Khanh the Killjoy

Thanks for all the good times guys, but it's time for me to call it quits.

I joined GR/Booklikes for the books and the people, and all the drama is just too much. It's gotten to the point where alarm bells go off in my head when I see a new message in my inbox. I just can't deal with the trolls anymore. Thanks for the love, the laughter, and the bunny gifs.

April Fools.

Submitted a bunch of reviews tonight, and now that I'm almost all caught up, I'm going to request a ton more again. Oh, boy.

This is such a beautifully written book, but it is not a ghost story. This book is not for everyone. Do not expect anything creepy here.

There is a wonderfully mature main character, loveable side characters, believably flawed characters, with amazing relationships. It has the most believable, well-drawn love triangles I have ever read. I fully confess to enjoying this love triangle---and for me, that happens roughly every time Mars and Jupiter aligns.

But this is not a ghost story. It is not a mystery.

It is a contemporary romance which takes place in a small town. Nothing happens in this book. It is a book about a girl and her first foray into romance. It is a really, really well-written book.

It's just not a ghost story like I expected.

Despite the fact that there are girls going missing, getting murdered, there was absolutely nothing remotely scary about this book. If I were to estimate, I'd say that the mentions of the missing girl, the "ghost," takes up about 5% of this book. It was hardly worth mentioning, and I can't imagine why the heck the publisher chose to promote this book as a ghost story when it was so clearly not.

The Summary:

I’m part of this house, and the residents can hear me in their sleep. I rattle the dishes and creak along the floors in the dark.

The house breathes while the town is dark, but there is no one here to answer me. I’m the definition of alone.

Gill Creek is haunted by the most quiet, lonely ghost in the history of the world.

But Maggie doesn't know that. She has newly relocated here with her family, a victim of the recession. Her mother has lost her job, and they can no longer afford to live in Chicago. So the family uproots themselves to Gill Creek, to a house that's described as "rustic" but is more appropriately described as a utter wreck. It's a sad situation, but Maggie takes it in well. She has always been a good daughter, a good girl.

Her mom always said she was the world’s only teenager who never complained about anything.

The day they moved in, the newspaper headlines announced a girl's death. The first of many.

The girl had been found drowned in the lake, floating facedown with no signs of struggle, and the police were trying to figure out whether it was a suicide, an accident, or something more sinister.

Maggie meets new friends, the stunningly beautiful, genuinely nice Pauline, and her childhood friend, sweet, gentle Liam. Both Pauline and Liam are outcasts in their own way, but they invite Maggie into their duo. Maggie feels a stirring for Liam, but she knows it is a hopeless crush. Liam has been in love with Pauline since they were practically toddlers.

“What are your issues?”
“Loving an unattainable girl my entire life,” Liam said easily, without hesitation. “Who does that?” He didn’t sound embarrassed.

The "ghost" watches the teens, and the town; always an observer, never a participant.

Over the amusement park, I watch the watcher.
The cellar pulls me toward home.
I check on the teenagers on Water Street, asleep in their beds.

More girls are being killed, but it doesn't affect Liam, Pauline, or Maggie. Their parents just want them to be more careful. As the year comes to a close, the tension between the three escalate. Pauline knows Liam loves her, but she is not the type to fall in love. Maggie is falling hard for Liam, but his heart is steadfast. Will Liam be able to move on and look beyond the girl he cannot have?

"I can’t help feeling how I feel. I’m kind of a one-girl guy. I can’t help it; it’s like a curse, really. My dad was the same way, even though my mom didn’t stick around.”

Will Maggie, always the good girl, finally stand up for what she wants, to take a chance at life and love? Or will Pauline finally realize that she wants what's been there all along?

She had her hands rested on the dash, knuckle side down, palms open, as if asking for something or begging or as if something had been taken out of her hands.

Girls are still dying in Gill Creek. A shadow is always watching.

The Plot: As slow as molasses. I can tolerate that, for the beautiful writing, but the point is that nothing happens in this book. It is a romance, a coming-of-age. Nothing more than that.

The Characters: Ah, now the good. The characters and relationships are beautifully written.

Maggie: The type of main character I love. She is quiet, she is calm, she is rational. A wonderful daughter. She is so concerned about her parents, so worried about not being troublesome to them. She loves her parents, and she never wants to hurt them. She wants to take care of herself, so her parents would worry less. Maggie is the perfect daughter.

She had to do better, she knew. She had to take care of her parents just like they’d always taken care of her.

Maggie is someone who always think things through, be it romance or everything else in life. She is not nicknamed "Saint Margaret" by her old school friends without a reason.

Maggie was no saint—it was just that her friends pretended sex wasn’t complicated. Maggie wasn’t ever going to walk into anything with her eyes closed, even if all her friends were jumping in with both feet. Still, she wanted things other people wanted. She just carefully wanted them.

Maggie is a quiet fire, a fire that starts to burn when the catalyst---Liam comes into the picture.

Liam: A true gentleman.

“Do you do whatever Pauline asks you?” Maggie asked, teasing, a little touched by his devotion. It seemed old-fashioned—not like the way modern boys were.
Liam frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t help it. My dad taught me that’s what guys are supposed to do. If a girl wants something, you’re supposed to do whatever you can to give it to her."

He is a sweetheart. Completely devoted to Pauline since they were five years old. He remembers the first time he and Pauline met---he was eating baby carrots. Pauline is his life, his love, his best friend. His love for her is not a secret. And even though he is fully devoted to him, the carefree, beautiful, capricious Pauline refuses to acknowledge it.

Pauline:

Pauline, who wore everything on her sleeve, couldn’t recognize that some people had feelings that were deep and as still as glass.

In so many books, stunningly beautiful girls are portrayed as shallowly vicious bitches. I am so happy that this is not the case with Pauline. Pauline is rich, beautiful, loved by everyone. She is not a bitch in the least. She is sweet, nice, a wonderful friend. Pauline is spoiled, undoubtedly, because she is beautiful, but she is never intentionally cruel.

Maggie was used to girls like Pauline—strikingly beautiful girls—being a little aloof. Pauline was the opposite; she came across as sweet, eager, and a little lonely.

Despite her model-like appearance, Pauline has a loud, screechy laugh. Her moments of selfishness is more of childlike naiveté than anything intentionally malicious. Her relationship with Liam is incredibly complicated, and one of the things I loved most about this book.

