Tag «annoying characters»

Series Review: Gemma Doyle by Libby Bray

Series: Gemma Doyle Trilogy; Great and Terrible Beauty Series
Author: Libby Bray
# of Books: 3 (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing)
Book Order: Chronological
Complete?: Yes
Genre: Young Adult, Historic, Romance, Fantasy, Suspense
Heat Rating: cool

Thoughts:

I picked up this book based on the recommendations of the girls that shared the same spare period-class as me in high school. They loved this series and when they were describing it to me it seemed right up my alley. Victorian setting–check. Suspenseful plot–check. Romance–check. A series that had all the books released and in our high school library–double check. And so, I picked up A Great and Terrible Beauty and dove in.

While it took me a while to get accustomed to a “Victorian” setting, I easily jumped into the story and its plot. The first book especially was so refreshing for me to read. It was like nothing I had ever read and I enjoyed Gemma’s adventure to her new boarding school. Sure, there are a few “cliché” things for the time but the fantasy aspects of the plot were what really captured my attention. Add to it an interesting romantic lead for Gemma and I was hooked.

Hot off the heels of A Great and Terrible Beauty, I picked up Rebel Angels. For some reason I just really loved it–while my friends did not like it as much as me. I think it had mostly to do with the introduction of a second love interest for Gemma who I seemed to really like and no one else did. And if you asked me now why I felt that way, I won’t be able to answer. I honestly can’t remember what happened plot-wise but I liked the darker feel this book had to it and the revealing of the mystery.

I borrowed a copy of A Far Sweet Thing from a friend and it took me a few weeks to return it–unfinished. I just couldn’t get into the story for the life of me. I found it hard to keep the fantasy aspects all in check and I was getting frustrated with the characters. Talk about the prime example for annoying, selfish, whinny little teen girls. They were the poster children for annoying female leads. I also didn’t like the direction the plot and the rest of the story were going in. My friends told me what happened in the rest of the book and I think it’s a good thing I quit reading because I wouldn’t have enjoyed how everything went down. Wikipedia filled in some of the other blanks as well and I am still of the opinion I wouldn’t have liked the ending if I had finished it.

Conclusion:

I probably will never finish the series by reading the last book. I’ve definitely moved past that type of Young Adult novel in my current reading preferences (this book is probably the reason why when I think back on it) and I would get even more frustrated with the whole thing now. It was a strong series–at the start–and it is definitely unique; but I’m not going out of my way to recommend it to anyone when someone asks me a good trilogy series to read.

Rating: 3.5/5 (and it’s really only that high because I enjoyed the first two books)

Similar Reads: The Luxe by Anna Godbersen (The Luxe #1) and Evermore by Alyson Noel (Immortals #1)

Synopsis for A Great and Terrible Beauty (from Goodreads):
A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about a clique of girlfriends, and a dark other-worldly fantasy–jumble them all together and you have this complicated and unusual first novel.
Sixteen-year-old Gemma has had an unconventional upbringing in India, until the day she foresees her mother’s death in a black, swirling vision that turns out to be true. Sent back to England, she is enrolled at Spence, a girls’ academy with a mysterious burned-out East Wing. There Gemma is snubbed by powerful Felicity, beautiful Pippa, and even her own dumpy roommate Ann, until she blackmails herself and Ann into the treacherous clique. Gemma is distressed to find that she has been followed from India by Kartik, a beautiful young man who warns her to fight off the visions. Nevertheless, they continue, and one night she is led by a child-spirit to find a diary that reveals the secrets of a mystical Order. The clique soon finds a way to accompany Gemma to the other-world realms of her visions “for a bit of fun” and to taste the power they will never have as Victorian wives, but they discover that the delights of the realms are overwhelmed by a menace they cannot control. Gemma is left with the knowledge that her role as the link between worlds leaves her with a mission to seek out the “others” and rebuild the Order.

