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3.01 AVERAGE
3.01 AVERAGE
This book is readable, which, I believe, is one of its few qualities.
It resembles:
- Harry Potter (from the point of view of kids in a magic school), with the plot and the characters removed
- romance novels (from the point of view of rich pampering environments), but with the fun of romance removed
- Hollywood cliches used to fill in the part of the story that isn't relevant. Here, no part of the story is relevant.
- every other fantasy novel out there, because it inserts "different" elves and fairies, yet I couldn't care less about them
All in all, this will be the end of my reading YA for some time.
It resembles:
- Harry Potter (from the point of view of kids in a magic school), with the plot and the characters removed
- romance novels (from the point of view of rich pampering environments), but with the fun of romance removed
- Hollywood cliches used to fill in the part of the story that isn't relevant. Here, no part of the story is relevant.
- every other fantasy novel out there, because it inserts "different" elves and fairies, yet I couldn't care less about them
All in all, this will be the end of my reading YA for some time.
Part of the Secret World universe, set when Victoria Victrix of the first book is in high school, but only tangentially about her.
Short, fun. Still basically X-men, except also with elves and such -- I don't recall the X-men stories and the Guardian stories being very linked in Secret World:Invasion, but they definitely are here.
Short, fun. Still basically X-men, except also with elves and such -- I don't recall the X-men stories and the Guardian stories being very linked in Secret World:Invasion, but they definitely are here.
I'm definitely not one to accuse any book of ripping off another just because they share a premise (a school for gifted children - everyone says Harry Potter but nothing about X-Men with this one). This isn't my first time with the Secret World Chronicles, since I read another collection that I got in (maybe this same) Humble Bundle. My main takeaway is it's interesting but doesn't grab me enough. It was all right but not great.
I was a little annoyed with the random insertion of Spanish words in the middle of sentences. Do people really talk like that? All the people I know whose first language isn't English will only slip into their native language when trying to figure out what English word corresponds to what they're trying to say. They don't just throw it in there like punctuation. Maybe for words like "hermana" and "mamacita" because that's what he calls his sister, his mother, etc, but the rest of the time it's like "pick a random word to run through Google translate."
Tomas's arrogant macho 'tude turned me off, but that's just a personal taste thing.
Overall not intense or nuanced enough for my tastes.
I was a little annoyed with the random insertion of Spanish words in the middle of sentences. Do people really talk like that? All the people I know whose first language isn't English will only slip into their native language when trying to figure out what English word corresponds to what they're trying to say. They don't just throw it in there like punctuation. Maybe for words like "hermana" and "mamacita" because that's what he calls his sister, his mother, etc, but the rest of the time it's like "pick a random word to run through Google translate."
Tomas's arrogant macho 'tude turned me off, but that's just a personal taste thing.
Overall not intense or nuanced enough for my tastes.
I kept going back and forth between 2 stars and 3. I'd probably consider it 2.5 stars, but that's not an option and I felt like giving the book the benefit of the doubt. I purchased the book as part of one of the first book-related bundles I ever bought. (I *think* from Storybundle) This wasn't the book that made me buy it.
When I looked around on Goodreads, there doesn't appear to be an Arcanum 202 or other such direct sequel. It looks like the author has a few books in the same universe, but not direct sequels to this one. (According to Goodreads, this is the series: https://www.goodreads.com/series/40480-diana-tregarde) The reason I mention this is that this story does not flow like a traditional story. It's a metric ton of world-building and nearly no story. The antagonist, to the extent that one exists, is presented and dealt with in the final couple chapters. That's what pushed this book more towards 2 stars for me. It's essentially a personal growth story, but I feel that's probably the weakest part of the book.
Switching gears for a moment, the best thing about the book is that Ms Lackey does a pretty good job depicting teens. I wouldn't say it's stellar or the best characterization I've ever read. But the kids seem to react pretty realistically to teen power dynamics and hormones without falling into too many cliches.
Our main character, Tomas, was a little annoying to me in the way he interacted with others. Granted, my friends and family are a very small sample size, but as someone who is also bilingual, I found the way he spoke to people odd. So, in South Florida, sure we did a lot of code switching, that is we'd mix English and Spanish in one sentence. But only in cases where everyone there was also bilingual. Tomas, on the other hand, is constantly using Spanish with people who have given no indication they speak any Spanish. Maybe, given he's from Texas, that's how people speak there, but it just struck me as odd. The random Spanish in his inner monologue - sure, that scans. But I wouldn't just randomly call someone in Maryland (where I live now) "chica", even though that's a word most people have been exposed to. It just seemed weird.