The Romance:

“I’m not into anyone that way. I don’t know. I just, I don’t see why everyone has to pair off and fall in love and everything anyway. Why can’t we just stay the way we are?”

This is a story about learning how to love, and about growing up.

I truly loved the love triangle in this book. You guys know I hate love triangles, and it is a remarkable thing that Ms. Anderson has done to make me love the guesswork of the love triangle here. The characters are so real, their emotions so true, and I found the triangle completely understandable, and a part of their personal growth.

In the dim light from the hall, Liam walked over to the bed and laid Pauline down in it, first pulling back the covers and then bending to drape her on the bed. He pulled the blankets all the way back up to her chin, and Pauline’s eyes fluttered for a moment and then closed again. Liam touched his hand to her hair and kissed her on the forehead, and Maggie felt her heart beat faster, as if she were seeing something she shouldn’t.

The relationship, the history, the emotion behind Liam and Pauline's relationship is just remarkable. It is so complex. Her unintentionally callous dismissal and acceptance of his love, and his almost blind devotion. It is an unrequited love based on a lifetime of friendship, and seeing it from interloper Maggie's point of view makes it even more remarkable.

I love how Maggie developed through the love triangle. I love seeing how she grew, from someone almost asexual, to someone who realizes that she wants someone. Her usually calm exterior grows into something approaching fierce, into jealousy. A normally calm, gentle girl grown fierce by the fierce crush of first love.

She wondered, with building rage, if Pauline would get everything she wanted her whole life—Liam, the dress, jobs, whatever—because she was beautiful and rich. She wondered, maliciously, if Liam would even love Pauline if it weren’t for her looks. If Pauline were ugly, would Liam have left Maggie? She clung tightly and bitterly to the thought.

I truly feel like the love triangle is one of the best things about this book.

Recommended, with reservations. It is a beautiful book. It's just not a ghost story.

She thinks oui is spelled w-e-e. She thinks there are mimes on every corner in France. She is why foreigners hate Americans. Stupid, ignorant, petulant, foolish, overreacting child.

http://navessaallen.com/chapters/

I was one of the beta readers, and I loved it, which says something because I don't do erotica :P It was hot *whoo*

Read it, criticize it, this is NOT Cory's baby and she can take criticism.

Even though I have way more important things to be concerned with than a kiss, that moment is replaying itself over and over again in my thoughts.

Oh, for fuck's sakes, girl. Get your head together.

This was not an outrageously terrible book, but it was completely insipid. At no point in the book did I ever find the main character to be anything other than incompetent and unreasonable. The plot leaves much to be desired, mainly because the main characters' actions and thoughts make little sense, the main character has these wild suspicions, and naturally, the book is written in a way to make the events unfold to her advantage, but to the reader, it is completely improbable.

The main character is a girl who is helpless, who gets pulled in easily, who believes in mad conspiracy theories. Regan is a girl who would overthrow a lifetime of friendship and the bonds of family for a handsome stranger. Needless to say, there is insta-love and a love triangle, the most clichéd one in the world, between a handsome, golden-haired best friend and a dark, mysterious stranger whom she is determined to trust against all reason.

Is world building completely optional in YA dystopia these days? Whatever happened to weaving together an interesting, plausible background? You can't just throw terms at me and expect me to know what it is. You can't just tell me that this is how the futuristic US is without telling me how we got to this point. Where's the context?! The "hacking" is completely fucking dumb. The "future" is completely unexplained.

The Summary:

The rest of my fellow travelers are all someplace else—a world with no pain, no concerns, and no stress; an enchanting, make-believe world that exists solely in their minds.

The drug of the future is not cocaine, it's not heroin, it's not methamphetamine. It is Elusion. Elusion is a technology invented by Regan Welch's late father, a technology that transports the user to a virtual world, free of pain, full of bliss. Serotonin levels in the brain are enhanced. It creates a feeling of euphoria in an enchantingly beautiful world, all within one's mind. It can create numerous scenarios, from a Thai resort paradise, to outer space.

The planets, moons, and stars—is completely astounding. Luminous yellows, greens, and reds come together like large blotches of oil paint mixing together on a blue-black canvas. Pinpricks of glowing white light are scattered everywhere.

It is beautiful...and it is highly addictive.

Regan's childhood best friend, Patrick, is now in charge of developing the technology, and he is now prepared to launch the Elusion app to the entire United States. Not everyone is happy about this. There are rumors of its dangers, an outspoken vlogger has long spouted conspiracy theories about Elusion.

“She said that there’s an object or something inside the program that’s threatening users’ lives.”

And this vlogger is not alone. At a party, Regan meets a tall, handsome stranger.

His sandy-colored hair is cut close to his scalp, making his cheekbones stand out as much as his amber-tinted eyes.
Military academy. No doubt about it.

Josh isn't a stranger to Patrick. They clearly have a bad history together, Josh claims that Patrick is up to something bad. Patrick says Regan can't trust Josh. It's their words against each other.

Something strange is going on with Elusion technology, no doubt about that, and Patrick wants Regan to keep quiet about it until he figures it out.

And don’t tell anyone what happened until I figure things out—not even your mom. You have to promise me.”

Josh thinks Patrick is hiding a secret that could help him find his sister. He wants to know the secret.

[Josh] exhales and says, “Tell me everything.”
As the wind outside continues to howl, I tell him.

Who can Regan trust?!11!?!one! Is it her best friend, the one with whom she shared entire life, an entire childhood?

When Patrick and I were in elementary school, my father used to spoil us with treats from Mo’s every Friday. After our hands became sticky with frosting or glaze, Patrick would chase me around my house, trying to tickle me.

Or will she trust the handsome stranger, the one who almost killed a man?!

“He hit a guy and got sent to military school. I know. He told me.”
“Hit a guy?” Patrick says, sarcastically. “He almost killed someone, Ree. Beat up a kid so badly he was in the hospital for three days.”
I snort at the accusation. It seems so exaggerated.

Hit a guy. Killed someone. Same thing, really. The two words are like right next to each other on the keyboard.

