Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Kalinda reviews 5 books in 5 minutes


***** Five stars go to... The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning











From what Kalinda gathers after first coming across The Fever reviews on Goodreads and then talking to her fellow steam-powered dolls, you ever love or hate The Fever. There is rarely a balanced reviewer who remains neutral or lukewarm. Since these books ignited such passions (even if said passions occupied the extreme ends of the spectrum), Kalinda got intrigued. She approached the series with as near to an open mind state as she could master. The only preconceived idea she admitted to have been secretly harbouring at the time was that this series was supposed to be something different (whatever your definition of different is). 

And different Kalinda got!

MacKayla Lane, the protagonist, starts off as the ultimate Barbie. She’s very pretty, likes to paint her nails, dresses in pink and constantly sings along to 'It’s a Wonderful World' as she soaks up the sun by the pool. Then her sister Alina is killed in horrendous circumstances in a foreign land, so Mac has to Buffy it up if she wants to avenge Alina (naturally, the foreign land’s police is useless...) She goes off to a foreign land where she meets Jericho Barrons, the ultimate brooding mystery man with many tattoos and really bad temper (‘nuff said!), learns things she soon wishes she didn’t learn and ends up one of the major players in an ancient supernatural power struggle (as you do).

Somehow, it all worked for Kalinda. She’s inhaled the give Fever books over a week and wants more! More! She loved Moning’s peculiar story-telling, her way of thinking and analysing things as Mac, and Mac’s telepathic conversations with Barrons. Out of curiosity, Kalinda checked out one of the books from this author’s pre-Fever series (the title of said book is too embarrassing to mention here) and her suspicions have been confirmed – The Fever is a unique phenomenon.

Kalinda highly recommends this… as long as you approach it with an open mind.

**** Four starts go to... Indigo Spell (Bloodlines #3) by Richelle Mead




Kalinda got hooked on Mead about three years ago. Even though the symptoms of this  ‘hook’ appear to be easing off now, Kalinda still keeps reading Richelle Mead’s best (according to Kalinda, anyway) creation – the Bloodlines series, the new incarnation of the Vampire Academy (yes, arguably ridiculous name for a series - a series that also feature some of the most embarrassing cover designs ever, but nonetheless highly entertaining).

In the third instalment of the Bloodlines, Sydney Sage, the Alchemist extraordinaire goes on with her task of babysitting teenage vampires while endeavouring on an unrelated quest to discover more of her own unusual powers and save some innocents. Kalinda likes Sydney as a protagonist more than Rose of the Vampire Academy fame, but that’s really just because Sydney appeals to Kalinda’s nerdy nature and is generally smarter than Rose (ok, Sydney’s more book smart while Rose’s street smart or something like that) even though sometimes Sydney can’t see what’s right before her very eyes.

Before starting on Indigo Spell, Kalinda recommends reading at least the two earlier Bloodlines books (Bloodlines and The Golden Lily), if not all of the Vampire Academy installments. Or you can just wing it.

*** Three stars go to... Shine Light (Finale of Night Creatures)



After a breath-stunning Burn Bright followed by a huge let-down of Angel Arias, the island of ever-night Ixion’s magic was kind of lost on Kalinda. Though Shine Light is a decent book  and the NightCreatures trilogy has a unique concept and solid writing, Kalinda was expecting a lot more from the conclusion to the series (especially after the standard was set so high with Burn Bright – again, what an amazing book that was!) Still, Shine Light did what it had to do - it tidied up most of the loose ends, Naif got some kind of closure and sort of made a choice where a choice had to be made... 

What Kalinda liked the most about Shine Light though was its ending: it was well-crafted and realistic, and because it was realistic it came off as unusual. 

Also, this book had a lot of Lenoir. And it’s always a good thing.  


** And two stars go to... Opal (Lux # 3) by Jennifer L. Armentrout




The allure of the Lux series has remained a mystery to Kalinda up until she finished ’Opal’: for some weird reason she was compelled to keep reading book after book without really engaging much with the characters or the story. Kalinda feels that maybe in the beginning, she was interested in The Lux because to her it resembled ‘I Am Number Four’ (at least, the movie – she can’t comment on the book as she hasn’t read it) and she was just curious how Lux’s ideas were different from the ‘I Am #4’ concept of energy-manipulating aliens who can’t help themselves but fall in love with human girls. Turns out Lux isn’t that much different. 

Kalinda is most likely going to drop this series at this stage, she just can’t take any more of the reductive dialogues and characters being erratic and making silly decisions with annoying consequences. Kalinda also did not fancy one bit the cliffhanger ending of Opal. It felt like a cliffhanger of desperation to her. In summary, Kalinda no longer cares what happens to Katy, though she definitely loved the earlier ‘No More Pushover Katy’ rhetoric of these books. 

*One star is for... Crewel by Gennifer Albin




One-word review: CRUEL.

Some more words: don’t do this to yourself. This is the last time Kalinda gives in and buys a book because it is ‘hyped’ about. Now that she thinks about it, who and where exactly was hyping about this book? She can’t even recall! This must be some kind of conspiracy where we are all affected by some alien psychic powers that make us feel interested in something we really don’t care about. This book added absolutely nothing to the contemporary dystopian genre (which Kalinda quite honestly is beginning to despise): it had one-dimensional villains, annoying heroine, awkward writing, characters blatantly serving as plot devices and don’t even get Kalinda started on the  very nature of this dystopian world built around gender segregation and subjugation of women. Kalinda advice: if you feel like a good dystopian YA book, read The Hunger Games. Or, better read 1984.