Voyagers by K.L. Nappier (Good)

*Note: This book was given to me by the author for the purpose of reviewing*

I didn't a strong idea of what Voyagers would be about until I started reading it.  It wasn't really what I expected but not in a bad way.  It was simply different than the usual book.  I would probably classify it as something of a Historical Paranormal Mystery.  It worked well in distinguishing its storyline from other books in that way.
Without further ado, the cover:

The cover shows the Passage (a "road" to the afterlife) and a figure who I believe is Aridite, the angel sent to guide Aaron and Greta.

Summary:

Greta, a scandalous, beautiful woman who forcibly lives with her cousin, is murdered.  Aaron, a newly appointed priest, witnesses her murder and is murdered, himself, as a result.  But they do not simply pass on.  Instead, an angel named Aridite comes to them and sets them a task so that they can pass into the afterlife: solve their own murders.  However that plan proves to be more complicated than it seems when Aaron and Greta discover how much they don't know and attempt to uncover a conspiracy that threatens everyone they cared for when they were alive.

While Voyagers started out nicely and finished nicely, a part of the middle did not satisfy me.  There was a sequence of about 4 chapters that was simply a large flashback.  I'm typically not a fan of flashbacks, so while important information to the story was told, I found myself wishing for a small summary instead of chapters of details surrounding the past events.  

This is not to say that I did not enjoy the book.  I did.  In fact, the second half had me absolutely riveted while the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.  

I was happy to find that the characters were not one dimensional, but had a few layers of conflicting thoughts and emotions that gave them some nice depth.  

The novel gave me a nice sense of closure once i was done, which was nice.  There were very few loose strings which failed to be gathered up again by the end.

I also liked the shifting emotions between Greta and Aaron as the book progressed.  They added an element of interest to the story.  I could never tell how they would react to each other.  Whether they hated or loved one another.  It added some drama to this ghost tale.  

The whole book was set in a time era before present day, which changed many of the events occurring in the story and showed a nice representation of what living in that era could be like, especially for women.  

All in all, Voyagers was a good book that had a few slow moments, but many redeeming qualities and a great ending.  

Phrase: That could cause you to move towards Ghost hood.

Updates

Hello, everyone! I've officially updated the Coming Out Soon and the Movies Based on Books pages.  So go check those out, if you want to.  Also, I've been considering posting a lot of tiny reviews from books that I will take from my goodreads account, just to give everybody a larger selection of good books to read while not being as thoroughly reviewed.  If you have an opinion on the matter, please comment and let me know.  That's all for now.  Thanks for reading this!

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (Amazing)

I was really excited about reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson.  This might have stemmed from either (or both) the fact that John Green wrote part of this book or the fact that not one but both of the main characters were named Will Grayson.  I have been liking John Green at an alarmingly fast increasing rate starting about a month ago.  I am working my way through reading all of his books while watching his amazing youtube channel, vlogbrothers.  (It's the best youtube channel in existence, check it out!)  My second compilation to read this book was simple yet may be confusing.  I have noticed that if there is a supporting or main character named Will in any type of fictional story, he will become my favorite character.  I'm not sure if its because I connect them all with my favorite character of all time, Will from Ranger's Apprentice (link to my review in labels), or because writers make the same type of character and decide to name them Will.  Maybe it's a mix of both, but nevertheless, it caused me to be super excited about this book because, well, there are two of them. I was not disappointed.
The cover:

The cover shows what I think are the stage lights for Tiny's musical. It might just be a pattern, but that's how I like to think about it. 

*To distinguish the Will Graysons, I am going to call one "Will Grayson" and the other "will grayson" *

Summary:
Will Grayson and will grayson have very different lives.  Will Grayson is a relatively normal guy, but his best best friend, Tiny, is different.  Tiny is gay and huge.  At the same time, will grayson lives in a different city where he is in love with a man who he talks to on the internet.  In a bizarre twist, both Will Graysons meet during a crazy, perhaps life-altering night.  Their lives collide together, and they might never be the same.

I loved this book! It was so great in every possible way.  The characters were all realistic with their own motives and personalities.  The potentially confusing area of "Which Will are they talking about?" was a nonissue, and the characters were different enough that it wouldn't have been a problem even if the writers didn't do the strange writing technique for will grayson.

Speaking of which, the strange writing technique was that the second Will Grayson's chapters did not have capitalization.  I know that that sounds confusing and terrible, but it actually worked really well for his character.  It may seem like a shock at first, but I found that I didn't even notice it after a little while.  Both Will Graysons were amazing characters with similar problems and vastly different ways of dealing with them.

All in all, this book was amazing, lovely, hilarious, and just plain meaningful.  I feel like a more complete person after reading it, and I know you will too.  I read it in a single day, and HIGHLY recommend it.  Please note that it is geared toward a more mature audience than what I normally post about, but it is worth reading anyway!

Please go out and read this book.  You'll love it, and join my on my new mission to make everyone alive read Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Phrase: Phil Wrayson

Shade by Marilyn Peake (Good)

*Note: This book was given to me by the author for the purpose of reviewing.*
The cover:

I must say that I don't like the cover.  All in all, it gives the wrong type of mood for the book.  Also, it doesn't tell me anything about the actual book.   Is this a story about leaves?  If so, I read the wrong thing.  Either way, I have an issue with book covers like this.

Short Summary:

(Note: I'm taking the summary from the back cover of Shade instead of writing it like I normally do.  The jacket did a nice job, so I thought I'd use it.  The summary also matches the tone of the book perfectly.)

Thanks to her offbeat mother, Shade's full name is Galactic Shade Griffin.  Having a name like that while being the new girl in school is pretty much catnip for bullies.  The summer before Shade's junior year of high school, her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend and moves them once again to a new town.  This time, they movie into a dilapidated old house where Shade has an entire attic bedroom to herself- at least until she discovers it's haunted by the ghost of a teenaged boy named Brandon Yates.  When Shade's best friend goes missing, she turns to Brandon for help.  Working as a  detective in the case of her missing friend, Shade wanders into a situation much more dangerous than she had ever expected.  It turns out that Brandon's not always on call when she needs him.  Shade must then confront the reality of whether or not she has what it takes to be a hero.

My review:

While Shade at first seems like a ghost story, it is set up more as a mystery book with the characters racing against the clock to find the missing girls.  The characters were all pretty developed and nicely rounded.  The plot was very exciting, adventurous, and interesting.  The ghost element of the story definitely gave a nice twist to the ordinary mystery book.

One of my only issues with the book was that some of the plot points seemed predictable.  I understood what one of the clues meant a long while before the characters did.  Also, I thought that Shade's friends took some of her hard-to-swallow facts very lightly.  As a reader, we know she's telling the truth, but I would imagine her friends would be more skeptical.

All in all, Shade was very different than the usual mystery book.  It had a nice plot and characters.  The only real issue was the large trust of Shade's friends.  It was a nice book that is worth reading if you have extra time.  It is not the first book on my suggestion list, but it was good.

Phrase: Even the goth girl has a normal name!

I am going to try to post much more often of this blog, so please check back!