Jennifer Walters's personality is an understatement. When she hasn't morphed into a 650-pound, crime-fighting, hard-partying superhero, she's a single lawyer trying to get her act together. Hilarious and action-packed, The She-Hulk Diaries tells her story, as she juggles her intense legal career by day with battling villains and saving the world by night. Maybe bad guys will stop trying to destroy the planet so she can have a real social life and even meet a guy who isn't trying to take over the universe. (goodreads.com) Normally, when I say a book filled me with emotion, I mean it as a compliment to the author. If I’m saying that about a book it means it made me immensely happy or made me cry or elicited the emotion that the book is portraying. When I say that The She-Hulk Diaries filled me with emotion, what I mean is: this book filled me with rage. This is going to be a long review, folks. You know I love Marvel Comics. You know I love superheroes. You might know that one of my favorite superheroes is She-Hulk. No, she isn’t just the female version of Bruce Banner’s alter ego. To give you a quick summary: Bruce Banner had a very shy cousin named Jennifer Walters who was a lawyer. Her father was a local sheriff and he made some enemies who came after Jen and shot her multiple times. She was taken to the hospital in time, but needed a blood transfusion. The only person who was around who was a match was her cousin, Bruce. Now, it’s obviously a terrible idea for a man whose blood is loaded with gamma radiation to give anyone else blood, but they were out of options. So Jen got Bruce’s blood and hulked out. The difference being that she retains her own personality and knowledge while she is She-Hulk. She finds that being She-Hulk gives her more confidence so she stays as her green self most of the time and still goes by the name Jennifer Walters. She has worked for the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and saved the world on multiple occasions. I think She-Hulk is an amazing character because she is strong, she is kind, she is smart, and she is interesting. She is not just the genderbent version of Hulk. With that out of the way let me tell you about this book, which I think is a stain on my favorite superheroine’s name. Not to be dramatic or anything. You know how I often see a pretty cover and fall in love with a book before I even read it? Yeah… usually it turns out okay for me. This time not so much. I was looking for the She-Hulk comics on a website that sells cheap books (thriftbooks.com) and I stumbled across this novel. I got really excited and, since it was only a few dollars, I bought it. I did a quick skim of the summary, but I didn’t think too much about it before I just added it to cart. I mean, it was a book about She-Hulk. I was going to get my hands on it one way or another anyway. I looked at a few reviews online after I ordered it and people were saying they didn’t like it very much. I ignored their comments. I ignored the fact that people said that Jen and She-Hulk weren’t the same persona and more like a Jekyll-Hyde situation. I ignored everyone because it was a book about my favorite hero and I wanted to give it a chance. Then I started reading. I almost quit after the first chapter, but I have a 100 page rule. By the time I got to page 100 I kept reading out of spite. I wanted to see this thing through so I could write an angry review about it. And here we are. Now, I hate writing angry reviews (okay, it’s a little fun) because as an author myself I try to respect other authors. Writing is hard stuff and it sucks when people put your work down. So, if Marta Acosta ever sees this review I want to apologize. Good for you for writing and publishing a book! It’s an impressive feat that I have not been able to accomplish myself. I am really sorry, but I’m about to trash talk your book. I’m going to attempt to put aside my bias of having She-Hulk as my favorite superhero and judge this book as a book. Without further ado: The plot for this book is basically that Jennifer Walters has recently been kicked out of Avengers’ Mansion because of She-Hulk’s rowdy (and frankly alarming) behavior. So she needs a permanent place to live. She also quit (or maybe was fired?) from her job as a superhuman lawyer and needs a new job. Plus, she wants to stop turning into her alter ego so much because She-Hulk gets them into trouble. On top of all that, she seems to think that she really needs a boyfriend too. So the premise is that she is making resolutions to get all of these things and become a better person over the year and keep a diary about it. Apart from the superhero aspect it’s got all the ingredients to make an amazing chick-lit. I’m not overly fond of chick-lit, but from what I know this has the makings of one. Which, maybe it’s supposed to be. Even then the story was pretty bad, as was the writing, and the characters. Let’s talk characters, shall we? Jen is really, really, immensely, impressively annoying. You could actually make her less annoying if you imagined her with an exaggerated “valley-girl” voice because it gave her annoyingness purpose. Just saying. Anyway, she’s annoying and her characterization relied mostly on other people telling her about herself, which she then wrote in her diary, leaving the reader to wonder if she is a reliable narrator. Seriously, everyone she