Saturday, March 24, 2018

Book Review: Full Fusion


Book Review: Full Fusion by NJ Damschroder 

Goodreads Description: Eighteen-year-old Roxie Sebastian lives a charmed life, and she knows it. Too bad she can't feel it.

All her life, she's felt disconnected from the world around her. Everything changes just before graduation, when she's drawn to an eerie, brilliant light-which narrowly misses her as it blows up her friend Lincoln's car. Clearly someone's after Roxie, and finally Lincoln tells her the truth: He and Roxie are angels, beings from another dimension, and that light is her soul, separated from her human body in a traumatic birth.

Once a skeptical Roxie rules out the other possibilities-like Lincoln created this delusion to escape his abusive father-she accepts her gut-deep knowledge of the truth. But someone has been screwing with her light, using it to commit crimes, and their actions are about to cause irreparable damage to two worlds: the one she lives in, and the one she can't remember.

Aided by her best friend Jordan, her boyfriend Tucker, and Lincoln, Roxie tracks down the criminal and uncovers many more secrets not only of her past, but of the history of their race on Earth. And then Roxie faces a horrible dilemma-the only way she can stop them from ripping apart both worlds is to fuse with her light...which could be tainted by the evil with which it was used.

My Review: I was given a review copy of Full Fusion by Rockstar Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

Eighteen-year-old Roxie Sebastian has always felt lost in life, disconnected from her loving family, devoted friends, and even her own emotions, but she always considered herself normal. Until the night a brilliant white light destroys her friend, Linc's, car in a blaze of fire and Roxie discovers she's an angel who was separated from her soul during a traumatic birth. That angelic soul, rife with power, has fallen into the hands of a man named Phillip Porcini, who seems to know way more about the angels than he should. Roxie sets off to get her soul back with her best friend, boyfriend, and her friend Linc, who is actually a full fledged angel sent from another dimension to help Roxie regain her soul. But Phillip plans to use her soul to open a gateway between dimensions, which could end up destroying both worlds. The only real way to keep the soul out of his hands is for Roxie to fuse with it and become a full angel again. But have the crimes Phillip committed with the soul tainted it? If so, could fusing with it turn Roxie into something evil?

Where to start with this book. When I picked it up, it seemed like a fun, light-hearted ride through an urban fantasy setting. When I finished, I felt about as far from "fun" as you could get, but it had me questioning: is this simply a book not written for me? Most YA I connect with very easily, but there are a certain subset of books that are written for a young teen audience that have little appeal for adults. Does that make them bad? Not necessarily. After all, adults are not the target audience of YA. It wasn't written for them, it was written for teens. That's something I keep in mind while reading YA, and definitely applies somewhat to this book. Do I think a thirteen year old girl would enjoy this book a lot more than I did? Absolutely! Hell, if I was thirteen I probably would have enjoyed this book a lot more, because I would've been in the maturity bracket for it.

The book itself was written well, with a simpler style lacking flowery prose. There were times where the description was a little thin, but not in a way that really took away from the story or made it confusing. The pacing moved nicely, and so the story itself was very easy to read. The fundamentals were there, but it was the story itself that made me falter. Starting with the characters, we have Roxie, who is a very obvious Mary-Sue. She has a perfect life, perfect family, doting mother, plenty of money (I'd die for a pool in my backyard), a gaggle of besties who do everything she wants, good grades, and is the "nice girl." The only thing missing from the Mary-Sue package would be the cheerleader checkbox. As for the rest of the main characters, they were all really flat with no motivation outside of Roxie. Even Linc, who was arguably one of the more developed characters, was still little more than a typical YA bad boy: dark hair, brooding, rough home life, aggressive under a guise of "protection," obsessed with the main character, etc, etc. Even the bad guys, who were driving the plot for most of the book, were about as developed as bumbling cartoon villains that resemble the Three Stooges.

