Review: Knot in Their Wildest Dreams Part 1

Knot in Their Wildest Dreams Part 1 by Violet Coltair
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



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Review: Trailer Park Princess

Trailer Park Princess by Nikki Lark
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ellie moves into a trailer park as a kid and finds her people in the form of Tank, Kade, Cyrus, and Jinx. Four boys who become her entire world. They grow up tangled together, inseparable, chosen family in the truest sense of the word. Until Ellie’s mother’s luck changes and she gets engaged to a senator. She’s high flying now folks, and just like that, Ellie is uprooted and taken away from the only home she’s ever known.

Four years pass. Those years are not kind to her. Ellie is abused by her jerkhole of a stepfather and, desperate for escape and justice, reaches out to a group of vigilantes for help. The twist? Well not really a twist for us. The vigilantes are the same four boys she grew up with. The same ones who never forgot her. And this time, they’re not letting her slink off into the sunset.

However, there’s a price for their help. They aren’t Robinhoods after all. If they’re going to kill her stepfather, Ellie has to belong to them for one year.

Fully.

Completely.

No limits.

She leaves her dorm and moves into their house. They give her a room painted exactly like something she once dreamed of. They all want her. They all remember her. And she’s never stopped wanting them either.

Here’s where my frustration kicks in.

This book ends abruptly. No real cliffhanger. No rising tension. Just… done. And with only one book currently out, that ending feels especially unsatisfying. I genuinely loved the first half of this book. The childhood chapters, the bond between Ellie and the guys, especially Tank.

I’m rooting for you Big Guy!

Their childhood was emotionally rich and well done. The kids didn’t feel like someone was writing for babies, and they didn’t feel like tiny adults. They were kids thrust into adult situations.
But once we hit the present timeline, the story peters out! And that’s where the fun should’ve begun!! We’re introduced to Ellie’s new life and barely introduced to the Big Bad of the story. Then BOOM, the guys show up, and suddenly the entire second half of the book takes place over roughly a week.

The Big Bad just slips from the pages. Ellie’s mom does a page runner too. The abuse storyline barely gets explored. Character development slows to a crawl, her trauma just glossed over.
We get a small burst of rushed spice near the end, and then the book is over.

There’s no real payoff, no escalation, no thread that makes me desperate to continue the series. It feels like the author had a strong concept and a solid beginning but didn’t fully flesh out the plot.
With deeper character development and a clearer storyline, this could have been something really compelling. As it stands, it’s a promising start that never quite commits to its own potential.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.


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Review: Kane's Prey

Kane's Prey by Jolie Vines
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Book Babblings *SPOILERS*

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review



The Nitty Gritty: In the violent urban jungle of an alternate 1828 Paris, the French Revolution has failed and the city is divided between merciless royalty and nine underworld criminal guilds, known as the Court of Miracles. Eponine (Nina) Thénardier is a talented cat burglar and member of the Thieves Guild. Nina's life is midnight robberies, avoiding her father's fists, and watching over her naïve adopted sister, Cosette (Ettie). When Ettie attracts the eye of the Tiger--the ruthless lord of the Guild of Flesh--Nina is caught in a desperate race to keep the younger girl safe. Her vow takes her from the city's dark underbelly to the glittering court of Louis XVII. And it also forces Nina to make a terrible choice--protect Ettie and set off a brutal war between the guilds, or forever lose her sister to the Tiger.
Opening Sentence: "All Wretched are equal before the Miracle Court; neither blood, race, religion, rank, or name is recognized."

The Good: The world-building is rich and lush. I could smell the pain au chocolate and it made my mouth water. I coughed on the dust as they ran through the city of the death under the streets of Paris. I winched and ached as Nina was whipped with the cat of nine tails. The imagery was spectacular and it left me wanting more. Just another glimpse. I love the Court of Miracles. The different guilds and their laws and the darkness of it. I wish we could have gotten to see more of them, their people, their ethos.

The Bad: The failed revolution left a bad taste in my mouth. The whole sale slaughter of men, women and children never sits well with me and I honestly hate it. I hate how everyone just brushes it aside like St Juste should be glad he wasn't caught up in the death of hundreds of people. I hate how damn spineless the Crown Prince was. It was a part of the plot that added nothing to the tale and wouldn't have taken away anything if it had been left out.

The Ugly: You know how you can spot a Mary Sue in a book? The main character is a girl, woman, old lady, female presenting characters and the rest of the cast of characters are boys, men, male presenting characters. you have Nina as the main character, and then her sister Azelma (who gets a whole chapter before she is swallowed up) and then her adopted sister Ettie. The rest of the cast are non-femme characters.

