Review: Swift, Brutal Retaliation by Meghan McCarron ★

I picked this ebook up when Tor was offering it for free a while back. Apparently this story was nominated for an award, and based on that, and the title, I thought that it would be the kind of story I'd like. Sadly, I am disappointed instead.

I really don't know why this story would have been nominated for anything other than a re-write. It had potential to be really great, but everything that it could and should have been was missing, which is a shame. Everything in the story is just told to the reader: Ian died. Sinead did this to Brigid. Brigid did that to Sinead. Their mother cried. Their father stomped upstairs. Everyone was angry at everyone else, and most of it was misplaced. This last was literally told to the reader just like that. Cold. Distant. There's no reader investment in the characters, or the story, no emotional content at all, despite this being what could have been a really emotionally charged story of two sisters' relationship changing in the wake of their brother's death. There was no growth, no change, nothing was learned, there was no ending... this story just contained a bunch of things that happened and then ended as more things were happening.

I don't even know what the point of this story was. I thought I knew, while I was reading, but it was like a square peg being jammed into a round hole. It just didn't fit.

The more I think about it, the more disappointed I get. It's a shame, really. This honestly could have been a great story if there was just some spark of life in it somewhere. Some growth, something in the characters that made me feel for them. Instead it was just sad in a I-feel-sorry-for-this-book way, not in an emotionally sad way.

Blah.

Review: The Biggest and Brightest Light by Marilyn Perlyn ★

Another random WeGiveBooks read.

This one was a little better than the last one, I think, but only in that it actually had a story. But honestly, I think it could have been much better.

I know that this is for kids (the age range is 4-7), but I felt like there were a lot of issues with this one. Not only were there missing commas all over the place, but this was nothing but tell, tell, tell, and the story jumped around quite a lot.

For example: The book starts out on the last day of summer, with 6 year old Amanda receiving a letter with her new teacher's name in it. The teacher's name is Dr. Malko (I just had to look it up, actually. And it was probably mentioned once a page for all 56 pages), and Amanda is worried that she might have to get a shot. Cut to the first day of school, when Amanda meets Dr. Malko and is immediately reassured that she's not that kind of doctor. She then asks the students to tell something about themselves, and Amanda immediately yells out about her iguana, her puppy, her family, etc.

Nobody else gets a word in (not in dialogue anyway - it's said that they all wanted to hear more about Amanda's stuff though), and then Dr. Teacher is shutting down intro time to hand out schoolbooks.

Then suddenly it's story time, Amanda's favorite book is read. Amanda guesses the hat from the hints given. And then suddenly it's Halloween... and Amanda is going to be a witch! Amanda Amanda Amanda. I know that this is supposed to be some sort of memoir about one little girl's caring when her teacher was in need... But that's not really the vibe I got from this. I kept feeling like she just needed to be the center of attention, the "It" girl in her class, teacher's pet.

Anyway, so then when Dr. Malko's daughter got sick around Thanksgiving (because suddenly Thanksgiving!), Amanda decided to do something to help. "She thought and she thought... and then she thought some more... until a great idea came to her." She'd make Christmas decorations, sell them at $10 each, and raise money for her teacher. (Because suddenly Christmas now!  There's literally no progression in time. It's just BLINK and it's a new holiday.) And just like that it was done. These cycles of Amanda thinking and thinking and thinking some more and then just great ideas coming to her happened two more times, and each time the great idea was over and done with in less than 2 sentences. Because, you know, the focus is AMANDA, not the kindness itself. We need to remember how selfless and caring Amanda is... it's not really all that important WHAT she did, or how she did it. She just did, OK!?

This is all the more annoying since this is apparently based on true events. I didn't get anything out of this book. I wasn't moved, I wasn't impressed or inspired. I was kind of irritated. Not really the reaction they were going for, I bet.

Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera ★

13% and I'm done.

I have had a run of books that have bored me, or annoyed me, or just did nothing for me. This one is... You know, I don't even know how to describe this one.

