This? This is the start to the series that everyone is frothing for? This is literally just the Hunger Games, if the Hunger Games were written by a 14This? This is the start to the series that everyone is frothing for? This is literally just the Hunger Games, if the Hunger Games were written by a 14 year old boy with a rage problem.
To start, Darrow is the biggest Mary Sue I've ever had the displeasure of reading about. He's the smartest and the fastest and the strongest person on the planet, and there's literally nothing he can't do. Nevermind the fact that the other people he's surrounded by for the majority of the novel have only been bred and raised to be the best in every way. They ain't got nothing on a teenage Helldriver who literally didn't know anything about, well, anything until about 50 pages into the book.
The pacing in this novel is absolutely atrocious. We skip entire weeks and months in between paragraphs, with no explanation about what has happened in between. Darrow's whole transformation into a Gold seemingly took months but was reduced to about six pages. There was no real explanation about how this guy went from a lowly Red to a lustrous Gold, just that he sometimes exercised and had some wild surgeries that were glossed over entirely.
My biggest issue with this book is its treatment of women. Women exist in this world solely to either be raped or act as character motivation for the men. This book is set hundreds of years into the future and yet we're still all good with abusing women? Cool, cool, cool.
Also just as a final thought, what's with the all-consuming obsession with ancient Greece that everyone in this book has? Like, as an ancient Greece and mythology girlie, I get it, but also... what? We're colonizing other planets but we're still obsessed with failed civilizations? Got it.
I think I'll just reread the Hunger Games now....more
Honestly, I feel a little bit duped by the marketing for this book, not to mention the synopsis and even the cover Frankly just not enough octopuses.
Honestly, I feel a little bit duped by the marketing for this book, not to mention the synopsis and even the cover art -- you know, maybe the gigantic octopus taking up 80% of the cover shouldn't have led me to believe that the undersea creatures would be the central figures of this story. Fooled me there. The book possibly could have redeemed itself a little bit for the lack of octopi with better world-building and more fleshed out characters, but everything about this story really just felt like there was a haze hanging over it. At least the misleading cover is pretty, I guess....more
Dreambound follows Byron Kidd as he attempts to unravel the mystery of his twelve-year-old daughter’s disappearance. His investigation takes him from Dreambound follows Byron Kidd as he attempts to unravel the mystery of his twelve-year-old daughter’s disappearance. His investigation takes him from the east coast to Los Angeles and throws him into a twisted web of fantastical stories and secrets. The story is told through mixed media elements, including emails, interview transcripts, and Byron’s investigative notes.
My opinions on this novel are clearly in the minority at the time of writing this review. The story, writing, and characters very much work for a lot of readers, but it all was just very much not for me.
Our protagonist, Byron, is self-righteous, egotistical, and misogynistic. While watching other people - actors, writers, and directors - do their actual jobs, he writes in his notes that the room stank of desperation. He’s doing real work, of course, but everyone else doing their jobs is just desperate. He tells a female character, who is at this point mostly just a stranger, that she should “get over herself” and “do it already” in reference to having a baby. Just do it already. This is after the character tells him that she’s not ready to have children yet. But sure, just suck it up and do it already. Byron also implies that having a child can alleviate anxiety and depression and give someone a purpose in life. Seems like a pretty bold statement and also a pretty terrible reason to become a parent, but maybe that's just me.
There are also some other little misogynistic nuggets tucked throughout the book. One female character is described as an adult with an absurd obsession with children’s toys and stories. Another, the author of the books at the center of the mystery, implies that it is strange that grown women have tattoos from her books. A third is really just an archetype of a “dumb blonde,” who collects crystals, drinks smoothies, and uses the word “like” in every other sentence. At one point, while looking at photos of his 12 year old daughter, Byron muses that, while she was beautiful, she didn’t have a “beyond-her-years sultriness” that her peers used to “attract male attention.” Byron also says that he’s proud of his daughter for not needing to be sexualized at her age. He’s writing this in his investigative notes. About 12 year old girls. What 12 year old girl asks for men to sexualize them? No, thank you.
The mixed media storytelling is a really interesting style. At the start, it made the novel a compulsive and quick read, as things moved quickly through emails and forum/Reddit posts. However, a lot of the entries felt tonally off to me. Emails between (somewhat estranged) spouses begin with incredibly professional phrases: Hope that you’re well; I’m writing to share. Are you writing to your boss or someone you share a child with, because I honestly can’t tell. The investigative notes started to feel a bit like just a place to get big chunks of narrative in, including Byron’s morning routine and his commutes across LA. Byron also kept having to tell himself to stick to the facts in his own investigative notes. I wish he had taken his own advice before he lamented about driving in LA for the third time.
The pacing was slow, with the majority of the action and story ramping up in the last 20% of the book. The middle was filled with Byron calling women quirky for having hobbies and trying to bribe, blackmail, and threaten people into giving him information. The ending was predictable by the time it finally happened.
Overall, I wish I’d had a better time with Dreambound. I’ve enjoyed mixed media storytelling in the past and the synopsis sounded very interesting. There were just too many glaring issues for me to have anything but an uncomfortable at best and infuriating at worst time with this one.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/Del Rey Books and NetGalley for the arc of this book in exchange for an honest review....more
The Infinite Miles mixes together a sci-fi time and space travel story and an ode to pop culture. Sprinkled throughout are themes of grief, loss, frieThe Infinite Miles mixes together a sci-fi time and space travel story and an ode to pop culture. Sprinkled throughout are themes of grief, loss, friendship, love, and hate. The title and cover of this book are showstoppers, and I was really intrigued by the sound of overall story. Unfortunately, for me, the book never went deep enough into its major promises, of space and time travel along with the relationship between Harper and Peggy, for me to feel anything beyond a little bit confused and disconnected from the characters and stories. Harper and Peggy's friendship came across as pretty one dimensional, with barely any really impactful moments shared between the two. I was told that Harper missed and loved Peggy, but I was never given enough reason to care about her quest to find and save her. The concepts of space and time travel did not feel fully thought out and explained, and I never fully understood how any of the sci fi elements really worked. By the end, some of the key messages of the story felt overdone and heavy-handed, with the characters sometimes literally shouting them through space.
Ultimately, while I enjoyed Fergesen's writing overall, the plot and characters fell a bit flat for me. Fans of Doctor Who may have a better time with this one.
Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the arc....more
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