Nina is a complete Mary Sue. She is good at everything without the effort of learning or being taught. Everyone is in total love with her at first glance and willing to risk life, limb and liberty at her every whim. She listens to no one and always knows just what to do. She manages to walk into the French Palace and steal one of the crown jewels from the neck of the Dauphine without so much as a plan. She breaks into the most feared prison in Paris and manages to break out not one but two prisoners. She gets the Crow Prince of France to give her carriages full of bread, grain and other foodstuffs to fead all the guilds for months.

Basically everything she touches turns to gold and loves her with a shining devotion and loyalty that is not earned nor returned. 

Nina is selfish and hides behind her tender heart to use and abuse people to their own peril. When she lost her sister, she put Ettie in the path of the Tiger to use her has a sacrificial lamb and then when she comes to her senses its too late to save Ettie, and then sparks off everything else in the book.

Thenardier, her father is just fodder for the chance for Nina to show how awesome is she. Here is a man that is a Master in the Thieves Guild. He has attained his greatness, he has a way to keep gold in his pocket, he has power, he has animals to do his bidding. And yet he sells his daughter to the Lord of Flesh?

Why? The price he got could have been stolen and in his hands in a single night of burgling. And then he just, 'always backs the winning side'. But why!! Where is his motivation to be this way? What is there to be gained by being this way? You can't just have a man sell his own flesh and blood to a slaver that he knows is going to use ad abuse his daughter for a few pieces of gold that he doesn't need. It doesn't make any sense.

The Court of Miracles gets 3 Hearts despite its main character who doesn't deserve the love and loyalty of the rest of the characters.

Book Babblings *SPOILERS*

Blood Kiss by JR Ward

Nitty Gritty: Paradise, daughter of the First Advisor to the King wants out of her gilded cage. Her great escape plan? The revived Blackdagger Brotherhood's training program? She wants to learn how to fight to break free of the glymera's stifling control. Only the sexy and mysterious Craeg throws a monkey wrench on her plans.

Butch, the Dhestroyer, is knee deep in his own troubles, and if he wants to climb out he is going to have to take a hard look at himself ad make some changes or risk losing the one thing he loves more than life itself.

Opening Line: "Some graduations happened in private." 

The Good: Um well I was glad to see more Vishous. I honestly wish Ward would have let Butch and V be together. Their relationship is a hellva lot more interesting than Doc Jane's and Marissa's ever could be.

The Bad: I wanted to like it I really did. Ward promised to take us back to out first loves. She promised us the BDB as we remember them. Um...I'm not convinced she knows them anymore. This book was a giant pain in the ass to read.

There is an entire scene where all the women in the house have a girls night and just veg out watching Magic Mike XXL something scores of women did when the movie actually came out. So the girls are having a good time and just relaxing. Well you would think the boys would take the time to do something manly, like go hunt, pull up a game on TV, or get lost in Assassin's Creed Syndicate for a few hours, but no they sit around the dinner table and whine about the movie the girls are watching. I mean they were one razor blade away from killing themselves about the girls night movie. It was sickening and disgusting. That's not love. That's possession. And the Brothers are real good at that.

At first I thought it was sexy and mysterious but there is something highly wrong with the relationships in this universe. The women are just interchangeable holes to shove their thick man parts into.

And the women are just stepford sexbots. None of them have much of a personality. All of them are small, delicate, with smooth cream skin and blonde hair. Except for Mary and Wellsie. During sex they want to mark their women to ward off other suitors as if the woman is incapable of letting other men know that she is happily attached.

Everyone is starting to run together. Everyone sounds the same, and they all sound like a pack of teenagers at the mall on a Saturday. In the beginning Tohr was a pretty sophisticated guy, and yeah he went through a gut punch over Wellsie. Hell I was hurt when she died, but now he sounds like one of those little Autobots from the second Transformer movies, and that ain't a good thing! Lassiter is the only one with discernible personality, and he outlived his usefulness 5 books ago.

There is a murder that happens pretty close to the beginning of the book and Marissa is consumed with solving it. Butch even polishes off his old detective skills and gets involved. They scratch out some clues and follows up with them and then the murder is solved in two pages...not even a plausible conclusion to the murder! It's almost like Ward was so wrapped up in the sex she forget about the subplot she introduced and then just slapped together an ending to get Paradise and Craeg back together.

And we just keep going around and around with this war with the Lessers. Its like enough already!! I'm tired of it frankly. It was awesome in the beginning when the Lessers had a little class about them, but now why are the Brothers even fighting them now? They're petty drug dealers, who frankly would rather not even deal with the vampires. They're trying to stack cake and deal with the vamps is getting in the way of that. So its like the vamps are the only ones keeping up with this war.

