Fault - Milestone One stars Selphine and Ritona. Selphine is the kind-natured Princess of Rughzenhaide, while Ritona is her bodyguard. Rughzenhaide is a country whose people use mana to do everything from learning languages to crafting weapons. Mana-powered telepathy is considered perfectly normal and helps with everything from communicating a restaurant’s entire menu to its customers to long-distance communication. In fact, communication via mana is an integral part of the country’s monarchy. Rughzenhaide’s monarchs can use something called the Path-down to directly transmit their memories and knowledge to their heirs.

The Path-down must not be interrupted. When the palace is invaded and most of its inhabitants are killed, Ritona uses a special teleportation technique she’s spent years developing and escapes with Selphine at her side. Unfortunately, they end up someplace completely different from where Ritona planned: the Outer-Pole. The Outer-Pole is best known for its lack of mana. People from the Outer-Pole can’t travel to mana-rich areas without developing mana-sickness and dying, while people from mana-rich areas only have three to five days in the Outer-Pole before mana-sickness either robs them of their ability to use mana or kills them.

Selphine and Ritona have to get away from the Outer-Pole and back to Rughzenhaide. Before they leave, however, they want to help Rune, the first friend they made after arriving at the Outer-Pole. Although everyone keeps insisting that slavery has long since been abolished and that Rune is definitely not a slave, that’s certainly what she seems to be. In an effort to free and protect her, Selphine and Ritona learn more about life in the Outer-Pole, Rune, and the terrible history of the Zhevitz family.

First, a few things. Although I’ll be referring to this as a game, it’s really not - it’s kind of like a book with visuals and music, that comes in software form. All the other visual novels I’ve reviewed allowed you to make choices at various points in the narrative. Fault - Milestone One asks you to make a choice once during the entire thing, and the only difference your decision makes is a few lines of text right after the choice. I had the whole game play on Auto Skip just to make sure the other choice didn’t change the ending slightly or something. Two, this thing ends on a cliffhanger. I didn’t know that going in. I expected another hour or two of story and got “hey, this character’s personality has suddenly drastically changed, The End!” I finished the whole thing in maybe four and a half hours.

If this had been an actual novel, I couldn’t recommend it. The writing was terrible. The main reason it usually didn’t bug me was because I was zipping through it pretty quickly (my preferred method: keyboard on my lap and hand constantly on the Enter key). I did take the time to jot down some of the more painful sentences, though. For example:

“Concerned for Rune, our mother forced her frail, weak body as she tried to bring Rune to a hospital on the outskirts of town.”

Also:

“However, luckily, due to her weak body, her body had rejected the mana before her body had taken a lethal amount.”

I understood the text, but it definitely needed better editing. It bugged me that the author (or translator) couldn’t seem to keep their verb tenses straight. I also didn’t like the way the POV kept changing - usually first-person from Ritona’s POV, except when it was necessary to show scenes Ritona couldn’t be part of, at which time there either was no clear POV (just dialogue) or the story changed to first-person POV from another character’s perspective. Since the story was mostly dialogue, I honestly didn’t think that first-person POV contributed anything. Third-person POV throughout would have made things less confusing.

Gameplay-wise, I’m not sure why players (readers?) were asked to make only one choice throughout the entire game. Either there should have been more choices, or none. Also, the controls weren’t entirely intuitive. I had to google how to use the regular save spots - the only obvious options were Autosave and Quicksave. A note for other confused players: right-click on the screen while you’re reading and you’ll get an extra menu option, regular saves.

I haven’t said anything good about Fault - Milestone One yet, and you might have gotten the impression that I disliked it. You’d be wrong. It took me until Chapter 3 (maybe an hour and a half?) to really get sucked in, but from that point on I was hooked. I will say, however, that I’m glad I got it while Steam had it on sale for 66% off. The full price would have been a bit high considering how quickly I finished it. (FYI - the sale has two more days to go.)

The things that kept me reading until the story finally grabbed me were the artwork and the music. The game’s visuals were lovely, and I liked the way the camera occasionally zoomed in or out, adding movement. I loved almost all of the character sprites, and they all had a great range of emotions. The music was wonderful and usually helped enhance the mood of settings and scenes. I can only recall one scene where the music seemed very inappropriate, a character’s bouncy theme song that continued playing as that character met another character who was clearly near death.

The story was slow to get going and prone to massive infodumps (be prepared for occasional walls of text), but once I reached some of the bigger revelations I couldn’t stop reading. The world-building had some issues, but I enjoyed reading about the way the people at the Outer-Pole had adjusted to their mana limitations. While the mana-rich areas had access to something that was basically magic, the Outer-Pole had to rely on science. I was surprised when the story went from something I expected would be 100% fantasy to something with a little alternate history sci-fi (sort of) mixed in.

