Modern Romance - by Aziz Ansari

My rating: 

For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before.
In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world. (Goodreads)

This book was really enjoyable and the audio was great because it's read by Aziz Ansari. The only downside to the audio was not being able to look at the charts of data from the research. In this book, Ansari does a great job of combining his unique humor with actual research, both from studies conducted specifically for this book and from historical studies used to provide context.

Modern Romance, as I expected, focuses heavily on how technology influences dating practices in the modern day. The statistics shared in this book were actually very enlightening and the anecdotal stories were perfectly chosen. Ansari shares stories from his own life but also chose some great gems to share from focus groups. If you want something that will make you laugh and educate you at the same time, I would highly recommend this book!

Talon - by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 

Long ago, dragons were hunted to near extinction by the Order of St. George, a legendary society of dragon slayers. Hiding in human form and growing their numbers in secret, the dragons of Talon have become strong and cunning, and they're positioned to take over the world with humans none the wiser.
Ember and Dante Hill are the only sister and brother known to dragonkind. Trained to infiltrate society, Ember wants to live the teen experience and enjoy a summer of freedom before taking her destined place in Talon. But destiny is a matter of perspective, and a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught. As Ember struggles to accept her future, she and her brother are hunted by the Order of St. George. (Goodreads)

 The premise of this book is really interesting. Dragons can take human form and are using this skill to infiltrate human society. Unfortunately the plot is only mildly interesting and this book somehow managed to make dragons boring. It seems impossible, but I swear it's true.

The main character, Ember Hill is a stereotypical teenage girl. This is ironic because she's actually a dragon who is constantly complaining that she doesn't understand humans. Ember is rebellious and doesn't want to go to the training organized by Talon, the international dragon organization. Instead she would rather spend her summer hanging out at the beach with her friends. This book also starts setting up some romance which quickly evolves into a full blown love triangle.

Don't get me wrong, this book wasn't terrible. It also helped that I listened to the audio mostly while driving or doing dishes, so I didn't feel like I was missing out on an opportunity to read something better. There are some interesting plot points but overall the characters are pretty uninteresting and personally I'm not a fan of the love triangle cliche.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown - by Holly Black

My rating: 

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black. (Goodreads)

I love vampire books and admittedly my expectations aren't that high, but I really do think Holly Black wrote a great and fairly original vampire story here. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown takes place in the modern day in a world where vampirism has become an epidemic and so the infected are quarantined in Coldtowns. The vampires themselves aren't quite as groundbreaking, but I'm totally happy with classic vampires and I appreciate that Black pays homage to previous vampire stories in this book. I think what really sells this novel, though, is the great writing and the characters.

I've heard plenty of complaints about the characters in this book, but I loved them. Tana, our protagonist, is very well written as a normal, teenage girl. Sure, it's frustrating when she mak es stupid decisions but at the same time these decisions seem very believable for a hungover teenager who has just woken up surrounded by dead bodies. Her ex, Aiden, is even more stupid and admittedly obnoxious but again he comes across as a realistic teenage guy. We also have a brother / sister duo of goth Youtubers who are going to document their trip to Coldtown to become vampires. Again, horribly annoying but so well written. The only main character that didn't come across as extremely believable was Gavriel, Tana's vampire love interest. On the other hand, there's totally an Anne Rice-ish Louis/Lestat vibe around him so I was willing to ignore any shortcomings.

The characters fit really well into the plot Black sets up and I think the novel moves along at a great pace without sacrificing any character backstories or development. Holly Black is a great writer and I really love her take on the classic vampire novel. I would definitely recommend this book to vampire fans!

Carry On - by Rainbow Rowell

My rating:

Simon Snow is the worst chosen one who’s ever been chosen. That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right. Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here—it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.
Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story—but far, far more monsters. (Goodreads)

Rainbow Rowell is a fantastic writer, and that's definitely clear in Carry On. Despite her talent, I still had mixed feelings about this book, but I think the writing is what really saved it for me. Carry On really does read as Harry Potter fan fiction, especially through the first half. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but combined with the slow pacing starting out, I struggled to stay interested until later on in the story.

My main complaint about the fan fiction style of this book is that none of the characters felt very original at first. They all had, at least in my mind, clear counterparts from the Harry Potter series. Carry On also jumps in at would be the last book in an initially fictional series and I feel like it draws too much on the reader's knowledge of Harry Potter to make up for the fact that we haven't gotten any back story. The plot of these "missing" books didn't seem so important to me as the character development. Simon has presumably been growing from all his adventures in previous books, but we don't get to see any of that like we do with Harry Potter. The reliance on Harry Potter also means that there's very minimal world building. I can only imagine that if you read Carry On without being familiar with Harry Potter it would be extremely frustrating.

