Review: The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant

Title: The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant

Series: Fred, the Vampire Accountant #1

Author: Drew Hayes

Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, body horror, blood, gore (mild), secondhand embarrassment, fatphobia

Back Cover:

Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one. Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort.

One fateful night – different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful – Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos that is the parahuman world, a world with chipper zombies, truck driver wereponies, maniacal necromancers, ancient dragons, and now one undead accountant trying his best to “survive.” Because even after it’s over, life can still be a downright bloody mess.

Review:

I picked this up mainly because of the author. The idea sounded okay, but I was really looking for my NPCs fix. I think that led me to have higher expectations than the book really deserved.

The writing here was solidly mediocre, which I expected. Like the Spells, Swords, & Stealth series, it wasn’t glaringly awful but it definitely wouldn’t be winning any awards. It did have some genuinely funny moments (although fewer than I’d hoped), but it also had a fair bit of secondhand embarrassment, which I hate.

Also, this book had no plot. I sometimes say a book had “no real plot” as a way of criticizing a weak, meandering, or unfocused plot, but in this case I’m being literal. There was zero overarching plot. It was more like a series of vignettes about the same characters combined into one volume. Said vignettes include:

• Fred goes to his high school reunion
• Fred and his girlfriend end up in a fantasy LARPing session on their way to the movies
• Fred and his girlfriend go to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving
• Fred and his friends track down a friend-of-a-friend’s missing mentor
• Fred and his friends attempt to rescue Fred’s kidnapped girlfriend

Admittedly, there were some supernatural shenanigans that made said vignettes slightly more interesting than they sound on the surface. Fred ends up in a legit jousting match in Vegas, the LARPing session is a little less imaginary than initially anticipated, and the story of Fred’s kidnapped girlfriend went in an interesting generational-trauma-allegory-with-body-horror direction that I did like. (However, not all of them hit the mark. The resolution to the case of the missing mentor especially was extremely anticlimactic and felt like a let-down overall.) But besides characters, there was nothing that connected the stories. Unless you count being a vampire who is also an accountant, which is a concept and not actually a plot.

It did get a little annoying that everyone seemed to know things about the world of supernatural creatures and just … nobody would think to tell Fred about it. He ended up making stupid decisions and getting embarrassed just because he lacked the knowledge about how the world worked. It’s a standard “the paranormal creatures live among us” Urban Fantasy-style world, but with some vaguely interesting details. My favorite part is that in this world, vampires are perfectly normal, but accountants are rare and interesting.

This book was occasionally witty and funny, and I’ll admit, the idea of a guy waking up a vampire and just going back to his accounting job was amusing. Objectively it wasn’t spectacular, or even all that great. It had some pretty big problems in my mind. All the same, it was fairly fun and entertaining enough to finish. I don’t plan to read the rest, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. If nothing else, they are light, fun, fairly silly reads, and sometimes you just need something like that.

The Fred, the Vampire Accountant series:

1. The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant
2. Undeath and Taxes
3. Bloody Acquisitions
4. The Fangs of Freelance
5. Deadly Assessments
6. Undeading Bells
7. Out of House and Home

Review: Changeless

I do wish they would put a fat model on the cover, because it’s stressed that Alexia is in no way thin.

Title: Changeless

Series: Parisol Protectorate #2

Author: Gail Carriger

Genre: Paranormal/Mystery

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood (extreme), ghosts, body horror, sexual content, racism, fatphobia, body shaming, vomit (mention)

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, and reading past this point will expose you to spoilers of book one, Soulless. Proceed at your own risk.

Back Cover:

Alexia Maccon, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears; leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria.

But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. So even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can. She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.

Review:

In case you misunderstood the back cover as badly as me, Lord Maccon does not poof into vanishment – he just leaves abruptly, busy dealing with a lot of important nonsense and feeling far too busy to tell his dear wife about it. Alexia is not, in fact, hunting a magically vanished husband in this book. She’s hunting the answer to a completely different mystery, and discovering her husband in Scotland is not her main purpose for going there.

