"The Red Knight" by Miles Cameron

I desperately wanted to like this book. It sounded like a more gruesome, more battle heavy version of "Uprooted' by Naomi Novik, which I read back in 2015 and absolutely loved. Man versus wild and the creatures within who are encroaching upon their land.

For various reasons I have decided to not finish this massive 766 paged book at the 215 page mark. The writing was terrific, and the battle scenes were just epic. For those reasons alone I almost felt like continuing on with it. Almost. The biggest reason why I just couldn't get into it was the large cast of characters. They were all introduced into the story fairly early on, the points of view switching between all of them every few pages. This made it very easy to forget who was who, and what that certain characters role in the book was. I eventually became familiar with certain characters, but I am still lost on a large majority of them. And new characters were steadily being added as the book progressed. I have read books that contained a large cast of characters, as well as having multiple points of view, and I was never as lost as I am now. Some characters begin to become fleshed out as the book progressed, but for the most part a lot of the characters just fell flat. There just wasn't enough focus on each character. My other issue with this book was the magic system. There was never any explanation of how the magic system worked, it was just there. Random people just had random abilities, and even then the abilities aren't even explored ... stuff just happens. I heard that the magic system is better explained in the second book, but where I am currently, it just isn't working for me.

My Rating: 3 Stars - Did not finish

"Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor

"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well."

Laini Taylor has a elegant way of writing, some would describe her writing as flowery and poetic in prose, but from the little of what I did read of "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" Laini Taylor's elegant writing is masked by her immature writing style. Her books don't stand out to me, rather she is just yet another young adult author in a sea choked full of mirror images. I expected more from her based sorely on the lavish praise given to her, but I should of known better. This is way I distanced myself from the young adult genre and now only read those trusted few.

One of my biggest issues with it was the modernized setting. I have never much cared for modernized fantasy, vastly preferring the realms of middle earth and the such (Harry Potter being the exception). The other issues being, of course, the immaturity. The immaturity given to the writing style, the young cast of characters. I didn't get far enough into the book to uncover any other flaws that the book might have.

My Rating: 2.5 Stars (For decent writing technique) - Did not finish

"Armada" by Ernest Cline

"Armada" by Ernest Cline is a three hundred and forty nine paged book, I made it exactly fifty pages in before I just couldn't go any further with it. Earlier I read Cline's "Ready Player One", of which I immensely enjoyed, but even then I had a few minor problems with the book. Those problems were multiplied by ten fold in this book. Flat, and bland character development being one. I felt that the characters in "Ready Player One" were a little flat, but the characters here in "Armada" are definitely more under developed. Zack didn't even appear to have his own personality, always using references to describe how he was feeling rather then using his own words. That was another issue that I had with this book. We had the music, video game, book, and movie references throughout "Ready Player One", but here in "Armada" that is literally what the entire book is made up of. References. You are hitting at least one on every page, until it feels like you are reading a text book ... or just a very poorly written book that is attempting to disguise itself behind better ones.

I won't be reading anymore of Cline's books. As far as I am concerned, "Ready Player One" is the only book that Cline has produced ... and we will just leave it at that.

My Rating: 2 Stars - Did not finish

"Queen of the Tearling" by Erika Johansen

One hundred and five pages into this book and I had had enough. It started off on a promising note and I was actually rather enjoying it for the most part, but things went sour rather quickly. First I was a little put off by how our main character, Kelsea, kept ogling any male that crossed her path. She was raised in isolation with a older couple as her sole companions so perhaps this can be excused but it doesn't excuse her personality and stupidness. I believe that the part that bothered me the most however is that this book seems to be taking place in the future ... if we reverted backwards in technology. There was mention of the British and Americans, lost medical technology, birth control, etc. This is not the kind of Fantasy that I look for in a book and I did not enjoy it.

My Rating: 2 Stars - Did not finish

"The 5th Wave" by Rick Yancey

Have you ever read a book by a certain author, loved that authors writing style and skill so greatly that you immediately went seeking for more books by that author only to be incredible disappointed and letdown? This generally doesn't happen to me but it did just recently which is what brought about this entire review. I read "The Monstrumologist" by Rick Yancey, and I loved it, five stars kind of loved it. His writing was stunning, he really captured the gothic atmosphere making his book feel like "Dracula" or "Frankenstein" in that dark chilling way, his story was horrifying and attention capturing. I was completely sold on his ability as a writer, buying not only his four book "Monstrumologist" series, but also buying "The 5th Wave" and "The Infinite Sea" in hardcover editions. How could I go wrong on this author? Oh how terribly wrong I was to assume, because we all know what they say about assuming. I started reading "The 5th Wave" a few days ago ... and I nearly had to check and make sure that this book was indeed written by Rick Yancey as it just felt so wrong in oh so many ways. The writing was so different from his previous writing, and not in a good way. I know that you can write better then this Rick! The whole premise of the book has just been overdone as a whole at this point in the young adult genre, that should of made me leery in itself, but it's the author of "The Monstrumologist" that we are talking about! I trusted him! The Monstrumologist was dark, gory, a little violent, but fairly clean cut for the most part. No swearing or sexual content. The 5th Wave however had a surprising amount of crude and vulgar language, in the sense that there was multiple swear words on each page. Sexual content also existing. There was also a slightly disturbing relationship happening ... borderline stalker creepiness.

