Book Review: Saving Wishes by GJ Walker-Smith

Title: Saving Wishes

Author and publisher: GJWalker-Smith

Copyright Date: 2013

Genre: Fiction

I received a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

In Pipers Cove, Tasmania the population is a whopping 486 people. My graduating high school class had almost as many folks.  The beach town is home to Charlotte (Charli) Elizabeth Blake, a seventeen year old young woman who has been itching to escape her small gossipy town with her best friend, Nicole Lawson, since she was eight. 

Walker-Smith’s tale, Saving Wishes, plopped Tasmania on my ever-growing list of places to visit. Who can resist a cliffed beach town with good surf and picturesque views? Charli can. She’s had enough, not of the surfing or the scenery, but of everyone in Piper’s Cove knowing her business and judging her for it. She and Nicole have saved for their trip for years - Charli selling postcards created from her photography and Nicole working at Charli’s brother’s cafe.  The departure date for traveling the globe is high school graduation.

But as John Lennon croons “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Numero uno plan disruption is Adam Décarie. He rolls in to the modicum of a town in a shiny black Audi. He’s the young cousin of Charli’s despised French teacher, Gabrielle Décarie.  The romance that develops between Adam and Charli is intense. They need each other like fish need water.  It helps that both characters strongly trust in fate because otherwise their immediate taking to each other might be hard to believe.  The love development is fast, but the speed allows for several compelling subplots to unfold.

The first fifty pages you’ve read before in one romance novel or another. They travel the well-worn path of boy meets girl and falls in love. Yet as the story advances, Walker-Smith trail blazes with three twists. The twists wind off of Charli learning secrets about her family’s past, secrets that make her rethink always leaving her life up to chance.  Charli makes choices that require rare strength and conviction.  She’s a character worth admiring, though at times her self-effacement is nerve grinding.  

“[Love] makes us do all sorts of unreasonable things.” says Gabrielle, Charli’s French teacher.  Damn, if that’s not the truth. For love, I have cleaned up cat vomit, wiped diarrhea off my son’s legs, and put a few dreams on pause. Walker-Smith twines the theme, love makes us unselfish, throughout the story as Gabrielle, Alex, Adam, and Charli confront their past and current selves. Driving the theme further, Walker-Smith tosses in the antithesis as well. Not loving makes us unselfish. The antithesis plays out in one of the tale’s twists.

One blemish, in the otherwise enjoyable novel, is the mean-girl bullies in the book.  Jasmine and the Beautifuls were cliché. The give and go between them and Charli is a bit ridiculous.  Their inclusion in the story serves only to highlight Charli’s mischievousness and insecurities and to advertise that living in a small town is akin to an imprisonment in hades.

The book is well-written, but could have been proofed a bit more. A few grammar and spelling mistakes sprinkle the text, yet not enough to disrupt the page-turning.

The page-turning was rapid for me. I escaped into Saving Wishes, putting domestic bliss on hold.   For a day and a half, all meals served to my family were in bowls with milk. The copy I read had an excerpt from Second Hearts, the second installment in the Wishes series. I downloaded the complete book last night comforted by the thought that cereal’s fortified, right? 

Currently reading Fateful Eyes by Panos Nomikos - Win a Trip for 2 People!

Fateful Eyes is a story about a life spent searching for love, accomplishments, and true fulfillment, within the world upheavals that, unfortunately, characterize the beginning of the new millennium. In his own life, Panos Nomikos (the author) has traveled in many continents, has been acquainted with many different people from different cultures, and he has also humbly attempted to comprehend the dizzying pace of events that are unfolding in such a frenetic tempo around us.

Panos aspires to share those experiences by narrating the story of “Peter”, a cosmopolitan who is traveling around the world at several exotic places, trying to solve a great puzzle, trying to locate a mysterious lady who came from his distant, youthful, and lustful past, and upset his life and his relationship with his affectionate lover. All the while, she is trying to fend-off by the threat posed by that mysterious rival in his heart.

