Duds of the Month... So Far {1}

Because I had to work at it night and day, it was clear that, given my lackluster upbringing and an abundance of terrible life events, I was not genetically predisposed toward optimism. After years of intense self-schooling and petting sessions with elephants in theplacewhereelephantsgrow to get my ‘oooomm’ on, I feel it’s safe to say I’m at least mildly optimistic. And I had a point to this, somewhere, but I honestly don’t know how to create a decent segue from elephants to the rest of this introduction that started with the potential for actual relevance to the matter at hand. No point getting frustrated; we all saw this coming.

Look, all you need to know is that THIS, this post, can happen at any time during the month. Once, twice, thrice makes no difference to me. Adding something like “so far” at the end of that title might sound like something cooked up by a person who is Not Optimistic. And as I’ve already explained, and though I hate to inform you I won’t be demoing the proper petting technique of a dangerously oversized mammal (which has little to nothing to do with this sentence), I hope for your sake you don’t require another attempt. Basically, there are some books that have me in Full Body Tomato mode and require a firm, polite bashing dressing-down so that I can get rid of ALL THIS RED under my skin and in my vision.

I hope you do mind overly much.



'Kay Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver was, like, one of my favorite things ever of last year. I mean, LOOK AT THIS REVIEW. Heartfelt, heart-wrenched, heart failed. Reactions that were all present. And so even knowing that my expectations for the third book in this series was a bit XTREME, I still anticipated a good, strong, solid book. I'm sure the actual book is each of those things, but the story's crap. Or on the verge of. Because even though that beautiful writing was there, the characters I came to love were there, the plotting of the story suffered terribly, immensely. There. Is. No. Resolution. Nothing is really resolved. There's a blank that should not be there at the end of a series. It showed the characters' (namely Lena's) hard earned strength amounted to a pile of not much in the end, because weakness returns in about everything she they do apart from a few impulsive shows of bravery. It all ends with an "I don't know how things are going to turn out" flick of the hands in a dismissal that is INFURIATING. Pre-order profoundly wasted, mis espantapájaros.



Is it too much to ask to have a beautiful book actually be a beautiful read for me? My goodness, it's not like I'm fictional. My expectations don't need to be constantly crushed in order to make my life interesting 'cause nobody cares either way. I'd been so excited to get my baby-chicken-weak arms wrapped around City of a Thousand Dolls, which was within a stack of MANY I might add. It gleamed at the top, the sun fracturing on all that fabulous plastic wrap. I even cooled my heels for a week before attempting to devour it. Note the word attempting. I don't need to imagine it's difficult to savor something that tastes like the raw broccoli I hate, and I ended up gulping it down fast like medicine. To put it frankly: I was bored mindless. From the murders of the girls I didn't care about to who was actually doing the killing and I still didn't care about to the not-that-alluring-for-me City backdrop. About the coolest thing are the cats, the connections, and honestly the hunky bff the MC here didn't know she had. I'm still debating whether his allure will draw me back in the future.



I was compelled to crop the cover down to that ball of tacky symbolism. Not all together attractive, I will admit. I don't know how I'd feel about being passed a ball of light while I open my mouth all unsuspecting-like. Buuuut, to be fair Falling For You wasn't a complete dud. I actually semi-liked it. Still though it was a hop away from landing in the dark side. And plus, I was just so disappointed I didn't love it like everyone else, like I really wanted to. When you've got a contemporary romance, emotions and romance tend to be the focal point, we all know this. So when one or both of these proves to be lackluster, it's kind of a hard thing to ignore. For me, the romance was where this book needed an uplift. It felt so annoyingly reminiscent, and neither of the characters involved were charming enough to make me forget it. It was just all very... unbelievable, messy, and I just didn't feel attached to the true love interest. Rae pulled at me for her dark spaces in her home life, her reactions, and you get it. But outside of that, there isn't anything overly memorable about the story.

That said. ... Well, there's really nothing else TO be said. I have read one good YA book this month so far and What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton is just so dang ADORBS I've reread so many of the romancey scenes it's sickening. Fingers crossed I've got more good GOOD reading stuff ahead of me.