The Similars

Rating: 2/5

I often rate books on Goodreads and then, later, last-second change the rating as I type the review. I suppose there’s something about thinking through a book that makes me change my mind. Sometimes the rating is higher, but more often than not I change it to a lower rating.

The Similars I changed from a 3 to a 2, not because I hated the book (in fact, I probably will pick up the sequel), but because I liked it only because of its “mildly interesting” nature. The book takes place in some sort of future where technology has advanced enough for cloning, but that’s the only difference that the world of the book shows. The premise is about the existence of clones, specifically 6 clones of high school students that enroll in a high school, one of whom is the clone of main character Emma’s best friend who died over the summer. Cue predictable romantic subplot.

Though the book takes place at a high school, the characters are never in class and no classwork is ever actually described; it’s mostly just teenage drama and elite clubs and anti-cloning/pro-cloning debates. The cloning plot is fairly interesting, though very predictable—however, of the two twists at the end, one was actually surprising (though the other was pretty obvious). Hanover does seem to be taking the book in a “adults really have it out for teenagers for some reason” type of way, but I suppose in this setting it makes sense if it’s about control of clones/indoctrination/special-powered beings, all of which are focused on.

One of the main criticisms I have is the writing style, which is clumsy, clunky, and really-not-beautiful. It’s awkward to read in parts; some of the characters sound like they’re reading scripts. Some of the plot dynamics are wildly unrealistic or unbelievable, science fiction aside, and characters frequently do stupid things for no purpose than plot. The premise is pretty much the only interesting thing about the book, which is full of obvious, cliched teenage drama and romance. It leans towards the “so bad it’s good” territory (though I’ve read worse), which is perhaps the only reason I’m curious about the sequel.

Info: Rebecca Hanover; published 2019 by Sourcebooks

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction

Notes: Though many of the characters talk about progressive and inclusive their school is, the book lacks any such content.

Recommended Age Range: 14+

In Some Other Life

Rating: 4/5

In Some Other Life, though fairly predictable and pretty unsubtle in its themes, is still a really interesting and engaging novel about a high school senior who gets to experience the other side of a “What if…?” The main character, Kennedy, wonders what would happen if she had made a different choice of high schools…cue fall down the stairs, cue waking up in a parallel universe.

As you might expect, this book is about “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence.” Kennedy quickly discovers that even though things seem perfect, the ripple effect of going to a prestigious private school has significantly altered her family, her friends, and herself (or at least, parallel universe herself). Though the portrayal of the school as a stress-fest where students need to heavily medicate and caffeinate themselves (and cheat) to survive is a little over-the-top, the little snippets of humor and Kennedy’s sheer disbelief at many of the things the parallel-universe reveals help to relieve some of that.

I wouldn’t really call this book particularly unique, but it is fun, engaging, and enjoyable—I devoured most of it in one day, even as I raised my eyebrows in parts and sighed at the heavy-handedness of the ending. It’s a great look at how you shouldn’t worry about the choice you didn’t make or wish for something that you can’t change.

Info: Jessica Brody; published 2017 by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux

Genre: Young Adult, Realistic

Notes: None.

Recommended Age Range: 14+

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea

Rating: 4/5

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a retelling of the Korean folktale “The Story of Sim Cheong,” although after doing some research into the latter, it really seems more like an alternative storyline focused on a different person. Whatever the case may be, I thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful, sweet story about Mina, an average girl whose bravery and determination saves the day.

While there are some elements of the world that make little sense, such as vague descriptions of constant war in the human realm and an overall lack of description of the human realm in general, the Spiritual Realm is richly developed with a large, interesting cast of characters. The plot is fairly predictable, but Oh’s prose and the characters themselves help mitigate the weak plot. While nothing new, the relationship between Mina and Shin is really sweet, and Mina is a strong, endearing protagonist, a great example of how you don’t have to be able to do everything to do anything.

I really enjoyed this book; I’ve been gravitating towards cultural fairytales/stories from areas I’m not as familiar with, and I’ve been pleased with what I’ve found so far! I don’t know if I’ll visit any of Oh’s other work, as her other books seem to be more contemporary, but I’m glad that I at least got to experience this one.

