leahrosereads's Reviews (1.04k)

What the hell is going on? Seriously, by the end of Volume 3, I thought I had an understanding as to what was going on, but this volume just completely fucked all my theories about what was going on, and now I'm back to square one.

And I'm annoyed by that.

The writing/story/plot:

Nick Spencer has done a crazy good job at keeping the mystery going with TRUANTS. And, while I'm irritated that I have no idea what is going on, and that nothing has been answered, and I now have even more questions about this story, still he's doing a good job at keeping me hooked. So, yay for him. But seriously, I'm hoping for some answers soon.

We see a lot of backstories in this, and a couple of them have shed light on some character personalities, but the plot itself and what this school is all about and why the students are there, still a mystery. I still have no clue what these children's gifts are, or why the Headmaster wants them. I just want the why question answered. Or the what. Or the who. Something answered soon would be great.

Like:
What's up with the time traveling?
Why is Casey still the main heroine?
What's Jade's role because I think she's more important than what's been shown?
Who/what is David?
The hell is going on at this school?
Is Lara a good guy?
Is Abraham a good guy?
...Is Georgina...a good guy? Is she the Snape of this story?

I have more questions, but you get the point: nothing's being answered as of this volume. I just get to keep adding questions to the list of what I hope gets answered.


The characters:

In addition to hearing more about Ike and his daddy issues with Abraham, we meet six other students. They're friends of Hisao (Jun)'s and had been brought to the school a year earlier. There's the sadistic psycho in charge - Irina. You should never put that type of crazy in charge of anything.

Then there's Akiko and Fortunato. We don't see that much of them but some backstory, but what they do do, is pretty intriguing, and it involves David, so I wanted to know more. Hope to see what that was all about soon.

Also in this new group are Ian and Vanessa, who seem to just be followers of Irina's but I'm hoping they get more developed soon.

And then finally, there's Guillaume. Hisao and his story is really good, personal, but good, and I'm hoping to see more of them together. Although, with the drama near the end of the volume, I don't know if it will be possible.


Other than Ike and a little bit of Jade, Hisao and Hunter got some playtime in this story, but Zoe was of course absent and so was Casey. I'm assuming we'll see more of Casey in Volume 5, because she definitely does still seem to be the main heroine, and the one that will end up saving them all. I'm assuming that she's going to be the one to face off against the Headmaster in the final boss battle.

The other backstories in TRUANTS were for two of the teachers - Lara and Georgina. They're the Headmaster's daughters, and we see why they are the way they are. I think it was to try to get the reader to sympathize (especially for Georgina), but I didn't care.



Overall, I want answers. I'm liking the characters well enough at this point, but with pretty much nothing getting answered, it's just kind of annoying. I'm going to keep reading, but I'm really hoping for something to start tying this story together for me.

3 stars until the end...and then insta extra star because of the cliffhanger/ending.

The story:

So, I think I'm finally starting to understand the time traveling element of the story, so quite a bit of the mystery and past mysteries are coming together, the story is starting the make sense, well kind of. There's still a lot of unanswered aspects that I'm extremely curious about, and by keeping those secrets and adding in more, I'm still interested. I am happy that it feels like it's starting to make sense though, because there is such a thing as too much mystery. With no payout, I probably wouldn't keep reading these.

The characters:

Hunter is finally getting some action, and I'm loving where I think his character is going. He's definitely got some hero elements in a dorky sort of way. I'm rooting for him to stay alive and be a bigger part of the story than he has been.

The art:

Felt a little sloppy in this volume. I'm not sure if it has been like this in the past ones and I just noticed now, but there were some issues with characters not looking the same panel to panel, and it just caused me a little disconnect.


Overall, still really liking where this story is going, and I'm still awaiting the Big Bad.

Also, I still don't know why the students are at the school (other than having gifts (is it just their intelligence, or are they going to end up being superheroes? No freaking clue.))? And I don't know why the Headmaster wants them all together. Seems dangerous as hell, because none of these students seem stable.

3.5 Stars

Another insta-star for getting me to feel something, but goddammit, in Volume 5, I thought I was beginning to understand something...and then I read DEMERITS and now, I'm back to being freaking lost.

Go me!


The story:

Time traveling is still ensuing, new mysteries that seemed like they were taking shape and were going to be answered are now just even more complex and the answer is so far from sight, I don't know if what's going on will ever even be answered.

The characters:

Poor Hisao!

I'm going to miss him like crazy. I really liked that character, and his sacrificing himself for his brother just made me love him more.

