Tag Archives: 1-star

Review: NDF novels #2

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These are some short reviews of novels that I started and couldn’t finish. I’ll probably pass them onto a friend or attempt to sell them to a local bookstore. Sing out if you want them!

Meaghan Wilson Anastasios – The Honourable Thief / The Emerald Tablet

I started The Honourable Thief, and then abandoned it because it was so slow to get started and I couldn’t respect the aging male protagonist. I went in expecting Indiana Jones style action and tension, and got painstaking, painful details of Benedict’s surroundings (and honestly I wasn’t that interested in them).

Fast forward a year, and I found myself on an aeroplane trapped with only The Emerald Tablet to read (I’d completely forgotten about even reading the first novel). Sadly, I found that it had many of the same problems as the first. I hated Benedict Hitchens and his bumbling self-assuredness, and I detested Eris, his love interest. One of the earliest scenes is Eris pleasuring herself while she thinks about Benedict, and the whole thing made me twitch awkwardly on my seat. There was no need to go there!

Pan Macmillan | 31st July 2018 | $29.99 | paperback
Pan Macmillan | 25th June 2019 | $29.99 | paperback

Peter James – Absolute Proof

I put off reading this novel for a long time because the blurb about proving God’s exisitance and reporting it in the news didn’t sound appealing to me. Then I realised that I had enjoyed Peter James’ novel Love You Dead. So I thought I would try out Absolute Proof. Unfortunately it was just as bad as I expected. It had too many characters, too many conflicting and confusing storylines and an unconvincing protagonist (who I assume was the journalist).

Pan Macmillan 25th September 2018 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Corey Ann Haydu – OCD Love Story

I picked this up for a lighthearted holiday read, but sadly found myself irritated at the protagonist’s stupid thoughts. Obsessed by two or three guys at once? It felt like the author was making light of what is actually a very serious obsession. Bea even already has a restraining order against her! And her best friend is useless. No. Don’t touch this one. Maybe the bright pink cover should have given it away for me…

Review: Bill Bennett – Palace of Fires

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Palace of Fires
Bill Bennett

Lily and her mom have been on the run since Lily’s dad was killed in a hit-and-run four years ago. Lily has enjoyed living on the farm, and gentle gardening with her mom. But then a regular trip to the Farmer’s Market ends with tragedy – Lily’s mom is missing, and Lily thinks a scary biker is at fault.

I was initially sent the second book in this trilogy to review (Unholy) back in 2018. I hadn’t read the first book, so I put it on my shelf to be read when I could get it from the library. Then this month Penguin generously sent me all three books to read! Sadly, I couldn’t get past the first one.

The most promising part of this novel was the prologue! Lily’s ancestor is trying to keep her family alive, but the potato fields are blighted so she signs her name in blood with Satan. Then the book segues awkwardly into an elite hunter witch and her two familiars that feed on toe-nipples (no, you didn’t read that incorrectly!).

Details that should have simply been implied are spelled out and then spelled out again. The book jumps between perspectives of the witches, the hunter, the hag, Lily, Lily’s love interest etc etc. to the point that you don’t actually know which character you should care about. Of course we should care the most about Lily, but honestly I found her irritating and all too predictable. She really works hard to make herself different from everyone else, and she doesn’t even bother trying to do social niceties when they might benefit her.

I haven’t read a book that I detested as much as this one for quite a while! I mean, I hated I Always Find You, but I at least finished it. Bill Bennett’s Unholy wasn’t even tolerable for 100 pages. 1 star. I’d give 0 stars if I could.

Penguin Random House | 3rd September 2019 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: John Ajvide Lindqvist – I Always Find You

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I Always Find You
John Ajvide Lindqvist

John moves into a basement apartment to prepare to enter a competition of magicians and get away from his mother. Instead he finds himself adrift and poor in a city that doesn’t care about him, with people who are indifferent to everything. Except maybe whatever is hiding in the laundry room.

Who always finds John? Is it the guy calling him and asking for Sigge? What does that even mean? Does Sigge mean a particular word in Swedish? Is it actually important that John is a magician? Or would like to be one? Does anything matter? I think the answer is no.

Honestly, I’m not sure why I finished this novel .Was I torturing myself in some way? Hoping for a redemptive ending? It went from strange to weird, to even more strange. Maybe it’s all my fault for reading a second book in a trilogy out of context? But is it actually relevant since it’s Lindqvist pretending to be the protagonist in his novel?

Is this a horror story? I mean, I felt terrible for the child with the broken legs, but I wasn’t horrified by it. And the thing in the bathtub? That wasn’t horror. That was just a thing in the bathtub! I didn’t mind that things might come out of the Subway – because they never did. It seemed like the horror was just an excuse to let people be mean and nasty to each other.

