Book Nerds Across America: the cruelty

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Blog Tour: The Traitor's Kiss by Erin Beaty

Book Summary
An obstinate girl who will not be married.
A soldier desperate to prove himself.
A kingdom on the brink of war.

With a sharp tongue and an unruly temper, Sage Fowler is not what they’d call a lady―which is perfectly fine with her. Deemed unfit for marriage, Sage is apprenticed to a matchmaker and tasked with wrangling other young ladies to be married off for political alliances. She spies on the girls―and on the soldiers escorting them.

As the girls' military escort senses a political uprising, Sage is recruited by a handsome soldier to infiltrate the enemy ranks. The more she discovers as a spy, the less certain she becomes about whom to trust―and Sage becomes caught in a dangerous balancing act that will determine the fate of her kingdom.

Flo's Favorite (Literary) Female Spies!
I was super excited to get my hands on this book as soon as I heard about it, because I really do enjoy a good girl spy story. "Like which ones, Flo?" you ask. Well, let me tell you!

1. Cammie, Bex, Liz, and Macy from the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter: Oh, I love these girls! This is a fabulous series that I completely binged and enjoyed every minute of it. These four girls go to the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, which is a fancy way to say 'spy school.' I really enjoyed how real to the teenage experience this story was. The girls were taking down bad guys and running for their lives at points, but they also had crushes on boys and the usual high school drama. I highly recommend this series.

2. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh: Throwback! My first experience with a female spy was Harriet. I may not remember all the details of the story, but I definitely remember reading it as a little girl and loving it.

3. Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene. From Harriet to Nancy Drew! If Harriet was for the little girl me, Nancy was for the preteen. I had to include this stylish 80s cover, because these are what the versions I read looked like.

you don'w know my name, kristen orlando, black angel chronicles

4. You Don't Know My Name by Kristen Orlando: I simply adored this book. Reagan is kickass as a spy, but also as a friend and a daughter. I really hope to see more of The Black Angel Chronicles.

5. And two more Worth Mentioning: I have also recently read a little bit of the Gail Carringer Finishing School series, and The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom is about a female spy-in-training, if you will.

I think that's all for me! LitReactor has a good little list of YA books with kickass female spies. But who are some of your favorite literary lady spies? Let me know in the comments!

Oh, and about that Secret Message.... :)

"Had paper scraps with personal information about nobles"

Friday, February 24, 2017

Book review: The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom

Book Summary
When her diplomat father is kidnapped and the U.S. Government is unable to help, 17 year-old Gwendolyn Bloom sets off across the sordid underbelly of Europe to rescue him. Following the only lead she has—the name of a Palestinian informer living in France—she plunges into a brutal world of arms smuggling and human trafficking. As she journeys from the slums of Paris, to the nightclubs of Berlin, to the heart of the most feared crime family in Prague, Gwendolyn discovers that to survive in this new world she must become every bit as cruel as the men she’s hunting.

Flo's Review
I love audiobooks, so when I was given the chance to review this one, I jumped at it. Then I re-discovered that it was written by this guy. But I decided not to let that affect my reaction to the story itself, and I don't think that I did.

The Cruelty will be a good movie. It has been optioned by Jerry Bruckheimer, so it's on the way. The story is action-packed, and the physical details are very well done. Bergstrom does a great job of really showing us a scene -- Gwendolyn really takes in all the details around her, even before she starts her spy training. The plot moves forward at a good pace and I would bet it continues on a steady beat straight through the end. It's perfect for watching. The people making the movie will have a lot of detail they can re-create. The viewer won't feel that there are any lapses or drags.

But I DNF this book around page 140. The reason, I think, that a lot of people believe the book is better than the movie in most cases is because reading the book allows the author to go into more detail. The reader feels more connected to the characters because she can be inside their heads and know intimate and defining details of their lives. For me, that was missing in this story. I never found a way to connect to Gwendolyn. Yes, she is doing this because she wants her Dad back. Because she feels some sort of fire within her to take risks...but I, the reader, never felt that with her. A story like this succeeds when you want to root for the main character to pull off this crazy thing she's doing, but I honestly felt indifferent toward Gwendolyn. She read like a random person going through motions and not like Gwendolyn Bloom: daughter, brave fighter, driven by determination and fire, etc. The same goes for the secondary characters: Terence and Yael, for example, just feel like plot assists and movers to me; not really like complete individuals.

Also, I got a slight vibe from the story of: "The way to be badass is to completely transform into a fighting machine." I don't necessarily agree with that. Yes, that's definitely part of it. But all the badass female characters I admire in books and movies are not just wicked fighters. They are also passionate. They want to make the world better. They are strongly connected with who they are, and their talents accentuate them and not change them. This might evolve with the story, so it's possible I am not seeing the full picture because I did not finish the book.

Then there were little things. The first few chapters just felt to me like that one friend who is always name dropping. It was just cities and cities and cities. "Oh this in Paris" and "when I was in Algiers" and "that one restaurant in Nairobi" and etc. And would your high school crush really be convinced to give you his life savings after one date?

As I said above, I think this will make for a good movie. It has the makings of a good screenplay. I just didn't feel it as a novel.

Thank you to Macmillan for providing me with an audiobook copy for my honest review.