Bounty

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by J.D. Cunegan 

Reviewed by S.A.

Here comes my favorite day of the month: Self Published Saturday! A day to celebrate some great self published novels that deserve some serious attention. Topping my list this month is the fantastic debut novel by author J.D. Cunegan – Bounty, simultaneously a murder mystery and a superhero novel, akin to the TV show Castle in sheer fun-factor.

Summary

Jill Andersen is one of Baltimore’s best and brightest detectives, but she harbors a dark secret — a secret that
threatens to come out when the body of Dr. Trent Roberts is pulled out of the Chesapeake Bay. Dr. Roberts’ connection to Jill reveals a past that involves a tour in Iraq, a secretive cybernetic experiment, and a conspiracy that involves a native son. 

Can Jill solve the case while still keeping her secret? Will her partners at the Seventh Precinct find out what she’s so desperate to hide? What was Dr. Roberts looking into that led to his murder? And perhaps the biggest question of all… 

Who is Bounty?

If I had to write a one word review of Bounty, I would say this: Fun. This novel was pure fun, start to finish. You never really know what to expect when picking up a self published novel, but this one really grabbed me and would not put me down. I binge read this novel in about two hours, and loved every minute of it.

Jill is one of those characters you can’t help to love. Stubborn and headstrong, she is made up of 100% determination… and maybe some titanium, and a few other upgrades. Part of a secret semi-gorverment project which aimed into perfecting the soldier, Jill is not your average woman. Now a cop in Baltimore, she hides her secret well, while using her upgrades to close cases, and do a little vigilante work of her own.

She was the main reason I loved this novel so much. First of all, I need to mention – Asexual representation! Yes please! But other than that, her determination and smarts really make her a character to cheer for. You want her to succeed. In a way, she reminds me of Beckett in Castle – I actually pictured her as Jill for most of the novel.

Just because she’s quasi-indestructible doesn’t mean she can do everything herself, and she’s not afraid to ask for help from some great supporting characters. Her cop friends at the precinct are brilliantly written characters, bordering on the cliché, while still managing to hold their own and become unforgettable in their own right.

The fun also came from the well written action scenes, and the superb pacing of this novel. Whenever things turned slightly slow, the author would send you back in time to visit history spanning a lifetime. Scenes from a childhood, eye opening chapters revealing what a dead man had once seen and lived, heart-wrenching passages that made you connect with Jill like never before. Back in the present, you have action packed sequences in dark offices or on rooftops. Never a dull moment. And the twist – I should stop before I spoil anything.

I felt like the villains were not fleshed out a whole lot, but that’s possibly because there’s more to come in the sequel (Blood Ties, January 2016). It may be in need of a bit of editing polish, but overall I didn’t feel like it distracted from the reading experience. I was also surprised that a huge, underlying plot was being laid down, but didn’t seem to get fleshed out – again, I bet the sequel will take care of that.

Bounty is available on Amazon kindle and paperback. If you want a fun, fast read, you’re going to love this novel. Also available, a prequel novel called Boundless – equally as fun.

H2O

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by Virginia Bergin

Review by KM

I remember seeing H2O on an endcap at Barnes and Noble last Fall. The cover is astounding and it stuck out among all of YA Romances it was surrounded by. I didn’t get a chance to grab it then; I had hardly a thought about it within the past year. Two days ago, I saw the sequel sitting on the new shelf, pretty as a book about the apocalypse could be. Without delay, I grabbed H2O, bought a frappuccino, and spent the next three hours chowing on the book. I only wish I’d had enough time to do the same with the sequel.

Summary

.27 is a number Ruby hates.

It’s a number that marks the percentage of the population that has survived. It’s a number that means she’s one of the “lucky” few still standing. And it’s a number that says her father is probably dead.

