Elena Likes Books

Rose is an ATA pilot, shuttling planes and people around England in service of the WWII war effort. She's been flying since she was twelve, and she knows she has more skill and experience than many of the green boys flying planes over in France on the front lines. So when her uncle, a hotshot military engineer with connections, arranges for her to fly to Paris shortly after it's been liberated, she's thrilled. But Rose gets more than she bargained for on her jaunt to France, and what comes next will test her in every way the human spirit can be tested.I was not expecting this to be a sequel to [b:Code Name Verity|11925514|Code Name Verity|Elizabeth Wein|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337034341s/11925514.jpg|16885788], so I was startled to start reading and discover that Maddie is a prominent secondary character. Honestly, I think that was one of the downsides for me reading this, because there were so many bits where Elizabeth Wein did little call-outs to Code Name Verity, and seriousface WWII historical fiction does not need cutesy little shout-outs and recurring characters in "companion novels." I'm not saying Maddie is a bad character, but I do think this book would have been stronger without her.This book was not as good as Code Name Verity. I just have to get that off my chest. It was, however, pretty damned good.Like Code Name Verity, it took me a while to get into this book. Specifically, Wein's quickly-becoming-trademark unusual narrative style choices, which aid the book as a whole, make the first 60 pages really, really boring. But all the boring, chipper, girl-who-really-wants-to-be-on-the-front-lines-because-she's-a-hotshot-pilot-and-craves-excitement blandness serve as a stark contrast to what comes later.What comes later is...well. If you read Code Name Verity, brace yourself for that kind of intensity. This book was horrifying, and beautifully written. I didn't think Rose was that great of a character, but I did love all the relationships she forms through her ordeal, and how her friendships keep her going. She also had some interesting internal conflicts throughout the book, and some of them were really fascinating to think about.Overall, if you liked Code Name Verity, you will probably enjoy this as well. If you didn't like Code Name Verity, this book also probably isn't for you (unless your issue with CNV was the unreliable narrator, because there's none of that here). I don't think Rose is a particularly compelling or lovable character, but the situations she finds herself in are compelling in and of themselves, and make the book worth reading.Thanks to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing an ARC of this title.

I have read several reviews that make me think I would not like this book, but people keep telling me I would love it so I guess I might maybe eventually get around to trying it.

3.5 stars. This was a good book, but it just wasn't really my thing.

3.5 stars. Fun romantic suspense.

3.5 stars. Fun romantic suspense.

I haven't read many books in this genre, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The book brimmed with emotion, had less sex than I anticipated (but if that's your thing, the sex that is there will satisfy you!), and had an actual non-sex-related plot to hold my interest. Rather than erotica, I found this book to be a well-written romance starring a couple with a nontraditional sexual relationship. Well done.

4.5 stars. Better than the first book.

I had some issues with the agency of the heroine. Namely, her role in the story was damsel in distress and only damsel in distress. She never actually contributed anything other than emotional support to the resolution of the book's conflicts; she just got in the way or got kidnapped or whatever, needing to be rescued no fewer than five times. There's one part where the hero thinks to himself something like, "I've never met another person besides me who is more in control of their emotions than she is," which totally cracked me up because she just seesaws between being a crying mess and being overtly pissed off (mostly crying though). Blah.Guess I'm still looking for some sci-fi romance I'll actually enjoy...

3.5 stars. Review to come closer to the publication date.

This was a lot of fun when I wasn't totally distracted by the fact that the cover was peeling right off my brand new book, making all the pages pretty loose (FYI: don't get the paperback if you think you might want to read this more than once).I loved getting to know each of the kids, and I loved each of their unique and complicated relationships with their parents. Most of this volume was set-up--I feel like they're only true runaways at the end of this volume, realizing that there's no easy way to stop their supervillain parents and finally having left home for good--but it was good enough set-up that I'm really excited to see what comes next.

