Smudge Girls

[smudgegirls]

YA Book Review: Royal Bastards

Royal Bastards: Sworn to No One by Andrew Shvarts

A band of misfits enmeshed to save the world is no new idea. But Shvarts’ group of royals designated to sit at the bastards’ table evokes such a strong desire to champion these unjustly labeled and judged kids that the reader is engaged and spurred on from the first chapter.

Tilla, the sixteen-year-old illegitimate daughter of Lord Kent, is more surprised than anyone is when the visiting princess decides to sit with the bastards at the feast in Her Majesty’s honor. Before Tilla knows it, she’s sneaking the princess through dusty tunnels in the middle of the night with the other bastards. This adventure is the princess’ attempt to become more wordly and intuned with her people. It achieves that tenfold when they witness a brutal scene of treachery and deceipt. Now, on the run for their lives, they must find a way to stop the rebellion that will overthrow the princess and make Lord Kent king. What’s worse is that Tilla must chose between the answer to her dreams—legitamacy and a title—or protection of the innocent villagers of the kingdom.

Royal Bastards has fresh humor and a fast pace. The tension cranks up with the turn of every page as the stakes get higher and the situations become direr. And even though there is a budding romance, I respect Shvarts’ decision to make the familial relationships the focus, using a half brother and sister’s love for each other as the cornerstone of the story. In that respect, I was disappointed that an intimate scene was included that detracted from the dignity of the story. Pulling back on that scene wouldn’t have left readers unsatisfied. However, I still give this book a top rating. I can’t wait to see what Andrew Shvarts writes next.  

https://goo.gl/images/zKdvEQ

[fishingboatproceeds]

In which John answers questions about the 200,000 autographs he is signing. You can preorder (probably! not definitely!) signed copies of my new book, Turtles All the Way Down, in the U.S. and Canada at THESE LINKS: Amazon Barnes & Noble Books-a-Million Hudson Booksellers IndieBound Powell’s Target

Thanks to everyone who has preordered the book already (signed or unsigned!) and for all your support related to it. This is definitely an intimidating experience, but also a very exciting one.

[smudgegirls]

YA Book Review: Anna Dressed in Blood

Armed with his heirloom sword, Theseus Cassio (Cas*) continues the family business of ghost hunting. He kills ghosts to prepare for destroying the monster of all ghosts—the one that took his father’s life. Cas decides that one more ghost should be all the preparation he needs to pursue his father’s killer-ghost. However, Anna Dressed in Blood turns out to be more than one more practice round. And while Cas is busy getting sprung over Anna, he goes from being the hunter to the prey.

Author Kendare Blake writes a spotless YA thriller with good pacing, realistic characters, and great thriller tension. The story lives up to it’s cool title. A must read that teaches you that falling in love is often inconvenient and distracting to the point of getting yourself killed.

*Other nickname possibilities: Seus, Ass (c’mon, you know it’s better than Theseus Cassio), The, Rob Lowe

[bookworm-on-rainy-days]

[smudgegirls]

The emotional roller coaster of a reader's life

[yaliteraturebookshelf]

Stop defining yourself by what you can’t do.

Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin (via yaliteraturebookshelf)

[smudgegirls]

Interview with a Writer: Dawn Patterson

Interview with a Writer: Dawn Patterson

View On WordPress

[smudgegirls]

[smudgegirls]

YA Book Review: THRONE OF GLASS

Seventeen-year-old assassin, Celaena Sardothien, enters a competition to earn her freedom from the salt mine slave camp. Pitted against other criminals, she is set up in a “Hunger Games” reminiscent battle. However, the lack of creative challenges, absence of a likeable protagonist, and the flitting focus of the challenges to the cushy palace life, leave this plotline lacking. Compound that with loose writing that lacks narrative focus and an unconvincing love story, and you’ve got quite a mess. Sometimes good books get overlooked, and sometimes bad books get over praised. That’s life. This is a DNF p. 133 with a 2 smudge rating.  

[smudgegirls]

Who did it better? Wen. Their powder volumizer gives more oomph with a pleasant smell. Big, Sexy Hair's version is a close second but smells like spit. 😬

[smudgegirls]

Gift for the YA reader

I am currently reading “THE REMNANT CHRONICLES” series by Mary E. Pearson. There are three books in this completed trilogy with the final one just published this year. It’s a fantastic historical fantasy with beautiful covers. Give these books to your YA reader for hours of bibliophilic fun during the long, cold winter days ahead.  

[smudgegirls]

YA Book Review: Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

If the town of Bone Gap penned a slogan, it could be “A small town serving extra helpings.” The “extra” element is experienced differently for brothers Sean and Finn. For Sean, after their mother’s abandonment, it’s the extra responsibility of raising his kid brother and deserting his own dreams to go to medical school. For Finn, the “extra” is hearing peculiar voices in the cornfields and receiving a magical horse. But when their renter, Roza, goes missing, Bone Gap’s peculiarities turn ominous. Who has taken the town’s beloved Roza and why is no one looking for her? An eclectic cast of characters ushers us through this magical mystery looking to find themselves in the search-less search for Roza.

