Scan barcode
nicolemhewitt's review against another edition
4.0
This review and many others can be found on my blog - Feed Your Fiction Addiction
The Unwanted is a fun YA fantasy novel that features mythology with a twist!
The negatives:
A few clichés.
There were a few things about this book that were a bit of a cliché. The one that struck me the most was the bully who turns into a possible love interest. This seems to be the gay equivalent to the bad boy with a heart of gold that we see in so many mainstream YA books - saw it coming from a million miles away and I had to groan just a little bit. Still, Ricker managed to pull it off and turn it into something sweet and real, so I give him credit for that. And there were plenty of things about this book that were NOT cliché, so I didn't feel like it hurt the book much at all.
What I loved:
The ending.
Okay, I know it's a bit odd to start off with talking about how much I loved the ending, but it was just so amazing that I had to mention it first. There were several things that I imagined might happen as I neared the end of this book - what actually finally happened was decidedly NOT one of them. I was completely taken by surprise and the ending was really kind of perfect - incredibly bittersweet and emotional and very unexpected. While I mentioned that there were a few small clichés in this book, the ending was NOT one of them!
Jamie and Billy.
I really enjoyed Jamie as the hero in this book. He'd suffered through a lot of bullying, but he wasn't a bitter or angry person (which he certainly could have been). Sure, he didn't always have the best sense of self-confidence, but he didn't mope either - there was no pity party going on here. His relationship with Billy was complicated, to say the least. Billy's turnaround from bully to friend could have taken a bit more time, in my opinion, but I was very glad that Ricker didn't have Jamie and Billy jump straight into romance once they became friends. Instead, the two had to navigate some confusing territory, and things move slowly.
Positive parental figures.
Yep, a YA book with positive parental figures. Yay! Jamie's father, especially, is incredibly close with his son and supportive of him. He is never turned into the bad guy - or the oblivious dad who has no idea what's going on in his son's life. And he's not the only one - pretty much every parent in the book (and there are several!) is portrayed as a positive influence in their child's life. That's not to say that some of them don't have flaws or make mistakes, but they are refreshingly real and involved in their kids' lives. I definitely applaud that!
The Amazons.
I can't write a review of this book and not mention the fantasy storyline! I thought that Ricker did a fantastic job of incorporating the mythology without making the story confusing. I thought that the whole idea of the Amazons and their male sons was really interesting and the story was filled with lots of action and suspense. I appreciated that Jamie didn't just suddenly develop a bunch of powers once he discovered that his mom was an Amazon - his life does get crazy, but he doesn't turn into an amazing superhero overnight.
Overall, I thought this was a great YA fantasy read! With lots of excitement and a fantastic ending, this book is sure to please. I give it 4.5/5 stars.
***Disclosure: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given. All opinions are my own***
The Unwanted is a fun YA fantasy novel that features mythology with a twist!
The negatives:
A few clichés.
There were a few things about this book that were a bit of a cliché. The one that struck me the most was the bully who turns into a possible love interest. This seems to be the gay equivalent to the bad boy with a heart of gold that we see in so many mainstream YA books - saw it coming from a million miles away and I had to groan just a little bit. Still, Ricker managed to pull it off and turn it into something sweet and real, so I give him credit for that. And there were plenty of things about this book that were NOT cliché, so I didn't feel like it hurt the book much at all.
What I loved:
The ending.
Okay, I know it's a bit odd to start off with talking about how much I loved the ending, but it was just so amazing that I had to mention it first. There were several things that I imagined might happen as I neared the end of this book - what actually finally happened was decidedly NOT one of them. I was completely taken by surprise and the ending was really kind of perfect - incredibly bittersweet and emotional and very unexpected. While I mentioned that there were a few small clichés in this book, the ending was NOT one of them!
Jamie and Billy.
I really enjoyed Jamie as the hero in this book. He'd suffered through a lot of bullying, but he wasn't a bitter or angry person (which he certainly could have been). Sure, he didn't always have the best sense of self-confidence, but he didn't mope either - there was no pity party going on here. His relationship with Billy was complicated, to say the least. Billy's turnaround from bully to friend could have taken a bit more time, in my opinion, but I was very glad that Ricker didn't have Jamie and Billy jump straight into romance once they became friends. Instead, the two had to navigate some confusing territory, and things move slowly.
