Book Review: The Cormorant (Miriam Black #3)

The Cormorant by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Miriam is on the road again, having transitioned from "thief" to "killer".

Hired by a wealthy businessman, she heads down to Florida to practice the one thing she's good at, but in her vision she sees him die by another's hand and on the wall written in blood is a message just for Miriam. She's expected...

This might be slightly spoilery. I'm not sure. Proceed with caution.

What can I tell you about a book that I waited with bated breath for? A book that I stared longingly at the Amazon page over, dreaming that I could reach through and pluck it our of the sea of ones and zeroes. What can I tell you about the third book of a series that I have come to love so much they sit snuggled up against all my other favorite writers.

I can tell you that this book was the best so far.

It is a year after Mockingbird, and Miriam is crashing with some losers she saved. She has taken it upon herself to save people by taking the life of those who will kill them. After something goes wrong, she decides to leave, but not before getting a lucrative offer to read some rich man's death down at the tippy-tip of Florida. It's there that she learns and old foe is gunning for her, and everyone she's made a connection to on her journey is fair game.

Miriam is still on the surface the Miriam we know; rude and crude with her perpetual cigarette and bottle of booze. But here is why this book is better than the last. We learn more about her. This time the trip is less about trying to just stop Fate. It's more about trying to stop Fate from happening to her. Miriam has always thought she was bad for people, but this book really takes that belief of her's through the wringer. This belief is really challenged when she finally goes to see her mom.

Yes, Miriam and her mom. A moment I was desperately waiting for. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to read this book, and damn. It's hard to read, but satisfying. I knew it wasn't going to be sunshine and rainbows. It isn't. Instead you see the character grow. Miriam has always been a character that we knew was as vulnerable on the inside as she was hard on the outside. All of that starts to shift. Miriam is starting to feel, dare I say it, a bit more complete.

While yes, there is all this fun character growth, it doesn't stop the rocket fast pace, or stop Wendig from giving the reader the thrill ride we expect. I'll just say that we see an old face, and we're treated too one of the most spectacularly disturbing and gory bad guy deaths I've ever read. It's really amazing.

Wendig's writing skills have improved a bit as well (as if that was ever a consideration) proved by his seamless weaving of the timeline. Most of the book is Miriam telling two Feds what went down before they caught up to her. Wendig's always played a little with time in these books, but it is at its most flawless here.

In case you haven't picked up on it by now, I wasn't disappointed.

And in case you haven't gotten the idea about how much I love these books, my reviews of Blackbirds and Mockingbird. So I suggest checking out this horror/thriller/urban fantasy mish-mash of great writing. If anything, do it for Miriam Black.

Book Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

I wrote this book review on Goodreads a week ago, and forgot to put it up here. Well, it's finally here.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hairactually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

I was recommended this book by a few people on Goodreads who enjoyed it, so I picked it up at the library. Now, I should say that three stars is not a bad thing. It means I liked it, but I wasn't entirely enthralled with it.

Warning. There will be spoilers. I mean SPOILERY spoilers. They are unmarked. Proceed with caution.

I'll start with the stuff I liked first.

My favorite thing out of the entire book was the world building. It was top notch. Laini Taylor took your standard Angels versus Demons plot and made it her own with an entirely different mythology all it's own.

The Seraph are a race of people so perfect looking they look artificial with wings made of fire feathers. The Chimera are tribes of beastly hybrids that have banned together under one cause. These two races are at war in Eretz. Eretz is essentially a mirror dimension to Earth, the world of the humans. Humans, Seraph, and Chimera are all given their own belief systems which represent each differently. I'd seen another member of a writing group I'm a part of complain about how most books don't have such varied beliefs about one thing, so it's nice to come across this, especially in a YA book.

My favorite part was the Chimera resurrection system. The idea of creating new bodies from teeth to put souls that have been collected in is awesome. I swear I nodded and said, "That's cool." And it's plot relevant without being a deus ex machina. Double bonus!

My second favorite thing is the characterization.

The main character is Karou, a seventeen year old art student who lives in Prague. She has blue hair and an entire collection of sketchbooks. What I like about Karou is that she isn't like the other YA heroines in books I've been reading lately. She doesn't brag about everything she can do without doing it. She doesn't constantly whine about her, me, and I. She can actually fight after years of training, and shows it. Yes, all of Karou's bad-assness is actually shown not just told. She's also not some Mary Sue with awesome magical powers that no one else has. There is actually a rhyme and reason to why she's special.

