Tag: Book Review

Review: Archenemies (Renegades #2) by Marissa Meyer

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Archenemies

 

Rating: ☆☆☆ 1/2
Audience: YA Fantasy/Sci-fi, no language, a kiss scene, violence
Length: 560 pages
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel Friends
Release Date: November 6th, 2018
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

The Renegades Trilogy continues, in this fiercely awaited second installment after the New York Times-bestselling Renegades by Marissa Meyer, author of the Lunar Chronicles.

Time is running out.
Together, they can save the world.
But they each other’s worst nightmare.

In Renegades, Nova and Adrian (aka Insomnia and Sketch) fought the battle of their lives against the Anarchist known as the Detonator. It was a short-lived victory.

The Anarchists still have a secret weapon, one that Nova believes will protect her. The Renegades also have a strategy for overpowering the Anarchists, but both Nova and Adrian understand that it could mean the end of Gatlon City – and the world – as they know it.

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DARN YOU, BOOK 2 SYNDROME.

Y’all, why. Don’t get me wrong, I’m buying the third book because crap will hit the fan since nothing happened in this book. I now fully expect (I know, should be keeping expectations low) the final installment to be a worthy tale since there is going to be a loooot to cover in 500+ pages.

I rarely know if an author has to make more books than they planned, or if it was originally intended to be a certain length, but really. This could’ve been a duology.

I’ll start with things I didn’t mind and enjoyed!

  • Watching Nova and Adrian try to flirt was so precious, and I definitely found myself chuckling occasionally.
  • The last 100 pages when the action picked up and sped through to the finale.
  • The scenes where everyone were friends/family, just doing friends/family stuff. I always like peaceful scenes interspersed with the drama.

Now this is where I get on the struggle bus:

  • WHERE WAS THE ACTION? For a long book, about heroes/villains no less, I expected so much more. Nothing essentially happened until the last, last section of the book where Nova started going through with the plans she made in the FIRST book. We spent the entire book talking about plans, to do this, that, blah blah blah. Someone do something!?
  • While I thought all the flirting was cute, this book was entirely focused on their will they/won’t they scenario. Fine, that’s totally fine, but like my previous bullet I was going for more and thought this should have taken a back seat. I personally was set on this being an action based book and was disappointed it felt more romance-ish.
  • Some of the characters were/became so disappointing. Ah man, I’m still fuming about it. So I don’t dive into spoilers, you’ll see what I mean.

The third book, I desperately hope, will be a real page turner. There were some scenes I completely expected to happen that fell through, that we all know HAVE TO HAPPEN AT SOME POINT. I was thinking it would happen earlier, but I’m still waiting to flush some character secrets out to really get the angst going.

Overall audience notes:
– Young adult fantasy, sci-fi
– No language
– Violence ranges based on prodigies ability
– Love is mostly teenage flirting, one kiss scene that is barely detailed

Happy Publishing Day: The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson

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The Wren Hunt

I gratefully received this book as an e-arc from Bloomsbury USA Children’s through Netgalley and was taken on such a ride!

Here’s the synopsis:

Every Christmas, Wren is chased through the woods near her isolated village by her family’s enemies—the Judges—and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it. Once her people, the Augurs, controlled a powerful magic. But now that power lies with the Judges, who are set on destroying her kind for good.

In a desperate bid to save her family, Wren takes a dangerous undercover assignment—as an intern to an influential Judge named Cassa Harkness. Cassa has spent her life researching a transformative spell, which could bring the war between the factions to its absolute end. Caught in a web of deceit, Wren must decide whether or not to gamble on the spell and seal the Augurs’ fate.

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This a book where you can see the parallels between Romeo & Juliet. It was a unique, fresh take that I haven’t personally seen a lot of! The romance is well done for a stand-a-lone novel and the characters are a good mix of personalities.

You can find my original review here!

CROPPED

 

Review: Ash and Quill (The Great Library #3) by Rachel Caine

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Ash and Quill

 

Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: Young adult, no language, some violence, kiss scenes
Length: 338 pages
Author: Rachel Caine
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: July 11th, 2017
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Words can kill.

Hoarding all the knowledge of the world, the Great Library jealously guards its secrets. But now a group of rebels poses a dangerous threat to its tyranny…

Jess Brightwell and his band of exiles have fled London, only to find themselves imprisoned in Philadelphia, a city led by those who would rather burn books than submit. But Jess and his friends have a bargaining chip: the knowledge to build a machine that will break the Library’s rule.

Their time is running out. To survive, they’ll have to choose to live or die as one, to take the fight to their enemies—and to save the very soul of the Great Library…

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YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME.

The Great Library focus is on the powerful friendships that can change the world. It’s great, it’s different than my normal reads and I’m always riveted by the end. The camaraderie between Jess, Thomas, Khalila, Dario, Glain, Morgan, Wolfe, Santi and even Brendan (I think I got them all?) is so fun to watch. Inter-relationships pull each other in ways where you’re not quite sure what side of the line they’ll end up on.

Jess is a well-rounded protagonist. He’s strong and dynamic and follows his own moral compass of guidelines. It leads him to be occasionally an unreliable narrator, leaving you missing just enough pieces to start to form the chess game he’s already started in his mind.

Wolfe and Santi’s relationship is precious. They’ve literally been through hell and back and are such fierce protectors of each other. I love the small, soft moments they get where we get to see their walls down.

On the other hand, I’m still struggling with Morgan and Jess’s relationship. I feel like they meet, kiss, and then don’t speak again til they decide to kiss again. I’m not sure what kind of relationship that is. It did get better in the second-half of the book when Jess started letting her in on plans. They were actually speaking and developing a secondary dialogue other than heated kisses in hallways.

EVERYONE NEEDS A FRIEND LIKE THOMAS. That man is struggling so much over-coming his torture within the Library and is still thinking of others first, every time. It’s great and his “goody-good” persona (he does have his dark moments, don’t worry) gives a good balance to Jess.

Y’all, I got Brendan a lot more in this book too!! I think he’s a great antagonist. The Ying to Jess’s Yang. Them coming together in the end gave a magnificent plot-twist cliff-hanger ending that will play out in ways that I’m not even sure of. I love not being sure of things!

I was also struggling with the continual…leave this location, become prisoners, escape, go to next location, repeat. I’m slowly getting real weary of it, but I believe the way this book finishes sets up for a different kind of prison. Jess, at least, is finally on the offensive. I can only imagine the dramatics that will ensue with the next installment, can’t wait!

Overall audience notes:
– Young adult dystopian/fantasy
– No language
– Some violence (blood, guns, physical)
– Kiss scenes are slightly passionate with one scene where more could be implied