One Of Us Is Lying | Book Review

Title: One Of Us Is Lying

Author: Karen M. McManus

Genre: YA, Mystery 

Summary: A group of nonfriends straight out of The Breakfast Club is in a detention room as the outcast of the group mysteriously dies. Cue "whodunit" plot.

Rating: 3 trope-y eye-rolls out of 10

Review: I'll admit that what drew me to this book was the fact that it is strangely similar to a book of mine and I was excited to read another author's take on an idea that we've both had. Now, I wish I could take back the decision. Starting off, One Of Us doesn't seem too bad. Sure, the characters are cliches but considering that this is sort-of based on The Breakfast Club, that's not a bad thing. My problems mainly come from the last act of the book.

First, we have a character whose sexuality is used as a plot twist which doesn't particularly bother me in comparison to what happens after. This character is then outed by the police and there are no consequences for that. Another thing that truly upset me is the "depressed people are violent" trope. Say it with me folks: depressed people are more of a threat to themselves than they are to other people. A character with depression decides to help frame other people for murder and another depressed character considers shooting up his high school. Yes, this author thought telling teen readers (many of whom suffer from depression) that they're like the terrorists who kill innocent kids.

The one major person of color in the story is a smart, capable Latina (awesome!) who then falls in love with a drug dealer (racist cliches are the new plain cliches). This wouldn't be too much of an issue if all the guy dealt was marijuana, but he also deals painkillers which can harm people and that truly upsets me. We've got this cool girl with a basic white boy who puts people in harm's way for money and we're supposed to cheer for them? Really? In front of my salad? The gay jock is as one dimensional as this sentence I'm typing. In fact, the only character who seems to have a decent character arc is the straight white girl (hmm... I wonder why she's the only tolerable character in the book... qwhite interesting) who then gets her arc of becoming a badass feminist ruined by needing her ass saved by a boy during the climax of the book.

And finally, the thing that annoyed me the most about the book (spoiler and trigger warning):
There is no killer. The depressed, would-be mass murderer mentioned earlier decides to kill himself and frame a group of kids because he's upset with them. Not only is suicide brushed over in this book, but this is a MYSTERY. Not just any mystery, but a DEATH MYSTERY. You do not write a mystery book and set up all these clues just to have zero payoff with a "gotcha, there is no killer." That's just lazy writing. I feel that the author had a great premise and cool setup (I'm down for anything related to The Breakfast Club) but along the way she got distracted with shoving in as many cliches as possible and telling a story about teens and growing up that she completely neglected the mystery aspect of the plot. We already have a Breakfast Club. If your book claims to take a different spin on a classic story, follow through on whatever that interesting spin is otherwise you're just rehashing what has already been done before.

And for the love of Taylor Swift, don't make light of life-threatening situations that your readers may have found themselves in before. It's 2017. I thought that was publicly known by now.

All in all, One Of Us Is Lying isn't Throne of Trash, Fifty Shades of Shit level horrible, but it completely fails to live up to expectations. If you don't read this, you're not missing the next big thing in YA. Save time and effort. Just rewatch The Breakfast Club.

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A Few of L's Favorite Books

Hey everyone!


Today is #WorldBookDay! I've loved books since I was a child, and that love for stories is what led to me becoming a professional author (that's why you never see me here, I'm always hanging out on my author blog.)
But even though I spend much of my free time writing, the book lover in me will never disappear. So I thought, what better way to celebrate the day of books than to share some of my favorite stories with you all?

