ARC Review: Out of This Place by Emma Cameron

Title: Out of This Place

Author: Emma Cameron

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Release Date: May 14th, 2013

Out of This Place, known and published originally as Cinnamon Rain in Australia is a novel I've been wanting to read for a long time. Whenever I'd saved enough money to indulge in an Aussie book, invariably, some other novel would rise up the list before this one and I'd tell myself that I'd buy it - next time. Thus, when it came up on NetGalley, like a starved child I lunged for it, fervently hoping I'd be accepted. You can imagine my surprise, though, when I opened it to find that it was a verse novel.

So, I'll say it now: Out of This Place is a verse novel.

I have nothing against verse novels, but the only one I can remember liking was Love That Dog by Sharon Creech - a novel I read nearly a decade ago. As such, my excitement suddenly turned into skepticism, mostly because verse novels and I have not had a very illustrious history. Emma Cameron is an Aussie author, though, and I placed my trust in her words to guide me through this book.

And I'm glad I did.

Out of This Place is very different from your typical read. It is split three-way and told from the perspectives of three characters, all friends, all high school students, and all trying to find their place in the world. Quite surprisingly, I found that I loved the manner in which this novel was written and it worked very well for the story as a whole, enriching it even further. You wouldn't think it, but it turns out that an unexpected amount of depth can be conveyed through simple verse - a feat that Emma Cameron manages to complete seamlessly.

Nevertheless, I do have to admit that I felt as if something was missing from this. It took me awhile to really get into the style of the novel and the perspective changes, but even more than that, I think I was simply expecting a little more. As a novel, this book lacks nothing, but as a reader who has heard nothing but high praise for this little novel, perhaps I set my standards a little too high. I emerged from this novel satisfied, but not overly impressed and - dare I say it? - glad that I hadn't bought this one online after all.

I will certainly be clamoring to pick up whatever Emma Cameron writes next, merely because she makes her characters and their problems seem all so very real, but for readers who, like me, have heard much hype about this novel, I'd caution you - but only slightly. Out of This Place is unique, different from the majority of other contemporary reads out there, and combined with its impeccable characterization and stunning writing style, it deserves to be read, regardless of that slight missing factor left in my heart afterwards.

Quick Reviews: The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab & A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

Quite obviously, these reviews aren't mini, but they're not quite my usual length either. And, I promise you, both of them are very quick reads - hence the title. I hope you enjoy! :)

Title: The Near Witch

Author: Victoria Schwab

Rating: DNF/2 Stars

You should know, right off the bat, that I am not a patient person. It's not one of my better traits, which is why I make such a conscious effort to be patient, to give every book an equal chance, to really try and connect with the characters. Yet, although the overwhelming majority of readers have loved this book, including some of my most trusted reviewers whose opinions nearly always match up with mine, I was unable to bring myself to actually finish The Near Witch. As Victoria Schwab's debut, it certainly succeeds in getting across its most important point - that Victoria Schwab can write. Schwab can string together words in a manner that can only be described as beautiful, but as far as characters, plot, or even romance goes? Unfortunately, Schwab couldn't even keep my attention for that long.

From the first page itself, The Near Witch is two things. (1) It is boring. Its plot drags on, giving us extraneous detail when we don't need it, revealing to us long and drawn-out conversation that is absolutely unnecessary and does nothing to further the plot. As such, it is very easy to let your mind wander for more than just a little bit. (2) It is shockingly unoriginal. The Near Witch is more of a fairy tale and less of a fantasy novel, but it is a long and drawn-out fairy tale. One which has been told so many times before.

Any seasoned reader of fantasy will tell you that the typical tale starts out in a secluded village (Check!), with a protagonist who is more of a tomboy than the traditional wife she is meant to be (Check!), and everything really only starts with the arrival of a mysterious stranger (Check!). At this point, a few things can happen. Either the girl will somehow wind up traveling away from her village with her stranger and, down the road, they have adventures and fall in love, all while saving their kingdom. Or, the stranger is unaccepted in the village, but the girl somehow meets him and falls in love with him anyway (Check!).

