Kingdom Keepers V: Shell Game

Kingdom Keepers V: Shell Game, by Ridley Pearson.

Finn wasn't about to get back to sleep. He tiptoed into the kitchen and made himself a strong cup of tea to help him stay awake. Tiptoed because he didn't want to wake his supportive mother or his doubting father; didn't want to hear them bicker about how to deal with their oddball son who claimed to travel into other worlds at night. His mother knew the truth. A scientist by training, she'd put together enough empirical evidence to convince herself. Finn's father was the exact opposite. He believed his son hormonally imbalanced, "poisoned by puberty," he called it. He wanted Finn to see a counselor - a shrink - to exorcise whatever demons possessed his son into convincing himself that he could wake as a hologram in another world where evil witches vied for control of an amusement park.

I had never heard of the Kingdom Keepers series before reading this book, but the concept behind it is quite interesting. All of the Disney witches and evil characters of lore become real at night, and they are trying to destroy the Disney parks; it is up to Finn and his friends, as DHIs, to protect the parks. To protect themselves from harm, they enter the parks as holograms - so that their actual bodies are safe in their beds. With the new advanced 2.0 program, they are able to use this even more to their advantage, and the only way they themselves can be harmed is if they become fearful, turning their bodies real again.

Crazy concept, right? But it works, as you can see, because this is the fifth book in the series. I had not read any of the previous books, so I liked that the novel explained a bit about the DHI concept to its new readers, as the excerpt at the top shows, although I've heard that to fully appreciate this book, you should really start from the beginning of the series. This end of this novel, too, definitely sets up a sixth book, which was a little disappointing because the book ended so abruptly, with the DHIs on board the Disney Dream cruise ship fighting the Overtakers, the evil Disney characters that come to life at night. With real people dressed up as the characters aboard the ship too, it is often hard for the DHIs to tell the people from the villains, though it's of course the villains that try to harm or kill the DHIs.

Shell Game clocks in at a lengthy 544 pages, so I'm not sure if I will be reading the full series soon (the first book is about 350 pages as well, according to Amazon), but if I ever have more free time, I may return to the series.

3.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of this book to review. The opinions expressed, however, are my own.

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The Rock Star's Daughter

The Rock Star's Daughter, by Caitlyn Duffy.

Having a mother who has one foot in the entertainment industry and spends the majority of her time milling around the house and ordering stuff on QVC isn't really that rare for Los Angeles. But I would consider my life to be abnormal because of my dad.

My biological father is a rock star.

We recently got a Kindle Fire for my family (my dad actually won it), and although I'm sort of "against" e-readers - I find having a "real" book while I read to be much nicer, though for people that travel/commute a lot an e-reader is nice to have - one of the first things I did when we got the Fire was log on to the Amazon bookstore to see if I could find any free books. One of the first ones I found was this one, and I soon found myself hooked and wanting to see what happens to the main character, Taylor.

Taylor's dad is Chase Atwood, one of the most famous musicians in the world. However, she doesn't know him very well, because she lives with her mother in L.A., and his home base is New Jersey. When her mom dies of an overdose, though, he is the closest thing she has to family, and she gets to tour with the band over the summer. She also gets to know Jill, her stepmom, and Kelsey, her young half-sister, better, and eventually they start to grow on her. Taylor also meets Jake, whose mom is a groupie, and starts to hang out with him more and more as well.

This book is the first book in the Treadwell series (Treadwell being the name of Taylor's prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts that she attends), and it's currently FREE (e-version for Kindle) on Amazon. The second book in the series, which follows a different Treadwell girl, is called The Believer's Daughter and Amazon has it for $1.99, so I might "invest" in that at some point too.

I liked this novel a lot. My only complaint is that towards the end, it started to wander a bit, but you could chalk this up to the author just wanting to wrap up all the plots in it, I suppose. Taylor's relationship with Jake surprised me too, or at least how things ended up being left off, but I think Taylor made the right choice with that. It was funny, too, how all of her friends in L.A. assumed she was having such a glamorous summer, whereas most days she just got to stay in the hotel and/or attend her dad's concerts, but she didn't get much time to explore the cities that the tour took them too, for the most part.

4 stars out of 5.

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Dirt

Dirt, by David Vann.

Galen lay down in the hollow between two furrows, curled on his side. Breathing heavily, wet with sweat, the air cool now on his skin. His forehead in the dirt. The world only an illusion. This orchard, the long rows of trees, only a psychic space to hold the illusion of self and memory. His grandfather giving him rides on the old green tractor, the putting sound of the engine. His grandfather's Panama hat, brown shirt, smell of wine on his breath, Riesling. The feel of the tractor tugging forward, the lurch as the front wheels crossed over a furrow. All of that a training to feel the margins of things, the slipping, none of it real. The only problem was how to slip now beyond the edges of the dream. The dirt really felt like dirt.