I pretty much hated it from the first page. I do not understand the high rating on Goodreads for this book. I can barely stand the thought of picking it up again and reading more of the words telling me things about characters that I could not possibly care less about.

We have Tomas, whom we meet standing on his balcony and vacillating between whether he should ask a woman that he's "in love with" (read: met in a chance encounter and became infatuated with) to move in with him. He's saved from making any kind of fucking decision by her showing up on his doorstep (literally) with her bags packed and ready to move in. Which she does. And then she clings to him (literally) every night - to the point that he controls her sleep patterns. He even, charmer that he is, fucks with her partially-asleep mind and tells her that he's leaving her forever, so that she'll chase him and drag him back home.

Tereza (that's the woman - I had to look up her name) begins to have nightmares that he's cheating on her and forcing her to watch after finding a letter from a woman in Tomas's drawer describing that very thing. So then, in the course of a sentence, we learn that Tomas has never stopped womanizing, then that he lied to Tereza about it, then tried to justify it, and now just tries to hide it from her, but won't stop.

And she stays. He gets her a dog, because the dog will hopefully "develop lesbian tendencies" and love Tereza, because Tomas can't cope with her and needs help.

So yes, Tereza not only stays, but marries him.

Why? *shrug* The book said so.

So then war comes, and they relocate... but after a while Tereza leaves Tomas (taking the female dog that they named Karenin and now refer to using male pronouns... Maybe to make Tomas feel as though Tereza has a lover as well? Who knows. This book is so stupid...).

She leaves him, and I think, "About frigging time." There's no reason for her having decided to leave him NOW, as opposed to any day of the 7 previous years of dreading him coming home smelling of another woman, of fearing that every single woman she sees will be her husband's next conquest. She decided to leave now... because the book said so.

And then he realizes that he can't be without her, and goes to her, and she takes him back, and then he realizes he feels nothing for her but mild indigestion and "pressure in his stomach and the despair of having returned".



I am a character reader. I need characters that I can identify with, that I can understand, maybe like... but these were none of those things. I don't know them, I don't understand them, I don't identify with them in any way... and I don't want to.

I just want to stop reading about them.

And so I did.

Review: The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson ★

Spoiler Warning: If you actually do intend to read this book at some point, you may want to skip this. 

No? OK then. :)

This "true" story is about as scary as a Ke$ha/Charlie Sheen lovechild. It's terrifying... but it's not the baby's fault. It was created out of a union of glitter-vomit and Tiger Blood. Mama SLutz is an attention whore just in it for the money and notoriety, and Daddy  is a talentless hack who just spouts random words emphatically and claims they make sense. It's like it was written by a 12 year old with ADD and then edited by someone who speaks English as a 2nd language... and started taking the classes just yesterday! Exclamation point! But hey, they did something right, because I just read this pile of steaming poo! Exclamation point!



So let me tell you about the book, m'kay? There's this family called the sLutzes. They moved into this house on the 18th of December - no the 23rd of December - no the 18th of December because when they moved out on January 14th that was 28 days and Jay Anson can count, yayyyy! Exclamation point!

So the Putzes SLutzes - Wait. Did we meet Father Frank yet? Father Frank has a BAD FEELING. And then he gets sick with the flu a lot and that makes him feel bad! So then the SLutzes move in on the 18th-23rd-18th of December and then weird stuff starts happening in their house like the windows opening and it being cold. They have money problems and can't afford their boat or their wardrobe but never go to work. Also Officer Gionfriddo is the most badass ninja policeman! Exclamation point! He can drive down the street and totally not see that guy going into the WITCHES' BREW until 50 feet after he passes him, and then recognize his beard, the way he walks, and the shape of his body! Crouching Gionfriddo, Hidden Ninja! Multiple Exclamation Points!! HIGH SCORE!

Father Frank had blisters on his hands.


Then there was a lion.

Then George was all like "LET MY PEOPLE GO!" and then Gionfriddo sat quietly in his police car with the lights off watching in a non-creeper way while George acted all "like a lunatic" but later Gionfriddo said it was OK because they were closing the windows so he drove away with his lights off... totally not like a creeper, I said!

