The Cassquette Girls

Book Title: The Cassquette Girls

Author: Alys Arden

Date Started: October 16th 2015

Date Completed: October 18th 2015

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Contemporary
Quality Rating: Two Stars
Enjoyment Rating: One Star

Final Rating: Two stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

There are very few books that I give up on, but The Cassquette Girls has become one of them. I put it down at several points and just had to take a step away because it irritated me so much, and then even after deciding to try it again, every single time within three sentences I was seething. Slow pace; irritating writing style; dislikable, paper characters; cheesy horror conventions; I enjoyed it so little that it wasn't worth my continuing.

One of my biggest problems with books set in the modern world is the desire to constantly paint teenagers as materialistic and with difficulty to speak without slang. Yes, there are people out there who are incredibly materialistic, and there are people out there that constantly use slang. But not everyone. You would expect after a traumatic experience for someone to use a word other than 'ugh' to communicate their distress. You would also think that maybe adults would speak differently - even more so if they've been living in a different country to the other person for a while. This wasn't my only issue with Arden's writing style, but even that was enough to distract me from enjoying what I was reading.

I think writing about the storyline of The Cassquette Girls would be a little unfair since I didn't make it that far through, however from what I did read I can honestly say it irritated me. Most horror genre stereotypes (especially film ones) were shoved into just the first 15% of the story - and still barely anything happened! There's such a slow pace filled only with the most predictable conventions imaginable that there was nothing at all engaging or anything that I wanted to read more about.

Quite frankly I didn't get past proper introductions to anyone but Adele and her dad. Having said that, I think there were about six or seven other characters we met that were clearly going to have a part in the rest of the book - most of which Adele already knew apparently. Another thing I noticed from reading the part of this book was the Arden continually provides 'convenient' pieces of information whenever it suits her - its not even a subtle use of deus ex machina and created a huge information dump.

I really disliked Adele, though to be honest she wasn't realistic enough for a character to her hate personally. She didn't seem to react to anything around her: upon returning to her hurricane-ravaged city, she perkily speaks to her dad about sleeping on the top floor of their house (which is apparently stable enough for that despite having been hit by so big a storm "it wasn't even given a name." Even beyond that, she conformed to the snobby but lonely stereotype, yet everyone seemed to be in love with her.

Like I said I didn't get very far through this book, but nothing happened in what I did read apart from a few 'eerie' happenings. I felt like screaming 'get to the point' about eight times: it's all very well and good trying to build up an atmosphere but if everyone's laughing in something that's supposed to resemble a dystopian city for the first hundred pages of the book, you're not going to build up a tense atmosphere.

If you don't get quite so irritated by stereotypical contemporary teenage writing, you might be able to enjoy this a lot more than I did. Looking at the other reviews it seems to be that a lot of people do like this story, so maybe if you want a supernatural fun read then have a look at some of those. But this was absolutely not for me whatsoever, and quite frankly it madam very frustrated.

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The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Book Title: The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Author: Patrick Ness

Date Started: October 7th 2015

Date Completed: October 15th 2015

Genres: Contemporary, Fantasy, Adventure, Comedy
Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

It's been a while since I've felt so comforted by a book, and I think that's a sentiment for this book that quite a few people could relate to. Alan Bennett's quote fits perfectly for me here: "It is as if a hand has come out and taken yours." While it's mostly known as a book about side characters rather than heroes (something that doesn't exactly explain the story), to me it's more the message that you don't have to be the chosen one to really be worth something, and you don't have to be up against the supernatural to struggle with your situation.

