Let's Try This Reviewing Thing: A Royal Pain, by Megan Mulry

Not gonna lie—I laughed a little when I saw this in the library. Mainly because, with the cover and the summary, this was very clearly a romance book:

Smart, ambitious, and career driven, Bronte Talbot started following British royalty in the gossip mags only to annoy her intellectual father. But her fascination has turned into a not-so-secret guilty pleasure. When she starts dating a charming British doctoral student, she teases him unmercifully about the latest scandals of his royal countrymen, only to find out—to her horror!!—that she’s been having a fling with the nineteenth Duke of Northrop, and now he wants to make her…a duchess?

In spite of her frivolous passion for all things royal, Bronte isn’t all sure she wants the reality. Is becoming royalty every American woman’s secret dream, or is it a nightmare of disapproving dowagers, paparazzi, stiff-upper-lip tea parties, and over-the-top hats?

Nothing against romance, of course. I like it a lot, and it can be entertaining and if you find the right authors it can be written very well. But, like most romance books, I expected it to have some nsfw scenes—and I was right, by the way, so if you don’t like reading about two people having sex I’d just skip this one right off the bat. Normally Mrs. V doesn’t get books with such, um, steamy content, but every now and then a book or two slips through the cracks—I’ve counted about five or six paperback and hardback books in the library that belong in the Romance section of Barnes & Noble, and it’s a little funny to me.

For a romance and a book in general, though, this book doesn’t really come up to scratch. I wasn’t expecting much beyond the cliché storyline, but I did expect a fluffy and enjoyable read.

Unfortunately,  this book didn’t even match up to that. A lot of people scorn romance books for being nothing but fluff and pointless sex, but I’ve read honestly good romance books and series that have strong engaging plots and characters as well as believable romances. I didn’t expect this to be a masterpiece, but what I got was disappointing.

First sticking point for me: the main character. I really, really disliked Bronte at the beginning, mainly because she is a moron. It’s not even mentioned in the summary, but at the beginning of the book she starts going out with some dude from Texas who everyone warns her against, but she falls head over heels in love with him for no discernible reason and actually ends up moving to Chicago to be with him. To no one’s surprise, they break up, which is supposed to be her background for her initial resistance of a steady relationship with her duke. Unfortunately, her paper-thin character doesn’t really hold up to this, and the conflict surrounding her once-burned past is quickly discarded.

In fact, I think that’s my main issue with this entire book: the entire plot consists of meaningless conflicts that don’t get me invested or raise the stakes in the story, and are quickly discarded within a few chapters for the next meaningless hurdle the couple has to jump over to Be Together Forever. It was only slightly interesting in the beginning when Bronte actually followed through with her personality of not committing to anyone, but only just barely. After that, every ‘conflict’ the couple encountered felt like an excuse to drag the book on longer. The dowager issue, the paparazzi…nothing really held up, and it bored me to tears.

Honestly I’d just skip this book. There are better oh-I’m-dating-a-royal stories, and better romances, in the library to look at.  I give it a two out of ten.

Tl;dr: Lackluster plot, paper-thin characters, and little real conflict made this book as boring as tar. I’d take a pass.

Let’s Try Reviewing This Thing: Venom, by Fiona Paul

Secrets can be as powerful—and as deadly—as poison.

Cassandra Caravello has everything a girl could desire: elegant gowns, sparkling jewels, invitations to the best parties, and a handsome, wealthy fiancé—yet she longs for something more. Ever since her parents’ death, Cassandra has felt trapped, alone in a city of water, where the dark and labyrinthine canals whisper of escape.

When Cass stumbles upon the body of a murdered woman—which a bloody X carved across her heart—she’s drawn into a dangerous world of secret societies, courtesans, and killers. Soon, she finds herself falling for Falco, a poor artist with a mischievous grin…and a habit of getting into trouble. Will Cassandra find the murderer before he finds her? And will she stay true to her fiancé or succumb to her uncontrollable feeling for Falco?

I’m not into historical stuff. I’m not all that into mysteries.

But I was definitely into Venom. Man, what a rich book—rich setting, rich characters, rich plot…I just really, really loved this book.

First off, setting: It’s set in historical Venice, and while I personally think that particular place can be very overused, I really liked how Venom wove in exposition and setting with its plot. Whether Cass was in a glitzy ballroom or in the canals, I felt enthralled. The book made it sound beautiful, and very deadly, and it’s the kind of world that sticks with you after you put down the book.

