Personal Rating: 2.75 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.49 Grey Haward has always detested the Chemists, the magicians-come-scientists who rule her small western town. But she has always followed the rules, taking the potion the Chemists ration out that helps the town’s people survive. A potion that Grey suspects she—like her grandfather and father—may not actually need. By working at her grandfather’s repair shop, sorting the small gears and dusting the curio cabinet inside, Grey has tried to stay unnoticed—or as unnoticed as a tall, strong girl can in a town of diminutive, underdeveloped citizens. Then her best friend, Whit, is caught by the Chemists’ enforcers after trying to protect Grey one night, and after seeing the extent of his punishment, suddenly taking risks seems the only decision she can make. But with the risk comes the reality that the Chemists know her family’s secret, and the Chemists soon decide to use her for their own purposes. Panicked, Grey retreats to the only safe place she knows—her grandfather’s shop. There, however, a larger secret confronts her when her touch unlocks the old curio cabinet in the corner and reveals a world where porcelain and clockwork people are real. There, she could find the key that may save Whit’s life and also end the Chemists’ dark rule forever. (goodreads.com) I hesitate to put this in the “Christian” category. For, although it is published by Blink, which is a branch of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, it doesn’t exactly seem like a book written for Christian readers. Regardless, I will put it in the “Christian” category of my blog because there are only three other books in that section. So, I have no idea why I read this book. I think I was hoping for fun steampunk adventures because when I first saw it I’d just finished with the Etiquette and Espionage series by Gail Carriger. But I read it and it was not exactly the thrilling adventure I hoped it would be. Yeah, there was loads of adventure and loads of action. And sure, there were lots of exciting parts, but I also found myself unable to pay attention to the action scenes. I even skimmed through a few pages. It was also quite difficult for me to get into this book and it seemed like the interesting parts didn’t start until Grey actually went to Curio City and after the newness of reading about Curio City, that too got boring. As you see, this book already didn’t have a lot going for it, but then there were the characters *insert the sound a parent makes when “they aren’t mad, they’re disappointed”*. First off we have Grey Haward. She wasn’t bad as far as MCs go, actually. At least she wasn’t constantly complaining or talking about how unfortunate she was. Her life was a wreck, but she pushed through because she had a job to do. And she didn’t even act like her circumstances were super unfair or horrible, she just kept going. I have to say, I really enjoyed a female protagonist who didn’t whine or complain. Apart from being kind of boring she was a pretty good character. Then we’ve got Whit. Urgh. He. Was. So. Boring. I just didn’t care a whit for what happened to Whit (see what I did there?). And he fell in love with a girl so fast it just about gave me Whitlash (hehe, get it? Whitlash?). Unfortunately, there were whole chapters just about him and they were filled with Whitless dialogue (hurhurhur) and I was about at my Whit’s end (okay, I’ll stop) with his lack of intelligence. You could say he was (sorry in advance) a half-Whit. All puns aside, he was just kind of a boring character and, though I felt pity for him, I couldn’t really connect to him. Onto Blaise: aka the Mad Tock. If you’ve read my post about Things I’m Sick of in Teen Books then you know that I am not overly fond of mysterious men with a troubled past. Blaise starts out as enigmatic and, what do you know? He’s got a very troubled history with the people of Curio City and the people of the town Grey is from. Plus, he’s got that possessive streak in him where he thinks things like “she should be with me” and “she’s mine” *narrows eyes at Blaise*. He does a decent job of correcting his own aggravatingly possessive thoughts, so I’m not too mad at him, but still. There were a lot of big characters in this book that I would love to talk about: Fantine, Nettie (I loved Nettie, she was adorably awesome), Sir Weatherton, Seree, Callis, Olan, Steinar, Adante, that guy whose name I can’t remember but I know starts with an “H”... there were a lot of characters jammed into this book. Some of them were interesting, some of them not so much, but one that I definitely want to talk about is Lord Blueboy. My first reaction to the ruler of Curio City was “oh, here’s the power hungry, gentlemanly, creepy, makes everything feel inappropriate, guy”. Lo and behold, he was indeed that guy and my, oh, my was he disturbing. Lord Blueboy (even the name creeps me out) is one of the main reasons I question if this book was actually read by any of the people who claim it is a “clean YA novel”. Whenever he was on the scene he made my skin crawl and I just wanted to punch him in his supposedly gorgeous face and tell him to leave Grey alone. Alas, I cannot punch people who reside in books (though if you know how to do so I would be