came into contact to was like “wow, such pretty green eyes!” and “wow, such long legs!” and “wow, what fabulous hair!” and “wow, you are so, so, so smart!” and “wow, you are the best lawyer ever!” and “wow, you are so emotionally complex!” and it got old really fast to hear about how much everyone loved Jen. And she still thought she was dowdy and boring. Even though she had the continuing assurance from everyone except her lawyer rival that she was the best thing since sliced bread. Plus, she, unlike the real Jennifer Walters, she is hugely concerned with finding a man to be her boyfriend and seemed to find her worth in a man. *strangled screeching from Corrie* Seriously, the She-Hulk I know dated a bunch of dudes, sure, but she never needed a man and that was made crystal clear. And since they are separate people in this book let’s talk about She-Hulk. She was referred to, several times a page, as Shulky. It got irritating real fast. Her personality was pretty boring. All she did was party, break things people told her not to break, and wear skimpy outfits. There was a few moments when I thought she was on the edge of character development, but then she went back to calling people “stooopid” and saying things like “Shulky like”. Then we’ve got Dahlia, Jen’s best friend. Even though she was designed to be a cool person (wacky hair and matching contacts, her own hair salon, a feisty spirit, and an even feistier dog) she had zero personality. You could have replaced her with an encouraging magic eight ball or a recording of “you can do it Jen!” and no one would have noticed the difference. All she ever did was encourage Jen and make dirty jokes! Oh, and own her own business. And when asked why she was never in a serious relationship, she replied that it was because it would take away from her salon - her life’s dream. Minor spoiler: and at the end of the book she found that having a man was really what was best for her too! (I’m surprised I didn’t break my keyboard with how angrily I typed that.) End minor spoiler. I won’t lie, I flung the book away from me when that happened… I did that several times throughout this read. There was also a lot of shrieking and ranting to my sister. And then there are the various men. We’ve got Ellis who is Jen’s crush because she sort of dated him a long time ago when he was a big popular musician (and is now a quieter science teacher who loves kids). Oh no! Ellis is engaged to a super mean woman who hates Jen? Well that’s too bad, guess Jen will have to treat him professionally and not swoon over him - hahahahaha nope. And his fiancee only gets meaner and more evil as the story continues, of course. One thing I really hated about Ellis was that when he originally met Jen he thought her name was Gin, which is a simply misunderstanding, but when he found out her real name he still occasionally called her Gin and SPOILER: even after they got together he asked her if he could call her Gin! Like seriously, dude, you don’t like her real name? What is the matter with you?! Can I pretty please go into this book just to take another copy of this book and slap Ellis with it? Repeatedly? END SPOILER. Some of the other important men are Fritz, who is briefly in it to produce jealousy in Ellis, and Nelson, who is a dentist that Jen randomly becomes friends with, eats Doritos with, and then goes LARPing with, cuz why not? Nelson was, honestly, my favorite character and for a whole page he was accidentally called “Norman” by the author. You would also think that Tony Stark (yes, Iron Man) was an important character, considering his name was mentioned at least three times a chapter, despite him never actually making an appearance in the book. He was mentioned with such frequency, not because he was relevant to the plot, but because Jen used to date him (which is actually canon) and she had to compare her several prospective boyfriends to someone. You know, the only superhero besides She-Hulk that had a big speaking role was Bruce Banner and all he ever did was judge Jen, tell her she was a great cousin, and then run off to do science. Each of their conversations followed that formula. The book mentioned a few other heroes (Fantastic Four, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Thor, and Rogue) but no one ever showed up to spice up the story. There are countless other dudes that were sort of kind of not really important to the plot, but they didn’t do much. And then there was Sven. The super handsome doctor who is Jen’s client who just happens to be madly in love with Jennifer. Let’s not even get into how unethical it was for Jen to want to date her client. So as far as characters go, this book was kind of lacking. You’d think since it’s about a female lawyer/superhero it would be filled with strong female characters too, but if I’m being honest this thing barely passed the Bechdel test. I’d better start wrapping up, but I could go on for quite a while about how much I disliked this book. But I’m sure you don’t want me to get down to the nitty gritty details. Like how the children in this book were all written to be idiots. Or how Jen pretty much used dying kids as an excuse to spy on Ellis. Or how there are so. Many. Freaking. Songs! Because Ellis is a musician and Jen thinks that all of his songs are about her so she has to take time in almost every chapter to examine the filthy lyrics of his songs. And they are very obviously about her. And you certainly don’t want to hear about how many times Jen flirted with married men. Or that all of the humor was super forced. Or how her Krav Maga teacher was super stereotyped. Or how her therapist kept trying to get her to get together with an engaged dude. Or the fact that there was a potentially sinister subplot about fruit juice that never went anywhere. Okay. I’m done. I promise. But be warned that if you ever ask me about this book I’m going to go on a very long rant.