Since Alexia and Lord Maccon are already married, this book relies more on the paranormal and mystery aspects than the romance (although there are plenty of sexual moments included). Personally, I enjoyed that quite a lot. This book has the rest of the London werewolf pack returning from war with a brief but delightful moment of don’t-you-know-who-I-am, traveling to Scotland to meet the werewolf pack there and finding out why Lord Maccon left them twenty years ago, some new fun steampunkesque technology, and a lot more information about how werewolves, ghosts, and preternaturals work.

The characters were just as delightful as in Soulless. Alexia was her same adventurous tact-be-damned self, her friend Ivy still had her dramatics and horrible hats, Lord Maccon was still … well, Lord Maccon, gruff werewolf and unintentional fashion disaster. There was also the introduction of Madame Lefoux, a French inventor, and Alexia’s maid Angelique, who received only a brief mention in book one. There is also Sidheag the Alpha female of the Scotland pack, who I’m 99% sure is Sidheag from the Finishing School books.

I very much enjoyed the mystery and learning more about the supernatural elements of this world. But I’m not sure I’m going to read book three. Mainly because of the ending. The mystery is solved, the person(s) responsible are dealt with, and then in the last few pages there is yet another twist that leaves Alexia in a distinctly not-very-good position. I am absolutely sure it gets better before the end of book three, because Alexia is not the kind of person who lets things like this keep her down, but I actually find myself fond of Alexia and don’t want to read about her in a terrible situation with few allies. I may come back to it eventually, because at least books four and five seem to have positive things happen and I do want to see more of Alexia, but right now I care about her too much to want to jump right into reading about bad things happening to her.

The Parisol Protectorate series:

1. Soulless
2. Changeless
3. Blameless
4. Heartless
5. Timeless

Review: Soulless

Title: Soulless

Series: Parisol Protectorate #1

Author: Gail Carriger

Genre: Paranormal/Romance

Trigger Warnings: Body horror, blood, kidnapping, confinement/imprisonment, medical procedures, torture, heterosexual sexual content, racism/colorism, body shaming, death

Back Cover:

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations.

First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire–and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

Review:

I thought this was more steampunk than paranormal romance going in, since I read Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series set in the same world and it was very steampunk and very enjoyable. This book had very few steampunk elements and leaned much heavier on the paranormal aspects of the world and Alexia’s romance with Lord Maccon.

But, surprisingly, I didn’t hate it. I actually rather enjoyed it.

Despite a bunch of dark trigger warnings, the book overall was very lighthearted. Alexia is just a little too brown to be considered attractive and a little too outspoken to be considered marriageable, so she and her family have resigned her to spinsterhood. The only reason she keeps getting invited to society parties is because she’s an absolute nerd and can keep the intellectual gentlemen engaged in intellectual conversation while the high society types busy themselves with gossip and fashion and being pretty, things which Alexia doesn’t care about one bit. Personally, Alexia would rather join the supernatural police agency that Lord Maccon heads, but being a woman she isn’t allowed. That doesn’t stop her from doing her own investigative work. She is unflinchingly polite and proper even while doing far more poking around and getting into a fair bit more trouble than a proper lady should be in, and she was delightful.

And despite the skinny model on the cover of the book, it is stressed many times on page that Alexia is actually pretty chubby.

There is also a marvelous cast of supporting characters: Alexia’s best friend, who has absolutely atrocious taste in hats; a flamingly gay vampire gentleman who prides himself on knowing everything; Lord Maccon’s werewolf pack beta, who despite being a werewolf is also a professor and a huge nerd; and more. I especially enjoyed every minute the gay vampire gentleman was on the page.

The romance part is also quite enjoyable. There’s a lot of sexual tension between Alexia and Lord Maccon (often resolving to very risky heavy petting), but it takes them both a while to realize they’re into each other romantically too. There’s miscommunication drama, mainly stemming from the fact that Lord Maccon has no idea how to romance a woman who isn’t also a werewolf. And there’s the delightful contrast of Lord Maccon, who is a passable gentleman but isn’t always up on the finer details of politeness, and Alexia, who is perfectly aware of the finer details of politeness and decorum but simply does not care.

