Muslim Reading Challenge

After reading Skunk Girl, I thought it would be fun to read more books that deal with Muslims. As a Muslim myself, there are not that many books about us and when there is, it isn't always in the best of light. Still, I wanted to read more books about Muslims, so I thought it would be fun to try a Muslim Reading Challenge. Not only because I wanted to see what was out there, but I also wanted to read a book and say, "Hey, I can relate to this."

If you have any books that come to mind, please let me know. I've made a list that is currently found on goodreads - you can see it here.

I think this will be a fun challenge. I'm usually a bit more critical when it comes to books about Muslims, so I'm hoping that this will also help me read the books for the sake of reading.

Anywho, I'm excited to see what books I'll be able to read.

Review: Secrets of the Henna Girl by Sufiya Ahmed

Secrets of the Henna Girl by Sufiya Ahmed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've never been outside of my country since I got here when I was a wee lil one. I haven't left the city for an overnight stay in years and I work in the summer. But if you have a life and go places in the summer, then imagine being sixteen and going to visit your home land. The beautiful landscapes, the relatives, and the food, all await your arrival. Your parents seem testy, but you're not too bothered. It's been awhile for them since they've been back home.

But once you arrive, you realize why they were acting so differently. Not only do you get to visit your home country, but you also get to get married against your will. It's what every little girl dreams for. Only not.

Zeba Khan thought a trip to Pakistan would be a summer without much fun, but all that changes when she's told that she will get married to her cousin Asif and that her consent doesn't matter. Zeba doesn't want to be married to him. She's only sixteen and has her whole life ahead of her. However, her parents will not listen to her, her uncle won't either, and everyone keeps telling her that she should simply put up and shut up. (not exactly like that, but it's the same thing).

Will Zeba find happiness with Asif, will she make her escape, or will she die trying? Dun Dun Dunnnnnn!

Before getting to the actual review, I just want to send some major props to Sufiya Ahmed for making a clear distinction between forced marriages and arranged marriages. They're not the same, and surprisingly, not many people know that. Often, when it comes to books like this or articles or tv shows, they don't mention that Islam condemns forced marriages. There is no marriage without the girls consent. Since this isn't mentioned, when non Muslims see this, they think our religion is all for it.

Let me make it clear, Islam forbids the practice of forced marriages. Arranged marriages are very different and are more like marriage meetings or blind dates. You get set up by your parents, but you get to decide whether you want to go through with it or not. A good example of this is found in Love In A Headscarf

Forced marriages. It's illegal, it's stupid, and it's completely from culture and not Islam.

Arranged marriages. It's okay and not as drama inducing.

With that out of the way, here's the review.

The Good

The setting, the topic, the characters, and the writing was great. You feel horrible for Zeba and wondered how her parents could ever think of doing this to her. At the same time, you kind of understood where her father was coming from. Shame is a big thing for them and he wanted to keep his nephew safe. It was wrong, but it was somewhat understandable.

Nannyma, Sehar, and Farhat were my favourite characters in the novel. All of these women were strong in their own way. Nannyma had respect and status in her village and tried to get people to see women and the world differently. Sehar was feisty and never gave up her dream to escape and live her own life. She was stubborn, but she had a good heart. Farhat, despite her upbringing, was cute and always tried her best to do the best job that she could possibly do. Her love for Sehar and her change in attitude was a real joy to see. I wanted to meet and befriend all of them while reading this.

I loved that religion was seen as a good thing. Like I mentioned before, whenever you see stories like this, Islam is always to blame. As a Muslim, this always saddens me, because Islam is as much against this as everyone else.

In the novel, we're told that there is an Imam (religious leader) who ordained the marriage of Sehar and her husband against her will. At first, he's seen as part of this horrible system and that there will be no hope. Later on, we find out that he's against this practice and thought that she accepted. Had he known that she was against it, he never would have done it. I loved that this was revealed and that the Imam was actually a good guy.

The Okay

Zeba's parents forcing their daughter to marry her cousin, is something I can never understand. But I'm also left wondering how her mother truly felt. While her dad was fleshed out nicely and had some nice conflict going on with him, the mother just seemed cold and distant. I wonder why she didn't try to have a proper relationship with Zeba and how she could be so different from her mother and sister.

The book is straight forward, and while there are some twists, you know how the story will be in the end. This doesn't make it a bad book. With a topic like this, you only have three possible directions to go. 1. She escapes. 2. She dies. 3. She ends up falling in love with Asif and lives happily ever after. Since this is in the YA category, I guess there is another option. 4. She starts to fall for Asif, but starts to fall for the mysterious stranger who promises to help her escape.

So yea, there isn't much of a change up in this story, but that doesn't really hinder it.

The Bad

I kind of wish we got to see more of Asif. He ends up being a decent enough guy, who is simply oblivious to the world around him, so it was kind of a shame that we didn't see enough of him.

