Book Review: Emerald Bound by Teresa Richards

Emerald Bound by Teresa Richards

**This ARC was provided through NetGalley for an honest review--Thanks NetGalley!**

What it's about:

          In this retelling of the Princess and the Pea, a game of truth or dare turns strange when one of Maggie's friends goes missing after spending the night at a classmate's strange mansion.  Even stranger? Nobody but Maggie even remembers Kate.  Maggie is determined to find out what's going on, and knows it *has* to have something to do with an enchanted glowing emerald, a mysterious hoodied boy called Garon, and the strange classmate who lives in the house.

What I thought:

          I truly commend the author on picking a less mainstream fairy tale to retell! I like the Princess and the Pea and have found it super underutilized in the modern genre of retellings.

We end up following two different stories within this book--one in the present that follows Maggie and her missing BFF, and the other that tries to convey the origin story of the emerald as well as Lindy, the weird loner classmate who lived not only in the olden-day country of Valstenia, but also now...in Maggie's time.

Honestly, I didn't love this book.  I was really looking forward to a neat retelling, but in my opinion it missed the mark and seemed to only extract the "object under the mattress" aspect of the original tale. 

Parts of the story really dragged on and there were many bits that I felt were unnecessary and ended up making the events convoluted and confusing rather than explanatory.  We were switched back and forth so much that I forgot what was happening in the main story while reading the origin story--if there was even enough time between origin scenes for anything of worth to actually happen.  In fact, at both 30% and 60% through, I updated my Goodreads status mentioning how much the book was dragging on. 

Me, while trying to get through this book.

While parts of the story line were creative, I think what held my enjoyment of it back so much was that this was supposed to be a retelling, but just ended up its own separate story.  The characters weren't very well developed and some of the revelations we get right at the ending seemed rushed and stuck in last minute because it was easy to make that the resolution.  

"Yer a Princess, Maggie?"

Overall, this book was decently written and I smell a sequel brewing, but I don't think I will be reading anything else related to this book.  If you're into YA chase scenes with a few fairy tale elements thrown in, you might be interested in picking up a copy!

Rating: 2.5 stars.

Book Review: The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily Anderson

The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily Anderson

What it's about:

          Trixie Watson: genius, fangirl, comic reader. Ben West: genius, fanboy, comic reader.  Watson and West together? The best-known worst enemies of the school, going back to 1st grade when Ben pushed Trixie off the monkey bars and broke her arm.  Given their interests and common friend group, why don't these two get along?!  When disaster strikes and their classmates start getting expelled for mysterious reasons, they have to learn to work together to find out if the expulsions are legit or the product of a supervillian! 

What I thought:

          OMG GUYS. LET ME GET SOMETHING OUT OF MY SYSTEM FIRST: 

Now back to your regularly scheduled review reading:

This book was so freaking adorable. My geeky heart was screaming with happiness and dying of the cute feels. I read it out loud to a friend during a road trip (we're cute, I know) so I had to break it up into two sittings but I definitely could have read this in one go.

Trixie and her friends are my high school spirit animals.  If I had known girls like this when I was a teenager, I'd have been bffs with them.  Nerdy, smart, bookish, quirky--just a great trio of sci-fi watching comic book reading gals.

Then there's Ben.  Snarky, nerdy, poetry-quoting Ben.  His friend group is more varied (though still geeky--I mean, they go to a school for geniuses, after all), but when the powers of the two groups combine, it is truly amazing.

The story is funny and adorable and geeky and mysterious and heartwarming and just a little sad.  You get to watch Ben and Trixie go from arch nemeses to friends to something more (because how could this NOT include a romance?)

The plot is set up so that there are seemingly two different storylines: the Watson v. West snarkfest that transforms into such an adorable romance full of fandom references that my nerd girl brain wanted to explode of pure happiness:

I mean...at one point, after a haircut and a shave, one of Trixie's friends compares Ben to the Tenth Doctor. TEN. DAVID FREAKING TENNANT. 

The other half of the story involves the class ranking list that is the bane of the entire student body and #1 stress inducer to the majority of the characters involved.  People start getting accused of cheating and hacking into the school's grading system and BAM, people start getting expelled left and right. People that are Trixie and Ben's friends, and who Trixie knows would never do anything to hurt their school career.  This is obviously the more serious and less fluffy part of the book, but it tests the tentative relationship between Trixie and Ben and allows them to work together to figure out once and for all what is going on.

Overall, I thought this book was great. It's a YA contemporary chock a block full of ALL OF THE FANDOMS, filled with fluff bolstered by some well-placed and meaningful drama.  As soon as I closed the book I logged onto Amazon to buy myself a copy because I will DEFINITELY be revisiting this story!

Rating: 5 stars.

