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: 1.7 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.55 Stars Individuality vs. Conformity Identity vs. Access Freedom vs. Control The bar code tattoo. Everybody's getting it. It will make your life easier, they say. It will hook you in. It will become your identity. But what if you say no? What if you don't want to become a code? For Kayla, this one choice changes everything. She becomes an outcast in her high school. Dangerous things happen to her family. There's no option but to run...for her life. (goodreads.com) I honestly do not know what to say about this book first. Do I comment on that zombie like figure on the cover? The many errors within the story? The poor writing? Or the hilariousness of how bad it was? I don’t know! So I guess I’ll start with this: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! THIS WAS TOO FUNNY! THE MELODRAMA! THE CHARACTERS! THE ROMANTIC SCENES! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I can’t stop snickering at this book. It wasn’t that the topic was funny - far from it! It wasn’t like the situations were funny, in fact I don’t think a single joke was cracked throughout the entire book. It was just… the writing. The writing is, how shall I put this nicely? Reminiscent of the writing styles of twelve year old Corrie. And let me tell you, twelve year old me was no prodigy. Okay, okay, it was much better than what I could write when I was a preteen. However, the style was not something I enjoyed. I would like to give you a quote from probably the most romantic scene in the book to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. “She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest. He embraced her, holding tight. Then she looked up at him and they kissed.” -The Barcode Tattoo, Chapter 22, page 206 And then a little bit later the love interest says: “I love you Kayla, I’ve loved you since the first day we met … I thought I loved you back then, but that was nothing compared to the way I feel about you now.” -The Barcode Tattoo, Chapter 22, page 207 Okay? So you’ve loved her since you met her, but you only thought you loved her because how you felt then is nothing compared to how you feel now? I’m slightly confused. The next paragraph left me even more confuddled. Seriously, take a look: “Kayla listened, growing happier with every word. They were so close now. She’d known since they kissed at the truck stop that day that she loved him - was in love with him and loved him deeply as a person, both. She knew he felt the same. Why else would he have gone through all of this with her? But hearing the words made it so real, so out in the open. And then she heard snoring.” -The Barcode Tattoo, Chapter 22, page 207 Wait, I’m sorry, what? She was in love with him and loved him deeply as a person, both? Can someone please explain this line to me? I seriously am so bewildered by that line. What the heck does it mean (pardon my language)? What? What? WHAT? Was there no better way to word this? None at all? I just… I don’t… I can’t… HUH? And then there is that line about hearing snoring. Now, I don’t want to get too spoilery, but the guy who, moments before, confessed his love for this girl just fell asleep. I’m not kidding. That’s what happened next. He said he loved her and then he fell asleep. Um. Again I am left to ask: what the heck? Let’s talk about the premise of the book, shall we? It’s quite interesting. A dystopian story about a future (not too far a future, it’s set in 2025) where everyone wears these barcode tattoos, which are seemingly awesome. One swipe of this and you’ve paid for whatever you were buying. Get pulled over? Police can just scan your arm rather than worry about a driver’s license. All of your information is in this tattoo so you don’t have to worry about a thing. Oh, and who controls these tats (or ‘toos, as they are referred to in the book)? Global-1, the company who runs pretty much everything in the world, including the American and European governments. And what’s this? For some reason there are people who are desperate to get the ink removed? So desperate that they’ll try and burn it off? But why would anyone want to get rid of something so convenient? Sounds pretty creepy and like an exciting read. Yeah, the idea is great. I’m just not sure it was carried out in the best way possible. While the plot was indeed a bit spooky with all the secrets that get revealed, it also jumped around really fast. One moment we’re worried about school bullies and the next we are trekking through the wilderness. And though it was really easy to follow along with, it seemed a little like info dumping to me. You know how they tell young authors to “show don’t tell”? What they mean by that is “let your readers see a picture of what’s going on without actually giving them any answers”. Unfortunately, in some cases we will have the book basically vomit all of the facts onto the reader (pardon my imagery) and then move on. This was one of those instances. Alright, alright, let’s