Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Wildlife by Fiona Wood

Note: I received a free advanced copy of “Wildlife” by Fiona Wood from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I requested “Wildlife”, a story about two teenage girls named Sibylla and Lou and their school term at an outdoor education program, I did not realize that it’s basically a sequel to another book that featured Lou. I actually didn’t realize that until now, over a week after I finished the book, when I happened to see that it was listed as ‘book 2’ on Goodreads.

Now I know that sometimes it doesn’t really seem to matter whether or not you’ve read the first book and I doubt it would have changed “Wildlife” all that much for me but I think it might have helped enough for me to rate this a bit higher.

I enjoyed the duel perspectives, the naïve Sibylla and Lou who had experienced so much (most likely in the first book I’m guessing) although at first I didn’t pick up on the whole multiple narrator thing and was very confused. Which was probably pretty stupid of me since some chapters were written in diary form while others were just first person but since narrator names weren’t mentioned for a few pages I got lost.

What I did like about the story was that some parts of it were very realistic. Lou’s depression was understandable and I liked that she merely isolated herself and observed instead of behaving more erratically like fictional characters often seem to do. But where I liked Lou I found Sibylla very flip floppy. Sometimes she had some great common sense and observations while other times, whenever her best friend and her new boyfriend were involved, she was horribly naïve.

All in all it wasn’t a bad story but it wasn’t really all that amazing either. Not much happened and I didn’t get pulled into the characters as much as I have in other books though I did like bits and pieces of the character’s personalities.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper

Note: I received an Advanced Reader Copy of Salt & Storm in exchange for an honest review.

Salt & Storm was the story of the Roes, specifically Avery Roe, who belongs to a family of witches who keep Prince Island safe with their magic.

For hundreds of years the Roe family passed the magic from daughter to daughter, using it to help the whalers who populate the island they live on. Their magic comes with the cost of pain and a life span and a shortened life span. Most of the witches in the family line took up the mantle but Avery’s mother chose not to, leaving her aging mother to care for her daughter until her circumstances change. That’s how the story starts.

The majority of the story seemed to revolve around the relationships between Avery, her mother and her mother’s mother as well as the Roe family’s relationship to island. Avery makes it very clear that she wants to be the Roe witch but it’s not long into the story that she has a dream that reveals that her own death is imminent so she tries to find a way to prevent it from happening. That way ends up involving a boy.

Although I liked it well enough this book was not all that memorable. I’m finally writing this review about a week after I finished it and I’m struggling to remember all the details. From what I can remember my favorite part of the story was the history of the Roe family. It was kind of neat to read about what powers the other women had and so on.

And the major thing that bothered me was that there wasn’t really much of a resolution. The question of Avery’s imminent fate was answered but certain relationships weren’t resolved. I expected more and didn’t find it.