This book took me a while to get though. Galen is a hard character to understand - he is constantly telling his family that he is an "old soul" and that they are "young souls" - and about the only thing that gets him excited in life, both literally and figuratively, is his 17-year-old cousin, Jennifer, who is much more experienced sexually than he is. His grandfather, who was abusive, is deceased, and his grandmother, who seems to be in the early stages of dementia, is in a nursing home. His mother is "at once domineering and needy," and has guilted Galen into not going to college to stay home and "play house" with her, for the most part. The two of them and his aunt, cousin, and grandmother go to a family cabin and Galen gets to have sex with Jennifer, who is bored and likes to play around with his mind.

When they get back to their respective houses, Galen's mother, who saw them having sex, threatens to call the police and get Galen sent to jail, since he is 22 and she is 17; it would be rape and possibly incest, she says. Galen will not let this happen and locks his mother in a shed on their property. Over the next few days, their relationship slowly dissolves, and Galen has to decide if he wants her to die in the shed or if he should save her life.

I didn't really like this book at all, but I will admit that I didn't see the shed twist coming. On other reviews on Amazon.com, most of them are positive, and the novel is compared to a Greek tragedy; indeed, the press release that arrived with the book calls it "a modern-day Greek tragedy with echoes of Flannery O'Connor, William Faulker, and Cormac McCarthy." David Vann, too, is the author of many books, and he has an MFA from Cornell and writes for various magazines as well. It could be that others will like Dirt, but I just couldn't get into Galen's mind - it's very "trippy" in there - and except for the surprise of him locking up his mother, and the ensuing consequences, the novel was unable to keep my interest.

1.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I was provided a copy of this book to review. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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You Have No Idea

You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other, by Vanessa Williams and Helen Williams, with Irene Zutell.

I know who Vanessa Williams is (I should know, as an entertainment blogger), but what I did not know about her is that she is so multifaceted. She started off as a beauty queen, and then, when a "scandal" about her came out, she was forced to resign from her Miss America position. Vanessa then started a career as a recording artist, and from there she moved on to Broadway; after that, she became involved in films and TV.

You Have No Idea is written by her and her mother, Helen Williams, along with Irene Zutell, and I was surprised by how much I ended up enjoying it. It mostly focuses on Vanessa, but we get a bit of Helen's background as well, along with her opinions and reactions to some of the events in Vanessa's life. The tone of the book, which was probably purposefully written this way, is more of a conversation between friends; it really draws the reader into the novel and Vanessa's life.

We follow Vanessa from when she was a little girl, always dancing and singing, through her pageant days, through the so-called "scandal," where naked photos of her from when she was a teenager surfaced. She quickly turned to singing, and then from there got a lucky break and became a Broadway star. Readers of this blog might also know her from TV's Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives, where she had supporting roles on both shows. I've never seen either show but I may watch a few episodes of Ugly Betty in the near future just to see her role in it, since it is talked about a lot throughout the novel.

3.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I read this book for the BlogHer Book Club and was compensated for doing so. However, the opinions expressed here are my own.

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An Uncommon Education

An Uncommon Education, by Elizabeth Percer.

After several hours had passed of her being uncomplaining but displeased, she asked me about my plans now that my caregiver role had ended. I told her I intended to attend the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UMass with the goal of conducting medical research in neurofibromatosis and she shook her fine head.

"They used to say that girls went to Wellesley to make a difference in the world. It was your motto or something. Have you done that? Made a difference? Do you intend to? Her face was open and curious, if not harsh. It was the most direct exchange we had ever had.

"No," I answered. "I don't think I have. Or will."

She nodded, accepting my answer. "Your mother was the same way. Could have had an uncommonly good education, but she had other ideas. Perhaps if you had been a boy you would have done more with your potential," she remarked.

"I have had a good education," I said. "And now that I'm doing what I want with it, it's also uncommon."

An Uncommon Education, out in stores today, is the first novel of author Elizabeth Percer, and in the blurb I received, it was being compared to Prep, one of my favorite books, so I was excited to read it. Unfortunately, it takes a more meandering approach, though curiously almost skipping the main character's high school years, and I only found it vaguely similar to Prep and other books of its genre.

Naomi Feinstein lives with her mother and father, and is best friends with the boy next door, Teddy. When Teddy's father dies and he and his strict Orthodox mother move away, her world collapses. Her father has had a heart attack too, and she decides that she is going to become a doctor and study hearts; this choice will go on to define her high school and college years. Rose Kennedy, one of her idols, had said that she wished she had went to Wellesley, and since Naomi also lives in Massachusetts, she sets Wellesley as her goal college. Once she actually arrives there, however, she has problems fitting in at first, and she joins Shakes, the secret Shakespeare society on campus; another choice that will end up defining her time at Wellesley.