The book itself was filled with classic YA tropes and cliches: the Unqualified Protagonist, a love triangle, the Gullible Martyr, Unambiguous Bad Guy, I Didn't Know I Had Powers, a bit of Chosen One, etc. I was hoping the author would play around with these tropes a bit, but they're about as predictable as can be. In fact, most parts of the book are highly predictable, and the actual actions taken by characters to move the plot forward are pretty sad at times. Roxie charges into an enemy lair with no plan after dumping her supplies and is surprised when she opens the door and finds bad guys, the villains are professional criminals but can't physically overpower a few teenagers (most without any powers), an explanation for how the bad guys found them was just "Science. The methodology isn't important." (I sh*t you not). The list could go on. It seemed like there was very little creative thought put into the actual actions or plot in the story, which made it kinda boring to read, and made the characters (all of them, good and bad) come across as incredibly stupid.

All the "meat" in this story, per se, was in the romantic tension. The love triangle between Roxie, her boyfriend, Tucker, and their friend, Linc, was what ultimately kept the book moving. And it's the very reason why I could see a lot of younger teens really enjoying this book. As much as it leans into heavy cliches, the romantic plotline fulfills that "dirty little secret" read that you know is bad, but you like it anyway. There were little parts of me getting caught up in that romantic subplot, and I found myself enjoying it most out of the book, probably because it seemed like there was more effort put into it. Up until this point, I could have recommended this book as a read for teens and say adult YA readers might not enjoy it, simply because it wasn't written for them. What made me change my mind from "this book isn't for me" to "this book is bad" came down to the messages it was sending.

The first message being very sexist, as about three or four times throughout the book, and in very minor ways, the main character refers to how girls are weaker than boys. It tried to play it off as "it's not sexism, it's just fact," and then as Roxie stating it's "one of the reasons she didn't like being a girl," and then finally by the last mention, the author gives up all pretense of trying to sugarcoat her opinion: "Bing went with Jordan, and I heard her hissing her displeasure at even more sexism. But I felt better, anyway. Call me an anti-feminist, I don't care." (Direct quote). I'd like to play it off as a character trait, but it has no other influence on the story, and is just an ideological piece that the author seems to be hammering into the reader, finalizing it by having Roxie (who sort of initially resisted the sexism, or called it out for what it was) settling in that she's happier this way (that her girl friend has a man to protect her during a fight) and that she's proudly anti-feminist. What kind of message does that send to young girls, who are devouring this book for the romantic plotline?

** SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. SKIP PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WISH TO BE SPOILED**
The second message, which really broke the book for me, was that cheating was okay. Much of the romantic tension between Linc and Roxie was heightened by the fact that Roxie was dating Tucker, and so they couldn't be together. Of course, during the climax, both characters forget or don't care about this, and Linc kisses Roxie anyway. Nobody is mad at each other, nobody feels that guilty, and instead it becomes a thing that "Tucker must never know," until Tucker reveals he does know at the end, and forgives Roxie anyway. Which made me feel awful for Tucker, because even cardboard cutouts don't deserve to be treated like crap. The message comes across that it's okay to cheat, that things will work out okay because she loves both of them and so it can't be bad. There are literally no repercussions that Roxie faces from this and she manages to shrug off the problem, which comes across as pretty heartless.

The part that infuriates me the most about the above two messages is that the book is written specifically for young YA readers, and that's obvious by reading it. So these messages feel specifically targeted towards that young audience, and that's where I draw the line. Entertainment is one thing, but knowing your audience is much more important.

TL;DR: All in all, 2/5 stars. An uninteresting YA romance with decent writing and awful anti-woman messages.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Giveaway: Full Fusion


Hey all. Today I'm excited to bring you a giveaway of FULL FUSION, a YA fantasy full of angels and romance, in partnership with RockStar Book Tours. The bottom of the post includes a tour schedule full of reviews, excerpts, and interviews, so make sure to check them out when you enter the giveaway.


About The Book:
Title: FULL FUSION (The Fusion Series Volume 1)
Author: NJ Damschroder
Pub. Date: June 4, 2014
Publisher: Dragonsoul YA 
Pages: 322
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Find it: AmazonB&NiBooksTBDGoodreads

Eighteen-year-old Roxie Sebastian lives a charmed life, and she knows it. Too bad she can't feel it. 

