YA

Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: The Illuminae Files #1

illuminae -amie kaufamn and jay kristoffThis morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

5 Drink Me Potions

Kady Grant: He said, “You picked a hell of a day to dump me, Kades.”


I don’t lightly give 5 star ratings, but Illuminae has swept my breath away. It is literally a piece of art, with the unique layout of pages from hacked memos to re-routed secret IMs to black and white pictures of space. But it’s not just an ordinary piece of art. It’s a masterpiece, crafted in such a creative manner like nothing else I’ve ever read before.

It starts off with a storyline that you think you’ve heard before. Girl dumps boy for some reason that is hinted but not revealed yet. Okay, sounds familiar enough. But all hell breaks loose literally hours after, with fire falling from the skies as a rival company drops out of nowhere to attack their tiny planet on the edge of the known universe.

Sweet. So our characters, Kady and Ezra, rush up into spacecrafts fleeing from the enemy. Okay, it still sounds familiar enough. Life on a spaceship hurtling through the universe? Might have seen something like that before.

But it’s WAY bigger than that. Action is ratcheted high within the first several pages. You’re flipping through the pages of documents and transcripted interviews trying to figure out what the heck went down. And as things start making sense, like who attacked them and why this company would do such a thing, there are still so many uncertainties open.

Ezra and Kady get separated on 2 different ships so our two exes ignore each other for a while. Of course, that doesn’t last. As things get worse as they journey for help in the distant universe, Kady with her hacker skills turns to Ezra as he’s the last person in the world she has left. Their IMs were some of my very favourite part of Illuminae. For most of the story, they’re apart and so we really get to see how they interact with other people around them beyond each other. Their personalities become real and tangible. Not just some hero or girl-who-broke-his-heart or however they are with each other. They feel like REAL teenagers that you and I may have bumped into or have known.

But with each other? It’s priceless. It’s clear their chemistry hasn’t died down with the months and distance between them. The love there isn’t just driven by desperation or fear or craving for familiarity in a world that has turned upside down. Amidst all the craziness (and oh boy, is there craziness!), this tale is still a beautiful love story of two people who would do anything for each other.

 

Still there is no time for sorrow. She knows he is in here somewhere, the one she risked everything for.
The only one she has left. The one she loves true.
“Ezra?”

 

And goodness. Ezra Mason is one funny and romantic dude.

 

Mason, E, LT 2nd:Damn, I still remember first day in her class. You were checking me out HARD, Grant.
ByteMe: U. R. DELUSIONAL. u kept asking me stupid questions about hydrogen bonding
Mason, E, LT 2nd: confession: hydrogen was not the kind of bonding on my mind

Continue reading “Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff” →

YA

Review: Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: The Princesses of Westfalin Trilogy #1

princess of the midnight ball -jessica day george A tale of twelve princesses doomed to dance until dawn…

Galen is a young soldier returning from war; Rose is one of twelve princesses condemned to dance each night for the King Under Stone. Together Galen and Rose will search for a way to break the curse that forces the princesses to dance at the midnight balls. All they need is one invisibility cloak, a black wool chain knit with enchanted silver needles, and that most critical ingredient of all—true love—to conquer their foes in the dark halls below. But malevolent forces are working against them above ground as well, and as cruel as the King Under Stone has seemed, his wrath is mere irritation compared to the evil that awaits Galen and Rose in the brighter world above.

Captivating from start to finish, Jessica Day George’s take on the Grimms’ tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses demonstrates yet again her mastery at spinning something entirely fresh out of a story you thought you knew.

 

2.5 Drink Me Potions

If you know me well enough, you would know that I absolutely adore fairy tale retellings in general. However, something about Princess of the Midnight Ball just lacked in excitement.

Overall, this novel was a fun enough read while it lasted, but it’s easily forgettable.

The story is based off of one of the Grimm’s brothers fairy tales. This wasn’t one of those famous ones remade by Disney. It did give off a bit of a creepy vibe so I suppose Disney would have to change it up a bit. Anyway, it starts off with the evil villain. Some dude named the King Under Stone. Like, what the heck? I don’t know the fairy tale so it may have made tons of sense but it just seemed like a lame name for such a powerful villain. So what if he lived underground? Doesn’t make it right to give him such a stupid name.

There were 12 girls, all sisters and princesses of the kingdom, who lived under a curse of having to dance a Midnight ball every third night. For the evil villain himself. Of course, no one could know of this except the fact that they kept disappearing to who-knows-where in the middle of the night from their rooms, no matter how hard their father king tried to prevent them.

Enter Galen Werner, just an ordinary soldier boy coming home from a war that was over in the kingdom. He was a likeable character. He seemed to follow some sort of moral code. Maybe it came from seeing the sights he did in war that not many other young people his age did. He wasn’t jaded though, but gave off a trustworthy vibe, a you can count on me kind of feeling.

Of course, turns out that he really was the kind of guy who would sacrifice his own safety to help 12 princesses for their sake.

There’s a bit of romance in it between Galen and the eldest princess, Rose. Not by much for YA standards. It was an innocent first bloom kind of love, with glimpses from afar and the occasional conversation in the garden. It was still nice, I guess. Just…not the kind of thing to get your heart racing for them.