I'm not going to ramble, so in no particular order, here they are:

Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus by Barbara Park

Technically, I could put all the Junie B. Jones books here but this one holds a special place in my heart. It was one of the first books I remember reading as a kid and the humor mixed with the lessons the books taught were entertaining and moral at the same time. Too often in children's books, I felt like I was being preached to but the Stupid Smelly Bus was the first that didn't seem to talk down to the kids who read it. 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Yes the SORCERER'S Stone, because I'm American and I can call the book whatever I want. I'll admit I never actually finished reading the Harry Potter series (will I ever get past Goblet of Fire?) because they got a bit too intense for me when I was younger but I don't think anything I say about Harry Potter will be anything new from what others have said in the past. The creativity and intricate world building from the series is something that is still mimicked in children's/YA fantasy books. The lasting impression it left on me as a writer is something that I'm proud of. 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

My favorite classic! Reading this in high school lowered my enjoyment of the book initially. But over the next couple of years, I started thinking about it a lot and there were many things that it pointed out about society in the 20's that are still relevant in today's world and will be relevant for quite some time. It's true that everyone has that one classic novel that they don't hate as much as the others, but I think it's rare that a young person can find one that they actually like. I lucked out in being forced to read this by my annoying eleventh grade English teacher. 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

I'm in the minority here but I actually like the PJO/Heroes of Olympus novels more than Harry Potter because even when things get dark, they're still fun and the books never take themselves too seriously. In a YA fiction world surrounded by doom and gloom, finding this series was like a breath of fresh air and reminded me that I could write and read the best of both worlds, and that there is still freshness to be found on bookshelves.

Epic by L. Taylor

I'm not saying this just because I'm the author (how self-centered would that be?)

I'm listing Epic because of all the things I've written, this (and the sequel, War) is the book that I can read over and over again and not get sick of seeing the same words constantly. The books that I've spent less time with (I've "known" 93% Chance I Don't Hate You for a year, I've "known TDKC for about two years) are technically newer to my ~reader self~ but Epic, which I've "known" for almost five years, is constantly gripping me and taking me on its rollercoaster ride even when I know what happens in the end. That's why I include it as one of my favorite books. 

Legend by Marie Lu

If you know me, you know I worship the ground Marie Lu walks on, because not to be extra, but she is the best YA author in the game right now. Legend was the first book of hers that I read and the entire trilogy was perfect from start to finish. The Legend books have a very cinematic quality to them, which is something I love. If it's easy for me to visualize a story like it's happening right in front of me, it's easier for the book to completely suck me in. Every page of the series makes it even more impossible to put down and I can't express how much I love it. 

Of course there are hundreds of books that I like but these are the ones that are at the top of the top for me. I want to read more than I have been in the past couple of years (guess who's way behind on her Goodreads goal) but balancing reading and writing is a struggle.

My own personal problems aside, if you haven't, I hope you give each of these books a chance and come to love them as much as I do.

Thanks for reading,

- L.

Liars, Inc. | Book Review

Title: Liars, Inc.

Author: Paula Stokes

Genre: Mystery, YA

Summary: A student named Max starts a club called Liars, Inc. where he and his friends forge signatures, call in for "sick" kids, and other petty high school stuff. But then, Max is framed for the disappearance for this best friend, Preston and things go from bad to slightly less bad to really bad to ???

Rating: 3/10 stars

Review: 

I'm going to start this review with the things I did not like. First, the character Parvati. While part of me can appreciate a half-Indian love interest/female lead (not something you see in YA fiction a lot), most of me was upset with Parvati's characterization. It wasn't enough to make her a free spirit, which is something that I don't think I would have a problem with. Stokes took it way too far.

My issue comes with her being a lying, scheming, drug abusing manipulator. A South Asian girl being shown as untrustworthy and only starting to gain a conscience when she finds the right Basic White Boy? Come on, now. It's a main point of the story that the characters are all untrustworthy, but I feel that Stokes overdid it with Parvati's character. Max lies to the FBI? Shitty decision but when you're being set up for murder and interrogated, with a criminal record, I can understand why he'd do those things and for his character, it makes sense for him to impulsively do things. If I were in his position, I'd probably make the same dumb choices. With Preston, not to spoil anything, but I get why he did the things he did. It's believable and in line with his characterization. 

But with Parvati, I felt that too much was piled onto her to make her seem too much like a mysterious bad girl, when her smarts and rebellious streak that got her kicked out of her last school would have been more than enough to justify the narrative painting her as untrustworthy and for Max doubting her. Unfortunately, Stokes decided to dump way too much onto Parvati and it turned out messy and insensitive.