All her life, she's felt disconnected from the world around her. Everything changes just before graduation, when she's drawn to an eerie, brilliant light-which narrowly misses her as it blows up her friend Lincoln's car. Clearly someone's after Roxie, and finally Lincoln tells her the truth: He and Roxie are angels, beings from another dimension, and that light is her soul, separated from her human body in a traumatic birth. 

Once a skeptical Roxie rules out the other possibilities-like Lincoln created this delusion to escape his abusive father-she accepts her gut-deep knowledge of the truth. But someone has been screwing with her light, using it to commit crimes, and their actions are about to cause irreparable damage to two worlds: the one she lives in, and the one she can't remember. 

Aided by her best friend Jordan, her boyfriend Tucker, and Lincoln, Roxie tracks down the criminal and uncovers many more secrets not only of her past, but of the history of their race on Earth. And then Roxie faces a horrible dilemma-the only way she can stop them from ripping apart both worlds is to fuse with her light...which could be tainted by the evil with which it was used. 

About NJ:

Natalie J. Damschroder is an award-winning author of contemporary and paranormal romance, with an emphasis on romantic adventure. She has had 24 novels, 7 novellas, and 16 short stories published by several publishers, most recently with Soul Mate Publishing, Entangled Publishing, and Carina Press. She recently debuted her Fusion Series, a young adult paranormal adventure series, with Full Fusion, as NJ Damschroder. Learn more about those books here.

Natalie grew up in Massachusetts, and loves the New England Patriots more than anything. (Except her family. And writing and reading. And popcorn.) When she’s not writing, she does freelance editing and proofreading. She and her husband have two grown daughters, one of whom is also a novelist. (The other one prefers math. Smart kid. Practical.)

Giveaway Details:
3 winners will receive a Box Set of the FULL FUSION Series, US Only.
Rafflecopter Code:

Tour Schedule:
Week One:
3/19/2018- Caffeine And CompositionInterview
3/19/2018- A Gingerly ReviewReview

3/20/2018- Twirling Book PrincessExcerpt
3/20/2018- The UndergroundReview

3/21/2018- Elley the Book OtterGuest Post
3/21/2018- Wonder StruckReview

3/22/2018- Am Kinda Busy Reading- Review
3/22/2018- Two Chicks on BooksGuest Post

3/23/2018- BookHounds YAInterview
3/23/2018- two points of interestReview

Week Two:
3/26/2018- Always MeExcerpt
3/26/2018- RhythmicBooktrovertReview

3/27/2018-Smada's Book Smack-Review
3/27/2018- Wonder StruckExcerpt

3/28/2018- books are loveExcerpt

3/29/2018- Reading for the Stars and Moon- Review
3/29/2018- A Dream Within A DreamExcerpt

3/30/2018- Paulette's PapersExcerpt
3/30/2018- Diary of an Avid ReaderReview


Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Author Interview: Elliot Gavin Keenan



Today on the Underground, I'm excited to bring you an interview with Elliot Gavin Keenan, author of On Being Insane: In Search of my Missing Pieces. You can find my review of his memoir here. Elliot wrote about his college years studying psychology while dealing with his autism and bipolar diagnoses and multiple psychiatric hospitalizations. Currently, Elliot is working on his PhD.

What genre do you write and why?

Memoir and lyric essay, mostly, but I also branch out into poetry and lately I’ve been writing a fiction piece. I like to sample different genres, and use whatever form is most conducive to the story I want to tell. I would say my single favorite form is lyric essay because I feel like I have the most freedom when I write that way.

Tell us about your latest book.

On Being Insane is a memoir that focuses on my years as a college undergraduate while going through a series of psychiatric hospitalizations. That said, it also dives into my childhood, giving insight into what it’s like to grow up with an autism diagnosis. I think the major theme of the book is the importance of neurodiversity.

Who are your favourite authors?

One of my favorite writers is Maggie Nelson. I fell in love with her work after reading her book Bluets. I also really like the work of Kay Redfield Jamison, whose memoir An Unquiet Mind was a major inspiration for On Being Insane. And, of course, I have to mention John Elder Robison, who is not only an excellent memoirist but a passionate advocate for autistic people who I have had the pleasure of meeting several times now.