Positive parental figures.
Yep, a YA book with positive parental figures. Yay! Jamie's father, especially, is incredibly close with his son and supportive of him. He is never turned into the bad guy - or the oblivious dad who has no idea what's going on in his son's life. And he's not the only one - pretty much every parent in the book (and there are several!) is portrayed as a positive influence in their child's life. That's not to say that some of them don't have flaws or make mistakes, but they are refreshingly real and involved in their kids' lives. I definitely applaud that!
The Amazons.
I can't write a review of this book and not mention the fantasy storyline! I thought that Ricker did a fantastic job of incorporating the mythology without making the story confusing. I thought that the whole idea of the Amazons and their male sons was really interesting and the story was filled with lots of action and suspense. I appreciated that Jamie didn't just suddenly develop a bunch of powers once he discovered that his mom was an Amazon - his life does get crazy, but he doesn't turn into an amazing superhero overnight.
Overall, I thought this was a great YA fantasy read! With lots of excitement and a fantastic ending, this book is sure to please. I give it 4.5/5 stars.
***Disclosure: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given. All opinions are my own***
joshfries's review against another edition
5.0
This was one of those books that just grabbed me and sat me down and said "devour me". The story, the Greek mythology, the romance... just blended together perfectly.
Also, being from St. Louis, was fun to read some home town lingo in the story.
I look forward to reading more of Jeffrey Ricker's work!
Also, being from St. Louis, was fun to read some home town lingo in the story.
I look forward to reading more of Jeffrey Ricker's work!
apostrophen's review
5.0
Jeffrey Ricker is like my "writing big brother." My first publication was in the same book as his second, and we've often been in the same anthologies. When I find one of his stories in a collection, I can't help but smile, and I know I'm in for something as different as it is good. He's chilled me to the bone with a horror story from [b:Night Shadows: Queer Horror|13587070|Night Shadows Queer Horror|Greg Herren|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1338741691s/13587070.jpg|19174422]. He's left me sniffly with a bittersweet romance in [b:Foolish Hearts: New Gay Fiction|18051991|Foolish Hearts New Gay Fiction|Timothy J. Lambert|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1371519366s/18051991.jpg|25335752]. He made me laugh out loud more than once with his novel, [b:Detours|10692930|Detours|Jeffrey Ricker|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1300839912s/10692930.jpg|15602927], about a young man facing a road trip with his kinda-sorta ex and his mother's ghost (yes, you read that right). He's gotten smutty on Mars, even, in [b:Riding the Rails: Locomotive Lust and Carnal Cabooses|11384828|Riding the Rails Locomotive Lust and Carnal Cabooses|Jerry L. Wheeler|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328743868s/11384828.jpg|16316515]. Put simply, he always surprises me, and it's always a pleasant surprise.
One of the other incredibly awesome things about being with the same publisher is that I get to take an early peek at titles before they officially release, and when I saw his second novel - [b:The Unwanted|18342379|The Unwanted|Jeffrey Ricker|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1379898361s/18342379.jpg|25897713], a YA novel - on the list, I nabbed it and told myself I'd read a chapter or two a night before bed.
I lasted four days, and it only took that long because I had to go to work a couple of times.
I gobbled the last three-quarters of this book today, and I'm still leaning back and reeling a bit from what was yet another surprise from Jeffrey Ricker.
The set-up for this book is a solid one that made me grin from ear-to-ear: Jamie, the skinny, short, and only out gay kid in his high school, is having a craptacular day. His bully tormentor landed a solid blow, and he took off from school without permission to nurse the mashed nose and wounded pride at home. Unfortunately, waiting for him at home is his mother, which would be normal for most kids but Jamie's mother is dead.
She's not dead, it turns out. She's just an amazon. As in the mythological sense. As a boy-child, he was of course dropped off with his dad to raise, she explains, but it turns out there's this big problem and it might just be that Jamie is the only one who can fix it, and save all of amazon-kind.
Suddenly, a mashed nose doesn't seem like such a big deal.