There are a pair of twin Korean babies in the story, and they're nowhere near needed for the plot. One's named something or another but the other is named Jo Lee, as in that's her "first name" and her surname is the name of the white people who adopted her. I'm obviously not an expert on Korean culture, but I'm at least eighty percent sure that the name Jo Lee makes no sense as a given name. Lee is a surname. And even if the kid's surname was Lee and her first name was just Jo, her twin would have the same surname, which she does not in the book. Again, I'm not Korean, or even Korean-American, so I could be wrong about this, but if I'm not, that seems a bit like the typical "pick vague names that possibly fit a culture and put them in the book because Western readers won't know the difference" bs that many authors like to pull.

Then there's a part in which a character has green eyes and pale skin and therefore looks ~less Latino~ and :) when :) will :) white :) people :) realize :) that :) they're :) not :) the :) only :) ones :) with :) pale :) eyes :) and skin :) and :) having :) those :) features :) does :) not :) make :) PoC :) any :) less :) of :) members :) of :) their :) own :) race :) :) :)

There's also a part in which Parvati is referred to as looking "otherworldly, like a ghost or a hot alien chick" because yeah, people who aren't 100% white Americans must be ALIENS. You can have a love interest who is a woman of color without using the teenage male narrator to fetishize her and make lowkey racist remarks about her. Hiding behind the character won't excuse your casual racism.

But racist undertones aside, Liars, Inc. is a pretty predictable mystery. There was no point where I slapped my hand over my mouth or gasped aloud. For a book that is advertised to be like Gone Girl and How To Get Away With Murder, clearly you can see why I was disappointed with the mystery plot. I guessed many things early on. As soon as one clue was revealed, I figured out its significance. I kept reading the book because I wanted to be blindsided by something. I wanted Max to actually turn out to be guilty, or for any of my predictions to be completely wrong. A photo of a kid who looks like Preston could turn out to be a photoshopped red herring. All these videos and photographs that were found of Parvati having sex? Perhaps they led to someone getting arrested for child pornography (for real, you can't tell me that F.B.I. agents would just let that slide. I've been binge watching Quantico. Alex Parrish would never let something like that go.) I feel that SOMETHING should have come from nowhere and thrown the reader for a loop, but it never happened.

The book might have benefited from involving Liars, Inc. more. After the first act of the book, the idea is just dropped and only mentioned in passing. I get that there is a mystery happening but I feel that if half the premise is this club, and the book is NAMED after it, there should have been a bigger purpose for it. Like Max said, he would have covered for Preston even if Liars, Inc. didn't exist, so why was it in the book in the first place if the narrative wasn't going to use it for more than a few chapters?

Overall, Liars, Inc. isn't the worst book I've ever read, and it's not the worst YA mystery out there. But with its offensive content and paint-by-numbers plot, it's not anything special. I flew threw it thanks to the short chapters, and while there are worse books to spend time on, I still don't think Liars, Inc. is a must read for YA mystery lovers.

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"Epic" is Almost Here

Eleven teenagers. Eight planets. Seven Keys. One wronged queen.

When Annabelle Garcia and her friends find themselves mysteriously on another planet, they learn that they may only return to Earth after retrieving seven magical Keys for queen Mayra of Eden, who has been stripped of her crown and accused of murdering her husband. With reluctance, Anna and her friends accept Mayra’s offer, but the secrets being kept threaten to tear them apart. An impossible mission, the odds are stacked against them in every way. If they aren’t careful, our heroes and heroines will be pushed to the limits of the psyche, become enemies of nature, and if they’re caught by anyone, they face the a high possibility of execution.
Danger lurks around every corner in the form of nightmares and monsters too vile for the worst of humans to endure. But with their combined skill and wit, and a little bit of luck, the crew just might be able to succeed and return home.
A highly imaginative novel that pushes the boundaries of fantasy, this is a tale that can only be described as epic.