What Setting?: There is absolutely no background in this book. The book takes place in Detroit. For those of you not living in the US, Detroit is like the toilet seat of America. It is a horribly broken city. It is filled with slums, gangs, there is a lot of racial tension. There are skyscrapers, yeah, but what you don't see is that most of the skyscrapers and business buildings are abandoned. The city is bankrupt. It currently looks like this.



And this.



So how the fuck did we get from that, to...this.

I gaze through the slight film of mildew covering the glass surface, looking out at Detroit’s industrial skyline on the other side of the channel. I can actually make out all the architectural details of the high-rises—the antiquated neo-Gothic and art deco designs mixed in with more modern cylinder-style layouts; the narrow spires and old Corinthian columns and pilasters.

This book takes place in the future. We don't know how far in the future. We don't know how we got here. We don't know what the fuck Florapetro is. Florapetro. Florapetro. Florapetro. The word is constantly mentioned throughout the book, yet there's not an entirely clear explanation to what it actually is. I'm tempted to think it's some kind of biofuel based on how it was presented, but dude, if you're going to constantly refer to something polluting the air and powering cars, I'd like a little fucking background. We have acid rain. The air quality is so bad that people are forced to wear O2 masks whenever they're outside.

It’s a negative ten, which means this area is a currently a red zone, so O2 shields are highly recommended.

HOW DID IT GET TO THIS POINT, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME SOME FUCKING BACKGROUND?

The H4X0RS: The futuristic technology is just implausible. So let's see, we have the Elusion technology broadcasted through a visor, which plugs into your brain waves and stimulates your brain chemistry so that you can be wholly immersed into a virtual world...and we still have some ancient-ass computing technology without much explanation on how it's updated? Motherboards, servers, firewalls. Awesome, but we have all that right NOW.

This book's technology is completely unimpressive. For one thing, people still watch movies through AVI files and music through WAVs. That's fine, these technology are like paper. They're essential. What should have made them realistic and feel believable in a futuristic setting such as this needs work. It's like paper, we will always use paper to write on, but 1000 years ago, did we have ballpoint pens with which to write on them? No! Give me some technology update. Make up something! Don't give me some ancient technology and expect me to believe that it's the future!

Oh, and a firewall? It's an actual fucking wall. That eats people.

I watch, helpless, frozen in place as he is taken away from me, sucked into the fuzzy gray wall as though he is being eaten alive by an insidious monster.

Hacking? Oh my god. This is the TV version of hacking. The completely unrealistic version of hacking when a few fucking commands of code will get you into a top-secret security system.

-Icon is up.
-Type in //reboot// then press //Alt+Command//

It worked.

A few seconds tick by; then Josh responds.
-Do generalized programming search, using this code //1r3c70rY5020//

-No luck.

-Try this advanced search //4DV4NC3D 534RC|-|5020//

Suddenly rows and rows of file names start piling up on the screen.

I text Josh right away.
-Pay dirt.
-Shit yeah!

I don't think so...Regan: Regan isn't the type of person I want to be a friend, or a family member. For one thing, she has no fucking loyalty. She is fuckle as fuck. She is the type of person who will allow herself to be won over by a pretty face, by the flutterings of her own heart. This is insta-love at its mindless, between Regan and Josh.

I have the exact same stunned yet overstimulated feeling I had after the demonstration at Orexis yesterday. My fingers are hot and tingling, like I just burned them on a boiling kettle. I’m standing here, staring at him again, wondering why I find it so hard to say something, or even move.

Unlike the mysterious Josh, Regan has known Patrick her entire life. They grew up together, Patrick was her father's protegé. They have laughed together, they've shared secrets. They are best friends. Regan starts feelings...suspicious towards Patrick, and from then on, it's all downhill. Everything Patrick does is interpreted to be a sign of DOOM, no matter how innocuous. She is determined to find faults with everything Patrick does, she never listens to her instincts about him.

But I plant my feet firmly on the floor, refusing to give in to these feelings of doubt. As much as I care about Patrick I simply don’t think I can trust him to tell me what’s going on.

Whereas the beloved Josh, the stranger whom she barely knows, is to be trusted against all reason. His word is her command.

Josh reaches into his pocket and pulls out his tab, holding it firmly in his hand and gazing at me as if he’s standing by for an order. “I think I could track one down in a few hours.”
Without even thinking—about betraying Patrick, or breaking the law—I say, “Do it.”

She goes against her own instincts. Everything Josh does is interpreted in a good light. Nothing seems suspicious, Josh can explain away anything, and Regan will buy his word.

“He’s using your father’s computer.” Josh finishes my sentence, his eyes brightening. “A three-panel quantum with touch recognition. Am I right?”
I recoil from him a little bit, mostly because I’m freaked out by how precise his guess was. “How’d you know that?”
“Patrick likes to brag. Told me all about it at the party,” he explains.

Josh could be a killer. Regan refuses to believe it.

He pushes up his sleeves, and I take a nice, long look at his toned forearms and large hands. I see what he’s getting at, but again, it’s hard to picture Josh as a threat, even after what he’s told me about his past.

Regan is absolutely determined to paint Patrick in a bad light and I just can't see it. I can't see the evidence to distrust Patrick. Patrick's explanations make perfect sense to me, and yet Regan sees it as an attempt of his to turn her against Josh.

“Yeah, like the second he feels I’m not taking him seriously, he goes and befriends you. Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?”
Patrick knows me so well. He’s aware of all my insecurities.

Everything Patrick does is viewed as a "blatant manipulation." Uh, not to me.

Regan's priorities are just fucked up. She and Josh mess up a mission because they kissed, and Regan is more concerned about his feelings towards the kiss than the fact that their mission failed.

The message of this book: it's fine to trust a stranger if he's good-looking.

Best of all, I have someone by my side. Someone who I really want to trust—and who looks amazing in a thick winter coat.

From Shelby:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/887676441

Uh, I wrote a review for the same book, and it hasn't gotten that many "likes" and it's been weeks now. Most of her "likes" (160+ of them) have been by users with 0 to 10 friends. Something's wrong with this.

Driving my sister back to San Diego. Her spring break was far too short :(

Love Puppy is leaving with my sister again. He's spending a few last moments together with my Reynardine :(

If I’d spent more time studying instead of chasing after a boy, we wouldn’t be here.

Well, then!

