Review: The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Book: The Assassin's Curse
Author: Cassandra Rose Clarke
Series: The Assassin's Curse
Publication Date: October 2nd, 2012
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Rating: 2.5 Stars

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan: she wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to her handsome yet clueless fiance. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns the scorned clan has sent an assassin after her.

And when the assassin, Naji, finally catches up with her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse — with a life-altering result. Now Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work together to break the curse and return their lives back to normal. Or at least as normal as the lives of a pirate and an assassin can be.

"How could he not see all the beauty that was out there--the starlight leaving stains of brightness in the water, the salt-kissed wind?"

I kept waiting for The Assassin's Curse to get better, but it remained a clusterfuck until the very end. I mean, I can't say there weren't good things about it, because there were. After all, just look the blurb. I like pirates and loot and rum and all that good stuff. I also like assassins, because who doesn't love killing? So I go into this book expecting lots of arrrr matey type things, and adventures swinging on a ship, but I got none of that. Instead I get poor character development and the barest mention of ships and some obscure assassin club (I think that's what it is...). 

Clarke promised us a lot of things with this book. With the cover, with the premise, with everything. Unfortunately, she didn't deliver. My biggest problem with this book is that there's way too much stuff integrated for it to make sense. First you've got your pirates, then you've got your wizards and witches, and then you've got assassins who can do magic too, except it's blood magic. It's way too much information to stuff into one book without making things sound ridiculous and random. When Naji and Ananna get stuck on the island, I thought that they were there because the island was supposed to help them. But then Naji mentions this wizard dude, and I'm like "what the hell is going on?" This happened multiple times. Sure, it's easy to get lost in the adventure of Naji and Ananna zipping around from place to place, but if you stop and think about it, why are they going to all these places? It's like a goose chase that they already know is futile, yet they keep doing it anyway. The ending to the book is even more ridiculous, even cheesy. I really expected more than that. It was such a bullshit blowoff so Clarke could write another book. 

That's the plot. The characters are just... ugh. Naji sulks, Ananna moons after him, and generally their attitudes put me in a bad mood. Which sucks, since Ananna actually gave me hope. In the beginning, when she knees her fiance in the balls, I was cheering for her. But then she meets Naji and she turns all gloomy and moans over her plainness, and I just knew this wasn't heading for anything good. There wasn't even a damned kiss in this book. Granted, it would've been weird and even more out of place if there had been one, so maybe Clarke used some good judgment there. I found no reason to believe that she'd fallen in love with him, especially since he treats her like crap sometimes and completely shuts her out otherwise. Nothing about him caused me to like him, especially the way he totally fell under Leila's spell in the beginning. Not cool, bro. 

In short, I got through this book relatively painlessly, but when I separated myself from the situation, I realized that this book misses so many things. That's why I feel so apathetic towards it. It's a good example of a situation where too many good things mashed up together can make the entire project go sour. 

View all my reviews
 

Review: Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Book: Shut Out
Author: Kody Keplinger
Publication Date: September 5, 2011
Publisher: Poppy
Pages: 273
Rating: 2.5 Stars

Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it's a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part,Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy's car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend's attention

Then Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: She and the other players' girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won't get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don't count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. But what Lissa never sees coming is her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling...

I think I know what Shut Out wanted to accomplish. I think it wanted to be a rahrah womanhood book, but in the end, the preachiness of the entire thing turned me off. If it had just been a light-hearted read about a bunch of girls trying to get back at their boyfriends without all the fanfare about sex and how it doesn't define a person, I would've enjoyed it much more.

After reading The DUFF and being too disgusted with it to finish, I didn't really have high hopes for this book. But after reading, I have to admit it's better than Keplinger's debut. The premise is interesting: a sex strike? Some things weren't believable to me, especially the fact that everyone was having sex in this high school (or something close to it). In my experience, there are select people who can be classified as sluts or whores, but the entire population as a whole usually doesn't start having these huge debacles with sex until later. Call me jaded, but I'm graduating high school, and I'm a bit sick of the stereotype that high school athletics are breeding pools of sex and debauchery, because really, they're not.

The main character pissed me off. Lissa was whiny, neurotic in a bad way, and a complete bitch to everyone, including but not limited to her best friend and the potential love interest. I found it difficult to believe it was so easy for her to repair her friendship with Ellen. And the fact that Cash (what is with the name? Bleech.) first became attracted to her because she was beautiful?

Urgh. And she was given this sad background, with the dead mom and wheelchair-bound dad, but I never could summon up much sympathy for her, which was also a problem when I read The DUFF. It's funny because I liked virtually everyone else. I liked the slutty best friend, who had these tiny nuggets of wisdom when they mattered. I liked Mary and Finn, and their adorable relationship with each other, which I would've preferred to learn about over Lissa and Cash's lackluster one. I even liked Kelsey. I liked all the girls, because they did what was right when it mattered.

But Lissa didn't. Lissa pretty much offended everyone, but they welcomed her back. For a couple of chapters, I had to deal with her repeating We have to win. We have to win, as well as her endless droning about how guys suck, and her gigantic text blocks of inner monologue where she mused over how sex is okay and being a virgin is okay and OKAY I GET IT. I've never read a book that preached so obviously as this one did, and I did not like it. At all. It ruined the story, it ruined the main character, and it ruined the experience.

Giving this 2.5 because despite the way the storyline annoyed me, there were some random moments that squeezed a couple chuckles out of me. And Cash was too perfect to be true, despite his name.

Highlight:
In unison, they stripped off their shirts and tossed them onto the grass. An audible sigh--like the ones you hear on a sitcom that is "filmed in front of a live studio audience"--filled the room. It was almost funny, really. Such a strong reaction to a bunch of shirtless boys.