Second, characters: I really liked Cass, who seemed like someone who would honestly come from the period the book is set in—she doesn’t like her engagement but doesn’t act or seem like a modern woman magically born centuries before her time. She was still stubborn and loyal and brave, and she really was a good main character for the mystery setting. Falco is a great love interest too, and they play off of each other really well. There were a lot of side characters, and some of them sort of got lost in the shuffle, but the characters were strong where they counted.

Third, plot: The plot was really, really well done, in my opinion. Again, I’m not too familiar with the mystery genre, but I thought Venom did a really good job of keeping my on my toes. I honestly did not see some of the plot twists coming, and it kept me guessing at the murderer till the very end.  It was full of action and intrigue, and I very much enjoyed myself to the very end.

I didn’t like the ending, but that’s more because of the nasty emotional cliffhanger Ms. Paul left for her readers, in preparation for a sequel. And honestly, I think I might actually read it! I give this book a six out of ten.

Tl;dr: Engaging mystery in a beautiful setting, Venom kept me hooked and probably will for other readers as well.

Let’s Try Reviewing This Thing: The Opposite of Hallelujah, by Anna Jarzab

So there’s this book:

Caro Mitchell considers herself an only child—and she likes it that way. After all, her much-older sister, Hannah, left home eight years ago, and Caro barely remembers her. So when Caro’s parents drop the bombshell that Hannah is returning to live with them, Caro feels as if an interloper is crashing her family. To her, Hannah’s a total stranger, someone who haunts their home with her meek and withdrawn presence, and who refuses to talk about her life and why she went away. Caro can’t understand why her parents cut her sister so much slack, and why they’re not pushing for answers.

Unable to understand Hannah, Caro resorts to telling lies about her mysterious disappearance. But when those lies alienate Caro’s new boyfriend and put her on the outs with her friends and her parents, she seeks solace from an unexpected source. And when she unearths a clue about Hannah’s past—one that could save Hannah from the dark secret that possesses her—Caro begins to see her sister in a new light.

And it’s a really, really good book. Like, “this book made me cry” good. “This book made me cry several times” good.

There’s something that can be said about really authentic, emotional books like The Opposite of Hallelujah. Ones that really make you feel for not just the main character, but for the side characters, sometimes even more so.  And this book really does that—I felt so much empathy for Caro’s confusion and anger, and could see why she did what she did, even if I thought sometimes she seemed selfish, or unreasonable. She seemed real to me, and the characters around her acted appropriately, so she wasn’t unaccountable for her actions.

And Hannah. Oh Hannah, I felt for her even before I knew what she went through, and after I found out I bawled. Even when Caro feels threatened by her Ms. Jarzab still shows Hannah as a sympathetic character going through a lot of tough troubles. The entire book stays on focus and it kept pulling my heartstrings.

I didn’t even mind the religious messages much. There were obviously strong, especially with Father Bob, but it didn’t irritate me or make me feel like I was being preached to. I’m not even religious, so someone who is might get even more out of the messages, but the fact that Caro obviously is doubtful of what Father Bob told her really helped keep the book grounded in what was important, instead of going off into God-is-good territory.

Overall, I give it an eight out of ten. The book isn’t really even my style, but I still loved it, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes this type of book.

Tl;dr: Strong characters and heart-wrenching emotion kept me invested, though I didn’t really like the religious overtones. Still, great book and would definitely recommend it.

Let’s Try Reviewing This Thing: Pirate Cinema, by Cory Doctorow

Aw man, I love this author. This guy wrote the book Little Brother, which, if you haven’t read yet, I’d suggest taking out of the library immediately and coming back to this book because Little Brother is insanely good. I was super excited when I saw this book in the library:

Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by sampling and reassembling footage he downloads from the net. In the near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; if you’re caught three times, your entire household is cut off from the Internet for a year, with no appeal.

Trent is sure this won’t happen to him; he’s too clever. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his family—his father’s living, his mother’s health, and his kid sister’s studies all depend on Internet access.

Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London where he learns how to stay alive on the streets while retaining your self-respect. This drops him straight into the city’s always-rambunctious street scene, a demimonde of artists and activists who are fighting a new bill that will criminalize digital copying even more harmless than Trent’s, making millions of people felons at a stroke.

Things look bad. The government is in the grip of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers that be haven’t entirely reckoned with the power of a movie to change people’s minds…

The book touches on a lot of issues that anyone familiar with the Internet is aware of—recently Congress tried to pass SOPA, ACTA, PIPA and CISPA, all of which would severely limit Internet activity and many argued would destroy a lot of creative license. There’s a lot of other issues with these bills, like the fact that they’re not very well-made to begin with, but that’s a whole other bag of cats that I’m not too eager to get into (mainly because I don’t know much beyond the basic details of it and would rather not come off sounding like a moron). But basically imagine a world where all three of those bills got passed, plus a few more, and you have the setting of Pirate Cinema. It’s very anti-regulation for all these things, and the main characters are all artists who use copyrighted material for their art—making them, in this world, felons.