This book makes me angry. I'm getting pretty damn sick of these books that tells girls that it's ok to love and trust a potential killer/sociopath if he secretly (very, very secretly) has a heart of gold. It tells the reader that it's fine to forgive every fucking thing stalker/lover boy does if, you know, he's just doing it for your own fucking good. What the fucking kind of victim-blaming apologetic bullshittery is this? This is NOT ok. What kind of backward message is this sending to society's young women?! I AVOID New Adult because of this, and here it is in my YA!

Why is the main character even tempted to fucking trust potential-killer in the first place? Oh, this is YA, so naturally there's going to be hidden deeeeeeeepths to him, but whatever happens to the "fight or flight" reaction when a person comes into contact with someone dangerous? Run away first. Don't trust him because you know, he might be misunderstood. Think of your own safety. Don't leave anything to chance because I can tell you that 90% of the time, a first impression is correct, and I hate the books that send the message that it's fine to put up with fucking stalker behavior and abuse and alpha-male asshattery if he's a fixer-upper project who will turn into the emo-tattooed-pierced-Prince Charming of your dream if you just let yourself get walked over for long enough. If you just seek to understand his feeeeeeeeeelings deep enough.

The main character in this book is named Nearly and she is nearly fucking intolerable. This book's plot is a series of unfortunate decisions. It is the journey of how a promising, brilliant young woman with a shot at a $25,000 chemistry college scholarship turns into a motherfucking idiot. She throws away all her chances at a decent future to chase a shadowy unicorn of a serial killer (and getting herself in legal trouble), while becoming involved in the middle of a truly clichéd love triangle (ok, love square) between her beloved, wonderful childhood best friend and a guy who's practically a fucking serial killer himself.

I muttered an apology, but the guy just shoved me aside, growling, “Watch it.” Then he kicked my books out of reach with a heavy black boot and walked away.
“People say he killed someone.”

Not only is Nearly nearly stupid enough to ruin all her chances, there's also the victim blaming. I thought you were a smart girl, Nearly.

“It wasn’t his fault. I was the one responsible.”
I couldn’t let Reece go back to jail for something that was my fault. He’d only reacted because I’d provoked him. My behavior hadn’t left him any choice.

OH, IT WASN'T HIS FAULT THAT HE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED YOU IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE SCHOOL? Allow me to clarify, this is the event that "wasn't his fault."

Reece’s mouth pressed hard against mine. My protests muffled against his tightly closed lips.
His hands tangled in my hair, pulling me into him before I could say another word. He tried to kiss me again and I bit down hard. I slapped him hard across the face.

Oh, please do tell me again how it's your fault for provoking him when he is forcing you into an unwanted kiss? Please, do tell me again how it's YOUR FAULT for provoking him when he fucking slams you into a locker and forces a kiss on you in front of the school?

Reece stumbled and grunted, pushing me into a wall of lockers and pinning me with his body. His hands tangled in my hair, pulling me into him before I could say another word. He tried to kiss me again and I bit down hard.

And then to make up a story about how it's your fault.

“I wanted him to notice me,” I said, looking at the principal through lowered lashes, trying to gauge his reaction. “So I tried changing my hair and wearing different clothes. It didn’t work, so I did something stupid. I practically attacked him in front of a million people.” I cringed. It wasn’t entirely a lie.

What the fuck kind of victim-blaming apologist bullshit is this? Why are we making excuses for this boy? Why is this ever, ever ok?

The summary of this book claims to be for fans of the TV series Bones and Fringe. I love Bones and I would not wish this book on my worst enemy, because it is terrible. The investigation is hardly there, it is supposed to be a "psychic" book because the main character can feeeeeeeeel things through her touch. Don't expect much of that, the only things she feels and senses with her psychic touch is how much she really loves potential serial killer suspect.

"Touch me.” He took my sleeve and drew my hand to his chest. The damp shirt clung hot to his skin. It rose and fell fast with his breath.
Slowly, I slid my hand up over his collar, and spread my fingers over his bare skin. His pulse thrummed hard. My heart raced with his fear and the rush of his desire.

...Bones? Fringe? No.The Summary: Nearly Boswell has a hard life. Her father abandoned Nearly and her mother to a life of misery. Her mother makes ends meet as a stripper, there is never any money, they can barely make the rent. Nearly's only hope of getting out of this town and into college is to work hard, study hard, and win a prestigious Chemistry Scholarship. Despite her father's betrayal, Nearly constantly scans the Missed Connection section of the newspaper for potential messages from him. She clings onto the hope that he will return, while completely disregarding her mother, whom she refers to as "Mona."

“Don’t you ever wonder where he is?” I asked, tossing my own hope at her as though it were a life raft. “If maybe he’s thinking of us?”
She leaned against the door. “He’s never coming home, Nearly. That much I know.” She stubbed out her cigarette in her empty mug, the life raft abandoned and drifting in the murky waters between us. “Get your studying done.”

Nearly is able to feel things when she touches people, their emotions, their moods.

It was coming from anyone I got close enough to touch. I wasn’t exactly sure how it worked—it’s not like they teach this stuff in AP Physics—but I had a theory. Emotion is energy, and if energy is strong enough, it can travel between two points. Maybe I was like a channel, someone other people’s energies could pass through.

As if studying and worrying about her dad wasn't enough of a stressor, girls have started getting assaulted at Nearly's school. They were kidnapped, and in every situation, a number is painted, cut, burned onto their body. There is a connection between them, and rather than focusing on her studies and just leaving it to the police, Nearly is determined to find what happened to the girls.

Emily’s had been ten. Marcia’s was eighteen. But why? What was the connection? The message carved in my lab table in physics suggested there’d be others.

Oh, I have to give her credit for trying to enlist the police's aid, only she's not the most convincing witness in the world.

“Did you witness something you think is relevant to the incident?”
“No . . . I mean, yes . . . I mean possibly.” I shook my head. “What I mean is, I think I may have witnessed something, sort of.”

It is absolutely shocking that the police doesn't believe her testimony. And furthermore, she is now considered a suspect. The cops sends someone after her, Nearly overhears them sending an informant to spy on her. A juvenile delinquent who needs to cut a deal to stay out of prison.

“We cut him a deal. He stays in school and keeps his nose clean, and in exchange we registered him as a confidential informant. Tell him to get in tight with this Boswell girl and we’ll expunge the last assault and battery charge from his record.