I also like her personality. She still comes across as being a teenager, but has a maturity to her. She's not entirely juvenile because the writer knows how to handle the character. Instead, she has a sense of experience while still retaining a type of innocence. She has sense. I didn't sit there and facepalm repeatedly because she kept engaging in standard issue YA heroine stupidity. It was seriously refreshing.

Then there is her relationship with her Chimera family. She actually treats them like family. She has her moments of rebellion, but Karou doesn't yell at them or hate on them for keeping things from her. While she wants to know, and pushes her luck occasionally, she still loves them. Take the scene where Brimstone (the Wishmonger) throws her out for finding the resurrection cathedral. Karou does't resent him or get all pissy about it. She gets worried because she fears she's been cut off from the family she loves. That is the true reaction of a child, not the typical mopey:

"Well then, I don't want to see you again either," she said to the closed door. Mary Sue scowled and stocked off. If that was her punishment for a single indiscretion, then she would never help the old sorcerer again. She didn't want to even look at him after he just threw her out into the cold without her coat and shoes. What if she got frost bite? Then he would learn.

Sound familiar? Yeah. None of that in this book. Thank the holy high heavens.

As for Brimstone and the rest of the Chimera. (Grins stupidly.) They're just so awesome. I love them a whole lot compared to the Seraph. The Seraph come across like winged jackasses, you know, like most angels in YA.

Her friend Zuzana, total hoot. She also comes across as being a friend. Both her and Karou are supportive of each other. You know, true friends. Again, after all the crappy friends and girl on girl hate I keep seeing in YA, it's nice to see a female relationship that isn't all, "She's prettier than me. I hope she burns on every level of Purgatory," or "He's hot. Who cares if he's got all the signs of an abusive boyfriend. I think you should go for it." I seriously loved this girl.

Now, first and foremost, this is a love story. That becomes pretty relevant towards the end. I just though I should throw that out there before I brought up the romantic interest.

The swoon worthy boy is Akiva. Akiva is a Seraph soldier. He's volunteered to mark the portals to Brimstone's shop and that is how he comes across Karou. He tries to kill her because she works for the Chimera, but doesn't because he's drawn to her. Now before you, dear reader, roll your eyes at another case of bottled insta-love, I'll say it isn't really. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Akiva isn't the creepy, stalker type that forces himself on our fair heroine. He's broody, and does follow her, but does it because he wants to talk to her. It's awkward for him because he reminds her of his lost love he saw executed, Madrigal. Akiva is actually kind of adorable about it. He's bashful and guilty because he knows he tried to kill Karou and has just done something terrible to her Chimera family. He knows he's bad news in the way that a soldier followed orders only to find out that he killed the family of the girl he loved. While he is guilty, it's the kind of guilt that evokes sympathy in the reader because you know he was a) literally lost in grief, b) following orders, and c) caught up in the propaganda of his people made all the worse by seeing the execution of Madrigal. Seriously, this guy has had it rough, but what is important is he doesn't use it as an excuse. He knows he did bad and doesn't blame Karou if she wants to punish him.

Giant spoiler: Karou is resurrected Madrigal. While I guessed it from the moment Akiva started making comparisons early in the book, and I was worried that it was the horrible lost-love-reincarnated plot, after Chimera resurrection was explained, it made sense. It's a part of the world building that is well developed, so it didn't make me groan or roll my eyes. Kudos, writer. Kudos.

Okay. Now I'm getting into the I-didn't-like-this territory. Some of these are personal, so cut me some slack.

First, let me explain something about myself. I have this huge pet peeve against writers telling the reader that their character is beautiful, and sadly the writer does this with Akiva. I get that Seraph are supposed to be aesthetically perfect looking with a rigid and well defined bone structure, and symmetrical features, and shapely lips, and mesmerizing eyes, and sculpted muscles, and Abercrombie tans, and Fabio hair, and on and on and on; but don't tell me he's beautiful. Why? Because people have different standards of beauty. This is problematic because the writer seems to understand that, yet in the chapter where she initially describes Akiva (p. 57-59) she basically says he's beautiful without another POV hanging around. I felt like she was dumping melted cheese all over the pages. Personally, I viewed him as someone who was a bit artificial looking like he had been carved and given life. Not necessarily ugly, but distant and cold. Unreachable even. I'll admit, later when she tells us about his shoulder, it helped humanize him along with the fact he's rocking a buzz cut. It's little details like that define the character.

