Book Review: The Book of Blood and Shadow

I won this book in a twitter contest hosted by Random Buzzers (one of your standard, retweet this tweet and we'll choose winners from that pool) which was rather nice since I've read Robin Wasserman's Skinned trilogy and, since one of my big problems was that it went on too long, I was curious to see how she would do with a one book story instead. With that in mind, onto the review!

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

  I actually didn't have this cover on my copy, it was an ARC with a plain black cover with the title in a red script, and while this cover isn't exactly to my taste it's certainly a good and very interesting cover. I love the detail in her eye and it's rather eye-catching.

Summary: When Nora is assigned to translate some old letters instead of the rare book her classmates are working on she's initially rather unhappy, although any chance to be away from her parents who aren't stay together "for the sake of the children" but for the memory of her dead brother is welcomed. And then she discovers that while the book talks about a mysterious, mystical device called the Lumen Dei, her writer actually dealt with the machine and are much more valuable. So valuable in fact that centuries later there are still groups of people out there willing to do anything to get their hands on them and while some of them view Nora to just be in the way others want to capture her as well.

The Good: This is a very tightly plotted book and pulls off the remarkable task of making it not only believable that Nora is able to find and translate all of the letters, most of which have been hidden for at least four centuries, but also that the letters have remained hidden for so long. It's very hard to make that set-up look natural, and considering the story rests upon that it's critical to the story at large, and it's pulled off perfectly at here and never once did one of those revelations jolt me out of the story. And, despite my nitpicks later, the story felt well paced with no revelation coming too quickly or taking too long. Nora wasn't the most memorable lead I've seen but she was strong and well-fleshed out so I certainly liked her, I just don't know how much I'll remember about her (as opposed to the story itself) in a few years time.

The Bad: As I had been afraid, this book still felt too long by the end, my copy clocks in at 430 pages, but again I'm not really sure where to cut it down. It's both long and dense, I felt rather exhausted by the end of the story and feeling like I would have liked it to be a little shorter. Other than that there weren't many problems with it and certainly no major problems that stood out to me. It was a little exasperating at times that Nora had no idea she was about to be betrayed, which was clearly obvious to me as a reader, and likewise it was also frustrating to see that none of the characters seem to realize they were being manipulated at certain points, especially since none of them were portrayed as dumb. I felt like Adriane's characterization was a little flat compared to some of the other side characters but again that wasn't a major issue in the end.


I really liked this story a lot more than I was expecting to and I plan on buying a copy of the book for myself in the future (I'll donate the ARC to the free basket at my library's bookstore, since book has already been out for over six months I don't feel like that'll be a problem and since you can't sell an ARC there's not much else I can do with it). A very strong story and one of my favorite books of 2012 so far (mind you I haven't read many but that doesn't stop it from being a favorite within the category).   

Book Review: Wired (now titled Torn)

And here is the final installment in Robin Wasserman's trilogy, whew, only took me a month and a half to read and then review all of them which I suppose isn't too bad. So there's not much more to say at this point to introduce the book, onto the review!

Wired (now titled Torn) by Robin Wasserman

As before, this is the UK paperback cover, the kind I have, and again I prefer it to both the old US cover and the new set of covers as well. It's not the greatest cover, I just think that it's really hard to pull off a rainbow color scheme well and this cover isn't doing it, but the lighting on the old US covers bugs me and I feel like the new covers are too non-indicative of the story. 
 
Summary: Lia is back living at home as repayment to her father for the events in the last book and things continue to get more and more dangerous for mechs. Despite her and Biomax's best efforts to change the public's mind there is more and more violence against mechs but then the unthinkable happens, the mechs actually begin to die and Lia and Jude, with a few unlikely allies, are in for their most dangerous fight yet.

The Good: I was happily surprised to see a theory I had thought of reading the first book confirmed, slightly different but it did provide a bit more backstory to the series. I also liked how Lia's sister, Zo, got more character development since she was overdue for it and there have been hints for the past two books that she's more than she appears, the same goes for their mother and Lia's tune-up expert.  

The Bad: This book confirmed a nagging feeling I had had for the past two books, this really should have been one, huge, book instead of a trilogy. None of the books have the right balance of thinking and action and there are large parts where nothing happens. Turning this into one book possibly isn't the best solution, even paring down the books it would make for a 600-800 tome, but I feel like the pacing would have worked better and would've made for a more satisfying story. That aside, I should have been it coming but I disliked the ending (it's the exact same trope I disliked way back in Brain Jack) since I'm not fond of those kinds of tropes and it just makes me roll my eyes and drags me out of the story.

Bit of a short review but really that's it, I feel like the story had some good parts but that this story shouldn't have been a trilogy and that really hurt it pacing wise overall. Would I have liked it more as a single book? I think so, I'd still have problems with some of the subplots (I couldn't bring them up since they started getting more spoilery than I like to in reviews, not that I have any trouble with spoilers in the comments below) but it would avoid one problem I had with the series as a whole, characters appearing one book but not being important until later and feeling rather static until they became important.

Book Review: Crashed (now titled Shattered)

The next book in Wasserman's trilogy, I'm actually only 80 or so pages away from finishing the last book so that review should be up in two weeks as according to schedule, and there's not much more to say to introduce it. It's another book that I got from Wasserman herself with her knowing I was going to review it and it sounded like she thought my first review was a fair one (phew) so here's the next one!

