Review of Elisa Ludwig's "The Coin Heist"

     When it takes me longer than two days to post reviews, that's a sign I'm bored to death trying to get through whichever book I am currently reading. Time between reviews, 5 days. I have been inconsistent with how fast I read books, but consistent in how I read the books I enjoy in two days, and the ones I dislike in nearly a week. It is throwing off my schedule, and it is difficult to account for whether or not I'll like a book. By the time I start reading the first chapter, I have already set myself in stone, because it is just as important to read books I detest, as it is to read the ones that make my week. That way, I know what works well, and what falls flat.

    If you're going to have four main characters, make them all uniquely distinguishable. Not just different appearances in backstories, because if they all speak like the same person, it is easy to mix them up. Ludwig was able to shove all the characters into the standard high school cliques, nerd, burnout, popular overachiever, and jock. Then it took the breakfast club, and mixed it with a watered down Ocean's Eleven. Then it took the easy route, setting the main characters attracted to each other.
    If I could add something that this book sorely needed, it would be a villain with a face. The villain in this book was that the characters made a mistake in their plan, or maybe hormones. Otherwise, the threat was nullified because there was nobody throwing himself/herself in the way. The motives were also lacking, because these characters were all doing it for money, but most of them did not justify why they would risk imprisonment for money. One character seemed to only do it because she could hack into the Coin Mint's system. Another did it because he lost his football scholarship to an academics based college prep high school with a poor football team.
    This school was already throwing its money down the drain drafting football players, before it got robbed by the dean. This school has millions of dollars in funding, and somehow entrusted all of that to the dean, rather than a treasurer. And the guy manages to blow $50 million dollars without the school noticing.
    I found the logic in this book so flawed, and the story arc so predictable, I had no drive to see what would happen next. If this ever winds up on my shelf, I hope someone stages an elaborate heist to steal and take it far away.

   

Review of John Green's "An Abundance of Katherines"

    I normally try to space out my reading of high-profile authors, but chose to follow up Suzanne Collins with John Green for 2 reasons: 1) I have wanted to read a John Green book for a while now, because he is such a huge author currently in the YA field 2) After reading Mockingjay, I wanted to read something lighter, and so I compromised with my first stipulation by reading a light John Green book. I had wanted to read The Fault in our Stars, but after seeing the movie first, I new it would be heavy. With this review, I've decided to go more in-depth. My review of Mockingjay brief, because had I let myself go, I would have dissected like an alien life form:

    One thing that struck me immediately with this book, was that it was told in the third person. Many popular YA novels thick with quirky narrators and teenage angst opt for the first person view. I appreciated the extra effort. What I did not like so much towards the beginning, was all of the "telling" mostly used to describe character's habits. It felt like my hand was being held too much. The first third had some other troubles such as the narrator giving an opinion out of nowhere, clichéd dialogue and Colin being overly judgmental. Then the last third of the book seemed to get lazy with description, and throw in adverbs. The one thing that annoyed me that isn't a common issue, was the use of the word "fug," and more so its overuse. Until it was explained, the word seemed like a childish way to get around using cuss words. Dialogue does not need cussing to make it impactful, but this turned out to be more of a homage. Now that I have covered my issues, on to the story.
    What carried most of this book was Colin's personality, and just listening to him. Otherwise, not much else had me craving to see what would happen next. One of the strongest problems was the large cast of characters, that are all given limited time and limited personalities so that they seem like filler between Colin's breakthroughs. Most of the other dynamic elements seemed to just fall in place, and Colin merely coexisted with them. His relationship with Hasan and their bickering was also a highlight of the book, but their language made every other character seem too bland. I loved hearing from them so much, and following Colin's train of thought, that it seemed every other aspect was just a nuisance of Green to write.
    I had to admire John Green for the work he put into writing this, such as the cliffnote on remembering the number sequence of pi. He put a lot of love into the little details, that made this book seem real, but almost so real that they seem like they were outright conceived outside of the novel. I think the main issue of this book was spending too much effort on certain aspects that most of the story could not match that level of passion. It was an uneven trip.
    I do not think it was the strongest John Green book to have started off with, but with the few characters he played with, I could see all of the passion and precision he puts into his work. It is hard not to love a book where you can see the author put so much work into. Shelf.
   

