Review: The Calling by Kelley Armstrong

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had to round down a little because this book had a few problems for me. First, it jumped right in and I couldn't remember any of the characters except Maya, Rafe, and eventually Daniel, and I never really remembered the others. It said something about the development of the characters in this book, they weren't rich enough for me to get a feel for who they were at all. 

It also bothered me a bit that this series had the exact same formula as the author's Darkest Powers trilogy. It isn't like she tried to hide the formula thing or anything, it's deliberate and in fact it's made clear in this book that it's part of the plot of this series that the two stories are intertwined and that the similarities are deliberate. And yet, it made this book very repetitive, and I expected and anticipated every betrayal, every reveal. 

And finally, I had to round down because not a lot happened in this book. It's a weird second book in a trilogy thing. On the one hand, Armstrong does an amazing job of writing a story about kids on the run. That's the strength of both The Darkest Powers and her Darkness Rising stories. I can't help but feel for these kids and how alone and frightened they feel, the jeopardy they're in and the way they deal with it feels so real. But that's all this book is is running around in the woods. It was very much a middle book in a trilogy, from here to there with not enough substance for me. I did enjoy it while I was reading it. I felt the anxiety the kids were feeling while they were lost and confused, but as soon as I finished and started thinking about how to review it I just felt kind of eh, that was too quick and shallow and lacking somehow. It was just too much of a transition to whatever cool stuff is going to happen in book three, as is hinted at throughout the book with the connections to the other series and most heavily foreshadowed at the end of the book. So while it left me anticipating book three, I was also just not as satisfied with this book as I'd hoped to be. 

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Review: Faery Tales & Nightmare by Melissa Marr

Faery Tales & Nightmares by Melissa Marr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was a good idea for Marr to gather her short stories from her anthologies and online ebook offerings into one book. But unfortunately for me I'd already read a substantial portion of the book since I got most of the anthologies out of the library and I actually did buy the ebooks that make up a big chuck of it. I still re-read them all and they were fine, but it didn't change my original three star rating of any of them. I did enjoy the two new stories from the Wicked Lovely world, it was nice to revisit the characters and see a bit of what happened after the series ended. But I do have to say that Seth still isn't my favorite character, he's still too perfect to really be interesting, too much of a male Mary Sue, always doing the thoughtful, cool, smart, sweet, brave, perfect thing in any situation. Nevertheless, I did enjoy seeing a bit of resolution for his situation and his relationship with Niall. And I liked the story about Keenan and Donia as well. And people who haven't read the other stories already will really enjoy reading more about Niall and Irial, and the short one about Rabbit.

Fans of the Wicked Lovely series will like this book. There really isn't much to recommend for people who aren't familiar with the series. I didn't think the independent stories were special enough on their own to invest in the book. One or two were fine, but again, I'd read one before, and regardless, they weren't anything I'm going to remember. And most of the longer stories presume familiarity with the characters and history of the series and won't make much sense to new readers. Frequently short stories set in the same world as a series are a good way for new readers to get intrigued about an author's work, but in this case I'd recommend that curious readers try  Wicked Lovely, the first book in the series. It's really a unique book in the way it captures a sense of the fairy magic. And youth. It wasn't a perfect book, and it made me feel really old, but it was special somehow.

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Review: Under a Vampire Moon by Lynday Sands

Under a Vampire Moon by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There was a really weird  disconnect in this one for me. I was really looking forward to Christian's story. And I still love the characters and the warmth in this family. I liked the new cousins that were introduced well enough. But the plot was 1) offensive. Sure, people choose to have beards because of horrible family situations, but it's not a subject for a romantic comedy, certainly not in 2012, we've come too far to make light this topic. And 2) the plot was really inconsistent with the characters that the author created. Carolyn was abused and lied to in her marriage, isolated and unloved for years. And the vampires who came up with the idea can read her mind, so why would they think that she's going to just forgive being systematically lied to like this? Tthey aren't that dumb. I know, because it's the only way that Christian can get close to her without her running from him because he looks so young, yada yada. Except the author wrote that insecurity about being older and determination not to date a younger man into the character. I appreciate having a story about a 40-something woman, don't get me wrong. And her being concerned about the guy looking so young might be an issue to a real woman, I can relate, sure. But this whole plot was written in such a way that it made me constantly uncomfortable for Carolyn about being lied to, or made Carolyn just look really stupid for buying into the gay story. And it made the Argeneaus seem bumbling at best and callus at worst. So just saying that he had to do it to get her to give him a chance doesn't work for me, I just couldn't buy into the author's basic plot premise for this book.

And then toward the end it got even more frustrating because the whole story suddenly wrapped up in one really odd scene. Suddenly she came into her sexuality and confidence, then of all times? It was so bizarre. Just like that, voilà, happy ending.

This is just one of those cases where it's really just time for the series to get wrapped up already. As much as I like this family, every possible premise has been explored already. The author expanded the possibilities by creating the enforcers and the secondary, slightly more serious branch of the series focused on them, but I'd really like to see her do something new and fresh at this point. Maybe it would give her a chance to get back to her really funny, witty characters because it wouldn't be the same thing over and over again. 

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