Book Review: Within A Dream by Tempest C. Avery

I'm back from vacation so first things first! I gotta put up this review!

Book received in exchange for an honest review through Lovers of Paranormal

I'm going to need some help with this review...



Much better.

I don't even know how to start with this one.

On one hand, there's an interesting premise to the book. 4 teenagers are reincarnations of magical beings and have special powers. Bad people are after them and they have to try to protect themselves and learn more about their heritage and their powers.

On the other hand, it was everything but the kitchen sink when it came to the magical/supernatural beings and I was wondering when it would stop. Shall I list them?

You know it.

1) Witches
2) Faeries/Fae
3) Werewolves
4) Aliens
5) Shapeshifters
6) Reincarnations
7) Voodoo/Hoodoo
8) Celtic Mythology
9) Viking Mythology
10) Some Wiccan incorporated



Some bonus features:

A. Insta-love
B. Insta-love + love triangle
C. Insta-love for secondary characters
D. Hot guy on a motorcycle
E. Evil ex-lover type
F. Absentee Parental Units



The characters and the story was interesting enough but there was just too much going on. Too many histories and stories getting mixed together with far too many magical beings. It works in something like Harry Potter because as far as the first book goes, there aren't major characters that are different beings from different planets. You cannot introduce all of these different creatures into a book without it looking like you are trying too hard.

I liked Lily, the main character, fine though. She wasn't completely helpless and she liked to take charge which was nice. Her love interests both occupied the dark broody boy character which was a little typical but it wasn't a bad description of a relationship. It did feel like it was trying to pull on the Shattered series a bit with the old love interest coming to you in dreams but I was able to overlook that part of it.

But there's one thing that doomed this book for me.

PROOFREAD. NOW.

There were typos or misspellings every ten pages if not more frequently. This book desperately needed some editing and a lot of love because there is absolutely no excuse for spelling "melodramatic" as two words. "Mellow dramatic".



So yeah, real rating about a 1.8 so I'm rounding it up to 2 stars. The saving grace was the interesting idea behind the book but there was just too much going on with not enough editing.

Book Review: Boost (A Haunted Addiction #1) by D.A. Paul

ARC received in exchange for an honest review

Blurb from Goodreads:

They call it a boost.
It’s the buzz you get from absorbing the spiritual energy of the dead, and it absolutely terrifies Lidia Powell.

Shortly after meeting Ander at summer camp, Lidia is thrust into the world of psychic mediums and brought to a new school. At Mountain Heights Academy, even a casual pizza-date is accompanied by a ghost, and only a frightened uberdork would refuse the boost. To Lidia, the peer pressure to absorb phantom apparitions is horrifying, but to everyone else, it's the drug of choice.

However, when one of the students delves into dark energy, Lidia suspects that a boost isn’t as innocent as it seems. Soon, the boost becomes an addiction and Lidia must act fast before the changes become irreversible.

Boost by D.A. Paul is probably best described as a mix of Ghostbusters, and Vampire Academy. The main character, Lidia, is a teenage girl (I'm assuming around 16? The age was never really given or I missed it somehow) who gets entangled into a world of ghosts, spirits, and demons. She never wanted this life in the first place, never knew about it to be honest, and she wants to go home and live a normal life with her dysfunctional family. It's all a bit too much for her, getting whisked off away from her charming, normal boyfriend to go live in the mountains with a bunch of other teenagers who add high school drama to her already messed up world.

Okay, so I don't do most high school drama type books. My high school was a bit weird, I only graduated with 55 people and we couldn't really have that much drama because it was impossible to have secrets in the first place. Whatever grudges we had (and there were some, no doubt) we kept them to ourselves. You were stuck with them anyways and how else were we going to get a senior prank together? That being said, sometimes I just can't relate to the mean girls and backstabbing that goes on in some YA books. My reference for normal high school life comes from old school Nickelodeon. 