I don’t know…this book was very heavy-handed to me. It was interesting, but at times I felt a little lost in the whole background of it to really enjoy the plot—a plot that is fun, and engaging, when you focus solely on that. But it was also very black-and-white to me, its anti-copyrighting messages just a little too strong to make it really enjoyable or believable. The people fighting for copyright laws are all seen as evil, money-hungry people, and the ones fighting against copyright are artists, free-thinkers who want to use the materials available to them to the best of their ability. It’s a bit of a straw-man’s argument, dumbing down a complicated issue for the sake of an adventurous story.

To its credit, the story is very good. It’s easy to root for the main characters and their struggles, and what they do to fight against the government reminds me of Little Brother in a good way. But this book isn’t as good as Little Brother, in my opinion, and if you want to be introduced to Doctorow’s books I’d start with that one instead of this one. I give this a five out of ten, and recommend this to people who loved Little Brother and are interested in the story more than the real-life implications.

Tl;dr: Good story, but the real-life implications rubbed me the wrong way. Still, a good read.

Let’s Try Reviewing This Thing: Revolution 19, by Gregg Rosenblum

Who loves robot apocalypses? I do! Apocalypses in general are so interesting—there’s so many different ways the human race can die, and being destroyed by our own advances in technology is terribly ironic. It’s less overused than zombie apocalypse, at least.

So you can understand when I actually went out and bought the book Revolution 19. First off, neat cover:

Second off, post-robot apocalypse!

Twenty years ago, the robots designed to fight our wars abandoned the battlefields. Then they turned their weapons on us.

Headstrong seventeen-year-old Nick has spent his whole life in a community in the wilderness, hiding out from the robots that have enslaved mankind. But when the bots discover the community’s location, he, his tech-geek younger brother, Kevin, and his adopted sister, Cass, barely make it out alive—only to discover that their home has been destroyed and everyone they love is missing.

All survivors were captured and taken to one of the robots’ Cities. The siblings have been hearing tales about the cities all their lives—humans are treated like animals, living in outdoor pens and forced to build new bots until they drop dead from exhaustion. Determined to find out if their parents are among the survivors, Nick, Kevin, and Cass venture into the heart of the City, but it is nothing like they’ve been told.

As they live among the bots for the first time, they realize they’re fighting for more than just their family. The robots have ruled for too long, and now it’s time for a revolution.

Wow. What an amazing summary. I was really excited to read this, and was really disappointed when I actually did. This is a pretty bad book.

First off, the plot is really stale. There aren’t any real stakes in this book, and I never really felt like the main characters were ever in any real danger. It seemed unrealistic, even considering the whole apocalyptic setting. There never seemed to be any real threat to the kids in the book, and what did pop up was immediately taken out by these kids that seemed way more skilled than they should have been.

Another problem: the characters. The fact that there were three kids to begin with was a sticking point for me, since the chapters deviate from all of their points of view—I never got to stay with any of them long enough to learn about them or connect with any of them, and they just felt really stale and stagnant to me. Even if there were risks in the book, I likely wouldn’t have cared about their well-being, because I really didn’t care about them. They all felt and sounded the same, and their chapters were very hard, if not impossible to tell apart, even though there is both gender and age differences between them.

The setting was interesting, but nothing that hasn’t been done to death—it’s hard to make a robot apocalypse book that stands out, but when you don’t have good characters or plot it’s impossible to make the book unique. Nothing stood out for me, and even though I only read this book a few weeks ago I had to go back to it just to remember the most basic details. It’s forgettable and bland, and honestly there are much better apocalypse books out there—yes, even zombie apocalypse books. I give this a three out of ten.

Tl;dr: Low stakes, stale characters, and bland setting made this book boring and disappointing. Unless you just want a quick read, I’d give this a pass.

Let’s Try Reviewing This Thing: Because I Said So! (The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales & Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to its Kids) by Ken Jennings

 So, fun fact about this book: even though it’s nonfiction, I recognized the author’s name right off the bat. Not because I read any of his other books (and he has written several), but because my family are complete freaks about the game show Jeapordy! and have watched it every night without fail for as long as I can remember. And boy, do I remember this dude: he was on the freaking show for like, two years. He won over two million dollars. It was insane.

