ARC Review: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands #1)
By Alwyn Hamilton
Publisher: Viking
Format: Print ARC
Source: YALLFest
Publication Date: March 8, 2016

To Sum It Up: Amani dreams of a life far away from her home in Dustwalk and hopes that her sharpshooting skills will help her obtain the money she needs to escape. Her plans get set into motion with some unexpected assistance from a mysterious stranger named Jin, with whom Amani finds herself fleeing across the desert from the authorities. The pair must not only evade their pursuers but also the dangerous otherworldly beings that dwell in the sands. While Amani doesn’t entirely trust her new companion, she also isn’t sure she wants to strike out on her own, either.

Review: This is one of those instances where I’m going to need to talk through what did and didn’t work for me about a book because I’m really torn over what to rate Rebel of the Sands. Overall it’s a solid debut novel, but there were also a few key things that I thought could have used some fine tuning, like the pacing. One rating seems like it gives too much weight to these items, while another feels like it doesn’t take them into consideration enough. So let’s see if we can sort this out.

Rebel of the Sands can best be described as a Western set in the Middle East. Our heroine, Amani, is a feisty gunslinger who’s banking on her sharpshooting prowess to get her the hell out of dead end Dustwalk. Although it took a while for me to buy into the world, I give Alwyn Hamilton a lot of credit for coming up with an intriguing mash-up that also tosses supernatural elements into the mix. In this world, beings such as djinni, ghouls, and skinwalkers are not just myths. Again, I did think that it took some time for the separate components of the world to cohere. By the end of the novel, everything had meshed together nicely, but I can’t help wondering what the effect would have been if this had happened earlier on.

My primary issue with this book boils down to the difference in pacing between the first half of Rebel of the Sands and the second. When we first meet Amani, her sole focus is on putting as much distance as possible between her and Dustwalk. Once she leaves the town behind, though, the plot wanders for a while until the “rebel” part of the title fully moves to the forefront of the story. Yet even as I found myself asking what was next for Amani beyond Dustwalk and waiting for something big to happen, I didn’t lose my investment in the book because the prose is engaging throughout. The plot definitely picks up again when Amani and her traveling companion, Jin, meet up with a set of lively characters and the fantasy aspects are much more tightly integrated into the story.

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the development of the romance in the book. While there’s undeniably chemistry between the two characters involved, the relationship proceeds to the romance stage a bit fast. But then I love a good slow burn, so perhaps my bias is showing here.

Although I thought the first half of Rebel of the Sands felt a little light on plot, at no point did I want to put the book aside because the writing kept me turning the pages. I really enjoyed the second part of the novel, when the world and the fantasy clicked into place for me. If the series carries this momentum forward, it’s going to be a good one.

All in All: This is worth a read if you’re looking for a fresh spin on fantasy, though you may need to be a bit patient with it waiting for the world to gel and the pacing to gain its footing. But the second half of the book really soars and demonstrates the series’s strong potential.

Fandom Mashups (43)

Fandom Mashups is a feature hosted by Lunar Rainbows Reviews. There's a different scenario each week, and you choose a "dream team" of five characters from five different fandoms whom you think are best suited for the situation.

This week's topic is:
You're doing a buddy read with all of your favorite bookish characters! What are you reading and who are you reading with?

Hehe—another opportunity for me to plug Alison Goodman's The Dark Days Club, because that's what we'll be reading! And here's who will be participating in the buddy read:

1. Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice): The Dark Days Club is set in Regency England, so I'm curious to see what Lizzy would think of what would be a contemporary novel (with supernatural elements) for her.
2. Alexia Tarabotti (The Parasol Protectorate): Alexia hails from Victorian London, but I think she'd still enjoy reading about Regency times and would definitely get a kick out of Lady Helen's snark.
3. Tessa Gray (The Infernal Devices): Another lady from Victorian England; do you spot the trend here? LOL. Plus Tessa LOVES books, so she'd totally be up for joining in the group read.
4. Celaena/Aelin (Throne of Glass): Besides being a badass heroine, this girl loves to read! I have a feeling she'd like Lady Helen and cheer her on.
5. Blue Sargent (The Raven Cycle): Because I just want her to be in my little book club. :D

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (118)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts and Lunar Rainbows Reviews. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.

This week's topic is:
Which Books Would You Recommend to Luna?

With her free-spirited personality, I feel like Luna would be open to reading anything, really. So I'm going to take this opportunity to push a few of my faves on her, lol.

• Harry Potter Coloring Book: I think that she would just have a ton of fun with this and would be extremely creative!
• The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater: The whole series. All of it. Luna would totally understand and appreciate the friendship here.
• The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman: Because I'm pushing this book on everyone, fictional characters included, lol. Plus it's a book that I genuinely believe Luna would enjoy.
• A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab: My excitement over this week's release of the sequel, A Gathering of Shadows, reminded me of this phenomenal novel. I think Luna would find a kindred spirit in aspiring pirate Lila. :D

NYC Reads: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

This is a feature that I've wanted to do for a long time and which is very, very close to my heart. As some of you know, I grew up in New York City and spent a good part of my life there, and it will always be special to me. I still feel a thrill whenever NYC plays any kind of part in a book, whether it's just a brief mention or the whole novel is set in the city. I really don't have a set format for these posts; basically I'm just going to talk about the NYC-ness of a particular book and maybe throw in a few relevant anecdotes if I've been to a real-life place in the book, etc.