This bad isn't really a bad thing for the book, it's more of depressing. Through Secrets of the Henna Girl, we got to see a different side of Pakistan and it's one that I hope changes, because I don't want to see stories like this in real life. The men kept talking about their honour this and their honour that, never realizing that the honour that they have in God's eyes diminishes while they do stupid things like this. It's sad. That's all you can really say. I do hope it's changing though and it's not as bad as what was written in the book. It's such a stupid mentality that really needs to be changed.

Overall:

I really loved this book. The characters were great, the message was important to tell, and the writing was clean and crisp. The only downside is that Zeba's mom never really warmed up or felt human and Asif wasn't shown as much. Despite all that, Secrets of the Henna Girl a lovely book that more people should read.

4 stars out of 5

Review:Choker by Elizabeth Woods

Choker by Elizabeth Woods
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Here's a funny story. Once upon a time a delightful young girl named pdbkwm was looked up books. She read one called "Living Dead Girl" and was blown away by the novel. She decided that she wanted to read more from the author, so she searched for more books. There was only one problem. She forgot the author’s last name. Instead of searching her library's history, she decided to guess and well, to make a long story short, she stumbled onto Choker and thought, "Hey, this is a different author, but the premise sounds just as delightful. I think I'm going to have to read this."

-~.~-

Moral of the story, sometimes you mess up the author’s name and stumble onto some awesome finds.

Anywho! I mentioned all that because I’m on the fence.

Choker has a lot of good things going for it. It's a fairly well written debut from Elizabeth Woods, it has a plot that is very different from the usual YA novels that I read, and it has a beautiful cover.

But while I found the novel entertaining, I also felt like once you figure out the plot (which happened early on) the book kind of loses its appeal. Many of the reviewers (good and bad) have mentioned that the book is creepy, but I didn't feel the same way. In fact, some things were kind of predictable.

Did I like it? Yes.

Did I get sucked into the mystery? No.

Did I continue reading? Yes.

And that's why I'm torn. Yes, it was predictable, and yes the mystery is incredibly obvious, but I kept reading just to see what Woods would do.

The Good:

This is the debut novel of Elizabeth Woods and I think she has a bright future ahead of her. The writing was well done and I never got bored or felt like the story dragged on. It was face paced where it needed to be and it slowed down when it was on an important scene. There are some problems here and there, but it's easy to look over that. The writing is simple, yet it has an air of tension throughout. I enjoyed it.

This might be because I haven't read many books lately, but I liked that this was different from the other YA novels that I usually read. It’s not original, but it is different and I liked that. It kind of makes me want to go out and find more books like this. Well not exactly like this, but the same sort of genre. We need more YA thrillers out there.

The Okay:

If you don't know what's going to happen, this will be a great book. But if you figured it out, and you might because the clues start dropping early on, then the suspense and creepiness factor really go down. This won't make you stop reading, because you'll want to know what happens next, but it does take away some of the appeal and punch of the novel.

The Bad:

There's a good amount of characters in this novel, and yet, there isn't. The story is mostly about Cara and Zoe's friendship, but I felt like other than those two, everyone was very one note. Alexis and Sydney, Cara's bullies, were the typical clichéd popular girls who torment those underneath them. Ethan, Alexis' boyfriend and Cara's crush, was perfect and sweet. There are girls in the track team, but we don't really know much about them and they're kind of interchangeable.

Zoe and Cara, despite their importance in the novel, also suffer from this too. Not as bad as everyone else, but I did want them to be fleshed out some more.

Normally, the third person style wouldn't bother me, but I think if this was written in first person I wouldn’t have felt such a disconnect from Cara. When she would go on about her school and life and Ethan and Zoe and her bullying and whatever, there was a distant between us that never really got solved even after I finished the novel.

I realize that I praised the writing earlier so this might sound like a weird complaint, but regardless of whether this written in first or third person, I just wanted to get a better sense of Cara. And at the end of the day, that is the most important thing.

Overall:

I'm still on the fence. I'm still torn. And I'm still undecided on whether I should give this 4 stars for keeping me entertained or 3 stars because it was predictable and the characters were lacking.

Hmmmm.....

ah....um.....

Let's just give it 3.5 stars. I think that works.

3.5 stars out of 5

Review: Reached by Ally Condie

Reached by Ally Condie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While reading Reached, I had one thought in my head the entire time. Xander, you truly are



If I didn’t feel bad for him already, I did in this book. He loves Cassia and Cassia loves him, but not as much as she loves Ky. In Crossed, Indie loved him, but here; she’s switched teams and joined in on the Ky love train. Then there was Em, who might have been a possibility if she was ever mentioned. And finally, there is Lei, who loves someone else for most of the novel and spends time talking about him or you know, being sick.

Home boy just can't catch a break. After awhile, I got over this feeling, but all that changed when during one of Cassia's chapters she says this:

“I come back to myself as the song ends, when the string makes a sound like hearts breaking. And then I can’t help but look for Xander.”

You know whose heart broke during this scene. Mine did. Sure he’s not jealous anymore, but it’s still incredibly sad.