Now, all we need to add to our story is a mystery, a tale of a not-forgotten witch, and a missing child to spice everything up. As a lover of all things fantasy, this traditional set-up didn't turn me off. In fact, some of my favorite novels have followed this same pattern, but what makes them shine while The Near Witch will collect dust in my attic is the fact that their characters were compelling. Lexi, the protagonist of The Near Witch is headstrong and fierce, admirable traits for sure, but I never really felt any type of connection with her. If the plot itself had been a little more engaging, I suspect I may have warmed up to Lexi, but with such a slow plot-line, I couldn't bring myself to really care all that much.

Ultimately, I have to admit that it was the slow pace that made me put this down far before I'd reached the end. In all honesty, the story of The Near Witch could be condensed into a novella and have more success as, really, it is just a simple fairy tale. Schwab's debut is not, in my eyes, a full-blown fantasy novel and it lacks the plot structure to become one. Nevertheless, I have to warn you all to take this review with a grain of salt. Schwab's debut seems to have been a favorite of many readers and I suspect, as always, this is just another case of me being a black sheep. Although I fully intend to read Schwab's The Archived, perhaps I'll go into it with fewer expectations now. Either way, I can only hope Schwab's sophomore novel is far stronger than her debut could hope to be.

Title: A Long, Long Sleep 

Author: Anna Sheehan

Rating: 2 Stars/DNF

Well...this was a disappointment. A Long, Long Sleep is a well-known novel, acclaimed by nearly every single one of my most trusted reviewers. Clearly, there is something wrong with me. Although Sheehan's debut has an original premises with a futuristic twist on the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, I unfortunately can't claim to be impressed. At all.

At first, it's difficult not to be enamored with this novel. It all starts with Rose waking up after six decades only to find that her parents and boyfriend have died, along with virtually everyone she knows, because of a great plague. Rose, who was "stassed" or kept alive in a chamber, must now face the futuristic realm she finds herself in, all while getting accustomed to the world of politics and intrigue she has simultaneously been thrown in.

While I loved the idea behind A Long, Long Sleep, I found its execution to be poor. Rose, for one, is a heroine I didn't feel much for. On one hand, I appreciate that she's physically weak from her ordeal and mentally confused, but she fails to make any attempts to improve her lifestyle. Furthermore, she seems fixated both on her first love, Xavier, and her new crush, Bren, who really isn't all that great as a hunk. In fact, the only secondary characters I liked were Otto, an alien, and, ironically enough, the villain who wants to prevent Rose from owning the large corporation her parents built when she comes of age.

A Long, Long Sleep also falls flat in the world-building department. Thankfully, it is present, but since it's told in large chunks, it disrupts the flow of the story and can drag. Moreover, the corporate political path that this book seems to take in the beginning is utterly abandoned in favor of a typical high-school love story. Even more unfortunate is the fact that there is virtually no difference between the futuristic society Rose wakes up in and the one she went to sleep in. I appreciate that Sheehan took pains to distinguish modern phrases, but either than a few technology shifts, not much has happened in six decades.

Granted, I abandoned this book in an interested spot, directly half-way through the narration. Yet, I think it says a lot about a novel that I had no qualms setting it down right as it explained a major plot twist. Even more than a lackluster plot line and execution, this novel failed to make me establish any connections with its cast. All in all, A Long, Long Sleep is just another one of those hyped up novels. Perhaps if I had gone into it without expecting something much greater, I would have been more satisfied. As it stands, I don't plan to re-visit this novel - or its author - again.