talk about the characters. Kayla was very grounded in her beliefs. She stuck to her gut and that was admirable. Even when the going got tough and it would have been so easy to give into the peer pressure, she said “no” and did what she thought was right. That’s real good of you, Kayla. Real nicely done. I ran out of positive things to say about her. She was boring. Like, Bella Swan boring. Like, standing in line waiting for a lecture on dirt boring. That’s really the only other thing I can think to say about her though. I didn’t hate her, I just didn’t like her at all. She was dull. The two boys who were important to the plot (there were other boys they just didn’t do anything interesting) were Mfumbe and Zekeal. I cannot say much about them without spoiling things for you, should you chose to read this book for yourself, but apart from one big instance they were basically the same guy. They like the same girl, they are part of the same outcast group, and they don’t do anything but swoop in and save Kayla on a couple of occasions. I feel like the MC’s best friend, Amber, was crucial at some point in the story and then I just kind of forgot she was alive. I’ve heard there are two more books to the series and maybe that’s when Amber shows up again, but I don’t think she’s doing much that’s relevant so who knows if she’ll ever be mentioned again. I should probably calm down a bit and stop ranting about this book, but I found it so funny. The writing style had me in giggles and rolling my eyes the whole way through. The sporadic and intense plotline was a teensy weensy bit over the top (I wish I could tell you the shocking discovery Kayla makes about herself, but that’s a spoiler), and it just made me laugh how often the direction changed. One minute we’re in the hospital and the next we are driving to Canada at 140 mph! Then we find out that Kayla is actually - oh, right, spoilers. Sorry. Despite this book’s many, many, many, many flaws I enjoyed it heartily. It was so absurd that I couldn’t help but like and hate it. However, I don’t think I will be reading the next two books in the series. Thanks for listening to me go on and on about this dorky book. I hope if you read it you get as much enjoyment out of it as I did. If you read my next post or left a comment that would be totally “final level”! Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/592089.The_Bar_Code_Tattoo Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.91 Stars Life in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She's so desperate to reach the realm that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith. When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he's been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe... (goodreads.com) Dang, whoever does Melissa Lander’s covers is amazing! I thought the cover for Alienated was cool and then I saw this one and I just about swooned. It’s even prettier in person because the golden trail has little gold flecks throughout it that shimmer and sparkle. IT’S JUST SO PRETTY, MAN! Pardon my outburst, but I really like shiny covers. Oh, and the content was pretty good too. Okay, so this book was really fun to read. Some parts of it felt a little bit like they were borrowed from The Lunar Chronicles, but on the whole it was a fun, fresh space adventure. In some ways it reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy, which is certainly not a bad thing. (I’m also kind of in a Guardians mood because I just watched the second one and I’m still fangirling over it like crazy. It was hilarious and wonderful.) To be sure, there were parts that had me cringing and at times I kinda just wanted to put the book down, but for the most part I enjoyed the antics of the crew and the main characters. Plotwise, the story was great. For some reason it made me think of a space Moana. I enjoyed the pirates, planets, and scientific shenanigans. I feel like it would have made a good musical. It was lighthearted, but had enough serious tones that it didn’t feel cheesy. Solara was fun, I guess, she seemed a bit to close to Cinder for comfort, but she did have her own personality. Her past was given to us neatly and without over explanation. Sometimes she made dumb mistakes, but they seemed like mistakes that any teenager could make. In that way her flaws were relatable. Doran was not my favorite guy at the beginning. In fact, you could even say that I didn’t like him. Perhaps I even loathed his posh boy attitude and demeaning nature. But good characters have a way of changing. By the end I almost liked him more than I liked Solara. Of course there were some parts of him that still had me rolling my eyes, but it was nice to see him grow as a character. Cleanliness for this book was about what I expected from a Melissa Landers book. Pushing the limits of PG-13 is the best way to describe her writing, but still a PG-13. Language was not fantastic, and innuendos and romantic smoochy smooch were noticeable. It wasn’t intolerable, but it does kind of put a damper on my enjoyment of