Book Review: The Falconer by Elizabeth May

The Falconer by Elizabeth May

**NetGalley provided this ARC for review purposes--Thanks NetGalley!**

What it's about:

           This story follows Lady Aileana Kameron (Kam, to Kiaran), who's just come back out into society from the mourning period following her mother's brutal murder. She was in such shock from witnessing her mother's heart being ripped out that she didn't cry...and therefore a lot of people in society now treat her like she's the one who committed the murder.  It doesn't help that she fights and kills invisible monsters that roam the streets of Edinburgh at night with the help of a mysterious fae male with a dark past who calls himself Kiaran and has vowed to never kill another human again.

Aileana notices that there are bigger and badder fae showing up at the same time as the baobhan sith who killed her mom is coming back into the area.  She discovers, through some stoic comments (on Kiaran's part) and information revealed to her by the only warm and kind man in her life and one of my favorite characters--Derrick the closet-pixie, that she is a Falconer, which gives her increased skills in badassery and--oops--makes her the only person alive who can reset the lock placed on the fae prison 2000 years ago.  As if trying to fit into a dated and sexist society wasn't bad enough.

What I thought:

          A steampunk fairy story set in Scotland? A brooding, sassy, sexy fae warrior who's mostly cold inhuman fairy with just the tiniest bit of humanity creeping around the edges? A tale of the Seelie and Unseelie courts of the Fairy Realm who are about to escape and wreak havoc on the world after being imprisoned for the last two millennia?

So let's talk characters: 

Aileana is a total badass--society girl by day, tinkering inventor/fae hunter by night. She's got her own flying machine--THAT SHE BUILT--and is feeling confident enough to go hunting fae on her own.  She's--for good reason--traumatized by seeing her mother slaughtered, so behind all of that confidence there's a little fear and brokenness that shapes her character nicely.

Next, I'm just going to come out and say it--Kiaran could be ACOTAR's Rhysand's younger formerly-evil cousin.  He's just that perfect blend of snark and coldness with a dash of humanity (his long-lost love? A Falconer woman from before the fae were captured underground) and a smidge of a super dark past.  I don't know why I like characters like him so much, but he's a winner.

Every girl needs a Derrick the closet pixie in their lives. He's encouraging, helpful, brave, and sews a mean wardrobe.  He's also adorable when drunk on honey.  He and Kiaran obviously have something from their past that's keeping them from being friends, but for Aileana's sake, they are relatively civil with each other.

There's also Catherine, Aileana's best human friend, and her brother (who just happens to have some hidden talents of his own).

The cast of characters in this story is great. All of them are well-developed and we get a really strong sense of the relationships they have with Aileana and how they fit into the story as a whole.  There's no instant bonding or knowledge that comes out of nowhere--many of these characters are already established in Aileana's life before we start reading so the transition is well done.

The story and setting are also captivating.  I want to visit this world!  The descriptions of the places and things Aileana encounters on an everyday basis are vivid and imaginative.  What self-respecting tea-drinker would I be if I said I wasn't super intrigued by the instant tea-dispensing machines that seem to be handily located in every parlor in town?

Once the story gets moving, it's all intrigue and action.  We see Aileana's growth and understanding of what her role really is as well as how big her responsibilities are--she is literally the only one standing between life as she knows it and Fae Armageddon.  The inclusion of the Seelie/Unseelie court-style fae was one of my favorites.  It's a throwback that to me, and indicates that these fae mean business and that they're not to be trusted because they can and WILL just murder you.

All of these aspects combine into a fantastic and engaging book--I fell in love with the characters, setting, and story, and bought the Kindle version of the second book before I was even done with the first!

Rating: 4.5 stars

          

Book Review: Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

What it's about:

         It's Christmastime. Dash (a Christmas hater) stumbles across a red Moleskine notebook on the shelves of the Strand containing a set of rules and a dare, written by Lily (Christmas enthusiast). Cue the adorable romantic scavenger hunt that takes the reader stomping all over the Christmas landmarks of NYC, from Madame Tussaud's to a late-night/early morning klezmer club concert.

What I thought:

        So this was pretty adorable, in my opinion, though more than a little unrealistic. Like...I would LOVE to meet a cute quirky-but-slightly-surly bookish guy by connecting through a series of uniquely charming dares....but the chances of this happening in any way are zilch.  

But I digress.  Dash did a Christmas ditch and told both parents he was staying at the other parent's house, while Lily's home alone with her brother and his boyfriend Benny.  AKA these teenagers are legit running around NYC with none the wiser and having a scavenger hunt romance of epic proportions.  Lily uses her family connections (a cousin with keys to the Strand, her uncle the Macy's Santa Claus, and a Great Aunt who moonlights as a guard for a wax museum) to lead Dash through each dare, and his dares get her out of her manic pixie dream girl comfort zone and allow her to experience life and the beginnings of love. 

Overall, this was a super cute Christmas romance that I could TOTALLY see being made into a movie.  The ending felt a little lackluster, but I know there's a second book so I will probably end up reading that just to see what's going on in the lives of Dash and Lily.

Rating:  3.5 stars.