Review | Dreamless by Josephine Angelini

Dreamless
Josephine Angelini
Starcrossed #2
Published May 2012 by HarperTeen
YA mythological romance
Borrowed from the library
2.5 stars

Bite-Sized Review
Dreamless was one part angst, one part blah, and one part engaging. Overall I'd say it was sort of a wash; great for fans of All The YA, not recommended for people who are tired of all the same old, same old. I'm not sorry I read it, but I was underwhelmed.

King-Sized Review
I read Starcrossed about a year and a half ago, and it turns out I don't remember it very well. I remember that I enjoyed it (okay, my review indicates that I enjoyed it), and that's about it. So unfortunately, I can't explain to you what I was thinking at the time, but having just finished Dreamless, I really don't think Starcrossed would have been much better. Just goes to show you, tastes evolve, even in a year or so.

Anyway, Dreamless. It starts shortly after Starcrossed left off, with the impossibly perfect Helen trying to find the Furies in the Underworld in order to relieve the demigod Scions of the curse that induces members of different Houses to try to kill one another. Of course, this task is more difficult than it seems, and there are always people trying to interfere.

I will say that I like the world here. I'm a huge mythology fan, and the idea of having the gods trapped on Olympus is an interesting one. The Scions and the way they repeat the stories of previous demigods also make for a good story. Some of their abilities get a little far into the "Mary Sue" realm, but sometimes there are actually proportionate drawbacks that go with them, as in Cassandra's case.

However, as far as Mary Sues go, Helen is the kind of example that would make Laurel K. Hamilton roll her eyes. She is absolutely, stunningly beautiful, has a necklace that makes her impervious to harm, can hit people with bolts of lightning, is the only person in the known universe who can descend to the Underworld on her own, and freaking flies. Yes, Helen faces challenges, but at the same time, how many supernatural abilities can one person have? We all know the great powers=great responsibilities quote from Spiderman, but what people often forget that's crucial to keep fantasy from seeming ridiculous is that great power also has to come with some serious limitations or suspension of disbelief gets...suspended.

Granted, this isn't a problem unique to Dreamless, and wouldn't be quite as bad if Helen weren't so annoying. She is never, ever happy. Her perspective drips with melancholic melodrama, mostly about her former boyfriend whom she now believes is her cousin, Lucas. And in Dreamless, we are "rewarded" with the addition of yet another potential love interest, Orion, the Scion of another House. I am personally opposed to love triangles in 99 percent of all cases, so this was not a welcome development.

Nor was Lucas's inexplicable decision to make Helen hate him so they could stay apart. Why is it that YA love interests do this? Do they really think their girlfriends are too stupid or emotional to understand why they can't be together if they just explain it? Sure, it's obvious to me as the reader that Helen and Lucas are going to end up not being related, but of course there's no way for them to know that. Still, I have no clue why Lucas felt the need to push Helen away like that. This is another frustrating trend in YA novels.

Like I said, there were some engaging parts. Basically, the bits where there was real action were interesting, so that was a plus. Overall, I'd say if YA is your thing, you'll enjoy this book, but if the thought of reading about another love triangle-cum-sudden discovery of consanguinuity makes you gag, look for something else.

Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Want Santa to Bring

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and features lists on different bookish topics. Today's category:

Top Ten Books I Want Santa to Bring

Santa doesn't even have to come to my house! He can just send books to my Kindle. In no particular order:

Grave Memory

Kalayna Price

Alex Craft #3

Sins of the Demon

Diana Rowland

Kara Gillian #4

Tricked

Kevin Hearne

Iron Druid #4

Black Dawn

Rachel Caine

Morganville Vampires #12

Wonder

R.J. Palacio

The Mark of Athena

Rick Riordan

Heroes of Olympus #3

Pure

Jennifer L. Armentrout

Covenant #2

Seer of Sevenwaters

Juliett Marillier
Sevenwaters #5

Flight of the Raven

Stephanie S. Tolan

Ark #2

Thirteen

Kelley Armstrong

Women of the Otherworld #13

What books are on your wishlist? Leave a link to your post in the comments!

Review | Steel's Edge by Ilona Andrews

Steel's Edge
Ilona Andrews
The Edge #4
Parallel world romantic fantasy
Bought (Kindle)
4 stars

Bite-Sized Review
Steel's Edge is just as spellbinding as Ilona Andrews' other works. This book has everything: fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, monsters, chases, escapes, true love...

King-Sized Review
This book, and the series as a whole, are exceptionally difficult to classify. Let's just say they're fantasy that takes place across worlds with (the Weird and the Edge) and without (the Broken) magic, and they have a strong element of romance. In this final installment, Baroness Charlotte de Ney, a rare Healer, and Richard Mar, a swordsman, hunt down slavers in the Weird in an adventure that turns out to be much more than they expected.

