Review: Calamity by Constance Fay

Calamity

Constance Fay

(Uncharted Hearts #1)

Publication Date: November 14, 2023

Paperback, 320 pages, Bramble

Genres: Adult, Sci-Fi, Romance

Goodreads

Bramble's inaugural debut is equal parts steamy interstellar romance and sci-fi adventure, perfect for fans of Firefly and Ilona Andrews.

 

She’s got a ramshackle spaceship, a misfit crew, and a big problem with its sexy newest member…

 

Temperance Reed, banished from the wealthy and dangerous Fifteen Families, just wants to keep her crew together after their feckless captain ran off with the intern. But she’s drowning in debt and revolutionary new engine technology is about to make her beloved ship obsolete.

 

Enter Arcadio Escajeda. Second child of the terrifying Escajeda Family, he’s the thorn in Temper’s side as they’re sent off on a scouting mission on the backwater desert planet of Herschel 2. They throw sparks every time they meet but Temper’s suspicions of his ulterior motives only serve to fuel the flames between them.

 

Despite volcanic eruptions, secret cultists, and deadly galactic fighters, the greatest threat on this mission may be to Temper’s heart.

My Review

Constance Fay's Calamity is a good book for fans of Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman's Starbound trilogy as well as some of the cheesier Sy-Fy space television shows that are addicting but ridiculous at the same time. Unfortunately, Calamity for me was a bit of a miss, but I could see some people having fun with it, especially for readers who like lighter romances with a decent amount of worldbuilding.

So the main character, Temperance Reed, has been kicked out of her rich family and is now the captain of a ship. Her and her crew take on an odd job involving another rich family, and one of the sons of said family, Arcadio, tags along for the trip. Temperance's personality wasn't super mature. Her inner dialogue and even conversations with other characters just weren't funny. The banter was really juvenile, in my opinion. And I feel like that's what the story and the romance was leaning on: being a light-hearted, funny, space romance. Honestly, it was just kind of weird and awkward. Arcadio also never really got a chance to move beyond "hot solder" designation. The supposedly "romantic" and "sexy" scenes did not hit.

The action for this story was decent. The conflict between the main characters and the cult group and another evil rich family was intriguing, but it didn't make up for the lackluster chemistry between the two leads. There was no real tension between the two; it was a bit insta-lovey/lusty. With some cheesiness thrown in. Some of the descriptions towards the end were also a little hard to follow. The writing got a little clunky.

Overall, Calamity didn't hit like I thought it would. I expected worldbuilding on the scale of The Expanse with a romance story similar to ACOTAR or FBAA, as this is published by a sci-fi/fantasy romance imprint. I think my expectations were too high. However, don't let that stop you from reading it. It could be a nice palette cleanser between heavier romantasy stories.

*Note: I received a copy of this book to review from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way affected my opinion/review.

Review: Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot

Enchanted to Meet You

Meg Cabot

(Witches of West Harbor #1)

Publication Date: September 5, 2023

Paperback, 368 pages, Avon

Genres: Adult, Paranormal Romance

Goodreads

A witchy rom-com from New York Times bestseller Meg Cabot about a plus size witch who must team up with a handsome stranger to help protect her village from an otherworldly force—but will she be able to protect her heart?

 

It’s Magic When You Meet Your Match In her teenage years, lovelorn Jessica Gold cast a spell that went disastrously wrong, and brought her all the wrong kind of attention—as well as a lifetime ban from the World Council of Witches.

 

So no one is more surprised than Jess when, fifteen years later, tall, handsome WCW member Derrick Winters shows up in her quaint little village of West Harbor and claims that Jess is the Chosen One.

 

She’s the Chosen One Not chosen by West Harbor’s snobby elite to style them for the town’s tricentennial ball—though Jess owns the chicest clothing boutique in town. And not chosen finally to be on the WCW, either—not that Jess would have said yes, anyway, since she’s done with any organization that tries to dictate what makes a “true” witch. No, Jess has been chosen to help save West Harbor itself...

 

As Summer Ends, Her Power Grows But just when Jess is beginning to think that she and Derrick might have a certain magic of their own—and not of the supernatural variety—Jess learns he may not be who she thought he was. And suddenly Jess finds herself having to trust Derrick and work with him to combat the sinister force battling to bring down West Harbor, or use her gift as she always to keep herself, and her heart, safe. Can she work her magic in time?

My Review

Another witchy, paranormal book from Meg Cabot. This one is likely for fans of Erin Sterling's The Ex Hex or Sungu Mandanna's The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.

