Glimpse

Glimpse

Stacy Wallace Benefiel

.

You know what happens when your parents kidnap you and force you to stay in a rolling box (ok, motorhome) for seven days driving from home, a large city in southern Cali, to a rural town in Wyoming? You read and write a lot. And sleep, that too. Don’t get me wrong, Wyoming is beautiful, but the ten hours of driving through desert gets more than monotonous. Unfortunately for me, I did not bring a good book that I could get into. So I decided to try a free book on my Itunes. I will say this, there is a good reason a lot of those books are free.

            Well, now that I’ve finished that completely unnecessary rant, the free book I got on my phone from Itunes was Glimpse by Stacy Wallace Benefiel. The story is about teenager Hazel (Zellie) Wells who is desperately in love with a boy named Avery Adams in her grade, but is pretty sure he doesn’t even know she exists. But naturally he feels exactly the same way. That is a big problem with this story, it is entirely too predictable and unrealistic. One thing I completely hate in stories is when the main character seems to be who the author wishes she could be. This read like that. Zellie and Avery instantly fall madly in love with each other (within, like, a matter of hours) but then their parents are against their relationship. It goes a little Romeo and Juliet with them defying their parents to be together but that is short lived because the real twist of the story is Zellie has a vision of Avery’s death the first time they have contact.

            She tells no one of these visions but soon finds out they are hereditary from her mother and grandmother. From then Zellie must go on a short, anticlimactic mini-adventure with her best friend Claire and younger sister Melody to discover her full powers and prevent Avery and her parents from thinking she is a freak. I’ll let you guess the ending.

            Some major problems with this story: A lack of character development. In fact, the characters seem to develop backwards, or switch personalities entirely. Zellie is supposed to be shy, a bit awkward, and average. Suddenly, she transforms into a confident girlfriend, superhero type character. Claire is supposed to be confident, the girl who has things go her way, but in the end she is the one almost ruining everything, and Melody is supposed to be the annoying younger sister but she turns into an overly-caring, responsible character for Zellie to lean on. Another problem with this story: the acceptance of the psychic gene. The whole story is set in a small town and Zellie’s father is the pastor of the church. And most of the characters are completely okay with this magical force that contradicts their religion. One last problem: the ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but if you read it, you will understand how terribly disturbing and unrealistic it is. Honestly I’m not sure how I finished this book, I was pretty desperate after staring at the same looking mountains, but this book was not worth the time. As I said in previous posts, I am a firm believe in forming your own opinion, so check it out if you want, you may appreciate what I couldn’t. 1 pearl.

XOXO

Kenna-lee

Skin Hunger

Skin Hunger
Kathleen Duey
....

Besides the title being Skin Hunger, which honestly I don't get, this book is not as creepy as one might fear. It's called the Resurrection of Magic series, and actually, it's quite brilliant. 


The story starts off in the third person point of view of Micah, who is a young boy at the time. The story talks about the birth of his sister and how he is running to find a wizard/witch to help his mother during the process. Well everything goes horribly wrong, but Sadima, the new babe, is still alive. The story then switches to the first person voice of Hahp. He is chosen to attend a school of wizarding, a horrible place where few who attend actually survive. 


The whole book reminds me somewhat of the feeling I got when I read Eragon. It's long, and there are parts that don't need to be there, but I still enjoy them. Each part is exciting and sometimes you can't wait for the next part while you're reading a dull part of the other. The character are great too. Well thought out, and you hate and love them at the same time. The one thing I didn't like was that the end of the book was the same as the ending of the chapters. The second book, Sacred Scars, might as well just been thrown in and the book could be extremely long. However, I really did enjoy it, so 4 pearls for Skin Hunger. (I still don't get the name!)


Keep on Reading
XOXO
Rosie

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
....

I have to admit, while I hold some of Doyle's Holmesian novels close to heart, he is a darn good short story writer. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the first published series of short stories by Doyle, and it really shows a great deal more about the famous detective and his trusty doctor (who is now married!). 


The Adventures features one of the greater characters in the series. She's a brilliant criminal who's name will always appear next to Sherlock Holmes', even though she is only mention in one short story (talk about a memorable character!). She is the infamous Irene Adler, or as she is called in the story "The Woman". If you want a bit of romance from the detective, this is the closest you'll get, as Adler is the only woman to match wits with Holmes. She features in "A Scandal in Bohemia". 
If you want a good laugh (possibly at the expense of some red-haired people) and an interesting tale, look no further than "The Red-Headed League". It's a story about a terrible "prank" on the red-haired people of London who get paid to do nothing, until one day, the league vanishes. This story has an interesting twist near the end, which made it pretty enjoyable.
Another favorite of mine was "The Boscombe Valley Mystery". The story features a wild goose chase that revolves around a singular man, James McCarthy, who swears he's innocent. This story is brilliant in the fact that for a while, you can't be quick sure whether James is telling the truth, you just have to go off of faith in Holmes (who seems to be infallibly right) to find out the truth. And it's the truth that'll shock you!
"The Speckled Band" is also a great thriller, but just a warning, it jumps way back in time, so don't expect Watson's wife to make an appearance.


Now, I won't review every story in the book, but here's a few who I thought were a little weaker:


"The Engineer's Thumb" is a bit of a weird story with a big anticlimax. While Holmes isn't always suppose to "catch the bad guys", this story builds up a lot for no closure. Not something an avid book reader wants in a short story.
Another odd little story is "The Man With The Twisted Lip". This story is one the few that writers often try to add to in their own ways (a good example is "The Men With The Twisted Lips" by S. J. Rozan). There's no real explanation as to why this case is important, and it really seems like a string of coincidences. Doyle never explained this story, so we may never know the real truth behind it.


Overall, this is a good read. It's not a "sit down and finish in one day" type of book. It's a good meal book (I like to read and eat. It's odd, but pleasurable) or "in between books" book. Overall, four pearls!


Tune in next week for more Canon reviews!


XOXO
Babsie

The Art of Truth or Dare

The Art of Truth or Dare
By Melissa Jensen
...

          The Art of Truth and Dare follows teenager Fiorella Moreno, who goes by Ella, at a prestigious institution, The Willing School. Despite the common talents between her and her classmates, she still struggles with the typical class structure of cliques, the rich and pretty on top trickling down to invisibles. Ella and her two best friend are, naturally, at the bottom of the food chain. But none of them seem to mind their fate, except when Ella falls for Alex, the school’s leading man. But Ella is certain he is out of the question even though they have a passion for art in common.

The little details in this story are absolutely fantastic, but sometimes the descriptions can take you out of the story line. While as a reader I was definitely given a sense of place, I found myself waiting for the story to continue. Ella’s family dynamic is one of the stronger aids of this story. Whether you are used to a small family, or a large one, you will be relating to this loud Italian family a lot. They are funny but true, and sometimes I found myself wishing I could read more about them all together.

One of my biggest complaints about this story is the transitions. They were honestly very bad and confusing. The story would jump from dialogue at a mall scene to a scene at home going to bed without so much as an extra space between paragraphs. Several times I had to go back and re-read to make sure I hadn’t missed something. The only other flaw was more of a misconception about genre. This book was a lot more dense than I thought it would be. I picked it up hoping for a fun, light, “chick-flick” type read, and instead I found myself struggling to keep track of art history facts and characters names. Overall this was not a bad read, just not a top pick for me. 3 pearls.

XOXO

Kenna-Lee