This book? It’s pretty insane too. Insanely good. The title and the summary interested me immediately, before I realized that I saw this dude’s face on my TV every single night for what seemed like forever a few years ago:

Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll stay like that!

Feed a cold, starve a fever!

Don’t touch your Halloween candy until we get it checked out!

Never run with scissors!

Don’t’ look in the microwave while it’s running!

This will go down on your permanent record!

Is any of it true? If so, how true?

Ken Jennings wants to find out if mother and father always know best. Yes, all those years you were told not to sit too close to the television (you’ll hurt your eyes!) or swallow your gum (it stays in your stomach for seven years!) or crack your knuckles (arthritis!) are called into question by our country’s leading trivia guru. Jennings separates myth from fact to debunk a wide variety of parental edicts: no swimming after meals, sit up straight, don’t talk to strangers, and so on.

Armed with medical case histories, scientific findings, and even the occasional experiment on himself (or his kids), Jennings exposes countless examples of parental wisdom run amok. Whether you’re a parent who wants to know what you can stop worrying about or a kid (of any age) looking to say, “I told you so,” this is the anti-helicopter parenting book you’ve been waiting for.

This book is really cool. Like, really cool. It talks about all those old wives’ tales and myths that parents repeat verbatim to their kids all the time myth by myth, and casually either proves them true or proves them false. For someone who was literally raised on “don’t go out in the rain, you’ll catch a cold” and “don’t make that face, it’ll freeze that way,” this brought back a lot of nostalgic memories as I read it—and it’s very well written. It’s simple, to-the-point, and kept my interest throughout the entire book. And if I didn’t care about a certain myth? I could just skip it, since it’s all neatly organized by categories and the myths that pertain to it.

It was really fun to read, and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s bored and wants to know exactly how much their parents were lying to them. As an added bonus, you can probably show this book to them for proof—if they’ve ever watched Jeapordy!, they’ll probably believe it right off the bat. I give it a seven out of ten.

Tl;dr: Interesting and amusing premise coupled with a clean writing style made this book an easy and enjoyable read.

Let’s Try Reviewing This Thing: The Bronte Sisters (The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) by Catherine Reef

More nonfiction! This time it’s a biography, which has just as much potential to be interesting as it does to be boring as tar. The subjects this time are already well-documented historical figures: the famous Bronte sisters, nineteenth-century authors whose works are still critically acclaimed today, and can be found in the school library as well as libraries everywhere:

The Bronte sisters were the most extraordinary of literary siblings. In the nineteenth century, when women were discouraged from writing and publishing books, all three produced one or more novels now considered masterpieces. In The Bronte Sisters, award-winning author Catherine Reef explores the turbulent lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne and offers insights into their passionate and timeless work.

The sisters spent their childhood creating endless imaginative stories with their brother, Branwell, and running free on the wild moors of Yorkshire, England. Their mother died when they were tiny girls, and two older sisters soon followed her to the grave. Heartbreak and hardship continued to plague the Brontes, but the sisters leaned on one another. They turned their misfortune into novels and poems that remain as potent today as when they were written.

I hate the Bronte sisters’ books.  I’m just going to put that out there. Jane Eyre? Hated it. Wuthering Heights? Despised it. Agnes Grey? Never read it, not sure I ever will unless it’s required. There’s just something about their despicable, weak-willed characters that immediately turns me off, and the whole idea of a “gothic” setting, or whatever just makes me really irritated. I have to, somehow, root for the characters in a book to like it in the least, and none of the Bronte books I’ve ever read made me support any of the leads in any sense.

That being said, this biography of the Bronte sister’s lives turned out not only to be interesting, but very enjoyable. The faceless names on the covers of books I dislike became real girls, real women, and their story is told in a simple and excellent style. It was easy to follow and easy to understand, and it made me relate to the three girls. It also gives the reader some insight as to why they wrote about what they wrote. It didn’t make me like their stories any more, but it helped me see why the subject matters tended to be so dreary.

It also touches on the life of their brother Branwell, who I didn’t even know existed before I read this book, and how his life influenced theirs and their works. The book turned all of them into real people, with real thoughts and feelings, and it’s written like a story so it kept my interest from beginning to end. As far as biographies go, I think this is a really great one, and it helps educate people on some of the most celebrated authors of all time. I give it an eight out of ten.

Tl;dr: A simple storytelling style keeps this biography from being dry, and the interesting lives of the Bronte sisters entertain the reader as well as educate them on real historical figures. I’d give it a try.