Review: Vengeance Bound by Justina Ireland

Vengeance Bound by Justina Ireland

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers

Publication Date: April 2, 2013

Rating: 3 stars

Source: Copy won from a giveaway

Summary (from Goodreads):

Cory Graff is not alone in her head. Bound to a deal of desperation made when she was a child, Cory’s mind houses the Furies—the hawk and the serpent—lingering always, waiting for her to satisfy their bloodlust. After escaping the asylum where she was trapped for years, Cory knows how to keep the Furies quiet. By day, she lives a normal life, but by night, she tracks down targets the Furies send her way. And she brings down Justice upon them.

Cory’s perfected her system of survival, but when she meets a mysterious boy named Niko at her new school, she can’t figure out how she feels about him. For the first time, the Furies are quiet in her head around a guy. But does this mean that Cory’s finally found someone who she can trust, or are there greater factors at work? As Cory’s mind becomes a battlefield, with the Furies fighting for control, Cory will have to put everything on the line to hold on to what she’s worked so hard to build.

What I Liked:

I'm not too sure how I feel about this one. On the one hand, I enjoyed the story. It was a fun, fast-paced book, with plenty of action and even a cute romance. On the other hand, I'm a little meh about this book. I don't feel like I should be gushing about it, or sharing it or recommending it or such. I liked it, but I didn't love it, how about that?

Amelie/Cory is the third Fury - she replaced Alekto. Cory is human, but she has the other two Furies with her, sort of. They inhabit her mind, and when they are ready to execute judgment on guilty men, they pop out, and with Cory, punishment is given out. Cory has been running from her past - she used to be in an insane asylum of a sort, with a crazy doctor who wanted to study her for his own means. So Cory has been on the run since she was twelve. She ends up back in Pennsylvania, trying to go to high school, while search for that doctor, to kill him.

The inclusion of Greek mythology is really nice! It's just the three Furies, but still, Greek mythology nonetheless. I love Greek mythology. 

I have to say, I don't think I was too bored for too long at any point in the book. I wanted to know how Cory would get rid of the Furies inside her - you know that will be a conflict, you just know it will be. And as soon as she meets Niko, in high school, my attention perked up. So there was the internal battle with the Furies, finding the doctor, high school drama, and Niko. 

I like Niko. I honestly think he was a little flat and underdeveloped, but I liked him - or at least, the idea of him. Cory and Niko are a cute couple. I wasn't really feeling the romance, even though I really wanted to be invested in it. I feel like it was brought on too quickly, and then the snowball rolled down the mountain. I'm not saying there was insta-love, but it felt like the romance was a bit detached.

Anyway. I liked the story. That's good. I liked the voice of this book - Justina Ireland definitely has a distinctive writing style and voice. It was the same voice I noticed in Promise of Shadows. I wonder if all of Ireland's books will have this voice and tone? I suppose I will see - if I choose to read any more of her books. So far, I haven't been super impressed.

What I Did Not Like:

I said above that I thought the romance was detached. Here's the thing about me and romance: if you're going to have the romance in the book, then don't make it detached or informal or basically not there. If the story is marketed as having a romance, then make it in the story, with FEELS romance and whatnot! In this book, I can think of one scene that gave me a butterfly or two in my stomach. Maybe. That was it. BUT the romance in this book is supposed to be monumental, earth-moving, window-shattering, or whatever. It is because of Niko (Cory's feelings for him, really), that Cory questions her duty with the Furies. But I really was not feeling the romance.

Also, I didn't really connect well with Niko. He seemed a little one-dimensional, like there wasn't much to him besides him being a love interest to Cory and best friend to Cory's best friend. Which was weird. That chick is whack, just saying. 

I think I could connect with Cory, but I didn't necessarily like her. I'm not sure why, but I didn't really like her very much. I think she's a little messed up, but she's supposed to be. Maybe I didn't really connect with her after all. I don't know, I just didn't get a positive vibe from her.

Overall, I was a bit meh about this one. I liked the story, but I didn't necessarily like it enough to re-read it or recommend it to someone else. And honestly, while there was plenty of action, this book had a fluffy tone to it. I expected more kickbutt, dark vengeance... nahh, it wasn't that dark.

Would I Recommend It:

Nahhh. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not a huge fan of Justina Ireland's books. I LOVE Greek mythology, and I love that Ireland chooses to incorporate it into her books, but the execution is so mehhh. 

Rating:

3 stars. Good, but not amazing. I read it because I had a copy, not because I was about to break my neck trying to read it. Otherwise, ehhh, it would have flown under my radar.

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Review: Promise of Shadows by Justina Ireland

Promise of Shadows by Justina Ireland

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: March 11, 2014

Rating: 2 stars

Source: eARC from Edelweiss

Summary (from Goodreads):

Zephyr Mourning has never been very good at being a Harpy. She’d rather watch reality TV than learn forty-seven ways to kill a man, and she pretty much sucks at wielding magic. Zephyr was ready for a future pretending to be a normal human instead of a half-god assassin. But all that changes when her sister is murdered—and she uses a forbidden dark power to save herself from the same fate.

