strange and random happenstance

Black Heart (Curse Workers Book 3) by Holly Black
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: April 3rd, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Cassel is now "working" for the feds, though he is more freelance as he hasn't put pen to contract and he still wants to finish school. His main obsession though is still Lila. He's worried about her now that she's involved in her father's nefarious empire. All Cassel wants is the girl he can't have while walking the tightrope between good and evil. He really thought that he would be safe with the feds, but they just want to use him like his own brother's used him. The feds want Cassel to take out New Jersey's Governor so that the proposition to harm workers will disappear. It's not that the government is trying to use him that makes Cassel worried... it's that he doesn't follow their logic. Something is flawed and he things that maybe, just maybe, they are working against him as well. If he can just figure out everyone's motives and tell Lila the truth of his heart... well, maybe he could get a happy ending with the girl.

Let's talk about book series. They are the bane and bliss of readers. The bane because sometimes you just want to read a stand-alone book and these days, well, you're more likely to stumble into a series that you can't put down and have an obsessive need to finish then find a quick solo read. The bliss because, well, if you love the world and the story you never want it to end. But you can't just have a series to have a series. You really need a plot, a beginning, middle and end. You need something at stake, something that changes over time. While reading the Curse Workers books I was taken somewhere else and enjoyed the ride, but at the end, well, I'm left scratching my head.

Not much changes between the beginning of the series and the end. Cassel is still a killer, different then he thought but still a killer. So what was the goal of this series? For him to get the girl? To show the ineptitude of government? To show Cassel rise above his family's machinations? It's all so unclear. Was there a bad guy beaten and evil vanquished... no. Was there an epic battle with the fate of the world... again, no. If this series had been one book, well, it would have been an enjoyable book. But as a series... it feels forced and forgettable. Like the publisher told Holly Black, we're not taking it unless it's at least a trilogy and she acquiesced.

Speaking of publishers and series. If you are doing a series, one in which there is a new book every year, there is NO REASON to change the look of the books, the delivery time being so swift! I love how series look on my shelves. They have a weight, a presence that makes me sit back and admire them. There is nothing more likely to get my blood to boil then changing the look of the series. Ways in which to piss me off; change the size of the book, like the nice YA sized hardcovers to "Bestseller" size hardcovers. Change the initial release format, like paperback to hardcover or vice versa.

Worst of all though is what was perpetrated here on The Curseworkers. Change the style from photographic to really horrid crappy artwork. Yes, this is now a cover rant. What the heck is this cover in supposed to be? It's like a bad velvet painting with derivative 1970s type, but it you look at the swirls closer they're badly drawn people!?! The artwork is seriously bad high school level work. It's just bleck. I am 100% serious when I say that if this wasn't an author I liked I would never have picked up this book with this cover. In fact, I kind of didn't pick it up for the longest time... took me two years after publication to bother to pick it up, and I seriously considered getting it on kindle so that this hideous cover wouldn't darken my shelves.

So I should probably critique the contents of the book versus the covering... I'm sorry, this cover just, gaw. OK, the contents. As I have said, overall nothing much happens in the series. It's an enjoyable read, escapist, but it's this volume more then the previous that lets the series as a whole down and makes it forgettable. Up until Black Heart there was some interesting world building, some great characters that were more grey then black or white, and then the series went typical. How, are you asking, does a book with magic go typical?

Well, it became your bog standard mafia movie. Boy wants a better life, but it keeps pulling him back in, there's a girl, there's a deal with the feds to try to make this better life, things don't go according to plan, there's some kind of acceptably happy ending, then, the end. More then anything it felt like the book became A Bronx Tale. Your book can remind me of other books and other works and still succeed, but when I want to put down your book and watch or read the thing that it reminds me of, it fails. A Bronx Tale won.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Bronx Tale, Black Heart, Black Velvet, Book Series, Cassel, Curse Workers, Holly Black, Mafia, Red Glove, The Curse Workers, White Cat

Red Glove (Curse Workers Book 2) by Holly Black
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Cassel has spent his summer celebrating the end of his mother's incarceration by getting back on the game with her in Atlantic City. Cassel is so worried about how Lila was cursed into loving him by his own mother that he isn't very concerned with his mother returning to her old ways; the ways that got her into prison in the first place. But Cassel doesn't care, he has his final year of school soon and will spend all that time trying not to think of Lila. Bit hard when Lila has transferred to Wallingford. Yet those are the least of his worries when the feds show up to interrogate Cassel about his brother Philip.

