Goodreads Summary:
Don’t Sweat. Don’t Laugh. Don’t draw attention to yourself. And most of all, whatever you do, do not fall in love with one of them.
Gene is different from everyone else around him. He can’t run with lightning speed, sunlight doesn’t hurt him and he doesn’t have an unquenchable lust for blood. Gene is a human, and he knows the rules. Keep the truth a secret. It’s the only way to stay alive in a world of night—a world where humans are considered a delicacy and hunted for their blood.
When he’s chosen for a once in a lifetime opportunity to hunt the last remaining humans, Gene’s carefully constructed life begins to crumble around him. He’s thrust into the path of a girl who makes him feel things he never thought possible—and into a ruthless pack of hunters whose suspicions about his true nature are growing. Now that Gene has finally found something worth fighting for, his need to survive is stronger than ever—but is it worth the cost of his humanity?
My Review:
It took me about 3 weeks to finish this book. That's a pretty good sign of a "Meh" book. I just couldn't get into it. Plus, every time I would actually sit down and try to read it, something ridiculous would happen in the book. The main one is the continuing plight of the main character- Gene. He keeps saying that the vampires will discover he's a human and eat him because he smells and there are no showers. No showers...REALLY? Look, my car doesn't sweat and I still have to run it through a car wash. Okay- vampires are not coated with some teflon type substance that allows them to repel dirt. Just ridiculous. The other is something called armpitting- sticking your elbow in someone's armit- I guess it's a vampire sex thing. Okay, I'm done with this book.
Why this is a Meh Book:
1. Ballet terms that aren't really property defined or described. In other words, it's written for the general public, but it's only truly understandable by someone who's taken ballet.
2. Just felt nothing for the main character...
3. Except at the end of the book. Then I just wanted to throw the book across the room. Did not like or understand the choice the main character made at the end.
Why this is a Meh Book:
1. There's nothing that really stands out for me in this book. It's mostly forgettable.
2. It's predictable...you can see how the story arcs in this book are going to play out pretty fast.
3. It's one of those odd books- it's really readable in the sense that it's a fast read. Yet, you wish it were just a little bit worse so you could stop yourself from reading and just put it down and walk away from it.
LOL, I had more or less the same feeling about Team Human. A lot of the things that happened seemed to have just been thrown in there because YA paranormal is supposed to have some things.
ReplyDeleteI know it was supposed to be a parody, but it wasn't all that funny.
Am I oblivious recently? I didn't realize it was supposed to be a parody. Well, because it makes me feel better and it wasn't that well written, I'm going with Team Human was such a bad parody that I couldn't even tell it was a (bad) parody. And yes, I agree, it wasn't funny.
DeleteThis was such a hyped book... I wonder if it wasn't overly hyped if I would have liked it better. Not saying I would have loved it, but maybe I wouldn't have felt as annoyed. Whenever I read an overly hyped book and didn't like it, I kind of feel like I was suckered.
I completely agree with you about Bunheads. For some reason I could't get into it and ended up not caring enough to finish it. It's a shame cause I was really looking forward to reading it and don't mind ballet/dance books.
ReplyDeleteSarah @ That Teenage Feeling
Oh, you didn't miss anything by not finishing this book. The ending was just awful. I know some people probably liked the ending, but I... not sure if this is a spoiler, so I'm going to warn everyone off who wants to read this.
Delete**** SPOILER ALERT*****
The MC chooses to go to college instead of continuing her dance career. I thought it made it into a cheap kind of feel good ending. I didn't find it authentic after the MC kept saying that she was told over and over by other older dancers to appreciate the time she had. Because a dancer's life/career is so short and it can be over at any time by injury. She was so close to her dream and I think should have just gone for it. You cannot take a break from dancing and go back in 5 years. You can decide to go back to college at 23. To me, that meant that the whole book was a lie- that the author was saying dancing is a drudge. I thought I was getting a different book, I guess. One that celebrated the life of a professional ballet dancer.
*****END SPOILER*****
Really? The Hunt?
ReplyDeleteIt was one of the books I'm dying to have.
Btw, thanks for following my blog. I followed back. :)
Thanks for the info about the new dystopian alien book and NetGalley, but I'm only blogging for 2 months and hasn't reached a hundred followers so I slightly doubt that they'll approve my request. How long are you blogging?
Are they providing paper book or ebooks?
michelleshoutsrandom.blogspot.com
DeleteI only go through NetGalley for ARC's, so I only get ebooks. But I prefer ebooks for review. From what I'm picking up unless you get something directly from an author, it's around 1000 followers for paper ebooks. Unless someone know different or knows a publisher who has different rules?
DeleteI've only been blogging for 1 1/2 months and I've gotten approved for about 8 ARC's through NetGalley. So you might want to give it a try.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI tried and got approved for 3 ARCs.
DeleteHow'd you increase your followers so fast? I'd like to try it, too. :)
Woah Armpitting that is really weird. I have had a few Meh books like that though. I like how you explained your reasons for thinking it a Meh book very thorough and fair.
ReplyDeleteThat was the most original and interesting thing about the whole book (the armpitting). And I hate the armpit- as a body part. It's just creepy and now I can't get it out of my head.
DeleteI don't know how other people do their reviews, but once I finish a book, I set up the review page in Blogger. I title it, I cut and paste the GR summary, I put the picture. Then I take some time to think about it. I noticed that a lot of books that end up Meh Books end up as buried Blogger posts. Meaning I just have nothing really to say about them, so as I make new posts, the just start sinking to the bottom of my screen and then onto the next page. So, every couple of weeks, I go through all of my unposted posts. I find about 1/2 of them are books I've forgotten and the other half are Meh Books. I just can't say enough good (or bad, really) to justify a full review. So that's how they become Meh Books.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteMy computer won't let me reply directly to the post- probably need to update something. How to get more followers- this is nothing I figured out myself, this is just a collection of things that other people have told me.
1. Join some groups on GR devoted to increasing followers. Go through the posts for people offering follow for a follow. Here's one I belong to: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/46870 (Blogger Lift)
2. Someone in the Blogger Lift Group told me to join the Book Blogs group: http://bookblogs.ning.com/
3. Participate in some of the following type memes(?). I do the Feature and Follow hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.
parajunkee.com/
http://www.alisoncanread.com/
If you just go ahead and follow them now, you'll get an update in Blogger when they get it set up for the week. Usually Thursday afternoon-night.
Less obvious pieces of advice:
1. Be a good follower. Even if people don't comment a lot on your blog, set aside time to go through all of the posts showing up in your Blogger Dashboard/email, etc. Go through and make comments on other people's blogs. I think this one is the most fun piece of advice- I've learned about a lot of new books this way, been convinced to pick up a series that's been out for 5 years, etc. And just basically getting to "meet" people.
2. Try to post as close as possible to every day. Someone told me that this is also good advice for getting ARC's, too. This piece of advice didn't make any sense to me- I just didn't see the connection. But the person explained to me that for new blogs, generating content is important. That for new blogs, people want to see that you're serious, committed to blogging, etc. before they will follow you.
3. Pay attention to your stats- see what posts are generating the most hits, comments, etc. This is one I sort of do. I'm new to blogging, so I'll admit to frequently checking through the day to see if I have more followers, hits, comments, etc. But mostly out of deep seated insecurity and neediness! I get what their point was- that if you figure out what's popular, you can put more of that on so people will be more likely to follow. But, I'm not a professional writer, so I just can't do this one. I can only write what I want to and feel like writing for the day. But, I'm putting this piece of advice out there because it seems like solid advice.
Anyone have any great tips they got from other bloggers when they first started blogging?