Odd note: if you google "high school drama gif" it's all Ouran High School Host Club and that makes me really happy

But anyways, Lidia ends up moving away from her boyfriend Ethan and basically being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the weirdest private school ever with his best friend who is not only a flirt but also terribly attractive. Because that's going to go well. Lidia has to learn how to deal with being away from the stability in her life while trying to figure out how to deal with the ghosties that keep cropping up in her life.

My appreciation for Lidia sort of waxed and waned throughout the book. I enjoyed the fact that she didn't feel the need to dress up when Ethan came by and rejected her mother's pleas to "look a bit cuter". My mother, to this day, still does the same thing. I went to church without lipstick and blush a few weeks ago and you would think I walked out of the house naked. We all know those mothers and I liked that this girl actually stood up for herself a bit. I didn't like the body shaming or the trash talking though. I know it was a few isolated incidents but wanted a girl to be smothered with her "overly large breasts" just rubbed me the wrong way. It's not the girl's fault that she is well endowed.

Also, the vegan part. 

Or semi-vegan. I get that some people do it for health, philosophical, and/or taste preference reasons and I completely respect that. What I don't like is when people call themselves vegan and then eat cheese and dairy saying that they couldn't resist the temptation. I don't care if an author makes a vegan character but PLEASE stop using it as a descriptor as if her diet dictates who she is as a person. I got it. She ate waffles for breakfast (which are made with milk by the way) and tried to avoid meat because it made her feel weird after something with her grandmother but it felt like it was every other sentence. Lidia was closer to a semi-vegetarian than a vegan and that really bothered me. It felt like it cheapened the point of her trying to be vegan.

Moving on from that, I actually really liked Ander for the most part. He's not a good boy and he's not a bad boy but somewhere in the middle. Lidia asked for him to leave her alone and he did so. He knew she was pissed off and he tried to protect her without being obvious about it. He respected the fact that Lidia was dating his best friend and respected her boundaries. He was flirty without being a jerk and there were no cringe inducing lines that you sometimes find in YA.

The idea of getting high off spirit energy is pretty unique and that was what held the book together for me. Getting a "boost" (hence the name) is literally like getting a tiny shot of adrenaline. It makes sense. Spirits = Energy. Energy = Endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't get into as much drama as angsty kids.

But despite all of the good, interesting things in this book, there were some major flaws that didn't work for me. 

It felt like the stereotypical high school set up, that I'm starting to get really sick of seeing. We had the curvy sexy bitch girl. Check. We have the popular cool guy. Check. We have the awkward couple that everybody is slightly concerned about. Check. We have the guy with the lip rings. Check. It just seemed like there was a formula there and nobody really stood out. Lidia was beautiful and random guys developed crushes on her and she not only had a sort of boyfriend but also had Ander and every other guy that looked at her. Give me a girl main character who is confident in herself but doesn't have boys wandering around her like cows off their feed. I want strong girls who have insecurities but are honest with themselves.

Building on that was the sex. They are teenagers at boarding school. They're going to get it on. But it felt out of place if we're going to be honest. There was very little sexual tension for me because it was treated so casually. I think that if they weren't all having sex with each other, the relationships might have worked better. It went from zero to a hundred real quick. Lidia was thrilled about someone's pinky touching her thigh and then they were in bed together. It was rushed and there seemed to be little consideration for the stuff that happened between the first kiss and sex. That's not to say that it needed to be racy but it jumped around too much. There is awkwardness and deeper kisses between those things. There is more frustration and anxiety. The characters need to have more interaction with each other between those two settings other than just avoiding each other. It was a missed opportunity in that regard because there could have been more build up there.

GIVE ME MORE FEELS

The kids never actually seemed to be in class or at camp. They were supposed to be students and camp counselors but there was never any mention of them actually participating in any significant way. When I was at camp, the counselors were always busy and when I became in charge of 80 seven year olds for a few summers, I understood why. There is always something that needs to be done and you don't have a chance to go work on your tan. At school, there's always homework. Especially at a school that has high college acceptance rates and these kids barely seemed to go to class! I wanted a few classroom scenes but they were noticeably absent.