I am getting sick and tired of the slut shaming going on in this book. Every guy wants to spit garbage about the chick vamp that likes a little side action because her husband has one foot in the Fade, but she's made out to be the whore. Excuse me? So what are all the "males" that have slept with her? You can go kick rocks with that.

And please don't get me started on Paradise (could her name be anymore tragic) and Craeg. Paradise is a girl of the glymera. Sheltered, treasured, pampered and treated like a beautiful doll her entire life. The Brotherhood sent out applications for their training program to beef up their numbers, and she thinks "Yes I want to join this dangerous program to protect the race simply because my bonehead friend says girls can't do it." No other reason, and when she gets into the program she spends the entire time panting after another trainee to the point that she halfway kills herself on a treadmill. Nearly 20 stitches later and the girl still can't control her libido like an adult. She's acting like a tween with her first One Direction Crush. But we are supposed to think of her as a warrior? But Ward spends page after page after page establishing what an awesome fighter and warrior Craeg is fighting Peyton in a fistfight and then Butch in a knife fight, Paradise gets to outlast everyone by walking in a circle, but she's a great warrior. Craeg is a walking tool of the highest order. His family was slaughtered during the raids because the family his dad worked for wouldn't let them into the safe room, yeah that was messed up. So now he hates all of the aristocrats. Like every single one of them killed his family. Yeah, thats the level of maturity we've got going on here.

I was just so pissed off at this book, like how could such a great premise have gone so horribly wrong? Come on Ward! Come on! We are 14 books into this! This isn't your first novel! I've read fanfiction of your books better than this. I mean I'm started to feel insulted here.

Final Thoughts: This is the last book by JR Ward that I am going to read. Not even going to bother getting subsequent books from the library anymore. I just can't with her.

Book Babblings

The Girl in The Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz 

The Nitty Gritty: Michael Blomkvist is an investigative journalist without a story and Lisbeth Salander is a undercover crusader without a cause. What happens when Sweden's best duo run out of things to do?

Well if you are Wasp and one of the best hackers in the world you tackle the biggest game in town, the United States National Security Agency, or the NSA. And if you are Blomkvist you find yourself in the middle of a murder investigation by the strangest of circumstances.

Lisbeth is on the hunt for an elusive group of hackers responsible for some of the biggest intellectual heists in the century, and a couple of murders and Blomkvist is hot on her trail.

This group who call themselves the Spiders have targeted Lisbeth and a Swedish scientist on the cusp of breaking through to A.I. Driven b vengeance and a sense of her own brand of justice Lisbeth is going to hunt them down to the last line of code and Blomvist will shine a light on their illegal activities of its the last thing he does...and it might just be.

Opening Line: "Frans Balder always thought of himself as a lousy father."

The Good: LISBETH IS BACK!!!!! I can't tell you how excited I was when this book was announced. I fell in love with Blomkvist and Salander after the first book. I admit I waited for all the hype to die down before I dove into the books, but once I did I was in a fan hook, line and sinker. I was gutted when I found out Larsson had died. Beyond the loss of a short life the world lost a literary gem. Larsson singlehandedly changed the game of crime novels in Sweden and indeed the world. Since the publication of the Millennium trilogy Sweden has seen an explosion of crime novels with brilliant leads and wonderful plots. I've found myself thumbing through the crime section more than the fantasy aisle since I first read Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Lisbeth is the sort of person you want to have on your team when you're in a jam. She's the hail mary everyone needs in their life. And Blomkvist is better than Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and all of it if you want the world to know your story.

The Bad: We all know about the controversy surrounding the publication of this book. Eva Gabrielsson, his writing partner and his life partner has been vocally against the publication of the book, especially its author, but Larsson'd brother and father have literary rights over his estate and they approved the book and its author. So its a sticky situation with family on both sides of the issue. I bought the book all the same.

The Girl in the Spider's Web is like your favorite article of clothing that your mother accidentally shrunk in the dryer. It's still yours and it fits, but something just feels off about it. The shoulders don lay down like they used to. The color is a smidge lighter than it was yesterday. Its still the same garment but its not. That's what this book was like. Of course I wasn't expecting the writing to be the same. Larsson and Lagercrantz are two different people and sometimes I appreciated their different writing styles, but more often I wanted Larsson's flair for cutting through all the purple prose and getting to the meat of the issue. Larsson has a way of introducing characters with such clarity that I could describe them to a sketch artist and everyone in the world would recognize who it was and with Lagercrantz he jumps right into the action and then we get a little background on the character, but its not lasting. I had to go back and reread the first chapter about Balder to remember who he was when he was mentioned again.

Larsson didn't mind breaking the rules of fiction. He didn't start his book off with action. He didn't open up in the middle of a scene. He didn't have to. He had a compelling story to tell and you either sat down to listen to it or you didn't. He wasn't going to use trickery or slight of hand to capture your attention. Lagercrantz just falls right in line with the rest of the Fiction Hall Monitors. Every rule is followed to the letter, and yeah the story is compelling but the rigidity with which the rules are adhered to is distracting and disorientating to say the least.

