Rejects of 2011 (nine months late)

I think I actually read more awesomeness and less suckiness in 2011 than in previous years.  Or perhaps it’s because I simply wouldn’t finish the truly bad books and forgot to write them down.  I also decided to be an adult and read a lot more non-YA books.   But I digress, here’s a quick rundown of my Rejects of 2011 (Picks of 2011 to come later).

Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles.  Have you ever read a book and thought it to be awesome, then read a sequel and think, Was this written by a ghost writer?   That’s how I felt here.  RtP was the follow-up to Leaving Paradise, which I dug.  LP was nicely written, entertaining and all-in-all a pretty darn good read.  RtP was…not.  Filled with overused and lame clichés, the writing style left something to be desired.  Like interest.  Plot.  Character development.  So needless to say, it sucked.  A lot.

Another Faust by Daniel Nayeri.  Maybe I’m just not too bright.  Or maybe because when I’m bored with a book, I tend to skim a lot.  But I didn’t understand what was going on half the time.  I believe me, I reread parts more than once just trying to figure out what the heck was happening.  I found this book to be confusing and boring.  I’m not sure if it was confusing and thus I lost interest and was bored.  Or if I was bored so I wasn’t reading carefully and thus became confused.  Chicken or the egg.   You can read it and decide, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Crossed by Ally Condie.  This was another sequel to a decent book that fell short.  Really short.  The book’s predecessor, Matched, created an engaging dystopian universe in which society and governing figures dictate what you will do and who you will marry.  And of course the heroine doesn't want to marry the perfect boy society has deemed for her.  She wants the bad boy.  While slow at times, the interaction between the characters was enough to keep you going.  This was not the case for Crossed.  Ever seen those Comcast commercials with the tortoises?  They’d like this book because it was simply that slow.  I eventually gave up after the heroine had been traipsing after her love in a desert for half the book.  Because you know what happens when you’re reading about someone walking through a desert for days on end?  Nothing.

JaReview: Divergent

Dystopian society segregated into five factions in which Knowledge brainwashes Fearlessness which trounces Selflessness who turns to Kindness, whilst Truth just kinda sits there and makes inappropriate and unsolicated remarks. 

Dude, that was so not ten words.  The whole ten words or less sounded so good in my head.  Unfortunately I tend to ramble, even in my thoughts.

Divergent was ruthless and exciting, quite like the Hunger Games.  It hit the trifecta of intrigue, love and betrayal.  The only disappointing thing - loverboy's real name.   But overall, it was bloody brilliant.  Even if I did occassionally have to use Kindle's dictionary to keep all the factions straight.

Awesome.

{NIN} Review: COFA & COLS

City of Fallen Angels + City of Lost Souls = She should've stopped at City of Glass.

No disrespect to the fabulous Cassandra Clare.  But seriously, while I was initially excited to continue the TMI saga, I was rather disappointed with the whole Jace-Clary I'll-Love-You-Till-the-End-of-Time-and-to-My-Possible-Detriment-and-Demise.  It's getting kind of annoying.

I loved the first three TMI books.  I love The Infernal Devices series.  But I am just not diggin' COFA and COLS.  I didn't even buy COLS (whereas I have the first 4 books).  That should tell you how much I just didn't care for it after COFA.  And let me tell you, I loathe not completing ownership of a series.

I rate this as "Didn't Suffer Too Terribly" out of sheer nostalgia for the Shadowhunter World.

NinJa Reads: REACTIVATED!

Ja had the idea of reviewing books in 10 words or less as this would allow us not to worry about trying to write clever (or snarky) book reviews.  I thought, "What a great idea!" And then I tried to come up with a 10-word book review.

So did not happen.

The problem is, with 10 words or less, you have to work even harder to sound clever in your reviews because you have to choose the exact words that convey your thoughts to a T...and that is dang hard.  Even though the original purpose is to not have to sound clever, I'm vain and want to be funny.

So anyways, here's my attempt to reactivated NinJa Reads.

Fancy-named geek-chick awarded devilishly awesome internship at Chicago’s upper-crust hotel, only to discover it truly is “devilish”…and she’s an angel-in-training that they are trying to corrupt.

Hmm…is it 32 words, or does the hyphenated words make it only 28 words?  *g* Also, I guess it’s not really a review but a summary.  Drat. Ok, review:

Drags a bit with detailed daily hotel doings and Haven’s angel-self-discovery, but then demon-vs-angel battle POWS into the book.  Credit to the author for no Love-POW with the dude she ends up with.

Bah…see, this is hard.

Well, I've done my part.  Now it's {JA}'s turn!!