Our inaugural NYC Read is Alexandra Bracken's Passenger, which I would have read just because of this fantastic cover:

I LOVE the design of this cover so much, from the beautiful skyline shot to the clever juxtaposition of the skyline and the ship with the bottle. This is a cover that completely ties in to the story beneath it: Etta, one of the two main characters, time travels from present day NYC to its colonial past, as well as to other locations around the world. Before her life is upended, though, violinist Etta is preparing to make her debut as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. She has a pre-debut performance scheduled at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where her mother works, playing at a fund-raising event.

The scenes described in Etta's New York definitely brought back some memories. I've been to the Met once, and it's as amazing an experience as you can imagine, to be under the same roof with all of those exquisite works of art. Back when my friend and I were students at New York University, we saw the New York Philharmonic. She had to attend a classical music performance for an assignment, and we went to what I think was called a Casual Saturday concert. I admit that I'm not a classical music buff, but I'm so glad that I didn't bypass this opportunity. I still appreciated the beauty of the music, even if it wasn't the kind that I'd normally listen to.

When Etta travels back to 1776 NYC, she tries to visualize where some of the famous skyscrapers and other landmarks would be in her time. The East River is mentioned, and that really struck a chord because the Brooklyn neighborhood I grew up in was right on the East River. You could walk down to the pier and look across the river to Manhattan. When I traveled up to NYC in 2013 for my friend's wedding (the same friend I went to the Philharmonic concert with, lol), I stopped by my old neighborhood and was surprised to see how much the pier had been built up in the four years since I'd last been to NY. There's now a ferry that takes commuters from Brooklyn right into Manhattan—skip the subway—along with walkways that allow you to take in breathtaking views of the NYC skyline. I took the photo below while I was there; that's the Williamsburg Bridge in the background. The other pic is a throwback photo of me, probably around 1980 judging by the unflattering hairstyle I'm sporting, lol, on the old pier:

To close out this post, here's a quote from Passenger, where Etta, now in 1776, tries to conjure an image from the New York of her day, something that I found myself doing, too, when I read this:

"She closed her eyes, picturing Brooklyn Bridge stretching over her head, the fanned-out cables, the sturdy stone arches."

ARC Review: Into the Dim by Janet B. Taylor

Into the Dim (Into the Dim #1)
By Janet B. Taylor
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Publication Date: March 1, 2016

To Sum It Up: Grieving over the loss of her mother, Hope Walton accepts an invitation from her mother's sister, whom she's never met, to escape for a while to the Scottish Highlands. Almost at once, Hope suspects that there's more to this visit than connecting with family. Everything that Hope's mother has hidden from her all these years begins to come to light, including the fact that her mother belongs to a group of time travelers. Hope soon finds herself following in her mother's footsteps as part of a dangerous mission that is about to take her back to medieval England and the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Review: Into the Dim was the second of back-to-back time travel books for me, and I went into it fairly optimistic that it would make two winning reads in a row. The blurb intrigued me very, very much: time travel + Scotland + medieval England. Into the Dim is being touted as a YA Outlander, and while I'm always skeptical of such comparisons, of course the Outlander mention still caught my attention. I also love medieval history, so I was fully prepared to fall hard for this book. Sadly, things did not work out this way.

For anyone who's curious, Into the Dim bears little resemblance to Outlander aside from the time travel and part of the novel taking place in the Scottish Highlands. The time travel in Into the Dim doesn't even occur until about a third of the way into the book. It's given what I found to be a muddled explanation as well, involving ley lines, lodestones, and Tesla-built machinery. I couldn't wrap my head around how these things were connected, and after a while, I gave up trying.

It wasn't too long after beginning the novel that I started finding protagonist Hope's character problematic. She tries to be snarky, but her efforts come across as condescension. This is especially evident in a few disparaging comments she makes about other girls her age. Hope judges everyone, all while being the girl who's beautiful and extraordinary because she's completely, utterly oblivious to how beautiful and extraordinary she is. As we are frequently reminded throughout the book, Hope has a photographic memory, so again—she’s special. The novel works hard—too hard, I think—to demonstrate how indispensable her talent is in helping her escape trouble.

For someone who believes there's a solid head on her shoulders, Hope makes some rather unwise decisions. She gets a weird vibe from a guy she meets soon after arriving at her aunt's manor in Scotland but dismisses it and meets up with him again. When she and her companions (finally!) journey back to 12th century England, she makes enemies with Thomas à Becket, future Archbishop of Canterbury, within about five minutes of arriving. To make up for this, though, Eleanor of Aquitaine, on the verge of being crowned Queen of England, takes a shine to Hope because, lest we forget, Hope is a phenomenon.

Even a trip back to one of my favorite historical periods, the Middle Ages, couldn't help me rally some investment in this book. The details of the era felt minimal, sufficient to establish that the story had shifted centuries but not nearly enough to create an immersive experience. Whenever I read about the past, I want to be pulled back into that time, too, and not just be a casual, distant observer of someone else's adventures.

Overall, this was a tough book for me to get through. I really didn't care for Hope's narration, which makes heavy use of similes. None of the secondary characters particularly stand out, either. There's also a whiff of insta-love and possibly a love triangle down the road. I won't be checking in on its development, however, because I'm not continuing with this series.

All in All: I was at odds with Hope's character and narrative voice from the very beginning, which naturally is a huge obstacle to overcome when you're reading from a first person POV. Other readers might have better luck with this than I did; it definitely wasn't what I'd expected or hoped it would be.