Series Review: Laurel by Aprilynne Pike

Series: Wings or Laurel Series
Author: Aprilynne Pike
# of Books: 4 (Wings, Spells, Illusions, Destined)
Complete?: Yes
Genre: Young Adult/Teen, Faeries, Romance, Magic
Heat Rating: cool

Thoughts:

This was one of those series that just didn’t do it for me. Despite the high ratings and reviews, I just couldn’t get into this series. I’m not sure why I finished it, I think I just had to have some closure with the story and that made me read the rest. I also blame the covers for getting prettier and prettier as the series continued 😉

There are a few reasons why I didn’t enjoy these books as much as I hoped: 1) it was very high school; 2) the characters and 3) love triangle.

When I say “very high school” I mean that this book is definitely geared towards younger teens and not those entering university (which is when I started to read this series). I don’t think it helps that one of my all time faerie series is Wicked Lovely, which is just that touch more mature for a young adult book or that I started reading the Iron Fey series around the same time, which also has a more mature feel to it. The problems the characters face in these books, especially in their personal lives, seemed petty and juvenile so that turned me off of the story at times and more importantly, off of the characters.

That is perhaps the biggest problem with this series: I hated the characters. Laurel was fine for Wings with her perfect life and attitude. When she really started to piss me off was near the end of Spells and then in Illusions. She just becomes whiny and angsty and I just found her lack of maturity at times and her “do-gooder” attitude to be irritating. It also doesn’t help that she has a love triangle she can’t seem to figure out–love triangles are the WORST!

While I occasionally find myself in a situation where I don’t enjoy the main character (which makes it hard to continue reading any book), I often have another character that I like in the book and continue reading for them. At the start of the series, that character was Tamani. I really liked him in Wings and then that started to change by the time I read Illusions. He just became irritating and while I initially rooted for him to get Laurel, by the time I got to Destined, I didn’t particularly care if either him or David (who was also annoying throughout the series) was with Laurel–that is never a good sign.

Destined as a finale was an OK book. Nothing overly wowed me and I was just happy it was all over. I don’t think it helped that I read this book so far after the other ones–which I read within a two month span of each other–so I didn’t remember a lot other than that I didn’t like the characters and they had to save the world.

To end on a more positive note, I will mention what I liked about the series. I did like the Faerie world Pike created. It was a cool combination of the caste system, faeries and magic that isn’t overly common in this genre. It was fresh and interesting so kudos. Also, I really love the last two covers of the series–so pretty! Perhaps the thing I liked most about this series was the little extra Pike added to the end of Destined. It is a letter from one of the main characters and it was my favourite part of the book. It just had that little bit more insight into the series and characters. I wish this side of the writing was brought out more in the books because I think I would have enjoyed the series if it had more of this “real” aspect to it instead of a “happy-go-lucky” feel it has throughout.

Conclusion:

I think if I was 15 when I read these books, I would have liked them. Perhaps I would have connected more to the characters and enjoyed their stories a bit more. These books weren’t anything fantastic but they featured a cool concept lots of other faerie books lack. If you are looking for a good clean faerie series, this would be one for you to read!
Rating: 2.5/5

Similar Reads: Need by Carrie Jones (Need, #1) and Glimmerglass by Jenna Black (Faeriewalker, #1)

Synopsis for Wings (from Goodreads):
Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

Series Review: Wanted by Kelly Elliot

Series: Wanted
Author: Kelly Elliot
# of Books: 3 4 (Wanted, Saved, Faithful, Cherished)

There is a novella that takes place between Faithful and Cherished called Believe

Complete?: ~~No, Faithful will be released in August 2013~~ Yes, but spin-off series are in the works
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Abuse
Heat Rating: hot

Thoughts:

This is one of those series that has a extremely high rating on Goodreads and I have no idea why. I bought Wanted and Saved because the rating on Goodreads was so high and the plot of Wanted intrigued me–I haven’t really read any books where the heroine falls in love with her older brother’s best friend so I wanted (no pun intended) to see what it was like. I also like reading as many books in the series as close together as I possibly can so I decided to buy Saved as well. It also didn’t hurt that the books were under $3 with my coupons from Kobo.