Rune’s story brought me to tears. I was glad that Selphine and Ritona were there to speak up for her, and I was glad that everything worked out in the end, but… I don’t know. This was one of those stories that would be a prime candidate for fix fic. Everything was resolved too easily for my tastes, especially considering how badly many of these characters had hurt each other, and how many years they’d been doing it. It should have taken more than a few words, some tears, and a hug to fix everything. And I kept thinking about that boy who got stabbed in the eye, and who had to continue living in the town and make nice with the family of the person who did it. I also had questions about whether Past Rune and Present Rune could still be considered to be the same person.

Although I had issues with the story, I enjoyed it overall (except for that cliffhanger, darn it). Also, like I said, the music and visuals were wonderful. I definitely plan on reading the next installment, Fault - Milestone Two Side: Above.

Extras:

There’s a gallery that allows you to access all of the game’s movie clips and event CGs once you’ve finished. There’s also an audio gallery where you can listen to the game’s music. While you’re reading the story, you have access to an encyclopedia explaining in-world terminology and concepts.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Thanks to NetGalley and to Random House UK, Vintage Publishing, Jonathan Cape, for providing me with an ARC copy of this novel that I have freely chosen to review.

I confess that I did look at some of the reviews on this novel before writing mine and they are very evenly divided. Some people love it and others can’t stand it. Yes, I guess it’s a Marmite kind of novel. Why? Having checked the novel in several online stores I noticed that it is classified under mystery novels, and if lovers of the genre of mystery read this novel I suspect many of them are bound to feel cheated or disappointed. Literary fiction, which is another one of the categories it is classified under, perhaps is a better fit.

The story is an in-depth look at a character, the Eileen of the title, who is narrating an episode of her own life, in the first person. It is not strictly written as a memoir. As I observed recently when reviewing a novel also told from the point of view of the older character looking back and reflecting at her young self (in that case it was Anne Boleyn), these kinds of books have the added interest for the reader of trying to work out how much of what is being told is filtered by the wishes of the older person to provide a positive portrayal of their young selves. In this case, what is quite shocking is that either that younger Eileen had no endearing features, or the older Eileen is trying to make herself feel better and reassure herself that she’s come a very long way, indeed.

Eileen is a lonely young woman (twenty-four at the time of the episode she describes), whose mother died years back, who has a very superficial relationship with her only sister (who no longer lives at home and who seems to be very different), and who lives with her father, a retired policeman, an alcoholic and paranoid man, who sees hoodlums and conspiracies everywhere. From the mentions she makes of her mother and her past experiences, her childhood was also sad and the opposite of nurturing, with both parents drinking heavily, and neither of them having any interest in family life (and even less in Eileen, as her sister seemed to be the favourite). She lives in a derelict house, drives an old car with exhaust problems, works at a young boy’s prison, and has no friends or hobbies, other than shoplifting and looking at National Geographic magazines. She lives in a world of fantasy, and even her physiological functions are bizarre.

In some ways, the novel reminded me of Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller because of the narrator, who was also very self-absorbed and had no empathy for anybody, although in that case, it wasn’t evident from the star. Here, Eileen sees and observes things carefully as if cataloguing everything that happens, but has nothing good to say about anybody, apart from the people she gets crushes on (however undeserving they might be).

The novel, full of details which can be seen as sad, shocking, or bizarre but humane depending on our point of view, hints from the beginning at something momentous that is going to happen and has influenced the choice of the point at which the story starts. A couple of new employees come to work at the prison and Rebecca, a young and glamorous woman (at least from Eileen’s point of view) becomes Eileen’s new obsession. She tries her best to deserve this woman’s attention and that gets her in some trouble that I guess it the mystery part (and I won’t discuss to avoid spoilers, even though as I said I don’t think the novel fits in that genre easily, although perhaps it shares similarities with some classics of the genre, and I’ve seen mentions of Patricia Highsmith. Ripley, perhaps?). From the reviews, I saw that some readers were disappointed by the ending, although it fits in well with the rest of the book. (And from the point of view of the character, at least, it feels positive.)

The novel is beautifully written (although the content itself is not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination), detailed and fantastically observed, and it works as an impressive psychological study, that had me wondering about all kinds of personality disorder types of diagnosis (although the whole family are depicted as very dysfunctional). It is difficult to empathise with such a character, although she seems to be an extreme representation of somebody with low self-esteem and completely self-obsessed (and at a lesser level, even if we might not feel comfortable acknowledging it, most of us have contemplated some of her thoughts or feelings at some point). She is relentless in her dislike for almost everybody and everything, but even her older self remains unapologetic (and well, it takes guts to just not care at all). I could not help but wonder how much better she is now, despite her words, as her comments indicate that she hasn’t changed an iota. If anything, she’s come into herself. But I guess self-acceptance is a big change for her.

