*I won this book through Goodreads' First Reads Giveaway*I'm sensing a pattern here with assassin books. People 1) like writing/reading about killers and 2) there are usually some flaws when it comes to the execution (pun intended). In this case, the writing spoiled the novel for me because, overall, the story was pretty good. While obvious at times, I enjoyed the drama and suspense that came along with it. EVERYTHING else? Not so much. First off, there were entirely too many paragraph breaks and jumping around. The paragraph breaks annoyed me because I thought that we were moving to another point in time, since that's usually what happens, but we'd actually pick up like 5 seconds later. That was a little ridiculous to me. The jumping around was rough too because, while it was interesting to see things happening from multiple POVs, it was extremely abrupt. I would find myself having to recover from the writing whiplash by just putting the book down. In addition, the plot moved either way too fast or way too slow. The beginning was slow for me, just because we had to set up everything. However, when the plot picked up, I was surprised to find myself wishing for the buildup that was in the beginning. People were figuring things out too quickly and relationships were developing so fast that it seemed completely unbelievable. This, then, hurt the story because, I was not believing nor invested in a word of it. When you lose that authenticity, then the reader loses interest. Had Jones slowed down a bit and built upon the events he already had in the novel, then he could have made the plot stronger. Overall, I have to give Jones credit for self-publishing a book. That is courageous in itself and I respect him for putting out something he believed in. Hopefully my feedback will help him to improve his future books and I wish him luck in all of his endeavors.
*I won this book through Goodreads' First Reads Giveaway*John Lago, the main character, states early on in the novel that this sequel is going to better than the original. Ehhhhh....I don't know about that one. It's not bad by any means, but I found myself liking the original more. First of all, it's not written in the same way. The last book was written as if Lago himself wrote it, whereas this one is not. In fact, it jumps from present day to past and back and forth. Does this get a bit confusing and abrupt sometimes? Yes. But once you get going it's not so bad. Second of all, there's a lot happening in this novel. While the synopsis on the back does touch on parts of the novel, it sure as hell does not do it justice. I walked in thinking the book was going to go one way and came out feeling as if I was unprepared going in.*UPDATE: the Goodreads synopsis is A LOT BETTER than the one on the back of my book. I only just now realized that the two are different Oh man, and Alice? She is intolerable in this book. I couldn't stand her, even when Kuhn wanted me to like her. She wasn't so bad in the first novel, but I was ready to take her out myself after this one. In addition to everything above, this book has its own designated prologue, but, in my opinion, the prologue should have spanned the first 100 pages of the novel. Everything happened so quickly and seemed so forced in those pages that it seemed the only purpose for these scenes were to set you up for the second half, which was much more paced and thought out. A lot of the time I found myself not thinking about the timing and the logistics because I just wanted to get through the scene. If I thought about it too much, I would find hundreds of flaws...and that's no fun, now is it?Now, don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the book. After those first 100 pages, I was thoroughly enthralled in the drama of the novel. I also love John Lago as a character, which is probably why I could power through the eh parts, since he is such an interesting character. It's a decent sequel, overall, since you get to dive more into Lago's life, but I still liked the original a little bit better.
Wow. Who knew assassination could be so much fun?
This book is really good. I absolutely adore John Lago, despite the fact that he swears after every other word. But, he's a sarcastic asshole; it just comes with the territory.
And, I mean, who DOESN'T love a good, old fashioned sarcastic asshole?
I also really enjoyed the insider look on the assassin field. Normally, you read books and the assassin character is equivalent to a robot. While Lago might compare himself to a robot throughout the novel, he has complex thoughts and feelings (although he would never admit it out loud) that you get to see by reading the novel through his perspective. Lago is treated as a human being instead of some soulless hack that simply kills with no emotions at all. That character would destroy this book and Shane Kuhn knew it.
My only issue with the book is that there was no indication of time. The novel is fast paced to begin with, so you are already thinking things are happening more quickly than in real life. Normally, I would automatically call bullshit on this (I read a lot of YA novels and THAT comes with my territory). However, there was no way for me to see if this could have made sense in that time frame. Was this case only a month? Or did it drag on for a lot longer? You don't know. Having this explained would have helped to put the events of the novel in perspective for the reader.
Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I won the sequel through Goodreads' giveaways, so I have high hopes that the sequel, like this novel, will not disappoint.
OH MEG CABOT HOW I'VE MISSED YOU SO.
And you too, Mia, it's been a while.
Oh man, Royal Wedding is fabulous. It's the same Mia that I loved as a kid, when I would read while waiting for my mom to come out of the store. She's still got the best one liners and humor, to the point that I was cracking up and having to read passages to my sister because they NEEDED to be shared. Overall, it was lovely to continue reading about the first Meg Cabot character that I met back in middle school (oh lord...I'm old).
Were there some flaws? Yes. Did I really mind them? Nah. I mean, I finished this 450 some page book in one day, in between work and a full load of summer classes. If you can keep me THAT invested, then I am completely willing to overlook flaws.
End Verdict? READ THE BOOK. Better yet, READ THE SERIES. Meg Cabot is a fantastic writer, to the point that I have mirrored my own writing style after hers. She is able to write such relatable characters and does so in a way that is so casual and natural that you end up 60 pages in without realizing it. Everything she writes is AMAZING (unless its the Underworld series...you can see my reviews on that one), so I 100% recommend checking her stuff out. You won't be disappointed.
*I won this book through Goodreads' First Reads Giveaway*
I will forever refer to this book as "The Nun Book", since my best friend saw that the convent was a part of the story and ran with it.
Don't worry, Dato, the book lives up to the hype we gave it.
So, yes, our main character, Rosemarie, has been promised to enter a convent on her 18th birthday UNLESS she can fall in love before that. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Oh my God this is going to be so corny". Surprisingly, it's not totally. Rosemarie is a pretty levelheaded and intelligent main character, even though the time period itself (not to mention the YA genre) calls for a damsel in distress. She is quite the realistic character as well, showing uncertainties and rationalizing all aspects of things instead of stubbornly thinking her way is the ONLY way.
Now the suspense? It's not the best. I mean, I knew most of what was going to happen, either because I'm getting good at figuring it out on my own or its just kind of obvious. HOWEVER, it's manageable. To me, there are three ways to do suspense. Either it's:
1)Totally catching me off guard and my mind is spinning
2)I figured it out but the characters soon did as well
3)I figured it out and want to bang the characters' heads against a wall because they're freaking idiots
This book went with the number 2 approach, so, while I knew where the story was heading, the characters themselves were not too far behind.
Other minor things were that the romance part was the corniest, but I mean it's three dudes going after one girl...I don't think you can not be corny with that. Also, the narrative switches from Rosemarie to "another character", which you figure out soon enough anyway. The first time it happens, though, the font changes and, since you're technically not supposed to know who it is yet, there's no warning of the POV change. This got confusing at first, since I was trying to figure out if it was an error or, if not, who the other character was that was speaking. Once you get past this first POV change, the rest of the transitions are fine.
So, overall, it's a great book. I had a great time reading it and I highly recommend it to anyone who is 2000% done with the YA genre. Because, let me tell you, I am totally irritated with what is currently coming out of it, but there is every once in a while that a book comes out that makes me not want to burn the entire genre to the ground. This is definitely one of them.