What advice do you have for other writers?

Be truthful to the story you’re telling; be brave (especially if you’re writing memoir!); and be almost-recklessly bold. But not quite recklessly. It’s a fine line, one that I mostly dealt with in the editing process – but when you’re churning out the first draft, I say you should put it all to the page.

Where can people find out more about you and your writing?

I have a Tumblr blog (professorprettyboy.tumblr.com), which is one of the best ways to connect with me.

Who is your favourite character in your book and why?

My favorite character is the speaker’s mentor, Dr. Pinball, who is all at once an absent-minded professor and a sage-like figure dispensing timeless wisdom. He’s kind of a good-hearted goofball.

How long did it take you to write your book?

I wrote the entire book in about a year.

Who designed the cover?

The cover is actually derived from a painting I did myself!

What are you currently reading? 

NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman – a book I should have read long ago!

When you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?

I love tabletop games, like Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and Settlers of Catan. I also will be spending a good deal of time studying from now on, since I’m in a psychology PhD program at UCLA.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Book Review: Silver Girl




Book Review: Silver Girl by Leslie Pietrzyk 


My Review: I was given an ARC of Silver Girl through a partnership with Rockstar Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. 

Silver Girl transports us back to the 1980s in a flurry of Tab and typewriters, where a nameless narrator has escaped her past by moving away to college. There she meets, Jess--beautiful, brave Jess from a wealthy Chicago family who flies through life with reckless abandon. As their college years progress, the narrator and Jess become closer at the same time that the chasm of secrets widens between them. The narrator is desperate to keep her past a secret-- from Jess as well as the reader. Meanwhile, she spirals into self-sabotaging behaviour that throws all of her relationships onto the rocks. The narrator struggles to reconcile the person she wants to be--wanted, loved, and finally a person of value-- with what the circumstances of her past push her to be-- the “monster.”  As the narrator falls from grace throughout the book, she continually minimizes her behaviour to the reader and lies to all those around her until it becomes difficult to trust her. Is the narrator telling the truth, or lying to the reader like she lies to her friends and family? Who is the narrator, really, and what about her past has left her so damaged? 

An incredible character study, Silver Girl is all about relationships: between best friends, between sisters, between parents and children. The book has no discernible plotline, in the same way that real life doesn’t either, but is written with a comfortable pace and mysterious tension that keeps the reader turning pages.  Right from the first page, the mystery of the narrator grabs and doesn’t let go-- who is this girl? And what is she running from? The book begins on the day the narrator moves into the freshman dorm, where she meets Jess for the first time. The end of the chapter gives us some interesting foreshadowing when Jess decides the narrator isn’t afraid of much, and while the narrator doesn’t agree with her, she also doesn’t object. “She could believe what she wanted, and I didn’t have to lie.” As their relationship develops, we see how the narrator bends the truth: not always by outright lying (though she lies a lot by the end) but by letting people make their own assumptions without challenging them. The narrator is especially fascinating because as her downfall progresses and we see her turn to destructive behaviours, her actions are at first understandable, but she continues to escalate until the character you once sympathized with becomes unlikeable. All of this was done without resorting to dramatic lengths—the narrator doesn’t haven’t to scream or use violence or key anyone’s car to be destructive—which is a pleasant subtly. 

As well, every character was so beautifully flawed! Even little Penny was both the darling, innocent victim as well as a troubled, disruptive brat, which was so awesome to see! Pietrzyk doesn’t shy away from the dark side when creating complex, dynamic characters. When she shows the characters’ dark sides, it’s not in an attempt to sway the reader’s opinion. The characters simply are-- their good and bad parts--and this allows the characters to have more nuance. 