So this is the lovely Reece Whelan. A potential killer who was involved in a shooting, a drug dealer who's still buying drugs.

“Actually . . .” Reece’s voice was unwavering. “I was hoping you could help me out with one more thing. I’m looking for a little Special K.”

What a gem! The violent, explosive, threatening Reece Whelan is going to get close to Nearly and get all her secrets.

And she pretty much lets him, with a few half-hearted protests.

His fingers loosened in my hair and his mouth softened. He cupped the back of my head, and I clutched his jacket and kissed him back.

There's the wonderful Jeremy, her friend since childhood, the one who will steal from his own family in order to help her pay the rent. The one who truly understands her.

But when I’d touched Jeremy, we felt the same. Alone. He was in his own house, in his own neighborhood, and still didn’t fit. I recognized that kind of loneliness, because it was mine too.

Jeremy, who instills feelings of jealousy within her when he starts to see another girl. Will Nearly lose her chances for a scholarship because of her own fucking stupidity in getting involved in a case that might get her ass fucking killed?

“Mr. Rankin tells me you’re awfully close to earning the merit scholarship in chemistry. I would hate to see you throw that away over a boy.”

Nowhere Nearly Smart: Nearly is the walking proof that you can be book smart, that you can be a genius in AP Chemistry without possessing a single fucking atom of common sense. Not even a proton of common sense. Maybe a quark or a Higgs boson of common sense, which is to say, none at all.

“The police think you’re involved. They just can’t prove anything. They’re looking for any connections. Motives. Accomplices. Even if you didn’t do it, they think you know who did. They’re watching you, waiting. They figure you’ll either do something stupid and incriminate yourself or lead them to the person behind this.”

Someone is out there killing people. The police do not know who did it, but they suspect Nearly because:

1. She has tutored all of the people who were killed or injured
2. She went to the police station claiming to know something about the murders, only to stammer and run away (smart), making herself a suspect.

Coming here was stupid. What was I going to say? Hello, Officer. I think there may be a crazy stalker at my school.

So now the police are on her ass, they've got ex-convict Reece to watch her. She knows this. And yet she's still a motherfucking idiot about not being caught.

Let's see, I'm going to place myself into Nearly's position. I am a suspect in a few murders. I know what I wouldn't do. For one thing, I wouldn't keep going back to the fucking scene of the crime to check out the body!!!!!!!!

“Why were you so mad back there?”
He gaped at me, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe I’d asked the question. “You were trying to run headlong into what may or may not have been the scene of an attempted murder, Nearly.”

I wouldn't go visiting the fucking murder victim fully knowing it might be a set-up.

Flowers delivered to Room #214. He was tipping me off.
Who was I kidding? That’s exactly what the killer wanted me to do. Exactly where he wanted me to be. This note felt like a set-up. I’d be playing into his hands again, and I hated myself for it. But I had no choice. It was time to pay [her] a visit.

And damn if she didn't fall into the fucking trap when her name is registered on the victim's hospital visitor list.

My name was on the visitor’s log at the hospital anyway. The police would know I’d been there.

She makes mistakes, walks herself into stupid fucking situations over and over and over. Bones' Temperance Brennan would NEVER.

She Nearly had a Future: Nearly needs that scholarship. She desperately needs that Chemistry scholarship. There is no other way she can go to college, but there she goes, chasing after fucking serial killers and flirting with psychopath-with-a-heart-of-gold while neglecting her grades.

Cumulative scores wouldn’t be posted until Friday, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what a ninetyfour percent would do to my grade.

Oh, a 94% is fucking awesome, but it's not good enough to beat out her friend and closest rivals. Competition is cutthroat. A 94 doesn't fucking cut it. Nearly needs to focus, instead, she allows herself to be distracted by stupid things like killers, lovers (same thing), and chasing an elusive deadbeat father, scouring the Personals section for possible messages from him.

This was my year. My only year. My ticket out.
And I was blowing it.

The Psychopath With a Heart of Gold: The heart of gold is there, you just have to look really, really deep. Like beyond the assault at school where he kicks her books away and then slams her into a locker and forces a kiss on her (it's Nearly's fault that he assaulted her, because she wouldn't go along with his ruse to pretend that she was his girlfriend). And beyond the fact that he's unbuttoning her shirt without her consent.

He reached toward my chest and I flinched.
Give me a break was written all over his face. “I’m not trying to feel you up.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, covering the buttons with both hands.
“Trust me.” He reached again before I could object, unfastening the top two buttons and drawing the collar wide across my chest.

Oh, it's ok, he's not trying to feel her up, he's just trying to expose her boobs. I completely fucking understand.

You have to look beyond all the names he calls her, like "pain in the ass."

“A thistle?”
“Yeah, you know...little...prickly...pain in the ass. It suits you.”

You have to look beyond the fact that he forces his way into her bedroom.

“I thought I told you to wait outside!” I hissed.
He inhaled half of my sandwich and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he pushed past me into the hall, paused at the No Smoking sign, and let himself into my bedroom.
“You can’t be here! My mother will have a stroke!” It came out as a frantic breathy whisper.
“If you’re quiet, she’ll never have to know.”

You have to look beyond the fact that he stalks her while she sleeps.

“If you didn’t talk to my mom, how did you know I was in bed by nine?” The thought both fascinated and horrified me. “Were you watching my trailer last night?”
No answer.

You have to look beyond the fact that he was paid by the police to spy on her.

I bristled, and just like that, the urge to confide in him was gone. Like someone turned on a light, and I could see him for who he was. A narc getting paid to snitch on me.

And beyond the fact that he was a drug dealer who might have killed someone.

“He was responsible for the death of a student.”
“Who?” I heard myself ask.
“A senior. Shot and killed at North Hampton last year.”

So you see, the heart of gold is still there, you just have to be a little patient. You just have to be like Nearly, that is to say, you only have to be a apologetic fucking doormat.

“You don’t get anything! I can’t keep making this about you! I can’t lose sight of what side I’m on, just because you show up on the hood of Lonny’s car and turn everything upside down.”
If he was so angry, why was he standing so close? If I turned everything upside down, why wasn’t he walking away?
“I don’t understand,” I said, wanting to touch him without feeling drunk.

