Life is More Than Just Being Alive

 

Title/Author: Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot

Publication Date/Publisher: October 14, 2014/HarperCollins

Series: No

Source and Format: I received this book for free from the publisher via Edelweiss. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Rating: 2 stars

From Goodreads:

When Julia Buchanan enrolls at St. Anne’s at the beginning of junior year, Charlotte Ryder already knows all about the former senator’s daughter. Most people do… or think they do.

Charlotte certainly never expects she’ll be Julia’s friend. But almost immediately, she is drawn into the larger than-life-new girl’s world—a world of midnight rendezvous, dazzling parties, palatial vacation homes, and fizzy champagne cocktails. And then Charlotte meets, and begins falling for, Julia’s handsome older brother, Sebastian.

But behind her self-assured smiles and toasts to the future, Charlotte soon realizes that Julia is still suffering from a tragedy. A tragedy that the Buchanan family has kept hidden… until now.

As far as 62% into Even in Paradise I still had no idea what it was about or what might be happening. By the time the reveal happens I was soooo not into reading this anymore because I just didn’t care. I can’t be left slogging through hundreds of pages of nothing to be hit over the head with something like that.

I really thought that a book that takes place in a boarding school and in Nantucket would be a home run for sure, but neither setting was used to the full potential. I couldn’t get a handle on any of the characters, even Charlie and I spent almost 400 pages inside her head. I don’t think a character needs to make every decision I think they should make, but it would be nice to feel like I know why they’re making the decisions they do, and I didn’t have that with Even in Paradise.

Maybe I’m just tired of all The Great Gatsby-ness of 2014? Can we not continue this into 2015 please?

The Great Gatsby meets Looking for Alaska is extremely correct. It’s got the worst of both of those books.

Review: Ignite Me

Title/Author: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi
Publication Date/Publisher: February 4, 2014/HarperCollins
Series: Yes, #3 of Shatter Me Series
Source and Format: Bought
Rating: 3 starsFrom Goodreads:

Juliette now knows she may be the only one who can stop the Reestablishment. But to take them down, she’ll need the help of the one person she never thought she could trust: Warner. And as they work together, Juliette will discover that everything she thought she knew-about Warner, her abilities, and even Adam-was wrong.

I’m pretty disappointed in my disappointment with Ignite Me. It wasn’t bad…it just wasn’t the ending I thought it would be. I was never Team Adam or Team Warner, so that doesn’t really have anything to do with my feelings. I think I should have re-read Shatter Me and Unravel Me to reestablish an emotional connection to the series.

 

Ignite Me starts right after the final events of Unravel Me (I still haven’t read Destroy Me, so I don’t know where that fits into the storyline). Juliette is now in Warner’s home and she is PISSED. She’s just been shot in the chest and she is ready to start a war if it means taking down the Reestablishment.

 

Okay. I have no idea what the Reestablishment is for and how the world has wound up the way it is. I remember Juliette in the cell with Adam and being tortured and somehow escaping in Shatter Me. I remember them getting to Adam’s house and Omega Point with Kenji and all the other people with powers in Unravel Me. Chapter 62. A big fight. And then…

 

What? I have no idea. I felt pretty lost through the first quarter or so of Ignite Me, until everything became about Juliette transforming into a super badass and lots of very real sexytimes. Um, hello.

 

Outside of all that, I thought Ignite Me was less lyrical than the other two books. Did we lose the flowery prose because Juliette’s mind is stronger? Is it just the natural progression and maturation of Mafi’s writing? It definitely felt different.

 

The ending is extremely rushed. Like, “holy crap there’s only 10 pages left and we haven’t gotten the boss fight yet” rushed. Yet the month the gang takes to prepare for that showdown is drawn out in painstaking detail – too many words to describe what doors look like, wordy descriptions of a gym (several times) for anyone who has never heard of a dumbbell or treadmill, and of course, the Juliette angst.

 

Because I don’t remember the finer details of the first two books, Juliette’s growth from the nothing-girl I remember from that first prison cell to wannabe world leader was a lot to take in all at once. Her power is used differently in this book, and I didn’t really buy it – but I also don’t remember all the science-y stuff we learned about her abilities at Omega Point in Unravel Me.

 

Basically, it’s impossible task for me to judge this book on it’s own without the full series to back it up. My rating stands at 3 stars for now, but I have a feeling when I get a chance to re-read the series all at once my thoughts will be different.