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Review: Levitating Las Vegas by Jennifer Echols

Review: Levitating Las Vegas by Jennifer Echols

Sarah Moon
Books

Generally, I really enjoy it when authors take their writing in new directions. Maybe a contemporary/realistic author tries science fiction, or a speculative author attempts a mystery. So, when Jennifer Echols--who's a favorite author of mine--announced that she'd written a paranormal "new adult" novel, my interest was piqued.

Unfortunately, while Levitating Las Vegas had an interesting concept, the filmsy world-building, characterization and plot largely failed to to deliver.  

Holly Starr is a Las Vegas showgirl and recent college grad who has taken medication for years to prevent hallucinations that started as a teen, hallucinations that she could levitate. She's tired of spending her nights assisting in her father's magic show and hopes to forge her own path in Las Vegas. Her former classmate, Elijah also experienced hallucinations as a teen that he's been medicated for ever since. In his case, he believed he could read minds.

Both of their hallucinations threaten to return when the supply of their medication suddenly disappears, and they start to wonder if maybe they're not so crazy after all?

““Why the hell not?” Holly yelled back. “It doesn’t sound so bad when I think about all the shit you and my parents have put me through. Just for starters, all the edamame, Kaylee. My mom brainwashed me into purchasing and steaming my very own edamame even now that I’m out from under her roof, just to keep my weight down. Do you know how many cookies I’ve missed out on in the last seven years, all in the name of pleasing my parents despite my fake debilitating mental illness? God!” ”

Thus ensues a mayhem-filled story that includes everything from a kidnapping (Elijah kidnaps Holly) to a show-stopper of a magic trick involving nudity and the Hoover Dam.

With this wild premise, Levitating Las Vegas could have been a fun read, and I did have moments when I really enjoyed it (such as Holly, who'd never driven a car, "driving" it down the Strip in her own unique fashion) and am a sucker for caper-style plots, as a big fan of urban fantasy, I expected more in terms of logical construction of the world and magic.

​

Review: Nowhere But Home by Liza Palmer

Review: Nowhere But Home by Liza Palmer

Sarah Moon
Books

I discovered Liza Palmer's piquant novel Nowhere But Home thanks to Angie, who described it as,

"Recommended for fans of Friday Night Lights, comfort food, and top-notch storytelling."

As readers of this blog know, those are effectively my three favorite things, so, of course, I dropped everything else and picked up a copy of Nowhere But Home (which, incidentally, name-checks FNL on the back cover). Needless to say, this warm, funny and emotionally authentic story about a chef who finds herself begrudgingly back in her hometown not only met those expectations, it's most certainly destined to be one of my favorite reads of 2013.

Queen (Queenie) Elizabeth Wake's mother, the late B.J. Wake, gave her a big name so she could escape the Wake family destiny: that of serving the role of resident lowlife of the Hill Country town of North Star, Texas.

Queenie's sister, Merry Carole, followed in their mother's footsteps, having a scandalous teenage relationship with the town's golden boy football player and their son now is--quite controversially--the rising star quarterback on the North Star football team. Queenie, however, got out of North Star, first thanks to college in Austin, and then thanks to a series of chef jobs all over the United States. Yet once again, she's been fired--this time from a New York CIty hotel restaurant because she refused the ketchup a customer requested (I'm right there with you, Queenie). Out of options and with nowhere left to go, Queenie returns home to North Star. 

The red light blinks. Welcoming me home. What's the exact opposite of blaze of glory? I look around my dusty Subaru, cut-off jeans, and think: me. This. This is what the exact opposite of a blaze of glory looks like.
Review: Riptide by Lindsey Scheibe

Review: Riptide by Lindsey Scheibe

Sarah Moon
Books

Lindsey Scheibe's debut novel, Riptide, has an intriguing hook: surfing, best friends and alternating points-of-view (and let's not forget the appealing cover). It's one of the novels--along with Some Quiet Place--which Flux promoted enthusiastically at the midwinter ALA meeting.

However, despite all of that promise, Riptide ​proved to be a bit of a disappointment. With the exception of the surfing scenes, which were quite vivid, I found myself wanting more depth and focus from this story.

​Riptide is told in alternating points-of-view by Grace and Ford, childhood friends in southern California who live for the surf and sand. Grace can't wait to leave her troubled home, where her father is prone to angry, violent outburst and she's not allowed a much of a social life.

Fragmented images fly through my head—some fun, some scary. Surfing at the beach, Dad’s face when he’s angry, shopping, jogging in the park with Mom, Mom lecturing me on making a good impression, wearing clothes I don’t like, working out with Ford. Then come the big fears. The possibility of having surfing taken away if I screw up and lose my class rank. Not knowing when Dad’s going to explode. Whether or not I can bring it to the Jack n John Surf Comp. It’s like being on an out of control tilt-a-whirl at a carnival. Even on a dream weekend, I can’t escape the stress of home.

