JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes #1) by Sara Raasch

A heartbroken girl. A fierce warrior. A hero in the making.

Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. Now, the Winterians’ only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape, and who have been waiting for the opportunity to steal back Winter’s magic and rebuild the kingdom ever since.

Orphaned as an infant during Winter’s defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee, raised by the Winterians’ general, Sir. Training to be a warrior—and desperately in love with her best friend, and future king, Mather — she would do anything to help her kingdom rise to power again.

So when scouts discover the location of the ancient locket that can restore Winter’s magic, Meira decides to go after it herself. Finally, she’s scaling towers, fighting enemy soldiers, and serving her kingdom just as she’s always dreamed she would. But the mission doesn’t go as planned, and Meira soon finds herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics – and ultimately comes to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.

I’m fast becoming a sucker for a YA dystopian series with a fantastic cover. Perhaps I’ve read too many, or perhaps I love YA dystopian novels because they’re always so unique and interesting and they are can’t-put-it-down kind of books. I actually have to stop myself from reading more YA dystopias so this blog can remain a book review blog where I review different genres of books.

Snow like Ashes is the first novel in a new series by Sara Raasch where different societies are separated by seasons. Not districts. Not class levels. Seasons, like winter, autumn, spring and summer. And it’s very refreshing. And I love that our main character is from Winter. It reminds me of Frozen, and it also reminds me of many glorious fantasy novels where they’re fighting winter or they have to travel through horrific cold conditions to complete their task/mission.

The main character, Meira, is fantastic. She’s confident, daring, bold and she knows what she wants. This isn’t exactly unique in YA fiction, because I’m reading more and more novels where writers are finally giving their female lead character a bit more backbone. There aren’t many Bella Swan’s in YA dystopian fiction, thankfully. Meira also knows how to handle a really shite situation where she’s been betrayed. There’s a particular scene where her love interest and father figure betray her (quite horribly) and she acts accordingly. She knows how to get what she wants and she doesn’t give second chances.

I’m looking forward to reading Ice like Fire (the second in the series) because there were romantic links between Meira and Mather and also Meira and Theron, and these remain unresolved at the end of the novel. This leaves it open to be further explored in the second novel. Also, Meira’s magic powers and her link to the kingdom in Winter is also expected to be developed further in Ice like Fire.

Despite the fact that it took me a good 50 pages to fully understand the premise of the story, and also to understand which character is which (I got confused with all the names in the first few chapters), I do think this book is wonderful.

Cheers to Snow like Ashes:

My Score: 9/10

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

Living in their car, surviving on tips, Charmaine and Stan are in a desperate state. So, when they see an advertisement for Consilience, a ‘social experiment’ offering stable jobs and a home of their own, they sign up immediately. All they have to do in return for suburban paradise is give up their freedom every second month – swapping their home for a prison cell. At first, all is well. But then, unknown to each other, Stan and Charmaine develop passionate obsessions with their ‘Alternates,’ the couple that occupy their house when they are in prison. Soon the pressures of conformity, mistrust, guilt and sexual desire begin to take over.

I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan. I haven’t read all of her novels (who has? There’s about 40 of them. Who has that kind of spare time?) but this is the best one I’ve read so far. Yes, I enjoyed this more than The Handmaid’s Tale. More than Oryx and Crake. And more than last year’s release, Stone Mattress: Nine Tales.

Whilst I was reading The Heart Goes Last, I was trying to work out why I loved it so much. Were the characters any more three dimensional than in her other works? No. Was the plot development any more realistic than her other works? No. But there were a few things that I think set this book apart from the others.

Other than literary novels and young adult novels, I love campus novels (stories set within a university campus). That is, novels that are set within a secluded and enclosed environment. The characters seem trapped. The entire plot of the novel takes place at the same location, and it’s almost like the characters can’t escape their problems. It’s fantastic for a reader, and this kind of enclosed setting/environment is seen in The Heart Goes Last. The main characters, Charmaine and Stan, volunteer for a social experiment where they live within a gated community. The spend every second month working in the community, and every other month locked in prison.