Review: Lucid by Adrienne Stoltz

Title: Lucid

Author: Adrienne Stoltz and Ron Bass

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Forget everything you've been told about Lucid. Everything. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a title of a novel I've been more mislead by, and not in a good way. Lucid promises to be an original, mind-boggling, and paranormal tale of two girls who can't discern their reality from their dreams, much like what happens to Leonardo DiCaprio's wife in "Inception." Lucid, I have to admit, certainly delivers on this front, but only during the last twenty percent of this novel. For the other eighty percent, we are slowly flipping the pages, bored senseless by the normalcy of the two lives we are presented and if, you're like me, banging our heads as Adrienne Stoltz has managed to cleverly weave two love triangles in one. While Lucid is by no means an excellent novel, its ending saved it from being a disappointing one.

Maggie and Sloane have the same name, but they could not be two more different individuals. Maggie is a teenage actress living in Manhattan with a widowed mother who is more careless than responsible and a beloved younger sister who Maggie dotes on, but also takes full care of. Sloane, on the other hand, has a loving family, a younger brother, a best guy friend who is always there for her, and a normal school life. In fact, the only tragedy to hit her life is the death of Bill, a childhood friend. For Maggie, romance enters her life in the form of Andrew and Thomas while Sloane is torn between James, the enigmatic new guy who wins her heart with his intellect and good-looks, and her life-long best friend, Gordy. What makes Sloane and Maggie connected, though, more than just their names is the fact that they dream of each others lives at night and now, they can't tell who is real and who is simply a figment of their own imagination.

Quite frankly, it took me awhile to get into Lucid. If I hadn't been reading this on a read-along, I most probably would have abandoned it at its half-way point. Each chapter switches from the perspectives of Maggie and Sloane and at first, I found myself zooming through Maggie's chapters to get to Sloane. Maggie, as an actress, is aloof and distant from the reader for much of the story, failing to form the immediate emotional connection that Sloane garners because of the normalcy of her life. As the novel wore on, though, I found that I began to care for both heroines and the stark differences between their narrations were very clearly felt, which is an obvious plus point in the direction of this debut author.

Unfortunately, though, the eighty percent of this novel shrouded in dullness is also filled with angst. We have Maggie, who likes Andrew, who has a girlfriend. We also have Thomas, who is an agent, who likes Maggie, who is seven years younger than him and isn't even a legal adult. Ew. On the other hand, we have Sloane, who is besotted with James - and I don't completely blame her - but he, too, is rather mercurial. Although Gordy is never a viable love interest because of the attention Sloane lavishes on James, our feelings towards James oscillate from love to hate rapidly. One of the most unique aspects of this novel is that by the end, some of this makes sense. My mixed feelings towards James, for instance, are perfectly explained and kind of mind-blowing in their subtle genius. Others, though, are merely present for drama, angst, and for the sake of prolonging the novel longer than it needed to be. Folks, the beginning of this story is not a fun ride - not at all.

Thankfully, though, the plot slowly gives away to a descent into madness. We see aspects of Maggie's life crop up in Sloane's and vice versa and, at first, we aren't sure what to think. When the ending arrives, it is stunning and explains so much - but not enough. It seems to be too obscure for me to fully fall in love with this novel, yet decent enough that I did like it. Nevertheless, I can only recommend Lucid to the most patient of readers, those who can barrel through angst and love triangles to finally get to the rather genius ending within. And, to them, I simply say this: good luck.

A huge thanks to Jasprit for reading this along with me! Without her, I would have undoubtedly given up and never been shocked by the utterly brilliant ending. :)

ARC Review: The S-Word by Chelsea Pitcher

Title: The S-Word

Author: Chelsea Pitcher

Rating: 2 Stars

Release Date: May 7th, 2013

As you can probably guess from the fact that I started The S-Word a little over an hour ago, I skimmed through this novel. Even I can't read a three-hundred page novel so quickly. Now, having finished this debut, all I can think is that it would have been far more suited to the hands of a more experienced writer. For a debut novel, The S-Word lacks finesse. I cannot pinpoint exactly what it is, but something about the writing style in this didn't work for me. Although it is evident that the vision that Pitcher had for her first piece is brilliant, its ultimate execution sadly isn't.