I know that since I finished this I shouldn’t technically give it 1 star. But since I don’t know why I finished it, I’m not going to worry about it! Perhaps it would appeal to readers who love Lindqvist’s other novels? But for me, I know that I’m not going to touch anything by this author ever again if I can help it.

Text Publishing | 2nd July 2018 | AU$32.99 | paperback

Review: Gena Showalter – Firstlife

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Firstlife
Gena Showalter

Prynne Asylum is the home of underage children that won’t do what their parents want them to do – whether it’s getting married or Choosing the right Second Life provider. Tenley’s been tortured for longer than she thought was possible, but she’s determined not to Choose Myriad or Troika. The two realms are determined to get her on their sides though – and she might die anyway.

How dumb can one girl be? It’s clearly obvious which side she’s going to pick. Oh boo hoo, your boy toy isn’t from the same place. Oh no! You might war with your parents for forever! Get over it! Choose based on what you see, not what people tell you. She’s all about being strong and kicking people in the balls (literally and figuratively) and then she’s just bowled over by good old Killian because he smells good.

Let’s not forget the inclusion of a weird psychic, and a suddenly discovered clause that that means that Ten isn’t her parents’ meal ticket any more. Oh, and the fact that Ten can recover from basically any injury (and so can the other humans) within the space of what seems to be hours. She ends up dying at least twice, and then she’s brought back. So really, who cares? I couldn’t get attached.

Ten’s pretty obsessed with numbers, but honestly I think it’s a load of bunkem. Any number can be special if you would like it to be! I’m personally quite fond of the number 13 because everyone says it’s unlucky. But I could equally choose 11, because it’s the first double digit prime number, or 2 because it’s the only even prime number. Tenley’s form of swearing is to say ‘zero’ to herself!

I waded my way through quite a lot of this novel before I gave up and read the synopsis on GoodReads for it, and the following two novels. 1 star – I didn’t finish it, don’t bother.

Review: NDF novels #1

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These are some short reviews of novels that I started and couldn’t finish. I’ll probably pass them onto a friend or attempt to sell them to a local bookstore. Sing out if you want them!

Maggie Stiefvater – The Raven King

I read and reviewed the first three novels (The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Lily Blue, Lily Blue) in this series when The Raven King arrived in my mailbox. But then I was feeling so ‘meh’ about the whole series that I abandoned it. I reattempted The Raven King, but I found myself with the same complaints as the first time – too many side avenues, irritating and unreliable characters and a confusing plot line.

Scholastic | 1st September 2017 | AU$19.99 | hardback

Un-su Kim – The Plotters

I just couldn’t get into this one. It reminded me a little of The Name of Death, in that it talked about a specific assassin, but it lacked the hook and suspense. I don’t even remember who the assassin was now, or what his name was. I know that his Plotter was in charge of a library though! The ‘story’ meandered and I couldn’t find anything redeeming about it.

Text Publishing | 30th July 2018 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Review: Emily McGlashan – The Gazebo

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The Gazebo
Emily McGlashan

Lola lives with her depressed older brother and her alcoholic mother. Lola takes care of her mother and brother, and wants to prevent her older brother Seb from killing himself. At school a fire has put all the kids out into gazebos, and the time that follows could shape Lola’s life forever.

This was a torturous book to read. For a very slim book that could have taken an hour or so to zoom through, it took me literally months to get to the end. The writing style left me wondering why there were so many words used to describe simple situations. Too many things are spelled out and the passive voice of Lola is irritating and wishy-washy. The book seems as if it has come out of the author’s head in one piece, and then hasn’t been checked for its ability to connect with a reader.

The blurb tells me that Lola will tackle the hardest decision she’s ever made, but no, no she doesn’t. Her decisions mainly seem to include forgiving people for being downright rude and racist. Her decisions regarding Seb aren’t even decisions. That ending was horrible. I’m happy to have a ‘sad’ ending, rather than a ‘happily ever after ending’, but at least make it reasonable. Do you really want people to go out there and kill themselves? Because this novel makes it seem like a viable option.

There’s triggering references to self harm, and also depictions of suicide, so take care of yourself. I don’t recommend this novel anyway. A good novel about mental illness (such as ‘A Way Out’ or ‘Fierce Fragile Hearts‘) will make you feel the way the character does if you’ve ever felt alone and give you a #itgetsbetter feeling. The Gazebo on the other hand didn’t make a connection with me at all.

I feel terrible for hating this novel because the author seems like a really nice person! I think with more practice and a steady editor Emily McGlashan could be a name to look out for in YA mental health literature. Until then, I’d leave The Gazebo as unreadable – don’t risk reading it.

Review: Rebecca Serle – The Dinner List

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The Dinner List
Rebecca Serle

Sabrina has invited one person to her 30th birthday dinner, yet when she arrives there are five people at the table. One is her best friend and another her college professor, but also three dead people. Over wine and conversation, Sabrina is invited to reflect on her life so far, and what she wants to do next.