I found it a fascinating novel, a case study of the weird and disturbed, pretty noir, but not a read I would recommend everybody. (After all, I’m a psychiatrist…) It is not a feel-good or a nice novel to read but it might be for you if you like weirdly compelling characters and are happy to go with a narrator who is not sympathetic at all. I don’t think I’ll forget Eileen or its author in a hurry.

John Wayne Cleaver thinks it's his fate to become a serial killer, and he's doing what he can to try to avoid it. He's attending his therapy sessions with Dr. Neblin, and he's made up all kinds of rules for himself, based on commonly recognized indicators that someone might become a serial killer. No paying too much attention to one particular person, no hurting animals (in fact, as little contact with animals as possible), etc.

He enjoys helping his mom and aunt out at their mortuary. The bodies and embalming process fascinate him, and he likes the quiet. However, something new going on in town has snagged his attention: murders that he thinks are the work of a real serial killer. As he looks into the deaths as much as possible without technically breaking his rules, he starts to believe that he's the only person in town who stands any chance of stopping the killer.

I should have reviewed this several weeks ago, but I needed time to make sense of my emotions. I'm still not quite sure how I feel.

This was on B&N's “5 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books That Treat Mental Illness with Compassion” list. The comparison to Jeff Lindsay's Dexter intrigued me, but also made me raise an eyebrow about the book's inclusion on the list. Dexter was a child who witnessed terrible things and whose cop foster father then declared him broken beyond repair and began molding him in ways that he approved of more. If Dexter was destined to be a killer, then Harry was at least going to make sure that he chose the “right” victims. (I've enjoyed what I read of the Dexter series, but I'm also willing to admit that the series has issues.)

I do think this book handled John, a similar character, better in some ways. His mom signed him up for therapy sessions and didn't just give up on him, although there were definitely times when she was overwhelmed by his behavior and Antisocial Personality Disorder diagnosis. I've never personally been in therapy, but I thought that Dr. Neblin and his sessions seemed decent. And John certainly did the best he could to explain his emotions to Dr. Neblin and his mom, to behave appropriately, and to at least act like a good person even if a large part of him didn't think he really was one.

If I hadn't originally learned about I Am Not a Serial Killer via a list that specifically mentioned sci-fi and fantasy, the developments surrounding the murders probably would have surprised me even more. Up to a certain point, there were hardly any signs that this was anything more than a contemporary thriller/murder mystery. There was some foreshadowing, a few mentions of demons, but those could have been signs that John was maybe losing the ability to tell fantasy from reality. Anyway, the demon thing turned out to be very real.

One odd thing I'd like to mention, though, was that this demon thing was just assumed to be fact. No one ever told John that he was dealing with a demon, the being didn't call itself a demon, and John didn't do any research that told him it was a demon. It was just a demon, period.

The beginning of the book was pretty gross, with detailed descriptions of corpses and the embalming process. I found this stuff to be both interesting and a little stomach-turning, but I decided I could deal with it. I figured that this and the murders would be the worst that the book would throw at me, but I was wrong. John deciding to abandon his rules in order to deal with the killer turned out to be more disturbing than anything else.

As a character, John left me feeling torn. I felt like I could empathize with him if not always like him, and yet I also worried about a lot of the people around him, especially once he decided to ditch his rules. Being inside John's head was...uncomfortable. I was very unhappy with and horrified by one particular thing he decided to do in order to try to stop the killer, to the point where I had to stop reading for a bit. I could understand his reasoning, but I didn't agree with it. The moment near the end, when John's mom hugged him and told him he was a good boy who'd done a good thing would have been so much better without that earlier decision on John's part (that his mom didn't know about - she'd probably have been at least as horrified as I was).

Wells did a great job of writing John's POV. Probably the best moment was when I realized that some of the killer's actions were inspired by feelings and motivations that John wasn't able to see, because he didn't feel those things himself. Of course, that was also the moment when I became deeply worried about what he was going to do next. This book... It gave me mixed emotions for both John and the monster he was hunting.

It looks like this series has 5 works in it now. Although this first one was very good, I doubt I'll be reading more. The thought of reading more of John's POV after what happened at the end of this book makes me too anxious.

Although John is a teen, I don't know whether this qualifies as YA, and it looks like even the people marketing it aren't sure. According to Wikipedia, "in the UK it’s a YA horror, in Germany it’s an adult thriller, and in the US it’s being marketed to both audiences."

