I finally got around to renewing my library card (and paying my outrageous fine for forgetting about my books in the last month of my pregnancy). Since I'm cutting back on buying to save money and space, most of my Fabulous Finds are from my library this week.

 

One exception: Kindle edition of Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Vol. 4.

I was excited about this book, based on the cover and the back blurb which seemed to promise a different take on the sideshow story we normally see. But... eh, what we got was an unchallenging and needlessly easy book which left me feeling like the actual story had never really started.

 

Abel Dandy (yes really) is the normal person working in a sideshow of people with unusual features or abilities. Feeling left out and having weird dreams of a beautiful woman who makes him feel horny and wants only him, Abel sets out. When another member of the group he grew up with tags along, he starts trying to figure out how to continue his journey while getting the tagalong home. But when they fall in with a freak show with a dark side, he finds that its less a journey and more a weird, mystical breadcrumb trail.

 

Abel is a really selfish main character, to the point I was really wishing for another viewpoint character at times. He wants his friend to return to his abusive dad because he's an inconvenience, and then gets jealous when people seem to like the kid. He has the commendable opinion that freaks are just as normal as anyone else. But being inside his head, these thoughts come off at times as a smug superiority instead of the more palateable (and conflict-useful) disbelief that people would see them as inhuman or deficient.

 

I will give the book the credit it deserves for that part - it presents the "freaks" as regular, well-rounded people who sometimes have specific concerns related to whatever makes them a freak. I did like a lot of these characters, especially in the final freak show they joined.

 

This book has its moments. There's some pathos, if not as deeply felt as it might have been. All in all, it was not a bad read. It was just sort of disappointingly easy. Deus ex freak show, I guess.

I honestly don't know what to say here besides this book is all kinds of messed up. This book had neither a great plot or great writing in my opinion. We also have a main character that has an issue with boundaries, stalking, and defends her pack that went around and murdered two humans.

The main character, Vivian, a sixteen year old werewolf moves with her pack to Maryland after the teenage pack members go and kill a human in order to get another pack member out of trouble for murdering a human. Due to Vivian's intervention the five members of the pack that call themselves 'The Five' were not killed for their actions. However, the pack is burned out of their home and this is why they move to Maryland to heal and re-group.

Vivian is apparently the most attractive female in her entire school and is often perplexed that no one wants to be friends with her. She also has long soliloquies about the moon, being a wolf, etc. The entire book is told from Vivian's point of view and she is one messed up teenager.

Eventually Vivian falls for a human named Aiden and she starts dating him over the objection of her mother and 'The Five'. Apparently Vivian's mother problem is not that she could be having sex but having sex with a human. That's the other thing Vivian is pretty much forced to accept gropings, people staring at her, and does her best to be seen as a highly sexually person at all times. She is sixteen. She has a 17 birthday in this book and the ending pretty much grossed me out when you have her being 'mated' to someone. She's 17 years old.

Besides Vivian dating Aiden we also have a member of 'The Five' and the new leader of the pack wanting Vivian and oh we also have some murders thrown into the plot to solve. I am not all for love triangles in novels let alone rectangles but I think if we had stayed on one plot point for the entire book it would have worked much better.

Also I think if the book had shown Vivian vulnerable or torn about being a werewolf, that would have resonated with me more. Instead we have Vivian being just as cruel as 'The Five' and when her relationship with Aiden goes threat level midnight and she decides stalking and trying to force him to be with her is the way to go.

If Vivian had been named Vic I think that a lot of people would have had a bad taste left in their mouth about her actions. Somehow her being a female maybe made it more palatable to a lot of people.

This post is a bit late because I went to the beach with my family last week, but July was been an exceptionally good reading month for me! I think it's partially because the wedding's over and I'm not currently working, so I've really been able to sit down and read a lot, but also I've just gotten lucky with my reading choices - so many of the books I read this month have been amazing! 

 

I read 11 books this month (not shown is The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I re-read with my book club). Well, 2 were plays and 1 was a short story, but anyway - 10 pieces of literature. I didn't finish one of the books on my list, Anna Karenina, but I'm re-reading that in preparation for my book club's read of that (they're actually currently reading it, but it's on our longer reads list so I'm reading it a bit ahead of them as I prep their reading guide questionnaires), so I wasn't too upset about not finishing that. I also missed reading The Maze Runner, which disappointed me, but I've requested it from my library so I'll read it eventually. I did read Blood and Chocolate and To Kill a Mockingbird, which were not on my list, so that's a good thing! 

 

Favorite Book in July: 
It is SO hard for me to pick an absolute favorite this month, because I read SO many great books! Out of the books that I haven't read before, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is definitely my favorite, but To Kill a Mockingbird is also fantastic. 

 

Least Favorite Book in July:

Again, these books are all so good that it's hard for me to really say which was my least favorite... but I'm going to go with Where Angels Fear to Tread, because I'd actually completely forgotten about it until I went back through my records to write this post. Whoops, haha. If it's forgettable, then it's definitely not as good as the others! 

 

Have you read any of the books that I read last month? What were your favorite books for July?

Vivian Gandillon relishes the change, the sweet, fierce ache that carries her from girl to wolf. At sixteen, she is beautiful and strong, and all the young wolves are on her tail. But Vivian still grieves for her dead father; her pack remains leaderless and in disarray, and she feels lost in the suburbs of Maryland. She longs for a normal life. But what is normal for a werewolf?

Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He’s fascinated by magic, and Vivian longs to reveal herself to him. Surely he would understand her and delight in the wonder of her dual nature, not fear her as an ordinary human would.

Vivian’s divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Moving between two worlds, she does not seem to belong in either. What is she really—human or beast? Which tastes sweeter—blood or chocolate? (source)