Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Toni Adeyemi

Published March 6th 2018 by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Synopsis

They killed my mother.

They took our magic.

They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

My Review

“I teach you to be warriors in the garden so you will never be gardeners in the war.” 

What?! What does that even mean? This was such a disappointing read. I'd been steering clear of YA fantasy for a while because I was fed up with the excessively tropey, unoriginal books masquerading as the next best thing in YA. So, I picked up Children of Blood and Bone with no small amount of trepidation, even after all the glowing reviews that it got from trusted reviewers. 

However, it turned out to be an incredibly cliched, surprisingly slow paced, dud of a book. Evil prince who switches sides after falling for the oddball destined to save the world? Check. Meek little best friend who eventually transforms into a badass? Check. Insta-love that blossomed in a span of hours and came in the way of the greater good? Check. Gaahh.. the only thing missing was an unnecessary love triangle and this would've been every other YA fantasy in a 500 page nutshell!

The book started out slow and just got slower. I determinedly slogged through the first 200 pages, thinking that maybe it's just a slow burn that would eventually build up into something interesting, but boy was it a downer! I couldn't care about any of the characters either. The book is told from the perspective of Zélie (the dull-as-a-Fourier-Transform protagonist), Amari (the scaredy little rogue princess) and Inan (the incredibly annoying crown prince). None of these characters managed to capture my interest or made me feel anything except scorn at the way they acted throughout the book. Some of the things that they did made zilch sense (hint: partying out in the open without cause for celebration with the enemy at their heels? Ugh. Dumb). The only person who actually had a stable head on his shoulders was Zélie's brother Tzain, and even he was as uninteresting as a sack of hay.

The world building was shoddy at best and there was no proper explanation as to how magic or the Gods' will worked. The racial discrimination and violence at the hands of a cruel, tyrannical King may have been intended to throw some light on racial discrimination in Nigeria, but it fell flat and evoked no real sympathy or dread from me. The book was peppered with random events that made little to no sense and just made me more aggravated at the book's length. 

Overall, a highly disappointing way to kick off the new year. This makes me so much warier of the entire YA fantasy genre now. It'll be a while before I'll be able to trust the hype again.

Rating: 2/5 stars!

Review: Don't Bite The Bridesmaid (Sons of Kane #1)- Tiffany Allee

Goodreads Synopsis

Alice Shepard needs one thing: a date for her sister's wedding. And not just any date. A hunk who will make her fiancé rue the day he left her for her best friend. Her drop-dead gorgeous neighbor fits the bill—even if he is a bit quirky and never comes out during the day—and Alice has downed just enough appletinis to ask him. But she makes it quite clear that there will be no funny business. 

Spending a week on a cruise ship full of humans while sleeping close to his sexy next-door neighbor sounds like a helluva bad idea to vampire Noah Thorpe. But his friends need time to get him out of a shotgun wedding—a vampire bonding that will tie his fate to a female vampire he's never met. And Alice's offer comes at just the right time. 

What could possibly go wrong?

My review

This was probably a toss up between 2 and 2.5 stars. I guess I knocked off the half since I'm not the biggest fan of smut as it often tends to overwhelm the rest of the book. I admit that I was drawn in by the quirky title and the catchy cover. 

In all honesty, the book started out great. There was Alice- emboldened by several glasses of appletinis- trying to convince her hot and socially reclusive neighbour (who incidentally happens to be a vampire) to accompany her to her sister's wedding. Left heartbroken by her cheating ex, she is determined to show him what he is missing and two centuries old vampire Noah Thorpe is by far the best choice for a date....or so she thinks. Noah- desperate to escape from a crazy situation himself- agrees to playing the part of the fake boyfriend for the duration of the cruise trip. What he had not bargained for was Alice herself, and as he feels his minor crush developing into something quite majorly serious he decides to take a stand. While Noah barely restrains himself from sinking his fangs into her pretty neck, Alice isn't all that unaffected by her totally gorgeous neighbour either. The book is told from the POV of both Alice and Noah.

There were some really hilarious moments in the book. For instance, when Alice thinks she sees Noah chugging down a bottle of shampoo...that one had me snorting so loud, I think I blew a nose cartilage. 