Eva was created for a single purpose: she's a backup copy, an "echo" of another girl. If Eva's "other" dies, she will step in, seamlessly replacing the girl and living out the rest of her life in her other, Amarra's, shoes. Her whole life is spent learning to be just like her other: eating the same foods, doing the same lessons, watching the same movies, learning all about the other's family and friends, etc. The rules she lives by are rigid--she can't so much as read a book her other hasn't read, and she can't leave the tiny English town where she's hidden for fear of hunters, assassins whose sole purpose is to find and kill echoes. Even the name she gave herself is taboo and must be kept secret from the Weavers who made her and dictate her life. But she's lucky enough to have Guardians who love her and will occasionally break some small rules so Eva can have a life of her own.Then Amarra dies, and Eva is thrust into a world where she must learn to get along with a family she's known only in pictures and videos, a family who knows she's not Amarra but look for glimpses of their lost loved one in every move she makes. She spends her every waking minute pretending to be someone she's not, living in fear that someone at school will out her as an echo or that her other's family will decide to send her back with a "sleep order." If she's found out, it will mean her death, if not at the hands of hunters then by the very Weavers who created her. Weavers don't have a use for echoes who fail.This whole book is about grief. Grief and selfhood and the bonds of family and friendship. I cried more than once while reading it. But at the same time, the plot has enough sci-fi thriller elements that the overall tone of the book is exciting rather than depressing. I loved it. I loved it so, so much.I loved Eva, even if I thought she was stupidly reckless sometimes. (At least there were characters in the book who pointed out that she was being stupidly reckless.) Her internal conflicts are probably some of the best I've seen in YA. I thought nearly all the secondary characters were done well too. I loved Eva's Guardian-family, and I loved Amarra's family, and I loved the love interests and the way their own conflicts, which were different and yet related to Eva's conflicts, were given attention too. There are some characters I would have liked to know better, but the cast was fairly large for a single book, so I suppose there just wasn't room for us to learn all about every secondary character.I was also really pleased with the setting. Bangalore! Awesome! Especially awesome is that the setting wasn't presented as ~exotic~. Eva did not marvel at how incredibly non-English it was, though she did do things like goggle at cows in the middle of roads and slip up by referring to chips as "crisps" and so forth. Otherwise, we were just kind of plopped into India like it was no big deal. This is how it should be. So much love.I'm really upset that this book has been out for almost a year and there's been no sequel announcement. The author wrote on her website that she planned this to be the first of a series, and I am dying for more. But it seems like this book didn't sell well enough for the publishers to go in for more books. SO ANGRY. THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. YOU SHOULD READ IT AND BUY COPIES SO THE PUBLISHER WILL CHANGE THEIR MIND ABOUT SEQUELS.In short: My favorite read of the first half of 2013.

Wow, this is the first rapist hero I've read in years. I hoped the romance genre was past that horrible phase, but apparently not. This is the kind of shit that makes me want to become a romance novelist, just so I can contribute to the small (but growing! I think and desperately hope) group of romances that don't make me want to stab something in feminist rage.

4.5 stars. This book is so cool.I am pretty picky about my graphic novels, but this one kind of knocked my socks off. So many enjoyable characters! So many delicious tensions! So much humor! So much danger! New parents (in a loving but relatively new relationship) on the run with their baby! Alien lords with televisions for heads! Assassins with cats who can tell when you're lying (okay, maybe there's just one assassin with one cat)!Parts of this book were laugh-out-loud funny, parts were gasp-worthy, parts were touching, and parts were quite frankly more disturbing than I signed up for (WTF weirdly graphic, drug-haze-like brothel scene? I never want to see that many illustrations of penises in one 3-page scene again).Really my only downside (apart from all the penises) is that it was over in just a couple hours. I am so excited for volume 2 I can hardly stand it, but once I breeze through that one in a single sitting, I will be dying waiting for volume 3, since none of the issues have even been released yet. DYING, I TELL YOU.If you're a graphic novel reader who appreciates some fine, fine science fantasy, you will almost certainly adore this as much as I do.

3.5 stars. Still love this world and this series, but had some feminist issues with this one. Probably made more acute by the fact that I was reading it while attending a feminist sci-fi/fantasy convention.

I feel almost as bad about my lackluster feelings about this book as I do the fact that I've never made it all the way through a Tolkien novel. It's like a betrayal of nerdkind. But, well. I thought Sabriel had a lot of really great elements, but none of the elements were given the attention they deserved. For example, the magic system? Awesome. But we explore it so very little. None of the characters felt fully formed either, with the possible exception of Mogget--but even there, we're missing too much of his backstory and motivations.Sorry, nerdkind. I know I'm a disappointment.

3.5 stars, rounded up because Reyes was slightly less of an asshole than he was in the first three books. Slightly. I'm afraid I do have to give up on this series though, just because Reyes has pretty much turned into a pet peeve all on his own, to the point that my hatred of him overshadows my appreciation for other aspects of this series. I hope Darynda Jones wraps this series up after a couple more books and starts something new that I can love wholeheartedly.