The writing itself is both lyrical and to the point, both wildly expressive and yet down to earth. The writing style focuses heavily on mundane details, and the observations that come out of those details were both beautiful and tragic. I really loved the level of detail, as I felt it helped reveal things about the narrator as well as set a vivid scene. However, there were times where I felt the book veered too much into detail, which slowed down some scenes. The book was written in a non-linear fashion which worked so well. Because the story is not about a plotline and more about revealing the characters’ true “character,” the non-linear progression was effective in tricking the reader into making their own assumptions about the narrator. This non-linear style allowed the author to revisit scenes later in the book and reveal more information, which could totally change the reader’s perspective of the situation. The non-linear style is another way in which the narrator manipulates how the reader sees her, which made for an interesting read.  

Despite this grand fall, Silver Girl gives us a lot to connect to. The narrator finds a way to redeem herself at the end, and figures out how to reconcile her past with the person she wants to be. All throughout, we see the depth of the narrator and Jess’ friendship, as well as the bonds of sisterhood as Jess loses one sister and gains another, while the narrator struggles with what to do for her own sister. All of it speaks to a human experience that’s both messy and profound, that means nothing and everything all at once. 


TL;DR: All in all, 4/5 stars. An incredible character study of a college girl who can’t stop running from her past, even when it starts to hurt the people she loves. 



About The Book:

Title: SILVER GIRL 
Author: Leslie Pietrzyk
Pub. Date: February 27, 2018
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Pages: 272
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Find it: AmazonB&NTBDiBooksGoodreads

It's the early 1980s. Ronald Reagan's economy will trickle down any day now, and Chicago's Tylenol Killer has struck: an unknown person is stuffing cyanide into capsules, then returning them to drugstore shelves.

Against the backdrop of this rampant anxiety, one young woman, desperate to escape the unspoken secrets of her Midwestern family, bluffs her way into the fancy "school by the lake" in Chicago. There she meets Jess, charismatic and rich and needy, and the two form an insular, competitive friendship. Jess' family appears perfect to the narrator's wishful eye, and she longs to fit into their world, even viewing herself as a potentially better daughter than the unappreciative Jess. But the uneven power dynamic chafes the narrator, along with lingering guilt about the sister she left behind. Her behavior becomes increasingly risky - and after Jess' sister dies in murky circumstances and the Tylenol killer exposes the intricate double life of Jess' father, she finds herself scrambling for footing. Nothing is as it seems, and the randomness of life feels cruel, whether one's fate is swallowing a poisoned Tylenol or being born into a damaged and damaging family.

SILVER GIRL is a cousin to Emma Cline's The Girls and Emily Gould's Friendship in its nuanced exploration of female friendship, with the longing of Stephanie Danler's Sweetbitter.


About Leslie:
Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two novels, Pears on a Willow Tree and A Year and a Day. This Angel on My Chest, her collection of linked short stories, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in October 2015. Kirkus Reviews named it one of the 16 best story collections of the year. A new novel, Silver Girl, is forthcoming from Unnamed Press in February 2018. Her short fiction and essays have appeared/are forthcoming in many publications, including Hudson Review, Southern Review, Arts & Letters, Gettysburg Review, The Sun, Shenandoah, River Styx, Iowa Review, TriQuarterly, New England Review, Salon, Washingtonian, and the Washington Post Magazine. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Pietrzyk is a member of the core fiction faculty at the Converse low-residency MFA program and often teaches in the MA Program in Writing at Johns Hopkins University. Raised in Iowa, she now lives in Alexandria, Virginia.


Giveaway Details: 

3 winners will receive a finished copy of SILVER GIRL, US Only.

Ends on March 20th at Midnight EST!


Rafflecopter Code:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rafflecopter Link:

Tour Schedule:

If you enjoyed my review, check out some of the other stops on Silver Girl's blog tour! 

Week One:

February 26, 2018- BookHounds YAInterview
February 27, 2018- The Book TowerReview
February 28, 2018- BookishRealmReviewsReview
Today! - The UndergroundReview
March 2, 2018- Confessions of a YA ReaderExcerpt

Week Two:

March 12, 2018- Don't Judge, ReadInterview
March 13, 2018- Daily Waffle - Excerpt
March 14, 2018- Hauntedbybooks13Review
March 15, 2018- Pretty Deadly ReviewsReview
March 16, 2018- A Dream Within A DreamExcerpt