It just felt like parts of the book were missing. I was looking for tension. I was looking for teachers and kids getting caught out at night but it didn't seem to happen. This book could have been a hundred pages longer because it seemed like some of the descriptions and interactions had been pared down. Readers want to know what classroom life is like and what they do on their days off. Sometimes, it is good to see the characters lounging around talking shit and it just wasn't there for me.

But you know what? I probably would have really enjoyed this book in high school when I really think about it. It's a young adult book and I think it would be perfect for young adults. I wanted more from it but that might be because I like high tension and more crazy drama. I want high speed chases and hiding in the woods overnight with ghosts surrounding the main characters. The drama in this book was, I feel, suited for a particular age range and that worked well.

Big thank you to D.A. Paul for contacting me and providing me with this ARC!

Oh my goodness, am I getting old? Is that really happening to me?

The Friday 56 (4)

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.  This is a fun and simple meme, just follow the rules! It's a great way to connect with bloggers and share new or favorite books with them.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader

(If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

*Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)

*Add your name to the link up at Freda's Voice

In honor of Suzanne Johnson's new book coming out on the 21st, this week's Friday 56 comes from the first book in her Sentinels of New Orleans series, Royal Street. 

DJ is a young wizard living in New Orleans with her mentor and protector, Gerry. When Hurricane Katrina storms through, everything is turned on its head and all hell breaks loose. It is up to DJ and her new sexy partner Alex to set things right and prevent a war between good and evil. They are out to protect both the magical world and the delicate reviving New Orleans that is still reeling from the destruction on the hurricane.

"I sat in the Pathfinder on Magazine Street after a junk-food run, drumming my fingers impatiently while stewing over my new position in the Elder's doghouse. After his phone call, Alex had told me Willem Zrakovi was furious at me for summoning Marie Laveau on my own. Then Elder Zrakovi called and told me himself. He was deeply disappointed in my insistence on taking things into my own hands. That stung. 

You'd think the Elders would appreciate knowing a bigger conspiracy might be afoot, one that went beyond a missing sentinel, some voodoo symbols, and an angry pirate. But no. I had disappointed them. Deeply."

I really do love these books and Pirate's Alley (book #4) is looking like it will be really good. Suzanne Johnson is one of my auto-buy authors and I'm looking forward to this next installment. Her characters are sassy, snarky, tough and incredibly sarcastic.

Hopefully I have gotten someone interested in this! Has anybody else read this series? What did you think?

Book Review: Here Be Sexist Vampires by Suzanne Wright

Recommended to me by the lovely Melissa over at Ever So Mela.

I'm sorry Melissa, I tried. Vampire books are still not my thing. It was an enjoyable read but not one that I will be revisiting in the future. It's not that they give me the creeps but I guess part of my mind is screaming at me while I'm reading saying "Vampires are dead! That limits their sex appeal!"

Here Be Sexist Vampires is about a young vampire named Sara who has extraordinary gifts. She has been basically enslaved since her "birth" and is given a chance to escape from that life and make a name for herself in the army of the Grand High Master Vampire. But she is a low ranking Sventé vampire and is looked down on by the beautiful Keja vamps and the strong Pagoris. Sara is out to prove herself in this world of sexist (but undeniably sexy) alpha males and show that everybody, no matter the station of their birth, can be a leader with enough determination and spunk.

I'm going to start off with the cover. It bothers me. So much. It looks like someone tried to render a girl and failed miserably. 

It doesn't match the feel of the book and it looks plain to my eyes. I do like that the electric whip was included (which is one of Sara's powers) but it isn't enough to save it in my mind. It looks like it was done too quickly without enough thought put into it.

I'm still struggling with what actually bothered me about this book. Vampire books that don't depict them as creatures of the night with an unhealthy relationship with blood disappoint me. I feel like part of the reason why vampires could be so interesting as main characters is because of their moral struggle with relying on cognizant beings for their survival. The other option I really enjoy is the manipulative, cruel, but engaging vampire like the ones in The Casquette Girls. Vampires are something to be feared for me but that didn't really happen in this book.

