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Her of the Wood – Veronica Watts
Determined to get out of a city where the lowest classes are subjugated into silent submission, Euodia sneaks onto a convoy of detainees being transported to the old lands to die.
Her hope is rewarded when her group meets scouts from a small but thriving community. As Euodia learns to live and work in her new home, she struggles to shake off years of conditioning so that she can be honest with Ailie about her developing feelings.
But just as she’s finding her feet, and maybe her courage, a deadly disease sweeps through the community…
Her of the Wood is a dystopian story about the search for freedom and finding a home where you can be yourself.
I liked the cover and the premise piqued my curiosity enough for me to take a chance on this novel. Solace is an ideal community where people are free to love whomever they please. I liked all the cozy couples in the story but the vast majority of the novel is about Euodia going about her daily business which is not the most riveting subject to read about. We are shown the development of hers and Ailie’s relationship which was sweet but the writing style, composed of short almost terse sentences makes everything come across as bland. And even though I was hoping none of them die and the couples stay together, I felt like I hadn’t connected with any of the characters. In addition, the conflicts were resolved a little too easily and the sense of danger was constantly muted.
The book’s highlights were the first and last parts which were ironically, moments that involve the city Dracon where Euodia came from. I am actually more curious about the city than Solace but I am also glad the plot was not the usual dystopian take-down-the-corrupt-government storyline.
The ending was certainly a big surprise which might have hinted on a sequel. I would like to find out more about Dracon. Would the city people ever know about Solace? Would people from Solace want to see the city?
Like I said, the premise shows promise but the execution could use some work, the characters need more depth and maybe an exciting event or two to shake things up in the middle part. However the book offers some positive messages I liked and the setting was good. It also has a YA feel to it which is also a plus. All in all, I rate this a pass.
P.S.
I received a copy of Her of the Wood from Less Than Three Press
via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.Rating:
3 Stars – not exactly setting my world on fire but I liked itSoundtrack: Solace
Artist: Tom Day
Album: Without Words(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40937955-her-of-the-wood)
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Sidekick Squad: Not Your Sidekick – C.B. Lee
Welcome to Andover… where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there’s the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious “M,” who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.
Jessica Tran was born into a family of supers, Mom, Dad and big sis are superheroes, lil bro is a super genius. She, however, is average. It hasn’t stopped her from trying her best and doing her research to find out that maybe, just maybe, she does have some kind of power. Jess reminds me of Rock Lee from Naruto who couldn’t do any fancy chakra manipulation like the other shinobi but was instead dubbed as a genius of hard work.
Blame it on my elementary days spent hoarding Marvel collectible cards but I have always fantasized about having superpowers. Telekinesis because I’m a lazy-ass shit. Teleportation or flight because I want to travel but I’m broke. Supercomputer brain because I suck big time at physics and I was, unfortunately, a physics major. Etc, etc. So, at first glance, C.B. Lee’s Sidekick Squad world is the kind of world I want to get stuck in. It seemed an exciting, ordered world where superheroes fight super villains and everybody cheers them on. All things in their right place until Jess becomes friends with M and Abby and she starts noticing and asking questions about the villains.
For me, villains are almost always more interesting than a goody-goody hero. For one, they are usually more intelligent, complex and nuanced. And as a lifetime of anime has taught me, villains are not always bad. They usually have a compelling reason to do what they do. Jess started to realize that there’s more to this heroes vs villain thing than their government has let on. And I started thinking I might be better off as an average citizen in Andover.
Jess has a crush on Abby, an elite student and varsity player in her school. I admit, I am neutral on the FF front, it doesn’t affect me the way MM couples do but C.B Lee did a great job creating the tension and describing the awe Jess felt towards Abby. There was mutual attraction between the two and it was cute how Abby, in the shadows, tries to encourage Jess to ask her out and how Jess is just a bundle of nerves when it comes to asking Abby out
Bells and Emma are Jess’ bestfriends. Bells is crushing on Emma but Emma is oblivious. Bells has some secrets of his own and I can’t wait to read his book. Would Emma finally notice?
Not Your Sidekick is a good stab at the heroes vs villains trope. C.B. Lee has created a world where, at first glance,
things seem to be clearly divided between good and evil. How Jess and her friends uncover some of the secrets and how the lines become blurred were pretty interesting but overall this book falls between like and love. This means I couldn’t really pinpoint what was wrong, maybe nothing really. It’s more like, it didn’t really wow me. I’d still recommend this books for the interesting premise, great characters and cute FF couple.