But Xander being forever alone wasn’t the only thing that happened in Reached; there was an uprising, the pilot showed up, a plague killed people, poems were read, and, we get the added bonus of not having just one, or two, but three different narrators in this novel. All of these are great things, especially for the final book in the trilogy. And while I felt like Reached was the strongest book in this series, it still didn’t wow me.

The Good:

I feel like such a fan girl for mentioning him again, but Xander was my favourite thing in this novel. Yes, I felt sad for him. But I loved how his chapters, for the most part, were never about how he lost Cassia or how much he loved her. It was about helping people or finding a cure to the Plague. He learned some shocking truths about the things that he believed in and yet he kept going. He never gave up, never ran away, he just did what he felt was the right thing. I admire that. Out of all the characters, he was also the one who showed the most growth.

I do like the poetry that is used throughout the series, but sometimes I just want to know what happens and not have a poem stop things. So it was nice that Xander didn’t know any poems and didn’t read any. He just kept being awesome.

Another thing I liked was the Rising, mainly because; they were just like the Society, but in better clothing. The way both sides used one another is quite complex and I wish we spent more time on it. They both did shady things and for their own interests, instead of the interests of the people, and that made both sides look scary. With the Society, you live a peaceful life as long as you don’t overstep the boundaries, but the Rising, you’ll get to do things you’ve always wanted to do, as long as you don’t overstep the boundaries. With the Society, they give the citizens some form or strain of the plague with the blue pills. With the Rising, they give everyone the Plague. What if both are not even at odds with each other and were working together from the very beginning?

Who would you go with then?

I really liked that Condie didn’t make the Rising seem perfect, they were just as horrible as the Society. Granted, we still didn’t get to see a lot of it, but it was good for the most part.

I also liked Lei and felt like she was a great new addition to the cast of characters.

The Okay:

Cassia and Ky and Ky and Cassia, I don’t know what happened to you two crazy kids, but I found myself disappointed with them. I don’t know if it was just me, but once Cassia and Ky declared their love for each other in Matched I wanted them to not be with anyone else after that. So when Cassia kissed Xander in Crossed, I wasn’t okay with that. In Reached, Ky kisses Indie and Cassia is fine with it.

...

I don’t understand. If someone I loved kissed someone while we were doing a long distance thing, I’d be hurt. Cassia just says, “Well, you can never stop Indie, so if she kisses Ky it’s okay.” [not exact words] Indie has done a lot of horrible things to Cassia, this might be the worst thing in fact, and there was nothing to indicate that this was wrong or in bad taste.

I get that they love each other, but I wish they at least discussed things or Cassia didn’t act like “Oh, it’s just that Indie. A hoi hoi hoi!” I felt like after three novels, we’d finally see a growth in their relationship, but we didn’t. I don’t even think we’ve gone further than just scratching the surface with these two.

When their chapters came up, they spent most of it talking about how much they loved the other. However, I still don’t think it was enough to show how strong or deep their love was. I’m fine with them being a couple and I got that they were a couple, but I just wanted more from both of them.

The Bad:

Reached had some great things in it, but it was long and dragged on and on. I also felt like almost every big moment that happened never had an effect on me, because I knew things would work out, especially if it happened to one of the main three. If one of them got the Plague, you knew that they’d survive. There was no suspense. Even when their chapter came round and instead of writing, there was just a blank page, I felt nothing. I even said to myself, “Meh, the next time (said character) shows up, they’ll be cured so why worry about it.” And then I flipped the page and sure enough, they were cured.

(view spoiler)[ The only thing that shocked me was when Lei didn’t die. I thought she would, which would add to Xander’s Bermuda Triangle of love and misery, but she didn’t. This was the only thing that actually made me feel something. (hide spoiler)]

There were a few deaths, some of pretty important people, but they were glossed over. For a group of people who grew up in a world where people live till they’re 80, I would think that death would affect them a bit more strongly. These are people they knew and loved and the death is mentioned and they move on to the next scene. To me, I didn’t feel like this made much sense. We’ve seen how much Cassia’s grandfather’s death affected her, so why didn’t she behave in the same manner here?

I think the biggest problem was that there were things that are mentioned and then never brought up again. These things were never resolved, which was a bit of a letdown.

Overall:

Like I said before, Reached is the best one in the series, but this is still a series that is just okay. It’s not great. It’s not bad. It’s just okay. I liked Xander, he really came into his own in this book and the dynamic between the Society and the Rising was refreshing to read. But, we still are at the surface of Cassia and Ky’s love story. And the book is plagued (hahaha...) by too many pages and not enough of the story to move the plot at a faster pace.

Would I recommend this series to someone? Maybe, I think? But not before recommending other things to them first.

3 stars out of 5

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Matched by Ally Condie
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

When I first heard about this book, I was immediately drawn to it because of its awesome cover. Then I heard all of the raving reviews for this and knew that I had to read it sooner or later. Then Reached came out and I realized that I needed to buckle down and finally start this series.