Margaret Atwood does a fantastic job of creating characters that are flawed but realistic as well. They might be narrow minded, but they offer interspersed societal comments that reflect well on their current situation. They might be ignorant, but they’re ironically very aware of their own feelings and emotions and desires. In The Heart Goes Last, Charmaine and Stan aren’t the most likeable. Stan seems complacent and unassuming and well, a little boring. Charmaine is the real star of the book, but she at times seems naive and silly.

The novel is meant to be funny. The most absurd and bizarre things happen, including robots that people can have sex with. Prostitute Robots, I call them. And it makes the book seem like black comedy. Odd, utterly bizarre characters and odd, utterly bizarre happenings within this social experiment.

I love it because of that. I love it because Margaret Atwood never does what you think she’ll do. She never does what she’s done before, and she uses beautiful, lyrical prose to flesh out her characters, no matter how unlikeable they may be.

My Score: 9/10

In the Skin of a Monster by Kathryn Barker

What if your identical twin sister was a murderer? Does that make you a monster too? A profound, intense, heartbreaking fantasy that tackles issues of fate versus free will, and whether you can ever truly know someone.

Caught in a dreamscape, mistaken for a killer … will Alice find a way home?

Three years ago, Alice’s identical twin sister took a gun to school and killed seven innocent kids; now Alice wears the same face as a monster. She’s struggling with her identity, and with life in the small Australian town where everyone was touched by the tragedy. Just as Alice thinks things can’t get much worse, she encounters her sister on a deserted highway. But all is not what it seems, and Alice soon discovers that she has stepped into a different reality, a dream world, where she’s trapped with the nightmares of everyone in the community. Here Alice is forced to confront the true impact of everything that happened the day her twin sister took a gun to school … and to reveal her own secret to the boy who hates her most.

I bought this book because of the cover first, blurb second. The cover is inviting, intriguing, interesting, and really stands out in a bookstore. Not only does this book appeal to a young adult and adult audience, but the cover also looks like the cover of a horror novel. The book gives you that dreaded uneasy feeling like when you’re watching a horror movie and you don’t know which characters are going to live and which ones are going to meet an awful end.

The premise of this story is fantastic. Three years earlier, Alice’s twin sister murdered seven children at their school. Even after you’ve completed In the Skin of a Monster, you never really understand why she did it. You never really understand her character, but that’s because this isn’t her story. This novel is not about Alice’s sister. This novel is about Alice, and her perception of her sister and her memory of her sister.

Alice is accustomed to abuse from people in their town. She lives in a small town with a low population, and everybody blames her for the massacre that her sister caused. Mostly because she looks exactly like the murderer, but also because they need someone to blame, and that’s Alice. And then Alice is walking along the highway and she sees her sister’s ghost. She leans forward and touches her, and they switch. Alice is thrust into an alternate dimension where she’s faced with the nightmares of every single person in their town, and Alice’s twin sister (well, an alternate version of her) is now in the real world, where she murdered seven innocent people.

I got quite confused when reading this novel. The alternate dimensions weren’t what I was expecting. After reading the blurb, I thought this book would be about Alice trying to live her life after her sister murders seven children and then kills herself. But it wasn’t. And then when Alice switched with her sister, I thought this novel might be about her sister living in Alice’s body, walking around in the small town, potentially planning another killing. But it wasn’t. This novel is about Alice coming to understand her sister’s actions. This novel is about Alice understanding how she feels about her sister and about the final weeks leading up to the massacre.

This novel is classed as young adult, but it also appeals to an adult market. It’s a disturbing novel, and there are many questions left unanswered after completing it. It’s originality is fantastic. The writing is fantastic. It’s very creepy and very disturbing, which is fantastic. Go into it with an open mind, and you’ll enjoy the read.

My Score: 8/10

Risk by Fleur Ferris

Taylor and Sierra have been best friends for their whole lives. But Taylor’s fed up. Why does Sierra always get what – and who – she wants? From kissing Taylor’s crush to stealing the guy they both met online for herself, Sierra doesn’t seem to notice when she hurts her friends.