SCARY PIG!


Jodie says he's an angel but he's really a BEAST! RUN! Then there is a storm and they are TRAPPED IN THE HOUSE except for when they got in the car to go to the doctor's office for some band-aids and baby tylenol. Also, call Father Frank.

Then they moved out and then the story was over except when they levitated some more and then moved to California where levitation is illegal.

Congratulations. You've now read The Amityville Horror.

I'm sorry.

Review: Promise Me Eternity by Ian Fox ★

I was asked to review this book by the author. The premise definitely sounded intriguing, so I agreed. I’ve been reading this one in small chunks here and there for nearly a month now, and I wish that I could say that it was a great book... but it just wasn’t.

I didn't care for this book, but I think that it had quite a bit of potential to be very good. The writing, the details, the stiffness of the story just didn’t get it anywhere close to where it should be. There was far too much erroneous side information given, far too many characters, and things just seemed to take far too long to actually get going in the story. The first 50 pages barely even nudge the door open on the story. We’re taken on rounds and visit quite a lot of patients, but the story wasn’t even close to starting at that point. We’ve met a couple characters, but it doesn’t really provide any useful information. I’m OK with side information… when it serves a purpose. It didn’t here. It was just unnecessary filler, and when it comes at the beginning of the story, I start worrying.

The dialogue throughout was stiff and unnatural, and the characters never felt like real people to me. When the main character’s wife is murdered, all I felt was a sort of relief that I wouldn’t have to listen to her nag anymore. She was greedy, selfish and immensely irritating. I know quite a few women who are just like that, but that doesn’t make it realistic or good. There was no depth, no personality, no life in the story. It was like cardboard cutout marionettes, with bad voiceover actors doing the dialogue. I feel harsh saying that, but it’s true. There’s the brilliant scientist on the verge of a breakthrough if only he wasn’t stuck in his tedious middle management neurosurgeon job. The fact that he actually, petulantly, threatened to let a patient die because his boss wouldn’t fund his science experiments made me seriously want to throw the book against the wall. The fact that he even thought it is a violation of what makes people go into medicine in the first place – the desire to help people. And further, the fact that his pet project is an anti-aging drug, I felt like it was both hypocritical and completely superficial at the same time. He wants to help people live longer, right? So he’s studying within his field to try to find a cure for illnesses of the brain, right? No. He’s making glorified botox.

I didn’t get it, and never really warmed to this book at all. This could have been a book much more worth reading if it was edited and trimmed down. This is over 400 pages long, and in my opinion, at least a quarter of that should have hit the cutting room floor. There’s just too much going on, and it became distracting. So, overall, this was not great, but some work could get it closer to it.

Friday Flashback Review (8): Harry Potter & The Bible ★

Friday Flashback is hosted by Jen @ The Introverted Reader.

So I thought that it would be kind of appropriate to post this review now, since Banned Book Week was not very long ago, and since the 7th Harry Potter movie is coming out soon. I received this book from my friend Kandice, whose son was given the book by some mysterious person at his school. If there's anything I dislike, its creepy people spreading ignorance in schools. Rather than encouraging intelligent thought and analysis, Abanes encourages people to hide behind fear and ignorance in order to avoid anything they don't understand.

So without further ado, my review, which was written way back in February:

Ahh, right. Where to start... I have so much to say! I wish that you could all see my notebook. Aside from my atrocious handwriting, it is 12 full-size pages filled with my scribbled, jotted, many underlined thoughts, reactions and questions, as well as quotes, semi-quotes, references to quotes and page numbers for still more quotes.
It's not pretty. Really. But it WAS necessary. So many of the things that I jotted down had me rolling my eyes, thinking "Is this guy SERIOUS?". I just read this entire book, and I still don't understand most of his claims, arguments, assumptions and conclusions. I like Harry Potter, so I am obviously one of the "undiscerning" readers mentioned in Douglas Groothuis's foreword, in which he proclaims that I am about to read a "rare voice of sanity, reason and biblical discernment" regarding the Harry Potter books. Hmm. Well. Good thing he hasn't started off by annoying me or alienating me as a reader... Oh. Oops.