So I did.

And um, I'm kind of mixed about Matched. There were things I liked, but things that I didn't. It's hard to explain so I've been putting this review off, because I wasn't sure how to convey what I what I felt.

The Good:

I really like the world that Ally Condie created. The Society is a place where Officials governs and dictates everything from what you eat, where you work, who you’ll be married with, and when you’ll die. From the outside looking in, it seems restrictive and scary. To those who are in the place, it seems ideal. No one gets sick, you know when you’ll die, and for the most part, everyone is happy.

Only, it seems like there are people who are frustrated and annoyed with the Society, but they remain silent, because if you cross the Society then you put yourself and your family at risk.

From this, you know that the Society isn’t as great a place as it originally seemed. Plus this is a YA novel, a dystopian at that, so you know that the Society will be shady and that the main characters will try to take it down. In any case, I did like hearing about the Society.

I did like all the poetry that

The Okay

Remember how I said that I liked hearing about the Society? That’s still true, only we never really learn a lot about them. We do know a few things, but not enough to show how scary or wrong this way of live is. There were a lot of things that never made sense either. The poems and stories of the old are illegal, but you never really understand why. Is it because if you read them, you’ll stop wanting to follow the Society? If that’s the case, why does it seem so easy to find them? Also, I don’t understand the reason behind making sure no one writes anything. Since the Society allows people to read, how would this stop people from writing things?

I was a bit disappointed that we never really learned too much about the Society, but this isn’t the main story of Matched so I could forgive it.

The Bad:

The main plotline in this novel is the love story between Cassia and Ky. Cassia was matched with her best friend Xander, while Ky wasn’t matched due to his status with the Society. One day, while Cassia looks at her microchip to see Xander’s picture, she sees Ky’s picture instead. The Society tells her that this is a glitch and to ignore it, but it only makes Cassia want Ky now.

I get that their relationship is meant to be free, but it didn’t feel like it was. Cassia isn’t meant to be with Ky, but she’s drawn to him. True love and all that. The only problem is, the reason why Cassia wants Ky instead of Xander. It’s not free pure love, as it’s meant to be depicted, it’s the forbidden kind where you’re told not to touch something, but it only makes you want to touch it more. The fact that Ky was also told about the screw up, means that he pursued her after this as well.

There is a line near the end where Cassia says she chose to love Ky and that the Society didn’t make the choice for her, but I kept thinking that she wouldn’t even care about Ky if this whole thing didn’t happen. (view spoiler)[Plus, it’s later revealed that the Society knew that she was going to go after Ky anyways so they purposely told her things to mess with her. (hide spoiler)]

The whole thing didn’t make sense to me and it only made me feel horrible for Xander. He was in the friend-zone, got out of it, only to be placed back in it because Cassia found something better. Forever Alone.

Overall:

I wanted to like this book, but the love story is really contrived and depressing for the other guy. This book reminds me a lot of Delirium. In both stories, the main character is matched with someone that the society picks out for them, but they soon discover another kind of love which makes them question everything. The only difference between the two is that I felt like Delirium was executed a bit better.

There are good things in the novel, but there are a lot of annoying things as well.

2.5 stars out of 5

Review: Fathomless by Jackson Pearce

Fathomless by Jackson Pearce
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In Sister's Red, we learned about the Fenris. The Big Bad wolves who love to kill and eat people. In Sweetly, we learned that Fenris need some love. But their love is a bit too dangerous, so they need dark ones. Dark ones are created to be the lover of Fenris. They’re girls who lost their twin, either naturally or by Fenris, and are then thrown into the sea. There, they’ll become mermaids and eventually become the dark ones.

So, can you guess what this book is about?

The Good:

After I finished Sweetly, I really wanted a book that didn’t have the Fenris as the main villains. I understood it in Sister’s Red, but I felt like it was a bit of a stretch in Sweetly. So imagine my surprise, where the Fenris hardly show up in this book. Are they still the main villains, yes. I think at this point that’s just how it’s going to be so I might as well deal with that, but I did like that the story didn’t focus on them.

I liked that the huntsmen were not huntsmen here. Instead, we get Silas’ and Samuel’ little sisters. Granted, they’re not much of hunters, but they do have powers that seem to be unique to them. I do wonder if they got it because they’re girls in a family of huntsman, or because they’re triplets. Sadly, we never really get the answer to this, but I did like that the guy wasn’t a huntsman.

Lo and Nadia’s personalities felt very different, but still the same which I liked. I might be bias though, since I quite liked Lo. She felt real to me, so her struggling to keep Nadia, but still stay with her sisters in the sea was a dynamic I enjoyed reading about.

The Okay:

If you haven’t read Sweetly, then the ending with the Fenris might come from nowhere, but if you did, then you might feel slightly disappointed. The moment we’re introduced to Lo and she tells us that an ’angel’ brought her to the sea, you pretty much knew what was going to happen. The longer the girls let go of their humanity, the faster they’ll become dark ones. The faster they become dark ones, the faster they’ll get some lovin’ from the Fenris.