As a result, she's pinned all her hopes of escape on a surfing scholarship at University of California-San Diego (I didn't realize this, but there surfing is a sport some schools--mostly in California--actually offer scholarships for). When the opportunity to enter a world-class surfing competition presents itself, an opportunity that could mean catching the eye of UCSD's surfing coach, Ford enters Grace into the competition and she spends the summer training while Ford interns at Grace's father's law office.

Review: Leasing the Tempest by Jenn Bennett

Review: Leasing the Tempest by Jenn Bennett

Sarah Moon
Books

It’s no secret that Jenn Bennett’s Arcadia Bell series is one of my favorite urban fantasy series, up there with Patricia Briggs’ wonderful Mercy Thompson books.

In fact, the two series share a lot of commonalities. Both are packed with memorable, multi-faceted characters, good humor and warmth. 

The long wait between books in this series is mildly torturous (though, thankfully, each wraps up a complete story) but fortunately, Leashing the Tempest is a fun novella which fills the gap between Summoning the Night and the third book, Binding the Shadows (out May 2013). 

Leashing the Tempest finds the series’ core characters—Arcadia (an extremely skilled magician with a complicated past), Lon (Cady’s older demon boyfriend), Jupe (Lon’s charming teenage son) and Kar Yee (Cady’s best friend and business partner)—on a day cruise on the Pacific coast near their hometown in northern California. The contained environment of the boat is the perfect chance to test Jupe’s newly-developed knack (his magical skill) on Kar Yee, who’s agreed to serve as a volunteer. (There’s an amusing ongoing story in the series of 13 year old Jupe’s crush on Kar Yee which adds to the already funny premise for fans of this series.) 

Naturally, it being Cady and Lon, a day cruise can’t be just a ride on a boat, but instead an angry storm is unleashed and something’s suspicious about the boat’s captain. It’s up to Cady and Lon to save everyone on the boat and stop the magical force that’s ruined their day.

For fans of the Arcadia Bell series, Leashing the Tempest will seem familiar.

Review: Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover

Review: Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover

Sarah Moon
Books

Despite that Colleen Hoover’s Slammed was a frustrating read, there was a part of me that found it strangely readable and enjoyable. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for its wholly unnecessary sequel, Point of Retreat.

Point of Retreat picks up where Slammed left off. Frankly, I was surprised to learn that there was a sequel, since the original novel ties up most of the loose ends and put the characters on a path toward happiness, despite the challenges they faced in the first novel. Despite my reservations about Slammed, I was intrigued about where Hoover would take these characters as they tackled their new independence, responsibilities and burgeoning relationship. 

In Point of Retreat, Will and Layken find themselves embroiled in even more drama, but the core of the story is two-fold:

  1. Will they ever actually have sex? *eye roll*
  2. Will Will’s evil ex-girlfriend destroy their happiness? *eye roll*

[Note: Please do not continue to read this review, should you plan on reading Slammed and want to remain unspoiled.]

[Seriously, if you don’t want to be spoiled for Slammed, don’t keep reading, okay?]

The first—no sex for a year—is absolutely absurd.

Review: Lovestruck Summer by Melissa Walker

Review: Lovestruck Summer by Melissa Walker

Sarah Moon
Books

“I know what I like,” I say. “It’s a certain type of music and I’m just not into stuff like bluegrass and banjos.”

“Music is music, Priscilla,” says Russ. “If you love music, you give it all a listen. You see what there is to learn in every song you hear. You take chances on shows. That’s part of it.”

I’ve been just dying for a great summer-themed read, so a couple of weeks ago I blew though five or six books I hoped would fit the bill. Among those books was Melissa Walker’s 2009 novel, Lovestruck Summer, which was exactly what I was hoping to find and earned itself a spot as a summer read I’ll definitely revisit. 

Don’t let the cutesy cover fool you. Lovestruck Summer has quite a bit of meat to it with excellent, believable character development—as well as some very smart humor—and most definitely fits into the spectrum of older-YA/”new adult” that’s becoming so popular right now.

Quinn (who’s real name is Priscilla, but no one had better call her that) has just graduated from high school in North Carolina when, on a whim, she calls her favorite record label at 3:00 a.m and asks for a summer internship. To her surprise, the label agrees, which means she’ll be spending the summer in America’s live music capital, Austin, Texas. 