Do I recommend The She-Hulk Diaries? While I laugh mockingly see if you can answer that question for yourself, friend. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! NO. I have never rated a book lower.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading my biased rant - err - unprejudiced review! Hope you enjoyed my seething! Image sources: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16235119-the-she-hulk-diaries https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20454376-she-hulk-volume-1
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Personal Rating: 2.5 Stars Goodreads Rating (pre-release): 4.29 Content Rating: Strong PG-13 In the Alskad Empire, nearly all are born with a twin, two halves to form one whole…yet some face the world alone. The singleborn A rare few are singleborn in each generation, and therefore given the right to rule by the gods and goddesses. Bo Trousillion is one of these few, born into the royal line and destined to rule. Though he has been chosen to succeed his great-aunt, Queen Runa, as the leader of the Alskad Empire, Bo has never felt equal to the grand future before him. The diminished When one twin dies, the other usually follows, unable to face the world without their other half. Those who survive are considered diminished, doomed to succumb to the violent grief that inevitably destroys everyone whose twin has died. Such is the fate of Vi Abernathy, whose twin sister died in infancy. Raised by the anchorites of the temple after her family cast her off, Vi has spent her whole life scheming for a way to escape and live out what's left of her life in peace. As their sixteenth birthdays approach, Bo and Vi face very different futures—one a life of luxury as the heir to the throne, the other years of backbreaking work as a temple servant. But a long-held secret and the fate of the empire are destined to bring them together in a way they never could have imagined. (goodreads.com) Okay, first things first: I won a Goodreads giveaway and was sent an ARC of this book, so thank you very much to Goodreads and Harlequin Teen! The release date of the book to the general public is set for April 10th of this year (2018), so if this seems like something you’d be interested in be sure to be on the lookout for it. With that said let’s get down to brass tacks shall we? I love saying “let’s get down to brass tacks” because it makes me feel like a clever and suave business person or mob boss or something. But, I digress from the brass tacks so let’s get down to those. I love the concept for this book, it is really original and interesting. The idea that it’s more normal to have a twin than to be single born was fascinating to me, and somewhat funny because my two younger brothers are twins and they don’t get along near as well as most of the twins in this book. There were a few questions that I had that didn’t get answered in the book, like if triplets, quadruplets, etc. were a thing in this world, and what about conjoined twins? From what I could tell, it didn’t seem like giving birth to more than two kids was something that happened in this world, but they never touched on the subject and they also never mentioned if twins were ever conjoined. Maybe in the sequel? Regardless, it’s still a curious idea for a story. Did I think the plot of this story lived up to it’s intriguing synopsis? Eh… kind of. It wasn’t what I was expecting for sure. Well, in a way it kind of was. I sorta guessed the major plot twist just from reading the back of the book. And, to be sure, the plot had some really good points. There was adventure, fighting, explosions, rebels, and everything to make it exciting. But it was incredibly difficult for me to get into and I didn’t really start to get interested until, like, ten chapters in and even then there were some parts that allowed my mind to wander. I can say that things really picked up toward the end and we had several new developments thrown in at the last minute. This both had me reeling to keep all of the secrets and deceit straight and interested to see where the series will end up. The world building for the story was pretty good. Since I only have an ARC I don’t know what the final copies of this book will look like yet, but I hope they have maps. I would have really appreciated a map of Alskad and Ilor and the other countries mentioned in the book. Apart from that, Kaitlyn Sage Patterson painted a vivid picture of her world and she did it all without info-dumping, which was nice. I especially like how you don’t realize that it’s a matriarchal society and it just kind of starts to dawn on you as people make comments about how men shouldn’t be left in charge of finances and houses and ships and things. I liked how subtly details of the world were woven in. As you might have heard, a novel is only