Anyway, offended by being called incapable of reason and insane before the book even starts, I still tried to read it objectively. From what I could see, Abanes's case comes down to several extremely repetitive points:

1) The setting of the "real world" makes it difficult for kids to differentiate between fact and fiction.
Apparently, because this is a fiction book that takes place in the United Kingdom where people actually live or can visit, it makes it nearly impossible for the reader to understand that it's not real. He makes reference to comments on message boards and letters (etc) which have kids saying things like "Wow! I wish I could do magic..." or "I wish I could go to Hogwarts..." and the like, and claims that these kids are dangerously close to becoming official occult followers. Which is utterly ridiculous and a huge logic leap. Kids whimsically wishing for something doesn't imply that they can't understand it's not real. I used to WISH I had a real My Little Pony to ride, but I didn't actually believe they WERE REAL. Kids know how mundane and normal and boring their life is. School. Homework. Bed. Repeat. They have no control over anything at this point - parents decide their lives. They just wish for some fun.

And, kids are much, much smarter than they are given credit for, in my opinion, although apparently not in the author's. Abanes seems to think that kids who read and like something will then rush off to try it with no thought. And while that may be true of some people, it is untrue of most. He gives an example in his book (after talking about how wormwood is used in HP and is an actual ingredient in absinthe) of someone looking up a recipe for absinthe online, making it and getting sick. He writes it in such a way as to insinuate that the person who did this was somehow influenced by the wormwood mention in HP. Another big leap. He also seems to forget parents, even while writing a book geared toward them. It is a parent's responsibility to teach their children, not JK Rowling's.

He goes on later in the book to say how Christian writers CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien both wrote fantasy stories involving magic, but these are OK because their magic is not HUMAN magic, and it is clearly in a fantasy world.

2) The magic described and portrayed in HP is actually representative of the Occult, which is denounced repeatedly and harshly in the bible.
Abanes's argument here seems to be that because JK Rowling researched and used real modern and historical practices, ideas, references, and substances (like wormwood above), as well as mythology and legend etc, that she is "thinly veiling" her belief in the occult, and not only introducing children to it, but grooming them towards it.
His "biblical" definition of occultism is extraordinarily all-encompassing, and ranges from astrology to conversing with spirits as a medium. Anything, essentially, that tries to understand or influence the world or ourselves that is NOT Christian in nature or done for the glory of God, is defined as being of the occult, and therefore dangerous and evil. He references many passages in the bible which denounce occultism, but never answers the ever present "WHY?" question. But hey, rules are rules, and the rule-maker need not explain, right?

Moving on, Abanes makes another huge leap in talking about the pets in HP, stating that they are familiars to their owners. Witches' familiars are defined here as a "low-level demon" in the assumed shape of an animal. He says, "Mrs. Norris, owned by the school's caretaker, exhibits some of the characteristics of a familiar. In Book III, Hermione gets her own familiar -- a cat named Crookshanks." He then quotes a renown Wicca practitioner, Starhawk, on the tradition of familiars, and then quotes a passage from "Witchcraft In England" which rehashes again what familiars are and confirms (again) the belief that witches used them in "the later centuries of [the:] witchcraft-belief". Abanes then says, "Obviously Harry and his friends are indeed making contact with the spiritual world." What? How is that obvious?

Abanes did include a very small section each to explain Paganism, Wicca and Satanism. I think he kind of shot himself in the foot if he was trying to turn people away from these, though. He failed miserably at making them unattractive, and to be honest, actually succeeded in piquing my interest in learning even more about them. Pagan and Wicca followers have a "reverence for the Earth and all it's creatures, generally see all life as interconnected, and strive to attune one's self to the manifestation of this belief as seen in the cycles of nature." Ooooh! DANGER! DANGER! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
I'm not going to go into the major points and details, but it is interesting, and I would recommend reading about them yourself. I did see a lot of my own "worldviews" represented in Paganism and Wicca, such as my relativism (a view that ethical truths depend on the individual or groups holding them -www.Merriam-Webster.com), which essentially means that what is good for me is not good for everyone else, and what is good for others may not be what is good for me. I'm OK with that. Abanes is not, and apparently has a problem with personal and private beliefs not in accordance with his own. He seems to feel that his way is the only way.