So when Lo/Nadia is trying to figure out what happened and Molly tells her the awful truth, it was kind of a letdown because Sweetly already told us this.

Celia, along with her sisters Anne and Jane, have special powers. Anne can see the future, Jane can see the present, while Celia can only see the past. Celia feels left out from this group, because her power isn’t as awesome as her sisters. Her sisters....there wasn’t much about them, so her feelings of being left out didn’t really grab me.

With Sister’s Red, the dynamic of the sisters were done better, then again, the sisters were the main characters of that novel. Here, it’s just Celia and Lo, so her sisters never really did much other than say that they should stick together and get some guy to buy them fondue.

The Bad:

I don’t know what it is about this series, but I can never seem to get into the romance. Granted, this one was pushed to the back burner, but still it never felt authentic. Celia and Lo both love Jude, but I never understood why. He hardly even shows up, so where did this love happen? I know it was there to the Little Mermaid retelling full circle, but I kind of wish this was developed a bit more.

Whenever Lo surfaced and walked on the beach, there would be a trail of blood. Not sure why no one noticed this trail. Sure, the beach my sweep some of it away, but if she’s sitting down and walking to a church then wouldn’t people start getting suspicious?

This book did tend to drag on and didn’t feel as real as Sister’s Red and Sweetly. I really like how Pearce creates these settings making you feel like you’re actually there, but for some reason that magic didn’t really happen here.

Considering the fact that Celia, Jane, and Anne are from the huntsman family, why is it that they seem to know nothing about the Fenris. Plus, Celia saw her father’s past, so wouldn’t there be Fenris memories there that she could see or pick up on? Why didn’t her brothers ever tell her who she really was? Why does Celia, Jane, and Anne feel like they only have each other? Do they even know that they have brothers?

Overall:

I didn’t like this book as much as I liked the other two. I’m not sure what happened here to be honest. The writing is still great and the retellings are interesting, but this book felt a bit flat. That being said, I did still enjoy it and liked Celia and Lo enough to not get bored. I just feel like there was something missing with this story.

I think the main problem is that if you read Sweetly, you already know the mystery surrounding the ocean girls. So when Lo/Nadia is searching for the truth, you already know it.

The series is still fun to read though, so this won't stop me from reading Cold Spell.

3 stars out of 5

Review: The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

The Pledge by Kimberly Derting
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I first heard about this book, I thought it sounded interesting. I love reading about different social classes in books, especially when said books have nice covers. However, this wasn't enough to make me want to read this. It wasn't until I heard about Essence, the second book in the Pledge series, that I decided to check it out.

I guess you could say that I’m impressionable when I see a gorgeous covers.

The Good:

A world where Queens rule and social statuses are divided by the languages you speak is a fantastic idea for a story. And for the most part, I felt like Derting did a really great job execution this. That being said, if you’re expecting a lot of details surrounding the social classes, then stop expecting it...because it doesn't happen. The book is mostly about finding the next Queen. The present Queen wants to find the potential heir so she can bring the girl to her side, while the rebels want the potential heir to take over and bring hope to the people.

In terms of the characters, I think my favourite ones would be Brook, Angelina, and the Queen. Brook was smart, but also had some vulnerability to her and I think Derting only touched the surface of what this character could do to the story. I feel kind of the same way with Angelina, only because what we know about her powers. She seems a lot more powerful than Charlie. And smarter too. A lot smarter. So I liked her.

The Queen, however, was my standout favourite. I know, I know, it doesn’t make much sense considering the fact that she was a typical villain without much depth to her. But I liked her. She’s ruthless and petty and doesn’t care who knows it. The fact that she has a rule in place that you’ll be sent to the gallows if you look in the eye of someone of a higher rank while they are speaking their language is messed up. It was also enough for me to want to see more from her. You have to be pretty senile to push that kind of law. And by golly, senile is what she is. I loved it. The way the Queen maintains her power reminded me of the manhwa Witch Hunter, so I enjoyed that aspect of her as well.

The story, for the most part, is told in Charlie’s viewpoint, but sometimes we’ll get snippets here and there of what is happening with other characters like the Queen. I liked this, only because there were times when I’d start to get bored with Charlie and then bam, another character would start to talk about what’s happening with them. I do wish we got to have a chapter or two dedicated to Brook and Aron, but maybe they’ll be showcased more in the next book.

Another thing I liked was how the romance wasn’t as over done as I originally thought it would be. This is a YA novel in a dystopian world, so you know going into it that there will be romance with a hot guy. It’s expected. So I was afraid that the story might shift into lovey dovey territory instead of the main story about the Queen. Instead, the romance was enough to establish a connection between Max and Charlie, but not too much that it overpowered everything else. [The fact that she still refused the Queen’s advancements, despite seeing what happened to Max spoke volumes. She loves the guy, but he wasn’t enough to make her listen to the Queen. I’ve read books where this would have been enough, so I was glad that this wasn’t the case here. (hide spoiler)]

The Okay:

Sydney becoming an ally did make sense, but I wish there was more to this. She went from being a bully to being someone Charlie could trust. Like I said before, it does make sense considering her circumstance, but I kind of wanted to see more dialogue between the two girls.