as good as it’s characters so let’s talk about the inhabitants of The Diminished: First we have Vi (or Obedience Violette Abernathy if you want to make her mad at you). She is our “diminished”, or “dimmy” as everyone decides to call the twin lacking people, and she has had a rough life as many YA protagonists have. She is raised by the temple and is basically a slave until she’s sixteen, at which point she faces a future of more back breaking labor as punishment for her actions. Scorned by society because they think she’s basically going to go nuts at some point, Vi only has one friend and another person who tolerates her and they are moving away at the beginning of the book. Vi is bitter about her rocky life and she is distrusting as she well should be. She is sassy and angry. She does have a strong personality, but something about her just grated on my nerves and unfortunately I can’t put my finger on what. There was something about her that bothered me, but I can’t pinpoint it. I am not supposed to take direct quotes from the ARC, since they might change by the time the book is published, but there was a part of the book where Vi was described as being dynamic. Personally, I don’t think you should ever use a compliment that reviewers give to characters to describe your character, but that could just be my opinion. Then we’ve got Bo (or Lord Ambrose Oswin Trousillion Gyllen if you wanna be fancy). I didn’t hate the guy. In fact, I probably liked him a little better than Vi. I liked that I could see some real development in his character and that he had flaws, such as being too trusting and occasionally being ignorant of important information or basic life skills. He started out as very whiny, but by the end of it he was significantly less whiny. Which was nice. I think he dealt with most of his problems realistically and he dealt with insufferable relatives in a relatable way (most of the time). Can I say something really nit picky? No? Too bad, I’m going to anyway. I didn’t think Bo or Vi’s name fit either of them. I felt like “Vi” was too elegant a name for her, especially if it isn’t her given name. I don’t think it’s the kind of name she would choose to call herself. I don’t know what she’d call herself, but in my head she seemed more like she should be named “Molly” or “Fiona” or something vaguely Celtic. Maybe because she’s from the north? I don’t know. And “Bo” wasn’t working for me either. I’m pretty sure it’s because when I hear the name I can only think of the character from Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke who is an adorable little boy. So I was picturing the guy in this book as, like, a ten year old at most. His full name “Ambrose” felt more fitting. Like I said, I’m being incredibly nit picky so don’t take any of the name business to heart. There is something else I feel the need to discuss that somewhat impeded my enjoyment of the book. This is a minor spoiler so if you don’t want to read it just skip ahead to where the words turn bold again. So… when it is announced that Bo is the heir to the throne, the first thing his mother does is ask the reigning monarch who he will be engaged to. The queen doesn’t hesitate with her answer of Bo’s cousin. And even though this is supposed to take place in a world reminiscent of Victorian England, no one batted an eye at this fact. Like, what? I get that it might fit with the world building, but even then I’d kind of prefer we steer away from the incest. Right? Am I the only one weirded out by the fact that everyone was totally okay that he was going to marry his cousin? And, sure, Bo was upset about it, but that was only because if he married his cousin, Penelope, it meant he couldn’t be with her brother. So the incest wasn’t the reason he objected to this match. I just… why? Why? Was that necessary? Really? I don’t… I just don’t understand. Even though they don’t end up together I just can’t wrap my head around it. I mean seriously?! Okay, rant over. End minor spoiler! Even though the plot was interesting, the characters tolerable, and the concept unique, I didn’t enjoy this book overmuch. It was fine, but it dragged on and on and with a cliffhanger ending I felt like three fourths of the book were just a load of details that had to be gotten out of the way before the rest of the series could progress. So, while I’m curious about what happens next, I don’t expect to read the second book whenever it comes out. I’m not sure that I would recommend this book, but it wasn’t a terrible way to while away my day off. From a conservative perspective I’d say probably stay away from this one. I was disappointed that it wasn’t something that I could give a really positive review to, but, like I said, it wasn’t awful. Well, since I’m a singleborn I’d best get back to my grand future of ruling Alskad. Later! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35140574-the-diminished Personal Rating: 4.