He did portray Satanism as being "bad", although he made clear that modern Satanism is not technically worship of Satan, but worship of the individual. Satanism "emerged when various aspects of all these (pagan, et al) traditions were blended together by persons seeking to fight Christianity's growing theological and moral influence [between 400s -1600s A.D.:]." (I got a real chuckle out of that. Apparently the Crusades and mass murders in the name of Christianity represent the "moral influence" of the faith. Best. Euphemism. EVER.)

He mentioned Sean Sellers, who was physically and sexually abused, neglected, and abandoned as a child and teen, who found himself getting involved with Dungeons & Dragons as an outlet, and later Satanism. There he found acceptance and understanding, until things started getting too deep and cult-like, which is very different from the religion started by Anton LeVey. Sellers, fearing for his sanity, reached out repeatedly for help... his parents, their Christian ministers, church run support groups, etc, and they turned their backs on him each and every time. In the end, he immersed himself in Satanism completely, and ended up murdering three people, being arrested, sentenced to death, and becoming a born again Christian in prison. Abanes blames the D&D as the "gateway" to Satanism for his downfall, but fails completely to mention the many, many people who let Sellers down when he needed help the most. (This is just one of many examples of how Abanes cherry-picks his arguments.)

3) Vulgarity, profanity and general lack of biblical morality in the Harry Potter books. (Characters lying, stealing, cheating, cursing, drinking, etc. And the amount of "gore" in the books, including Nearly Headless Nick and the Headless Hunt.)
His point is that he doesn't feel like there is enough delineation between "good" and "evil". The good guys should be all good, or if they falter, they should pay for it immediately. Bad guys should be all bad, and should absolutely pay and fail.
But MY argument is that the world, and life, is rarely delineated in such stark, black and white terms. Good people do bad things, bad people can do good things, it's the way of the world. And the real world doesn't always mete out appropriate punishment for misdeeds based on a religious belief. The world is impartial... Religion is not.
Abanes's first example of the immorality of the children is that they disobey rules. I think this is the main stick in his craw, because so much of organized religion centers on obeying without question. He also really has a problem with the word "git", which is a derogatory word that means idiot. He claims that this is profanity, which I guess is subjective, but to me, it's slang, not profanity.
Children are children, and they ACT like children. They disobey, mouth off, curse, treat each other unkindly, hold grudges, make enemies, make up, cheat, etc. But even as they do so, they are learning. Holding them to adult standards of behavior is unrealistic and unfair, especially a religious standard that was never intended to be in the equation at all.

He also repeatedly laments the increase of "New Age Spiritualism" in modern times, causing what he calls a "Post-Christian" world, which is helped along by books, movies and media, namely "occult" books like HP, etc. He repeatedly inserts statistical data, which in itself is suspect to me, as 7 out of 8 people know that 60% of all statistics are made up on the spot (as this was... :P), so... I'm a little wary of just accepting his claims. He acts like popularity itself is cause for alarm. More than once, Abanes seems to indicate that because Rowling was poor before she wrote Harry Potter that her popularity was helped along by, if not evil, definitely occult forces. He also seems to take issue with the fact that JK Rowling has not publicly made known her personal religious beliefs. As if it matters. Her beliefs are personal, and her books are fiction. They have nothing to do with each other in my mind and opinion, but Abanes thinks that because she's not proclaimed her Christianity, that she's probably an Occultist. Again with the black and white, 'with us or against us' theme.

I think that's what bothered me most about this book. I tried to read it objectively and fairly, even though I myself am agnostic, but so many of his arguments are just statements without any basis in fact. Comparisons which are... ridiculous. It's like he was writing this for people who think exactly as he does, but just didn't know it yet, and who wouldn't question his claims. At the end of the book, he gives practical advice for Christians (who should now have many, many concerns about the book) to go forth with gentleness and kindness when discussing the book(s) with others that they feel the need to educate. Good advice, yes, because I do not want someone calling me a "heathen" for enjoying these books, BUT this book only succeeded in making claims, not proving them.