Noah's reaction to her ex and the subsequent ass kicking was entertaining. What disappointed me was the lack-lustre plot and the oh-so-predictable ending. There was no real character development and I'm not sure that I liked Alice's damsel in distress act OR Noah's distinctively teenager-like behaviour. Even the angst part was lacking and although the story held great potential , it just seemed sadly repetitive. But I would definitely like to know more about the entire vamp Council and Noah's 'father' Kane, whose brief appearance was probably the only unpredictable thing in the book. 

Lighthearted romance coupled with a pinch of humour and supernatural element makes it an okay one time read.

Rating- 2/5 stars!

About The Author

Tiffany Allee currently lives in Phoenix, AZ, by way of Chicago and Denver, and is happily married to a secret romantic. She spends her days working in Corporate America while daydreaming about sexy heroes, ass-kicking heroines, and interesting ways to kill people (for her books, of course). Her nights are reserved for writing and bothering her husband and cats (according to them). Her passions include reading, chocolate, travel, wine, and family.

Review: Clockwise- Elle Strauss

Goodreads Synopsis

Casey Donovan has issues: hair, height and uncontrollable trips to the 19th century! And now this --she's accidentally taken Nate Mackenzie, the cutest boy in the school, back in time. Awkward. Protocol pressures her to tell their 1860 hosts that he is her brother and when Casey finds she has a handsome, wealthy (and unwanted) suitor, something changes in Nate. Are those romantic sparks or is it just "brotherly" protectiveness? When they return to the present, things go back to the way they were before: Casey parked on the bottom of the rung of the social ladder and Nate perched high on the very the top. Except this time her heart is broken. Plus, her best friend is mad, her parents are split up, and her younger brother gets escorted home by the police. The only thing that could make life worse is if, by some strange twist of fate, she took Nate back to the past again. Which of course, she does.

My review

**I got a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review**

I admit that I was drawn in by the synopsis but unfortunately the book was nothing like I expected. The story was alarmingly cliched and the protagonist was downright irritating. Her habit of repeatedly swooning whenever she got too close to the crush of her life, the truckloads of self pity she harboured and the low self esteem, coupled with her inability to string together two sentences in her defence or talk back to bothersome bitches made her distinctly unlikeable. I suppose that her one and only redeeming quality was arsenal of survival instincts she had picked up over the years while time travelling. The fact that her POV comprised of moping about her social inabilities and harping on about the general hotness of Nate Mckenzie didn't warm me up to her either. Nate too seemed like a thick headed moron most of the time. He was quite slow on the uptake, and there was no real reason for him to be a part of the story, other than being eye candy for girls and playing his essential part in the lukewarm romance between him and Casey.

Furthermore there was more or less no concrete plot to carry the story. The book just seemed like an endless cycle of Casey pining after Nate, him acting like a douche, the accidental skin contact and the resultant time travelling. I had hoped that the author would at least make the characters from the past interesting. No such luck. They were as colourless and unexciting as Nate and Casey and nothing of much significance happened during the duo's accidental visits to the past. The ending was only slightly redeeming with some semblance of surprise, although I would have liked for the author to provide more info on the mechanics of time travelling.

I guess I was kind of hoping for The Time Traveller's Wife kind of reading experience. My bad. Books like that don't come out all that often. It wasn't a bad read per-say but it couldn't been loads better. Definitely not the kind I'd want to read over and over again to try to get past the awesomeness but not the kind I'd say was crap either.

Rating:- 2/5 stars!

Review: The Collector- Victoria Scott

“You don’t know who you’re fucking with, princess. Ain’t no one do bad like I do.”

Dante Walker is flippin’ awesome, and he knows it. His good looks, killer charm, and stellar confidence have made him one of Hell’s best—a soul collector. His job is simple: weed through humanity and label those round rears with a big redgood or bad stamp. Old Saint Nick gets the good guys, and he gets the fun ones. Bag-and-tag. Sealing souls is nothing personal. Dante’s an equal-opportunity collector and doesn’t want it any other way. But he’ll have to adjust, because Boss Man has given him a new assignment: Collect Charlie Cooper’s soul within ten days. Dante doesn’t know why Boss Man wants Charlie, nor does he care. This assignment means only one thing to him, and that’s a permanent ticket out of Hell. But after Dante meets the quirky Nerd Alert chick he’s come to collect, he realizes this assignment will test his abilities as a collector…and uncover emotions deeply buried.