(Original review, including read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Less than 1% of general population is believed to have narcissistic personality disorder (2%-16% of clinical population) of which 50-75% are male.

Narcissism, pathological narcissism & narcissistic personality disorder became a very popular & interesting subject for many clinicians & theorists. Most believe that some level of narcissism is healthy for a person, in order to be able to function in society & be able to face challenges, have drive for success & creativity. As to where the healthy narcissism ends & pathological begins is not exactly clear. Moreover, some believe that pathological narcissism IS narcissistic personality disorder, while others think that narcissistic personality disorder is a whole new level compared to pathological narcissism. As with any mental disorder diagnosis will vary from case to case, from society to society. Mental disorder is a dynamic concept & it never stays stale. So really the line of pathological narcissism is very blurry, unless one equals it to narcissistic personality disorder. As to when narcissism evolves into pathological personality disorder, one needs to understand what personality disorder is. Personality traits that are inflexible and maladaptive and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress constitute personality disorder.  Simply put personality traits are the way you perceive life, relate to others & environment, your thinking pattern. In other words, it all relates to individuals functioning in given society with given individuals personality traits & if those traits cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress, you’ve got yourself a personality disorder. As you can see, a fully functional human being with sound mental health in one society can become a persona with personality disorder in another society.

THE CHARACTERIZING SYMPTOMS OF NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER ACCORDING TO DSM-IV ARE:

• has a grandiose feeling of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements, talents, overestimates abilities, expects to be treated as special & recognized as superior)
• is preoccupied with fantasies of huge success, power, beauty, ideal love, see themselves as a genius and often compare themselves to geniuses or famous people, depending on what they feel is important in life
• believes that he or she is “special”, different & unique and can not be understood by “regular” people. See themselves as a part of special or high status people or institutions & believe that’s the only place where they can be understood & accepted
• requires excessive admiration & reassurance of their achievements & superiority from others, constantly fishes for complements due to fragile self-esteem
• has a sense of entitlement, unreasonable expectations, expects other to comply with his/her expectations & becomes furious & puzzled if it doesn’t happen, always expects special treatment
• is interpersonally exploitative, expects others to bend their backs to help him/her achieve their goals; manipulates & takes advantage, is very likely to enter relationships for the sole purpose of achieving his/her goals or fulfilling their personal selfish needs
• lacks empathy, unable to relate to others & put himself/herself in other people’s shoes: needs of others are often viewed as weaknesses and an opportunity to manipulate using the vulnerability, often speak lengthy of themselves & impatient with others who want to speak about their problems
• is often envious of others and their achievements, believes that he/she deserved it more, harshly criticizes & tries to devaluate others’ achievements; also has a delusional belief that others are envious of him/her
• shows arrogant, patronizing attitudes, overconfident & ever knowing behaviors
  
  Narcissists & Relationships
  
  Narcissists generally avoid intimacy. They are unlikely to avoid sexual contacts or “business” relationships, but they tend to avoid entering a real relationship, mostly without even realizing this themselves. Much of this is caused by many of their personality traits, like inability to trust other people, inability to relate to others, inability to like others because of their sense of superiority & grandiosity. Finding & being in intimate relationships is a difficult task for people with NPD, however being in such relationships greatly reduces their dependence on reinforcing their self-esteem on sexual attractiveness, mental superiority or power. Relationships & attachments, need for achievements at work are probably some of the best recipes to tame down their excessive individualism. Narcissists generally have fantasies of ideal unconditional love. Given a reason to doubt the unconditionality of it, they’ll run away faster than you can imagine. Many people who are in relationships with narcissists make the mistake thinking that that the narcissist is likely to change. Unfortunately, these people are blinded by their own delusions & are setting themselves up for disappointment, because changes are unlikely to happen.
  
  
  So I pretty much just copy and pasted some of the more interesting (in my opinion) points of this particular disorder. To read more click here >>>  http://depressiond.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder/

“Triangulation: a tactic used by narcissistic parents to change the balance of power in a family system. For example, rather than allowing two siblings to work together, the Narcissistic Parent insists that he or she be the go-between. This controls the way the information flows, the way it is interpreted, and adds nuances to the conversation.” – Band Back Together, adult children of narcissistic parents resources

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself.” -- Walter Anderson

What do we naturally forget, and what do we force from our minds, wipe the slate clean, when it comes to our childhood? Where in our minds is the blackness and pain packed away, hidden? Behind locked doors? Or in solid chests, pushed to the back of the mind, covered in dust and ashes, only to crack open, leaking out poisons that eat away at body, mind and soul, tiny currents, lapping away at the foundations of life until it is simply not worth living any longer. Crippled lives, crippled relationships. And the pain. The pain, constant and unyielding, thrumming in the background, dark drums in the night, throbbing … throbbing … throbbing …

But the guilt? The guilt is, in a way, can be even more debilitating. You are never enough. Never good enough, never sane enough, never pretty enough or smart enough not  not      not. . .

