Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

(No idea why the images are different sizes... should be all the same.)

Traveler by Greg Weisman. I spent five or six years playing a lot of World of Warcraft. While I've long since moved on to other MMOs, I don't have any hard feelings for that game (nor any overly fond feelings).

Most books set in WoW are bad. They don't need to be well written -- a large portion of the playerbase will buy anything WoW. I heard Traveler was different: Not just good, but also a YA book. So I gave it a try.

While not perfect, it was quiet enjoyable. If you don't know WoW, I think it would work fine as just a generic fantasy book. If you do know WoW, it seems very true to the game (as much as I can remember eight years later).

The main character is brought to sea by the father who abandoned him and his family. The first third of the book is about the boy resenting his father and acting out (realistic for a young teen boy). Lots of battles happen, and the boy ends up shipwrecked with a girl from the ship. The two hated each other on board, and it takes a while for those feelings to change.

The story is one big adventure through the world WoW is set in. I think young readers would like it a lot. It's not the best thing an adult, non-WoW player might read, but it's really not bad at all.

I disliked how now and then the POV would jump into another character's head in the middle of a paragraph, but that wasn't too common. The illustrations in the book were wonderful -- so perfectly WoW's style and really skillfully draw. They added a lot to the story.

This is the first book of a trilogy, and the other two books are out now, but I'm not going to continue with the series -- I have too many other books to read to continue with something I didn't love.

Abandoned:

Power Play: Resistance by Rachel Haimowitz and Cat Grant. Many years ago, I think before I stared officially reviewing books, I was in love with a book series by these two authors. M/M stuff, RL sexual slavery fiction. I must have gotten this book soon after finishing the series. It sat on my Kindle for years, and finally I picked a random book to read and ended up starting it. If you're interested in M/M erotica, you might enjoy this book. I've long since grown beyond that though. No characterization = I have no interest in the story. DNF 10%

A Gray Life by Red Harvey. Another reviewer wrote "What a depressing novel. Pages after pages of dark, disturbing society which has apparently gone to hell in a hand basket. It felt like a train wreck." Six or seven years ago, I got a bunch of books like this. World ended, things fall apart, everyone is awful. Maybe I wanted to read that then, but I'm not into "everything is awful" now. DNF 6%

Partial book credits:
Point reached in DNF books: 10 + 6 = 16%
Previous abandoned book total: 118%
New total: 134% (one book)

More than a month since my last book review post, ugh! I've been in New Mexico three weeks now, and been in the hospital three times. I do not like that ratio! Kidney stone is finally coming out on Wednesday, then hopefully life will settle down soon after.

But now, BOOKS!



Of Gryphons and Other Monsters by Shannon McGee.

Such a unicorn of a book! Self-published and her first novel, but it was so good! Set in a fantasy world, Taryn and her twin brother are shepherds for their family's small flock of sheep. She's happy with her life, but her brother wants more... and seeks it in the worst place possible.

While the world was really interesting (tending sheep is even more challenging in a world with gryphons!), it was the characters and the relationships that really won me over. In a world where same-sex relationships are accepted, Taryn's "wait, am I a lesbian?" was still really cute.

I liked this book enough that I bought the second one and started it already. It's going to be a four-book series, but only the second one is out so far. Boo!

Abandoned Books

All of these I tried to read over a month ago, so I'm fuzzy on why I gave up on them. Recording them here just for my recordkeeping.

Thimble Summer: I loved this as a kid, but as an adult it didn't hold up. Not so much one story so much as it was a collection of unrelated short tales. DNF 22%

Wolfen: DNF 3%
ExPacifist: DNF 2%
Citizenchip: DNF 23%
Sweet Home Alaska: DNF 7%

Partial book credits:
Point reached in DNF books: 22 + 3 + 2 + 23 = 50%
Previous abandoned book total: 68%
New total: 118% (one book)

Finished:

The Accidental Apprentice by Amanda Foody. It's been years since I accepted a book for review, but I really liked how this one sounded and the cover was cool, so I made an exception and took it. Because of that, I felt obligated to finish it. If I had read it on my own, I would have given up on it a few pages in.

Set in a (dull, dull, uncreative) fantasy world, an orphaned boy ends up being chosen by a magical beast (because, no matter that he lived in a dull, dull town creatively named Dullshire, he was special). He went off into the wild woods to Hogwarts the magical town there where things followed the same plot seen in 48327432740 other YA/MG books.

This book was an unoriginal mix of Pokemon, Harry Potter, and one of those books where someone bonds with a magical beast and it spends time as a moving tattoo on that person's body. It followed the same plot I've already read dozens of times.

While you can't blame a YA or MG book for not being enjoyable for adult readers, I was really grumpy about how unenjoyable, unoriginal, black/white characters this one was. Young kid readers (target audience is age 8-12) would like it, I guess. Adults should skip it.

Warcross by Marie Lu. Set in the near-ish future, the world had embraced augmented reality. Everyone wore special glasses so they could see VR laid over the real world (like Pokemon Go x1000000). The world was so so so so cool and I wanted to live there so badly.

The creator of those VR glasses also made a "video" (VR) game that was shipped with them, one free to play. So the entire world played, and it became the biggest event worldwide. A young, poor hacker girl got herself involved in the game, and through it met the creator of the game/VR glasses. A most wonderful relationship slowly, slowly, so wonderfully slowly grew through the book.

I LOVED the worldbuilding and the relationship, but much of the rest of the plot did nothing for me. Half whodunit, half hacker story. I wish the book had just focused on the relationship (an odd opinion for me to have!).

There's a second book in the series, but I'm not going to read it. The non-relationship plot was just not enjoyable enough for me to spend time reading the next book.

Finished:
The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler. My first book of the year! It wasn't bad, it just didn't hook me at all. A Middle Grade book, I think it would work a lot better for young readers. In it a young girl discovers she's one of the few who has secret magic powers, and she has to adventure through a magical library to survive. I liked the worldbuilding, loved the magic system, the main character was fine, but the whole book just never clicked for me. Even though it ended on a mild cliffhanger, I'm not going to continue with the series.

The Dog with Seven Names by Dianne Wolfer. Like Forbidden Library, this book should have been a good match for me but wasn't. It wasn't bad, just never really engaged me. In it a dog was born in Australian in World War Two, and basically it was a view of the war through a dog's eyes. The dog was both way smarter than a dog should be AND had mild magical powers, but both sort of worked and it never bothered me even though the story was meant to be realistic. I learned a lot about Australia's role in WW2 and the dog character was wonderful. I just never felt that driving need to read just another page more.

Abandoned:
The Meek by J.D. Palmer. So bad. Just so bad. End of the world story, but the only people left were the most evil people on Earth or victims for those evil people. Whole book was just torture porn with a heaping helping of rape tossed in. Even greater offense was that none of it even made sense. A healthy young man was kept as a dog by a half-crippled old man (wore a collar, slept on the floor, ate out of a bowl). Same old man kept a healthy young woman captive as his "breeding doll". Either one could have kicked his ass and escaped. DNF 10%. (Only reason I got that far was how short it was.)

Crossing to Paradise by Kevin Crossley-Holland. I have ~400 books on my Kindle, but they're all books I want to read. How in the world did this book get on it? It's nothing like what I usually read. In it a young girl in early England goes on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Main character seemed fine, but the story just wasn't one I cared to read about. DNF 5%


Partial book credits:
Point reached in DNF books: 10 + 5 = 15%
Previous abandoned book total: 0%
New total: 15% (zero books)