Info: Axie Oh; published 2022 by Feiwel & Friends

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Notes: None

Recommended Age Range: 14+

The Dragon’s Promise

Rating: 2/5

The Dragon’s Promise follows the trend of previous Elizabeth Lim stories (and other similar duologies in general) with a sequel to a fairy tale retelling that is less reliant on the fairytale and more expansion of the world. And, like other books of this kind, I found the sequel to be far less interesting. I really enjoyed Six Crimson Cranes, but I struggled to get through The Dragon’s Promise.

One of the reasons is that the book ping-pongs back and forth between plot points and can’t seem to settle on what, precisely, it’s trying to do. What I thought was the main plot point ended 80 pages before the actual end of the book, and I was honestly surprised to discover that there was still so much left. This meant that the final, final plot point felt tacked-on, undeveloped, and flat despite its connection to the rest of the book.

In addition, a lot of what Shiori does simply doesn’t seem that interesting. Her relationships with other characters lack vibrancy; the novel starts with a nonserious love triangle and ends as predictably as you might expect with such a lukewarm, unexciting character as Takkan. Lim is clearly focusing on Shiori for the book, which is not a bad thing, but as a result, it means that Takkan barely has anything to do, making his scenes with Shiori fairly boring, not to mention predictable.

I also think the resolution of the book didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I do sort of like how Lim consistently undermined initial exceptions and impressions, most notably in the character of Shiori’s stepmother. However, it didn’t really work as well with Shiori’s decision at the end in regard to magic and the demons, in my opinion.

It’s unfortunate that Six Crimson Crows is not a stand-alone book; it does end with a hook to this one, which in my opinion is the weaker of the two by a lot. There’s still lots of good writing to experience, but the execution is not as good.

Info: Elizabeth Lim; published 2022 by Knopf

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Notes: None

Recommended Age Range: 14+

Lola at Last

Rating: 2/5

Lola at Last is the sequel to Being Mary Bennet and features the youngest Barnes sister, Lola, the “Lydia Bennet” of the family. In this book, Lola learns to navigate new friends, activities, and relationships as she struggles to move on from a scandal that uprooted the life she thought she knew how to control.

While I mostly enjoyed the first book, I really struggled with this one. Lola is not a particularly enjoyable protagonist, and though her moments of vulnerability give greater depth to her character, she is, quite simply, my least favorite type of protagonist in terms of personality. And though I praised the first book for its relative lack of sensual and sexual activity, this book is full of situations that I found borderline almost unreadable. I quite frankly would never in a million years recommend this book to be read by anyone under the age of 16.

That isn’t to say there’s not some good insight and themes in this novel. Though I didn’t like Lola, I think Peterson portrayed her struggles and insecurities really well, and I loved the genuine camaraderie that is built up throughout the novel between Lola and her hiking group. Peterson emphasizes how people learn to enjoy activities that others might never expect, such as Lola ending up loving hiking despite her family’s certainty that she wouldn’t last more than a day in the program. And I also enjoy how Peterson portrays that activities don’t just have to be confined to certain personality types—while Lola doesn’t strike anyone as an outdoors person, she learns to grow and thrive and enjoy that environment while still being herself. In a time where identifying people through stereotypes, rigid roles, and personality confinements seems to be making a huge resurgence, it’s nice to see Peterson point out that it is possible to love makeup, fashion, and parties, and also enjoy camping and hiking.

Info: JC Peterson; published 2023 by HarperTeen

Genre: Young Adult, Realistic

Notes: LGBTQ+, sexual references

Recommended Age: 16+

Six Crimson Cranes

Rating: 4/5

Six Crimson Cranes is an adaptation of “The Wild Swans”; in the same vein as similar fairytale retellings, Lim takes the fairytale and spins a fantasy world and plot out of it, using it as inspiration for her own world. Those familiar with the fairy tale will know where the story is going, but Lim also adds in enough of her own to make the ending, and thus the sequel, unique.

The story is pretty formulaic, but I really enjoyed the entire book regardless. Lim avoids many of my least favorite female heroine traits and creates a strong, determined protagonist in Shiori. Though her love interest isn’t particularly well-developed, I’m hoping the sequel will give us more personality, and it is a sweet romance without anything gratuitous or overly sensual added.