While the tale has a real sense of fun to it, and there's more than a few great humor moments and Jamie's internal monolog is completely spot-on in the tone of a young teen, there's real depth to this story. The ties of family, friendship, and love are never as simple as they seem, and unlike many teen and YA books, there are some consequences to danger and violence in this book that I really appreciated, even as they served to jack up the tension to the point where I was curling over my e-reader and praying that everyone was going to make it out alive.
Jamie is such a strong character, and one so easy to identify with. Out and suffering the consequences, his only real goals seem to be escape and survival, and the last thing he needs is this sudden arrival of mythical issues. Worse, the more tangled things get, the more he realizes there's a very real weight on his shoulders as potentially the only one who might stand a chance to make everything all right. This "chosen one" character concept isn't new, but in Jamie, it's given a refresh. He's not perfectly capable, but he's not useless - that's a fine line to walk as well as Ricker does.
It should come as no shock that I adored this. When you put down a book and it's still echoing in your head and you're still feeling the impact hours later, you know the author has done their job well. YA just gained a fantastic new book with [b:The Unwanted|18342379|The Unwanted|Jeffrey Ricker|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1379898361s/18342379.jpg|25897713], and I can't wait to watch the readers discover it.
(Oh, and I should mention that the characters in this book appear in a short story, "The Trouble with Billy," in [b:Speaking Out: LGBTQ Youth Stand Up|10635336|Speaking Out LGBTQ Youth Stand Up|Steve Berman|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328743858s/10635336.jpg|15543991]. You don't need to have read it prior to reading this novel, but you know how I feel about short fiction.)
One of the other incredibly awesome things about being with the same publisher is that I get to take an early peek at titles before they officially release, and when I saw his second novel - [b:The Unwanted|18342379|The Unwanted|Jeffrey Ricker|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1379898361s/18342379.jpg|25897713], a YA novel - on the list, I nabbed it and told myself I'd read a chapter or two a night before bed.
I lasted four days, and it only took that long because I had to go to work a couple of times.
I gobbled the last three-quarters of this book today, and I'm still leaning back and reeling a bit from what was yet another surprise from Jeffrey Ricker.
The set-up for this book is a solid one that made me grin from ear-to-ear: Jamie, the skinny, short, and only out gay kid in his high school, is having a craptacular day. His bully tormentor landed a solid blow, and he took off from school without permission to nurse the mashed nose and wounded pride at home. Unfortunately, waiting for him at home is his mother, which would be normal for most kids but Jamie's mother is dead.
She's not dead, it turns out. She's just an amazon. As in the mythological sense. As a boy-child, he was of course dropped off with his dad to raise, she explains, but it turns out there's this big problem and it might just be that Jamie is the only one who can fix it, and save all of amazon-kind.
Suddenly, a mashed nose doesn't seem like such a big deal.
While the tale has a real sense of fun to it, and there's more than a few great humor moments and Jamie's internal monolog is completely spot-on in the tone of a young teen, there's real depth to this story. The ties of family, friendship, and love are never as simple as they seem, and unlike many teen and YA books, there are some consequences to danger and violence in this book that I really appreciated, even as they served to jack up the tension to the point where I was curling over my e-reader and praying that everyone was going to make it out alive.
Jamie is such a strong character, and one so easy to identify with. Out and suffering the consequences, his only real goals seem to be escape and survival, and the last thing he needs is this sudden arrival of mythical issues. Worse, the more tangled things get, the more he realizes there's a very real weight on his shoulders as potentially the only one who might stand a chance to make everything all right. This "chosen one" character concept isn't new, but in Jamie, it's given a refresh. He's not perfectly capable, but he's not useless - that's a fine line to walk as well as Ricker does.
It should come as no shock that I adored this. When you put down a book and it's still echoing in your head and you're still feeling the impact hours later, you know the author has done their job well. YA just gained a fantastic new book with [b:The Unwanted|18342379|The Unwanted|Jeffrey Ricker|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1379898361s/18342379.jpg|25897713], and I can't wait to watch the readers discover it.
(Oh, and I should mention that the characters in this book appear in a short story, "The Trouble with Billy," in [b:Speaking Out: LGBTQ Youth Stand Up|10635336|Speaking Out LGBTQ Youth Stand Up|Steve Berman|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328743858s/10635336.jpg|15543991]. You don't need to have read it prior to reading this novel, but you know how I feel about short fiction.)
More...