This book does fall into the common tropes of fashion of Victorian-set books written by modern writers – mainly, women’s fashion of the times (especially corsets and voluminous skirts) being restrictive to common activities. Many historical sewing youtubers have also posted rants about this very thing, and at least regarding corsets I can say from experience, that if you put them on properly and know how to wear them they won’t impede you a bit (and as a sufferer of back pain, I’ve found properly-fitted corsets to be actually helpful and supportive). That is, overall, a minor quibble, though.

Great characters both protagonist and supporting, a fascinating world, a solid plot, and an actually enjoyable romance combine to make this book a remarkably entertaining romp through a vaguely-steampunk supernatural-filled Victorian London. I’m definitely going to read book two, which I’m sure if nothing else will be entertaining.

The Parisol Protectorate series:

1. Soulless
2. Changeless
3. Blameless
4. Heartless
5. Timeless

Review: Bearly a Lady

Title: Bearly a Lady

Author: Cassandra Khaw

Genre: Paranormal/Romance

Trigger Warnings: Fatphobia, blood and injury (mention), mild body horror

Back Cover

Zelda McCartney (almost) has it all: a badass superhero name, an awesome vampire roommate, and her dream job at a glossy fashion magazine (plus the clothes to prove it). The only issue in Zelda’s almost-perfect life? The uncontrollable need to transform into a werebear once a month. Just when Zelda thinks things are finally turning around and she lands a hot date with Jake, her high school crush and alpha werewolf of Kensington, life gets complicated. Zelda receives an unusual work assignment from her fashionable boss: play bodyguard for devilishly charming fae nobleman Benedict (incidentally, her boss’s nephew) for two weeks. Will Zelda be able to resist his charms long enough to get together with Jake? And will she want to? Because true love might have been waiting around the corner the whole time in the form of Janine, Zelda’s long-time crush and colleague. What’s a werebear to do?

Review

Despite the paranormal elements of this book, it is, at its heart, chick lit. I am not usually a fan of chick lit, but I picked it up because 1. Fat and fasionable protagonist, and 2. Fat protagonist is bisexual.

Zelda is fat, works at Vogue, and also turns into a bear once a month. I love that she owns her fatness and the only problem she has with being fat is that other people look down on her for it and the world is not built for fat people. And I love that she doesn’t let people give her crap for it. This book focuses on romantic adventures and misadventures, so a lot of it is Zelda being flustered, confused, and putting her foot in her mouth a little bit, but she’s still pretty awesome. (And honestly, I would love to see her be more badass in a different kind of story.)

The side characters were interesting, but since this is a novella, they didn’t get fleshed out a lot. Zora the vampire roommate was pretty cool and I would have loved to get more of her. Benedict the fae was an interesting character, especially with the glamour element, and Jake and Janine the love interests were okay, but their time on page was mostly in Zelda’s thoughts as opposed to them actually being there.

This book was enjoyable, but it’s just not my genre. Chick lit and romcom kind of stuff just isn’t my jam. The characters would be cool and I would love the heck out of them in a different plot, but even though I enjoyed it, I didn’t really connect with the romance angle. If you enjoy chick lit, you’ll probably love the heck out of it.

Review: As I Descended (DNF)

Title: As I Descended

Author: Robin Talley

Genre: Contemporary/Paranormal

Trigger Warnings: Drug use, alcohol use by minors, blood, death

Read to: Page 134 (39%)

Back Cover:

Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them.

Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey.

Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word.

But what Delilah doesn’t know is that Lily and Maria are willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make their dreams come true. And the first step is unseating Delilah for the Kingsley Prize. The full scholarship, awarded to Maria, will lock in her attendance at Stanford―and four more years in a shared dorm room with Lily.

Maria and Lily will stop at nothing to ensure their victory—including harnessing the dark power long rumored to be present on the former plantation that houses their school.

But when feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined, the girls must decide where they draw the line.