Which brings me to another issue I have. I felt like the back end of the book (the final 1/4 where she flashes back to Madrigal) were written after she had matured a bit as a writer. That's probably not true, but they read that way. Allow me to explain. The first half of the book there are a few awkward sentence structures that are either jarring or ruin the momentum the writer is trying to sustain, and some POV shifts in the middle of text that I had to reread to understand what the writer was trying to do. She writes the book primarily from third person limited, but occasionally slips into omniscient. I found it problematic and confusing. I wish I had taken notes to show some concrete evidence, but I haven't, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. I'm just mentioning it now because it pulled me out of the text and made it hard for me to get drawn back in.

After the portals are burned, I felt the middle of the book floundered a bit. I would put it down and dick around with my phone. That's another reason why it only got three stars, it couldn't always maintain my interest. I can only take cutesy love stuff for so long, but I know that's me. My husband's the romantic if that tells you anything.

That said, the writer does show that she knows her way around a sentence, but I felt like she would get caught up in a poetic thought and drag is on too long. She liked to inject extra thoughts via hyphen into the middle of sentences. She didn't just do this a few times, but almost ever other page. I respect the style, but the writer over did it just a bit.

So, to sum it all up, read this book if you're looking for well written characters and some unique, thorough world building. Karou is a YA heroine who is totally worth your time, unlike some other ones I can think of. No, really. Read this book to break the Mary Sue monotony. It's just what the doctor ordered.


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Book Review: Slide the Scales from My Eyes

 

I've been an internet acquaintance with Timothy Maguire for some time. When he asked me if I wanted a free copy of his self-published novel Slide the Scales from My Eyes in return for a review, my response was naturally in between "Hell yes," and "Are you sure?" Well, I devoured the book in two days, thoroughly enjoying this little urban fantasy set in Leicester, England.

Scales features a young bartender named Aleah Mitchell who prefers to go by the name of Lea to prevent any tongue twisting sentence structures. She's a university student with a Catholic upbringing that has left her with a love of suits and ties. When her supervisor at the bar she works at asks her to taste a new cocktail, her world is thrown sideways when a man breaks down the office wall using the beams from a lightbulb.

This is the readers initial introduction to an interesting and fun magic system in which people can acquire a power attached to a personal attribute. After a person is Forced, like when Lea saw the beam cut through the wall, they become Awakened. The Awakened can see the Shadow, which is pretty much made of the emotional residue of human beings. Outside of Geekomancy, this is one of the few fun and original magic systems I've seen in a while.

The characters are worth the read too. Lea herself is well written. She acts as a normal person would in this situation, she has no idea what to do or what is going on, and wants answers. She's not instantly kick butt but isn't useless either. She knows when it's time to run and when it's time to fight. She admits when she makes a mistake and tries to make up for it. In essence, she has a brain.

So, if you're looking for a fun read where you can loose yourself in a world of conflicting prophesies, conniving bosses, hair tentacles, and chicks who wear ties, then I highly suggest checking out this book.

You can purchase it from the following sources:
Amazon
B&N
Kobo
Google Books
Scribd
Book Country

(Prices will vary.)

Book Review: The Blue Blazes

The Blue Blazes by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Before I begin, first the disclaimer. I don't know if this review would spoil anything for you people looking to read this book, but think of this as a warning just in case something comes up you don't want see.

I'm going to confess my undying love here. I love this man's work. LOVE with caps and italics, even in my voice. I hardly get excited over things that are released: movies, television, video games, and most books. But when Wendig announces that he has a new book hitting shelves in a couple of weeks (and he releases a lot of them) my reaction is often, "Now! Give it to me! I fling my cash at you! I demand you move faster, Time! No wonder people say you're old." My enthusiasm could even drown out the enthusiasm of my SuperWhoLock friends, and those fangirls smack you in the face with their fandom. (But I usually play it down. Being that devoted to people you don't even know is weird. Especially when you have their faces plastered all over the wall, digital and real.)