Epic is a high fantasy young adult novel, and the first book of a duology. You can preorder it on Amazon, and it will be delivered to you on July 11, 2016. Many of you have waited YEARS to read this novel and we’re finally here. In less than a month, well… you’ll be able to swipe its pages on your ereader.

Make sure to preorder the novel, read and review it, as well as tell your friends if you enjoy it. Thank you so much for all the support you guys have given me over the years :)

As soon as I have more information about ordering a physical copy, I will let you guys know!

Okay now that I’ve gotten all the business stuff out of the way, I want to talk a bit more about the story. I’ve said a lot on my blog about Epic, about wanting to have a story full of imagination and all that jazz. But one of the biggest reasons that I’m proudest to finally have this book out into the world is that it means there’s one more book for LGBT+ youth and youth of color to see themselves in, as main characters and not sidekicks. When I was younger, I always wanted to read a story like this, and I feel that many readers want the same thing. So Epic is a book for me, for the reader I was who could never find the story she needed. But it’s mainly for the rest of the world, for people who have been told through fiction that they are always second rate to the majority. I’m sure that one day, I’ll end up writing thousands of words about what Epic means to me, and perhaps some day, I’ll receive letters and messages about what the story means to the readers. I’m looking forward to it.

- L

The Naturals (The Naturals #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes | Book Review

Title: The Naturals
Series: The Naturals (Book 1)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Summary: It's basically a YA version of Criminal Minds, in which a smart girl named Cassie joins the FBI to help catch serial killers
Rating: 9/10 stars
Review: I'll be honest, I think I know everything. I've read countless novels, I watch Criminal Minds religiously, so when I know how bad guys are caught on that show and I know every trope in fiction, it's rather hard to take me by surprise. Which is why I have to give The Naturals such a high rating. I had figured out who the killer was from their first appearance and for the first time in as far as I can remember, I was wrong about a novels' plot twist. While I was reading The Naturals, I saw myself giving it a 6 or 7 starred rating because I thought it was predictable. However, by the end of the novel, I found myself overlooking the pointless love triangle and one dimensional characters because I enjoyed the last third of the novel so much. The plot was easy to follow, moved fairly quickly (I finished this in just a few days), and the story is a lot of fun. There aren't many young adult novels based around criminal profiling so it's refreshing to read something new and unique. The Naturals does have its problems though. The love triangle, for one, is not needed at all. Michael and Cassie have chemistry as friends but whenever things get romantic it's awkward and I feel like they can't relate to each other very well and that this should just remain a friendship. The romance feels thrown in for cheap tension. Dean and Cassie make a lot more sense together romantically and I hope that by the end of the next book, the love triangle has been squashed and we can stop dedicating pages to it when that page time could be given to developing the characters. I feel like too often characters start to blur together, Lia and Sloane, Briggs and Agent Whatsherface. The characters don't feel distinct enough and it makes it hard to get attached to any of them, to the point where someone was on the floor bleeding to death and I was thinking "what am I going to eat for lunch?" There are still at least three more novels in this series and maybe now that we've gotten the first one out of the way, characters can have room to stretch their legs out a bit (and show off their abilities more).

The Naturals is a little rocky in a few places but manages to stick the landing and make the reader eager for book two, Killer Instinct. This is a solid start to what's sure to be a fun series.

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"Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy" Novella Review

Title: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy
Series: Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy (Novella #1) and The Shadowhunter Chronicles
Author: Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 8 out of 10 possums in the wardrobe

*WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL SPOIL CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE*

What It's About: Simon Lewis has gone from being a mundane to a vampire to a mundane again and now he's training to become a Shadowhunter. He's lost his memories, and though a few of them are coming back, he doesn't remember this adventures, his heroics, or his friends. Simon is sent to the Shadowhunter Academy in Idris, where he's going to spend two years learning about Shadowhunter history and trying to become the hero he once was. This first novella introduces Simon and the reader to the Academy and the new cast of characters.