Review:

This book is dark. Like, really dark. I probably found it darker than it actually was because I couldn’t get over the fact that these characters are high school seniors. They’re practically kids. And yet they’re doing hard drugs, drinking a lot, fighting and backstabbing and cheating to get ahead … maybe it’s because it’s so alien to my experience of high school (to be fair, I was homeschooled), but it just seemed really, really dark.

Let’s talk about the characters – or at least, what little there is of them. The characters themselves take a back seat to the rivalry between them. There’s Maria, who’s super smart and a good girl rule-follower and whose scores in everything are just behind Delilah, who is a druggie and party girl willing to cheat (or sleep with people) to get ahead. “Disabled” isn’t really a personality trait, but it seems to make up the bulk of Lily, and there’s also Maria’s friend Brandon, who is mostly just fat and gay. All of them are flat, and a lot of it reads like traits thrown in for diversity points.

The back cover promised a supernatural element, but beyond a creepy seance at the beginning and Maria experiencing some probably-a-ghost occurrences, there really wasn’t anything supernatural up to the point where I stopped reading. There wasn’t even anything supernatural involved in unseating Delilah and the death – it was all drugs. Which was pretty disappointing to me, because the main reason I picked this book up was for the supernatural element.

And that’s a big part of why I put it down. There wasn’t much of the supernatural like I wanted, it was so dark, and I couldn’t handle all the drugs and watching these kids destroy themselves and each other over … what? A scholarship? Rivalries? It’s high school. None of it will be that big of a deal in five years. Maria and Lily are acting like the scholarship is the only way for them to even see each other again after they graduate, and I’m pretty sure there are other options, even if they can’t go to the same college.

I enjoy a lot of YA books, but I’m just too old for this one. Having graduated college and being a bona fide Adult, reading about this high school drama just made me sad that these kids lacked perspective. It would probably be better enjoyed by someone actually in high school who doesn’t have the adult perspective I do.

Review: Eelgrass

Title: Eelgrass

Author: Tori Curtis

Genre: Paranormal

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping, forced marriage, blood/gore

Back Cover:

In Irish folklore, a selkie is a seal who can take off her sealskin like a coat and become a woman, seducing fishermen anywhere she goes. If he steals her sealskin, she is bound to his home, marrying him and mothering his children – unless she can find it and escape, leaving her family on shore forever.

In this lesbian reimagining of tales about women and the sea, Efa is having too much fun to worry about stories. Too young to have earned respect in her village, she spends her days roving with her beautiful and vivacious best friend, Bettan — until the night Bettan disappears into a rainstorm, and Efa can’t shake the certainty that she’s been taken.

Desperate to rescue her friend, Efa seeks out the fishwives, half-human fish who dwell under the tides and kill sailors with their sharp teeth and alluring songs. She doesn’t expect to find Ninka, an outrageous young woman who makes her feel giddy and who might be the key to unlocking her own courage.

Review:

I wasn’t honestly super excited about this book, but I got a free ebook copy through the Sapphic Book Club and had it on my phone so I could read it in waiting rooms and stuff. And overall, I was underwhelmed.

Let’s start with one of the two major positives in the book: Efa. She wasn’t one of the kick-ass leader-type characters that I usually like to read about, but I liked her because I related to her. Like her, I’m usually the quiet sidekick to a more energetic, boisterous, sociable friend; like her, I get overwhelmed and my emotions get mixed up when I need to do something important but don’t know how to go about it. She was one of the most relatable characters I’ve read in a while, to be honest.

Now, probably the biggest negative in the book: the romance. It fell flat for me. Part of this is because Ninka doesn’t have a lot of personality. It’s heavily emphasized that she does what she wants when she wants … and that’s about it. Which was disappointing, because I think with some development she could have been an awesome character.