Against all odds, Ruby has survived the catastrophic onset of the killer rain. Two weeks after the radio started broadcasting the warning, “It’s in the rain. It’s fatal and there’s no cure,” the drinkable water is running out. Ruby’s left with two options: persevere on her own, or embark on a treacherous journey across the country to find her father-if he’s even still alive. **

Musings

I absolutely love this plot. There are a million and one dystopian teen novels out there, but this is the first one I’ve encountered that really left me thinking. I can make plans on how I’d survive The Hunger Games or the Divergent series, but I really have no idea how I’d survive without water. My husband and I spent the night discussing how we know how to purify water with Iodine and how to make 2 liter water systems to clean salt water, but we have no idea how to compete against a bacterium that can’t be boiled out of water.

In the end, I said I’d have drank some contaminated water within the first few weeks; I am so not suited for the apocalypse.

Ruby has a lot of faults. As a character, I didn’t like her, but I felt sympathetic for her at the same time. I kept thinking to myself, “Wow, I wouldn’t be friends with this chick if I was fifteen,” but then I’d stop and think, “Well, I probably wouldn’t want to be friends with my fifteen year old self now that I’m twenty two.” I think she has a strong personality, with all the self-absorption and teenage angst that belongs to a fifteen year old. Her voice is solid and believable. I’m hoping she remains the narrator of the second book.

H2O is a great start to what I hope remains to be a great series. And OH MY GOSH, apparently the sequel, The Storm, isn’t actually out until October 6th. But I know for sure that it was out at my local Barnes and Noble last night, so hopefully I can head up there tomorrow and it’s still there. I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait otherwise.

**Thanks for the summary, Amazon.

I Crawl Through It

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by A.S. King

Reviewed by S.A.

As fall comes around again, a lot of us make our way back to school. It’s time for a high school YA, but a novel unlike any other. It’s almost indescribable, so I’ll try to do my best with this review, but I doubt I’ll capture it perfectly. It’s another novel that I find hard to place in any category: a surrealist YA for anybody and everybody to enjoy.

Summary

Four talented teenagers are traumatized-coping with grief, surviving trauma, facing the anxiety of standardized tests and the neglect of self-absorbed adults—and they’ll do anything to escape the pressure. They’ll even build an invisible helicopter, to fly far away to a place where everyone will understand them… until they learn the only way to escape reality is to fly right into it.

Reading this book was like staring too long at a Dali painting: it almost began to make sense, but the significance of it all just flew over your head. I was caught between what was real, what wasn’t, and if it really mattered if it as real or not. I crawl through it is a book that teeters between reality and nonsense, but still managed to be captivating and engrossing.

Stanzi is a young woman who never goes without her lab coat. Her best friend, whose parents have a ‘dungeon’ in the basement, has swallowed herself whole, . Her crush, Gustav, is building a helicopter in his garage, which she can only see on Tuesdays: any other day, and it’s invisible. She’s friends with a girl whose hair grows every time she lies, and hangs well below her knees. Between her house and Gustav lives the dangerous bush man, who, for a kiss, will give you a beautiful letter to decorate your life. He’ll also give you the answers if you know how to ask. Their school keeps getting bomb threats, and every day there’s a drill. And that is their life.

Only there’s a whole lot more to it. This book had so much depth, it took me a while to ‘get’ it. These teenagers have complicated, complex lives, which leads to their – ahem – ‘unusual’ traits. As a reader, you wonder at every page if these are real traits, or something they have imagined up, so as to better understand their world. But does reality even matter, when all this is fiction anyways?

These characters have real depth, they are so much more than what they are on the surface. The author really manages to convey the difficulty Stanzi has relating with others, as she feels somewhat distant, even to us, who are allowed to see her perspective. The growing relationship between Gustav and her, which seems natural, unexaggerated. While I was very uncomfortable with the dangerous bush man at first, I’m very glad to have seen him develop as a person alongside our protagonists. It’s impressive how immersed in these young peoples’ lives you become, if you give this book a chance.

When you reach the ending, you really wonder what truly happened over the course of the novel. What did others see? Again, what is real, and what is not? I had many questions. I admit, my first reaction when I closed the book was What on earth was that? Somehow, however, the characters stuck to me. Their story meant something. As you start to understand the trauma they’re dealing with, you find yourself relating in ways you might not expect.