Of course, Lissa had to come in and ruin it by shutting the window and forbid the girls from looking. What's wrong with looking, I ask you?

View all my reviews

Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Book: Pushing the Limits
Author: Katie McGarry
Publication Date:  July 31st, 2012
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Pages: 384
Rating: 2.5 Stars

Goodreads Summary:
"I won't tell anyone, Echo. I promise." Noah tucked a curl behind my ear. It had been so long since someone touched me like he did. Why did it have to be Noah Hutchins? His dark brown eyes shifted to my covered arms. "You didn't do that-did you? It was done to you?" No one ever asked that question. They stared. They whispered. They laughed. But they never asked.

So wrong for each other...and yet so right.

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

"An edgy romance that pulls you in and never lets go. I was hooked!"-Gena Showalter,  New York Times bestselling author of the Intertwined series.

I wanted to like this book, mostly because of the blurb that promised a "girl-using loner bad boy." And I guess I got that, though not in the way I wanted.

The best way to explain my reactions toward this book would probably be in quotes. So. Let's begin, shall we?

Quote #1: In a lightning-fast move, he placed both of his hands on the brick wall, caging me with his body. He leaned toward me and my heart shifted into a gear I didn't know existed. His warm breath caressed my neck, melting my frozen skin. I tilted my head, waiting for the solid warmth of his body on mine. I could see his eyes again and those dark orbs screamed hunger.

Yummy Noah is yummy. I can totally see the dangerous sexiness he's got about him. However, this would have been a lot hotter if it hadn't happened almost in the exact same way several times throughout my reading of the book.

Quote #2: "No apologies. I could kiss yo right now." Judging by the look in his chocolate-brown eyes, he meant it.
"Don't. I think I'm gonna puke." I loved the way his lips turned up--part mischievous smile, part man of mystery.

Okay, I get that Noah is dangerous and sexy and mysterious. But I don't need to hear it over and over again. The puking part was funny, can't deny that. But I can't handle the redundancy in this book. Especially the parts with Noah always referring to Echo as "baby" or "my siren" or his "cinnamon oven" or whatever it was that he liked about her smell. It got old. And, as I mentioned in my status update, it reminded me of John Tucker Must Die, where I learned that John actually called his different girlfriends "baby" so he wouldn't mix up their names. Not a good sign.

Quote #3: "Yes, but never love. Just girls who didn't mean anything. You..." His tongue teased my bottom lip, thawing my body. "Are everything. I got tested over winter break and I'm clean and I've got protection." He reached to the side of the bed and magically produced a small orange square.

*Cough* *Snort* I think my coffee came out of my nose at this part. I definitely rolled my eyes. Is Noah a magician?

Quote #4: "I made out with Beth." The two of us leaned against the counter and drank our beers.

Do guys tell each other that they "made out" with a girl? I don't know. I just found this scene extremely feminine, for some reason. Except instead of drinking fruity stuff, they're having beers. I keep getting the feeling that McGarry is trying too hard to make these guys seem bad, and it doesn't come off as natural, just stereotypical.

Quote #5: Like everything else in life, if it contained the word free, it implied slow.

Ha! I like that. It's so true. Now here's a little, unique nugget that McGarry lets us see once in a while.

Quote #6: "I wish I could sleep with you," Echo's sexy-as-hell drowsy voice mumbled through the phone.

"Say the word, baby, and I'll rock your world."

*More coughing, snorting, laughing* Who SAYS that? Honestly, if some guy told me he'd rock my world, I'd laugh in his face. It's so cheesy.

Quote #7: "...I added a fucked up thought to another fucked up thought and I created a pile of shit."

Yet another funny nugget in the forest of badly used cliches and sayings. Wooooo. At this point, I just want everything to be over.

Quote #8: I waited for my pulse to stop beating my veins like a gang initiation, for the blood to leave my face and for my lungs to not burn as I gasped.

Errr. Like a gang initiation? What a strange simile. I had to read that a couple times, and I'm still a bit confused. There also is that strange comparison of her stomach butterflies to mutant pterodactyls? The pterodactyl part I can understand, but why are they mutant? Many times, I get the feeling that McGarry is using all these words but not pausing to really evaluate their meaning and what they contribute to the story.

I liked the way that Echo pieces together what happened, but I had to wonder whether it was strictly necessary to have so many flashbacks and so many meltdowns. It felt repetitive after the first two hundred pages, and the last hundred was just overkill, I think. I thought this story could've been a lot more compressed, which would have made the characters much more likable. I didn't really like Echo or Noah, Echo because she angsts a lot, which is obviously understandable given how much crap she has going on in her life. But there are moments where she seemed to acted in a way that was overly emotional, and it just didn't endear me to her. Likewise, Noah's perspective wasn't all that fun to read, either. He uses curses liberally, and normally I don't mind that, except that I think McGarry overdid it again. Also, he acts irrationally, and at the end when he sneaks into Mrs. Collins's office, I don't even get why he did it. It was just confusing to me.

The characters didn't leave much of an impression on me, despite what happened to them. Noah and Echo both have unenviable pasts, and that aspect drew me the most, though McGarry somehow blew them all out of proportion so the emotion seemed more forced than sincere. I don't think I liked anyone, really. Maybe Mrs. Collins, but I hated how she was likened to a dog. All of the comparisons made in this book are overcooked. If we likened this to a dish, I would say it was a delicious bowl of fried chicken that almost couldn't have gone wrong, except in the end the chef got insecure and dumped a bunch of salt in, which completely overcompensated.

That said, this still might be enjoyable, especially for fans of Perfect Chemistry and other books by Simone Elkeles.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a chance to read and review this book.

View all my reviews