Steel's Edge involves many characters from the previous books, but is more separate than many series conclusions. It takes place almost entirely in the Weird, with much more interaction with the nobility of Adrianglia than the previous books. Spider, the main villain in Bayou Moon and Fate's Edge, is surprisingly incidental to this story, but there is plenty of excitement to make up for it. Taking out the slavers involves lots of death, destruction, and horror, so it's really not a light read.

As if to compensate, Richard and Charlotte have perhaps the sweetest love story of the series. In a lot of "romance" novels (which isn't actually what I'd call this book, but we'll go with it for now), lust and love seem to get a little confused; you never hear the end of how attractive each character thinks the other is and how much they want to jump each others' bones, but fill-in-the-blank obstacle gets in the way. In this book, though, despite Charlotte and Richard's obvious attraction, it's really clear that they care deeply for one another.

One of the best parts of Ilona Andrews' writing in general is their attention to motivation. Every character acts in character all the time, and even the bad guys' decisions make sense, from an amoral standpoint. It's wonderful to read a book where the logic behind the Big Bad isn't "evil person is evil," something that happens depressingly often.

To me, this book is an excellent blend of romance and adventure. There's plenty happening all the time, so the romance doesn't get boring, and the adventure is dark enough that the romance is a welcome relief. I will pick up any book in this series again if I want something that is both exciting and sweet, and I highly recommend that you do too!

Quality: Excellent
Enjoyability: Excellent

Review | Iced by Karen Marie Moning

Iced
Karen Marie Moning
Dani O'Malley #1
Urban fantasy
3 stars

Bite-Sized Review

Iced was an enjoyable book despite heaping on lust like it was candy on Halloween. Don't expect it to be Fever, but it does have KMM's characteristic engaging writing style and many of the same interesting characters I loved in the Fever series. And please note that even though Dani is fourteen, this book should definitely not be categorized as YA.

King-Sized Review

Well. I was, like many other people, a huge fan of the Fever series and both excited and apprehensive about the release of Iced. Excited because, more Fever! And apprehensive because a) Dani was kind of an annoying narrator whenever she seized the reins in Fever, and b) since she's fourteen, any romantic under-, over-, or just general tones come off as icky.

It was both better and worse than I thought it would be. Yes, there were times when Dani was an annoying idiot. She thinks she's very smart, and she is, but she's still fourteen, which makes her sort of automatically an idiot. It could, therefore, be argued that her obnoxiousness added realism to the story, but I'm not sure the realism was worth having to deal with all the crap, not to mention the number of times she uses the word "dude". Luckily, Dani is also funny and learning about her is interesting because she doesn't share well.

Let's take a look at the plot. Iced takes place pretty much right after the end of Shadowfever, so if you haven't read that, don't read the rest of this review.

Okay. I'm going to assume all the infidels are gone now and keep talking. The Unseelie King is off somewhere with the concubine/Aoibheal, Cruce/the Sinsar Dubh is frozen in a block of ice under the abbey, and Faery has merged with our world, resulting in lots of deaths and Interdimensional Fairy Potholes. Most of the action takes place in Dublin, centered at Chester's, Ryodan's weird club/fae hunting grounds. There's conflict between Dani and Ryodan as he tries to mold her into his future...what would you call it? A mate? See, kind of icky. Most of this molding occurs around a series of strangely frozen locations as everyone tries to solve the mystery of the "iced" places.

A lot of what made Fever a really interesting series was not knowing anything about a single thing that was going on, and then learning more and knowing even less. Iced tries to recapture some of that mystique with the question of who or what is causing these strange temperature fluctuations, but as the phrase "temperature fluctuations" suggests, it's not quite as captivating.

And don't make the mistake of thinking that because Dani is fourteen, this is a YA book. There's waaaayyyy too much time spent on sex. Dani has not one, not two, but three men hovering, waiting for her to grow up a bit so their intentions become a little less creepy. I could definitely have skipped the sections from Christian's perspective, since they were overly angsty and I already knew he was seriously losing it. All he thinks about is getting Dani, along with a little bit of killing Ryodan, which got tiresome really quickly.

The book also included a few peeks into the mind of Kat, now the de facto Grand Mistress of the sidhe-seers. These were more or less unrelated to the main plot and would have been a welcome relief from all the male posturing going on in Dublin, except that they were all about Cruce and how unbelievably hot he was. Basically, the sex was so overdone it just sort of shriveled up into this grayish strip of burned meat. And the main character never even got any (fortunately).

