The Scorpio Races (review)

The Scorpio Races is another book I was not going to read. It was wrote by Maggie Stiefvater who wrote Shiver, which makes my worst books I've read list, but a person whose book opinion I trust gave it five stars. I decided to give the book a chance, and let me say, I was not disappointed. 

The book takes place on an island where a race of giant sea horses is held annually. The main characters race both for very different reasons enter the race.

As I like to do in my positive  reviews, I will get the things I did not like about the book out of the way first. Well actually there is only one negative in the book in my opinion.  The amount of cliches especially in the characters really stands out to me.  The main characters are evil. The villians are rich.  The male lead is brooding. Yeah I know kinda hard not to roll your eyes.  Now that my main complaint is out of the way. Let's get to the good.

The characters in this book were very well done.  The book switches between the view points of two main characters, a male and female lead.  While I often feel I miss things when this is done (see my review of Fat Vampire), I thought the author combined the view points in such a way that I was able to easily follow and know both characters in this book.
The male lead - Sean was an okay character. He was brooding like I said and seemed to fit one of the archetypical formulas that young adult authors use to manipulate their female readers. To me outside of some romantic things with the female lead, he stayed pretty much the same person through out the story, so I did not like this character quite as much as the other.

The other character - Puck was brilliantly written. One of the things I really like in first person narrative is when the character is truley changed through a story, and I get to watch it happen. I really thought the author did a nice job with that with the Puck character, as she took her from a strong but scared and naive little girl to a strong smart young lady.  The thing I really liked about the character is her changes, for the most part, came about because of her actions and not because of luck or random chance. I really enjoy stories with strong characters that choose over stories where the character is "chosen."

Another little thing, I enjoyed  about the female character was the minor characters that surrounded her. I thought her brothers were interesting and very unique especially the little brother.

I really enjoyed the plot too. The story flowed nicely to a heart pounding climax. I think one of the things that really got me into the plot is that it was so easy to picture the world the story was set. 

If you want a very good read then I strongly suggest you check out this book.

My score is  3.85 stars or in letter grade terms a B+

Read the book. 

Fat Vampire: A Never Coming Of Age Story (review)

Fat Vampire: A Never Coming Of Age Story is a novel about an overweight geek type boy that has accidentally been turned into a creature of the night. 
The opening few scenes of this book were excellent. They are humorous, well written, and  establish characters and conflict well. 

Then the author switched the story to another character. The character was fairly interesting the author did a nice job with her, but this was not her story. The story then switches to another even more minor character. When the story returns to the main character, the one I cared about, the fat vampire, he'd changed, developed grown, and I missed it. Oh sure I found out what happened through the observations of other characters and the fat vampires personal reflections, but it wasn't the same as experiencing the changes with him.This combined with a pretty weak plot make this a book, I cannot recommend. 

Rating 1.75 STARS

The books I am reading this week

I will conclude my reading of The Scorpio Races this week.  I will do a review on this book right now it really could go either way.  There are things I like about it and things I don't.

I am also reading (though it won't take the whole week) Rain Plays Barefoot. This is a short story I purchased to support a fellow writer. I will post a review on amazon for it when I finish. 

I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, so I need to choose my next audio book.

GEM: THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO

The Knife of Never Letting Go go by Patrick Ness is the first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy.  The entire series is excellent, but I think this book is the top one. 
Okay, I'll get this out of the way to start. The Knife of Never Letting Go, does have one pretty big plot hole. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I imagine most readers will have a 'hey wait a minute' moment when it passes.
So, why is this book a gem? There are two reasons, multi dimensional characters it is impossible not to feel for, root for, and cry for, and an emotionally charged adventurous plot.

The story starts in a town with no women due to war and sickness. The thoughts of the living males are all audible. The main character - Todd is a boy on the cusp of going through some sort of secret ritual that will signify he has become a man, but the day before Todd is to complete the ritual, his uncles, who raise him, send him running. He runs for his life. I would risk spoilers if I said anymore. Just know the rest of the book is emotional, intense, and powerful.