This definitely followed the path of the sexy vampire. Sara is beautiful and attractive and from the very first moment she and Jarrod lay eyes on each other, they want to jump each others bones. Which is fine. No insta-love here.

Jarrod is a Pagori vampire and that makes his strong beyond belief and gives him incredible powers. He doesn't think that Sara can handle all of these men and be a commander to them. He challenges her to take control of the group they are supposed to lead together and assumes that she will never be able to actually help them master their abilities. But she does. And he can't handle it. He likes to fight with Sara to annoy her but he also gets a thrill out of it. Jarrod knows he wants her but doesn't realize how bad for a long time.

“Whether she realised it yet or not, this betting stuff and the constant conflict between us was foreplay.”

Alright, so this is a bit of a girl power book, which is awesome. I love reading about strong women who can handle anything that is put in front of them. Sara is handling twice the derision and scorn because she is not only female but also a low ranking vampire that is considered too tame. But she is unique and pretty and perfect and already has a handle on every gift that she has been given.

I wish we had gotten to see her work harder to control her powers. She starts off perfect and the only character growth she exhibits during the entire book was learning to love again. It's a big thing but when you're about to be attacked by an army of vampires, it shouldn't be a priority.

But all of this being said, it's not a bad book. The secondary characters are fun, engaging, and add a little bit of fun to the book. It's not all about sex and fighting. There isn't excessive amounts of blood and gore like some vampire books have where everybody is always attached to the neck of someone else and making horrendous gulping noises. 

Fletcher is the secretary for both Jarrod and Sara and is the best friend that anybody could ask for. He's honest, straightforward, and amazingly sassy. 

"What? Who? Oh you mean that cross between a whippet and a witch. Personally, I don't know how he can shag something that looks like its just escaped from Azkaban."

He was honestly one of my favorite characters in the book, simply because you know that all he does all day is put up with their sexual tension laden arguments and sit at his desk and plot ways to get them together. 

Another supporting character that stole my heart is Evan, who is Jarrod's brother. He is all charm and smiles. I liked that he wasn't after Sara and was honest with himself throughout the book. Evan knows what he wants and nobody is going to distract him from it. He's still a good friend in the long run and adds a bit of tension between the brothers when Jarrod's caveman tendencies crop up.

The sexy scenes were entertaining at first but they got a little bit repetitive. Both Sara and Jarrod are experienced so there is none of that wilting virgin stuff going on here and they have heat between them. But every time they get together, it follows the same pattern. Sara is sexy. Jarrod is possessive. Jarrod has a thing for dirty talk and being the dominant one. It's fun and had some heat but I got bored with it rather quickly. Jarrod only has one trick and he uses it constantly. Jarrod needs to go read a couple of Cosmos because I would think electrocuting your partner's naughty bits would get a bit tiresome after a while. 

Post vampire sex?

Vampire sex scenes have bothered me for a long time because they don't make sense to me. In most books, vampires are dead. They don't have a heartbeat. Their blood is pretty much useless. So how are they able to get *ahem* excited? It doesn't work physiologically to me and maybe they explained it at some point during the book but I didn't catch it. In addition, if they are dead, then why do they have a thing for each other's blood? Wouldn't it be rotten? I keep imagining them drinking sludge out of each other and it isn't good. Rather gross actually. Even though their blood is clean and it seems that they do have a pulse in this book, it still just doesn't work for me.

This book is a romance at heart and the vampire stuff almost seems to be a secondary thing. The author could have picked being wizards or shifters or werewolves and I feel like the plot wouldn't have changed all that much. The powers made things interesting but it somewhat ignored the standard canon for vampires and strayed dangerously close to Twilight. 

I want my vampires to be evil or at least fighting against being evil. They're dead already. They have nothing to lose. They can do whatever they want, right? Or maybe they should have problems with subsisting off of the blood of living cognizant humans. Even if they are willing and able, I feel like at least one vampire would have issues with it. 