The friendship of Charlie, Brook, and Aron wasn’t as fleshed out as I would have liked. Aron was pushed to the back-burner, even though it seemed like he was going to be the ‘I love my best friend’ type of character. He promises to always be there for Charlie, only he’s hardly in the book and you kind of forget about him. It’s kind of sad. Poor Aron. I really hope you don’t end up in a love triangle.

With Charlie and Brook, it kind of felt like there was a lot more brewing there and nothing happened with it. There was a scene when Charlie said that she felt sorry for Brook, because Max wasn’t paying attention. It kind of seemed like even though Charlie loves Brook like a sister, she does kind of look down on her. Brook was the hotter friend and one that gets all the attention from the guys, so you’d imagine that Charlie would feel some sort of complex over this, especially since Brook relishes in the attention while Charlie doesn’t. On the other hand, Brook seemed to have a lot of secrets of her own and was dealing with some other issues as well. I mentioned earlier that there is a vulnerability there that kind of goes over Charlie's head.

I dunno, it just felt like there could have been a lot more ‘drama’, for lack of a better word, when it came to their friendship.

The Bad

I liked a lot of things in the book. The writing is good, the romance doesn’t take over the story, and the characters, for the most part, are enjoyable. The only downside is everything is very predictable. As a reader, you’ll easily figure out who Charlie really is and why everyone wants her so badly. You’ll figure out who Max and Xander are and you’ll also realize why Brook does the stuff that she does.

It’s predictable. It’s also cliché in the sense that Charlie is the chosen one. Of course she is. And of course the hero, Max, only has eyes for her even though Brook is the better looking one. Of course. Of course. Of course.

Normally, this would bother me a lot. And I mean a lot. Yet, I didn’t really mind it here. I wanted to go for the ride and not care because I did enjoy the story. Plus, the ending made me want to read Essence, so I didn’t mind it too much. That being said, I have a feeling that Essence will be a lot better than the Pledge. This book seemed like a stepping stone for what’s to come.

Overall:

I’m glad I read this. Even though it was predictable and did feel like everything that happened was a stepping stone for what’s to come, the writing, the characters, the story was enough to keep me interested. I liked the book. It could be mixture of my desire to read Essence and my love of pretty covers, but even still I liked the book. Now I just have to wait a month to see what happens next.

Please no love triangle, please no love triangle, please no love triangle.

4 stars

Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To be honest, when I first heard about this book I didn't really know if it was something for me. I also don't really like for the cover all that much. But then I found out that the author is a fellow hijabi, so I got the book and read it.

This is under dystopia, but I don't think you can really call it that. We never really see the outside world, so we really don't get to experience that aspect of the story. If I had to call it something, I guess it would be more of a supernatural, but not really, superhero, kind of at the end, romance, the hot and heavy, kind of book. Yea. That’s it. I’ll go with that.

The Good:

I think the writing will be a hit or miss thing with a lot of readers. I'm not a fan of present tense or overly pretty prose, but somehow how I liked it here. I think Mafi has a talent and I hope she continues to write more books. Hopefully, she calms down a bit with the metaphors, but it was good. I think the only reason why it works is because of the main character. Someone who is always by herself and reads a lot, might read this way.

Warner, I know that there is already a Team Adam and Team Warner thing, wow do I really hate those, but I liked him. As a villain. I already saw some of the spoilers for the next book, so I know there’s going to be a love triangle, but I’m going to hope that Warner continues doing him and doesn’t join in this whole love madness stuff. His love for Juliette isn’t real love, but an obsession to make himself more powerful. He’s stupid, but definitely a lot more interesting than everyone else in the novel.

The Okay:

While I didn’t mind the romance, it did feel kind of shallow. We’re told that Adam and Juliette liked each other as kids and stuff, but now that they’re older all they...no, all that Juliette can think of is how hot Adam is. I kind of wish they had more meaningful conversations about where they are. Sure they kiss a lot, but I would think that couples do more than that. I mean, when they said, “I love you,” to one another, I kind of didn’t buy it. Actually no, with Juliette I bought it. The fact that Adam was a childhood friend and he can touch her would definitely make her love him.

But Adam? I never understood why he felt the way he did. Yes, she did a lot of nice things and was misunderstood as a kid, but how did that feeling of admiration turn into love? Especially over three years of not seeing each other? How did that feeling make Adam join the Reestablishment?

You know, I think it’s actually an interesting point. Why did Adam join the Reestablishment? Because of Juliette? Come on now that doesn’t make sense. Plus the amount of planning and dedication to join the ranks just for a girl that you use to know? I have a heart too, I had crushes back in my heyday, but I wouldn’t join the army just to go find them. Especially an army that is apparently craycray enough to take every book ever written and destroy it. I also would get tattoos either. Perhaps Adam has a different side to him. Perhaps, he’s actually really okay with the Reestablishment and thinks they’re right?