Zephyr is on the run from a punishment worse than death when an unexpected reunion with a childhood friend (a surprisingly HOT friend) changes everything. Because it seems like Zephyr might just be the Nyx, a dark goddess made flesh that is prophesied to change the power balance. For hundreds of years the half-gods have lived in fear, and Zephyr is supposed to change that.

But how is she supposed to save everyone when she can’t even save herself?

What I Liked:

I love Greek and Roman mythology, you all. Well actually, I love most types of mythology - including Norse and Egyptian and so on. But Greek mythology is definitely my favorite. So when I read the synopsis of this book months ago, I knew I had to read it. Yes, my rating shows that I did not enjoy this book as much as I had hoped I would. But I'm glad I gave this book a chance.

Zephyr was sent to Tartarus because she killed a minor Æthereal (god), which is basically impossible for the vættir (non-god, non-human race, like Zephyr, who is a Harpy). But the Æthereals - especially Hera - are suspicious, and want to know how she did it. No one knows about Zepyhr's dark powers - shadow vættir are not supposed to exist anymore. So Zephyr escapes from Tartarus with the help of some friends. Thus starts the race to defeat Hera and her army of Acolytes from stealing shades and shadow vættir.

I liked the use of mythology in this book - and Ireland's adaptation of mythology. The author definitely added her own interpretation to Greek mythology, which was cool. All of the stories and legends and mixed-up families was so like the original Greek mythological tales. I liked Ireland's spin on things.

The idea of this book was definitely a good one. I wanted to like the plot, because it sounded really interesting. I wanted to like the characters, because they sounded kick-butt. I wanted to and did like the use of Greek mythology in this book. But I found that I really did not like very much about this book, unfortunately. 

What I Did Not Like:

The plot, the characters, the romance, the pacing, the mood, the execution, the inconsistencies. There were so many things that niggled at me while I was reading this book, and I should have written them down as I was reading. I did NOT finish this book in one sitting, which made me sad. It did not hold my interest at all.

So, the plot. The plot was so boring. This book was so boring. I mentioned that I did not finish this book in one sitting, that the book did not hold my interest. I literally FELL ASLEEP while reading this book - no joke. Granted, it was a Monday after my four classes, and it was the first day of classes after a four-day weekend, but STILL. This book was NOT exciting. I wasn't thoroughly invested. The plot was all about stopping Hera from stealing shades and destroying the shadow vættir.

Honestly, I still don't really understand the point. I don't really get why Hera was stealing shades and bent on destroying the shadow vættir. Actually, I think I understand the latter. But the former? Why? And why was that so catastrophic? Why didn't the gods (Æthereals) intervene directly, if it was an Æthereal behind everything, and they knew it? One Nyx is NOT stronger than one Æthereal. So that makes no sense.

I did not connect with a single character. And I didn't like any of them. They seemed flat and one-dimensional to me, and not the types to which I could relate. I can't stand flat characters, and I especially can't stand when I can't connect to characters on some level. Also, there were a ton of secondary characters, and I feel like none of them were really fleshed out.

The romance. Blah blah blah snooze. The romance was so boring. I could see the attempt at an angst-filled romance, but it was an ATTEMPT, and it so did not work. Instead, I was really hoping that either Zephyr or her love interest would die - or both. I seriously did not care at all if they did not end up together, or if one died, or whatever. So... the romance was pretty badly done.

I was not a fan of the pacing. Most of this book was sitting ducks, or whatever the phrase is. There are a ton of paragraphs and pages involving long explanations and stories and history. No thank you, let's get to some action. The action scenes were few and far apart, which was annoying, because the non-action scenes were really boring. So, the pacing wasn't the best. It was too slow.

The execution of this novel was (overall) pretty poor. The concept was really cool, and Ireland's spin on Greek mythology was fabulous, but the execution of the actual story was not so good. It's bad when your reader could care less about basically everything. And doesn't understand what's going on or why things are going on or so on.

I already mentioned a few inconsistencies (like with the gods not intervening), but the fact that I noticed more than a few at all is a red flag to me. For example, I also noticed something about Zephyr's hair. I thought at one point, when she incinerated everything, Nanda had to cut off all Zephyr's hair, really short. But then at the end of the book, Zephyr's curls were back. What? From that point of the hair-cutting to the end of the book, only a few weeks passed (like maybe three at the most). Hair does NOT grow that quickly, to that length anyway.

Anyway, those are the not-so-great things about this book (for me). Another thing - I really thought this book was a standalone. But the ending is a bit ambiguous. Well, I won't be reading future novels in this series (if it does end up being a series), so that's that.

Would I Recommend It:

Heh. Not really, no. I was so ecstatic to read a book involving Greek mythology, but it was such a disappointment. The negatives highly outweigh the positives. Heck, I had a hard time FINISHING this book, and STAYING AWAKE. Save your time and sanity and read something else!

Rating:

1.5 stars -> rounded up to 2 stars. I'm actually not sure why I'm giving this 2 stars as opposed to 1 star - probably because I really WANTED to like this book. Oh well.

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