Donna Smith
DNF at 11% after I found myself reading it as an editor, not an audience. Upon being stylistically bludgeoned by a paragraph of short, declarative sentences and realizing I didn't care about much about the characters, it was time to abort. Still curious about the world-building–dragons + downtown Chicago–but not enough.
It was hard to follow which character's POV was meant to be dominant–the granddaughter or the grandfather, which could have been the writer's artistic choice but didn't work for me. I skipped 60% in the middle and read the last chapter,which didn't inspire me to go back and fill in any of the middle. Definitely setting up a series.
I mean, I read the whole thing, but... Was this supposed to be hilarious?, because the people were just two-dimensional, the main plot conflict too stupid to believe (tequila amnesia...!?), the HEA too pat. Didn't work for me. It's an after-school special about how bullies are bad but w/o enough traction with real life to be memorable for me.
DNF at about 80%. I was hoping to be engaged in a well-drawn world different than my own (spies, special forces, Australia) by compelling characters and the author's insider knowledge; instead, I encountered 1-dimensional archetypes playing with fancy spy-military toys in engaging episodes. Alas for the missed opportunity! It reminded me of the (more compelling) young-teen series Alex Rider. Jo is apparently so bad-ass, so kind, so competent, so cool, so dangerous that she always wins at everything, including charming ocean mammals better than everyone. Yawn.
Mmm...not in love with this book, for all that I am a keen food historian, cook, and researcher. I still recommend “Salt” to friends, 20 years after getting my first copy, but while I'm going to finish “Milk”, it is tedious and doesn't grip me. Perhaps a tiny bit it's the narrator's voice on Audible...but the contents also aren't amazing me. Huh. Too bad, but I have added a few factoids to my history-teacher's brain so all is not lost.
This is an urban fantasy author I'll find more of–I'm very curious to see how this world and these characters develop. Dineh cosmology is a really well-chosen foundation for world-building in this rather dark, near-future kind of post-apocalyptic no-longer-USA. I loved that all the main characters were native–in other urban fantasy I've come across with native characters, they're still isolated within white society, stuck still (STILL!!!!) in the side-kick roll. (Yes, Mercy Thompson is nobody's sidekick, but she's pretty isolated from native culture!) I really appreciated Trail of Lightning's all-native world. Lots of good vibe to this book in the realms of world-building and characterisation and the the well-developed cultural backstory, though the violence is real enough to give me pause. The creepy witchcraft was also near my limit. I liked that there were hints of redemption while leaving all the MCs unable to sort themselves into any kind of morally unambiguous categories, either good or bad. We'll see if the next in series pushes the moral ambiguity to my limits too, or if I can continue to enjoy the things that are powerful and interesting about this series.
I wish this had been better-written, because cross-cultural windows are so fascinating, and I'm not a south-Asian-descended Muslim living in LA. IF you want a fluffy, light-weight “Oh no! I can't end up a spinster!” rom com (complete with feel-good self-actualization denouement), then this book works fine. If you prefer your explorations of identity, family, culture, and growing up to have depth in their characterizations and a plot that pulls you along, then look farther. I especially found the one-dimensional clownish mother with her OTT fears and demands about marriage to be hard to put up with, but the immature heroine who persisted in being self-blind and pretty immature made this book a disappointment, ultimately. She allegedly arrives at great self-knowledge after this quest to find a husband...but I was left valuing the list of Bollywood films in the appendix more than any sense that I'd spent time with a character I liked and would remember.
Dying for others–what an interesting new idea in an increasingly clicheed genre of urban fantasy. Good research and actually exploring what might be going on emotionally/biochemically in a death/rebirth situation. (Not actually scientifically convincing–still just “and then something unexplained and medical-mumbo-jumbo happens”, but at least one feels the author has pondered some of this on a medical level.) What left me not willing to continue the series was character development that didn't have the same research/thought and just devolved into two-dimensional clichees, such as the love triangle (yawn), and the silly sister who was more of a plot device than a person.
Better concept than lots of the read-one-read-them-all urban fantasies proliferating currently. I wish there was better character development.