But all these things I mentioned above? Lackluster. That’s the best word I can come up with. There’s not much emotion beyond a slight oh hey, that’s cool, I guess kinda feeling. Things were predictable, it was just a matter of how they got there. Although there wasn’t much, here are the few things that I found unique and somewhat memorable:

1. All the girls were named after flowers. (I know, right? That’s also hard to keep track of with so many of them)
2. The lair of the evil villain reminded me of the Underworld, but described with water instead of fire.
And lastly,
3. Galen’s adventures with his invisibility cloak. (Harry Potter, anyone? Hmm?)

Princess of the Midnight Ball is not a bad fairy tale retelling, but may just be memorable for the younger YA audience. If I had read this a few years earlier, maybe my rating would have changed. Who knows? But as of right now, this story will probably fade from my memory amongst the many, many books I’ve read. It’s just missing that extra umph.

Overall Recommendation:
Princess of the Midnight Ball was a retelling of an unfamiliar fairy tale. This could’ve made it more intriguing and mysterious since I had no prior knowledge of how the story may go, but the story was still fairly predictable from the start. The characters were okay, especially our hero Galen who fits the knight in shining armor stereotype to a T, but no one stuck out as unique. The romance was innocent and cute and that’s not bad, but that doesn’t even give the story a little extra excitement that it clearly needed. Overall, it was decent, but it’s no competition amidst the rather large genre of fairy tale retellings in YA these days.

adult

Review: Orchard Valley Grooms by Debbie Macomber

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Orchard Valley #1-2

orchard valley grooms -debbie macomberValerie rushes home to Orchard Valley, Oregon, when her father, David, suffers a heart attack. She and her two younger sisters, Stephanie and Norah, are gathering at his side, praying he’ll live, fearing he’ll die.

At a time like this, falling in love is the last thing on Valerie’s mind. And with Dr. Colby Winston, of all people! He’s David’s heart surgeon, a renowned specialist who enjoys small-town living, while Valerie is a high-powered businesswoman who prefers city life. They’re complete opposites in every way. Yet David keeps insisting she and Colby are a perfect couple.

Meanwhile Stephanie has other worries besides her father’s health. She’d fled Orchard Valley three years earlier after her humiliating rejection by local journalist Charles Tomaselli. Now she’s home, and it’s not long before they begin reliving past battles–and renewing old feelings. He was the reason she left. This time, will he give her a reason to stay? David seems to think so.

Does their father know something Valerie and Stephanie don’t?

3 Drink Me Potions

It’s a fairly open secret that I have some strange soft spot for Debbie Macomber. Yes, her stories can be cheesy with their happy-ever-after endings, but sometimes, a girl just needs those kinds of endings, you know?

With Orchard Valley Grooms, I had such high hopes. Two sisters falling in love with their respective special someones? Sounds like it fits the criteria to a glove.

But. Yes, there is a but. These two stories captured me with their endless drama and irritated me to no end all at the same time.

In Valerie, the immediate attraction and way Colby and Valerie fell for each other made some sense in a way. Valerie was under a lot of stress what with her father suffering from a heart attack. Colby was there to give her the emotional support that she needed. However, by the end of it, they were happily in love and thinking of marriage in, what, three weeks? Does this happen in real life? How can one know if this person would survive every bump in the road that’s sure to come in hopefully a long marriage? Sure, it may be an adventure to find out, but still. It was a little unsettling to see that it happened all so quickly.

And then there’s the fact of their drama that initially prevented them from getting together after realizing each others’ feelings. Colby is traditional as crap! Don’t mind my language. A women can very well work and take care of a family. Yes, he’s tired at nights after his long (and presumably emotion-taxing) shifts, but a woman doesn’t just live to serve hand and foot for him when he gets home. As for Valerie, I understood her inhibitions but she wasn’t all for compromise initially either.

If that first story wasn’t exhausting enough, I immediately jumped into Stephanie. Silly me thought it would help relieve my inner frustrations. Oh boy, was I wrong.

I liked Steffie more than Valerie in a sense that I could understand unrequited love. She ran away from the face of rejection and I don’t blame her. Charles was awful when she admitted her feelings three years prior. Who could blame a girl for wanting to get away from such embarrassment?

However, the resolution to Charles’ actions just didn’t seem quite…right with me. It wasn’t that it couldn’t have been plausible. It could have been. I just didn’t understand why wait so long to tell Steffie he felt the same way. So much drama and heart ache could’ve easily been bypassed if he did. Why get so angry if he knew she still felt the same way towards him? I just dunno. This poor heart of mine couldn’t handle all this nonsensical heart ache.

Anyway, I gobbled these stories up as fast as I could and although I didn’t love them as I had hoped, they weren’t terrible. A guilty pleasure, if you will. But never have I wanted to throttle guys as much as I did with these men. I can fully understand the Bloomfield sisters’ feelings.

Overall Recommendation:
Two stories in one with each based on one Bloomfield sister. I couldn’t ask for more, can I? Turns out, the story didn’t hold as much for me as I had hoped. In both Valerie and Stephanie, the male protagonists acted in nonsensical manners that drove me (and the Bloomfield sisters) crazy. I suppose there had to be tension and drama to prevent an immediate happily-ever-after resolution, but it was exhausting. I wouldn’t necessarily throw these stories out. It was still the cheesy, happy ending kind of story that I needed on occasion. At least it fills up that requirement perfectly. I would say it’s perfect if that is the kinda book you’re looking for on a boring, lazy afternoon.