Rating:
3.5 Stars – that place between like and love
Soundtrack: Heroes & Martyrs
Artist: Bad Religion
Album: New Maps of Hell(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29904219-not-your-sidekick)
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Shotgun Bastards and Other Stories – Andrea Speed
A collection of tales filled with monsters, be they human or beast, ranging in setting from dystopia to pitch black noir and even general silliness. From the ludicrous to the frighteningly plausible; from deep space to after the end of the world. There are clumsy werewolves and bloody revenge, monster sleep overs and a dieting fad sure to kill your appetite.
Whether looking into the past or the future, you’re sure to find that stuff gets really weird.
Shotgun Bastards and Other Stories is a collection of flash fiction showcasing Andrea Speed’s fertile imagination. These stories range from death by crab invasion, random futuristic adverts, your average vampires and mages, and adventures in alternate dimensions. I love the stories! They were usually just a couple of pages long but most felt complete, some have high-impact and the rest showed good promise if turned into full-length books.
The collection is divided into 5 parts. The first part is the apocalypse section where various world’s end scenarios were speculated. This is my favorite part. The first story When the Rains Came reminded me of Hitchhiker’s Guide but instead of saying good bye and thanking us for all the fish, the dolphins participated in the wholesale slaughter of humanity along with the rest of ocean life. “Clean the oceans, humans” I think is the takeaway message here. It’s the End of the World as We Know It and I Don’t Give a Fuck stood out the most for me. Not only the title says it all and the MC was ace, the unnamed MC did the things I planned to do in case people were wiped out by a virus. Magic welders, aliens and vampires were also featured and there was another interesting scenario where the world falls apart because people were infected by ennui. Very plausible really. A couple of times the author was inspired by Oscar Wilde’s idea of the end of the world. Not the brightest view of humanity overall in this part of the collection.
The second part is full of absurd randomness from The International House of Cthulhu where you either eat the food or the food eats you, to Mr. Fix-it, a sweet human+bot slash where a human named Elon, with the help of a nice bot name Slom, tries to survive aliens taking over the space station. In between these, there is a cute love story, Cartoon Logic, where comic strip characters step out of a door to the real world and the fun, Mad Monster Sleep Over where monsters try to find answers to a fellow monster’s death. It is also apparent Andrea Speed does not like Christmas. I like the idea of turning the beloved Christmas symbols into terrifying beings because a monster Santa is really scary. Probably inspired by the French film or by Billy Idol, Eyes Without a Face is about pesky disembodied eyes infesting a house where a gay couple lives. Where these things come from nobody knows but yeah, that’s how random this is.
Part three is what I like to think of as the Tarantino section. Keyword: hard-boiled. Think Jackie Brown or Kill Bill. Women exacting revenge, slitting throats, firing shotguns. The title piece Shotgun Bastards features a woman shooting her way through a mob to rescue her captured twin brother who has vital information. She Broke Gods was about a woman on a mission to save all the girls trapped by a sex slave gang. She pretends to be a victim then proceeds to slaughter the gang. The two are the most action pack of the entire book. I would love to see these as movies.
Part four is more randomness, probably sketches and ideas and more monsters. Wolf & Fox is a zombie apocalypse scenario that left me wondering whether Wolf and Fox were humans or anthropomorphic animals (I wouldn’t be surprise if they were animals standing on two feet/paws). I was also shipping them but I guess it wasn’t that kind of story. They Fight Crime is a fantasy story vaguely inspired by Jack and the Beanstalk where magic-welders Coy and Danay fight skreaks with magic beans. What skreaks are, I don’t know. Spark Joy was about a women who was so meh about life but found a way to bring the spark back, literally. This is something most bored potatoes (me) can relate to minus the pyrokinetics. Noise is about that weird neighbor you never know would go berserk any minute so you have to treat nicely. Probably the weakest story of all.
Lastly, we have the sci-fi/fantasy part full of vampires, rebels and space-pirates. Past Prologue has a Ghost in the Shell feel to it where a woman with cybernetic body parts is hiding from the Imperator. This one has a nice twist in the end. I would like to see this as a full-length novel because the futuristic setting and the world are really interesting. Discount Skin Ticket and Seven Days of Fang are stories about darkest desires and the price people are willing to pay for them. The desires are the usual desires (immortality and some such) so I’m hoping someday we can have stories where the darkest desires involves something like secretly wanting to be Rainbow Brite. Soulmates and My Bloody Valentines are dark and compelling romance stories the author created for the Goodreads M/M Romance Group and plans to expand someday. I hope she does.