That said, I'm not afraid to point out the flaws of things I love. I see no point in being unrealistic if it still isn't going to change how you feel about something. This is where I admit that there isn't one thing I didn't love about Blue Blazes. It's very hard to find urban fantasy these days that isn't strong chick falls in love with vampire/werewolf/monster/human-male-with-personality-disorder. Face it, you know I'm right. It's like trying to shake a stick and not hit a bra or panties in a lingerie store. After reading books by genre-benders like Wendig and Lawrence (who I also worship by gushing over his books and recommending them often) I'm always looking for more.

Mookie Pearl is a thug for the Organization. They keep everything in line between the gangs and anything that wanders up from the Great Below, especially when it comes to Cerulean. Cerulean, most commonly known as Blue Blazes, is a drug created from veins found in the Underworld. It lets you see the true nature of the creepy-crawlies, makes you faster, stronger, and can lead to addiction like all substances. Mookie is a Blazer because he has to be. He needs to see these other things so he can crack their skulls. That's his job. Then his daughter Nora, whom he is not on good terms with, tells him that his Boss has cancer. And naturally, everything starts to spiral down.

Wendig does something not seen in his other novels, he world builds. He has made his own type of hell, and doesn't just borrow from other lore. It certainly influenced him, but this is all him. The most distinct thing is that there are three pigments: Blue Blazes, Red Rage, Golden Gate, Green Grave, and Violet Void. Blue is common, it does as described. Red is Hulking Out, going Super Saiyan. Muscles bulge like you're some roid-raging freak and anger takes over. Yellow takes you to the very heart of the Great Below. Green we never see. And Purple, well, let me just say that I don't want to spoil it.

Then there are the different layers of the Great Below. The first level is the Shallows. It's the more accessible part. It's where the town of the dead, Daisypusher, is located. (I recommend reading Bait Dog and his Miriam Black books so you can spot the easter eggs.) After the Shallows is the Tangle, a place of twisting catacombs where anyone can get lost. At the bottom of it all is the Expanse. Worm-like gods wallow in perpetual hunger in the Expanse. They're just the right amount of unsettling to make them ominous. I loved it.

Mookie himself is a great rounded out character. He's the loyal lug-head, but you don't want to get on his bad side. Scarred head to toe both inside and outside, he'll do anything for people he loves and anything to people who screw him over. Mookie is solid and predictable in the way you want your character to be. You know he'll fight tooth and nail, even if he looses in the end. Giving up isn't in his DNA.

And that brings me to his daughter, Nora. Nora still harbors teenage vitriol towards daddy for not being around. While she's mostly hot air, we know she's not afraid to put a bullet in someone if she so desires. Nora guards her hurt close, like her father, making them more alike than just as people I wouldn't want to wrong. Oh, and she's written just as well.

And then there's Skelly. She's a tough as nails former derby girl turned gang leader. I loved her character development. There was something refreshing about it. You don't see many tough chicks, a urban fantasy staple, question the image they give to people. What Skelly goes through makes her discover what she's made of and not made of. I want to see more of her.

Face it, Wendig can write a female character. He can write just about any character really. They all come out well done with their own distinctions. Even his side characters. Hell, even his made up gangs all have personality just in their descriptions. (The Get-Em Girls rock my socks.) Every part of Wendig's little world in Blue Blazes has a well finished touch, and I know we're going to be seeing more of it in the future.

Sorry if I did nothing but gush again, but what can you do when faced with good writing?

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Book Review: Zoo City

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Zoo City by South African writer Lauren Beukes is a must read for anyone looking for capable, resourceful female characters or a damn good urban fantasy mystery.

Zinzi December is and ex-reporter, ex-junkie with and unusual companion in Sloth. Sloth is an Animal, a familiar that the guilty are cursed with it. When a person receives and Animal, they are instantly known as a criminal, an outcast. Animals are a powerful magic, tying their person to a black hole called the Undertow and bestowing them with a special ability. Zinzi's ability is that of finding lost things.

At it's heart, Zoo City is a good mystery novel surrounding a missing person, something that Zinzi usually refuses to do. By taking the case, she must call on favors from those of her pre-jail, junkie life. Her pre-Sloth life. This is where Beukes shows her skill by weaving information from past and present together to create a draw that sucks the reader in. Beukes never gives the reader everything at once, forcing them to put the pieces together. All the threads are there, another sign of Beukes skill.