Review of Suzanne Collin's "Mockingjay"

    It was an indecent hour, when I finally laid down Mockingjay. I was about to postpone the review, but my nose began to bleed, and I couldn't very well go out like Attila, so I stayed up and started writing. This one differs greatly from any of my other reviews, because it is a sequel. I have, read the other two books in the series, but have decided to review this book by itself, and not rate it compared to the series as a whole:

    It is easy to get lost in the gripping voice of Katniss Everdeen, which distracts from how glum and sometimes dull the beginning of this book could be. Besides her propaganda films, most of the plot is rolled out before her eyes and she just watches. Finally, when she does take the initiative to propel the plot on her lonesome, the payoff is heartbreaking.  This book caught my interest, picked up the action in the middle slowing killing off characters just like the other two, and then the momentum devolves into a snowball during an avalanche, collecting all the pieces into a disorganized jumble that does not know what to do with itself. It was difficult to draw the line at what was supposed to be the climactic moment, but whatever it was, it had way too much fallout. This disrupts the pacing and throws the entire book out of whack after 350 pages. Collins repeats both of her previous entrees, by having the ending of Catching Fire where Katniss is left out on everything and is ineffectual in the climax, but has the prolonged ending of The Hunger Games. 
     To ease my distaste, I was hooked on this book the entire time, and it played out a lot of great moments, that did not quite come together in the end. But, there is no doubt, this one has to go on the shelf.

Review of Kate Hattemer's "The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy"

    Honestly, what drew me to the book, aside from the advertising, was the "Vigilante" in the title. Despite not being an actual superhero fiction story, a story of vigilante's has the same concept. However, the plot involving the rebellion against a reality tv show, also had my mind going. Now, let me finally stop dawdling and get to the good stuff (foreshadowing):

    Vigilante Poets straddled the line between ultra realistic, and utterly implausible to a large degree. The characters, emotions, and mundane qualities exuded real life, but much like a reality tv show, there were things that were off. And it was subtle, but I caught wind. For example: A reality tv show shot from a pool of contestants taken from one school that airs Friday nights at 9, and is shot the week prior to airing on tv. A few things wrong with this, in a glorious tricolon: Friday nights between 8pm-11pm is death to a tv show of this caliber, a reality tv show would most likely film months in advance, so there is time to edit every episode, and a reality tv show that takes only students from one highschool in Minnesota would lack diversity  which tv begs for.
    So, I got caught up in some flaws. However, the characters feel all to real. These teens have some unique personalities, are flawed, and do not suffer from many clichés. The writing was exciting, but also having fun with itself. It also had a realistic plot that was not forced towards an absolute resolution.
    The one thing that truly brought this book down was the pacing of the plot. So much time was spent waiting, and discovering, that there was only two instances in the book where the main characters did anything to challenge the system. I could not wait for something to happen, which is normally a good thing, but the breadcrumbs were spaced so far apart it was difficult to reach the next one without getting lost and bored.
    The climax of the book, really grabbed me by the collar though, and I finally got the payoff. If I could suggest anything for this book, it would be that actions speak louder than words. shelf.

Review of Wesley King's "The Vindico"

    This one took me a while to get into because right out the gate, the writing did not impress me. I had suspected this would be a young adult novel, but the characters and writing would make the age range 10-14 year olds. Now, just because a book is catered towards a younger, does not mean that the writing has to be dumbed down. Yes, the jargon must be tamed, but trusting the readers to interpret a story should not change. A 10-year-old can understand that "he smiled" can infer that the character is happy. However, writing, " he said happily," is an insult to one's intelligence. Let's just get on with it:

    Gifted children attend a school where they are taught to control their powers so they may fight a great evil. This description can be used to describe many YA novels. The Vindico slaps on the twist that the children are being trained to be villains, but the only crime they seem to commit is not giving the reader enough credit. This book enlisted lazy adverbs to do most of the emotional work, and employed tons of dialogue for the exposition. The five protagonists are all giving one-dimensional personalities, and the side characters were difficult to distinguish from one another.
    Redeeming factors are hard pressed to find. If anything, the climax was a fast paced mix of twists and turns. King did a better job at juggling a double digit amount of characters in one scene than I would have expected. Overall, much like the villains in this story, the negatives outweigh the positives.
    If I had a shelf dedicated to books I did not want to reread, this would get a spot.