The S-Word opens up with the suicide of Lizzy. Angie and Lizzy have been best friends for years, but when Angie catches Lizzy with her boyfriend on the night of prom, she ceases to speak to her and, consequently, the entire school labels her as a slut. Now, even with her death, her memory refuses to fade. A mysterious individual writes "SCHOOL SLUT" on the lockers, all in Lizzy's looping scrawl, and what's more, they slip pages from her diary into the lockers of students who Lizzy knew well. Angie, filled with guilt at the role she played in her best friends subsequent death, sets out to find who exactly is writing on lockers and reading Lizzy's diary. Along the way, though, she may find a truth more shocking than everything else.

In terms of plot, The S-Word is excellent. As a mystery novel, it reads very well, flowing at a solid pace and revealing clues slowly, but masterfully. While I had many ideas, the ultimate revelation was still a slight shock and, on that front, Pitcher proved to be a strong author. Yet, what forced me to skim this novel was, quite simply, the writing style. First and foremost, Angie is a protagonist who lacks emotion. Although her best friend has just committed suicide and betrayed her with her boyfriend, Angie never exhibits any outward anger, grief, or trauma. Instead of her narration reading like that of a friend who is mourning her childhood companion, it reads more like a mystery than anything else, which took away from the overall impact of this story.

Moreover, the dialogue veered on the border of highly unrealistic at times. When Angie interviews her classmate, either her responses or theirs often made me question the soundness of the phrasing. For some reason, it simply didn't flow, proving to be rather choppy. Even Lizzy's diary entries, which are scattered between every few chapters, read more like the thoughts of a middle school student than a high school girl gearing for college. All in all, it was simply so tough to grasp this story because of the distance first placed by the narrator and later the unrealistic dialogue that marred the situations throughout this book.

Yet, even more than that, I was sad to find that the ultimate message of this book, although important in thought, was never properly conveyed. Granted, Pitcher did have a fabulous idea for her debut, one that could have changed the thought-processes of many readers, but as a whole, her book fell short of that much-needed impact. You see, despite focusing on the injustice of branding girls as a slut, especially when the boy involved gets away without even one form of bullying, The S-Word never felt as if it preached to a universal audience of girls. Prior to Lizzy's betrayal, she had always been known as a goody-two-shoes type of girl who had no interest in boys or sex. Thus, when Angie defends her friend, she continually emphasizes the fact that Lizzy was a good girl and, as such, didn't deserve the label of a slut.

In this manner, Pitcher makes us feel sympathy for Lizzy instead of immediately hating her for her actions as so many of her classmates did, but isn't this simply a double standard? What about the girls who get labeled sluts every day and aren't a carbon copy of Mandy Moore from A Walk to Remember? What about those girls who are just normal, flawed beings with their fair share of "enemies" in high school? Do they deserve to be labeled a slut, then? No, of course not. Chelsea Pitcher manages to get into the mindset of this fictional school and these fictional characters, but her messages about slut-shaming are restricted to her novel and aren't nearly as universal as I hoped.

Nevertheless, I must admit that The S-Word is a novel with very good intentions. It set out to show readers that we are quick to judge and label, especially in a world that continually objectifies women. Although we live in societies where women are given their basic freedoms - voting, abortion rights, independence - they are still subject to so much more than their ancestors never were. While The S-Word didn't work to impact me in any way, I certainly hope that other readers will find it to be the thought-provoking novel I hoped it would be. Even if it lacks a lot, idea certainly isn't one of them. (But, then again, isn't the point of a novel to execute a good idea well? *sigh*)

Review: Mine Till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas

Title: Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1) 

Author: Lisa Kleypas 

Rating: 4.5 Stars 

Mine Till Midnight is a novel that completely took me by surprise. Although its cover just screams "bodice ripper," don't let that fool you. In reality, Lisa Kleypas' first Hathaways novel is a story of tender relationships, growing family, and understanding love. It's a novel that defies most of the typical norms set on historical fiction, instead taking a less-trodden path and succeeding all the more for it. While you would expect plenty of sensual encounters, dashing dukes, and drama resulting from a severe lack of communication from most historical fiction novels, Mine Till Midnight delivers with sweet and adoring love scenes, steady character growth, and inner issues that the characters must face opposed to your run-of-the-mill drama. As such, it was a novel that might as well have been written for me and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. If anything is certain, it is that I will certainly be reading more of Kleypas as soon as I possibly can.