Another reason the romance fell flat was there wasn’t a lot of feeling about it from Efa. I understand most of her emotional bandwidth was taken up by worry about Bettan, but there was next to nothing about romantic feelings towards Ninka. And the romance-hinting moments were few and far between (and they mostly consisted of Ninka kissing Efa and that’s it). So any time the romance angle came up it fell flat. Which was really disappointing, because this sort of opposites-attract romance between a fiercely independent fishwife and a restrained selkie homebody could have been amazing.

Which brings me to the other major positive thing in the book: the mythology. I’ve never read (or honestly heard of) a book about selkies before, and the fishwives were a cool take on siren/mermaid myths. I loved the idea of there being selkie villages that lived near human towns and selkies and humans interacted normally, and I liked how tight-knit the selkie community was and how it adapted to the people being sometimes seal and sometimes human. I wish you learned more of the community aspect with the fishwives.

The biggest problem with this book was that it needed more. It was too short. There wasn’t enough time to develop Efa’s feelings for Ninka, there wasn’t enough time to develop Ninka as a character or the fishwives as a species and a community – even though Efa spends about a month in the deep sea with Ninka, it’s glossed over in a handful of pages and not used to develop their relationship. The plot of rescuing Bettan was done really well, but the book wasn’t nearly long enough to cover the other subplots it tried to include.

Eelgrass was disappointing. I wanted to like it. I loved the concept. There just wasn’t enough of it to be as great as it could have been.

Review: The Hobbymen

Title: The Hobbymen

Author: Tim Owens

Genre: Paranormal

Back Cover:

Sister Liliana has not been having the best of days. Between running away from the convent and then being thrown into a desolate prison, she has started to lose hope of having a fun Wednesday. That is until she meets two strange men with a rather peculiar hobby: Amateur Monster Biology. From ancient monsters to urban legends, Geoff and Book are out to separate truth from fairytale, no matter how bizarre or ridiculous that truth may be. And as they have found, there is truth in everything.

Soon Liliana is caught in a whirlwind of adventure as they show her a side of the world she never thought existed, filled with fantastic creatures hiding in plain sight. But just as it seems her life is finally turning around, the group get a foreboding message from an unexpected, sinister source. Are the three of them in over their heads this time?

Yes…the answer is yes.

Review:

This is one of those books where I can’t put my finger on exactly why I picked it up. Maybe because it sounded like a unique concept, or maybe it just sounded a little off-the-wall and fun. Either way, when the offer landed in my inbox, I said yes.

And when I got the book, Tim Owens had doodled inside the front cover:

Which was really cute and thoughtful and just made me that much more excited to read it.

The characters were fun. There was Liliana, the failed nun with an interesting past; the research-obsessed, bookish Book; and the hyper-optimistic, gregarious Geoff. At first, the characters seemed like they were going to be pretty flat – but as the book continued, there was a pleasantly surprising amount of development and back story.

The mythology was a little wonky. I expected a combination of mythology from different lore, considering the finiding-the-truths-behind-legends research of the Hobbymen. What I didn’t expect was the biblical stuff. (I think the idea of behemoth  from Job 40:15-24 was wrong, but that’s my personal interpretation.) I thought the idea of the evil deities/forces of other religions being Satan by different names was an interesting concept – and perhaps not wrong. Anyway, that’s definitely something worth further consideration.

The basic plot was pretty much laid out for you on the back cover. But there were so many other little things. A huge part of it is Liliana trying to come to terms with her past. And another is goofy Geoff and serious Book’s relationship. And another is Liliana trying to get used to the Hobbymen’s everyday craziness. Despite the deadly threat hanging over their heads, the entire book was just … fun.

This was clearly a self-published book – the formatting was a little wonky and it was in need of a good copy editor. The missing commas drove me crazy. But they weren’t extremely glaring errors, and it only detracted a little from my enjoyment of the book.

The Hobbymen had its faults (the poor-punctuation-hating part of me wished it had been copy edited better and a few of the jokes fell a little flat), but it also had a lot of things going for it. It was lighthearted and fun, had surprisingly great characters, and was even thought-provoking in spots. I would definitely recommend it.

I received a free review copy of The Hobbymen from the author. His generosity in no way influenced, or sought to influence, this review.