This is a fantastic book for people keep asking questions. It may not have the answers, but it has a string of them: ABDECBACDBABA… might not be what you’re expecting, but you’ll definitely enjoy your reading experience.

Fair warning: it is surreal. And weird. And there are many feelings to be had. I Crawl Through It comes out today, September 22nd. Enjoy!

Lair of Dreams

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by Libba Bray

Review by KM

A few weeks ago, I posted my The Diviners review. It was a repost from years ago when I originally got the book. My friends Laura and Kelly had gone to Book Expo America that year and picked me up a copy; I couldn’t be more grateful. The historical setting of the series mixes well with the supernatural elements. In the years since the first book came out, I have still only found a few historical novels that I truly love, but Libba makes it easy for me to add Lair of Dreams to the list.

Summary

After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, and earned the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners.

Piano-playing Henry Dubois and Chinatown resident Ling Chan are two Diviners struggling to keep their powers a secret–for they can walk in dreams. And while Evie is living the high life, victims of a mysterious sleeping sickness are turning up across New York City.

As Henry searches for a lost love and Ling strives to succeed in a world that shuns her, a malevolent force infects their dreams. And at the edges of it all lurks a man in a stovepipe hat who has plans that extend farther than anyone can guess….As the sickness spreads, can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld to save the city?

Musings

I loved Evie in The Diviners and while she has a spot in my heart, it was certainly the other characters that kept me in love with Lair of Dreams. Evie takes a backseat role in this book (which is good because I really couldn’t have tolerated her being the main right now) and lets Ling take the spotlight. Ling is wonderful, in my opinion. I want more of her and I want more of her now.

Okay, now just a complaint that doesn’t have to do with the writing: The cover of The Diviners was something I had never seen before. It was an artistic style that looked stunning and original compared to everything else on the YA shelf. Lair of Dreams lost that. I don’t think this cover expresses the book at all and actually did a double-take when it came into the library. I’m so sad they couldn’t stick with the original art theme.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t as enraptured by Lair of Dreams as I was by The Diviners. While the first book was fast paced, this one went much slower. It was just as large, but I  found myself putting it down often, which was something I never could have done with The Diviners. It still had the same lovely 1920’s slang, the same wonderfully horrific monsters, and the characters I loved. It was just missing the action. I’ll definitely be preordering both the third and fourth novels in this series, but I’m hoping it didn’t peak with the first book.

The Dead House

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by Dawn Kurtagich

Reviewed by SA

Halloween may be over a month away, but one of the most thrilling, blood chilling, though provoking thrillers comes out today, September 15th. It’s one of the most maddening books I have ever read: part psychological thriller, part horror story, part ‘found footage’ if you will, The Dead House will have you checking behind you in the mirror, and leaving notes to yourself on purple post its. It’s terrifying… and electrifying.

Summary

Twenty-five years ago, Elmbridge High burned down. Three people were killed and one pupil, Carly Johnson, disappeared. Now a diary has been found in the ruins of the school. The diary belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, Carly’s identical twin sister. But Carly didn’t have a twin . . .
Re-opened police records, psychiatric reports, transcripts of video footage and fragments of diary reveal a web of deceit and intrigue, violence and murder, raising a whole lot more questions than it answers.
Who was Kaitlyn and why did she only appear at night? Did she really exist or was she a figment of a disturbed mind? What were the illicit rituals taking place at the school? And just what did happen at Elmbridge in the events leading up to ‘the Johnson Incident’?

Carly and Kaitlyn are the same person. Only, they’re not. They may share the same body, but their minds are their own: Carly runs things the day, Kaitlyn the night. They were born like this, two souls sharing a body, and they are used to it. They love each other; they are sisters, after all. They write notes to each other to let them know about their day, to comfort and love the other. Of course, no one can know any of this: they wouldn’t believe them.