The first book in the series Wanted reminded me a lot of This Beautiful Thing by Amanda Heath (Young Love Series #1) I had read just a few weeks ago and did not enjoy all that much. Basically, I didn’t like This Beautiful Thing because of the lack of maturity in the characters and it is the same case here. Based on the synopsis I was expecting a much more mature story in Wanted seeing as Ellie has been abused by her mother. By no means did I expect her to be confident but I didn’t expect her to be so juvenile in her thoughts and action. I had hoped Gunner would be a tad more mature as he is 3 years older but he is just as bad, if not worse. Even her older brother, Jefferson needed a good smack on the head at times. As I said in the review of This Beautiful Love it is as if someone wrote this book after watching too many teen drama series on TV and thinking “this is what teenagers are like!” and unless I come from another planet, that isn’t what most teenagers are like.

I hate insta-love connection stories and that is what we get here. I probably would have stopped reading it if I just borrowed this book from the library but seeing as I did buy it, I decided to finish it. I believe I developed a tolerance to the writing after a while so I did manage to finish. I didn’t particularly care for Ellie or Gunner at all throughout the story. I actually feel like their story is a side-story and most of the plot focuses on Jeff and Ari–even though they have their own book, Saved which is the next in the series. I think I would have enjoyed Wanted more in theory if we lost the Jeff and Ari saga and had a more solid (actually, ANY) plot for Ellie and Gunner.

Saved follows a similar path as Wanted in that Ari and Jeff are the main focus, but we also get side-stories about Gunner & Eli and Josh & Heather. Again, I would have appreciated separate books dedicated to each couple instead of little hints here and there. As they currently stand, it makes the books really long and I feel like I am reading two different books as the same time.

As for the book itself, I enjoyed Saved a touch more. Once I got past the occasional grammar mistake and lack of quotation marks, I thought the story overall was better handled. While it still was a little over the top, there were parts that I thought were more realistic to the story that made it more interesting.

UPDATED (Jan 27/14): After having Faithful on my Kobo for months I finally got around to reading it (part of my goal for the month of January to finish 5 series I had previously started).

I actually really enjoyed this book — way more than I expected. I think part of the reason was that this book seemed a touch more mature than the others considering the events these two characters go through. I also think that splitting up the story amongst the various couples we have been introduced to at this point and not having just one main plot really helped: I didn’t become overwhelmed with the stupidity and naivety of these characters. (Which is ironic because I had complained about the multiple plot lines before in the previous novels in this review :P).

When I bought Faithful, I didn’t realize that there were actually 4 books to this series. When I finished Faithful, I was glad there were 4 because I was excited to see and learn more about the next set of characters. Unfortunately, Cherished dropped the ball for me. I just felt like it was filled with double-standards, over the top drama and an annoying heroine which I didn’t like too much. It was just meh but again, I am somehow roped into seeing where the next two spin-off series go–damn!

Conclusion:

I probably would have stopped reading it if I just borrowed these book from the library but seeing as I did buy them, I decided to finish. Definitely not my favourite books that I have read this year ~~but somehow I got a little attached to the last two characters that will be in book 3 and I will probably end up reading the 3rd one just to have some closure~~. Otherwise, it is not my cup of tea that I would pass on if I could do it again. *UPDATED* I still would probably pass on this series–there is nothing really outstanding about this series other than the naivety of the characters and the crazy amount of ways to say “I love you”.

Rating: 2.5/5

Similar Reads: This Beautiful Thing by Amanda Heath (Young Love Series, #1)

Synopsis for Wanted (from Goodreads):
Verbally abused by her mother for years, 18 year old Ellie Johnson always believed she would never be loved or wanted by anyone. She focused all of her attention on her grades and getting into the University of Texas to start a new life away from her mother.
The last thing Ellie expected was to fall in love with Gunner Mathews, a starting linebacker for the University of Texas football team and not to mention, her brothers best friend.
Gunner only had two passions in life, football and his grandfather’s ranch, until he falls for his best friends little sister. He will stop at nothing to show Ellie how much he wants her, even if it means he has to move faster than she would like.
Gunner knows they are meant to be together forever, but Ellie keeps denying her feelings out of fear of being hurt again. Every time he gets close to winning her love, something pushes her away again. Will Ellie ever be able to let go of the past and let him into her heart and will Gunner be patient enough to wait for her?
What will it take for them to realize they are all each other have ever WANTED?