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Here is a quote from someone who gave a positive review to this book, "Don’t let the comic book beginnings fool you, this is definitely a book for a mature and decidedly female audience. This book is classic Marvel meets Sex in the City."Besides placing quote marks around "mature" and "female" this pretty much sums up why I'm giving it a negative review.
By the way, Marvel, a huge part of your fan base is female and so you don't need to pander to what marketing companies tell you women are like by changing our favorite characters.
In a word this book is insulting.Rogue is an iconic figure to those of us who grew up with her and so I know it would be close to impossible to please a long time X-Men fan like myself, but comic book fans are notorious for being hard to please, so Woodward should have seen this coming and not so completely ruined what made Rogue's youth so compelling.
Not only are there no X-Men, Roque also doesn't have her adopted mothers Mystique and Destiny. Even if you didn't want to make this a "superhero" universe (which is ridiculous, all things considered) you could have at least given the fan's a long-awaited peek into their home life, or was it that this is a young adult book and you don't want children to read about lesbian mothers?
Like most other people, I was upset that instead of Gambit being the romantic interest it some original character, but the worst thing about this book is that he becomes the story. Not just their romance, but the whole plot is based around him.
Rogue is an unbelievably strong and independent woman and you make her book about some guy we don't care about and have never heard of?
It is not impossible for a story to be about a woman and not completely dependent on a man to advance the plot, even in the romance genre.
Unfortunately, Woodward is a good writer (when it comes to technique, at least) but this is just another piece of merchandise with as much substance as one of my Rogue action figures.
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Easy
If I had known this book revolves around rape (multiple rapes) I wouldn't have read it, but I'm glad I did.I don't want to give anything away but the leading man has been surrounded by rape victims to the point where it seems a little outlandish but Webber made up for it by taking it all very seriously and giving her characters an immense amount of depth.
Greeting Cards
The concept was great and was more intricate than I expected, but the final show down was anticlimactic and then it was just fluff filler.
The writing, the characterization, the plot...the everything was horrible but it was such an insane mellow-drama that I couldn't put it down.
1
Arena of the Wolf
The concept of werewolves being kidnapped and forced into cage fighting is a favorite of mine (all of my favorite concepts are oddly specific like this) so I was really excited about this book.In a world where there are more of these children each others think humans but who are on par with us intellectually and can contribute to society where do you draw the line between human and animal? Jim Gavin upped the ante by taking bullfighting and replacing the bull with werewolves; so we have a real world example of legal animal abuse replacing the animal with one we can relate to emotionally and intellectually.
Not to say that this book is preachy or political. It is a horror beach read; fast, violent, but still smart. It is, of course, not perfect by any means but in an arena (pun intended) all its own.
Once Burned (Night Prince, #1)
I'm going to concentrate on the leading man considering that when I look over the reviews for this book everyone seems to be obsessed with him…
First of all, his name is Vlad and he's a vampire. Vlad the Impaler. The real one.
Now, you can't tell me that and expect me to believe that he looks like a male model that you described instead of this infamous likeness:
Which would be fine! It would've made the character a little bit more endearing if the author had owned up to it and described him as "more nose than face and an unhealthy inclination toward fancy hats"
Looks aside, as a leading man he was a big let down. Apparently he's appeared in other books but this is my first introduction to him and considering this is the first book in this series, I won't apologize for not giving him credit for some awesome shit he did before I got here.
Vlad doesn't strike me as intelligent, simply well-connected and rich, his charm is nothing more than bravado, and his dangerous reputation is nearly unfounded. Surely in this guy's 2000 years he could've done something a little more evil than torture and kill people; who isn't going to dabble in a little bit of that after at least after the first hundred years?
I almost forgot! He has control over the element of fire. Does Frost not have any genuine friends that she could have pitched this idea to?
"I've got a great idea for a character! He's a super hot, super ancient vampire."
"I don't know… That seems pretty unoriginal."
"But this time he's Vlad the Impaler!"
"Yeah, I've actually seen that done a bunch of times and it never works out very well."
"…Did I mention he has the powers of the Human Torch?"
"Jeaniene, I'm telling you this as a friend, and I won't lie to you; you are God damned genius!"
I think I paid about $4.99 for this e-book, I want Jeaniene Frost to take the money and buy some better friends.
The leading lady is a dumpy woman with tacky nails who lives in the middle of no where, making those obnoxious clothes for dogs...needless to say I was excited to read this, but her quirkiness was majorly underplayed and the writing is so bad it borders on unreadable.
Great concepts but the writing was a little rushed and it seems like the author would rather the reader develop interest in the characters on their own time.
Bikers and rock stars and mythological creatures and 90 feet tall werewolves.There is no story to get behind but it's good for a wank.