Amelia Hathaway is a protagonist I liked even from the first page. When our story opens up, she is frantically searching for her elder brother who is squandering away the Hathaway's newly acquired wealth. With the help of a childhood friend and gypsy, Merripen, she traces her older brother, Leo, to an establishment run by the dark and enigmatic Cam Rohan. Cam, a gypsy himself, cannot help but find Amelia alluring and after helping her locate her brother, kisses her before residing to the fact that he will most likely never see her again. As fate would have it, however, the Hathaway's new residence happens to be neighboring to the home of Cam's own friends and before long, he is caught up in Amelia's life yet again.

Cam, a mixture of gypsy and Irish blood, is an outcast is both worlds. Although he longs to be part of the nomadic tribes, he fails to realize that the Irish part of him retains strong roots and that his time spent as a civilized man is bound to cause difficulties if he were to return to the gypsy lifestyle. With the entry of Amelia into his life, however, he can't help but begin to fall for the beautiful woman. Amelia is fiercely independent and protective of her family. As orphans, the Hathaways have no one to care for them and as Leo is so often drunk or despondent due to the death of his fiancee, it is up to Amelia to run the household and oversee the well-being of her three younger sisters, Win, Poppy, and Beatrix. Cam sees Amelia for the woman she truly is; fearful of marriage after being jilted by a former lover, protective of her brood, and straining at the pressure put upon her. Amelia too sees Cam for more than a gypsy or an exotic mystery; she sees him as a man, well bred, intelligent, and alluring with his tales of gypsy lore.

For me, the slow manner in which Cam and Amelia grew to gradually trust and depend upon one another was beautiful to watch unfold. While their initial interaction began with a kiss, their chemistry stayed checked while they got to know each other as friends and slowly began to give each other their hearts, even against their own will. In the midst of this blooming romance, we have the crazy Hathaway family. Each of the Hathaways had a distinct personality that was hard not to love. We have the soft-spoken, quite, and often sickly Win who is loved by Merripen from afar. We have Poppy, the sweet-tempered and helpful young girl growing into a woman and Beatrix, still somewhat a child but alluring with her love of pets. Leo, as the eldest, is the bad-boy of the family and, as such, I can't wait to read his story soon. It seems as if the men in this story, from Leo, to Cam, to Merripen, all retain an air of mystery while still showing their true sides of caring, worry, and love. Kleypas strikes a delicate balance with all of them, making them appear simultaneously vulnerable and strong, dark and light, protective and needing protection themselves. In this manner, she weaves a romance where both man and woman are equal, see eye-to-eye, and only bring out the best in one another.

Mine Till Midnight utterly captivated me and I'm already missing the wacky presence of the Hathaways. Cam and Amelia's love story is one that will stick with me for a long time to come, mostly because they had to overcome their own inner obstacles to be together, whether it be their personal qualms, worries, or just the gossip that was sure to ensue from a union of English lady to gypsy. Yet, it all works out so perfectly and the characters are all so flawed and grow so wonderfully that one can't help but sigh in contentment when the last pages of this novel have been flipped. I'm hardly an expert on historical romances, but it is evident thatMine Till Midnight is something wholly different, unique, and beautiful from everything else out there. More than anything else, this novel is sweet. It is all laced with a romantic tinge of cute and adorable along with sensual, making it the perfect blend of just about everything.