Not only that, but as I mentioned before, he clearly, blatantly and shamelessly picked around the things that he didn't want to address, and beat into the ground the few points he did.

For instance, he mentions CS Lewis's Narnia series, and *spoiler* Aslan sacrificing himself for Edmund */spoiler*, but Lily's own sacrifice for Harry goes without mention. And he's not unaware, just to be clear, as he quotes Voldemort telling Harry that his mother died to save him, and that she will have died in vain, as well as Dumbledore's explanation of Lily's love sacrifice. He just ignores the sacrifice of the one, and lauds the sacrifice of the other, because it suits his theme.

He claims that the HP books are vulgar and full of violence etc, and that they are inappropriate reading material for children, yet ignores the fact that there is ridiculous amounts of violence and death in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And the bible, for that matter.

He also derides the use of runes in HP, but makes no mention of the fact that Gandalf used them in Lord of the Rings. Apparently that's OK because, while runes are definitely "Real Occult", LOTR was not set in the real world.

I could go on and on, (12 pages of notes, remember?), but I think this is enough to get my point across. In the end, it seems like Abanes is saying, "Christianity is right, and anything that doesn't shout that from the rooftops is wrong. Period. End of story." That's an opinion, but it doesn't make it the right one. I think people are entitled to believe what they choose, just as readers (of all ages) are entitled to read and enjoy what they choose. Parents have a responsibility to talk to and teach their kids right from wrong, and morals and ethics, etc. That is not the job of the Harry Potter books, or ANY books. Religious texts are wonderful and useful to many people, but that does not mean that fiction and entertainment should seek only to rewrite/retell them.

Read and make up your OWN mind about books. :)

Review: A Thousand Lies by D.W. St. John ★

This is the last of the catch-up "For Review" reviews. I was not in the best of moods after reading this book, and I was very underwhelmed by it. I'd hoped for something insightful and informative - this book was just a bunch of jaded opinions presented as fact. Skip this one. You won't regret missing it. On to the review...

I won this as a First Reads giveaway, and I was really excited to read it. I consider myself to be a forward thinking, open minded sort, and the thought of reading the "lies" that Americans must tell themselves in order to be "Good" Americans was interesting to me. I was interested in this because I was hoping that it would lend a little insight into the lies, a little background, a little justification.

This book provided none of that.

Now, before I go on into just what annoyed me about this book, if it can indeed be called that, as it is really more of a pamphlet, I would like to say that I am not rating this low because I disagree with many of the statements. This is not a knee-jerk 1 star.

This is a 1 star rating because it is an amateurish, poorly edited, poorly thought-out pamphlet full of statements with no context or explanation or supporting information at all.

It's like saying "Drunk drivers never kill innocent people." Sure, that's not a 100% true statement, but that doesn't mean it can never be true. It's just a statement. And without information to support it, it's transparent.

I had to read this book as if it was opposite day, and with every statement I asked myself "What is St. John trying to say?", and I could not tell you. There's no feeling of the author in this book, unless it's supposed to come through in the jaded sarcasm that just about drips off the page. It feels more like he sent out a survey to 1000 angry people, asked them to write down one thing that makes them angry, and then he compiled it into this book pamphlet and sent it to publish. This book pamphlet is supposed to "offend everybody", but I get the feeling that particular statement, along with many many others found within, is just something edgy to say.

Not to mention that this was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. I had to read some of the statements three times before I could grasp what he was actually trying to say, because the sentence structure was so unweildy in some cases.

I can't recommend this one. If it had been better presented, and if it felt less like he was looking down on his readers, (Go look it up, indeed. Isn't that YOUR job, Mr. Author man? You can inspire a reader's willingness to learn without condescension or snarkiness and get much better results too) and if perhaps it had some context, this would be a much, much better book. As it is, no. It just doesn't work and it's an hour of my life I'd like back, please.

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