REVIEW: Madly by Amy Alward

A royal mess.

Samantha Kemi comes from a long line of old-school alchemists, which has fallen on hard times.

When thoroughly modern Princess Evelyn is poisoned by a positively ancient love potion, a hunt is called to find an antidote.

Winning this hunt will revive Sam’s family’s reputation. And soon Sam is traveling the world for the rarest ingredients, venturing deep into magical forests and frozen tundras, facing death at every turn.

Sam’s greatest threat? Zain Aster, her foremost opponent on the hunt. Rumor has it he was the intended recipient of the princess’s love potion. With that smile, it’s not hard to see why…

Falling for Zain is a terrible idea. So why can’t Sam get him out of her mind? Is this magic at work?

This book was laden with tropes and clichés, and not all of them good. Amy Alward, because of her job, knows exactly what a proper young adult book needs. She had an interesting premise, a plot that moves, characters with drive and goals, and a nicely built world. That being said, the story was in no way riveting. I enjoyed it, but I enjoy a lot of books that don’t necessarily receive/deserve high ratings.

The book started with a great trope: modern fairytale. I don’t think I’ve read any stories that are clearly a fairytale such as this, but set in a super digital age. It was an interesting mix that hooked me from the beginning. However, the story was Ella Enchanted but less riveting and entertaining. The characters had wants but no real developed pasts. Sam is destined to be a great alchemist (the only thing I loved from her was reading her alchemical knowledge when she listed qualities off for different ingredients), and Zain is destined to take over ZoroCorp. Neither of them thinks that’s what they want, but they know it’s what they’ll do in the end. Boring. Bad cliché. And don’t get me wrong, I love when families are happy and whole, but it’s like nothing bad has ever happened in Nova and everyone has such an easy life. None of the characters had the depth of a hard life or lost parents. The characters were all flat.

The plot, in turn, was flat. Even when Kirsty takes someone close to Sam into the Wilds, I felt nothing. I was just, “thank you, finally we have some tragic action”. I mean, the plot was good and there. The big plot moments happened, and the hero fell in love with a boy supposedly in love with another. Such a bad cliché.

The whole book just fell short because of rotten clichés, and pacing of all things. The book wasn’t super short, but everything felt so rushed. It was all the exciting plot humps you’d expect out of a trilogy, but rolled into one book. It was such a rushed pace, and nothing bad happened! A few scrapes and bruises, but nothing dire. Nobody died, and that’s a problem for me, because nothing heightened the adventure for me. The stakes weren’t raised enough. Emilia ended up fizzing out as a threat. Evelyn fizzed out too, and she never did any real harm. Everything was so vanilla and boring. I enjoyed the book, but I don’t need to read the rest of the series because as far as I can see, the series is done. She did her thing and got the guy. Hooray, but I don’t feel any need whatsoever to continue reading. Sure, some books are still missing, but I’m utterly unconcerned.

Bad pacing and even worse clichés have turned this play on a modernized fairytale into a womp-zone. Amy Alward’s Madly is a cheesy, easy read with zero depth, and that’s disappointing. Also, I still have no idea how Zain didn’t get the love potion. I read Princess Evelyn’s chapters, and I don’t understand how she mixed them up. Is she just dumb or what? And when there’s a fundamental error like that, we’ve got a problem for sure.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Jack the Ripper is back, and he’s coming for Rory next…

            Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London to start a new life at boarding school just as a series of brutal murders mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper killing spree of more than a century ago has broken out across the city. The police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man believed to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him—the only one who can see him. And now Rory has become his next target…unless she can tap her previously unknown abilities to turn the tables.

            The Name of the Star is so much British boarding school love, so little time. Maureen Johnson put a lot of time and beauty into the details of the boarding school that Rory moves into in London. Did she spend a little too much time on the school details and not enough on the actual plot? That’s up for debate.

            While I really enjoyed this book, I definitely think the amount of detail that went into everything about the boarding school was overkill. I get it! Rory is living the dream. She’s moved to London and is living and going to school at a boarding school! I wish there’d been more exciting detail about London in general instead of so much focus on the school. Don’t get me wrong: I loved the school. Sign me up! But it was a bit much.

            As for other aspects of the story I enjoyed, there are the characters. While Rory’s classmates were kind of drab (other than the Hockey-loving Claudia and Rory’s roommate), I really adored the “Ghostbuster” squad. They didn’t get nearly enough time, detail, and characterization (because that all went to the school) and they were still way better than most of the people at the school. Give me Stephen over Jerome any day, because I feel like Jerome was an awful character and there was clearly no chemistry between him and Rory. I assume he’s not her forever love interest, and I really wish the Ripper would have just killed him because there was less than nothing between him and Rory and it was awful to read them get forced together. Boo (and her best friend, of course), Jazza, and Callum were all fine characters, but Jerome was the epitome of awful.