Fuck this book.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/860932216

Welcome to the world of the Pingkang Li.



Meet Mingyu, the most celebrated courtesan of the Lotus Palace.



Welcome to a world of refinement, of beauty. Music and tea. It is a place where the most powerful men in the Tang Dynasty come to relax in the company of stunning, sophisticated women. Lose yourself in the music of the qin. Prepare yourself for flirtation and lust. Power and politics. Jealousy and murder.

There was a body seated in the chair dressed in a brocade robe. The head was missing and there was blood everywhere, splattered over the papers and staining the floor and walls.
“He was alive when they took off his head."

The Summary: This is the second book of the Pingkang Li series. The courtesan Mingyu and Constable Wu Kaifeng are not strangers. They have a past. And boy, it was not a good first impression. In the previous book, Mingyu was suspected of having killed a man. She was thrown into jail. She was tortured by the ruthless Wu Kaifeng with bamboo sticks. Her knuckles were crushed every time she refused to answer.

Tears had flooded her eyes while her screams echoed off the walls of the barren cell.

As a courtesan, Mingyu is used to being used by men. Kaifeng is just the latest, at least he had the courtesy to stop when he realized she would reveal nothing.

. No one came to her defense. For all the compliments and praise that scholars bestowed upon her, she was still nothing more than a diversion. Admired in passing fashion like the brightness of a full moon, beautiful in one moment, easily forgotten in the next.

The life of a courtesan is only beautiful on the surface. Mingyu is nothing more than a glorified slave, owned by the Lotus Palace.

Wu Kaifeng is not a handsome man.

His face lacked any refinement. Wu Kaifeng wasn’t ugly—he was more like a puzzle that didn’t quite fit together. There was no harmony to him, no sense of balance. Wu was long in the face, broad in the nose. The eyes were black and hard and unwavering. A sharp jawline framed his hard mouth, a mouth that she had never seen smile.

Wu Kaifeng is the "demon" to Mingyu's "flesh of ice and bones of jade."

When Mingyu's long-time patron, General Deng, is brutally murdered, their fates are again intertwined. She needs help. Being caught with a dead body once is bad enough. Being suspected of murder for a second time is truly bad. To make it worse, Mingyu is found with blood on her hands.



Mingyu might not like Wu Kaifeng, but he is a just man, and he is the only one she can trust.

“I don’t trust you because you are kindhearted and honorable, Constable Wu. I trust you because you don’t care who Deng Zhi is or how vast his forces are. You don’t care who I am, which means you don’t care that a lowly courtesan was found with her dead and high-ranking lover. Or that her life means nothing to the magistrate or his superiors. All you care about is finding the truth.”

Furthermore, Mingyu has no choice.

Her chest squeezed tight. “There is no one else.”

General Deng is a powerful man, with powerful enemies. The mystery of his death needs to be solved, but it's not as simple as that. The murderer might have wanted Mingyu dead, too.

There are enemies everywhere, from political adversaries, to a jilted wife, whose kind words...

Finally, the widow’s shoulders relaxed. “Is it not awful how women are pushed to secure ourselves in this way, with our flesh and blood? I think of the stories of Empress Wu and Concubine Xiao, clawing at one another, sacrificing their own children for the attention of the Emperor.”

...are laced with poison.

“Xiao was one of Empress Wu’s rivals in the imperial court. The Empress cut off her feet and drowned her in a vat of wine.”

To Magistrate Xi Lun, an ambitious and cruel rival determined to have Mingyu.

He was well-dressed, his robe dark blue and made of a fine silk brocade. His features were square, his jaw and nose broad. Not beautiful, but a certain kind of handsome.

To Xi Lun, Mingyu represents a symbol of success. A forbidden fruit that he has always coveted and will now do everything to possess.

"There were times when I hated him.”
Her pulse jumped and once again her skin prickled in warning. “Hated?”
“Because I realized long ago that only a man like Deng Zhi could ever possess someone like you.”

A twisted suitor. Political enemies. Jealous wives. There are no ends to the list of suspects. And there are far too many enemies to be made, for both of them.

It was always dangerous dealing with powerful men, especially those whose pride was displayed so eagerly. Those were the ones who were easily offended. Those were the admirers who could turn on you in a heartbeat.

Will Wu Kaifeng be able to hold onto his position, against all the people determined to remove him from it? Will Mingyu and Wu Kaifeng be able to overcome their differences, their strange attraction? Can they trust each other enough to fall in love?

“It’s difficult to look at you because you make me want things,” he answered plainly. “Things I cannot have.”

Or will Mingyu return to her true roots, forged from a lifetime of distrust and pain amongst the beautiful world of the Lotus Palace?

“She played you.” His face was twisted with hatred. “She plays everyone.”

The Murder Plot:

Her mere presence distracted him and he couldn’t allow that to happen. This was his duty and his calling and he needed to remain sharp to solve this puzzle, a puzzle that the courtesan was inexplicably a part.

I have to comment on this, because so rarely does a Historical Romance actually executes a murder mystery so well. I loved all the details of the investigation. I love the fact that the investigation does not take a back place to the romance, rather, it's the backbone of the plot. The entire story, the setting, the mystery, weaves together so divinely. No single element overpowers the other. We get to see how Wu Kaifeng follows clues and uses his own ingenuity to solve elements in a case in circa 800 A.D. China, where criminal forensics are nonexistent. Brilliantly done, Ms. Lin.

Wu Kaifeng:

Some unnamable emotion flickered in his eyes, but she was unable to catch it. Mingyu was skilled at reading a man’s desires. Maybe she couldn’t read Wu Kaifeng because he had no desires. He was as dark and fathomless inside as on the outside.

I do love a complicated man.



With the torture of Mingyu, you might be wondering why Wu Kaifeng doesn't deserve a place on my "Jericho-fucking-Barrons" shelf. That's because Wi Kaifeng is not a cruel man. He does his job as an investigator and he is damned good at it. He needs to catch the bad guys. He tortures, but he stops when he sees that nothing more can be done. It is a despicable act, but it was not out of line with the method of the day. In this book, he is never unnecessarily cruel to Mingyu. He is harsh, he is stern, but Wu Kaifeng is a conscientious man. From a child criminal to a shopkeeper, he is unrelentlingly fair in his pursuit of justice.