The book is only 431 pages long and it took 410 pages to get to the point. This book felt like it was pandering to us the audience and to the characters. In the past books, Lisbeth's abilities came into play because the situation called for them. In this book its like the book that calls for the abilities. Lagercrantz has put the cart before the horse. Everything revolves around Lisbeth's abilities. Ok so if you want everything to revolve around Lisbeth and her hacking abilities then this book should be her book, but she is largely absent. The bad guys get more page space than she does. Which is a shame. Lisbeth Salander is a literary treasure and she should be treated with the respect she has earned.

The Girl in the Spider's Web feels like poorly conceived fan fiction.

My Hope if the Series Continues: That Lagercrantz sits down and reads the Millennium till he can quote a line from any page and the he really starts to study it. I want him to find a way to stick to the Larsson school of writing fiction because following the rules is boring and Salander and Blomkvist deserve better than that. I think it would really open up his writing and give him a freedom he might enjoy.

Book Babbings

Armada by Ernest Cline 

The Nitty Gritty: Zack Lightman is a gamer, one of the best in the Earth Defence Alliance. The fiction world of the game Armada and Terra Firma. Life is pretty easy and dull in Beaverton, OR. He plays video games, works at a dumpy little gamer shop in a shopping center and tries not to kill the high school bully.

Life doesn't seem to be going anywhere, till he spots a flying saucer at school, then his world is rocked like a James Bond martini. Suddenly all those hours spent with a controller in his hand isn't time wasted. It was training, and he is going to need that training if he is going to save the world.

Along the way Zack will learn secrets about himself, his family and the world that he would never have dreamed of. This is a battle of the cosmos and its anyone's game.

Opening Line: "I was starting out of the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer."

The Good: Let me say the dust jacket for Armada is one of the prettiest I've seen in a good while. It has a good hand feel; I love just running my hands over this cover. The illustrations are wonderfully rendered, and my copy even includes an autograph. I thought that was sweet.

Cline gets his geek on in a major way in his books and that shows through his writing like a chocolate stain on a white shirt. You couldn't miss it if you tried. I love books where authors write in their wheel houses. It adds a layer of richness to the books that is refreshing and surprising.

Unlike Ready Player One we don't get a constant and consistent cast of characters to fall in love with, in Armada, the cast shifts and changes constantly but the characters are well planned and thought out that the brief flashes we get of them we love them. We care about them and what happens to them. I was invested in

While there was romance in the book. I liked that he curtailed all the lovey dovey crap from Ready Player One. There were times I wanted to strangle Wade with my bare hands, but here Cline cut that crap off at the knees. Zack has a slight crush on Alexis, and Alexis seems to return the affections, but we don't have to put up with all the hormones because he is literally sent to the Moon for his assignment.

Zack seemed to have a bigger pair than Wade did, and he was only marginally smarter. I felt like Cline started with stock characters, the gaming nerd, and only changed a few little things about them. But I do admit I like Zack a little more than I did Wade. Though Zack's little screw up at the top secret facility was an epic fail and it felt more like a pissing contest than him actually trying to save the day. And what's worse it didn't make any sense. So I don't know why Zack would have done what he did. There was no forthcoming payoff or glory in it.

The Bad: As soon as Ray was unmasked I could tell what the ending was going to be. It was painfully predictable. I think he spent more time in the geekory and not enough time on the actual story.

75% of this book is actually just explaining things. And the rest is left to the real story. Cline kept explaining and reexplaining said things over and over again. Its like he thinks his readers will forgot how he described the Glaive fighter jet from one chapter to the next. So each time we get reintroduced to every little element. It wastes time and it takes up valuable real estate in the book. Real estate that he sorely needed to really work on the plot.

The bait setup that got the whole story rolling was cringeworthy. It really is, and its lame as hell and I wanted to scream to the heavens. Cline can vividly imagine and describe fictional interstellar crafts, but he fails every time when it comes to flushing all the potential out of his plots, and whats worse he has really good plots! I think Cline gets caught up with how much nerd knowledge he could cram into this book and Carl Sagan and the Cosmos was his starting point.

Cline spends more than half of the book setting up the final battle, and then its rushed. The book is 349 pages long and its not until page 330 that the the actual plot of the book really starts to take off. And when we get to the climax its 3 pages long.

My Hope for future books: I really want Cline to step back from the nerd herd and focus more on honing the actual craft of writing a book. He is great with characters and weaving info dumps into the story without you actually noticing, but he keeps fails on plot, story structure and development.