Flash Reviews | #4 | February 7 - March 5, 2016

It's been a while, and I've been extremely inconsistent with my reading lately, but I do have 6 books to talk about today.

015. Stars Above by Marissa Meyer
After being disappointed by the concluding novel in this series, Winter, I hoped that this collection would help me to remember why I fell in love with these books in the first place. Sadly, I thought that these stories were only average. Only one of them, "The Princess and the Guard," truly captivated me, and the others had me feeling somewhere between "meh" and "I like getting to see what happened before." It's hard for me to say how I feel about this series now; I still like it, but it has lost a lot of the magic for me. You can read my full review (thoughts on the individual stories) here. ★★★

016. Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan
A lot of things in this book felt really convenient or surface-level. I wasn't sold on the romance and I wasn't impressed with the characters who appeared to have no real rhyme or reason as to why they acted the way they did. I thought that a lot of the main character's concerns about her family were not grounded in anything that we, as readers, were privy to, so it was hard to feel like there was a danger in her coming out. I do like that this author always puts diversity and the hard things that come along with diversity into her writing, I am just not sure that her books are for me. You can read my full review here. ★★

017. A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly
While the overall idea behind this book - an alternate history regarding the prohibition of magic - was (and still is) really interesting, none of the puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place. There were glimpses and flickers of greatness, of an atmosphere so rich that I felt like I was being transported to this world, but, in the end, there were too many issues. The romance was borderline-instant and there was, to me, a strange, slightly creepy dynamic between the main characters. I also felt like this book needed to have more exposure to the "outside" world - we are in the 1920s, but I found very little throughout the book that grounded us in that time. Magic is illegal, yet everyone in the book was a part of it and wanted it and that left me wondering: why has it been deemed wrong? Who opposes it? Where are these people? You can read my full review here. ★★

018. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
I really enjoyed this one. While I occasionally felt some emotional disassociation, it really only happened after I had not read it in a while, so it wasn't too big of an issue. What really shines with White Oleander is Fitch's writing. The grittiest of scenes were made magical through her words and prose. I was drawn in to every home that Astrid found herself a part of and, when I look back, it was almost as if each new set of characters, each new placement, was a new fairy tale in a collection of them. You can read my full review here. ★★★★

019. Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
After struggling to read after finishing White Oleander, this book is the first one that I really loved and, as a result, the first one that I finished amidst a haze of disinterest. Sepetys' research and passion for her stories always impresses me and this project is no exception. I was wrapped up in these characters, begging them not to leave me. I did have some issues with word choice and, towards the end of the book (which I thought could have been clarified, overall), I felt that the writing was being sacrificed for pushing across a message. Additionally, while I can usually appreciate a character that I am supposed to dislike, I felt that Alfred's chapters were so disconnected and unclear that I didn't love to hate him, I just... hated him. You can read my full review here. ★★★★½

020. Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones
While I couldn't help but compare this book to others through similarities such as an illusion power and a focus on heists and crime, I did end up enjoying it for what it was. I thought that the characters could have definitely benefited from some expansion and growth and, as always, I was dying for more history and backstory on both the world and the relationships we see throughout the book. I did like how there wasn't a huge focus on romance, because I think that would have muddied up a story line that really wouldn't have supported it well. There was one plot aspect that was clumsy and strangely executed, but the ending (where all of the characters came together) did have me captivated. You can read my full review here. ★★★½