I just wrote that I didn’t like him and now I’m not too sure. In any case, his love for Juliette doesn’t make sense.

When it came to Juliette’s powers, I was confused. I get that it’s like Rogue (who incidentally is my favourite character in X-Men), but she can’t touch people and she has super strength. The only two people who can touch her are Adam and Warner. I’m confused about her powers and I’m also confused if the power of love is the reason why she can be touched.

The plot was different than what I expected. I loved the beginning with Juliette in the asylum. I thought the ending was interesting with the superhero sort of angle, but everything in between didn’t really make much sense. Juliette gets captured and instead of find out more of the Reestablishment, we get a mishmash of dinners, dress choosing, romance, and angst. Perhaps if Juliette saw how the people were being treated by the Reestablishment, she’d be more against it. But it seems like she just doesn’t like Warner, so she’s against him and not the system. In fact, I don’t really understand the Reestablishment’s role here. We’re told that they want to get rid of all the books and start from scratch, but why didn’t we see any of that?

I kind of wish that was explained a bit more. The middle did seem all over the place.

The Bad:

I don’t really like Adam. He’s too perfect and doesn’t have a lot of flaws. Wow..that sounds bad, I didn’t mean it like that. But I do want him to have some sort of depth to him, because there isn’t really much to go on from what I read. He’s hot. That’s the only thing established. Oh and he has a younger brother. Okay.

And that’s it.

I want him to feel real and not the perfect boy for the main character type of character. This seems to be common with a lot of YA novels though, so I suppose this is normal. ** after thinking it over and writing some things above, I’m viewing him differently. Maybe there is some depth to him. Still, this wasn’t really eluded in the book and is just me over thinking things so we’ll just have to wait and see.

I also don’t like that Juliette has a reverse harem in the book. She’s been starving for weeks, doesn’t eat much, and two of the guys love her and one thinks she’s gorgeous. Bleh.

I think the biggest thing I had a problem with is the lack of awareness Juliette had. If someone didn't speak for a long time, they'd have trouble picking it up again. Also, she's been in the asylum for years, during that time many things changed in the world. The only thing we see that changed is the microwave and even then that was in passing. Juliette noticed a lot of things in the asylum, but not when she was outside of it.

Overall:

I think there is potential for a great series here and Mafi can write well, but there are also a lot of cliches as well. You have the perfect guy, lead character is too beautiful without knowing it, and the dreaded love triangle. (I really hope this doesn't happen in the next book.) *sigh*

I’ll still probably read the next book to see if some of my questions get answered. Hopefully, we get to find out more about the world that Mafi created.

So while I think this book does have problems, I'm still interested in seeing what will happen next.

3 stars

Review: Sleeping Roses by RaShelle Workman

Sleeping Roses by RaShelle Workman
My rating: negative 100 of 5 stars

By far one or the worse books I've ever read. Bad pacing, one dimensional characters, stupid main character, an ending that made the rest of the book seem like it was a waste of time, and tons of grammatical and spelling errors that leave you wondering how this got published.

Only good points is the book cover and the synopsis for the next book, which actually sounds interesting.

The Good

I love the cover. It's really pretty.

The Okay

The synopsis for the next book in the series is quite intriguing.

The Bad

Shut the faulty door, I sure have a lot of reasons why this book is positively horrid. But to save time and to refrain from ranting so much, I'll only mention 5.

1. The grammar and the amount of spelling mistakes in this book will make you scream. It's almost like this book didn't have an editor to look through this book before publishing it. I don't think you even needed an editor to catch these mistakes. Just looking over the work would have been enough. There are a lot of adverbs used for no reason too. They don't add to the story or the writing, it just makes everything sound clunky.

2. The characters are so one dimensional it isn't even funny. Sophie is stupid. Rena is the gay best friend who is in love with Sophie, but not really. David is the abusive husband who is so over the top you can't take this book seriously. Phillip is meant to be the complete opposite of him and while he seems nice, his love for Sophie is so shallow that you wonder why he wants to be with her when all she does is yell at him.

3. I feel bad for this point, because it sounds bad if you haven't read the book. Even though Sophie, the main character, goes through a horrible situation with her husband and is clearly scarred from the ordeal. She's way too much of a Mary Sue, which means she's TSTL for me to care.

The book starts off with Sophie leaving her abusive husband. We're told many times he's a psycho and that he's beat her a lot. So at point in the novel Sophie decides enough is enough and files for divorce.

The divorce lawyer asks her if he should send the divorce papers to her husband. Sophie says no and that she has to do it. David, the husband, before this happened has been leaving messages to Sophie telling her that she's dead if he sees her. He's already abused her and put a knife to her neck while they were together, killing her should be easy for him. Still Sophie decides to go to him, alone, when she delivers the papers. When her friend Rina offers to go with her, Sophie says no because she wants to be a strong independent woman and face her problems head on. So she visits David and almost gets raped.