Yet, the puzzle itself is not the essence of this novel. The puzzle is only a “pretext” to justify the exposure of Peter’s tortuous and twisted path in life, as well as to narrate the lives of everyone around him, as they all become unwittingly entangled into the rolling thunder of the world’s current upheavals, terrorism, wars, and economic crises. Like a modern Odyssey, the real essence of this novel is Peter’s long and tormenting journey towards his destination, towards the completion of his mission. Notwithstanding the mystery, the problems, and the upheavals, this story also celebrates love, affection, optimism, and the enthralling beauty of marvelous life.

Solve the puzzle and win a journey…

Read “Fateful Eyes”, try to guess the solution of the puzzle (that will be finally revealed in the forthcoming 2^nd volume) and win a trip for two persons, for one week, all expenses paid, to the beautiful country that is the final destination of the protagonist in this story, and also win books and other prizes. Contribute your ideas at http://panosnomikos.wordpress.com/about or by email to pnomikos@ath.forthnet.gr

Author Bio

I am Panos Nomikos and I was born in 1961 in Athens, Greece, this beautiful country that has become lately the epicenter of the raging global financial crisis. During my carefree, youthful years, I roamed the idyllic islands of my home country having fun on the golden beaches under the sun with my friends and lovers. Later on, I studied for a Ph.D. in the UK and I started a career in Information Technology in the maritime sector, roaming again across the world on intercontinental business trips in faraway places in Asia, Europe and America. In the course of my career I have authored numerous essays and articles in professional publications.

I maintain a blog at http://panosnomikos.wordpress.com to write about my favorite themes related to my beautiful home country, Greece, its position within the world-wide socioeconomic transformations, and its current upheaval in the midst of the worst financial crisis that we are experiencing here. I am especially writing to talk about ordinary Greeks, those living within the country, but also those who live and distinguish themselves around the world, trying to understand their vivid pulse and their feelings of belonging to the world-wide Greek diaspora.

Fateful Eyes can be found on Amazon www.amazon.com/author/panosnomikos in paperback or e-book formats. You can also follow Panos Nomikos here:
Blog: http://panosnomikos.wordpress.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/panosnomikos
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/panosnomikos
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/panosnomikos

Book Review: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare once again wisps us away to a Victorian London populated with werewolves, vampires, Shadowhunters, warlocks, and demons in Clockwork Prince, the sequel to Clockwork Angel. The pace is fleet-footed with conflict, discovery, and angst-laden romance.

The tale opens with Charlotte Branwell answering to the Clave's investigation into the bungled Magister affair. The Clave blames Charlotte for the havoc that the Magister inflicted on the Shadowhunter and Underworld societies (the events depicted in Clockwork Angel). To avoid getting the boot from her post as the Head of the London Institute, she must locate the Magister in two weeks. With the main conflict set, Clare wends us through over four hundred pages of mini-conflicts that end with a deeper love for the character's she's created and a love triangle that's predictable, but tolerable.

Will, with the help of the wittily sagacious warlock Magnus Bane, learns that demons can be pranksters. Bane calls from the another world the demon who Will believed had cursed him to a loveless life. Will's biting japes and cruel comments toward everyone who tries to be close to him are explained by the curse, or lack of curse in Will's case. Too late for Will though. While he was off being emo and an ass to all who cared for him, Jem, his best friend, was capturing Tessa's affection.

Tessa and Jem weave their hearts together at first in their concern for Will and his erratic behavior and then in their concern for each other. They share late-nights together as Jem divulges the history of his illness and Will's part in helping to keep him alive. The intimate evenings lead to intimate kissing, affection and adoration, and eventually engagement. The Jem-Tessa relationship is oblivious to the hubristic Will. Once Will understands that loving others will not result in his loved one's death, he declares himself to Tessa who in turn declares that she is engaged to Jem.

Ahh, the love triangle. A concept so played. Honestly, how many times in your life have you been at your wit's end to choose between the deep, thoughtful guy or the spontaneous, life of the party guy? I'm sure there are femmes fatales out there that this happens to, but can't possibly be as often as the heroines of romance tales, starting near the time of Lady Guinevere and persisting like a politician near election time into the present day. Nevertheless, the Jem-Tessa-Will triangle is the first I've encountered where each character has a deep regard for the other. I'll have to wait for Clockwork Princess to hit the shelves before seeing how the triangle collapses.

