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A review by paradoxicalreality
Wander This World by G.L. Tomas
4.0
I will start this review by saying I was honestly impressed with this book, and not from a horror, erotic, or even PNR/fantasy perspective. I was highly impressed with how realistic I felt the characters to be, despite dealing with pretty strange circumstances, and I found all of them relatable. If I had a single issue, it would be how the plot was handled -- at times, it felt a bit rushed, but this is not some glaringly noticeable oversight. The characters are thoroughly engaging and as the author develops them they become very relatable. I will not lie; I actually went into this as about as closed off to the idea as I could be. I normally do not like the portrayal of PoC in many books of various genres, it is either too much one way or the other with no regard to the shades of gray in between; however, I’ve found a kindred spirit in Melanie (sans the whole vampire thing). This does not go to say that this book did not deliver in the horror, erotic, or pnr/fantasy areas – in some respects it did, to varying degrees.
Also, random, but I am in love with that cover art.
Spoilers ahead…
The book starts off with one of our main characters, Melanie Blue, having just finished a meal and detailing how she feels about it. She does not do this sort of thing for fun or without thought, it does not have to be this romantic ordeal or a bloody massacre, except sometimes she gets carried away. Melanie provided us with a mildly detached, analytical approach to things and is a wonderful foil to our other main character… Penley Greene.
We switch perspectives to dear Penley, who is our media/mass communication majoring protagonist, who happens to be of Filipino descent. He is quite the doll as he is funny, smart, practical, and down to earth. From this point, we are largely introduced to Penley, his life and upbringing, and his growing attraction to Melanie. Naturally due to this, we learn more about Melanie; for example -- she is black/African-American, a vampire, and drinks blood purely to survive. She does not have fangs and she does attempt to satiate her blood cravings with mint chocolate. (I found that to be adorable, also, cause I mean why not? Trying to curb a blood craving with mint chocolate and a Dr. Who series binge? Yes. Yes. Yes.)
While many of the chapters continue along that train of thought, the author brushes on the issues of race, stereotypes, and tensions – though in the lightest way possible. It is not some heavy issue that we are burdened with, in fact, most of it is dealt with through the various group members we are introduced to at the beginning of the book. It would seem that the author brought the subjects up and then handled them briefly and in the lightest tone possible; however, this was not a means of dismissal, it felt along the lines of “I’m going to leave this [subject] right here for you to think about while I continue the rest of this book” sort of thing. In between that, and the romancing of Melanie Blue by Penley Greene, we are given these occasional micro snapshots of our presumed antagonist via his internal dialogue. Through these we are given the notion that he is a stalker, he picks his victims carefully, and he does, in fact, murder them. We are not given much more than that to work with, he essentially reveals a little bit of himself via internal dialogue for most of the book until about 60% through (maybe 75%) when Penley finds a hidden camera in his room. He is alarmed because since Penley and Melanie have started dating they have been engaging in some rather sadistic practices that could get them both in a lot of trouble. Penley immediately suspects his technologically savvy roommate, Luis, and quickly goes to question him. This is the first real time that the author has addressed the antagonist in a tangible way, and that the protagonists and antagonist have had any real “interaction”. Things, plot wise, move fairly quickly from here as Melanie and Penley after a minor (and rather brief) falling out, decide to go and confront this attacker. This confrontation ends in Melanie vanishing from Penley’s life and (thankfully) Penley moving on from the incident; transferring to a college in New York as he moves on with his life and continues pursuing his chosen course of study. It is there that Melanie Blue returns to Penley, explaining why she had to leave him as she did and the novel ending with the two of them kind of tentatively speaking again.
My only issue would be how the author handled the plot. It was not a bad plot, however, I found that the main plot of this book (one of two or three different developing plot lines – that I can see) took a back seat to world building and character development, so that it was mentioned in brief snippets throughout and then was quickly brought to a head and then resolved towards the end of the book. This is not the first book I have read that muddled through plot to present characters to me. But, because the latter part (presentation of characters) was handled so well, it makes the aforementioned issue only an issue because as the book progresses you start to wonder when/what/how the author will address it.
I received this book at the Goodreads Lovers of Paranormal group for free in exchange for a fair and honest review!
Also, random, but I am in love with that cover art.
Spoilers ahead…
The book starts off with one of our main characters, Melanie Blue, having just finished a meal and detailing how she feels about it. She does not do this sort of thing for fun or without thought, it does not have to be this romantic ordeal or a bloody massacre, except sometimes she gets carried away. Melanie provided us with a mildly detached, analytical approach to things and is a wonderful foil to our other main character… Penley Greene.
We switch perspectives to dear Penley, who is our media/mass communication majoring protagonist, who happens to be of Filipino descent. He is quite the doll as he is funny, smart, practical, and down to earth. From this point, we are largely introduced to Penley, his life and upbringing, and his growing attraction to Melanie. Naturally due to this, we learn more about Melanie; for example -- she is black/African-American, a vampire, and drinks blood purely to survive. She does not have fangs and she does attempt to satiate her blood cravings with mint chocolate. (I found that to be adorable, also, cause I mean why not? Trying to curb a blood craving with mint chocolate and a Dr. Who series binge? Yes. Yes. Yes.)
While many of the chapters continue along that train of thought, the author brushes on the issues of race, stereotypes, and tensions – though in the lightest way possible. It is not some heavy issue that we are burdened with, in fact, most of it is dealt with through the various group members we are introduced to at the beginning of the book. It would seem that the author brought the subjects up and then handled them briefly and in the lightest tone possible; however, this was not a means of dismissal, it felt along the lines of “I’m going to leave this [subject] right here for you to think about while I continue the rest of this book” sort of thing. In between that, and the romancing of Melanie Blue by Penley Greene, we are given these occasional micro snapshots of our presumed antagonist via his internal dialogue. Through these we are given the notion that he is a stalker, he picks his victims carefully, and he does, in fact, murder them. We are not given much more than that to work with, he essentially reveals a little bit of himself via internal dialogue for most of the book until about 60% through (maybe 75%) when Penley finds a hidden camera in his room. He is alarmed because since Penley and Melanie have started dating they have been engaging in some rather sadistic practices that could get them both in a lot of trouble. Penley immediately suspects his technologically savvy roommate, Luis, and quickly goes to question him. This is the first real time that the author has addressed the antagonist in a tangible way, and that the protagonists and antagonist have had any real “interaction”. Things, plot wise, move fairly quickly from here as Melanie and Penley after a minor (and rather brief) falling out, decide to go and confront this attacker. This confrontation ends in Melanie vanishing from Penley’s life and (thankfully) Penley moving on from the incident; transferring to a college in New York as he moves on with his life and continues pursuing his chosen course of study. It is there that Melanie Blue returns to Penley, explaining why she had to leave him as she did and the novel ending with the two of them kind of tentatively speaking again.
My only issue would be how the author handled the plot. It was not a bad plot, however, I found that the main plot of this book (one of two or three different developing plot lines – that I can see) took a back seat to world building and character development, so that it was mentioned in brief snippets throughout and then was quickly brought to a head and then resolved towards the end of the book. This is not the first book I have read that muddled through plot to present characters to me. But, because the latter part (presentation of characters) was handled so well, it makes the aforementioned issue only an issue because as the book progresses you start to wonder when/what/how the author will address it.
I received this book at the Goodreads Lovers of Paranormal group for free in exchange for a fair and honest review!