Crashed by Robin Wasserman (now titled Shattered)

 Once again, this is the original US version, I have a copy of the British paperback (whose cover I like more this time around, neither of them are amazing but the tattoos on the American version just look so badly done, really needed a gradient and probably should've been put in overlay blending mode as well) and here is what the new American covers look like.

Summary: Lia Khan has now moved away from her home, unable to live comfortably with her family who only considers her a copy of the daughter they lost, and lives with other mechs, people whose brains have been downloaded into a robotic body (some willingly, most are the "survivors" of accidents and had the money to afford the process) in a remote mansion. While not much of note goes on in the mansion, other than all the relationship drama, there are big things going on in the world including what looks like a set-up to frame Lia and the other mechs for a heinous crime and more people pushing for the de-humanization of mechs.

The Good: I complained in the previous review that not much actually happened action wise, it was a lot more of characters trying to feel their way around and figure out where to go next, and thankfully the plot does progress here. I wasn’t happy with a lot of the progress but things were happening and you can see things being set up for the final volume as well. I was surprised at how well Lia’s romantic relationship went (it was obvious from the first chapter that it would happen but it occurred much more naturally than I was expecting) and I really hope it’s still there in the final book.  

The Bad: Those who read my other reviews know that I’m following an anime called Guilty Crown right now (technically I just dropped it but details) and I’m struck by the similarity between the character Gai there and the character Jude here. Both are leaders of resistance/outside groups of people who have a large group of followers who hang onto their every word, presumably because of their large amounts of charisma, but the main character is always wary of them. But what really struck me is that I’m in agreement with the main characters of both of these works because neither Gai nor Jude appear likable or charismatic in anyway so I, like Shuu and Lia, am completely confused as to just how this all works and I ended up sympathizing with Lia more because of it. This goes under the bad since I’m not sure if Jude was supposed to come off this way or if the writing just didn’t convey something it was supposed to*. Other than that, Lia has a tendency to go on for  paragraphs, if not pages, about why she doesn’t know things (the condition of living in the cities, recent history). The story never makes clear if these things are common knowledge or not, it does insinuate however that Lia really needs to brush up on a lot of areas, but what really annoyed me is just how long each defense of why she didn’t know any of these things took. Finally, this book unfortunately helps show why I really like books with older protagonists, teenagers, even teenagers without hormones running their brains, are often really dumb and simply aren’t creative enough with their plans for me^.

Reading so many of these books back to back makes me glad that I decided to write each of these reviews before I started the next book, I'd be much too muddled up otherwise. And like I said, almost done with the final book and then I get to dive right into my current to-read pile (minus a couple of books that I forgot to put in).

*pretty sure Gai in Guilty Crown wasn’t supposed to come off this way though. Actually, funny enough, Gai seems to be less crazy than Jude, and considering the (unitentional) crazy that is Guilty Crown I never expected to type that.

^for the record, there have been VERY few characters in fiction who have been creative enough for me, I can only think of one instance off the top of my head, but it does get frustrating to read about characters being convinced that there are only two solutions, the bad solution and the not-so-bad solution, when I can immediately think of a few more. Then again, see this comic. 

Book Review: Skinned (now renamed Frozen)

Back a few months ago an author I follow on livejournal had a post saying that, since her books were getting new titles and new covers next year, she had a lot of books with the old covers and title and would anyone like them. So I emailed her, said I ran a small blog that reviewed books, amongst other things (I swear, you can't even tell that I started this blog for books since everything I review is more popular) and I got copy of her trilogy in the mail right before my winter break started. I'll be posting reviews of them every other week to try and keep things interesting here.

Skinned by Robin Wasserman (now renamed Frozen)

Here is what the original US cover looked like which is pretty similar to the cover of the book I had, the British paperback version. And here is what the trilogy will look like with the new covers, I have to admit that I personally don't like how they've moved farther away from the more sci-fi looking covers but if the publishers think it will sell more this way then you have to do what you have to do.

Summary: Lia Kahn is dead, in the traditional sense anyway. Set 150-200 years in the future, science has progressed so far as to create artificial bodies that a chosen few have the resources to use, bodies where you download your brain into them and effectively become immortal. Such was the fate of Lia after a fatal accident and now she is dealing with her new life and how the whole world treats the new her.

The Good: I’ve seen a few similar premises before (such as in Ghost in the Shell or any story where a character becomes a cyborg after an accident) but I’ve never seen anything quite like this (I’m sure that someone must have thought of this before but I haven’t come across it yet). The idea of people “downloading” into a robot body when they die was presented very logically and it was especially interesting that these characters (“mechs”) didn’t have super abilities now but were still on the level of regular humans, although I’m sure that will change in the upcoming books.

The Bad: Honestly this whole book feels more like part one to a larger book and not like a complete book on it’s own. It feels like the early part in a story where a character is coming to grips with who they are, gets some advice, and then toughens up for the later parts, except that second part never comes to pass. Also, I don’t think it’s possible but Lia was almost made too sympathetic, by which I mean, plenty of characters tell her over and over that she’s selfish, self-absorbed, et cetera, yet I can’t see where they are coming from after all. Sometimes I’ll read from the POV of a character, only to discover from another POV that they act completely differently, but we didn’t have that other POV so it made me dislike all the other characters since they kept getting angry at her for no apparent reason.

I'm now done with the second book in the trilogy as well (hence the reason for spacing these reviews out, gotta find enough time to finish the last book, especially since I like to give myself a little bit of time between books in a series) so check back in a couple of weeks for the review for Crashed!