While I am a huge fan of Meg Cabot's YA paranormal books, like the Mediator series, 1-800-Where-R-You books, and Jinx, this new adult book, Enchanted to Meet You, didn't quite hit the same for multiple reasons, though I think some people will still enjoy the story. I simply had some issues with it.

One of the smaller nitpicks I had is the main character's name. Why did Meg give Jessica the same name as Jessica from the 1-800 series? I find that a little odd. But that isn't really a big deal. The biggest and most obvious problem is one that I feel like many people will have an issue with: the love spell. 

 So the main character, Jessica, is a witch, and she uses a love spell on a boy in high school. This is shown through flashback chapters. The relationship between the boy and Jessica does get physical at some points; therefore, a big ick factor comes to play. I'm surprised Meg would write a main character who would do something like that. Suze and the other Jess would never! I had to knock two stars off for that early on, and I almost DNF-ed the entire book, but I thought I'd continue it because it's a quick read and I'm doing it for review purposes. Now, about 33% through the story, it's shown that Jessica wasn't as awful as previously thought. BUT, she still did the love spell with the intention to make a guy love her AND thought it had worked. So, still icky. Meg really should've made the full situation clearer up front. Yes, doing so would take away from a small bit of tension, but I think she's possibly going to lose some readers because of that plotline and the way it's laid out in the beginning.

Once that major revelation came to light, I actually enjoyed the book more. It started being a fun, paranormal rom-com instead of a lighter episode of Law & Order: SVU. Though Jessica isn't the most unique character, she's still charming and witty. And Derrick is the mysterious male lead with pretty crazy secrets. I honestly wasn't a fan of his big secret, however. It threw off the whole cozy, small-town vibe of the story and made it into something way bigger in scale. That was a bummer, in my opinion .

Overall, this story was kind of a mess. It was quick and easy to read once I got into it, but the main red flag of the book took a lot of enjoyment out of it and made it a chore to get through when I first started reading. The middle was a good time, but things just kind of fell off towards the very end. It was very anticlimactic. I guess I'm disappointed in this one.

*Note: I received a copy of this book to review from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way affected my opinion/review.

Review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

The Star-Touched Queen

Roshani Chokshi

(The Star-Touched Queen #1)

Publication Date: April 16, 2016

Hardcover, 576 pages, St. Martin’s Griffin

Genres: YA, Fantasy

Goodreads

Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you’re only seventeen?

Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…

But Akaran has its own secrets—thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most…including herself.

My Review

The beginning of The Star-Touched Queen makes it seem like this will be a tale similar to The Wrath and the Dawn or Tasha Suri’s Empire of Sand. But it very much isn’t. Honestly, this story has a Beauty and the Beast vibe to it, as well as the Hindu mythology aspects. There are also some Greek myth comparisons, if you’re into that kind of thing—though I don’t want to give too much away by explaining which myth.

Honestly, I was disappointed in this one. The story went in a weird direction around page 80. I thought about DNF-ing there, but I kept going. A fun twist managed to recapture my interest, only for the story to take another weird turn. The Star-Touched Queen basically flip-flops between being a grounded and sort-of-realistic-fantasy story, to being some sort of fever dream. There’s even a talking demon horse. (I really don’t like talking animals in books unless they’re done super well.) In my opinion, the good parts of the story were the Bharata scenes and the Akaran twist, while the bad was everything in between.

Unfortunately, none of the characters were interesting. The plot is what made Maya and Amar even remotely intriguing. They had almost no personality otherwise. At least Maya loves her little sister and has a bad horoscope; Amar just loves Maya. And that’s all we really know about him outside of his role. Around halfway through the book, I realized I simply didn’t care what happened to either of them. That’s rare for me. Even when I don’t like a book, I typically care about the characters a little bit.

I will say that Chokshi has an ability to write beautiful sentences. It was a very lyrical book. However, this writing style got annoying at times. It was almost too lyrical and metaphorical. To the point I wanted to shake the book and yell at it: “What does that even mean?!” Despite my frustrations, I did tab some lines. If you love romantic language, you might want to read this one for the quotes alone.

When I first finished this story, I thought I might pick up the sequel. Book two follows characters who actually seem interesting—they were all more grounded and realistic than Maya and Amar—but as time passes, I realize I’m just not invested in Chokshi’s world. It’s simply a story that wasn’t meant for me and my tastes.

*Note: I received a copy of this book as a gift. This in no way affected my opinion/review.

Review: I Hate Everyone But You

I Hate Everyone But You

Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin

Publication Date: September 5, 2017

Hardcover, 352 pages, Wednesday Books

Genres: YA, Contemporary, LGBTQ+

B&N | Book Depository | Amazon | Goodreads

Now a New York Times Bestseller!