Another tidbit to learn in Clockwork Princess is Tessa's history. Her beginnings are still an enigma. She does find out that her mother was a Shadowhunter, but she has no idea where her powers come from or why she has them.

Smaller plot items include the eccentric inventor Henry emerging from his intellectual mist to support his wife in her time of extreme stress. The couple learns that they're expecting a baby. Clare also reveals that Jessamine, the reluctant immature Shadowhunter, married Nathaniel, Tessa's evil brother. And, a gap-filler for the Mortal Instrument series, Magnus and Camille were once lovers.

Clare has a gift for educating the young adult audience on the severe detriment of isolation on one's happiness and using story to demonstrate the important role of friendship, family, and community in a person's happiness. Series worth investing in!

Book Review: Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

Hallowed, the sequel to Cynthia Hand's Unearthly, flutters instead of soars. Where Unearthly had been a pleasant distraction from mundanity, reading Hallowed was a chore that had to be scratched off the list before I could go outside and play. Hallowed's writing is arthritic and the plot is immature.

Hand presents us the good and the evil contingents in the angel community; the good angel-kids versus the bad Black Wing angel named Samjeeza. And, that's the extent of the plot. There's a bad guy and he's scaring good kids. His threat is tenuous. Hand hardly births any details that would make the reader fear Samjeeza. She mentions briefly that the Black Wings aim to eradicate part angels from the Earth, but the reason is as ethereal as the angels themselves. The angel-kids shutter, cry, and quake in the presence of Samjeeza, but the reader is gifted scant understanding as to why. Even at the height of conflict (the size of an ant hill), when Clara confronts Samjeeza, Samjeeza appears less like the beefy bully at high school and more like the wheezing math genius who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet.

Then comes the love triangle – Christian, Tucker, Clara. Silky thin. Tucker and Clara who shared a summer of laughs and intimacy, who seemed destined for each other, are split by the mere fact that Clara will potentially live longer than Tucker. Ergo, she must be meant for Christian after all. That's it. They're both angel-kids; he's hot, she's pretty, voila soul mates. Even teenagers need more to keep them together than being modelesque and the same race. If you were worried about Tucker's feelings being crushed by his human lifespan, stop moping. Hand sets him up with Allison, a cameo character, at the end of the story.

I expected more from the sequel, instead what I received was a homework assignment to Hand from her publisher to carry the story further that received a C- in my grade book.

Book Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Matched by Ally Condie is a story with an aftertaste. For weeks after reading the story I contemplated the world that Condie had dreamed up and how life would be if her fiction was our reality. Condie's dystopian novel drags readers through a society that enforces personal restraint by removing the burdens of choice. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely mentions in a lecture on restraint that rules - religious, civic, personal – coral people into good behaviors (eating right, driving safely, etc.). Condie's fictional Society demonstrates the extreme of rules or restraints through the life of seventeen year old Cassia and mirrors what Ariely discloses - that restraints and their concomitant good behaviors often come at the sacrifice of personal freedom. The eternal questions are how much personal freedom should a person give up to live in a civilized society and who determines the definition of civilized?

Condie addresses these eternal questions by creating a society that statistically determines its citizens' nutrition, careers, mates, family structure, and lifespan. The society that Cassia lives in is aptly named the Society. The Society's intentions are ones universally embraced – healthy citizens, no crime, happiness. They have statistics that support their invasive intervention in their citizens' lives. Cancer has almost been eradicated and each citizen contributes to the communal structure. Cassia's world is partially enviable. How wonderful would it be if no one you knew suffered with cancer, if every person worked to the best of their ability, and most importantly, if a hot meal was prepared for you everyday, three times per day?! Just think, no cooking, in my house that means no smoke alarms blaring!