I guess in the end, I was expecting drama, danger, and conflict and while that's present in the book, it wasn't the way I like it. I love reading about personal struggles of right and wrong. This book was mainly romance with a sprinkling of political and military drama. So if you are reading it for that reason, it's a fun book. If you're looking for more than that, this is a bit of a disappointment.

So 2.5 stars from me. I don't like sexy vampire books and this was no exception. I'm trying to get over it but this one just didn't do it for me. 

Book Review: The Deepest Cut by J.A. Templeton

I really need to stop rating books right after I read them. I find that I am often too generous with the ones I truly disliked and later bump them down a star.

The Deepest Cut could have been great. It was an interesting idea that was held back by the writing style and the characterization of the leads. It's not often in a book where you end up truly disliking the main characters but that happened for me with this one. The characters, plot, setting, conflict, and conclusion were all remarkably lackluster.



Riley Williams and her family have moved to Scotland to escape their past. Her mother died in a car accident and ever since then, Riley has been able to see spirits of those who have passed on. So the obvious logical conclusion is to move to a place where history/bloodshed/ghosts/legends are thick on the ground and this poor girl will be tormented. Her brother and father don't believe that she sees ghosts but still, that's a bit of a dick move.



So they move into a haunted inn in the haunted countryside of Scotland where everybody is going to get along and stay out of trouble. This is where Riley encounters Ian McKinnon, a young Scottish lad that was killed around 200 years ago.



Ian is the stereotypical Scottish man we see in every book written about the Highlands. He's tall, handsome with a stunning and sweet personality but the desire to protects his loved ones. As soon as he finds out that Riley can see him, he sticks close by her, desperate to talk to someone who can hear him.



Ian catches Riley cutting herself as a way of releasing the pent up anger, frustration, and hurt of being without her mother. She's sick of being medicated and treated but is still dealing with her past. And that's when everything goes downhill.

Because Ian isn't the only spirit sticking around. There is another ghost roaming around and this one isn't nearly as charming and has a thing for homicide. Riley is determined to save Ian from his eternal wandering but that puts her in danger from being cursed or whatever herself.

The idea is good with this book. The execution is excessively awful.

Riley learns everything about ghosts through Google, a couple of books, and the crazy old ladies in the neighborhood. None of which is actually effective. They really make things worse.

There is little to no consistency about the ghosts, meaning that the author basically ignored all of the standards for ghostliness (non-tangible, mysterious, not able to talk, being tied to one place, creepy as fuck) and fits her ghosts to her standards. Ghosts are able to fly through walls but Riley is able to kiss and cuddle them?

Riley is a whiner too.



I get that you're working through your mother's death and it's difficult but stop acting like such a martyr and step up a little bit. The cutting felt like it was added on as a schtick and it never felt genuine. Her brother and her father lost someone too and it felt like they were just so incredibly done with her.



The town they move into must be the Scottish version of Hollywood because everybody there is fucking gorgeous apparently.



Except the bad guys. Because bad guys can't be pretty ever. (Except Hiddleston. Exception to every rule) The important people are pretty. It was just so over the top cliched that it made me want to throw something. A bunch of teenagers running wild, drinking, partying, and being incredibly stupid with little parental supervision. Is this the YA Paranormal version of every high school teen movie made?

And finally, the romance...



It felt stupid and fake. There are better ways to do ghostly boyfriends and this was the worst rendition of it I've ever seen. The whole point of falling in love with a ghost is that you can't fucking touch them or have any sort of physical relationship. It's supposed to torture you. That never happened in this book. The only inconvenient part of him being a ghost is that he would lost energy. They nearly had ghostly sex which would have been awfully convenient since he couldn't get you pregnant. (OMG Ghost babies)



So yeah...don't waste your time or your money. I got the box set of the series but for the first time, I'm deleting something from my kindle library. It's not worth keeping.

Book Review: Cracked by Eliza Crewe

Lost in a YA wasteland of characters that all think and act alike, where the bad boy is ultimately good and the girl is pining after some unrequited love...there is this book.