Turns out Philip isn't really the forgiving sort, even when it comes to family. To get revenge against Cassel he has turned narc and was going to tell the feds everything, until he was murdered... The feds are now looking to Cassel for help with Philip's murder, as well as a slew of other ones. While Philip's murder should bother Cassel the most, the other murders, or more accurately, disappearances, concern him more, because he thinks he might have done them himself. Then there's his mother, who has "aligned" herself with New Jersey's Governor who is for the anti-Workers bill. Walking a thin line between right and wrong in every aspect of his life, Cassel longs for normality, but the con keeps calling him.

One of the things that I love most about the Harry Potter books is that you get a feel for the character's daily lives amongst the chaos. Some of my favorite parts of the books are Harry, Ron, and Hermione just hanging out in the common room and doing their homework. There's something calming and homey about this. This, among many others, is the reason that the Harry Potter books are like comfort food in written form. Just sink into a chair in the Gryffindor common room and let the worries of the world wash away. That's what Red Glove felt like to me.

Like White Cat, Red Glove, is very much derivative of Harry Potter, but in this second installment it was almost entirely made up of those captured moments of rest at Hogwarts. Red Glove was a very non-demanding book. The mystery wasn't in any hurry to be solved and skipping a few classes to relax seemed of more importance. If I'm being honest, with things in my life as they are right now, this is exactly what I needed in a book. A quick read that wasn't demanding and felt like you'd had a good long nap after you finished it. A refreshing read if you will.

There is one thing that I thought had potential that was ill utilized, and I'm talking about the relationship between Cassel and his mother Shandra. For the previous volume she was in jail so their relationship was confined to phone conversations and we were unable to get how the dynamic of their relationship works. Now that she's out there's so much opportunity that Black could have exploited and we are left with one tantalizing glimpse of what could have been. Their relationship is very odd, the closest thing I can think of is Norma and Norman Bates on Bates Motel.

It's a weird vibe, what with the mother supplying endless girls to get Cassel over Lila, all while saying how ungrateful he is for the gift she made of Lila. Girls who may or may not be working girls it should be said. Plus the way Cassel just sits around watching his mother do her endless toilette to go on the game, icky spiders going up and down my spine. Yet the second Cassel is back in school, his mother is off his radar, though sometimes on his tv screen. I just wish this relationship had been explored more, because I think Cassel doesn't make much sense unless you look at his family. We already know how his brother's fucked him up, but his mother knew about that and also added in her own brand of sick.

Speaking of Shandra, she is just one of the many women in Cassel's life and I've got to say, there's a victim mentality with the three main women in Cassel's life. Shandra, his mother, Lila, the love of his life, and Philip's wife, Maura; all three women are victims. Shandra, because of her own impulses resulting in incarceration, Lila, because of years of captivity as a cat and then being whammied by Shandra, and Maura, whose memories were being wiped so that she wouldn't remember fights with her husband and therefore forget about leaving him.

Of course this could all be the cause of the world they live in and the life of crime they can't escape, but the fact that all three have been violated can not be forgotten. But Black does something interesting. She let's the victims have their revenge. She lets the oppressed claim a little of their own back. So while the depiction of women might seem bleak, they aren't weak in the end. Shandra gets out of prison and embarks on a major con that is for the benefit of all the cursed, instead of settling for her own comfort, Lila breaks free of her curse and starts to plan her future where she will take over her father's empire, while Maura... well, Maura's revenge is something you have to learn for yourself and then savor.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Atlantic City, Bates Motel, Gryffindor, Harry Potter, Hermione, Hogwarts, Holly Black, Nora Bates, Norman Bates, Red Glove, The Curse Workers, White Cat

Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh by R.L. LaFevers
Published by: Houghton Mifflin
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In this fourth book in the series, Theodosia sets off to Egypt to return the Emerald Tablet—embedded with the knowledge of some of the ancient world’s most guarded secrets. Accompanied by her cat, Isis (smuggled along in a basket), Theo plans to return the artifact, then explore the mysteries surrounding her own birth and oh, yes— help her mother dig up treasures on her archeological expedition.

But nothing ever works out as planned, especially when a precious treasure appears suddenly, and then just as suddenlydisappears. . . When the Serpents of Chaos get involved, Theo finds she’s digging up a lot more than she expected!"
It felt like forever waiting for this book, but it's so good it was worth the wait!

The Unicorn's Tale by R.L. LaFevers
Published by: Houghton Mifflin
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 160 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Is there no rest for the travel worn and weary? Not if you’re Nathaniel Fludd, the world’s youngest beastologist-in-training! All Nate really wants is to track down his missing parents, but when a unicorn falls mysteriously ill, Nate’s Aunt Phil makes it clear where a beastologist’s duty lies: to the beasts.