So when Sierra says Jacob Jones is the one and asks her friends to cover for her while she goes to meet him for the first time, Taylor rolls her eyes.

But Sierra doesn’t come back when she said she would.

One day. Two days. Three . . .

What if Taylor’s worrying for nothing? What if Sierra’s just being Sierra, forgetting about everyone else to spend time with her new guy? When Taylor finally tells Sierra’s mum that her daughter is missing, Taylor and her friends are thrown into a dark world they never even knew existed. Can Taylor find Sierra’s abductor in time? Or should she be looking for a killer?

This novel should be (if it’s not already) introduced to the high school curriculum – it should be required reading for girls between 12-18 years old who are online and who have social media accounts.

Risk explores the ‘worst case scenario’ of a young girl talking to a stranger online – a young girl thinking that the stranger online is a young, good-looking boy, but who is actually a middle-aged predator.

Risk is different to a lot of other YA books in the market, and it comes from a lot of truth. The author used to work as a police officer and a paramedic, and has witnessed the events that she writes about. It makes this novel heartbreaking. The novel also takes a unique turn when the main character starts up a blog to raise awareness about this situation. Her friend goes missing and the blog becomes a tribute. Other girls who have experienced this same situation start to come forward, and this blog also helps girls stop themselves from making the same mistake that Sierra made.

Most reviews I’ve read have praised the fast-pace of the novel, but I actually think this is a flaw. I don’t think Fleur fleshes out Sierra enough before she gets kidnapped, so we don’t understand her character as much as we could and we therefore don’t worry about her as much as we should. Plus, Taylor’s jealousy of Sierra doesn’t seem warranted. We don’t understand it because it’s skimmed over a little too quickly. And to be fair, Sierra didn’t know that Taylor was also talking to the same guy. Taylor’s grudge didn’t seem authentic to me.

Despite the fact that I think the characterisation could’ve been better and that the plot perhaps moved too quickly, this novel serves its purpose to educate girls on the ‘what if’ scenario. What if you started talking to someone online and wanted to meet up with them? What if you did meet up with them? What if they weren’t who you thought they were? This book is supposed to be an eye-opener, and it does just that.

My Score: 7/10

The Bees by Laline Paull

Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden…

This book is very, very original. It is written from the point of view of a bee named Flora, and the book presents a dystopian and almost totalitarian society. Flora doesn’t seem to think too many things — she doesn’t dwell on her situation or her surroundings, and her actions are described more often than her thoughts are. And yet, she is so vivid to the reader. We come to understand who she is and what she wants and we come to understand her purpose in this novel. Laline has done a fantastic job of creating a fleshed out, three dimensional character within this dystopian (and extremely unique) environment.

For the first fifty pages, I almost felt like I was reading another language. There are specific terms for bees within each level of ‘society’ in their hive, and their life and their actions and their ‘work’ has been described with a specific terminology. It does take a bit of getting used to — the writing style is very descriptive. The author goes into great detail about Flora’s world and what she sees in that world.

Since this entire novel is written from the point of view of a bee, the reader has to adapt to what their threats are, and thus, what the ‘tension’ is in the book. Bees fear wasps and spiders and rain. Naturally, readers don’t find those as threatening, but we are forced to imagine the situation from Flora’s point of view.

Laline must have done a fair bit of research before writing this novel, because there are a lot to things to be learnt from the day-to-day life presented to us readers. Bees do dance to communicate, and the different ‘work’ that is performed in a hive is true to reality. However, I do think this novel would’ve been better had it of been shorter. It’s about 100-150 pages too long. By the end, I just wanted to finish it. I’ve read a lot of reviews where readers felt the story dragged on and it got monotonous and that The Bees would’ve been better as a novella or short story. I agree. I would’ve liked to have seen this cut down. But, it is fascinating and it is extremely well-written and it’s a great piece of literary fiction.

My Score: 7/10