Moral, just, and determined to do the right thing. A simple man. A common man. A man with hidden desires. Mingyu is a courtesan, from roots as low as his own, but she is refined. A prize for a higher man, a wealthier man. One such as a lowly constable can never dream of loving such a jewel.

After the kiss, Mingyu had granted him a soft, wistful smile as they parted. They both knew nothing more could become of it.

Mingyu: Mingyu is but one of many courtesans within the walls of the Lotus Palace.



She is a beauty, no fair and innocent maiden. At 28, Mingyu has been cruelly treated by life. She is not a person, she is a slave. Mingyu is a possession.

She was part of the cycle, training another girl into the life: bondage and servitude on one side, poetry and music on the other.

She has been used by men, and has been in service since she was barely a teenager. She is no virgin. Her long-time patron, General Deng, was a harsh one before he was murdered. Like most powerful men, he seeks to possess. Mingyu is but a prize possession to be shown off, like a particularly nice car you could show off to your friends. She knows powerful men, she entertains them, one could say she uses them. Wu Kaifeng confronts her on it, but as she reminds him...

If Wu was waiting for her to flinch, then he would be disappointed. “Sometimes exploiting a man’s power is the only influence a woman can wield.”

Mingyu has guts. She has a fire within her. One does not become the city's most celebrated courtesan by being a meek little fucking wallflower. She knows when to tease men, and when to appease them. She is not a shrinking violet. She has been weak before, and she will never be weak again.

“I have no manners,” he apologized, the roughness of his voice stroking over her.
“Well, Constable,” she purred. “Then I shall have to put you in your place.”

The Romance: How can you not have a romance novel set in Tang Dynasty China without the mention of fate? In Chinese legend, lovers are born with a red thread on their fingers, tying their destiny together. Soul mates exist, they are fated to meet.

The events of the past had created a connection between them that remained unresolved. It was fate. Yuán fèn.

This romance is a slow burn. It is a fire of two intensely strong personalities, I can think of no few HR characters so equally matched as these. This is forbidden love, the two are separated by the boundaries of class, of wealth. In a culture where social lines are clearly defined, it is a difficult thing to overcome.

They may be as different as day and night, but Mingyu and Wu Kaifeng burn when they're together. It takes a long time for trust to be built, for lust and attraction to grow into love. But man, it's worth seeing them til the end.

She was a courtesan trained in the art of seduction, but she knew nothing beyond that. It was harder than she’d ever imagined to open her heart to someone. She didn’t even know how to begin.

Welcome to the Pingkang Li.

I've been reading this book bit by bit all night and it is so good. Looking to be a solid 4-4.5 ^_^ I love my comfort reads.

Mum laughed. “You wish it was more complicated than it is because you love secrets.”

“That’s not true.”

“Of course it is. You look for them everywhere.”

The best word I can use to sum up this amateur detective novel is "unsuccessful."

In order for a detective novel to feel realistic, there has to be an incentive, a remarkable motive that drives the would-be-detective (amateur or not) to seek the answer and to right a wrong. There was no purpose in this book's "mystery" than a girls' overactive imagination and overwhelming jump to conclusion for no reason at all. The mystery is put there in order to write a book, and because of that fact, the entire "investigation" felt overwhelmingly contrived.

Not only that, the characters are overwhelming tropes. There is not unbearable girl-hate in this book, but every single female character in this book (with the exception of the main character) is portrayed artificial, stupid, vain clones who are all stupidly boy-crazy, but it's ok if Jess likes a boy.

The main character is unconvincing, she is not the worst main character I've ever read, but something in the way the book is written makes me feel like her personality was made up as the book goes along. I didn't hate her, but she didn't feel like a consistent person. Not only that, she constantly blushes, flushes, burns. This book tries to sell her to me as a bad-ass, analytical investigator, and I just can't see Jess as the book meant her to be seen.

The investigation of the book is questionable. The main character (Jess) can only be described as "Too Stupid To Live." Jess' intelligence is highly questionable, her investigative methods are as subtle as Lady Gaga at a Mormon convention, and about as smart as putting your finger into an electric socket.

I’m going to persuade[the suspect] to meet me at the top of the cliffs. The shock of seeing me will scare [them] into telling me what [they] did. [They] confess, I go back to the police with proper evidence, justice is done.”

“That’s the plan?”

“Yep. Shakespeare had it first, but I think my version is better than his.”

The Summary:

I didn’t realize how stupid I’d been until it was far too late.

That sums up the book in a nutshell, but I should probably be a little more detailed than that.

Jess is spending the summer with her mum and cousins in Port Sentinel. This wouldn't be a bad thing, except her mother happens to mention the fact that she looks exactly like her cousin Freya, who is her age, who is her twin in appearance.

Freya, who was blonde, like me. Who had the same shape of face as me, the same pointed chin. The same slanting blue eyes. The same mouth. The same. Top to toe. The dead girl and I could have been twins.

The dead girl. Freya is dead. She died last summer, of an accident. Out of nowhere right after her mother mentioned Freya, Jess starts questioning her death for no reason at all.

“It was an accident, wasn’t it?”
“As far as I know.”
“Not suicide or something.”

Jess is absolutely fixated with Freya's death. She becomes convinced that Freya was murdered.

It really bothered me that no one could tell me what had happened. If I hadn’t looked like her, maybe I wouldn’t have cared so much. But the reactions I’d had from just about everyone— that mixture of guilt and fear— made me think that there was more to the story than the tragic-accident line Mum had taken

And naturally, the book is written to present to us the fact that Jess is right, but it does not convince me because there is no evidence other than the gut instinct about a girl Jess has never even met.

"I also have the feeling I’ve come in halfway through the story and I’m never going to catch up. And I want to know more about Freya.”

Jess starts seeing guilt everywhere. In people's nervousness.

I might have wondered what his problem was if he hadn’t been giving me the look I was starting to expect: shock mixed with suspicion. And what looked like—but surely couldn’t have been— fear...

She sees clues in the most minute of reactions. In people's eyes. In the way they react to her. How do you expect them to react, she's Freya's physical double!

Like it or not, Jess is going to spend the entire summer pursuing Freya's killer. Because she knows Freya was killed. If she's not careful (ha!) she might end up in a coffin herself.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that if she was murdered, the person who did it might want you to stop dragging it all up again?” He looked back at me, his face grave. “Hasn’t it occurred to you they might be willing to kill again?”