It doesn't matter what landscape Ness' stories take place in because there's always something about them that just enhances whatever you're reading about so that it can become so personal, sometimes even when you can't quite relate to exactly what's happening. I've thought a lot about this and I don't know what specific element it is, but I think the honesty in the stories has to be a part of it. There's such a natural honesty in his writing that it just makes you feel safe, because it's been proven to you that it's not just you that's felt this way. And even if it isn't a particular mutual experience, the fact that there's this person on the other side of a word, or a page, or a character that is so genuine that they want to just put into words a human existence so that it help someone is hard not to appreciate.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here deliberately juxtaposes the typical fantasy adventure common in (let's be honest here) Young Adult fiction. Something I really loved was the fact that it didn't outright criticise the genre; you do get the feeling Ness respects his fellow authors that have work in this genre. Instead he parallels the formula itself between what would be the regular 'entertaining' read, and then to what the reality would actually be. (If you've read any of my other reviews of Young Adult fantasy adventures, you'll probably have noticed that this was going to go in my good books straight away.) As well as the shockwaves within the story itself, the pre-chapter summaries of what was happening to the "indie kids" (your average Clary and Jace; Tris and Four; Percy and Annabeth) were hilarious. I think most of us are well aware of the near identical patterns of these plots by now, but watching them reduced to small paragraphs with exaggeration on the comedic awareness made it seem so insignificant compared to what was happening to our protagonists.

When I try and look back to comment on events in the story I keep coming back to the same thing: there isn't so much a traditional story throughout this book, there's development of the characters over time, and there's a brilliant idea well carried out. And that's enough. Sure, events happen, and I guess you could pick out a climax and a disturbance if you want, but for me the process of reading about these characters captured my attention and quite frankly my heart strings pretty well on their own. The message of the book is essentially to call out that in the 'real world' that we're given in some books (primarily in urban fantasy I would guess) isn't real at all: issues and suffering aren't solved as easily by defeating the bad guy and getting the girl. Sometimes it isn't about getting a happy ending, it's about being happy with where you are and dealing with the bad stuff while you're there.

I became genuinely attached to everyone in this book (except perhaps Nathan, but that's more to do with the position we're placed in by the narrator). I'll keep going on about the fact that Ness actually takes reality and does it justice, but it's just because it makes me so happy to see people who have issues not be portrayed as completely vulnerable and broken. There was a part near the end of the book where I was terrified Ness was going to romanticise the mental illnesses, or trivialise the familial and political issues - but then again I really should have more faith in Patrick Ness. He is Patrick Ness after all.

Mikey was a great protagonist. Mikey was the perfect protagonist, especially to communicate the message of the book. I would also say that he was a really good way to show mental illness in a slightly less scary way: for people that haven't necessarily experienced it themselves, or aren't close to anyone who has I do sometimes think that it can be easy to feel alienated from the issue because you don't have that personal awareness of it, and when people star talking about the darker sides of it it either pushes them away or throws up defences in someone's brain to avoid it altogether. Ness normalises it to the point where you can understand how 'normal' people struggle with these things - but it doesn't make them completely different to everyone else. And it also doesn't make them special or 'the chosen one.'

I could spend pages and pages (metaphorically since electronic reviews don't have pages) talking about each member of the group individually, but quite honestly you'd get bored - and my job is to tell you about the book, not to make you bored. So to summarise the other characters I'd say that they are a brilliantly diverse group all showing a different aspect of a 'normal' life that presents tough issues, but they all prove that it doesn't have to be solved by becoming incredibly talented and special and saving the world (bit of an exaggeration, but essentially what happens in the book). I adored Mel, and related to her a lot. Her sibling relationship with Mikey really helped me invest in them early on. Henna I loved because she didn't have to have this terrible past that allowed her to now be strong. Jared was genuinely lovely and again didn't have to be all torn up over his issues for him to want to help the others.

Admittedly the beginning of this book was a bit slow for me, especially since it was more in the contemporary genre than I had first expected. But at the end of the day it does establish the 'normality' - or rather lack of it - the characters have in their lives next to these crazy but repetitive narratives about the 'special' kids that wreck the town every couple of decades.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here was exactly what I needed when I read it, but even without that perfect timing I think it can still mean so much to a lot of people. The anti-hero/ant-stereotypical adventure idea is definitely included, but to me the contemporary genre show through a lot more than the fantasy, so I wouldn't recommend going into it when you're in the mood for an entertaining adventure. In fact the whole point of the book is to look at those books and say 'yeah, they're fun. But what the end of the day they avoid the harsher realities of life.'