Another thing that I have realized that I don't like in books is the use of modern terminology. Facebook, twitter, snapchat, YouTube, etc. I am sure that this is just a personal issue of mine, but I really don't enjoy this modernism use of words in the books that I am reading. I enjoy reading about futuristic worlds but what I don't like making a appearance is Facebook.

This book was also incredible predictable to the point that you know exact what was going on even before the characters did.

Like I said, I bought this book as well as the sequel, so despite not enjoying it from the very first chapter on-wards I was forcing myself to read it because of that mere fact alone. Finally, two hundred and thirty four pages in I gave up on it. I was half way through and I just couldn't do it any longer. I wanted to like this book so badly that I had a hard time giving up on it. I see that fans of this first book aren't exactly fans of the second book ... so what does that say for my chances?! I learned a hard lesson today and it stings.

My Rating: 3 Stars - Did not finish

"Shatter Me" by Tahereh Mafi

This trilogy has been hyped up, gushed over, and raved about in the Goodreads community and the booktube community alike. I may have gone into it with too high expectations because of that mere fact alone, but the synopsis also intrigued me and pulled me in. With a 4.03 average star rating and over 138,656 ratings, how could I possibly go wrong on this one? Well I had the wool pulled over my eyes, the jokes on me. There are about three hundred and forty pages to this book and I read exactly seventy five. I couldn't do anymore then that, not without feeling like I wasted a large amount of my time in doing so because I sure wasn't going to be walking away with anything gained. The writing, it has been described as beautiful and poetic but to me it just felt repetitive of itself and choppy. I could possibly of felt this way because the writing did indeed repeat itself, our character Juliette often repeating herself over and over again in her head. Also one very known fact on these books is the strike out used throughout this book, Juliette thinking thoughts in her head that she then strikes out. I enjoyed this book I hated this book. I didn't think that it was going to bother me as much as it did, the first few pages being cute and then becoming a rather large annoyance when it doesn't cease. And the instalove in this book, my gosh, I am so tired of the instalove trope. I kept pushing myself to read it despite my not enjoying it because it seems as if all of my Goodreads friends, and the reviewers that I follow on Goodreads, have all loved this book, giving it four and five stars. I wanted to love it, but it just doesn't work out that way. It reads more like a sappy romance then the books that I typically read, and it's just not for me.

My Rating: 2.5 Stars - Did not finish

Book Review of "Half Bad" by Sally Green

"Half Bad" by Sally Green wasn't even half good.

I read fifty five pages of this book before setting it aside. There were a lot of issues with this book, first and foremost I simply wasn't a fan of Sally Green's writing technique. It felt awkward and gave the impression that the author was simply just stumbling along. My other issue was with the characters, they never felt fully developed, they were lifeless and just laying there on the page ... 

I am disappointed that I felt this way as I was rather eager to read this book, it sounded so promising. I may have continued on with it except that I saw that the reviews and ratings for the second book, "Half Wild", are even more dismaying then the ones for this one. If I hate this one, I can't even imagine how my feelings would be on the second one. Better to just not waste anymore time on it. 

Half Bad you are dead to me.

My Rating: 5 Stars - Did not finish

Book Review of "The Winner's Curse" by Marie Rutkoski

Kestrel is the seventeen year old daughter of a General, and is of the people of Valorian. The Valorian's revel in war and enslaves those it conquers. The Herrani people have been defeated in battle with the Valorian's and are now powerless by the invisible chains of slavery. The Valorian's coveted what the Herrani's had, so they took it.

Valorian's encourage both sons and daughters alike to join the military, and in this empire you have two choices. Marry by the age of twenty, or join the military.

Kestrel mistakenly stumbles upon a slave auction one day while out and about with her friend, Jess. The young male slave being auctioned off sparks something in her soul, and hardly believing her own actions she outbids all other bids and comes out the winner.

From there a romance slowly starts to develop.

I can't tell you more then that because I decided to not continue reading. I am 138 pages in and it still is not holding my attention. I keep finding myself comparing my read pages to my unread pages to see how much more I have to read yet. The answer is too much. It's not the writing as much as it is the story. Going in I did not realize that this book is essentially a romance with just the slightest mention of past wars taking place in the background. I hear that the second book excels this one, but I do not think that I will go forward with this trilogy. The characters in general just felt void of all personality, the romantic aspect overruling all other aspects of the book, and the story just inching along.

My Rating : 2 Stars - Did not finish