This book was interesting in that at some points in it, I was fascinated by Naomi and her character; and at other points, unfortunately, the prose seemed rather verbose and I was just trying to get through the novel. The author herself attended Wellesley, which we can divine from the very detailed descriptions of the campus buildings and the aura surrounding the campus itself, and the writing itself was overall very good. I liked Naomi as a person, but at the same time I was frustrated with some of the choices that she made. I also was thinking that she and Teddy would reunite romantically some day, and they do reunite in her senior year of college; however, there is a twist regarding this.

3 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of this book to review. The opinions expressed, however, are my own.

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Socialpunk

Socialpunk, by Monica Leonelle.

On the one hand, she needed Nasser's hash and she promised she would do what he wanted if he helped her save Dash. On the other hand, she would never fall in love again, never explore the beginnings of feelings with Nahum, never have a chance to help Dash change his mind about her.

Not that it mattered with Dash; Cinder knew in her heart that her best friend just didn't love her like that. Maybe aligning herself with Nasser would be for the best. Maybe he would keep her from getting her heart broken again And she could do something real for once in her life, something important. She could be someone her hash depended on; she could balance out Nasser's not-so-brilliant moments, and she could help him keep them all safe.

Socialpunk is the first novel in the Socialpunk series, a new series by author Monica Leonelle, and a blogger friend of mine received an email asking for reviewers for it, which she then forwarded to me. I love dystopian literature, and Socialpunk definitely qualifies; it's a mix of The Hunger Games and the movie In Time, among other books and movies, in my opinion, and it catches your attention from its opening paragraphs.

The novel is a little hard to explain, so I'm going to use the synopsis from Goodreads instead:
Ima would give anything to escape The Dome and learn what’s beyond its barriers, but the Chicago government has kept all its citizens on lockdown ever since the Scorched Years left most of the world a desert wasteland. When a mysterious group of hooded figures enters the city unexpectedly, Ima uncovers a plot to destroy The Dome and is given the choice between escaping to a new, dangerous city or staying behind and fighting a battle she can never win.

That's a little bit simplified, but it's basically the gist of it. Ima, aka "E," soon finds out that the world she considered her own is actually fake - an experiment - and she must go back to The Dome and save her friend Dash, before all of the residents of The Dome die.

The novel was very interesting; I will definitely be checking out Socialmob (Socialpunk #2) when it is released in July. The book is nonstop action throughout, and I started reading it today on my smartphone during a work break (I had a digital copy of it) and finished it just now on my iPad - it's that quick of a read. My only complaint about it is that the ending is very abrupt, as another reviewer also complained about, but I suppose that any loose ends can be tied up during the next book in the series.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

*Disclosure: I received an e-copy of this novel to review. The opinions listed, however, are my own.

The author is doing a giveaway, as well! Sign up below to enter:
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Born Wicked

Born Wicked (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book 1) by Jessica Spotswood.

"Aren't you bored silly, Cate? I know I am. If I didn't have my novels, I'd throw myself right in the river." Maura's eyes snap as she stands and stretches, the fabric pulling tight through the bodice. She needs new dresses to fit her new curves. "What life do we have here, wandering around the house like ghosts? Don't you ever crave more?"

Do I? It's been years since I let myself consider what I want. It hardly matters. I didn't want Mother to die; I didn't want Father to turn into a shadow of his old self; I didn't want the responsibility of policing my sisters. I certainly never wanted to be a witch in the first place.

The universe has yet to take my wishes under consideration.

Watch out, YA books, there's a new star in town: Jessica Spotswood. Born Wicked is the first book (of what I hope is many) in The Cahill Witch Chronicles, and although the novel started off a bit confusing, I was soon enthralled in the story.

The year is 1896, and Cate's intention ceremony is coming up soon. In six weeks, she must decide if she wants to join the Sisterhood - a cloistered group of religious women who live in the city, New London - or announce her engagement to a man. Her childhood friend, Paul, returns from studying in the city, and she can tell that he is going to ask her to marry him. However, although Paul is a good friend, she finds herself more attracted to the gardner, Finn Belastra. At the same time, she must deal with hiding her witch powers - as well of those that her two sisters have - from the Brotherhood, the group of men that governs them and carts off witches either to the insane asylum or to their deaths. Cate also finds out about a powerful prophecy that might be talking about her and her sisters, as it talks about a group of three sisters, and she must figure out if she is the "most powerful witch" in the prophecy too.

This book was great and I can't wait for the second installment. The writing was excellent and the characters were definitely relatable, even though it takes place around the turn of the 20th century. The scenes with Cate and Finn are some of the best in the book, and the arrival of a new governess, Elena, stirs up some trouble as well. Things also pick up when Cate discovers other "secret" witches in town, and learns to improve her powers by working with them. Although the ending was not what I expected it to be, I can see why the author made it so, and I'm hoping that this will make for an interesting Book 2 in the series.

4.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I read this book for the BlogHer Book Club and was compensated for doing so. However, the opinions listed here are my own.

Book trailer:

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