Review: The Dream Thieves (DNF)

Title: The Dream Thieves

Series: The Raven Cycle #2

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Paranormal

Read to: Page 362 (chapter 51)

Back Cover:

Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself. One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams. And sometimes he’s not the only one who wants those things.

Ronan is one of the raven boys – a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan’s secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface – changing everything in its wake.

Review:

This may be the most abrupt turnaround in my opinion in reading history. I loved the first book, The Raven Boys. So much that I went so far to call it my favorite book – and I don’t have favorite books.

It’s really strange – while I was reading The Dream Thieves, I was interested in the story. But at one point, I put it down and then realized I wasn’t super thrilled about picking it back up again. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the story, but it wasn’t begging me to read on. And if I hadn’t recently decided to make some changes to my reading habits, I probably would have finished it.

But anyway.

Ronan, I think, was the main character. I really enjoyed him in The Raven Boys, where he was important, but not majorly important, if that makes sense. He’s a dark, broken guy fighting a lot of demons (sometimes more literally than others). But I think he made a better slightly-less-main character. As the main character, his inner darkness was a little too much for me.

One of the hopes I had for this book was that Blue would get to be a more important character. But that really hadn’t happened by the time I put The Dream Thieves down. It still felt like her main purpose of the story was to add a threat to Gainsey’s life (if she kisses her true love, he’ll die) and to give the raven boys a connection to her psychic family.

Gainsey was my absolute favorite character last book. He was the quirkiest character, and probably not exactly sane, but he had a deep love for his friends and I loved him. I still loved him in The Dream Thieves, but he didn’t get as much page time as he did last book, and that disappointed me.

I liked Adam last book, but he got on my nerves this time around. He was bitter, angry, far too proud, and did something hugely important at the end of The Raven Boys that was messing up his head (I don’t even remember what, which kind of hampered my understanding of some parts). Sometimes he seemed so “woe is me” that I just wanted to scream at him, “get over yourself! You have friends who would be there for you if you opened your eyes and saw that!”

Yeah, plot … it’s actually really similar to The Raven Boys. All these characters want to find Glendower – and this time, somebody is opposing them for unknown reasons. But the characters themselves and their interactions with each other were the main plot. This is exactly what I loved about The Raven Boys, but since I didn’t love the characters as much in The Dream Thieves, it didn’t work as well.

I had two main problems with this book. One was language – Ronan swears a lot. This fits his character really well, but as a matter of personal opinion, I don’t like swearing. The other issue was with Blue’s psychic family. I’m all for psychic powers, but Blue’s family uses tarot cards, scrying pools, and other occult-ish feeling rituals and habits.

This is one of those weird sort of books to review.  It’s not like I hated it, or even that it didn’t hold my interest. It just wasn’t fascinating. And I think a lot of the reason I didn’t like it is I’ve changed. If I’d have read it in quick succession with The Raven Boys, I would probably be singing its praises right now.

So if you loved The Raven Boys, I’m sure you’ll love this one just as much. It just wasn’t the book for me.

The Raven Cycle:

1. The Raven Boys
2. The Dream Thieves
3. Blue Lily, Lily Blue (October 21, 2014)
4. The Raven King (2015)

 

Review: What Dreams May Come

Title: What Dreams May Come

Series: In Dreams #1

Author: Beth M. Honeycutt

Genre: Paranormal/Romance

Back Cover:

Reality is overrated. Or so Ellie Cross has always believed.

Ellie is ordinary and invisible – the kind of girl who would loan her lunch money to anyone, but not the kind of girl to get noticed. Well, except by her nagging mom and the class bully. But Ellie has someone she can turn to whenever she has a problem. Though some might call him an imaginary friend, since they’ve never actually met outside of dreams.

And, sure, Ellie knows it’s kinda weird to have a friend no one else can see. But since he isn’t real, she can tell Gabe anything without ever worrying that he’ll ditch her for someone cooler or blab her secrets. And so what if she happens to have an itsy-bitsy crush on her reality-challenged friend? Who’s it hurting, really?