Recommended For: Fans of the Shadowhunter Chronicles

Review: I was not too thrilled with the Bane Chronicles because I felt like it was irrelevant to what was happening in the rest of the Shadowhunter Chronicles. But with The Shadowhunter Academy, we know that each story is going to tie into another part of the Shadowhunter books. I also feel like this series will be the perfect bridge between The Mortal Instruments and The Dark Artifices. I really like the new characters. George Lovelace is Simon's roommate (who hopefully meets a better fate than Simon's last roommate) and he immediately jumps off the page, Catarina Loss is a warlock who works at the Academy and she's just as fun as the other warlocks we've gotten to know. The Academy is very rundown and gross and the food is terrible, and the Shadowhunters are still a bunch of racist pricks. I like that this two year journey isn't going to be easy for Simon. But the one thing I do not like goes back to City of Heavenly Fire. Taking Simon's memories makes this a lot less fun. I feel like when he's going through training and learning Shadowhunter history, it'd be a lot more fun if we saw him draw comparisons to his past experience with Shadowhunters. When he only knows a tenth of all that he went through, there are a lot of missed opportunities for inside jokes with the reader. And it makes his interactions with his old friends seem... off. I can't enjoy Simon talking to Isabelle because it's not really Simon. I should be jumping for joy when Izzy shows up and shouts at everyone that Simon is her boyfriend, but I can't. The amnesia plot device takes a lot more away from the story than it adds to it. But anyway, I'm definitely going to enjoy reading the rest of the ebooks as they come out, and each one will somehow tie into The Last Hours and The Dark Artifices, which can help boost both series and provide more background than we currently have.

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Top Ten Tuesday #2

Hello everybody! It's Tuesday (but yesterday was Tuesday, too) so I'm doing Top Ten Tuesday. Today's topic is: "Ten Books You Recently Added To Your To-Be-Read List"

10) Atlanta Burns by Chuck Wendig. This is a graphic novel about a tough young woman who is investigating a crime ring. It's a dark and gritty story and I really want to get into it. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository

9) Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope. First, look at this cover:

WOW! This book is a New Adult fantasy set in an alternate 1920's. It follows a couple during a magical war between good and evil. So it's got a mix of historical, fantasy, and romance. And again: THAT COVER.

Goodreads Amazon Book Depository

8) The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black. The humans and the fae have coexisted for years and there's a boy in a glass coffin who has been there for a long ass time and he suddenly wakes up. Completely normal stuff. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


7) The Alchemyst by Michael Scott. Nicholas Flamel is an immortal alchemist and when his wife/girlfriend/bff gets kidnapped, he enlists the help of two teenagers to help him get her back and stop the bad guy from doing bad guy things. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


6) The Rose Society by Marie Lu. This is the sequel to The Young Elites and it doesn't come out until October and I need to know what happens because that cliffhanger (hanging from a cliff) was not nice and I don't like waiting. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


5) Volition by Lily Paradis. The synopsis tells you basically nothing but when it ends with "my soul is blacker than my heart," the book is probably worth picking up. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


4) Hit by Delilah S. Dawson. Okay so this sounds kind of insane. The US debt was paid off by a bank who now wants their money back so our protagonist is turned into an assassin and given a hit list in exchange for her family's debt being paid. She then has to go around either collecting money, recruiting bounty hunters, or killing the people on the list. I love YA books about criminals and this sounds like it's going to be very fun but also really dark. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


3) An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I bet you haven't heard anything about this book yet. This book is basically like a mash up of ancient Rome with high fantasy. And I want it. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


2) The Dead Room by Stephanie Erickson. The synopsis for this is very, very vague. But I feel like it goes beyond the typical "teen girl takes down the man". I think there's more of an intense sci-fi plot going on and I like being able to jump into a book like this without really knowing what's going on. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


1) Legend: the Graphic Novel by Marie Lu. This is a graphic novel of my favorite dystopia! I really want to read this because I'm just starting to get into graphic novels and I feel like reading stories that I've already read before will help me ease into the genre better. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository

The Young Elites Book Review

Title: The Young Elites
Series: The Young Elites (Book #1)
Author: Marie Lu
Genre: High Fantasy
Rating: 10 instances of me crying out "Marie, Why Do You Like To Hurt My Ships???" out of 10

What It's About: Years ago, a plague swept through and killed a bunch of people but the infected children who survived gained superpowers are called 'malfettos', and they have been hunted down by the government ever since. Adelina is a malfetto and was supposed to be executed but she was saved by the Young Elites (hella rad super-duper malfettos), and they're going to help her gain control of her powers while she helps them assassinate the King and Queen of their country so everyone can be happy and alive and have access to an endless supply of Doritos.