While some describe Bone Gap as quirky or unconventional, I call it bungled. [Disclaimer: I abandoned the book on page 119.] This critically-acclaimed novel fails for multiple reasons. Right up front, our seventeen-year-old protagonist, Finn, lacks testosterone, sex appeal, and aggression (even passive aggression) that rears itself in a teen male, especially one in a young adult book. I can appreciate a different type of YA guy, but Finn was difficult to connect with. A first person POV would have brought him into a more empathetic and relatable light. .

Also, the small town setting became irritating. Granted, I’m not a fan of small town settings because they tend to be distracting with mawkish oddities mixed in with clichés. This proved true in “Bone Gap.”

Roza provided a much-needed rescue of this novel. {Girl power!} Her POV was better developed than Finn’s, and I loved her ethnic flare. Roza’s storyline alone could have been a wonderful story: a Polish immigrant gets abducted by an evil sorcerer set on making her his bride. (I’m not sure if the kidnapper turned out to be a sorcerer since I never got that far, but it looked like that was where we were headed.) Her story appeared promising as it began with a “normal” abduction, but then it peppered in supernatural elements that didn’t seem organic to the story.

And herein lies the overarching issue with Bone Gap. The novel has a hodgepodge of flavors that overpower a sensible reader. Give me an abducted Polish immigrant, give me a quirky small town boy trying to find himself after his mom’s abandonment, give me an evil sorcerer looking for love—but don’t give it to me all in one book! Genres and styles can overlap and toy with limits, but there needs to be a cohesive essence that threads it together. Without that, the reader is distanced and the novel’s world is simply not accessible. So, sorry guys, I couldn’t buy into this one.

[wordsnquotes]

Girls like her were born in a storm. They have lightning in their souls. Thunder in their hearts. And chaos in their bones.

Nikita Gill (via wordsnquotes)

[smudgegirls]

YA Book Review: Infinite in Between by Carolyn Mackler

At freshmen orientation, five high schoolers are thrown together to complete a bonding activity. Each writes a letter to his or her future self about their expectations and hopes of high school. They hide the letters and agree to meet again on graduation day to read the letters. 

This book has an intriguing setup with an awesome first page. (I love great first pages!) However, the horrors promised on the first page fall flat when the writer jukes us with a couple foreshadowed events that pass by the protagonists and, instead, happen to minor characters. Playing the reader is tricky business--you have to get it right or the reader feels deceived.

But that’s not the death sentence. The reason this book struggles is there is too much. There are too many POVs (5) with too much time covered (4 years). With every leap, I leap out of the story. 

In addition, this is 2015 YA. I expect something a little edgier from my novels. While the overarching plot is unique, the voices and scenes remind me of YA novels from the 1980s. It’s not bad, just not as fresh as I would like.

Infinite in Between is an easy “beach read.” But if you are looking for something grittier this summer, this one will disappoint.   

[smudgegirls]

YA Book Review: Riders by Veronica Rossi

After witnessing his dad’s death, Gideon scraps his plans to play baseball in college and instead joins the Army Rangers training program. Exactly one year from the day his dad died, Gideon’s parachute fails to open and he plummets to his own death—only to come back to life. When he regains consciousness in the hospital, an odd metal bracelet is bound to his wrist. And that’s not the only strange thing. Just as he’s discovering some new, unique abilities, a girl named Daryn enters his life and tells him he’s one of the four horsemen from Revelations. So begins an epic adventure to locate the other horsemen, safeguard a powerful relic from some demons, and win Daryn’s affections. However, this eclectic, road-tripping posse lacks skill, cohesion, and, most importantly, information. They depend on Daryn’s erratic, mental “downloads” to provide them with time-sensitive directives. Gideon wonders how much Daryn really knows and if he can trust her. Will the four horsemen and their leader get it together in time to save humanity from Hell’s fugitive demons?

A fan of Rossi’s Under the Never Sky series, I had high hopes for her new novel. However, Riders falls short. Gideon’s personality is flat with many missed opportunities for apocalyptic and superhero humor. Also, his relationship with Daryn has too little push and too little pull. Above all, this book is not apocalyptic in the least, creating a plot failure by avoiding the elements that make Revelations so intriguing. Nonetheless, all the mysteries and action scenes create a suspenseful, fast-paced read. With this less romance and more action approach, I get the impression Rossi was trying to make this novel appeal to both sexes. Unfortunately, the voice lacks the testosterone to attract high school guys and lacks the sentiments to appeal to high school girls. If you are looking for a fast, easy read that could be appealing to middle school boys, Riders may work for you. But if you are looking for something similar to Under the Never Sky, you will be disappointed.  

[rosebudsandcoffee-deactivated20]

My flowers matched perfectly with this book & the picture came out so beautiful!!! I just bought the shatter me series, should I read it or Red Queen first?

[yourenot-dreaming-deactivated20]

Disclaimer ☺️💖

[smudgegirls]

For the YA reader that has everything...

YA anthologies make a great Christmas gift. Check out these: Stacked Get Genrefied: Short Stories. (In the article, scroll down to the book pics.)