Investigative Bullshittery: If you're a teenager, and you're new in town, and you're trying to dig up a potential killer, it's probably a wise idea not to be completely fucking obvious about it. You shouldn't do things like going around, asking everyone you know about Freya and her death, which you will loudly proclaim to everyone to be a murder, not an accident.

“If you hear everything, do you know who killed her?”
His jaw tightened. “It was an accident. She fell.”
“How do you know?”

I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY JESS KEEPS THINKING THAT FREYA IS MURDERED.

“You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about this and I can under stand why. It would be much more exciting if she’d been killed. But there was an inquest. The coroner was quite clear. It was an accident. Death by misadventure. And I told you to stay out of it, didn’t I?”

From the very beginning, from the moment she is in Port Sentinel, Jess feels like Freya is killed. I cannot understand her reasoning, and therefore I do not find the case convincing at all.

Stayin' Alive: I might have been more forgiving about Jess' unconvincing investigation if she hasn't been Too Stupid To Live throughout the entire fucking case. One moment of stupidity is fine. We're all human. I've done dumb shit myself, I understand, I can forgive that.

Repeated acts of stupidity is not ok. Jess constantly gets herself into dangerous situation, and she well knows that she's a fucking idiot. That's the thing, Jess REALIZES HER OWN STUPIDITY. In a life or death situation, she cannot help but shoot off her mouth to antagonize the person who is literally holding her inches from dropping into a cold, dark death.

My smart mouth was going to get me killed, I thought. Really, genuinely dead. I should be begging her to let go, pleading with her, groveling so she could see I was completely in her power, but something in me wouldn’t give in. Pride, probably. Which was stupid.

Her instincts warn her of danger. She ignores them.

I took a tiny breath, which was all I could manage. The old familiar jolt of fear kicked my heart into a canter. Oh, here we are. Danger again. I felt trapped and I was more worried about his intentions than I had been before he’d lied to me.

She takes stupid risks, she deliberately places herself in danger. She uses herself as bait, and she's so fucking shocked when shit comes back to bite her in the ass.

Then there was the little matter that going for a walk with him was the equivalent of painting a target between my shoulder blades and handing [her] a bow and arrow. So of course I nodded and let him put his arm around me.

And instincts? Life-preserving instints? Fight-or-flight gut reactions? There to be ignored.

As I started to turn away I half saw a figure in the back room, standing against the wall, watching me, and my heart took off at a gallop. There was that feeling again— pure fear, ballooning out of nowhere. I refused to acknowledge it.

This happens so many times. I admire her courage, but you need to stay alive in order to conduct an investigation. You need to use common sense and your intelligence. Jess does none of the above; she wins despite everything, and I cannot believe that.

The Girl Hate: Every single girl except for Freya's little sister are portrayed as mindless, boy-crazy bitches. The gaggle of girls in Port Sentinel? Capricious. Disloyal. "Bimbos." "Herd animals." Clones.

The rest were girls, clones of the one I’d encountered on Fore Street that morning, wearing tight clothes in ice-cream colors to show off their expensive-looking tans and impeccable figures.

Every single teenaged female is stupid, an idiot who needs a Jess in their life and school them on what counts as a "slutty" dress. Girls are to be belittled, because such a tiny thing as swimming can be interpreted by Jess as being too much for them.

I didn’t imagine she did much swimming. Too risky for her hair, for one thing.

Jess frequently criticizes revealing clothes, tans, beauty. But it's perfectly fine if Jess is naturally beautiful, with flawless, effortless hair.

Her jaw dropped as I rattled back down the stairs. “How did you have time to do your hair?”
“I didn’t really do anything to it.”
“You have magic hair.” She nodded wisely. “Many long for it. Few are gifted with it.”
“Oh, come off it.” I looked in the hall mirror. “It’s just hanging there.”

Jess is holier-than-thou. She reads books. She likes to remind us that she's cool, because she's, like, not into book tropes and all, and so not into romance.

I had lasted through four chapters of the witless romantic novel I’d found on a shelf before I gave up. Just because the hero was a ruggedly handsome cowboy I didn’t see why it gave him the right to be so rude all the time.

Jess makes superly grand speeches to the stupid, slutty, boy-obsessed (and of course, every single conversation between two girls in the book is about boys) bitch that romance isn't everything and she shouldn't be so dumb.

“You don’t know him. He’s not like that.”
“Really? Maybe you’re too close to see what he’s doing.” I took a step nearer her. “Let me tell you what I think. You spend your time with your friends talking about him and why he hasn’t called you today, or what his last text meant, or why he tweeted that thing about Rihanna’s latest video. If he mentions he likes you in pink, you go shopping and buy every shade from bubblegum through to fuchsia."

She totally schools the girls for obsessing about a boy! Only it's just fine if Jess obsessed about a boy herserlf.

He hadn’t come to see me. I stared at it for a long time, feeling miserable and pathetic in equal measure. What did it matter? So what if he’d decided he had better things to do than visit me? I had rationalized it to my own satisfaction: the near- miss kiss on the beach. He hadn’t meant anything serious by it and now he was scared I’d think he wanted to revisit the moment. Which I didn’t, obviously. I hadn’t even thought about it since. Not more than sixty times a minute, anyway.

Oh, the hypocrisy.



Skip this book. For a much more successful amateur detective novel, please read Prep School Confidential.

Quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof subject to change in the final edition.

Recently there's been drama involving Isa and Savina's review of Disorderly. I don't like BBA stuff, so I posted my own review, and today I came home to a message from the author, Jayme K.

And after reading it, I felt like I was inclined to believe him. I replied to him very nicely.

And then Isa PMed me this post. And now I'm just pissed. http://isalavinia.booklikes.com/post/835586/post

My sister and I took a girl's night out. We went shopping at the Asian Garden Mall, ate a crap ton of sushi (played around with her DSLR) and ate everything in sight. It was wonderful ^_^

I found a k-pop pillow of my One Twoo Wuv (Kim Woo Bin). It took all I had to let it go.

The two male boys have depth. All the female characters are generic, bitchy bimbos or "herd animals."

This book is getting worse as I read.