the story. There was one line in the story that I actually blacked out with marker (don’t worry, it was my copy, not the library’s) because, though it was meant in fun, it was not a line I thought necessary to the book or even like something that the characters would have said. It kind of felt like Melissa Landers threw it in there to make fun of Christianity. So, yeah, I blacked it out because I figured it’s my personal copy and I can censor things for myself if I want. It’s not like I’m forcing everyone to black out that line. I just didn’t approve of it for myself so I covered it up. And, yes, I did feel kind of bad about marking a book. To summarize: I really liked this book, I thought it was a good read, and I recommend it to people who like sci-fi space stories. Or friendship stories. Or piratey stories. Or just because the cover is gorgeous. Thanks for reading my second post in one week (you might be wondering at this point if I’ve been replaced by some sort of writing machine, but fear not it’s still me… though I could be programmed to tell you that). I hope you enjoyed it and that I won’t be too long in posting another one! Until next time mis amigos. VWOOSH! (That was me flying by in my spaceship.) Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21793182-starflight Personal Rating: 2.8 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.41 Stars You ever open your locker and find that some joker has left something really weird inside? Seventh-grader Dorso Clayman opens his locker door to find a dead body. Thirty seconds later it disappears. It’s not the first bizarre thing that has appeared in his locker and then vanished. Something’s going on. Somebody has decided to make Dorso and his buddy Frank the target of some strange techno-practical jokes. The ultimate gamesters have hacked into the time line, and things from the past are appearing in the present. Soon, the jokes aren’t funny anymore—they’re dangerous. Dorso and Frank have got to beat the time hackers at their own game by breaking the code, before they get lost in the past themselves. (goodreads.com) I picked up this skinny little book at a booksale at one of the libraries I frequent, saw it was about time travel, and decided to give it a shot. While I was not really disappointed in the book, that could have been because I wasn’t really expecting much from it in the first place. The book itself is only 87 pages long and the text is pretty big so I already wasn’t expecting much from the plot. The characters were kind of boring, being stereotypical static young teen boys. But it was a pleasant enough way to occupy my brain during my lunch break. If you do decide to pick up this book for yourself, I would highly recommend you don’t eat anything during the first few pages. The description of the things found in Dorso’s locker are somewhat vivid. And when you are trying a dubious smelling microwave meal to begin with, it might make you lose your appetite. Just saying. Dorso and his pal, Frank, are rather dull characters. It’s one of those stories where the characters acting out the plot don’t matter as much as the plot itself. We hardly got to know any of the people in this book. Really, all we know about Frank is that he wants to try and look at naked ladies. That’s pretty much everything I know about Frank. So yeah… gross, Frank, go look at dinosaurs instead. We do see some of Dorso’s home life, but just in the teeniest snatches. And the other few characters that get thrown in are really boring. I think my favorite was Dorso’s little sister and she was barely in it. On a side note, for some reason my brain can't pronounce Dorso's name as Dorso, it reads it as Dorito. So if we are ever having a face to face discussion about this book forgive me if I talk about delicious chips and not a seventh grade boy. The plot was interesting enough to keep me reading. I wanted to see what was going to happen next and who was behind all of the time hacking. The ending was anticlimactic in my opinion and very convenient. Resolving itself by way of many coincidences and accidents, the ending was almost hard to follow along with. I think for a book that relied so heavily on its plot to keep the story interesting it should have had a more in depth plot. Of course, the book was only 87 pages, so maybe it did a brilliant job for such a short story. Then again, some of my “learning to read” books were shorter than this and had better characters and more riveting plots. Regardless, it wasn’t so boring that I put it down and, like I said, it wasn’t as if I was expecting much from this book to begin with, so it was… okay. Relatively. I’d recommend this book for maybe third and fourth graders, I feel like they might enjoy it more than I did. For anyone seventh grade and up, it’s kind of a long shot that you’ll like it I think. Thanks for reading this short review for this short book. I hope my next review won’t be so far in the future as this one was from my last one. I have Thursdays off now so I’m thinking I might try to post every week again. We’ll see how it goes I guess. (You know and I both know that I stink at sticking to schedules.) See you in the future my friends! Image: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2919.The_Time_Hackers Personal Rating: 3.8 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.62 Aza Ray is drowning in thin air. Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn't think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name. Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia. Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—and as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war is coming. Magonia and Earth are on the cusp of a reckoning. And in Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie? (goodreads.com) Let me warn you, this is the weirdest, most artistic book I have ever read in my life. I loved it, but it was also incredibly odd. I can see this book being both loved and hated amongst readers because of its uniqueness. Some of the other reviews that I’ve read have claimed the narration is annoying, and I see that, but I liked it. The concepts are kind of out there and the fantasy/sci-fi bits were supremely strange, but I really did enjoy this book. The main character, Aza Ray, is the primary narrator (we get a few chapters from her friend, Jason’s POV) and she does tend to ramble and her voice could be considered grating, but I loved how different it was from the typical first person narration that I’ve grown accustomed to in young adult novels. For the more conservative reader I have make sure you know that she does swear. Only one F-bomb that I recall but more than a few uses of “s***”. Another note is that there is homosexuality in this book, as Jason (the love interest/best friend) has two mothers, both of whom are good characters. The book portrays it as positive and they mention it many times. However, a plus side is that there are no “awkward romantic scenes” (you know what I mean) between anyone in this novel (although, there was some kissing between Aza and two boys - yeah, I know, love triangle, but it’s not a dominant plot point). Speaking of plot, this book has a great one. It was a tad predictable in some spots, but for the most part is was really original and good. Even though romance wasn’t a huge part of this book, the parts that did have it were really well done and I think I have a new OTP. They’re just so sweet and he’s so wonderful to her and she’s so short with everyone else, but they make the best couple. Just sayin’. Some of the main themes in this book included self discovery, what “home” means, and… uh… death. I know, I know, death isn’t exactly something I like to read about on a regular basis (unless I’m in a Lit class, in which case I get used to it), and this book made me tear up a few times, but it was a really beautiful, heart wrenchingly sad kind of death theme. But it’s all okay! Things turn out okay. I promise. The magic in this book took some effort to get into, but I think that’s just because it’s like nothing I’ve ever read before and I had to get used to it. A lot of the magic in this book revolves around singing, which is kind of cool. The singing isn’t given lyrics at all (personally, I prefer it when there aren’t lyrics in a book because I have no tune to go with it), but is described more as something that just comes from you and your emotions. Seemed pretty accurate to me. This book definitely isn’t for everyone, but it is something that I really enjoyed. I am hugely excited to read the sequel Aerie, because even if this book ended in a mostly satisfying manner, there are some things that I’m dying to know. I recommend giving it a shot if the premise sounds interesting to you, and if you don’t like it then don’t worry about it. As I’ve said, it’s not for everyone. A couple of final warnings before I sign off: this book has a lot of birds in it! I know some people who don’t particularly like birds so if you think that will impede your enjoyment of Magonia then you might want to reconsider reading it. Also, this book has some bizarre formatting with words taking odd shapes and moving across the page. Finally, the style is kind-of-almost stream of consciousness, but not quite, which is part of the weirdness. That covers it, I think. You are sufficiently warned. Not really. I don’t think you can be fully prepared for this book. If you do read it or have read it then I’d love to hear what you think! I have a quick question for you: do you think I should add a “Christians/Conservatives May Want Warning About This” section to my posts? I know Plugged In is basically that, but they don’t have a huge selection of books reviewed and I thought it might be something helpful to add since most of the people I know that read this are Christians or at least more conservative. I don’t have to add it, but I thought I’d ask what you thought. If I were a Magonian I would sing my goodbye. Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21393526-magonia?ac=1&from_search=true |
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