One last bit of a misuse of Chekov's gun, in my opinion. At once point in the story Tomas is working for a pretty bad element and It's suggested that his disobedience will lead to consequences with his family. This is dropped as soon as our character ends up in the X-Men-like school that is the story's main location. Frankly, I kept expecting this to be a big growth point. I thought they'd go after his family and he'd have to have a personal growth moment where he realized he shouldn't kill people with his powers or something.
So, if you like world-building and fantasy, it's a pretty quick read. Despite what the read length says up there, I only read it for about 10-15 minutes at a time five days a week, and it only took me a couple weeks once I really got into it consistently. Just don't go into it expecting a traditional story.
When I looked around on Goodreads, there doesn't appear to be an Arcanum 202 or other such direct sequel. It looks like the author has a few books in the same universe, but not direct sequels to this one. (According to Goodreads, this is the series: https://www.goodreads.com/series/40480-diana-tregarde) The reason I mention this is that this story does not flow like a traditional story. It's a metric ton of world-building and nearly no story. The antagonist, to the extent that one exists, is presented and dealt with in the final couple chapters. That's what pushed this book more towards 2 stars for me. It's essentially a personal growth story, but I feel that's probably the weakest part of the book.
Switching gears for a moment, the best thing about the book is that Ms Lackey does a pretty good job depicting teens. I wouldn't say it's stellar or the best characterization I've ever read. But the kids seem to react pretty realistically to teen power dynamics and hormones without falling into too many cliches.
Our main character, Tomas, was a little annoying to me in the way he interacted with others. Granted, my friends and family are a very small sample size, but as someone who is also bilingual, I found the way he spoke to people odd. So, in South Florida, sure we did a lot of code switching, that is we'd mix English and Spanish in one sentence. But only in cases where everyone there was also bilingual. Tomas, on the other hand, is constantly using Spanish with people who have given no indication they speak any Spanish. Maybe, given he's from Texas, that's how people speak there, but it just struck me as odd. The random Spanish in his inner monologue - sure, that scans. But I wouldn't just randomly call someone in Maryland (where I live now) "chica", even though that's a word most people have been exposed to. It just seemed weird.
One last bit of a misuse of Chekov's gun, in my opinion. At once point in the story Tomas is working for a pretty bad element and It's suggested that his disobedience will lead to consequences with his family. This is dropped as soon as our character ends up in the X-Men-like school that is the story's main location. Frankly, I kept expecting this to be a big growth point. I thought they'd go after his family and he'd have to have a personal growth moment where he realized he shouldn't kill people with his powers or something.
So, if you like world-building and fantasy, it's a pretty quick read. Despite what the read length says up there, I only read it for about 10-15 minutes at a time five days a week, and it only took me a couple weeks once I really got into it consistently. Just don't go into it expecting a traditional story.
Harry Potter for a slightly older audience, YA rather than children. It was mostly fairly inoffensive, but I was tempted to rate it lower because there are some really dumb bits, like people causing their own problems by just not talking to each other like normal human beings, and basically the whole last chapter (and a bit of the one before). Also, the random Spanish words sprinkled throughout were really annoying. I guess they're there to signify that the protagonist is bilingual, but this isn't important to the plot at all. It wasn't terrible, but I really can't see any reason to recommend this book to anyone.
After discovering he possesses pryokinetic talents while defending his sister in a robbery, Tomas is pulled in by the local gang boss to be an enforcer, starting fires when people do not pay up. Caught by the police, he is offered a deal by the DA: attend a boarding school in upstate New York for three years to earn a GED and his record will be sealed. He agrees, thinking to escape if he hates it, and is perplexed when he arrives, convinced it is a trick or people are fooling themselves. For here is a school for people with psionic and magic abilities - and everyone knows there is no such thing as magic!
Thoroughly enjoyed this! This is a nifty world, would love if there was more of this particular universe or at the school.
Thoroughly enjoyed this! This is a nifty world, would love if there was more of this particular universe or at the school.
This book was fun to read but was definitely lacking in many qualities. Sometimes it's nice to mix in books like that, with so much less attention required--humble book bundle is handy.
Yikes. Really needs more development and a solid copy edit. There were some good ideas in there but the book just didn't gel.
This was... half a book. It's short, around 157 pages or so, and it really feels like the story has only just started. I assume there is more to find about the place that I will go looking for, but it ended far more suddenly than I expected.