Avoid This One

I really wanted to love The Rules because the premise is awesome: Popular, privileged kids go on a scavenger hunt where it turns out there's more on the line than just winning a fabulous prize. The main character, Robin, is not a member of the clique, so obviously she's the one you want to root for. But then people start turning up dead or injured, and it becomes very apparent that someone has much bigger issues to resolve...and those include death and pain. Pretty good set up, right?

Honesty compels me to say that this book is so poorly executed that I wanted to give up almost immediately. But having stuck with books I disliked initially in the past, I felt honor-bound to continue. Unfortunately, it never got better, and what should have worked to be scary and fiendish turned out to be just a bunch of too stupid to live moments. People who obviously have no clue (pun not intended) do ridiculous things like splitting up and making out rather than worry that their very lives are at stake. There's no one to feel any sympathy for, and many I just wanted to go ahead and die already because they were just so unappealing. Even Robin, our heroine, falls far short of using her brains. I truly didn't care if she lived or died.

A huge turn off for me in the beginning was the jumping into points of view of random characters; it would have worked far better if there had been a core group whose heads we could get inside, rather than glimpses of the phobias and manias most of the characters seemed to have. I was also less than impressed with the style of writing itself; the phrases and the wording reeked of amateurism when it should set us up for the drama to follow. Do I really need to be told that Jinny is Robin's mom as the woman walks into the room? Nope.

Still, there were a couple of moments that keeps this one from getting the dreaded one star, including the groundwork of August's sister's death and the atmosphere of horror that sort of permeates the plot. However, I hate to be harsh, but this is one book I say you can avoid and not feel badly about skipping.

~taminator40

Dear Killer (This Book Needs to Die...and NOT in a Good Way)

Here's the disclaimer...I didn't finish this one, so take my review for what it's worth. It's not that the writing is bad; in fact, it's fairly engaging, and maybe with another topic, I might've been giving a totally different review. My biggest issue with the 60+ pages I read was the amorality of the title character. If there had been anything at all redeemable about her, I'd have kept on reading. And perhaps there is, later on in the book, but I just felt sorta icky reading a story told by a character who sees killing, even people she knows, as a business. Maybe that's not even it; maybe it's just that, no matter her childhood, I just couldn't root for a teen killer. This isn't Dexter, and killing people you know because you can is just not for me.

I'm giving this book 2 stars because I recognize it's unfair to judge an entire book on less than 100 pages, and I also recognize that maybe I'm missing something vital in not continuing to read. I just know, for me, this book just left me feeling unsettled, and not in a good way.

~taminator40

A Triple Knot

A Triple Knot is the fictionalized story of Joan of Kent, royal daughter descended from Edward I of England who ultimately became Queen Regent for her son, Richard II. The novel, however, does not get to this point of Joan's rather engaging life; we follow her from the time she's a child who is basically raised with the king's children until she finally marries the man known as the Black Prince, some twenty years later. What happens in between really could be the invention of a novelist, with Joan marrying Thomas Holland, a lowly knight, in secret, and then going into another marriage with the son of the Earl of Salisbury at her family's direction. Her feelings for Thomas and her resistance to her second marriage ultimately becomes a decision for the Pope and the proceedings are dragged out over time. It's really amazing that this renowned beauty somehow managed to be united with the man she loved and overcome her family's insistence of the validity of her second marriage; beyond that, she eventually captured the heart of the Black Prince and came to power in her own right. Truly an amazing account that should be excellent fodder for an historical novel.

Unfortunately, A Triple Knot does quite a bit of "telling" rather than showing; there's a dearth of dialogue that would have illuminated the characters involved and involved the reader more fully with events that are at times pretty confusing. Even when there is dialogue, it's often either stilted and formal, or very flowery; I just could not get a connection to any of the characters because I just couldn't relate to them. There's a lot of intrigue going on (as I'm sure there was at the time) but Joan is cast firstly as a victim of a sexual predator, then as a mature lover (at age twelve!), then as a brave woman defending herself and others on shipboard, then as a sullen, depressed young woman; after that we find Joan as victim again, lover again, repeat cycle. With all that actually happened in this remarkable young lady's life, it seemed a bit overdone to have her fight off an attacker physically on a ship but then be held captive by her erstwhile husband a bit later. I know the gaps needed filling, and it's the author's prerogative to do so, but I just couldn't buy into it.

Not that there's nothing redeeming in this novel; I did enjoy parts of it and found that the author remained as true as I could recall to the known facts. It's just the characterizations the author chose in using those facts left me feeling cold. With a wealth of fascinating personages and events that changed the course of history, I just wanted at least one person to whom I felt a connection. I stuck with the novel through the end and never truly enjoyed the journey as much as I wanted to.

~taminator40