Review of Rysa Walker's "Timebound"

     This book I had received for free because it was the 2013 Winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award — Grand Prize and Young Adult Fiction Winner. I had started reading it right when I first downloaded it last year, but grew bored shortly into the third chapter. The blurb spun this exciting adventure in the past at the World Fair in Chicago, and that description coupled with the award heightened my expectations through the roof. This time around, I read through it all, and found myself surprised:

        If anything, this book should be rewarded for having the most confusing time-travel story ever told. Granted, I didn't have the patience to flip back through the book to put every step together, because I was too eager to get to the past. And this book kept me waiting like no other. I had come to expect of time-travel books that time travel would be the main focus, whereas in this book, it took the stand as a climax. Rather, the focus of this book was on the main character, Kate, dealing with both budding and disappearing relationships. I suppose I had come with expectations. Like if I go to a famous pie restaurant to eat the award winning pie, but I have to suffer through the other courses before they'll serve me that good ole key lime with graham cracker crust. The appetizer and the entree were fine, but not what I came for.

    Now I'm hungry, even more so than when I was hungry for some action. This book sure knows how to lay the backstory on thick. Honestly, I think it would have been simpler if there was just a prologue summarizing all of the time-travel events proceeding the story, because there were so much time spent on conversations about the past. 2/3rds of the book were spent on set up, and the other 1/3rd was spent on quality writing. 

    Gosh, how I wish I could spend a day (or 6 hours of book time) at a World Fair. I do have to give credit for Walker taking a path different from the obvious, but it worked against the novel.The middle section did have a lot of heart in Kate's reactions to tough situations, but was easy to glance over waiting for the adventure. Once the story finally found its way to the past, I was captivated, and confused. Those two usually work hand in hand for a good story though. Now that this origin story is out of the way though, I think a sequel would meet the expectations I had for the first.

    I'll keep this on the shelf, if only to remind myself to look out for the next book, which I expect to be much better.

Review of David Levithan's "Every Day"

     Preface: I have finally completed my first book of my Super Summer. Despite being in the process of reading another book, I picked up Every Day yesterday, and could not stop my indulgence. So here I am, with review #1

     I feel biased reviewing this book, simply because I enjoyed it so thoroughly and it is not my common genre. Had I read more books of this variety, perhaps I would spot more cliches, or instances of derivate narrative. However, I only have my lack of experience to draw from, so here it is.
     Every Day provided a unique narrative strategy that felt fresh. It is handled perfectly by putting little explanation into the how, and investing the story in the now. A, the protagonist is oddly easy to connect with, because A has similar desire to many others, but with an obstacle that makes nearly everything a deal breaker. Waking up as someone new every day prevents A from ever leading a normal life with lasting relationships. The intriguing aspect, once I got past the novelty of the body-changing concept, was when A falls for someone. What ensues is A letting morality subside, to chase love. Envying how A is so motivated by love is only afflicted by the fact that A tampers with all of the lives A embodies in the process.
     Every Day pulled me along like a mule chasing a carrot for the first half, but had a short lapse in the second half where the story became to involved in A's relationship with Rhiannon. My other concerns were the overuse in email in this novel, which felt uncommon in our modern day and how all of the names in the book seemed fake. These issues just brought me out of suspension of belief.
     Every Day is one of my favorite books I have ever read, and I will definitely implore myself to pick up some of David Levithan's other books. I can see this one with a special spot on my shelf, prime for rereading.