Where the girl doesn't give a flying shit about what boys think about her and there is no male love interest to bog things down. Where she is dangerous and nosy, a potentially horrible combination. Where her big secret actually has EFFING CONSEQUENCES and she has to learn how to deal with things from her past quickly and does so without moaning about it.

Ok, first, the cover. How beautiful/crazy looking is that? While it may not have the characters or the setting on it, it is still wonderful to look at. It's great. Not every cover needs to have the almost kissing couple. Not everything needs the heroine with the guns/swords/random weapons standing dramatically against a fiery background. This cover's simplicity works, especially when considering the madness contained within.


Cracked by Eliza Crewe is a breath of fresh air, to say the least. Meda is delightfully twisted. She has depth that you wouldn't expect from someone so bloodthirsty but she has reasons for being the way that she is. She eats souls and she has to kill to feed. The ghosts of the past come to her and beg her for help and she is usually more than happy to oblige. Until one night, Meda finds out that she isn't the only big bad and scary to go bump in the night.

“Samson's tapping feet come closer, but again he pauses and knocks on a door. I don't mind. The pauses make it better. They make me wonder whether he's going to come to me, like the anticipation before a kiss. Will he or won't he? 

But this is not a love story.”

Chi, Jo, and Uriel come to her rescue and they believe her lies about not really knowing what is going on. They take her to exactly where she shouldn't be, an academy filled with people who are trying to rid the world of evil like her. Meda has to hide her true self but that's becoming more and more difficult with the ever observant Jo watching her like a hawk.

Meda learns more and more about her past and what she finds out is shocking. She has to make choices and struggles to know if she is making the right ones.

It's paranormal without the vampires and werewolves. It's creepy and scary without things jumping out of closets. The bad guys are really bad and the good guys are really good and then there's Meda trapped in the middle. There is so much more to this than the YA label gives it credit for. 

The amazing part about this book is that...hell, everything was amazing. But the point I was going for is that it isn't just a one trick pony. This is a book you can read again and again and still get something from it every time. This is the book that is breaking the mold of the YA genre because it is complex enough to give it life but streamlined to the point where you aren't dragging on with meaningless prose. And it's funny.

“I'm pretty sure Jo couldn't talk about the weather without somehow including a threat. Forecast today: cloudy with a chance I'll kick your ass.”

I was laughing out loud reading this. Jo and Meda's relationship is built out of sandpaper and they annoy each other perfectly. They are the friends that never wanted to be friends in the first place but circumstances push them together and they realize that their particular brand of sarcasm and hating each other work well together.


Chi is an interesting character as well. He is loved by all and everybody worships at his feet as the best and brightest. But his focus isn't on everybody else and I think he is one of the few genuine good guys in YA that you end up liking. He is not perfect but Chi is the foil to all of Jo's prickliness.

Then there's Uriel. Oh my goodness, Uriel. I want to pack him up in a little box and take him home with me like a puppy. He has a bit of a hero worship problem but he is just too sweet to be left behind and has good intentions.

Character growth in this book isn't one dimensional. Sometimes (often), with YA books, only the main character learns something from their actions. Their choices either affect their family or the whole effing universe with nothing in between. But all of their relationships and friends are just background noise to their awesomeness in those books. They are the supporting cast and love interests and that's it. The other characters in this book have purpose and grow as well. Chi learns that he isn't all that he is made out to be and has to rely on someone else for a change. Jo has to smooth her quills down and accept the things that she cannot change. Uriel comes to find that hero's can fall and aren't perfect. Their relationships between each other that have been there for years only grow stronger throughout the book and while they may not make the best decisions, they support each other well.

It's good to have a friend that will back up all of your stupid mistakes while calling you an idiot in the process.

Cracked also made me cry. It's such an interesting mix of bloodbath, fighting, sarcasm, helplessness, and heart wrenching sadness. It has a great balance and is one of the few YA books that I can say that wasn't just sad for the sake of being sad. There is purpose behind everything and it is well composed and thought out.

Just go get this book. Do it. Right now. It's worth it. I could sing its praises all day long and not be done with it. I will willingly break my heart over and over every time I read this book, just so I can have the experience of reading it again.