Recommended For: Fans of Game of Thrones and The Darkest Minds

Review: What is it with Marie Lu? She wrote a dystopian trilogy that didn't have a sucky ending (which is surprising for the dystopia genre), her characters are all interesting and fleshed out, even when she only has less than 400 pages to do so. Her action scenes are so cinematic and she makes you ship something within a five minute interaction. Guys, I'm starting to think that Marie Lu may actually be Beyonce in disguise because she can do no wrong. This book was perfection. Adelina is an anti-heroine who fucks up a lot but I still want her to win at life because she's so great. I like that we get to see how her weird-ass powers are taking a toll on her mental health because it always bothers me when characters don't have any type of reaction to traumatic events. And it's cool that we've got a heroine that actually thirsts for power and wants to be above other people and has ambition. Goody two shoes heroines are getting boring. Give me more Adelinas.
Both of the love interests are awesome and I ship Adelina with both of them (though I'm more of an Enzlina shipper). The setting has the Middle Ages feel to it but it's also very urban so it's got this weird but effective mash up of past and future qualities. The ending broke my *dun dun* heart, though I probably should've expected that since this is a Marie Lu book. The characters all had distinct motivations and goals for wanting to either overthrow the King and Queen or kill all the malfettos, and I even found myself liking the villains. JUST GO READ THIS BOOK!
Sigh. I want The Rose Society and I want it now. Why can't books be published like two weeks apart. That would make my life easier. *dances off into the night to go start my own squad of ass-kicking rebels*

Links:
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The Clockwork Scarab Book Review

Title: The Clockwork Scarab
Series: Stoker and Holmes (Book #1)
Author: Colleen Gleason
Genre: Historical, fantasy
Rating: 7 ~Oh Hey, A Young Adult Book That Passes The Bechdel Test With Flying Colors~ out of 10
What's It's About: Mina is the niece of Sherlock Holmes and Evaline is the sister of Bram Stoker. The girls are trying to solve a case of missing (and a few dead) society girls, which seems to be tied up with Egyptian mythology.
Recommended For: Fans of steampunk (I swear the word "steam" is used like 50 times in this book), and the original Sherlock stories
Review: I'm going to start with the things that I didn't like. Evaline was very annoyed for the entire book. She was bratty and whiny and she complained about EVERYTHING. She reminded me of Caroline from The Vampire Diaries (that's not a good thing). I found myself wanting to skip her chapters and get to the chapters of Mina, who was far superior. I didn't like the inclusion of time travel. I feel like it made an already full story way too cramped. I think that the story would have worked just fine without it. I also was not a big fan of the writing at times. It felt like this was written very fast and it makes it come off as something written by a young or inexperienced writer. I normally don't pick apart someone's writing craft because I like to focus on the plot and characters, but there were a lot of times where the writing didn't flow right for me. But I did like the mystery plot. Trying to figure out what was going on with the missing girls, who was the head of the conspiracy, was a lot of fun. I like that even though the girls have romantic interests, their main focus remains solving the case and keeping each other alive. I like that the relationship between Mina and Evaline evolves from being completely annoyed by each other to becoming almost friends. The girls each had their own voice and I never forgot who I was reading about, which is a problem that a lot of authors have trouble doing properly. Whenever I see a book has multiple first person points-of-view, I'm a little wary because the book can either go the Legend route and be done well or it can be Allegiant, which is... not very good. But The Clockwork Scarab did it perfectly. The sequel, The Spiritglass Charade, is already out and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it!
Links:
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