But other than that, I enjoyed the book. KMM has an especially enthralling writing style that works in Iced about as well as in the rest of her books. I think that even though I wasn't expecting Iced to be as good as Fever, I was still a little disappointed when I was right. It really is a good read for a Fever fan, though. It's just not Fever.

Read-A-Thon | Wrap-Up

I did not exactly finish the read-a-thon. Or rather, I finished the read-a-thon at 6:30 am instead of 8, when it was supposed to end. I should be disappointed, but since I had to wake up at 10:30 and I was already feeling a bit ill, I think it actually worked out fairly well. Anyway, I still managed to finish a decent number of books, so it was a good read-a-thon.

Books read: 6

Pages read: 1729

Hours listened: 2:04
Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn
The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle
Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier

Legion by Brandon Sanderson (audio-novella)

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?

Clearly hour 23, since that is when I fell asleep. :)

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

I've read Juliet Marillier books in the late teens hours for the past two read-a-thons, and those have worked really well.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

It would be nice if we could get some discussion going a few days before the read-a-thon.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

The cheerleaders did an amazing job! Thanks Team Smarties cheerers! :)

5. How many books did you read?

6

6. What were the names of the books you read?

Scroll up a bit :)

7. Which book did you enjoy most?

Actually probably Legion. Short but really interesting.

8. Which did you enjoy least?

Kitty's Big Trouble. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, because I did – I think it was my fastest read – but it was kind of same old, same old.

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

Hopefully I'll be able to do next year's read-a-thon as well!

Read-A-Thon, Part II

Halfway there! If it were summer, it still would be light out now. Lamentably, the light in fall lasts a little less long. (I'm rather proud of that sentence.)

How's the read-a-thon going for you? I just finished my second book and am ready to start the next one. I think I got off to a bit of a slow start, but hey, there's still twelve hours to go. What are you reading?

Hour 13
Finished: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Looking for Alaska by John Green

Currently reading: Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn

Mid-event survey:
1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?

Not bad so far.

2) What have you finished reading?

See above.

3) What is your favorite read so far?

I liked both of the books. They were very different, though, so I don't know if I could really say I liked one better than the other.

4) What about your favorite snacks?

I put vanilla buttercream frosting on chocolate chip cookies. It was awesome.

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love!

Errrrrrmmmmmm...I haven't been looking much...sorry...
I promise to visit every single one of the people who commented on my posts, and a few more, after the read-a-thon!

Hour 15
Finished: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn

Currently reading: The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle

Hour 18

Finished: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn
The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle

Currently reading: Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier

Hour 23
Finished: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn
The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle
Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier
Legion by Brandon Sanderson (audio-novella)

Currently reading: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Read-A-Thon | Updates

Good morning (or whatever greeting is appropriate in your time zone). I am in the process of making coffee, so I'm not really awake yet.

Here's the stack of books I'm planning to read. Obviously I won't get to all of them, but I like to have choices. I also have Pushing the Limits on my Kindle.

Introductory Questionnaire
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
I am reading from Washington, DC. It is sunny but cold. It's also 8 am.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Probably Looking for Alaska by John Green. I've heard lots of good things. I'm saving it for a bit later though.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Cookie dough. Some of the dough may even grow up to become cookies...if it survives. Mwahahaha.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
Coffee.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I'd like to try to comment on more blogs this time.

Hour 1
Currently reading: Terrier by Tamora Pierce

Hour 3
General updates: So far, so good. I haven't gotten very far in Terrier, but that's because I was prepping my cinnamon pull-apart bread for the oven and hitting the gym, where I listened to Legion. It's really good so far and free on Audible.

Currently reading: Terrier by Tamora Pierce

Challenge: Show us your snacks

Here's the cinnamon bread I was just talking about! It smells amazing. I'll let you know how it tastes soon!

Fresh out of the oven.

Hope everyone's doing well so far!

Hour 6
Currently reading: Terrier by Tamora Pierce. I knew I shouldn't have started with a 560 page book! The cinnamon bread is delicious, though. I'm going to make some frosting for it in a bit.

Hour 9
Finished: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Currently reading: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Hour 11
Currently reading: Looking for Alaska by John Green

General updates:

Fresh out of the oven is really the only way to eat baked goods.

Indeed, it came to pass that a fortunate lump of the Sacred Cookie Dough was chosen to brave the fiery mysteries of The Oven, and there survived for many torturous minutes. But alas, freedom was not to be had for these souls, for after emerging from The Oven into the brightness of artificial overhead lighting, they were lost to the cavernous pit of My Belly. And so we mourn. Let us bow our heads in sorrow for these, our Sacred Cookie Dough.

I have decided to convert to the religion of the Sacred Cookie Dough. I think the Sacred Cookie Dough might object to my method of worship, though.