So, I knew from the start that this was yet another new author's take on urban fantasy, but was hopeful when I found some clever variations on the tried and true tropes. Alas. As the unrealistic characterisations piled up and the plot was wrenched this way and that with little regard for realism I gave up and did not finish. I just do not think any of the people in the story would act in the ways that they do, given what we are told (not shown) about their background. (Also, she's 18 years old, has been in foster care for 12 years, but her mum died at her birth...so what's with the missing 6 years? Bad editing? Did I misunderstand?) I hope this author keeps practicing on her writing group because some of the ideas showed spark, but I do want much more practice and much more editing before I attempt another one.
Mmmm...meh. I liked the historical mysteries by this author (“Still Life with Murder” had me coming back to buy more in the series) but this romance felt more shallow and contrived, like the characters fell for each other because that's what they were supposed to do in a book of this genre, not because they necessarily would do that without authorial intent. Also, the mismatches between a story written decades ago and re-relased/updated are what stuck with me as I kept coming over the plot in my memory to figure out what anachronism kept snagging my attention. I'll be reading more P.B. Ryan mysteries, but not the Patricia Ryan romances.
The good thing about Anne Bishop books is the quirky, somewhat damaged but charming characters who come together to offer support and create healing community for each other. The bad thing about them is the world creation! Geography, history, sociology, technology appear in the books in The Others series to serve plot quirks but without the well thought-out internal logic that would keep these details from getting under my historian/anthropologist skin. (Shall I get myself started on how creepy it is that the Others live in fake North America as the original residents until apparently fake-Europe descended people came–which makes First Nation people what exactly in this alternate Earth??? Blergh! I want to hop up and down and roar about this!)
Yeah, this'll be my last Anne Bishop. An easy read, but kind of obvious for a thriller genre, and not engaging enough for a “let's hang out with these quirky characters” read–I don't really care about whether everyone finds their soulmate or not–and the very weak world creation is the lasting bad taste that lingers after digesting Lake Silence, so..nope.
Not just steampunk pirates!, but heart-of-gold, mad-scientist, dreadlocked, misunderstood, inventor pirates! Not just fighter pilots!, but pint-sized, feisty-grrl, assassin-grade marks-woman fighter pilots! Plus talking swords! Steam-powered dirigibles! Out-of-time sorceresses! Caves, jungles, volcanoes, and the bubbling taiga of death!!! Wisecracking screwball comedy humour!
If you dealt out all these narrative elements from the Big Deck of Big Adventures, I'd roll my eyes...yet in Boroker's adventures they work charmingly. Awww! What a fun escape. A quick, satisfying read. Witty and inventive.
3 1/2 stars. I'd find myself annoyed at Don's internal dialogue that constantly interrupts plot and dialogue and almost put the book down...then discover an hour later that apparently I'd been sucked in!, so I guess I liked this book more in large chunks than little tastes! I really liked the first book, and am charmed by the non-conventional narrative voice in romantic fiction of Don Tillman, and glad that his friends and his exceptionalities save the day. Awww! I shall certainly read the third in the series. I'm increasingly a fan of “on the spectrum” fiction, esp. romantic fiction, and this seems a worthy addition. It's also cool to read a “married and in love and working it out” story.
The good: realistic and interesting life-in-wheelchair details, including how it complicates romantic relationships.
The bad: badly written characters. if the plot needed someone to suddenly be the bad guy, a character who had previously been utterly reliable, the fairy godmother, someone that we were told we could trust, would suddenly be selfish, irrational and mean, then in the next scene when they were needed to be good, back they were to being good. This was true of supporting as well as main characters–this isn't a book that embraces the “show, not tell” or even the “explore real cause and effect in the human psyche” domains of writing. I finished it...but a week later I've already forgotten much but a vague sense of annoyance at the writing and a vague sense of interest in what I learned about living with spinal injuries and quadriplegia. As a pamphlet, it works; as a novel, not so much.
Read this one because I really liked Matchmaking for Beginners, but this one–not so much. This one had situations that would have been quirky and interesting but all the people populating them (exception possibly the main female character and the kids, who weren't 3-d characters but rather props for adult drama) were people I didn't want to spend time with, who, in fact, I found not just not sympathetic but verging on poisonously dysfunctional. The developing romance made me cringe and think “No! no! he's a creepy looser! run away!”By 4/5 through I ditched it. Not for me.
I liked the clever woman working in STEM and the New York setting rang true–but the African kingdom felt like a Disney set from Switzerland or something. I lived in West Africa for a few years and I couldn't suspend my disbelief for the whole fake-kingdom side to this story. Too bad–I would love to read more fiction set in Africa written by folks who know the setting!