Dear Best Friend,

I can already tell that I will hate everyone but you.

Sincerely,

Ava Helmer

(that brunette who won’t leave you alone)

We're still in the same room, you weirdo.

Stop crying.

G

So begins a series of texts and emails sent between two best friends, Ava and Gen, as they head off to their first semesters of college on opposite sides of the country. From first loves to weird roommates, heartbreak, self-discovery, coming out and mental health, the two best friends will document every moment to each other. But as each changes and grows into her new life, will their friendship be able to survive the distance?

My Review

So this book isn’t written in a typical narrative format. It’s written in email and text message form as a conversation between two main characters: Ava and Gen. Normally, I would enjoy such a fun storytelling method, but with this book, I just didn’t…

Before I really get into this review, I have to mention that I didn’t know this book even existed until a couple of months ago. I also know nothing about the authors, who are apparently popular YouTube stars. And, while I don’t think Ava and Gen are supposed to completely represent the authors’ personalities, I think they did for the most part.

Ava has social anxiety and mental health issues, while Gen is dealing with coming out and exploring her sexuality. Both topics are important, but the format this was told in made it super obvious that the authors just randomly texted/emailed back and forth to reply to the writing of the previous author. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that it was obvious Gaby was just trying to one-up Allison’s writing with a more shocking situation to put her character in and vice versa.

Also, the storytelling of this book was rather dull. I wasn’t invested in any of the characters or their problems. I think using a different narrative format would have helped. However, one character really took advantage of the other, and I just wasn’t having it. The other character wouldn’t ever stick up for herself. EVER! And the situations they both put themselves in were waaaaay too obvious and cliché. They’re just not very relatable characters, in my personal opinion.

All in all, this book just wasn’t for me. There’s a lot of important issues discussed in I Hate Everyone But You that could have been dealt with in a more impactful way, especially considering this is a YA contemporary. Yet, the entire story just comes across as fluff. I would say, if you want to read this book, don’t go into it with super high expectations.

*Note: I was gifted an ARC of this book. This in no way affected my opinion/review.

Review: Avenged by Amy Tintera

Avenged

Amy Tintera

(Ruined #2)

Publication Date: May 2, 2017

Hardcover, 416 pages, HarperTeen

Genres: YA, Fantasy

B&N | Book Depository | Amazon | Goodreads

A war that will fuel her. A bond that will destroy her.

Emelina Flores has come home to Ruina. After rescuing her sister, Olivia, from imprisonment in rival kingdom Lera, Em and Olivia together vow to rebuild Ruina to its former glory.

But just because Em and Olivia are out of Lera doesn’t mean they are safe. Their actions over the past year have had consequences, and they are now targets of retaliation. Olivia will destroy everyone who acts against Ruina. Em isn’t as sure.

Ever since Em posed as Prince Casimir’s betrothed in Lera, she’s started to see another side to this war. Lera may have destroyed the Ruined for decades, but Em knows that Cas is different. And now that he’s taken the throne, Em believes a truce is within reach. But Olivia suspects that Em’s romantic feelings for Cas are just coloring her judgement.

Em is determined to bring peace to her home. But when winning the war could mean betraying her family, she faces an impossible choice between loyalty and love. Em must stay one step ahead of her enemies—and her blood—before she’s the next victim in this battle for sovereignty.

My Review

I’m not sure what to say about this book. I loved Ruined. Em was headstrong and the plot of the book was a fast-paced revenge story. The sequel just didn’t seem to have that same dedicated narrative.

Avenged starts off soon after the first book ends. Em and Olivia are taking the Ruined back home, while Cas is dealing with his home being taken away from him. However, there just wasn’t a solid arc to keep everything rolling like there was in book one. There were some minor squabbles and some new characters introduced, but otherwise, there’s not much going on.

The characters also fell a little short for me. Em, as I mentioned, was a pretty strong female lead in book one, but in book two, she becomes wishy-washy. It’s like she lost her own personality. It didn’t help that Cas managed to become an unlikable and weak character between books as well. Their individual downward spirals made their romantic relationship seem anticlimactic. By the time I’d read the first third of the book, I realized I wasn’t even invested in their relationship anymore.

The same can be said of the main characters’ relationships with the side characters. Olivia was too intense, so her relationship with Em was very one-sided. While all of Cas’s friends and followers seemed very one-dimensional. The only side character storyline I was interested in was Aren’s, simply because he had character growth.