Luckily the second half or so of the book took a turn for the best. The plot picks up and the characters finally begin to take shape as original creations. I felt like one minute I was questioning if I could finish this book and the next it was two in the morning and I was sad there wasn't more to read. I'll admit I still didn't think the plot was great, but Rowell's writing strength really shows in the interactions between characters. And since everyone seems to have something to say about it, I'd like to add that I am 110% on board with the Simon and Baz romance, which is absolutely adorable.

I am hesitant to recommend Carry On to people because of how much I struggled to get into it at first. On the other hand, if you're okay with Harry Potter fanfic or a fan of Rainbow Rowell's writing style, it's definitely worth the read.

Lock & Mori - by Heather W. Petty

My rating: 

I'm a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and love the BBC show, so I'm always interested in a new take on the character. Lock & Mori is a young adult novel with a couple of variations from the original. First of all, it's set in modern-day London and Sherlock and Moriarty are both in high school. The biggest change though is that in Petty's story Moriarty, or Mori as she's known, is a girl.

I thought this was a solid first novel, and I was totally on board with the developing romance between Sherlock and Mori. Petty did a good job of not only bringing these characters into the modern day but also imagining what they would be like as teenagers. Both the main characters are, fittingly, pretty brilliant, but definitely still in the awkward teenage phase and it totally works. I especially loved Mori's character because in this novel she is a well-developed, nuanced character with some really dark stuff going on her life. To start out, her mother recently died and now her father has become an alcoholic who beats her younger brothers and verbally abuses Mori when she tries to stand up for them. And that's just the beginning. While she's still extremely intelligent, Mori in this novel is much less predictable than Sherlock. With so many personal issues going on, she makes a lot of questionable decisions without stopping to logically think through how things will turn out. For me, this made her character a bit easier to relate to and sympathize with because there are times when she acts purely on emotion.

Now, onto the plot. As you would expect from a Sherlock retelling, the plot centers around a murder mystery. Sherlock and Mori team up to see if they can solve the case on their own, but Mori ends up keeping some secrets along the way. Petty's writing was really compelling and made me want to finish this book as quickly as possible. For me, this made up for the fact that parts of the mystery were a bit predictable. Also, like I mentioned, there's some romance to this story that you don't see in many Sherlock retellings. The romance between the two main characters developed quickly, but still felt natural to me. I also liked that, while this a decent amount of romance throughout, it doesn't take away from the murders as the main focus of the story.

Lock & Mori is the first book in what will eventually be a series, with two more books planned. From Petty's website it looks like we can expect about a year between each, with the next books planned for fall 2016 and fall 2017. Unlike most series I read, I actually went into this one knowing that it's not yet finished. I was somewhat hesitant, but Lock & Mori was definitely worth it. I also felt like the ending had just enough of cliffhanger to make me want more, but not so much that I was outraged about not being able to read the second book.

Monstrous Beauty - by Elizabeth Fama

My rating:

Monstrous Beauty tells the story of the mermaid Syrenka as she falls in love with Ezra in the year 1872. Then we jump forward over one hundred years to the story of Hester Goodwin who happens to meet a man named Ezra in a cave by the beach. The book alternates between the past and present, telling the story of these two women. Syrenka is a mermaid who has known love, as well the consequences, before and is ready to become mortal to safely remain with Ezra as his wife.

Seventeen year old Hester is trying to avoid love at all costs because she doesn't want to continue the pattern of grief that has plagued her family for as long as she can remember. Hester's mother and the other women in her family have all died within days of giving birth to a daughter. Hester plans to break this chain of death my never falling in love, but she begins to reconsider when she meets Ezra. She also begins to realize that these deaths might not be caused by a genetic condition, as she had believed, but by something more sinister.

I have to say that overall, Fama wrote an excellent novel. The transitions between the past and the present flowed very smoothly, although I think I actually preferred Syrenka's story and would have liked to learn more about her life. Hester's story starts to get more interesting towards the end of the book once she begins to question Ezra's mysterious life on the beach and how it might be connected to her own personal history. I also didn't realize mermaid books had taken off recently, so this is my first one and I love the mermaids Fama created. I've seen good mermaids and evil mermaids, but I think she finds a great balance between these two stereotypes. These mermaids are fierce and mysterious, with no set moral code. I wasn't expecting this novel to be so mature, since it is marketed as YA, but it's definitely great not only for older teens but also adults of any age. I listened to this as an audio book and I would definitely recommend experiencing Monstrous Beauty this way. The narrator was brilliant and really brings Fama's beautiful writing to life.

This is also my first review for summer reading! I'm participating in the summer reading program at summerreadingonline.blogpot.com so be sure to check it out. Even though Monstrous Beauty could fit into numerous categories from the challenges I'm going to use this for the audio book challenge.