Jenn's Review: The Queen of the Tearling

Author: Erika Johansen
Series: The Queen of the Tearling, #1
Publication Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: Harper
Pages: 448
Obtained: publisher
Genre:  NA Fantasy, Dystopian
Rating: 3.25
Bottom Line: A stumbling novel that could have been brilliant with more editing
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Library

Blurb:  Her throne awaits . . . if she can live long enough to take it.

It was on her nineteenth birthday that the soldiers came for Kelsea Glynn. They’d come to escort her back to the place of her birth – and to ensure she survives long enough to be able to take possession of what is rightfully hers.

But like many nineteen-year-olds, Kelsea is unruly, has high principles and believes she knows better than her elders. Unlike many nineteen-year-olds, she is about to inherit a kingdom that is on its knees – corrupt, debauched and dangerous.

Kelsea will either become the most fearsome ruler the kingdom has ever known . . . or be dead within the week.

Combining thrilling adventure and action, dark magic, mystery and romance, The Queen of the Tearling is the debut of a born storyteller blessed with a startling imagination.


Review:  Most reviewers either loved or hated this book and I am on the fence.  I don't read many dystopian novels because they usually fail to capture my interest in the premise.  Although this caught my eye, establishing the world took so many chapters my interest began to wain.  In fact, I attempted to read this book several times and failed miserably... however listening to it worked wonders, so welcome to my first audio book review.

The first few chapters are very detailed in the setup (I remember a particularly long passage about a door)   and also switched points of view several times which disrupted the continuity. Once I got beyond the first third of the book, I found it was intriguing.  The story is modernistic Arthurian with a compelling though somewhat familiar in premise.  However for all of the plot exposition I felt that there wasn't a clear definition of the time period the book is set in.  Had you not read the blurb you would never have known it was set in the future until midway through the book.

This is definitely and Adult or New Adult Fantasy -which I rarely read because I find the adult themes distracting to the magic of the fantasy.  There are lots of mature themes in the book, rape, sex, murder, child slavery... and while I will be the first to admit some of it helped with the world building and were necessary to the plot, a lot of it felt gratuitous and existed only for shock value.  None of it was overly graphic but I was particularly bothered by the fleeting treatment of the victims and the glossing over of the aftermath.  If you are going to deal with these topics, take them on in their entirety or just edit them out.  

Kelsea's naivetee leads to some cringeworthy moments.  I still have no idea who or what the Red Queen is besides a sex-crazed sorceress.  However, there are plenty of interesting characters, perhaps a few too many to keep track of at first but they all sort themselves out eventually. I want to know more about all of them and in the murk of this novel, that is Erika Johansen's shining success.  By the time I was two thirds of the way through, I found myself involved in the story.  Things start to get rolling and the novel comes to a close.

Will I read the second one?  Yes, at least I'll try (I may have to listen to it).  I can't help feeling that somewhere underneath it all is a decent series -- with different editing, it may even have been a fantastic series.

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Julie's Review: Walking Disaster

Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Beautiful #2
Publication Date: April 30, 2013
Publisher: Atria Books
Hours:11 hours
Obtained: Audible
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction, Romance
Rating: 3/5
Bottom Line: Interesting to get another point of view, but doesn't change my mind about the story.
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Library

Summary: Can you love someone too much? Travis Maddox learned two things from his mother before she died: Love hard. Fight harder. In Walking Disaster, the life of Travis is full of fast women, underground gambling, and violence. But just when he thinks he is invincible, Abby Abernathy brings him to his knees. Every story has two sides. In Beautiful Disaster, Abby had her say. Now its time to see the story through Travis' eyes. ~powells.com

Review: I wouldn't say this is a sequel to Beautiful Disaster as much as it is Travis' point of view of the events in the former book. Walking Disaster doesn't give us readers any new material except now we know how much he was in love with Abby. We kind of understand what makes him tick, but I still think he's a little off kilter. Abby isn't much better though his eyes either. It is more clear in this version that she isn't sure what she wants for most of the time and does indeed lead him on for a bit. Although I'm not sure he would want it any other way. I think he liked the chase.

I'm not sure these books are something I would recommend to an impresionable young woman. Travis has too much of a violent streak for my taste. Sure, do you want your boyfriend to fight for you, yes; but do you want him to be psycho about it? No.

Shep and America drove me even more nuts this time than in the first book. I'm not sure what it is about them but I find them annoying. I did enjoy finding out more about Travis' family and how deeply his mother's death did affect him even though he was a young boy. He's been angry about her death for so long and Abby is the first person he's let get anywhere near his emotions.

While I appreciated Travis' viewpoint, it doesn't really change my mind about him or their relationship. I don't think I need to go any further in the series.

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Julie's Review: Beautiful Disaster

Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Yes, Beautiful Series
Publication Date: 
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Length: 10 hours, 30 minutes
Obtained: Audible, mine
Genre:  New Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Bottom Line: Totally not in my scope of genres but if you want a little bad boy gone good, this is for you
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Just Get it at the library

Summary: The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand. Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match. ~powells.com

Review: Abby/Travis or Travis/Abby it doesn't really matter because you know these two are destined to be together. Beautiful Disaster was an interesting book for me. On one hand I couldn't tear myself away from it and on the other I wanted to scream because of the co-dependency between these two. I think if I had read it I probably would have put it down but listening to it kept me from stopping. Plus I kind of wanted to see if they would implode or survive.

Let's talk about the good things: Abby's strong personality, her ability to go toe to toe with Travis' erratic behavior and her confidence. Let's face it, even if you aren't into men with tattoos Travis is still hot and the sex scenes. That Jamie McGuire does a great job of writing those scenes. You can't help getting a little flushed.

Let's talk about the questionable things: Travis' control-freak behavior towards Abby, their co-dependency on each other, the anger/violence that Travis has burning inside him, their ping-pong relationship. The fact that he felt he needed her to save him, that's a tough bill to fill for anyone let alone an 18/19 year old girl. The overuse of "Pigeon" as a term of endearmeant. It was enough to want me to puke at times.

I enjoyed the reveals of why Abby didn't have the pristine background everyone thought she had. I loved that she did have an edge to her and I loved that she could keep up with Travis' antics. I loved that Abby was finally finding her place in the world and was able to find stablity, even if Travis seemed unstable to me.

While I enjoyed it as a book and will probably read the next one Walking Disaster. Travis is the exact kind of guy we warn our daughters about. He's violent, possessive, irrational and downright scary at times. So why did I root for them? I guess because maybe Abby is his calming affect. Maybe they really are each other's yin and yang. My only hope is that he won't become more possessive now that they are together. Perhaps he was that way because he was fighting for her.

If you are looking for a novel to escape into, then Beautiful Disaster is for you.

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