Shotgun Bastards and Other Stories is my first Andrea Speed book. I think it’s a good introduction to her work. The stories grab me from the start and majority of them worked.There is a streak of dark humor in some and others are just plain dark which I really liked. If you have a short attention span like me or want an in-between book for those 1000+ page door stoppers, this is a good book to dip into for some bite-size fun.
P.S.
I received a copy of Shotgun Bastards and Other Stories from Less Than Three Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bits
Soundtrack: Burnin’ Up
Artist: A Flock of Seagulls
Album: The Light at the End of the World(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40097180-shotgun-bastards-and-other-stories)
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REVIEW: Undertow by Jordan L. Hawk
Whyborne & Griffin: Undertow – Jordan L. Hawk
Note: This novella takes place at the same time as events in Fallow (Whyborne & Griffin 8).
Shy secretary Maggie Parkhurst knows there’s nothing special about her. She’s neither sorceress, nor fighter, nor scholar. What could she possibly have to offer Persephone, the chieftess of the inhuman ketoi—and the woman Maggie’s fallen in love with?
After Maggie’s friend Irene goes missing under mysterious circumstances, she has no choice but to turn to Persephone for help. When the trail leads to a shadowy acting troupe, they discover a plot that stretches much farther than a single vanished woman.
But when a dark truth is revealed, Maggie must choose between a man from her past…and the impossible yearnings of her heart.
While waiting for the next Whyborne & Griffin book to drop, I get my W&G fix and my first foray to FF with Undertow, a novella featuring Persephone and dear Miss Parkhust.
I usually found W&G books set in Widdershins to be slightly better than out of town adventures and this is no exception. Jordan L. Hawk skillfully interweave various threads and seamlessly connect this installment to the overarching plot. Granted you would notice the template and I am impatient for these masters to appear already but there’s always something exciting about each book.This is one of the things I liked best about the W&G books.
While only a side story, Persephone and Maggie’s adventure is just as dark and dangerous as any our main quartet, Whyborne, Griffin, Christine and Iskander, has come across with.
Let it be known to all WIddershins residents that any long lost relatives or childhood friends suddenly turning up is always, always bad news. This curse happened to Maggie too. Without revealing too much, there were murder, bloodshed and, of course, the Fideles, stirring up trouble and provoking slumbering gods like they always do. Persephone, Maggie, Mr. Quinn (always a delight!) and his pack of dictionary-welding librarians were there to save the day.
Also, Maggie and Persephone took their relationship to the next level (finally!). Persephone did some awe-inspiring magic and powered up (hell yeah!). I always get a thrill when the Whyborne twins do these mindblowing feats.
Maggie could be adorably clueless:
I wasn’t at all clear why Dr. Whyborne seemed to require a private detective to accompany him on all of his expeditions, but the two seemed to travel everywhere together. Ordinarily I would have expected a landlord and boarder to want some time apart, but they were utterly inseparable. Mr. Flaherty even attended the museum galas. And I couldn’t count how many times he’d turned up to share lunch, or else walk with Dr. Whyborne to dinner.
It must be nice to have such a close friend.But she’s brave where it counts. The story is told in her POV and we glimpse the somewhat ordinary side of Widdershins. It’s also endearing that Maggie admires Christine and considers her a kind of mentor. Christine’s well-remembered self-defense lessons and Griffin’s lock-picking tricks have came in useful.
I do wish we had Persephone’s POV. It would be interesting to see Widdershins from a ketoi perspective. I feel like her sense of humor is as wicked as her grin and I want to see what she thinks of her introverted brother (”Percival is stupid”, most likely). Persephone calls Maggie “cuttlefish”. She courts her with a squid. She never hesitates to save everyone. She is an heiress to one of the biggest fortunes of the country. She is a chieftain and a sorceress. She is BADASS.
Creepy Mr. Quinn has an important role and as bizarre as his pronouncements were, he is a staunch fanboy of Whyborne and what the twins stand for. Mr. Quinn and his librarians are always quick to rally and defend. I think it would be fun to live in WIddershins, be a Ladysmith librarian and fight insidious cults with a dictionary at night then spent the day wandering through the labyrinthine shelves of ancient tomes. Life goals.
Rating:
4.5 Stars – perfection is only half a step away
Soundtrack: Undertow
Artist: Tool
Album: Undertow(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33406791-undertow)