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22910900-the-rest-of-us-just-live-here

The Undays of Aralias Lyons

Book Title: The Undays of Aralias Lyons

Author: K. L. Horvath

Date Started: October 2nd 2015

Date Completed: October 6th 2015

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Historical
Quality Rating: Two Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars

Final Rating: Three stars

Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Going into this knowing pretty much nothing other than it involved time travel, The Undays of Aralias Lyons ended up being an entertaining read - but not necessarily one I would pick up if I could go back in time myself.

The biggest thing that stuck out about the writing in this book was the fact it felt like I'd been thrown into the middle of the story. Knowing not a lot about this to start with, I genuinely thought I had missed a book in the series - so I accepted that there were things I wasn't going to understand at first. But then I found out this is Horvath's debut as a published author. And that was a problem. I'm happy to not be spoon fed information, but with so many bizarre variations on the world (talking animals, a huge variety of ages that are never stated, strange rules about time travel) we need a little explanation as to what's happening so it doesn't distract us from the story itself. I found this with the exposition too: while I enjoyed picking up parts of Aralias' past as we went along, I didn't really feel the gravity of danger because we're never really told what Bliss has done to be so evil. Overall, I think Horvath ran ahead of herself in excitement but just needed to slow down and think.

Horvath has definitely created an imaginative story. Although I haven't read a vast selection of books looking at time travel, I think the locations chosen as well as the times worked nicely as a backdrop for the story. I probably would've liked these places to have a little more importance to the story, but they were nice to see things play out in nonetheless.

There isn't that much I can really say about the story other than it was entertaining enough to take up my time, but quite frankly by the end I was a bit bored. I think there's loads of continuity errors in the time-travelling parts but I couldn't keep track of the confusion enough to be sure. And that's fine - for a while. But as it dragged further and on I found it harder and harder to stay engaged, and the fact the book goes on for an unnecessarily long amount of time after the resolution didn't really help.

Aside from the two protagonists I didn't find many of the characters particularly distinguishable. The way you could tell them apart was how bluntly rude or polite Aralias was to them, and I feel like if a little more development had gone into these people there would've been a stronger foundation for the rest of the story to lie on.

While I really enjoyed the father/son relationship Aralias had with Jack (not least because it's something we rarely see these days, especially in fantasy adventures like this) and thought it worked really well to add some depth to his character, he was still incredibly irritating and arrogant. I understand that the questionable attitude was in place partially to get some interesting banter between the characters but he came off as a mean person some of the time, and I'm pretty sure we're supposed to think of him as a real hero. He definitely was not in my eyes.

Clara has me in two minds: on the one hand she played her part in the story well enough. But I can't stop thinking about how paper-thin her personality actually was: she mainly argued with the characters, had a very speedy romance with Aralias and shot a pistol every now and then (though to say this was apparent only with Clara would be a lie). To be perfectly honest, I never thought I'd read a book where the woman doesn't even get to the climax location because she's crying on the floor.

The pacing was dealt with well - whenever I got bored or lost track of what was going on it was definitely due to the explanations of the story as opposed to the pacing not being established. Though you might expect something a little more creative than just following the main protagonists going back and forth from he present for a book where time travel is a main theme, it was probably wiser in hindsight for Horvath to reign in her excitement for the story in this area. Though I still don't feel it excelled in many areas, by making sure big events were nicely spaced throughout the whole book we avoided any complete train wrecks.

If you like the 18th century and a little bit of steampunk time travel with a flamboyant protagonist then perhaps you'll enjoy Horvath's creation more than me. Don't go expecting sophistication (regardless of what the posh mannerisms of the characters might suggest), but I can see people having some fun with it if you don't take it too seriously.