But things are about to get complicated, because there’s a new guy in school. A guy with hauntingly familiar eyes. A guy who knows things about Ellie that he shouldn’t have any way of knowing…

Review:

If you’ve been around this blog for any length of time, you know I am really not into paranormal romance. So what convinced me to pick this up? Pretty much the first line of that description. Because honestly, half the time I think reality’s overrated. I’d rather read a book.

I liked Ellie. She’s one of those shy sweet girls who’s awesome once you get to know her, but it takes a little effort to get to know her. And I can totally relate to her liking something better than reality – dreams for Ellie, fiction for me, but it’s the same principle.

The only thing that bothered me about her was her lack of spine. I get it that not everybody is like me. But I’m the kind of person where if somebody called me fat, I’d say something like “It’s called curvy, and I’m rocking it!” So Ellie’s ignore-them-and-try-not-to-cry strategy annoyed me. But I’m positive there are plenty of bullied girls out there who can totally relate to her.

Gabe was almost too perfect. He was sweet and strong, amazingly caring, attentive, and a great listener. Don’t get me wrong, I loved him and really wish I can find a guy like him. He just seemed almost too good to be true.

I tried about five different ways to condense things happening in this book to one sentence, but they all make it sound boring. The story is Ellie trying to figure out if new-kid Gabriel is the same person as dream-kid Gabe. But there’s so much more than that. It’s a mixture of her desire for love and her struggle to realize she’s actually worth loving.

I went through a lot of the shyness and self-image issues Ellie went through when I was in junior high. Reading it now, I enjoyed it because I remembered the struggles. If I’d read this in junior high, it would have blown me away.

And bonus: the romance is extremely sweet and completely clean.

What Dreams May Come is actually first in a series, but I think the ending was actually a pretty solid wrap-up. It’s one of those books where if you’re looking for a stand-alone, this one will work, but if you desperately want more of these characters, there’s more on the way. I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series, but I certainly don’t regret this read.

I received a free review copy of What Dreams May Come from the author. Her generosity in no way influenced, or sought to influence, this review.

The In Dreams series:

1. What Dreams May Come
2. Where Nightmares Walk

Review: True Talents

Image from David Lubar

Title: True Talents

Series: Hidden Talents #2

Author: David Lubar

Genre: Paranormal, I guess

Warning: This book is a sequel, so this review will probably contain spoilers of Hidden Talents.

Back Cover:

When their secret gets out and the bad guys close in, Trash, Martin, Flinch, and the rest of the gang find themselves in a fight for survival against a brutal enemy. An action-packed adventure where things blow up, people die, and Torchie buys an accordion.

Review:

After enjoying Hidden Talents, I was pretty excited to read True Talents. I remembered liking it even better than the first book.

I loved the characters even more this time around. I don’t remember how long it’s been since Hidden Talents (it was mentioned in the beginning, but I forgot), but the boys seem much older now. Except for Torchie. Torchie never loses his childlike enthusiasm and cluelessness.

The characters’ aging was likely due to a slightly more serious tone to this book (actually being in danger of dying, as opposed to just navigating school). But I don’t think they’re too old for the Hidden Talents readership – more like 8th or 9th grade, as opposed to 6th or 7th.

I wish their powers had factored into the story a bit more – I’m all about the psychic powers. But True Talents did a good job of spotlighting the boys’ non-psychic abilities. I loved the way they worked together as a team.

Looking back on it, I’m not sure how David Lubar pulled off such an action-packed plot without relying on the powers. There kidnappings, evil scientific experiments, faking a death, guns for hire, an accidental bank robbery, and all sorts of dangerous stuff. But somehow, the story focused more on the boys than their powers.

I remembered correctly – I enjoyed True Talents so much more than book one. And I wish so hard there were more books in the series (preferably one from every boy’s perspective). But I guess I’ll have to settle for what there is. I think I’ll donate this book to the library with Hidden Talents, but I definitely recommend both books for junior high boys.

The Hidden Talents series:

1. Hidden Talents
2. True Talents