And if taking care of the world’s beasts isn’t difficult enough, Nate and Aunt Phil must also keep them safe from the villainous Obediah Fludd, who intends to do them harm. With all this taking up every last bit of his energy and time, will Nate ever find the parents he is so absolutely convinced are alive?"

Another stellar book from Robin. Two awesome books in one day is more than I could hope for. April is looking like an awesome month!

Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward
Published by: Putnam
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 330 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"New York Times-bestselling author Lisa Lutz conspires with-or should we say against?-coauthor David Hayward to write an original and hilarious tag-team crime novel.

Meet Paul and Lacey Hansen: orphaned, pot-growing twentysomething siblings eking out a living in rural Northern California. When a headless corpse appears on their property, they can't exactly dial 911, so they move the body and wait for the police to find it. Instead, the corpse reappears, a few days riper . . . and an amateur sleuth is born. Make that two.

When collaborators Lutz and Hayward (former romantic partners) start to disagree about how the story should unfold, the body count rises, victims and suspects alike develop surprising characteristics (meet Brandy Chester, the stripper with the Mensa IQ), and sibling rivalry reaches homicidal intensity. Think Adaptation crossed with Weeds. Will the authors solve the mystery without killing each other first? "

Another fabulous book by Lisa, afterall, it is my giveaway of the month!

Elizabeth I by Margaret George
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 688 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Personal and political conflicts among such larger-than-life historical figures as Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake, and Will Shakespeare intertwine in George's meticulously envisioned portrait of Elizabeth I during the last 25 years of her reign. Unlike most contemporary depictions of the Virgin Queen, this one is actually a virgin; she's married to England, whose interests she pursues with shrewdness, courage, and wisdom borne of surviving the deaths of her family. Readers see the queen through her own eyes and those of her cousin, Lettice Knollys, wife of Elizabethan heartthrob Robert Dudley, aka the earl of Leicester. Elizabeth's antithesis, thrice-married and much-bedded Lettice, is driven by passion and self-interest, easily evidenced by the story's beginnings: it's 1588, and Elizabeth meets the threat of the Spanish Armada head-on while Lettice calculates how her son might benefit. Like her heroine, George (The Autobiography of Henry VIII) possesses an eye for beauty and a knack for detail, creating a vibrant story that, for nearly 700 pages, enables readers to experience firsthand Elizabeth's decisions, triumphs, and losses. Rather than turn Elizabeth I into a romantic heroine, George painstakingly reveals a monarch who defined an era."

Most known for her book on Elizabeth's father, this is sure to be another great Tudor read, plus I'm going to the book launch! How cool is that?


City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Who will be tempted by darkness? Who will fall in love, and who will find their relationship torn apart? And who will betray everything they ever believed in?

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge.

In the heart-pounding fourth installment of the Mortal Instruments series, the stakes are higher than ever."

Yeah, new Mortal Instruments!


Red Glove by Holly Black
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Curses and cons. Magic and the mob. In Cassel Sharpe's world, they go together. Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth—he’s the most powerful curse worker around. A touch of his hand can transform anything—or anyone—into something else.

That was how Lila, the girl he loved, became a white cat. Cassel was tricked into thinking he killed her, when actually he tried to save her. Now that she's human again, he should be overjoyed. Trouble is, Lila's been cursed to love him, a little gift from his emotion worker mom. And if Lila's love is as phony as Cassel's made-up memories, then he can't believe anything she says or does.

When Cassel's oldest brother is murdered, the Feds recruit Cassel to help make sense of the only clue—crime-scene images of a woman in red gloves. But the mob is after Cassel too—they know how valuable he could be to them. Cassel is going to have to stay one step ahead of both sides just to survive. But where can he turn when he can't trust anyone—least of all, himself? Love is a curse and the con is the only answer in a game too dangerous to lose."

Yeah new Holly Black. Asside from the beginning of March, what with new Rothfuss and Briggs, this is a totally awesome line-up.

Bossypants by Tin Fey
Published by: Reagan Arthur
Publication Date: April 5th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. She has seen both these dreams come true. At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon -- from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence. Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy."

Love ya Tina Fey, but this cover creeps me out major. So perhaps this will be an e-book purchase for me?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bossypants, Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels, Elizabeth I, Heads You Lose, Holly Black, Lisa Lutz, Margaret George, R.L. LaFevers, Red Glove, The Unicorn's Tale, Tina Fey