And nobody does: after their parents’ death, in an accident they cannot recall, they are places in a mental hospital, where Kaitlyn is repeatedly told she is Carly’s ‘Alter’, that she isn’t real, and that letting go will let her sister heal. Only Kaitlyn is having some problems of her own: hearing voices, seeing things, losing touch…

All this may sound like major spoilers, but it is all established int he first few pages of the book. It’s one of the things that make this novel so compelling: so many stories tucked into one. You have the two sisters in one body; but you also have the question of psychosis, weather any of that is true; and on top of that, the format of the novel, which reminds you there might be more to all this than any one person is seeing.

The novel itself is supposedly the compilation of diary entries, audio and video transcripts, interviews and sessions, all putting in order the events leading up to the looming ‘incident’: a fire that burns down the Elmbridge school, taking the lives of three people and injuring many others. Kaitlyn being the main suspect, it is her life is being pieced together: but how much of it are her real fears, and how much is just the ravings of a lunatic?

That’s what kept me reading the novel with such intensity: the what if. There was a sense, as you read this novel, that really nothing is as it seems. Is our narrator reliable or not? I’d like to say yes, but if I am wrong, then the repercussions on the story are endless. As the other characters join into Kaitlyn’s life, after certain events force her secret to be known to few, the plot becomes more intriguing as the suspect pull grows. The reader is constantly left wondering what is real, what is fake, who can be trusted, and who is not as they seem.

The format that makes the story so varied was a bit of a pain to read, at least in the edition I had. It took a little while to get used to, and I didn’t think it worked at first, especially the video recaps. (I mean, video in written form?). I either got used to it, or it really started working, because it stopped bothering me so much.

While Kaitlyn seemed so read as a character, written with such depth and dimension, that she brought the horror to life, some of the other characters felt a little flat. Anybody outside of Kaitlyn’s head, practically, except maybe Naida. Possibly because everything is either seen a) through Kaitlyn’s eyes, and she doesn’t always like people or b) by transcribing footage, which is impersonal or emotionless. I guess I can’t really blame the book for that!

But this is by far the spookiest book I’ve read in YA, by far. So many questions. Not enough answers! The ending had me clutching my e-reader in anticipation. I had to keep resetting my machine to make sure there weren’t any more pages left.

The Dead House comes out today in the USA. If you want something to keep you up at night, I definitely recommend it.

The Demon’s Lexicon

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by Sarah Rees Brennan

Review by KM

I spent this week rereading some of my favorite books. It’s not a luxury I typically get. Just trying to stay on top of the new releases and generate ideas for YA programming at the library is tough, so this week was just wonderful. 

I noticed a horrifying gap in my YA section that needs to be rectified immediately. We’re missing Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Lexicon series. How wrong is that? I feel like I’m committing a heinous act. These three books need to be available at my library (for those in town who want to get ’em out this week or they don’t have them at your local library? Ask about interlibrary loans. They’re fantastic and should be used often.)

Alright, I’m going to save my gushing for the musings section. Be prepared.

Summary 

Sixteen-year-old Nick and his brother, Alan, are always ready to run. Their father is dead, and their mother is crazy—she screams if Nick gets near her. She’s no help in protecting any of them from the deadly magicians who use demons to work their magic. The magicians want a charm that Nick’s mother stole—and they want it badly enough to kill. Alan is Nick’s partner in demon slaying and the only person he trusts in the world. So things get very scary and very complicated when Nick begins to suspect that everything Alan has told him about their father, their mother, their past, and what they are doing is a complete lie.

Musings

My warning didn’t put you off. I’m glad.

*takes a deep breath and gets ready to explode her love all over the place*

This book is everything I love about Urban Fantasy. The lore is magnificent and the characters are even better. There is a constant struggle on Twitter between my friends and I on whether we’re Nick-girls or Alan-girls. (I am, by far, a Nick girl. Which is amusing because I think my boyfriend is probably more like Alan.)

But the best part isn’t the demons or the magicians or the curvy pink-haired girls. The best part is the dialogue. SRB characters just have this snarkiness that makes me want to tattoo the quotes to my body and wish I was cool enough to use them in real life. Especially Nick’s. In fact, if I could be a character, it would be Nick. Can I just be Nick? Please, Sarah?