Hunter's new group seems intriguing. I know they're going to play an important part in the upcoming volumes, but I'm just not sure how useful they will end up being. Information is important, and I believe they'll have answers for the students (and hopefully for the readers as well), but I also think it will be so easy for the teachers to stop them.

The art:

Again, maybe I'm just now finally noticing, but the art was sloppy as hell in this volume. I'm actually happy there weren't that many pages, because I ended up just reading the words and moving on - the visuals were bothering me that much. If I wanted to just read a book, I'd read countless of others I have out from the library.

I wanted to read and visually see what I was reading in a comic format, and I was just completely disappointed with the art in this volume. It took away from the words, and I've never had a comic's art distract in that way before.

I know it was bound to happen, as I began venturing into the comic world, but I just didn't expect it to happen so soon.



Anyway, I'm planning on sticking with this series, although, I think I'll just keep waiting for these volumes. I do think I'm going to have to re-borrow the previous volumes and make a journal or timeline with what's going on, because there are things that are happening, and since I don't have the previous volumes, it's a little hard for me to remember why I should care or who certain characters are (or if I had met them before).

3.5 Stars

FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK was and wasn’t what I expected the novel to be.

It ended more positively than I thought it would, that’s for sure.

I picked this up from my library as one of a couple of books that I’m going to read for Anti-Bullying Week. I started a few days late, but I’m relatively happy that this was the first book I read for this week.

This novel is about Leonard Peacock, his 18th birthday, and his desire to kill his ex-best friend (Asher Beal) and himself with his grandfather’s P-38 pistol.


Overall, I really liked the voice/narrative that the story was told in, but I felt like there was so much of Leonard’s life that was glossed over, by him, that it was hard to completely connect with the character. We find out the reason that Leonard wants to kill his ex-best friend and then himself, and when I read the why, I just felt horrible for both characters, and while what happened to both boys was awful, I can’t help but wonder why now? I don’t feel like that question was answered.

Leonard wasn’t a complex character, but at 17, how many of us were (are)? I know I wasn’t. I was still growing and learning and becoming myself, and myself changed constantly at that age. I did feel at times, Leonard’s personality didn’t match how I remember being at his age, but male vs. female, intelligence (Leonard definitely has brains that I’m envious of), and countless other reasons most likely play a part in that. That and, well, he’s not real, and no matter how hard an author tries, if you’re not a teenager, it’s hard to make those years seem/read believable.


Most of the secondary characters were quickly introduced, and while they were important in Leonard’s life, they didn’t seem important to the story. You could input another fictional character with other fictional issues and it would have worked for this story. Other than Walt and Herr Silverman, I didn’t really care for any of the others, but I think it’s because I had a Herr Silverman in high school. (He was an English teacher instead of History, but his enthusiasm and love for teaching made each day feel special, and he always made students (at least for me) feel like what we were discussing in classes mattered.)

Walt was Leonard’s next door neighbor, and just this old man that Leonard watched Bogart movies with, and who understood Leonard’s weirdness, but didn’t fault him for being different. I really wish we saw more Walt/Leonard conversations, because they were great together.


The writing was really good, and FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK was a quick, fast paced read that I definitely enjoyed it while I was reading it. Quick did a good job at keeping the reader interested, even if I wish there was more to the story than there was, and that the characters were a little more developed.


Overall, I would recommend this if you don’t have anything else to read and want to try out a book next year for Anti-Bullying Week.

I knew how this was going to end...and yet, I was hoping for a different outcome.

Phenomenal! Jonathan Maberry keeps his place as one of my favorite authors.

The feels alone would have had me giving this 5 Stars, but the writing and the characters, and just everything really just made this novel awesome for me.

Full review in the next few days.

3.5 Stars

I read SHINE for Anti-Bullying Week, and while it was a decent book, I had some issues with connecting with the main character, Cat.

Of course, there’s the age difference. As an adult who enjoys reading YA, I don’t actually believe that’s ever a true issue with my disconnect with a main character, and I don’t believe it was here. For this book, it was the religious differences between Cat and I. I like to believe that I’m a good person, and Cat seemed like one too, but her faith in God and her church community was something that I just found very naive. It’s absolutely because I wasn’t raised in that environment, and I attempted really hard to look past it. However, it was such an important part of her being, that to look past it, would have removed depth from Cat, and I just didn’t want to ruin the book for myself.

And it wasn’t just Cat, the community itself was a very religious one, and while I thought Cat’s faith was genuine, there were other characters in the book (and I think it was done on purpose) whose faith seemed false, or that they weren’t quite as open and all about love and understanding as the Bible and Christians like to preach. I don’t know.