I hated this novel. I finished it, but I completely skimmed the last half of it because I was impatient with the slow action and boring protagonist. Passing between the present dinner and past memories could have added some momentum, but instead just served to push me out of the narrative, and wonder why the dinner table format had been used if the novel was going to contain flashbacks anyway.

I get that this could have been a sort of thought experiment, but honestly why was Audrey Hepburn there? I could understand her ex being there, and her dead father, but ugh, the rest could have been the waiter talking for all I cared, interjecting with random suggestions of how to think about ideas.

How is that ending useful? I didn’t experience any closure, or any sense of why the ending was logical. I’ve tagged this novel under ‘romance’ because that’s what GoodReads advised me, but I don’t think it’s a romance. It’s a tragedy of a novel that had potential but failed to perform. 1 star from me.

Allen & Unwin | 29th August 2018 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Review: Stephen Giles – the boy at the keyhole

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the boy at the keyhole
Stephen Giles

Samuel’s mother left in the middle of the night leaving him with only Ruth for company. Soon, Samuel is paranoid that Ruth has killed his mother, and he finds himself searching everywhere in the house for truth. His uncle and his best friend can’t help him – what is true and what isn’t?

I started diligently reading this novel, and then got bored with the incredibly slow progression. I did want to know what happened though, so I basically just skim read to the ending. I’m fortunate that I didn’t waste my time on this novel because the ending was disappointing anyway.

The author sets us up to hate Ruth simply because it is told from Samuel’s perspective. Ruth is portrayed as overbearing and a perfectionist, and very controlling. It’s hard to tell whether she really is these things, and whether she has killed Sam’s mother. That’s where the psychological thriller part should have come in, but I honestly didn’t care about his mother.

I honestly thought that this would be a novel similar to The Girl in the Red Coat, where Samuel was locked in his room all the time and could only peer out through the keyhole, and not be allowed to go to school. I also didn’t finish that novel, so perhaps it’s not a surprise I didn’t read this one thoroughly. 1 star. Try babydoll for a truly horrifying kidnap/isolation narrative.

Penguin Random House | 17th September 2018 | AU$29.99 | hardback

Review: Lucy Christopher – Storm-Wake

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Storm-Wake
Lucy Christopher

Moss has always lived on the flower island with Pa and fish-boy Cal. Pa controls the storms, and Moss growing older, but he can’t control Cal. With the storms getting worse, and Pa’s Blackness creeping in, will Moss ever be able to see her Birthday Surprise?

What am I supposed to feel about this whole concept? I read that this is based loosely around ‘The Tempest’, which now makes the chapter/section headings make sense. Reading it just as a novel without this novel makes the reader confused as to why things are Act 1, Scene I etc. Why has the author chosen to do this? I honestly have no idea why the author did ANYTHING in this novel.

The characters are devoid of any introspective thoughts or higher level planning, mainly aided by the lack of language. The novel meandered through deep drug hazes in flowery (haha) language that drove me crazy with its childish repetition and semi-made-up language that runs into itself. This kind of writing reminded me of MunMun.  To top things off, there is no conclusion to this novel. What is real, and what isn’t? What are the chances of people actually being able to swim that far?

It’s not fantasy, but it’s not clear fiction either. It’s a made-up world that I regret spending a couple of hours in my life in. Just like Neverland, I forced myself to finish reading this novel in the hopes of a redemption that didn’t come. 1 star.

Scholastic | 1st July 2018 | AU$16.99 | paperback

Review: Lexi Freiman – Inappropriation

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Inappropriation
Lexi Freiman

Ziggy is going to have a great time at her new prestigious private girls’ school. With a feminist mother, a mild-mannered father and a holocaust-surviving grandma, you’d think Ziggy was full of personality. But she is just looking for her niche and a way to fit in.

I got a couple of chapters in, but I couldn’t work out the purpose of the novel. What was I gaining from wading through the psyche of Ziggy? If I wanted to read something written in a thick literary and nuanced style, I would have picked up an adult fiction novel. I had nothing else to read where I was, but I still put it down.

The cover promises me “You’ll laugh out loud and squirm and wince”… Well, I certainly squirmed and winced at the terrible ‘literary style’ of writing and irritating protagonist. Then it tells me “You sure won’t put it down”. Well, I did, and I felt such revulsion when I discovered it back on my reading shelf that I had to review it immediately to get it OUT.

I’ve tagged this under teenage, because the protagonist is teenager, but honestly I can’t think of a teenager who would be interested in reading it. The 19 year old who is currently perusing my bookshelves put it down in disgust as well, just from the blurb!

Don’t waste your money or your time. Resist its brilliant red cover and run for the hills. Choose anything else to read rather than this. 1 star.

Allen & Unwin | 1st August 2018 | AU$29.99 | paperback