Now, I hesitate to bring this up because I know how irritated I get when people insinuate that this book stole some plot from a certain tv show. What I’m saying here is: The Demon’s Lexicon isn’t a rip off from Supernatural, but I think a LOT of Supernatural fans would love to read this book. They share a lot of awesome elements (the same way that Grey’s Anatomy shares a lot with ER. Same genre, neither being a rip off).

While I work on getting the trilogy into my library, you guys should work on getting it into your hands or onto your eReaders. Don’t miss out; it’s fantastic.

State of Grace

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by Hilary Badger

Reviewed by SA

Oh my Dot this book is good.

Fair warning: this book is very different from what you’ve ever read before, but in the greatest way possible. It’s one of those books that tries to defy definition, definitely already defying labeling (is it utopian? Dystopian? Science Fiction? WHAT IS IT) and still making my mind spin. Think Margret Atwood meets Brave New World, with some Drugs thrown in. It is strange, it is beautiful, and it is amazing.

Summary

Ever since she was created, Wren has lived in an idyllic garden with her friends. Wren’s deity Dot ensures the trees are laden with fruit and the water in the lagoon is crystal clear. Wren and her friends have everything they could possibly need right there, in Dot’s Paradise.
If only Wren could stop the strange, disturbing visions she’s started having. Do these visions make her less worthy of Dot’s love? And what does Blaze, the most beautiful and mysterious of Dot’s creations, know about what’s going on in Wren’s head?
Wren is desperate to feel Dot’s love, just like everyone else. But that’s harder than ever when a creation she’s never met before arrives in the garden. He claims to be from outside and brings with him words and ideas that make Wren’s brain hurt.

First of all: I got this summary from Goodreads, as I always do, but I cut it short. Do not read the full Goodreads summary! It spoils a major plot twist that is in the last one hundred or even fifty pages, so to avoid the spoilers, avoid the full summary. It’s under the cut so you should all be ok. This has been a public service announcement.

The first chapter had me rolling on the floor laughing, sending IMs to my boyfriend about how “ridiculous my new book is”. It seems as though you’re thrown into a nudist colony, or a hippie retreat, with ideas of free love and bathing nude with infantile names for genitalia. I was ready to put it down right there – what possible drama can you have in a nudist colony? (Note to self – write nudist colony rom com). But then, things started to change. My IMs stopped, and I became fully engrossed in the novel.

What changed? Wren did. Our main character, a lovely young lady who loves her creator, Dot, and her friends, and her idyllic life, begins to have doubts. She slowly starts to see through it all, and she begins to see the world differently. As she does, our opinion of her world changes too, and we see the utopia  less and less as the perfect, tiny world it claims to be. It’s slow and gradual, not an immediate transition, which really allows the reader to follow Wren down the rabbit hole, so to speak.

If you take the religious plot, the one that takes place outside of Wren’s head, it seems like a strange concept for a YA indeed: a loving deity named Dot dropped her creations off, brand new and fresh and fully grown, inside a small beautiful universe, along with the books that guide their belief, and a new language that removes all negativity (prelight for dark, precalm for scared). Every day, her creations will sing to her in the gazebo, pick the newfruit (the only one they shouldn’t eat, I see Eden in here somewhere) and give it as an offering to their loving goddess, then they ride horseback, swim in the lagoon, hook up freely. It’s now almost one year later, and the excitement grows for “Completion Night”, the night where Dot will chose her favorite creations. But as this time draws near, tensions rise: Gil claims to be Dot’s mouthpiece, and believes their world is infected with unholy things, and leads a witch hunt to purify it all before the big night.

But Wren is changing: she begins with a certain belief in Dot, but slowly, this belief is getting cracked and crumbling. When Dennis, an outsider, accidentally gets stuck inside their perfect world, she is sure he is a test from Dot… but Blaze, the only other person who seems to be ‘waking up’ around her, has other theories. Slowly the paradise fades: the songs become more annoying, the hooking up more ridiculous. I was amazed at how the author really started to pull us away from the perfection she created: It was skillful writing, and probably why I liked this book so much.