Oh Sophie, you sure are a smart one.

4. Like I mentioned in the beginning, the ending makes you feel like this book was a complete waste of time. This is a spoiler, so visit my good reads review to see why.[At the end it turns out that Sophie has been in a coma for the past 10 years and none of the events in the book really happened. Things happen to her while in a coma which is why it translated to her dream world, but this whole thing was done in such a way that it made you feel cheated as a reader. (hide spoiler)]

5. Phillip and Sophie kind of suck as a couple; unfortunately, I can't mention more without spoiling the novel.[In the dream world they made sense. But then we find out that Phillip is really Sophie's doctor. That automatically makes the relationship inappropriate to me. Sophie, in the real world, has feelings for dream world Phillip and not the real person. She thinks she loves him, but knows nothing about him. Nothing. And for some reason he stops seeing her as a miracle, she did wake up after 10 years, but as a love interest and it doesn't make sense either. It's almost like the author wanted a happy ending for those two and put them together when it makes no sense. At all. (hide spoiler)]

Overall:

This book had a lot of potential and if this was written better, I think I might have liked this a lot. But the writing isn't good, there are a lot of spelling and grammatical errors, the characters are very one note, and the ending makes you feel cheated.

Don't read this book. It is, by far, one of the worse books I've ever read.

Rating: negative 100 stars out of 5 stars

Review: The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty

The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Once saw this book I knew I wanted to read it for two reasons. One, the story is about a stalker and after reading Zashiki Onna I kind of find stalker books to be interesting. Two, the main character isn’t freaked out about the stalking. She finds it intriguing and actually wants to meet this person. That’s just weird. Most books with stalkers are usually psychological thrillers, but this one was different. So for those two reasons I knew that I need to read this book.

The Good:

The book is about two people. Ellen, a hypnotherapist who has recently became an item with Patrick. And Saskia, the former girlfriend of Patrick who has a funny habit of showing up wherever he is for the past three years. Ellen’s scenes are in third person, while Saskia is in first person.

I actually really loved the two different perspectives between Ellen and Saskia and I really liked that Patrick, who is the person that ties the two women together, doesn’t really play a big part in the story. This is a good thing, because I didn’t like him. But it’s also a bad thing, which I’ll explain later on.

There is romance in the novel, this is a love story after all, but it’s not the main focus of this book. What I took from this story is the journey of two women to find happiness. Ellen has to figure out what she wants in a relationship, as well as figuring out her place in Patrick’s life, while Saskia has to figure out a way to get herself out of his life and be happy. The contrast is nice and I liked that the author went this route instead of something more predictable. Like Saskia being crazy and Ellen being in fear because she finds hair in her bed or something.

Even though Saskia is kind of…extreme, she comes off as sympathetic and relatable, which is weird because I’ve never contemplated stalking someone. Ever. Regardless of this small fact, you do find yourself rooting for her to get better and leave her addition behind her. She’s flawed and very human, which is why I liked her so much.

The Okay:

Ellen, while interesting enough as a character, didn’t pull me into the story as much as Saskia did. Her hypnotherapy is interesting and her fascination with Saskia, while weird, is kind of cool at the same time. But the more she got involved with Patrick, the more her story stopped being interesting to me.

I also felt like this novel had a lot of characters with many of them meshing into one another.

The Bad:

Patrick, the man behind this whole kerfuffle, was someone who needed to be developed but wasn’t. He’s very one note and during the beginning scenes with Ellen he was just creepy.

There is a scene in the novel (around page 50 or so) when Patrick introduces Ellen to his son, Jack. While Jack is watching a DVD, Patrick and Ellen are having a serious discussion about his Saskia problem. He isn’t pleased and doesn’t want to talk to her, so he decides the best course of action is to change the subject. The subject, well he asks her to go upstairs with him for a few minutes.

...He goes to his girlfriend’s house with his son. He gets his son to watch a DVD. He talks with Ellen about Saskia, isn’t pleased, so stops and asks for a quickie while his son is in the other room.

This hasn’t ever happened to me, so this may be normal for couples who have kids. But I always thought that when you introduce your child to someone, you, I don’t know, want to spend the evening getting your son or daughter use to the person you’re dating and not go upstairs for a quickie.

Then again, I’m not too familiar with this kind of scene so I could be wrong.

He’s also shown in an even more annoying light when he starts talking about his dead wife whenever Ellen is around. He reveals why later on and stuff, but I didn't like that about him either.

I think I'm being a bit harsh on him and I know that this story is more about Ellen and Saskia, but I just wish that Patrick was a better character because I honestly don’t understand what was so great about him.

Overall

I really enjoyed the plot, Saskia, and the writing, but I do wish that some of the other characters were developed a bit more and that Patrick was written better. Overall this was a fun read, so definitely check it out if you're looking for women's fiction that's different.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5