What I do know, is that outside of the religious aspects and undertones of the characters, the story itself was interesting. I really enjoyed the mystery elements of it, and Cat’s Nancy Drewing it up for most of the book. I wanted justice for Patrick, and I thought that he was due it. To be openly gay in any community can be tough, but for a small rural community (I grew up in one just not in the South), Patrick had some serious strength to be willing and to want to be out and proud.

I really liked that Myracle was able to keep me interested in the story from start to finish, and while I couldn’t connect to the characters on my religious (or lack thereof) views, I was happy that I was able to connect with these characters on other levels. Each one of them was flawed in very real ways, and it helped make this story believable and a real worthy read.

So while I may have had some issues with the characters themselves, overall the story won me over, and the characters themselves by the end of the novel, took shape and I was able to look past my personal issues and just enjoy the story for what it was.


I thought that Myracle did an outstanding job at creating SHINE and, I’ll definitely be willing to try other novels by her in the future.

Any time a novel puts me into a reading slump, I know that the review and my liking of the book are going to go down, dramatically.

I was so close to DNFing THE YOUNG WORLD. It started off interesting. I liked the idea of a world where adults don’t exist, and in this post-apocalyptic world, where kids (under the age of 18) have to fend for themselves, well, it’s an interesting concept to me.

Unfortunately, Chris Weitz could not keep the idea from becoming boring, and I pretty much will blame it on his characters, and then, him making some poor decisions.

So the characters:

Our MC: Jefferson, the geek, the sidekick to his old brother Washington, who has to step up into the leadership role after Washington dies. He doesn’t want it, but he feels obligated. And he’s boring as hell, but I liked his morals (first ⅔ anyway), that I didn’t completely hate the character.

Our second MC, though, I disliked: Donna. She’s our snowflake. You know the girl MC - she’s plain, boring, there’s nothing special about her at all. She likes Star Wars and hates Barbie. She’s just different. In this post-apocalypse where everyone is giving it up because they’re not going to live past 18 anyway, she’s holding onto her virginity, but still having fun in other ways. She slut shames. She teases, but you know, it’s OK because she’s just really different. I absolutely loathed this character.

Peter - The black gay best friend of Donna’s. I liked his snark, but there wasn’t enough Peter to save this novel.

Brainbox - also a geek. Friend of Jefferson’s. Thinks he can find the cure. Saw the ending from a mile away with this character. Everything about him made the ending (which seemed like should Weitz wanted to shock the reader, completely predictable.)

SeeThrough - our little ninja BAMF. She tries so hard to overcompensate for her size and age, and for people to believe she’s really as hard as she seems. She’s not, but she’s still awesome. I liked her.

Kath - Because every YA seems to need a love triangle. Toss away character, and I figured she was.


Onto the poor decisions:

--#1 putting in an unnecessary love triangle. Instead of using those pages for much needed information, Weitz decided to force a love triangle that felt completely forced.

--#2 Relationship between Jefferson and Donna - felt forced through and through.

--#3 Certain conflicts that the characters went through were a little too drawn out, and again, for a first novel in a trilogy, these conflicts took pages away from world building (world building that I believe should have been put in the novel).

--#4 Characters changing personalities on a whim. Our geek hero turns manwhore in 30 seconds. Seemed legit.

--#5 Racing to the finish line. The book ends on a conflict that should have been more drawn out, written properly, and more fully developed. Weitz truly failed to give the reader adequate knowledge on what was going on.

--#6 The world building (what little there is) was poorly executed.

--#7 Giving the reader a reason to care. I didn’t give a fuck about what happened to the characters. This is always an issue when it comes to a series. I should want the characters to be OK, to succeed, to live and love and complete their goal/mission/whatever. If I don’t, yeah, just not a good thing.

Just a random dislike:

--#8(?): Chris, you made Edward Cullen a deity to one of the Mole People? Seriously? That’s just weird.


Sorry this is such a ranty review. So onto the pluses for THE YOUNG WORLD:

--#1 The action really keeps the pace of the novel moving. There’s not any real slow parts of it, and had I been more interested in the book, it wouldn’t have dragged for me the way it did.

--#2 I liked that the characters weren’t all just a bunch of white rich kids. There was race/culture/class diversity with the kids, and I liked it.

--#3 Secondary characters were really fun to meet (for the most part).

--#4 Concept of the story (world without adults) is still a huge plus for me, and something that I enjoyed about the story.


Overall, I’m not going to continue the series, and I honestly wouldn’t recommend THE YOUNG WORLD.