Book Review: Nevermore by James Patterson

Nevermore by James Patterson


One last chance...
for Max, Fang, and Dylan...
before it all ends.

Are you ready for the final chapter? Are you ready for the ultimate flight? Because THIS IS IT. One last incredible, explosive adventure with an astonishing ending that no one could have seen coming. 

(Taken from Amazon.com)

I'm writing this part at 11 o'clock at night because I can't get it out of my head.

First off, let me say that this had potential. Great characters, great motives, great setting, great ideas. But  it needed something more.

For starters, by goodness, LET THEM DIE. It got to a point where I didn't take you seriously because EVERY STINKING CHARACTER CAME BACK TO LIFE EVERY STINKING TIME. So much for suspense because I knew NO ONE EVER DIED. Oh yes, you say that he died? Oh wait, never mind because YOU BROUGHT HIM BACK TO LIFE.

I love that James Patterson tried to teach us something. I love love love one of the last chapters and I was just like yes! That was amazing! I love your morals! I love you! I love your family! I love everyone you have ever passed by on the street!

Then I saw your writing. And "yes, yes, yes" quickly turned to "no, no, NO".

It's not some much the actual writing, Patterson has some skill there, it was more the plot. It needed a lot more build-up and more suspense, which could've been fixed by LETTING SOMEONE DIE.

*ahem*

Anyways, I'm off my ranting soapbox. A lot of things in the series seemed just too convenient for my tastes. Like in one of the first books where they all just suddenly developed these random powers such as breathing underwater and power over technology. You're flipping bird-kids! All this power is too much for you!

Let's talk about something good for a moment, because, despite my long-winded rants, I actually liked this series, dare I say it, at some times I loved it. Characters, Mr. James, you choose wonderful characters. I loved them. I loved Max's stubbornness and Angel's maturity. Fang was lovely. Dylan was charming. I loved Nudge's wish to be normal, against all odds, and I love her statement towards the end of Nevermore about the wings. Because even if it wasn't something necessarily good or even happy, it gave her character. And that's why I love them, their character and their flaws and their human-ness.

Ugh. The love triangle. It had me in the previous book, Angel, but in this one it was just ugh. Random changing of views, random interactions, and random kissing had my mind whirling. With all of the other things I was trying to figure out, it just seemed a little too much. I admit, this could've been used in favor of the book but it didn't happen, at least not for me.

Another thing that was good was the dystopian-aspect. No, it was not a true dystopian, but it achieved the purpose that a dystopian novel does. It gives you a scenario that is all too possible to happen to us and that is what scares you and me. Back to the chapter I loved. That is the kind of thing I want to see more of, because what it tells you is very, very true. If you've read this book, take a guess at which chapter it is that I love so much. :]

Probably at three stars for me, because I love the characters too much to give it a two. Please, a lovely cover, so points from me. Overall, I would've liked to see a little more tension, a little more bang from the tension not gradually diffusing as the book goes on. I was waiting for the big ending but I was a little let down. Still, a great book and may I say it one more time? Lovely characters. I would recommend it to others, but not as heavily as some of my other favorite books.

Anyways, any thoughts on this book I haven't shared? What do you rate this book? Wrote a review on it you want to share? (Send me a link, I'd love to see what you have to think. :]) Any books you've read recently and think I should check out? (I'm in need of a few recommendations.)

Good luck and keep writing everyone!

(Originally posted on Zero at Heart)

The Monstrumologist : Book Review

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
//Amazon//Barnes and Noble//The Book Depository//

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed.

But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets.

The one who saved me...and the one who cursed me.

So begins the journal of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

Critically acclaimed author Rick Yancey has written a gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does a man become the very thing he hunts? 

Setting: The Monstrumologist takes place in 1888, in a New England town not all too far from my own. The setting is done is wonderful detail, and draws the reader in extremely well. Any disgusting elements of the story (and there are quite a few) are described eloquently, and in way that establishes a firm image and does miracles to create the mood, adding to the horror of the story, as a whole. 

