Book: Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

Published December 2010 by EgmontUSA|215 pages

Where I Got It: I own the e-book

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can go to med school.  But is being a doctor what she wants?  It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent.  Does she dare to challenge the mother who has sacrificed everything for her?  Set in the 1980’s.

I think I liked Bitter Melon, but I’m also not sure how I feel about some of the things that happened in the book.  I felt like Frances and Derek had no chemistry, and her mom…I have such mixed feelings about her mom.

I think parental pressure is something we can all relate to in varying degrees.  Her mom did seem really extreme and slightly abusive.  On the one hand, I can picture parents acting the way her mom does, but at the same time, I really felt felt like the mom was an extreme take on the strict Asian parent stereotype.  I don’t think how how her mom acted is limited to any one group, but at the same time…I didn’t really like that her mom seemed like such an extreme stereotype.  I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to have the mother she does, and to have a life planned out for her…a life that she doesn’t want for herself, or to question if that’s the best life for her.

I wanted so much to feel for Frances, but I found that I didn’t particularly care for her or what happened to her.  She seemed really dense sometimes, and I didn’t really get the impression that speech was a hidden talent for her.  And I don’t like how she handled things at the end of the book at all. Granted, I don’t know if there was a better way, or what Frances could have done, but to a certain extent, I felt like she stooped to her mother’s level. Yes, her mother said and did some horrible things, but she still didn’t completely deserve what Frances did.  France getting her revenge, and embarrassing her mom seemed like such a stereotype of someone getting back at the person who treated them horribly.  I also wish that the book ended with more of a resolution between Frances and her mom, because things were a little too unresolved for my liking.

As for Frances and Derek, I really thought that they had no chemistry.  It seemed like he was supposed to be the reason why she finally stood up to her mom- at the very least, a major reason why.  Personally, I have no problem with that, but it could have had the potential to make the book a little bit lighter, but it didn’t- it just added conflict.  As for Frances making changes, and questioning things, I thought that her speech class and the speech tournaments could have done that in a much better way.

Except for the random pop culture references, I forgot that the book was even set in the 1980’s.  Okay, there’s no internet or cell phones, but even then, it seemed like the book could have been set a couple of decades later.  It could have made the book a lot more stifling, but it didn’t really add anything to the book.

2 stars.  It was okay, and I had a hard time relating to Frances and even caring about what happened to her was hard.

Book: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender

Published September 2013 by Scholastic|225 pages

Where I Got It: I own the e-book

Series: None

Genre: YA Mystery/Thriller

Colette Iselin is excited to go to Paris on a class trip. She’ll get to soak up the beauty and culture, and maybe even learn something about her family’s French roots.

But a series of gruesome murders are taking place across the city, putting everyone on edge. And as she tours museums and palaces, Colette keeps seeing a strange vision: a pale woman in a ball gown and powdered wig, who looks suspiciously like Marie Antoinette.

Colette knows her popular, status-obsessed friends won’t believe her, so she seeks out the help of a charming French boy. Together, they uncover a shocking secret involving a dark, hidden history. When Colette realizes she herself may hold the key to the mystery, her own life is suddenly in danger…

Acclaimed author Katie Alender brings heart-stopping suspense to this story of revenge, betrayal, intrigue- and one killer queen.

Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer was just okay for me.  I was really intrigued by the title, but I was ultimately not too interested in this book.

I like the idea, but the mystery and revenge and everything…I was expecting more Marie Antoinette in the book.  I was also expecting something more creepy, but it was more…shallow…then I expected it to be.  Then again, maybe I had higher expectations than I thought I did.

Still, you’d expect a book titled Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer to be more fun and campy, and instead, I think it tried to be more serious than maybe it should have been.  I don’t know enough about Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution or Paris as a setting to comment on the historical accuracy of the book, and I’m fairly certain there are going to be inaccuracies as far as the history goes…but like I said before, I was really expecting there to be more of a historical mystery.  And it felt like I was reading someone’s impression of Paris, instead of actually feeling like I was in Paris.  Randomly, Anna And The French Kiss and Isla And The Happily Ever After did a much better job at making me feel like I was in Paris.

The murder scenes were interesting at first, but after the first 1-2, there wasn’t much change in that part of the story.  I really wish they had been varied a little bit.

Colette was pretty whiny and selfish, and for someone who was supposed to be smart, she was fairly dumb at times.  Her brother drops out of his private school and goes to a public school so that Colette can stay at her school with friends…her one friend is a horrible human being, and her other one…just goes along with the mean one.  I just wanted Colette to actually stand up to the mean one and care less about the money and social status…she did, I guess, but by then I didn’t actually care, and it was way too late.

And an apology is the thing that saves Colette from a queen who was hellbent on revenge?  And Marie Antoinette just forgives her because Colette apologizes for what her ancestor did?  That’s it?  Really?  It wasn’t creepy like I thought, and we don’t really get a lot of Marie Antoinette.  If you want a book about a girl trying to solve a mystery (that’s also a fast read and pretty predictable), this might be something you’re interested in reading.  I just thought the book would be different, for some reason.

2 stars.  MA, SK was okay.  I sort of don’t care enough to actively dislike it.