One last thing that I have to talk about is the dialogue. It was so awkward. Everyone talked as if they lived in the modern age but were transported to a fantasy world. It kept throwing me out of the moment.

All in all, I was hoping for more with this sequel. The dueling-royal-families trope always makes me happy, but this one just had no solid direction. I might still read the third book, but I just don’t know for sure at this point…

*Note: I purchased a copy of this book for myself. This in no way affected my opinion/review.

Review: Lifeblood by Gena Showalter

Lifeblood

Gena Showalter

(Everlife #2)

Publication Date: February 28, 2017

Hardcover, 443 pages, Harlequin Teen

Genres: YA, Paranormal

Book Depository | Amazon | Goodreads

My Firstlife is over, but my Everlife is only now beginning.

With her last living breath, Tenley "Ten" Lockwood made her choice and picked her realm in the Everlife. Now, as the war between Troika and Myriad rages, she must face the consequences.

Because Ten possesses a rare supernatural ability to absorb and share light, the Powers That Be have the highest expectations for her future—and the enemy wants her neutralized. Fighting to save her Secondlife, she must learn about her realm from the ground up while launching her first mission: convincing a select group of humans to join her side before they die. No pressure, right?

But Ten's competition is Killian, the boy she can't forget—the one who gave up everything for her happiness. He has only one shot at redemption: beating Ten at a game she's never even played. As their throw-downs heat up, so do their undeniable feelings, and soon, Ten will have to make another choice. Love…or victory.

My Review

Firstlife was a fun read, if a bit odd and scattered. There was a spunky heroine, a couple of hunky guys, and a unique paranormal-esque world to keep my attention. While most of those things continued on in Lifeblood, they seemed to have lost momentum since book one.

Ten is still spunky, which is fine. She has some sass to her, but that sass seemed to get in the way of actually getting to know her as a person. She’s too obsessed with numbers and being all goody two-shoes for readers to even connect with her. Don’t get me wrong, her obsession with numbers is a great quality, but she doesn’t have any realness to her other than that oftentimes distracting characteristic. She doesn’t even spend enough time with her family in book two for readers to get a sense of how she would interact with them.

Part of the reason it’s hard to get to know Ten is how fast-paced the book was. A lot of things needed to be slowed down for not only character development, but also world and relationship development. It was difficult to get to know other characters and to even care about them when something bad would happen to them. It was also hard to understand the limitations of the Troikan and Myridian powers in this sequel. I was constantly asking myself questions: Why can Ten do this? Why couldn’t she do that earlier? Why can this person do that? How does this thing connect to that other magical thing from before? Why is this character acting like Ten’s servant? Why does Killian/Asher/Deacon/anybody even like Ten? Like I said, I was confused.

Part of that confusion may have been my fault. I didn’t remember a whole lot from Firstlife. And, while I believe there is a glossary at the beginning of the book that outlines some of the terms in the Myridian and Troikan realms, reading Lifeblood in ebook form and trying to flip back and forth isn’t an easy feat.

All in all, I do have to hand it to Gena for trying to build a unique world in a time period where the same ol’ same ol’ fantasy and paranormal books are all the craze. I just wish she’d taken the time to really build a world where the rules and restrictions are clearly set out for readers. And, while I’m a little let down by this series, enough to where I’m not sure if I’ll pick up book three, I definitely won’t be giving up on Gena’s future non-Everlife books anytime soon.

*Note: I received a copy of this book to review from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way affected my opinion/review.

Review: Sever by Lauren DeStefano

Sever

Lauren DeStefano

(The Chemical Garden #3)

Publication Date: February 12, 2013

Hardcover, 371 pages, Simon & Schuster

Genres: YA, Dystopian

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads

Time is running out for Rhine in this conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Chemical Garden Trilogy.

With the clock ticking until the virus takes its toll, Rhine is desperate for answers. After enduring Vaughn’s worst, Rhine finds an unlikely ally in his brother, an eccentric inventor named Reed. She takes refuge in his dilapidated house, though the people she left behind refuse to stay in the past. While Gabriel haunts Rhine’s memories, Cecily is determined to be at Rhine’s side, even if Linden’s feelings are still caught between them.

Meanwhile, Rowan’s growing involvement in an underground resistance compels Rhine to reach him before he does something that cannot be undone. But what she discovers along the way has alarming implications for her future—and about the past her parents never had the chance to explain.

In this breathtaking conclusion to Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, everything Rhine knows to be true will be irrevocably shattered.

My Review

Rhine is in a bad place… again. And I don’t really understand why.