Characters: Of everything else, the characters are probably the weakest element of the books, though I am loathe to say that, as they are still very good. If they lack in development, I would say that it is more due to the way the story is told, through reflection in a journal, more than a hundred years later. That said, I immediately fell in love with Doctor Pellinore Warthrop and Will Henry; both are flawed human beings, the doctor very much so. While Will's youth (he is only twelve) would usually annoy me, his naivety (that he slowly loses over the course of the book and the next two) sets him up as a strong contrast to the more cynical doctor; he is a loveable boy, overall. 


Plot: Oh, the plot is marvelous. It is suspenseful, avoiding the typical pitfalls of horror literature, as well as being realistic, despite the presence of "monsters". The story takes place over a short period, involving relatively few events, but is nonetheless compelling. Each plot development is logical and truly adds to the story, as well as setting up the theme of the story - if the term monster can truly be limited to creatures of aberrant biology. 


Writing: This is my favourite part - the actual writing. There are few words to describe the writing, other than that it does its best to reflect the period, while remaining understandable to teenagers and adults. The metaphors and descriptors used fall just short of perfect - Yancey rarely falls upon the cliche comparisons, but every one that is made is apt and brilliant. It has an artistic and somewhat poetical bent; if you're vocabulary isn't up to par, then you might find yourself struggling to follow along. 


Overall: 5 stars. I cannot recommended this highly enough, along with it's two sequels, with the exception that if you're looking for a short, easy read, this is not it at all. The horrors and secrets which fuel each book lead to an engaging plot, made all the better by the writing.

Book Review: Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

It's Saturday once again, and I've got a book review today :)

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel
Publish date: October 18th, 2011 by Random House Publishing Group
//Amazon//B&N//The Book Depository//

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

Zombies! I love zombies, whether they're the eat-your-brain kind of way or the misunderstood way. (Though I will admit that I like the eat-your-brain type a little better.)

I will also admit that while the prologue was amazing, when I started the first chapter, I didn't think I was going to like this novel. I was just too confused - I had no idea what anyone was talking about, and I had no idea if Mink and Vespertine were the same person. It made my brain hurt. And then the entire beginning of the second chapter was basically just the info-dump. So I really thought I wouldn't like it.

But then it got better. The world that Dearly, Departed is set in is fantastic - and it's something fairly new, too, so I wasn't bored with it at all. The writing, most of the time, was great. It wasn't full of unnecessary details, but at the same time, it didn't leave anything out.

The place I really had a problem with was with the conflicting narrations. Most of the book is narrated by Nora and Bram, the two main characters, but there are a few other characters in there, too. It's simply too many people narrating for me. I really think most authors should just stick with two as a maximum, maybe three if they can pull it off, because it's too easy for characters to blend together. It was fairly easy to distinguish the difference between Nora and Bram's narrations, but when you add in the others, their narrations started to sound the same.

And the ending did not make sense to me. At all. >_>

Despite that, I still really liked the book. It didn't have a totally futuristic feel to it, and I liked that because we weren't overwhelmed by new technologies or other unfathomable things, but you could still tell that it wasn't definitely in this time period. I also loved the relationships in this book - not just the romance between Nora and Bram, but the friendship between Nora and Pamela and some of the negative relationships between some of the characters.

Ah, the romance. FINALLY, NO INSTA-LOVE. Well, there may have been insta-love, but it wasn't all "OMG FIRST-SIGHT I MUST HAVE HIM/HER." The pace of the romance was nice. Very nice, especially considering some of the books I've been reading lately. Sometimes Nora was a bit too innocent/shy for my tastes, but her and Bram have some adorably-awkward moments that I absolutely loved.

Also, this book gets an extra star just because Bram was not an acts-tough-and-has-slept-with-every-girl-but-is-actually-really-sweet character. Bram came pretty close to being an innocent virgin boy, even though he was still completely awesome, and I feel like that's not something you see in YA novels very much anymore.

Overall: While I was not a fan of the beginning and I wish the amount of narrators had been cut down, the plot was fantastic, the characters even more so, and Dearly, Departed was fairly original. 4 1/2 stars.