Quinn finds herself living with her super sorority girl cousin, Penny, a UT student who has a bedroom and wardrobe for her dog, and whose next-door neighbors include Russ, a 21 year-old cowboy/frat boy combo (think Matt Saracen if he drove Tim Riggins’ truck) who loves country music and annoys the hell out of Quinn. She often “escapes under her headphones” because these people are so different, and Quinn doesn’t know how to cope with the Bachelor marathons and pop-country that are the soundtrack of her cousin’s apartment.

I tug on Penny’s arm. “I hate country music,” I whisper through clenched teeth.

“What?” she asks, clapping her hands to the beat and hardly turning around. “I hate country music!” I shout, way too loudly. The back half of the restaurant turns to scowl at me.

{Review} Can't Buy Me Love by Molly O'Keefe

{Review} Can't Buy Me Love by Molly O'Keefe

Sarah Moon
Books

… she realized she wanted more. Not a husband or a bunch of kids burping on her clothes … but a life. A real one. A chance to figure out who she was…

Can't Buy Me Love by Molly O'Keefe

When I read that Molly O’Keefe’s main character in Can’t Buy Me Love was inspired by Tyra Collette from Friday Night Lights (“Tyra times 10” is how she referred to her), I immediately set aside my deeply-held philosophical objection to images of creepy waxed man chests* to check out her take on one of my favorite fictional characters. 

What I found in Can’t Buy Me Love was surprising. 

You know I’m not a voracious romance reader, nor an expert on the subject like Rebeca is, so I probably have a lot of preconceived notions about what a Big R Romance is. Most of those notions went straight out the window with Can’t Buy Me Love. 

Tara Jean Sweet is a prototypical woman from the wrong side of the tracks. She’s spent much of her life scrapping and fighting for every little thing she has. When she’s offered a stake in a Texas rancher’s leather business (she already designs items for the company) in exchange for a pretending to be his fiance in hopes of luring the rancher’s estranged children back to the ranch, she jumps at the chance. This is her opportunity to have something that’s hers, that’s legit—even if the means to that end are sketchy.

That rancher’s son is Luc, aging professional hockey player who’s literally suffered too many blows to the head as his team’s enforcer, and is facing a potentially career-threatening, if not life-threatening, brain injury if he doesn’t stop playing. His father soon dies after Luc and his sister (who’s a main character in O’Keefe’s novel, Can’t Hurry Love) descend on the ranch, leaving him obligated to fulfill a series of conditions of his father’s will—and making him Tara Jean’s boss. 

More than anything, I was stuck by the character development of both Luc and Tara Jean.

Review: The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

Sarah Moon
Books

Charlotte Rogan’s much-hyped debut, The Lifeboat, is one of my biggest reading disappointments of the year. 

And I feel like a complete jackass for saying that. Rogan has a wonderful story of writing for years and years before The Lifeboat was published and in a publishing climate where precocious twenty-somethings are getting all sorts of attention, it’s wonderful to see someone’s dream of being a published novelist become a reality after years of work on her craft.

However, with its singular focus on Big Questions About Morality, I was left wanting more of everything: plot, character development, tension. 

{Review} Fracture by Megan Miranda

Sarah Moon
Books

Fracture by Megan Miranda

Usually I hate taglines on book covers,* but the tagline on the cover of Megan Miranda’s Fracture says it all, 

A lot can happen in eleven minutes.

That line is from this early passage in the novel, which creates the premise of this fascinating debut, 

A lot can happen in eleven minutes. Decker can run two miles easily in eleven minutes. I once wrote an English essay in ten. No lie. And God knows Carson Levine can talk a girl out of her clothes in half that time.

Eleven minutes might as well be eternity underwater. According to the lessons from health class, it only takes three minutes without air for loss of consciousness. Permanent brain damage begins at four minutes. And then, when the oxygen runs out, full cardiac arrest occurs. Death is possible at five minutes. Probable at seven. Definite at ten.

Decker pulled me out at eleven.

{review} Split by Swati Avasthi

Laura
Books

So… domestic violence. 

We are all peripherally aware of its unfortunate existence.     

Especially when we read truly horrifying news reports like this.

Then we smile and celebrate the triumphs of stories like this.

But when it comes to repeated, cyclical abuse, we tend to,

  1. Educate ourselves for two hours via the latest Lifetime Original Movie; or 
  2. Be cynical and blame the victim with thoughts such as, “Sure, the abuser is wrong for abusing and all, but the victim should have just left after the first time it happened, right? At least after the second time, for goodness sakes! Just follow the directions here!”

The realities of this ongoing societal plague are oh-so-much-more complex than either of the above sheltered attitudes, which author Swati Avasthi demonstrates in her absorbing debut novel, Split.