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.07 Stars Geek girl Elle Wittimer lives and breathes Starfield, the classic science-fiction series she grew up watching with her late father. So when she sees a cosplay contest for a new Starfield movie, she has to enter. The prize? An invitation to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball and a meet-and-greet with the actor slated to play Federation Prince Carmindor in the reboot. With savings from her gig at the Magic Pumpkin food truck and her dad's old costume, Elle's determined to win - unless her stepsisters get there first. Teen actor Darien Freeman used to live for cons - before he was famous. Now they're nothing but autographs and awkward meet-and-greets. Playing Carmindor is all he has ever wanted, but Starfield fandom has written him off as just another dumb heartthrob. As ExcelsiCon draws near, Darien feels more and more like a fake - until he meets a girl who shows him otherwise. But when she disappears at midnight, will he ever be able to find her again? (goodreads.com) I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t sure that I was actually going to read this book when I picked it up from the library. I’d seen it all over the place and thought it looked kind of cute, but I wasn’t really in the mood for another retelling of Cinderella. I’ve read tons of retellings over the years, and typically I enjoy them, but I didn’t feel like reading this one. Maybe it was because it’s contemporary fiction and that’s not a genre I particularly like to read. So, I was all set to dump this book in favor of one of the books in the pile that has been growing in my room. However, I am thrilled that I opened it up. Normally, I don’t read contemporaries because when I read a book I want to get away from real life and experience something fantastical. When I started this book and found that the main character, Elle, is a fangirl who works a sometimes-not-so-fun-job and wants to be a writer and maintains a blog I raised a brow. This was too close to home. There was no way that this was going to turn out to be any fun to read because it reminded me too much of my own life. But as I continued to read I got caught up in the plot and the characters. I also got caught up in the thrill of being in a fandom. Elle and Darien are both part of a fandom for a made up show called Starfield, which I’ve gathered is a sort of Star Wars-Star Trek mashup with a few new elements thrown in. As the book goes on and we learn more about their fandom and their love of it the reader almost feels like they are part of this group. I loved it. This story takes all the great, fun, exciting parts of being in a fandom and shows how wonderful nerdiness can be. From the acknowledgements in the back of the book it’s pretty safe to say that this book was written for fangirls and fanboys. Particularly fans of sci-fi and fantasy. It felt like a book written for me. Okay the romance was a little cheesy. Maybe a lot cheesy, but I loved it so much. It was so great and I really got into the flow of it. You probably know that I’m not the biggest fan of romance stories. I don’t have anything against them, I just prefer to read other things most days. But dang, I was a big fan of this one, cheese and all! It was so sweet and so cute and maybe just the slightest bit Disney Channel-ish, but like, 100 times better. I don’t know what it was, but something about it just had me grinning. Elle and Darien forever, y’all. Catherine is the evil stepmother to end all evil stepmothers. I’m telling you, I’ve never hated Cinderella’s stepmother and sister more than in Geekerella. They were just vicious! And the worst part was that the mom thought she was being totally normal! Gah! She was terrible! I wanted to slap her silly and throw her under the wheels of the Magic Pumpkin. There was one point where the stepmonsters were so cruel that Elle was crying and it almost had me crying because I was so angry at stupid freaking Catherine (nothing against the name Catherine, just this character). Apart from the plot being fantastic, there was also a fair amount of humor in this book. Granted, many of the jokes are only funny if you understand sci-fi and fantasy stuff, but to the nerds for which this book was written there are some golden jokes in here. Not to mention the numerous references! I mainly caught the allusions to Avengers and superhero stuff, but there were plenty about Doctor Who, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Batman, Star Trek, and Harry Potter. And those were just the references that I understood! I’m sure there were plenty more. Would this book be as entertaining to someone who has never experienced the fandom life? Eh, it’s hard to tell - I don’t interact with that kind of person often (jk, none of my coworkers understand a thing about fandoms). I think that a good portion of the book would be lost on anyone who has never obsessed over a book/movie/show to the point of at least considering reading fanfic, writing fanfic, drawing fanart, doing cosplay, or going to a convention. That’s how I feel like it’s different from some Disney Channel movie. In one of those movies you could go in not knowing anything about anything and still enjoy it. In this book you have to have some background knowledge. But if you want to read it anyway, go ahead and try it out! You might still have fun! It’s safe to say that I loved this book. I stayed up waaaaay past my bedtime reading it and woke up waaaaay before my alarm to finish it before work. Now I’m waaaaay tired and should probably take a nap. Thanks for reading. Remember to look to the stars. Aim. Ignite! *rocket ships sounds* Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30724132-geekerella?ac=1&from_search=true |
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