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Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Book Title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #3

Date Started: September 13th 2015

Date Completed: October 1st 2015

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Contemporary, Adventure
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Two Stars

Final Rating: Three stars

Review:

Blue Lily, Lily Blue ended up just being a load of smoke and mirrors - it looks pretty on the surface and has a couple of cool moments, but there's no real substance to any of it. Compared to the first book it felt so unnecessary, and I seemed to lose sight of the characters I'd fallen in love with.

Steifvater's writing can be very beautiful sometimes: she has the ability to create such amazingly vivid pictures with actually very little information. The only problem is there need to be pretty locations for her to describe in the first place. Though we still have Cabeswater, the majority of the book is set elsewhere in the almost dreary normal world. What I've liked about this series is its ability to turn the normal into something exciting and new without going over-the-top with its supernatural elements. The Dream Thieves pushed at the boundaries a little bit, but this time it feels like we've stepped back completely out of the danger zone - but now there's nothing really left to be beautiful. Similarly with the characters, Steifvater's been pushing at how far she can go without it being unrealistic but has taken a few too many steps back into safety for the penultimate novel.

Something I loved about the previous books in this series is that they each had their own stories, but it definitely felt like you were progressing towards something much bigger that spanned over everything. I didn't feel that with this novel, and that was probably what disappointed me most. There was no direction to the plot, and by the end I don't even think we've progressed in either story or characters from the last book - a filler-book without even any reason to add stuff in the middle.

There were times when I thought we were heading towards a serious, mature subject while Stiefvater needed time to pass in the story for some reason, and so the slow pace was going to focus on darker things. But as soon as we got near it had to go and be silly: Adam gets in serious financial trouble and the others joke about it and ultimately leave it, another character talks about anxiety but it takes two sentences for it to become some supernatural super power and is never mentioned again. There's just so much wasted potential and it's so frustrating to read it there and watch it just get pushed away. It's not just mature subjects, it feels like interesting characters get ignored, and the beautiful imagery isn't given enough time to shine.

The conclusion was also underwhelming for me; we've had two different kinds of climaxes to these books so far, and I was okay to go with a slower resolution for now, especially since the final book better be exciting enough to make up for it. But since there didn't feel like there was any end goal for the story there wasn't really any resolution to achieve. We're definitely not given any answers to anything and are just led on further into complications (again, it was alright earlier in the series because we weren't even sure there WERE any answers, but now that we do it just feel like we're being manipulated just so one more book can be added to the conventional trilogy).

I really wish we could see more interesting pairings with the characters more often. The chapters with Ronan and Adam, and Persephone and Adam were definitely the most interesting for me here because they weren't completely predictable. I think there's a lot of wasted potential with actually quite a diverse set of characters.

I'm still pretty indifferent to Blue. She still doesn't feel like a protagonist, and for all of her quirkiness ends up quite bland when put next to the boys who have been developed quite a bit more. This is probably more to do with the fact we see the boys with different people in depth a lot more than we do with Blue; she tends to jump around but never really settle, and so it's harder to develop a sort of 'fictional-friendship' when she doesn't so much (or realistically at least).

Gainsay still edges a little closer to the stereotypical arrogant male interest that actually has deep care for his friends for me. It's not the worst trope, and I do like Gansey as a character, but I keeping hoping for it to turn in a slightly different direction. Likewise with Ronan and Noah, I'd like to be a bit surprised by them every now and then. Adam's slightly different in the way that he does have these very developed plot lines, but there's still that tinge of silliness and trivialness that shouldn't be there.

I found the pacing difficult here because it didn't feel like anything was happening. I struggled to keep my attention on the prose, and even the descriptive landscapes that had captivated me previously weren't there to keep my focus. I'm sure that not having complete attention on the story really affected my enjoyment, but at the end of the day, if it doesn't hold my attention that's a big issue.

My disappointment might be a little exaggerated from the reading slump I'm in, but regardless I had issues with The Dream Thieves and those same problems have just grown more into this book. I'm really hoping since The Raven King is the conclusion it'll finally get us to a point in the story where relevant things happen, but until then I can't say I'm happy with how the series has developed since the brilliant start with The Raven Boys.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22978079-blue-lily-lily-blue