very interested). I'm rather perturbed by the moral content of this novel. The publishing company claims it has good teen books that are “clean” and they do have their definition of “clean” on their website here, but I still don't feel like this quite met the standard. I don't wish to go into much detail but there were parts (mostly whenever Lord Blueboy was around) that made Grey out to be an object and something to be explored. Nope. Nopety no. I was not a fan of those parts. On a different note, I'm not really bothered by violence, however many people are so I feel inclined to report that this book had a lot of it, described it detail. Like, we're talking body parts flailing, people, and blood. Lots of blood. The world building could have been better, in my personal opinion (and that’s saying something coming from me). In Grey’s hometown I wasn’t sure if it was in another world or an alternate version of our world and the only way I ever figured this out was because I think someone said something about Colorado and then Grey mentioned the United States Army. The book was supposed to be steampunk, but I feel like it was a steampunk dystopian but still in the late 1800’s. Does that make sense? No? Well, it didn’t really make sense to me either when I was reading it. And then Curio City, which seemed like it was full of opportunities for really great world building, didn’t give me much explanation as to how it existed. It said a little bit about why, but never how. I thought it was supposed to be in a curio cabinet, but it seemed like a whole different world - oh hey! Maybe it was supposed to be like Narnia! Except, it seemed like the only way you could get in was through the cabinet and that the cabinet and the magical world could not exist apart from each other. Sooooo… not really sure. I was kind of hoping it would be like the porcies and tocks were actually living in a curio cabinet and there would be shelves and other knick-knacks on the shelves that they came up with creative names for that were close to what we call them, but hilariously different - I wanted it to be like The Lego Movie, okay? There, I said it. But it wasn’t and I was super disappointed. I know that’s a stupid thing to be disappointed about, but I was and it may or may not have made me like the book less. Also, can I real quick say that I wish there had been more about the Valor Society? Because they sounded cool. Sir Weatherton sounded cool. His wife sounded cool. They had all the fun steampunk gear and I wanted to see more of it and more of porcies doing dangerous stunts. One more thing, what the heck did the symbolism in this book mean? I could see that it was there, and I could tell that it was trying to be Biblical, but it really didn’t align with any common gospel symbols that you generally see in literature. I mean there kind of was, but it didn’t quite work and if you thought about it too much it became really weird. And why was there a god inside the curio cabinet, but no sign of one in the “real” world? What exactly was this book trying to say about beauty? Because it started off sounding like a “beauty isn’t everything”, but then the porcies were talking about how the “Designer” didn’t want them to be ugly and how ugliness was bad, but then the heroes briefly touched on the fact that even ugly people deserve clean water (idk, man, idk). I’m sure you aren’t surprised that I was baffled. I’m sorry, book, I really wanted to like you, but you were only okay. Subpar. Fine. Ordinary. Meh. I said this last time, but hopefully next time I’ll write a review for a book I actually end up liking. I just have to read a good book first… I’m kidding, I have plenty of good books I could review, but ranting is just easier than praising. Which isn’t good. Children, don’t look to me as a rolemodel. Build each other up, don’t tear each other down. Thanks for reading! I shall now fly off with my steam powered flight suit. *whoosh* Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25309770-curio?ac=1&from_search=true
0 Comments
Personal Rating: 2.5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.69 Stars Rule #3: Don't stare at invisible faeries. Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in the mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty - especially if they learn of her Sight - and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens. Rule #2: Don't speak to invisible faeries. Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer. Rule #1: Don't ever attract their attention. But it's too late. Keenan is the Summer King, who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost — regardless of her plans or desires. Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything. (goodreads.com) To be honest, I’m not sure why I read this book. It was really cheap at a library book sale and I really can’t resist library book sales. A library book sale to me feels like… I don’t know… the books are like the toys in Toy Story and they need to be read again. That’s not a good feeling for my wallet, let me tell you. Anywho, I grabbed this book at a sale and I read it. Oh, I also read the sequel. And the sequel’s sequel. But that’s where I stopped. I didn’t think I could make it through two more of these things. So basically this is a book about a special girl who can see faeries, but the faeries don’t know that, which is good because the faeries are not fairies they are faeries. Notice the “E”? A quick note on magical lore stuffs: fairies have a more positive connotation, like fairy godmothers and glitter, where as faeries are generally up to no good, like scary trickster sparkle gangs who mostly do inappropriate things and drown people. Understand? Good. The magical creatures in Wicked Lovely are the kind with an “E”. They are into all sorts of shenanigans that make you cringe and start feeling more comfortable around iron (which supposedly keeps these creeps away). Aislinn, whose name I still do not know how to pronounce (but seriously, is it pronounced like Ashlyn? Because they all call her Ash, but that doesn’t exactly look like it would be pronounced Aslyn), is not a bad character. Kind of reminds me of almost every other YA female protagonist ever, but I don’t know why I expect anything different at this point. From reading teen fiction I have gathered that if you are a teenage girl who has some impossible task to accomplish you are going to be rather boring. What irritates me the most is that these protagonists never are excited about the adventure they are about to go on. I mean, sure, a lot of the time the adventure turns out to be horribly painful and someone will probably die, but before it even gets started they are such downers. I’m not saying Aislinn should have been excited about a faerie king stalking her, but she’s not even a little bit interested in the faeries she can see? Not even a little? No? Okay, fine. For once I’d like a main character who is pumped about the magical things happening around her and not worried that the magic will interrupt her prom or throw her normal life off course. Let’s talk about Keenan, shall we? *rolls eyes* Doesn’t every girl just dream of having a clingy faery king trying to woo them in order to save the world from eternal winter? I’m not sure how much I can say about Keenan without spoiling the plot, but he’s not really the ideal man, m’kay? He’s nine hundred years old, for starters - and okay, given the immortality thing that seems so popular with the kids these days, that’s not the worst thing about him - and he’s also been trying to get girls to fall in love with him for centuries. Not creepy enough for you? What if I told you that every girl he dates has to stay by his side for all eternity even if she’s not “the one” or else she’ll die? Still not creepy enough for you (if this is the case you have issues, my friend)? On one particular date he drugs a girl with faery wine *sternly glares at book*. I don’t have fond feelings for Keenan, and I don’t care how noble his intentions are. Then we’ve got Seth. Kind of the polar opposite of Keenan. Probably my favorite character in the book. I’m not so much of a fan of him in the next two books, but he was pretty good in this one. He’s Aislinn’s best friend and quite gentlemanly. Standing by Aislinn’s side even when she tells him about faeries, he’s by far the most loyal and understanding person in this book. All around pretty nice guy. You know, until he hangs out with faeries for three books (I don’t even want to know what he’s like by the end of the final book). You know what my problem is? I like stories with fairies in them, but I keep getting stories with faeries in them. Unfortunately, there are very few of the former in teen/YA books. I know a lot of teenagers like the gritty dark stuff and that’s fine for them, but what about the few of us who want sunshine and happy endings? Maybe that’s just me. I WANT A HAPPY TEEN BOOK, GOSH DANGIT (pardon my language)! Oh well, I’ll just go back to the children’s section. The plot, the plot, the plot: it was fine. It kept me reading and got me to pick up the sequel. The sequel was even darker than this one unfortunately, but I don’t know what I was expecting when one of the main characters is the literal king of darkness. Third book was an eensy bit lighter, but it got really weird. I think the main issue with the plot of this series is that it keeps teasing you with rising action, hinting at problems with the romance, boldly declaring that there will be a war, but without any actual action happening. I think out of the three that I read the first one was best at actually wrapping up its plot, but the rest just seemed to be building up to something that I don’t think was going to happen until the last book. Do I recommend this book? Not really, unless you’re into the dark faery stuff and don’t mind a plethora of creepy faery kings. The best thing I can say about it was that the writing style was… oh wait, I didn’t like that either. It jumped around a lot and it was hard to follow the character switches back and forth. I don’t have anything good to say I guess. Thanks for reading this review, hopefully the next book I review I’ll like a little better. I’m sure you guys would like some book recommendations instead of me complaining a bunch. It could be a while… bad books are more fun to review. Well, I’m off to put some iron bars on my window and fill my pockets with salt. Ciao! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/305234.Wicked_Lovely |
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|