When I read that very intriguing blurb and started reading the book I was like-

.....As I finished reading it, that changed to this-

Turns out that Dante wasn't as 'flippin' awesome' as the synopsis suggested...

Dante Walker's POV was undoubtedly hilarious to read. He's cocky, arrogant and thinks that he's God's...ahem...the devil's gift to mankind. His initial reaction to Charlie was quite funny.

This is the girl Boss Man is after? She looks like a porcelain doll...beat three times with an ugly stick. 

He is the kind of guy whose obnoxious behaviour borders on 'jerk' most of the time and he can insult someone and drop a flirtatious comment in the same sentence, but his reaction to most people and things makes the reader snort with laughter throughout the book.

That girl got in my brain and dug around. She found the one morsel of good

in there, held it up to the light, and said, “See here? See this? Look how sparkly! Let’s make it grow.”

At the end of the walkway is a cat. It struts with arrogance. You’d think it just won the Nobel Prize. But it didn’t. Know why? Because it’s a freakin’ cat. In case you missed the memo, I. Hate. Cats. I loathe them. They’re built with creepy little teeth and finger blades. I don’t know about you, but I’ll pass on that freak show.

 The book started off beautifully. There was Dante, in all his badass glory sealing the soul of some a-hole creeper and damn well enjoying it. Things start to go downhill for the guy when Boss Man offers him promotion to the post of the Soul Director and permanent abode on earth in exchange for Charlie's soul. With his too-good-to-be-true looks and charming personality how difficult could it be to corrupt a teenage girl, eh? At least that's what he thought until he meets her.

Charlie's character was made exasperatingly....nice! She was literally Mother Teresa reincarnated (bless her pure soul..). A childhood tragedy which left her orphaned has altered her view of the world and she sees life as pink balloons and hearts bursting with joy. She is not beautiful-a fact that has been emphasised on so many times throughout the book, it made me scream out "just get on with it already! The chick's freaking ugly...we get it!!"- but the beauty of her soul makes her stunning...at least that's what the gist of the story was. The book was alarmingly cliche inspite of a synopsis that promised awesomeness. Bad boy meets good girl, falls in love, turns over a new leaf, fights off the bad guys...

One redeeming thing about the book was the friendship between Charlie and her friends. They accept her for who she is and stick together in crisis. Dante's progressive relationship with Charlie was also quite believable and things didn't seem rushed, although it later seemed incredible that everything happened in a period of a few days. The ending however was a bit of a let down. A barely-there character who had a blink-and-miss appearance was brought back and made into the villain. Maybe the author was aiming for the shock factor but it just didn't seem very convincing...

Thirdly- Boss Man and Big Guy?!!- That was pretty amateurish. I mean since we are talking about God and Underworld here, they deserve some chilling names! Dante's transformation from a hilarious hottie into a whipped-for-the-pure-souled-chick guy didn't win many points from me either. 

Overall a one time read. Dante's smartass demeanour and witty one liners would have you in splits and Charlie's irritating over-the-top goodness would make you want to puke. Not a combination that would produce fireworks...

2/5 stars!

Review: Divergent- Veronica Roth

“Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.”

In the dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice Prior, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself...

Hmm...another YA distopian novel, there's an overflow of them these days. And another of the flat-chested, chaste, never-engaged-in-any-fun-business heroine who is thrown into a world quite opposite to the one she's been brought up in. The idea gets a little stale after 10 or so books. Nevertheless, the whole divison of the society into factions was an interesting concept to say the least. After making a startling decision of switching factions, Beatrice has to undergo a highly competitive initiation which includes extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations. The initiation brings about some devastating consequences and transforms all initiates, changing some preheld notions about the existing factions.

Ofcourse having a perfectly hot kickass instructor and a bunch of helpful friends brings a little respite to the situation. Four(yes, it's a name!) is the (initially) distant instructor who helps Beatrice a.k.a Tris to navigate her way through the various difficulties presented by the initiation, backstabbing mates and Tris' inner demons. She also has to hide a secret, which if exposed can prove to be her doom.

The book feels as if it has been hastily written and the the characters have not been given a chance to develop properly. Beatrice's character has potential but somehow she seems confused most of the time. Sometimes she is rational and decisive and other times she risks her life without a second thought. The romantic timing of the book also seemed a little off. All in all, not a very satisfying read. But the people interested in post apocalyptic dystopian world might want to give it a try.

2/5 stars for this one!