It’s slowly paces, but in the best way possible. It allows the intrigue to develop, and allows the ready to grow anxious over what’s going to happen next. What is this world? If it’s not Eden, then what is it? Why are they really there? And why is it that Wren and Blaze don’t see it like anybody else?

The ending will leave you breathless. The entire last hundred pages or so cut a sharp contract with the rest of the book, speeding up, answering questions, even breaking your heart. What an amazing book, it’s something completely new that no one is soon to forget.

State of Grace comes out today, September 1st. It would be presmart not to read it.

Sounds of War

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by Cindy Chen

Reviewed by SA

I love doing Self Published Saturday! I really do! I get the opportunity to read, and share, books I would not have even known about if it wasn’t for the amazing self published community. It’s when reading books like Sounds of War that you really wish the book was a physical copy rather than an epub, so you can shove it into all of your friends hands. I really did not expect this book to be as beautiful as it was, and everyone needs a chance to read it.

Summary

People were dying. Bodies were lying along the streets. Air raid sirens were about to go off at any moment. Nobody was shown any mercy.

For Anna, life had always been about music. An aspiring pianist and composer, she studied at the renowned Leningrad Conservatoire under some of the greatest musicians to ever walk the face of the Earth. Her studies came to a halt, however, when Nazi troops surrounded Leningrad in September, 1941, intending to shell and starve the city into submission. She watched as her once-beautiful city transformed in front of her eyes: people became living skeletons, their only food being a mere 125 grams of ration bread a day; buildings were reduced to rubble, pieces of bricks and broken glass strewn along the streets; cats, dogs, rats, and horses disappeared as people chose to eat them instead. One by one, the citizens of Leningrad were losing hope, and Anna was desperately trying to find a reason to hold on and a way to continue…

What a fantastically beautiful book.

I’m going to say it right now: I’m not into music. GASP. I listen to it, any kind, but it’s usually just something to keep my mind focused on a project or two. Never did I think I would actually GET it. Somehow, through words, by creating sound out of ink and letters, this novel made me suddenly love music. It made me see how powerful a few notes and cords could be. I was transported to a world of sound and song through a novel about war. The trips to the Conservatoire, the piano playing between friends and family, Anna’s dedication to writing music: these moments truly came alive for me, and managed to resonate like real music would.

All this cuts a sharp contrast with the description of wartime Lenningrad. The beauty of the music clashes with the death and despair on the streets of this city, and as a reader, you truly feel the pain and anguish of life there. It’s terrifying: while the music really is beautiful and warm, the description of life in 1941 makes you feel cold inside.

Chen really has a way with words: from creating music out of thin air, to creating sorrow on the next page, you wonder if you’re even reading a book at all anymore. I devoured this book in a one hour bus ride, and was so enthralled I almost missed my stop. Even when I got off the bus, I had five pages left to read, so I sat down at the stop and finished it. I really was transported to wartime Russia. This book is a real gem. Its subject matter is hard, and at every page you turn and think: “Wow, how can their situation get any worse?” – spoiler alert, somehow it does. The author never seems to exaggerate, creating an environment which felt wholly realistic to me.

Anna herself is a great character: she’s realistic, relatable, and determined. You feel her emotions through the pages, you yearn to reach out a hand and pull her out. But when she plays music, you really feel as if you’re seeing the real Anna. She dwindles when she’s away from an instrument for too long.

The relationship that develops between the protagonist and her best friend is just as realistic as the rest. An atmosphere of “Will they, won’t they” sometimes hung in the air, (or in the pages I should say), and I was so pleased it didn’t go the way or the popular historical fiction (I’m trying so hard not to spoil anything). It’s a friendship I envy, one with mutual respect, a shared passion for music, and with honest conversation.

But yes, this book is painful. It’s set during WWII, after all. if there wasn’t the beauty of music to soften it, I would have lost it – which I think is the point! There is death, loss. Pain. Horror. Moments you wish you could put the book down, if it wasn’t so darn addicting. The ending, however, is perfect, and makes all the pain worth the read.

Make sure you pick up this amazing book!