The utopia of never having to make a meal again tarnishes paragraph by paragraph with each squeeze on Cassia's freedom. Meals are delivered, yet Society has purposely organized the farm-to-table process to not allow any one person to be self-sustaining. Only select people know how to plant, others to harvest, and others to prepare food; the full process is an enigma to the Society's citizens. Every activity has been likewise dismembered; creating an efficient but dependent community. Further, all communications are minutely monitored. No one has paper for writing or creating. All writing is done via a keyboard and a computer monitor that is in the middle of the living space provided to each family. Thoughts are the only thing allowed to be private and even those have been influenced by evangelizing respect of the Society. Only 100 paintings, poems, and songs remain from the Society's salvaged apocalyptic past; a dearth of creative expression.

Cassia's belief in the Society begins to erode with the death of her grandfather; another controlled event. When its citizens turn 80 years old, they are put to rest for all eternity. Statistically after 80, all sorts of dreadful aging begins in earnest. Aging that the Society deems unnecessary. On his deathbed, Cassia's grandfather encourages her to think, to question; a mental exercise that the Society has gone to great lengths to prevent its citizens from doing. In a compact mirror case that he bestows to Cassia, he shows her a hidden compartment that contains two non-sanctioned poems, one of which is Dylan Thomas's “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” He, and his mother before him, rescued the poems from destruction at a risk to their family's security and well-being. The import of her grandfather's risk and words prod Cassia to re-examine her assumptions.

Questioning authority directs Cassia toward doubting the Society's benevolence and its determined mate for her, her childhood best friend Xander. A rare computer glitch shows an alternative match for Cassia, Ky. The Society's attempt to suppress the accident vandalizes Cassia's naïve image of the Society. Her friendship and eventual romantic involvement with Ky exposes her to the odious, secretive actions that the Society is willing to take to ensure conformity. Cassia's final attachment to the Society's rules and propaganda are wrenched free when they ship Ky off to fight a pernicious war.

Matched is thought provoking, despite the, at times, stiff and droning writing. Other reviews reference Lowry's The Givers as a better read for accessing a similar dystopian story. Cassia and Ky's confrontation with Society's machinations continue on in Crossed, Match's sequel.

Book Review: Unearthly by Cythia Hand

Unearthly by Cythia Hand reveals the journey of a part-angel girl named Clara and her God-sent mission. Clara inherited her angelicness from her mother, her father is merely human. Each angelical, anyone with a touch of angel blood, has a mission to fulfill in their lifetime. Clara's mission is disclosed to her piecemeal in visions. The visions lead Clara, her mother, and her brother to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where Clara finds love, friendship, and ambrosial and earthly challenges.

Hand presents a love-triangle between Christian, Tucker, and Clara. Love-triangle's seem to be a staple of young adult fiction. I'm not sure if this a product of teens discovering the many facets present in one person or a fantasy that fictional characters must achieve. Rarely in reality have I known as many love-triangles as are found in fiction. Regardless, Hand develops the affections between Christian and Clara and Tucker and Clara well.

In Unearthly, Clara meets other teen-angels who are also struggling with their half-angel, half-human identities and with their divine destinies. The message is that no matter how bizarre and unique one's situation may seem, there's always another soul anguishing, enjoying, or otherwise along with you. Hand's characters demonstrate the solace of being with others like oneself and the strength that can emerge from the support of similarly-fated people.

Clara is not the perfect angel. She has a hard time learning to fly and falls in love with a boy her family suspects to be wrong for her. Clara's believable and yet, she's not the typical teenage female character – EMO, clumsy, awkward. Instead, she's confident and has a decent relationship with her mom. Kudos to Hand for realizing that not all teens are angst ridden.

Unearthly includes the “OMG, I'm magical” feature of young adult fantasy plots, but it's handled as one would expect it to be handled in the real world between a loving parent and their magical child, not as so often seen as an out-of-left-field surprise. In Unearthly, Clara's mom sits her down and tells her about her heritage as part-angel, much like the birds and the bees talk parents typically have with their adolescent children. Clara had already felt that something about her was different from other kids. Her mom's explanation clarified Clara's feelings in a supportive nurturing manner.

The failing in Unearthly is the weak development of the Black Angels. Hand reveals to us that the Black Angels are trying to kill off the part-angels. Flushing out the Black Angel conspiracy, could help readers feel more attachment to Clara and her lot and provide more anticipation in the story. Hand gives very little information on the Black Angels and the one prominent scene with the Black Angel is only window-dressing.