The thing is, Dani Wilde doesn’t even know she is damaged. You see, she doesn’t remember. She thinks things are fine.  Her life is finally opening up. The four younger brothers she raised are taken care of, all grown up, have good positions, and even the youngest is graduating from college. Finally, finally she can reach for her own dreams. She can take her skills at marketing and accept the position at a New York firm that has been following her through her career as a freelance marketing specialist in Montana. Dani is responsible for keeping the cherry farm her family owns financially stable. She cooks and cleans for a family of six, runs a store featuring local products, runs an online business selling the stores wares, and has a separate business as a marketing specialist for local businesses. She never stops working, never stops caring for others. Just. Never. Stops. But now? Now she can have the life she gave up when her mother died in a car accident, a death that brought Dani back from her full ride at Columbia to take over the household on their cherry farm and raise the four brothers that her mother left behind. These are good time, wonderful times. Dani can finally have a life which doesn’t include having to be everything to everyone else.

But.

Something is happening inside her. Flashes of memory, scenes in her mind that can’t possibly be real.
 
Can they?

The door is opening, the chest creaking as the top rises.  The dust is blowing away. And what crawls out of the darkness, pale and ephemeral, could very well destroy Dani. And the larger that shadowy presence grows in her mind, the wider the opening, the darker the memories . . . Memories that will literally rip her life to shreds, destroying everything she ever thought about herself, her family, her very life.

The pain .  .   .

I am not ashamed to say that I cried like a baby over this book. It took me a couple of days to even write this review. Looking back, this almost sounds like a horror story, doesn’t it? And in a way, it is. But it is also a story of incredible inner strength, a story of just how devastating the actions of one member of a family can be upon the lives of all around them. Especially the lives of their own children. This book hurt on a level that is hard for me to even explain.

But that isn’t a bad thing. You see, it is nearly impossible for anyone who hasn’t been there to understand just how Narcissistic Personality Disorder in a parent can shatter the very soul of a child. And that is what this family has suffered, though Dani doesn’t even remember it. And when she does, when her memories finally return, here it becomes not just Dani’s story, but the story of a family so deeply damaged that they may never be completely healed. But it is also a story of a family finding their way towards that healing, towards understanding and relearning how to love one another.

This is, on the surface, a ‘sweet, home town romance.’ And yes, there is romance here. But what makes it SO much better than a ‘boy meets girl’ romance is the cast of characters. Armed with a sharp and unrelenting pen, Kim Law draws a picture of family life that is far from perfect. And it isn’t just Dani’s family that is far from Norman Rockwellesque. Ben was Dani’s first love, first lover, and best friend ten years ago. But one single night separated them. Now Ben, who had his own issues with the coldness and disregard of his famous actress mother finds himself the single father of a four-year-old little girl who is dropped off on his doorstep one day like a load of laundry by a mother who never looks back. Bringing her back to Montana where he spent as much time as possible at one time with the Wilde family, he is looking for some way to connect with the child.

Yes, all of these people are heartbreaking. And all of them – all of them – even the ones I wanted to hit over the head with a very large rock, are worth spending time with. Worth coming to know, coming to understand – if for no other reason than to understand your own heart, your own pain. And some of them? Some of them are worth loving so very much simply for their ability to continue to survive, continue to love, to even know how to love under the crushing weight of betrayals beyond comprehension. This is what makes this book so very heartbreaking – and so very, very worth reading.

This is a six tissue read, and I have to say, when I finished it? I felt, well, cleaner. Like one of the many wounds in my soul had been lanced and bled, and can now heal. Not all, but you know what? As Ms. Law says in her postscript, “You’re not alone. You’re a survivor. You got dealt a rotten hand in life. But you can move on.” Watching her characters do just that? Well, that is the very definition of cathartic.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a realistic review. Here is the skinny. If you are looking for a ‘simple’ romance story, this isn’t it. If you are looking for a well written book with a strong story, wonderful characters, a realistic look at the damage a serious but under acknowledged disorder can cause, well, you are in for a true treat. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

If you like my review, I would really appreciate it if you would click to “Like” my review here and on Amazon when the book is published on the 28th. It helps draw attention to my reviews, which helps the authors I review garner more readers. Thank you!