            Before I type out the words Jerome and awful together in any more sentences, I’ll digress. My favorite part of the book was the plot point of using people who’ve had a near-death experience and have been locked away in an insane asylum to hunt down ghosts. That’s not a bad idea at all! Either way, I really liked that part but overall the book was kind of a disappointment. I wanted to like it more than I actually did, and there were just a lot of things wrong.

            Firstly, there was way too much set up (too many details!). I seriously waited half of the book for something to actually happen, and when Rory finally became aware of her abilities she didn’t actually do anything with them. Then there were those extra chapters in different POVs that did absolutely nothing for the story. Plus, just because it’s an episodic sort of series does not mean that there shouldn’t be some overarching plot for the whole series (and so far there’s nothing). And finally, there was the fact that Rory expletive gave up at the end. Things were rough with the Ripper and she said, “Oh, just kill me!”. What a weak and disappointing character! I want a strong character that’s willing to do something, anything, to stop evil, but I guess that just wasn’t a part of Rory’s character chart. I honestly don’t think I can give this series another chance after the main character gave up, and that’s the biggest disappointment of all.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Firelight by Sophie Jordan

            A hidden truth.

            Mortal enemies.

            Doomed love.

           

            With her rare ability to breathe fire, Jacinda is special even among the draki—the descendants of dragons who can shift between human and dragon forms. But when Jacinda’s rebelliousness forces her family to flee into the human world, she struggles to adapt, even as her draki spirit fades. The one thing that revives it is the gorgeous, elusive Will, whose family hunts her kind. Jacinda can’t resist getting closer to him, even though she knows she’s risking not only her life but the draki’s most closely guarded secret.

            Where do I begin with this review? This is my second times reading this book (I need to reread it so I can finally read the final two in the series). It’s weird because I remember loving this book the first time around, but this time around just wasn’t as amazing. I think the first read wrapped me up in the premise, and this time around I got more into the plot and characters. If I were to rate this book on my first reading, it would have more stars than it’s getting this time around.

            The premise of this book is really my favorite part. I love shapeshifters (trope alert) and I love the idea of them transforming into dragons. I don’t feel like there are a lot of dragons in YA so that’s very appreciated. I think it was great to make Jacinda a fire-breather and to make that such a coveted and lost gift in their world. This added such conflict, especially since her mom and sister were human. Jacinda’s special, but her twin sister isn’t. Twins. Love it. But the conflict wasn’t done very…nicely I guess is the word I’ll use.

            I hated the dynamic between Jacinda and both her twin sister, Tamra and her mom. It was awful. I should be behind it because it’s very real, but it was just too much. I don’t think Jacinda helped very much, however. Jacinda is the most selfish character I think I have ever read. Firelight is literally a book about a super selfish teenage dragon shapeshifter (“draki”). So I kind of hated Jacinda, but then you see her side and everything she’s given up and you understand her and hate her family with her. It’s very tense on my heartstrings.

            Aside from the sheer selfishness of the three women in this family, they’re also mean to each other. Tamra doesn’t even care about her sister when something happens to her towards the end of the book. She only cares about herself and her new life here. Jacinda’s mom doesn’t care either! She’s only worried about their new lives. While it all makes sense (Tamra’s a teenager, the mother only wants safety for her daughters since their fathers’ death), it was a little too thick. I wish I could have seen more love between the three of them. Just a few scenes of Jacinda bonding with her mom or her sister would have helped a lot.

            But Jacinda was selfish, so she only really cared about herself. Therein lies the dilemma of this entire book. I loved Will, though. I really love something about the hunter/prey love trope. To fall in love with that which you hunt is something special indeed. I like that Jacinda and Will had this crazy bond between them that kept them from staying away from each other. I just wish I could have seen the attraction and love grow between them instead of the cliché automatic soulmate bond, and then them pushing each other away the whole book.

            So in the end, I can whole-heartedly say that I adore the premise of this book but not much else. There was an empty threat to Xander (there was more from Brooklyn!) and I wish there’d been more to the sheep in the wolf’s den dinner scene between Jacinda and Will and his family. There were just a lot of things that could have been done a lot better but I have high hopes still for Vanish because of the big reveal at the end of this one. More twin trope! The book did have a lot of good things going, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much both times I read it. But a girl’s gotta review honestly.

XOXO Tia