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss

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by Max Wirestone
Review by KM

I walked into yesterday with a huge grin on my face. There was no containing my excitement. “Guild Wars 2: Game of Thorns has a release date,” I said to my coworker with glee, “October 23. It’s right before my birthday. I’m pumped!”

None of my coworkers are geeks, but they all know I am. I’ve never been mocked for it and I wave my geek flag proudly. It’s really no surprise that I leaped on a book like The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss. With a d20 on the cover and a summary that referenced some of my favorite videos and shows, I was elated to get approved for the eARC. I couldn’t wait to bust in and poor SA had to listen to be ramble on about how much I loved the beginning.

 Summary

For fans of The Guild, New Girl, Scott Pilgrim, Big Bang Theory, Veronica Mars, or anyone who has ever geeked out about something.

The odds of Dahlia successfully navigating adulthood are 3,720 to 1. But never tell her the odds.

Meet Dahlia Moss, the reigning queen of unfortunate decision-making in the St. Louis area. Unemployed broke, and on her last bowl of ramen, she’s not living her best life. But that’s all about to change.

Before Dahlia can make her life any messier on her own she’s offered a job. A job that she’s woefully under-qualified for. A job that will lead her to a murder, an MMORPG, and possibly a fella (or two?).

Turns out unfortunate decisions abound, and she’s just the girl to deal with them.

Musings

I had to take a full day off to review this book. I spent the last day reviewing my own expectations, analyzing what exactly I liked and what exactly I didn’t. I polled others, both geeks and non-geeks, to get a reference for this review. So, here it goes:
My unfortunate decision was assuming that since they mentioned my favorite shows, they were going to cater to the geek market. They did, somewhat.I felt vaguely insulted and primarily let down. It was like Diet Geek, similar to how the Big Bang Theory makes fun of the geekiness.

I think I felt this way because Dahlia Moss was always offended when people assumed she was a geek. She didn’t want to be labeled as such and tried to pretend she wasn’t. And while this felt annoying by itself, the way people determined her geekiness were so friggin’ fake. The two examples that came up multiple times: Star Wars and Pokemon. Pretty much everyone you encounter in life is going to know where the line, “Use the Force, Luke,”  came from. They’re going to be able to identify Pikachu and, yes, most of them can identify Jigglypuff. This is even more so since the 90s generation that spent their childhoods with Pokemon are now adults.

I do think there is a legitimate language barrier between geeks and non-geeks (in this specific case: gamer geeks. There are like 1 million different species of geek, but for the sake of the book, let’s stick to the gamers). I don’t expect everyone to know what I mean when I say, “Yeah, I was peeved when the Queensdale zerg was nerfed in the last patch.”  It’s slang, a dialect specific to the internet. This book did use some terms that it kindly defined for those unfamiliar, like AFK (away from keyboard) and Vent (short for Ventrillo, a voice chat software). But then it’d go back to Star Wars and Pokemon.

I can’t tell you how many times the same examples of Pokemon and Star Wars were used. I can tell you there was *one* reference to Magic the Gathering (despite the d20 on the cover and the chapter notices, which are used in tabletop and MtG, neither of which were featured in this book). I can tell you that I didn’t notice any Doctor Who references. There may have been one superhero one, but if there was, I missed it. There was a DOTA reference around page 50, which was the first remark of Dahlia doing anything that could be considered geeky on her own.

Then came the question: Am I being an elitist geek? How does one define geek? And, no, I don’t think I am. Because I think you’re a geek if *you* consider yourself to be a geek. But if you don’t consider yourself to be a geek and the only two things that could identify you are Star Wars and Pokemon, I’m really thinking you’re just an average 90s kid.
I think I would’ve been satisfied with this book back in 2010 before I watched The Guild or Scott Pilgrim. I think this book could be entirely satisfying for someone unfamiliar with the gaming world, which I don’t believe is a bad choice. For marketing, this book is easily consumed by the masses. But for the niche that it appealed to in that first sentence of the summary? Nah. It took the top layer of our world and ignored anything deeper than that.