Book: The Sound by Sarah Alderson

Published August 2013 by Simon & Schuster|275 pages

Where I Got It: I own the e-book

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

When aspiring music journalist Ren Kingston takes a job nannying for a wealthy family on the exclusive island of Nantucket, playground for Boston’s elite, she’s hoping for a low-key summer reading books and blogging about bands. Boys are firmly off the agenda.

What she doesn’t count on is falling in with a bunch of party-loving private school kids who are hiding some dark secrets; falling (possibly) in love with the local bad boy; and falling out with a dangerous serial killer…

The Sound is another book I’m not sure how I feel about.  I’m glad I’m reading, especially after not reading anything for over a month, but this is the 2nd book I’ve read where I don’t completely know how I feel about it.

Now that I think about it, Ren didn’t do a lot of nannying.  We barely see her with the kids…or even interact with the parents.  It just seemed like a weird way to bring over to Nantucket, and an even weirder way to connect her to something that barely seemed to matter.  Why have the mystery of a serial killer if it’s pretty much mentioned in passing? It didn’t really add anything to the story.  Also, only two girls were killed, and for me, that’s too few people to be considered a serial killer.

Back to the nannying for a second: the few times we did see her with the kids, she doesn’t actually do her job. One of the kids is in day camp for the summer, and I fail to see why she needs a nanny.  We don’t even see her with the younger kid, and even when Ren goes out with the family (especially at parties), Ren tends to wander off and do her own thing.  The nanny thing makes no sense to me.

And the dark secrets?  They’re horrible, but I was expecting something different than the one major thing we got.

I don’t mind if characters are a little bit cliche, but most of the characters weren’t memorable, and I couldn’t tell most of them apart.  Ren, Jesse, and Brodie, one of the kids that Ren is a nanny for, are the only ones that actually stand out.  Ren, because she’s the main character, Jesse because he’s the bad boy Ren can’t stay away from, and Brodie because she is so incredibly unbelievable as a 4-year-old.  Jesse put a guy in a coma, and Ren is warned to stay away from him, and yet she still talks to him.  He would actually be okay if he didn’t put someone in a coma and I get why he put someone in a coma…but he still put someone in a coma.  And Brodie?  A four-year-old should not know about “bases” and ask you if you got to a particular base with someone.  Also, 4-year-olds should not be calling people skanktrons.  She either should have been older, or not acted the way she did in the book.  If that’s how she’s acting, then we have a serious problem.

Also irritating was the fact that girls were slut-shamed…and Ren’s best friend telling Ren that she just needed to have sex and get it over with and that waiting was stupid.  The name-calling in the book also got irritating by the end of the book.

1 star.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about The Sound at first, but now that I’ve written down what I think about it, I’ve found that I really don’t like it.

Book: Taking The Reins by Katrina Abbott

Published January 2014 by Over The Cliff Publishing|154 Pages

Where I Got It: I own the e-book

Series: The Rosewoods #1

Genre: YA Contemporary

Brooklyn Prescott (if that’s even her real name) is the new girl at The Rosewood Academy for Academic Excellence, now that she’s moved back to the States after two years living in London. Rosewood, a boarding school for children of the rich and famous and known for its celebutantes, is missing just one element important to any junior’s education: boys. But luckily for Brooklyn, and the rest of the Rosewood girls, there’s a boys’ boarding school, The Westwood Academy, just a few miles away.

On her very first day, Brooklyn meets Will, a gorgeous and flirty boy on campus to help with move in. But is he who she thinks he is? And what about Brady, the cute stable boy? Or Jared, the former child actor with his grown-up good looks who can always make her laugh? As Brooklyn settles in at Rosewood, she’s faced with new friends, new challenges and new opportunities to make herself into the girl she always wanted to be. Whoever that might be.

Taking The Reins is the first installment of The Rosewoods, an exciting new Young Adult series for readers who love fun, flirty love stories.

I’m not sure how I feel about Taking The Reins!  I felt like it ended very abruptly.  Actually (and I really hate to say this) but I felt like I got an installment or an excerpt of a story- it felt very incomplete and unfinished.  I know the other books in the series will continue the story, but I felt like I didn’t get enough of the story or the characters to know if I even want to keep going with the series.  I was expecting a more complete story going into this book, and I feel like I got the beginnings of one instead.

I’m not even really sure what else I can say about Taking The Reins.  It’s really short (slightly over 150 pages on my Nook), and that made it hard to get into- there easily could have been more to the story, and I feel pretty underwhelmed by it.  Nothing stands out, even though (at the time that I’m writing this review), I finished it a couple of days ago.  There just wasn’t enough of a story to get my attention, but I’m also not a fan of reading a book in installments, and I feel like I’ll be getting that with this series, if Taking The Reins is any indication.  I know it’s unfair to judge an entire series on one book, but at the same time, there just wasn’t anything that made me want to keep reading.  If I do continue (and I’m not sure if I want to), then I’ll probably read the entire series at once, so I won’t feel like I’m reading a story in installments (or if I do feel that way, I probably won’t feel that way as much as I would have if I didn’t read them all at once).

2 stars.  It’s too short for me to get a good feel for the story, the characters, and where everything is headed.