Review: Ever Shade: A Dark Faerie Tale by Alexia Purdy

I love books about faeries. I have loved faeries as a child, especially after I read Tithe by Holly Black. So when I found Ever Shade: A Dark Faerie Tale on my kindle I had really high hopes. Yeah, those were pretty much dashed within the first four chapters.

"Ever Shade is a dark twist on faeries. For Shade, a chance meeting with a powerful Teleen faery warrior who wields electrical currents and blue fires along his skin-has her joining him on a treacherous mission for the good Seelie Faerie Court across the land of Faerie. Magic and malice abound and nothing is what it really seems to be."
 - taken from Amazon.

See? The description makes it sound really interested. It also makes it sound like a book about just Shade and the Teelen Fairy. Yeah, its not.

It starts out really well. You learn about Shade and how she hears voices in her head. You also get a huge description of her friend, who completely disappears after that chapter. Seriously. You learn all about this character and she is never mentioned again. Come on. Why even both writing about her?

The story line picks up when the voices force Shade to go in this creepy old building. There she meets the Teleen faerie, Jack, and another warrior, Vange. Again, you learn all about Vange and yet there no other mention of her in the book. When she meets Jack, he is throwing out lightning from his skin. I'm sorry, but any normal person would go hightailing it out of there, not sticking around to make friends. And when this stranger with the magic powers is just like hey, you should come with me into the forest to meet all my pals, NO ONE EVER WOULD GO WITH HIM. No one is that stupid. Hell, even a child isn't that stupid.

She does go with him, which is so unrealistic, and meets an oracle. Which is understandable, she wants to know why she hears voices. But when Shade is told who she is and that she has to go on a horrible journey to help the fae, she just goes right along with it. Again, no normal person would just be ok with being told that they are part fae and have to go risk their life to help strangers. Again, most people would be running in the other direction. Even when you find out that Shade doesn't want to go with them, does she say no? Does she protest at all? No. None at all. She just goes right on along with her life and journey.

Honestly, I could keep going like this through the entire book. Its that bad. Except for one element. I did like the amount of foreshadowing and connecting in the book. I wish I could give you an example, but that would ruin huge parts of the book. But there is lots of connectors which give the book something more than just bad dialogue and horrible characters and plot points.

Overall, if you don't really care about reading a great book, you just need something to read, or you love horrible writing, you should read this book. Its bad, but its due-able in a pinch. Plus its a series, which means that I will probably get sucked into reading the next one. I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Alice in Deadland by Mainak Dhar

While I was sitting over my boyfriends, needing something to do, I pulled up my kindle app and searched through my books. Most the books I have on my app, I look at the title and think, huh that looks interesting and just download it without looking at what it is about. Which is pretty much what I did to pick out a new book to read the other day. And I chose good.

Alice in Deadland isn't really a Alice in Wonderland in a different setting. Which is what I was expecting.

Again, because I suck at writing descriptions without giving away all the good stuff, I copied the info from Amazon.

"Civilization as we know it ended more than fifteen years ago, leaving as it's legacy barren wastelands called the Deadland and a new terror for the humans who survived- hordes of undead Biters.

Fifteen year-old Alice has spent her entire life in the Deadland, her education consisting of how best to use guns and knives in the ongoing war for survival against the Biters. One day, Alice spots a Biter disappearing into a hole in the ground and follows it, in search of fabled underground Biter bases.

What Alice discovers there propels her into an action-packed adventure that changes her life and that of all humans in the Deadland forever. An adventure where she learns the terrible conspiracy behind the ruin of humanity, the truth behind the origin of the Biters, and the prophecy the mysterious Biter Queen believes Alice is destined to fulfill.

A prophecy based on the charred remains of the last book in the Deadland- a book called Alice in Wonderland."

Unlike some other book descriptions, this one hits it right on the head. I have never really enjoyed a zombie book before, but this book was a fabulous read. I was reading during commercials, before I went to bed, while I was supposed to be listening to my boyfriend.... LOL! I didn't want to put it down. I wanted to know what was going to happen to Alice and her band of fighters.

While I did love the book, there were parts that I was "quickly reading over." It was mostly in-depth descriptions about fighting or weapons. I don't really even watch fighting movies, so I didn't really care about what gun she was using or what tactical they were coming back with. But it didn't really take away from the book that much.

What did suck about the book was the dialog. It was very dry and expected. There didn't seem to be much imagination put into the dialog between the characters.

I do want to give a warning about the book. There is 2 scenes where Alice is almost raped. Its not too graphic, but, at least to me, any type of rape or sexual assault scene can be disturbing to read.

I think this book could be good for anyone 5th grade up to adult. If a younger person is reading it though, I would recommend talking to him or her about it, just so there isn't anything they are confused about.

Overall, I give this book 4 out of 5 stars! I can't say it was the best written book in the world - no where close honestly. But if you want a quick read that is something different, I would recommend this book. I can't wait to read the next one, but I'm too cheap to buy it. So I'll have to wait till goes free!