The ending of the novel is the only thing that detracted from it; while I enjoyed one of the twists, Lim overuses the type of character development where the character doesn’t change, just other characters’ perception of that character, and the expansion of the world hinges too much on a particularly annoying fantasy trope. Honestly, I would have loved to have seen what this book could have been as a stand-alone instead of the typical fairy-tale adaptation duology.

Despite the ending falling a little flat for me, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be seeing where the sequel takes the story.

Info: Elizabeth Lim; published 2021 by Knopf

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fairy Tales

Notes: None

Recommended Age Range: 14+

Sisters of Sword and Song

Rating: 3/5

Sisters of Sword and Song is my least favorite Rebecca Ross novel so far (since writing this, it’s now Divine Rivals). It’s her third one overall, and a stand-alone, much like Dreams Lie Beneath. The setting is a Greek-inspired fantasy world, where mages and common people live side-by-side. Mages have strict rules placed over them to prevent abuse of others; relics of the gods are coveted as they have special traits. The plot concerns the search for one of these relics to prevent the rising misuse of magic by powerful mages.

The main characters are the sisters of the title, Evadne and Halcyon, who become entangled in the quest to find a relic. The plot is very predictable; it’s told in Ross’s beautiful style, but nothing about it was particularly surprising. Most of the characters have deep or sympathetic relationships with each other, so any tension between them is flattened by the knowledge that they’re all going to get along eventually, but the events of the plot mean their sympathy to each other is a little hard to swallow at times. The romantic angle is sweet, but obvious, and unfortunately the writing style of this novel means that everything is delivered in the same way, so exciting parts don’t feel exciting and slow parts don’t feel any different than fast ones.

That said, it’s not like I hated the novel. I did find the romance, predictable as it was, very sweet, and some of the other side relationships were interesting, like the intense loyalty between Halcyon, the commander, and her fellow soldiers. I also, once again, appreciate Ross for her ability to write emotional, slightly sensual scenes without getting explicit or sexual. I enjoy her romance particularly because it is more focused on emotion than attraction.

I enjoy Rebecca Ross, but this novel is not as good as her others and is ultimately more forgettable. It had its good moments, but its predictability, monotonous tone, and lack of good world development were downsides for me.

Info: Rebecca Ross; published 2020 by HarperTeen

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Notes: None

Recommended Age Range: 14+

Blood Heir

Rating: 3/5

Blood Heir is a YA fantasy that is a little reminiscent of a cross between Shadow and Bone and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Set in a faux-Russian setting, people with the power to control the elements—Affinities—are used and feared for their powers, resulting in forced servitude through contracts. Cue our protagonist, a powerful Bloodbender—I mean, blood Affinite—who learns through personal exposure of the rot in her kingdom while trying to come to terms with her own power and falling in love with a rogueish, handsome con man who has his own dark past.

This book attempts to wrestle with some high-level questions of morality, but ultimately fails to convey anything even remotely coherent. Ana, the protagonist, bemoans her power and her propensity to be “monstrous,” yet flings people around and rips them apart. It’s hard to take any moral struggle seriously when the person you’re supposed to root for is so overwhelmingly brutal. There’s a hilarious conversation between Ana and Ramson near the end of the book where he tells her “there’s light/good in you,” after he has witnessed her kill upwards of ten people in fits of emotion. This wasn’t even a “you think you’re bad, but I know you have good in you” conversation in an attempt to get a brutal person to stop what they’re doing and act more morally. This was a “you’ve only ever done the right thing” type of conversation. I literally could not even take any of the moral discussions between the characters seriously at all about halfway through the novel (nor did they seem particularly streamlined or natural).

There’s portraying gray, nuanced characters, and then there’s whatever Wen Zhao attempted to do here, which was just have a protagonist be overwhelmingly brutal and then angst about being a monster. That being said, the moment at the end of the book where Ana could have killed someone and then didn’t was nice.

I had a few other issues with the novel as a whole, such as the Affinities’ ability to control things apparently extends to anything, not just elements, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but I must say that even though I was pretty irritated by the protagonist, I actually did like the book in general and I will pick up the next one just to see what happens. (Note from the future: I ended up stopping the second book halfway through due to sheer boredom.)