The book is written in first person present tense adding to the intensity. The point of view is even more effective given that Zinzi's old skill set is journalism. I can her her voice in every word, every sentence. She reeks of the intelligent person who made very, very bad decisions, but is much tougher for her ordeal. I love Zinzi. She's well rounded and whip smart.

Beukes also immerses the reader in a very well-built world set in Johannesburg, South Africa. From Zinzi's dank apartment in a condemned building to the the music scene she's forced to investigate, all of it is tangible and real. You can see the textures and hear the sounds. Beukes even includes little bits from fictional documentaries, thesis papers, and newspaper clippings.

For fantasy junkies, the magic system is simple but complete. All the rules are there for the reader to understand.

As if you need another reason to read this book, Zoo City is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

So, take my word for it.
  Read this book.



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Book Review: Mockingbird

Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It all starts with a gun shot. Well, sort of. It starts with the vision of a gunshot.

Chuck Wendig's Mockingbird takes place a year after Miriam's introduction in the novel Blackbird. She's working a crappy job scanning groceries for tourists and living in an Airstream surrounded by meth addicts. Her off/on/it's-effing-complicated paramour Louis is constantly on the road. In other words, Miriam isn't happy. Then she gets fired and touches her boss's hand. Enter fate's worse enemy.

Wendig's second novel featuring Miriam is better than his second, a considerable feat considering how much I enjoyed the last one. This time around he focuses the story on her new found talent at changing lives by taking lives. While the main story arc starts in the typical, "This person contacted me for help," fashion, it doesn't take anything away. In fact, the main plot adds to Miriam's characterization exponentially.

While she's still the foul mouthed highway rat that we all know and love, she's matured. Miriam tries really hard at certain points to be less abrasive than she usually is, but fails when she gets irritated or under duress. Wendig has balanced her growth out nicely because she's recognizable as the character that the reader has fallen in love with but has "matured" past scavenging off others. (It's hard to use the words "mature" and "Miriam" in the same sentence.)

This second installment also has stronger paranormal qualities than the first novel. Since Miriam's power has developed, so has her connection with those that seemingly fuel her ability. Miriam has dubbed this twisted little clue giver as The Trespasser, and "it" fits well into the world that Wendig has developed for the reader.

Like the first book, this one is written in third person present, which lends an effective urgency to the language. The shortness of his sentences and brevity of the scenes give it an almost running cadence that is engrossing yet comfortable to read. If you can stand abrasive, volatile language and truly disturbing "images," than check out this book and the first.

In the words of the layman: "This book is freaking awesome! You have to read it!"


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Book Review: Blackbirds

Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this in one sitting.

Blackbirds is the kind of book I was looking for. It had been so long since I found a good read that had me on the edge of my seat screaming at the pages like I do the TV screen. This book was it. I wanted to super glue it to my hands because I didn't want to put it down. That is how hooked I was.

Why?

Because of Miriam Black. She's the kind of female protagonist I was looking for. I was tired of the GI Janes and Princess Peaches that were so common in genre works. What Wendig gives you is a young woman who is unashamed of who she is while struggling on the inside with how much she should care about the people she sees die. She's not a softy, not by a mile. She'll kick you in the teeth while she screams slurred profanities with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of booze in the other.

Yet, even with her hardened highway rat exterior, she's torn about whether she should save a genuinely nice guy. Especially since this nice guy called out her name in her vision. Miriam is a fully developed female antihero who calls her own shots if fate allows. She's exactly what the story needs.

What Wendig creates is simple, yet causes so much conflict for Miriam. Save him, or not. Regardless of what she decides, fate drags her to the end scene anyway. It is there where she is to make her final decision. The reader can believe they might know the outcome all they want, but Wendig plays it so close to the vest that you really don't. That is what I loved about it. I was so dragged in that I sat there with that little paper back clutched in my hand hoping.

The book is written in third, present tense which helps to carry along the pace at a galloping speed. It's Farrari fast and whip smart. I love this book.

Now, I will say this isn't for the faint of heart. Miriam's language is harsh and obscene, so don't read it if you get offended easily by hard language. Their is gore, so also not for the squeamish.

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