So this book starts out where the second one left off and (slowly) moves on from there. Rhine and her “husband” and sister-wife move in with Linden’s uncle in order to get away from Creeper McCreeperson (aka Vaughn). The whole time Rhine is saying that she wants to find her brother and her friend Gabriel, but she never does anything about it. Never! She just lets everybody push her around and it got soooo annoying.

Like Rhine, all of the characters got on my nerves. I found absolutely zilch of them relatable, empathy-worthy, likable, etc. Even Cecily and her kid’s relationship was fantastically annoying! Rowan, Rhine’s brother, was gullible and oblivious. Linden was a wimp. Rhine was a pushover. The only character I can say that I in any way liked was Linden’s uncle, but he didn’t even really do anything throughout the book.

The plot of the story was pretty much nonexistent. For over half of the book the gang’s just sitting around when Rhine should have been out there looking for her brother. Oh, and don’t even get me started on her disturbing relationship with her brother. JUST TALK TO HIM, RHINE! Good golly! If you would just communicate, then maybe so many bad things wouldn’t happen!

Also, whenever the characters actually managed to do something—and I am using the word “do” loosely in this case—everything just seems to magically fall into place: “Oh, you need to find your brother? Well, let’s just listen to the old radio and… Oh, what do you know?”

The only positive I can come up with in this book is something that happened towards the very end. I thought that scene really gave some power back to one of the characters, but it was so abrupt I couldn’t even digest the monumental scene properly.

All in all, I don’t know what happened to this trilogy. I thought the first book was a beautifully written, disturbing view of a seriously messed up future society, but something went incredibly wrong with the last two books. So if you’re looking for a young adult dystopian series to get you through your Katniss withdrawals, I’d say look far, far elsewhere.

*Note: I purchased this book myself.

Review: Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Bad

Sally Green

(The Half Bad Trilogy #1)

Publication Date: March 4, 2014

Hardcover, 394 pages, Viking Books

Genres: YA, Paranormal

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads

Wanted by no one.

Hunted by everyone.

Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world's most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan's only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it's too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?

Half Bad is an international sensation and the start of a brilliant trilogy: a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive.

My Review

The premise of this book sounds fantastic! Good witches vs. bad witches, dark magic vs. light magic, and a boy who’s stuck in the middle. Unfortunately, the concept fell a little flat in the actual writing.

We start out in second-person point of view. I don’t like second-person point of view. I don’t want to feel like I’m getting the crap beat out of me or that I’m stuck in a cage outside. Now my characters can feel this—and of course I’ll feel empathetic towards them—but I read books to get away from my life and my own problems, not to add even worse problems to my head that seriously mess with my mind. Thankfully though, the book switched to first person pretty early in. Then somehow we go from experiencing Nathan’s situation being abused by his captor, to getting the backstory of why he was there in the first place.

This was a very odd way of telling the story, simply because a lot of the scenes were told from his childhood perspective and those scenes ended up taking up almost half of the book, thus there was very little actually happening in the story that furthered the plotline that was mentioned in the first few chapters, the ones that were in second person pov.

This writing style was also rather confusing. At times it was hard to tell exactly what age Nathan was and where he was in time. At one point I thought he was about 14 or so, but he was only 10. That really needs some clarification.

I’ve heard people say this is a character-driven book. I totally disagree. While it is true that we spend a lot of time in Nathan’s head, I just didn’t feel that Nathan developed as a character. I also never felt connected to him at all. Sure, like I mentioned earlier, I empathized with his situation, but I didn’t enjoy his character. And because we’re stuck in Nathan’s head so much, we don’t get a lot of character development for the rest of the characters either.

The plot of the story was just boring. There were pages upon pages where nothing significant would happen, then, when something would happen, it wasn’t all that exciting. I also had to reread some parts simply to figure out what exactly was going on.

Now, the major reason I read this story, besides the fact that it’s a paranormal book and those are my favorite kind, was because I heard there was an LGBT element. Paranormal books with good LGBT plots are rare. (Okay, so they might not be as rare as I make them out to be, I’m just a picky reader.) So I was waiting…and waiting…and waiting for this male love-interest to show up. And when he finally did, I was underwhelmed. He made his appearance in the last 20% of the book and he was a not very well drawn out character. Boo.

All in all, if you’re looking for a good paranormal book, I’d suggest looking elsewhere. This book may have an interesting synopsis, but it just didn’t work well in the actual story.

*Note: I purchased a copy of this book for myself.

P.S. I’m trying out a new font style (Arial instead of TNR, because it’s better for online reading) so tell me if you like it or not. Thanks!