Info: Amelie Wen Zhao; published 2019 by Delacorte

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Notes: Violence.

Recommended Age Range: 14+

The Final Gambit

Rating: 3/5

The Final Gambit is a decent enough ending to a trilogy whose plot, though contrived and unrealistic, was interesting enough to keep me reading. Though Barnes narrows everything down to a “rich people bad” simplistic message, even having the protagonist start shedding her wealth the instant she receives it (because eighteen-year-olds are so naturally altruistic), the characters’ realization of and struggle with the consequences of power and greed in the lives of people rings natural and true.

Once again I was left rather disturbed by the smirking (Jameson), brooding (Grayson), hyper (Xander), and what-ever-you-call Nash Hawthorne brothers, who don’t seem to have any outside friends, which could be explained by their heavily secured life, but not really. I was halfway hoping that, as I thought for the first two books, Barnes would do a Avery/Grayson switch at the end, maybe have some sort of explosive “You don’t understand me” fight with Jameson and make everything even more of a soap opera than it already is. But alas, Grayson instead goes through some sort of internal struggle where he pretends not to be attracted to a girl who is a dead ringer for his dead girlfriend (any “I’m going to fall in love with someone because of who they look like” plot is awful). Add in some pretty obvious character betrayals, and none of the characters really seem to be very substantial in anything they do or say, resorting to their singular character trait that is emphasized through all the books, and are extremely forgettable.  

I guess for this type of book, though, you can’t take anything too seriously.

Some things I did like, beside what I mentioned in the first paragraph of this review, were Xander’s reunion with his father and Toby’s reunion with Avery. And though many aspects of the plot were overly spun-out, dramatic, or one-note, I still think the idea of the plot is interesting, and Barnes does know how to pace out the reveals well.

Also, one of my high school students gushed about this book to me for about five minutes straight, so clearly Barnes knows her audience. And, with the complete lack of swearing, it makes this book one of the cleanest YA’s I’ve read in a while, even given the nods at sexual content and two teenagers sharing a bedroom as if they were thirty. I just wish things involving the characters were more complex and less like Barnes just reminding us again and again that Jameson is the smirky, wild one.

Info: Jennifer Lynn Barnes; published 2022 by Little, Brown, and Co

Genre: Young Adult, Realistic, Mystery

Notes: LGBTQ+, sexual suggestions

Recommended Age Range: 14+

Five Survive

Rating: 2/5

Holly Jackson had a fairly successful YA murder mystery trilogy (though I thought the 3^rd book was bad), so when I saw she had published another book, I picked it up. Five Survive is a thriller/mystery about a group of 6 people (teenagers plus a couple of young adults) who, on the way to spring break in an RV, end up breaking down in the middle of nowhere and find themselves caught right in the sights of a mysterious sniper, who demands a secret from them.

The book is as wild as the premise sounds, but it’s not the realistic type of wild. Nothing about this book really makes any sense and none of the characters are particularly interesting, either. Red, our protagonist, who is about two steps away from a complete mental breakdown (or so she is written, anyway), is perhaps the most interesting of the 6 characters, but even then, her secret is so laughably obvious that the fact it’s dragged out for 200 pages is more irritating than intriguing. None of the other characters stand out in any way and all their conversations and dialogue sound stiff, cheesy, and awkwardly amateur, as if this was Jackson’s first novel instead of her fourth. The setting is boring, the premise stretches the bounds of feasibility, and even the lingering foreshadowing of the title (only 5 survive) doesn’t add anything to the (almost nonexistent) suspense. And Jackson ends the novel with another decision that made me angry about As Good as Dead; there’s presenting morally gray characters and then there’s whatever Jackson is doing, handwaving vigilante/revenge murder as justice and trying to wrap up everything in a nice little love story bow.

The only saving grace of this book is that it hasn’t made me never want to pick up another Jackson book. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder proves that Jackson can actually write suspense well. Five Survived is just a bad example.

Info: Holly Jackson; published 2022 by Random House

Genre: Young Adult, Realistic, Mystery

Notes: Swearing, violence, death

Recommended Age Range: 14+