Gabrielle S. PrendergastReseñas

The Crosswood is an extremely fast paced short story that focuses on Blue and his very quick journey to the fairy realm to save his twin siblings.

While the foundation of this story is very easy to follow along with, it does suffer from the length. This is a novella sized middle grade story so everything happens back to back to back. There is no lull in the story so it makes it very easy to quickly digest. The problem for me was that because it was so fast and so short it gave no time to really enjoy your time with Blue and the many people he meets. All the lore that is built is extremely minimal and nothing goes into detail, its hard to feel the love between Blue and his siblings, the journey is extremely short, the friendships Blue makes feel hollow. Its a cute story, but I would have loved to have seen this fleshed out to a longer length, I feel it would have really made the story better.

Tried to read this book, but couldn't connect with the story or characters.

A quick and delightful read, one perfect for drawing in tweens just getting into chapter books with a fantasy theme. I'm giving my copy to the eleven year old boy I mentor and hope he enjoys it as much as I did.

Thank you to Library Thing and Orca Currents for the chance to review this as an early reader. I really enjoyed it. It had that atmosphere that really good fairy tales have, and I loved the whimsical names of the kids. It was a very fast read. I flew through it in one sitting, but it kept me turning the pages to see what would happen. The author's descriptions really paint vivid pictures in the reader's mind. I would highly recommend it.

My only criticism is that I loved the world that the author created and wish she could have expanded on it into a longer and more in-depth book. I hope to read a sequel, as it seems like it was set up for Blue to go on a new adventure. I also enjoyed the writing enough that I plan to look for more books by this author.

Juggling is a skill. When a girl is juggling two boyfriends, the skill level rockets because there are so many variables. Each member of the triangle in this story, Ella, Samir, and David, has issues and connections to other people around them. When those get messy, there are painful consequences. Getting through them is painful, but there's freedom on the other side.

Short and packed with fantasy, magic and adventure, this is a read which lets the secrets of the forest take flight.

Blue is fourteen and sick of helping his mother constantly take care of his very unruly, sibling twins. At ten, one would think they had some sense, but they are always getting into the most ridiculous trouble. When a chance to hide for a breather leaves Blue's mom with a broken ankle...thanks to the twin's antics...he's had enough and breaks the rule of keeping a constant eye on them. The result has them kidnapped by a fairy king and him faced with a fairy queen, who wants to have his life for a contract he never knew even existed.

Young fantasy friends...especially those who don't want to dive into a 200+ page novel...are going to enjoy this one. It starts with a normal boy, who has sibling troubles and can't wait not to help out with them. Anyone who has younger siblings will already identify with him, and those without, will sympathize with his problems. He comes across like any normal kid from school, and, actually is. That's one thing I do love about this tale because his 'usualness' definitely doesn't hinder his ability to experience amazing things and head into a huge adventure.

The author allows hints at something more magical to immediately start weaving into Blue's world without giving away exactly what's going on. The magical world hits with full force and draws the reader in with a bit of curiosity and excitement. It's well done without being overly descriptive. Even the other characters gain wonderful personality without ever slowing down the fast-paced plot. Every character is intriguing and has a hint of exciting magic. It's impossible to say what will come next, making the twists and turns come with delicious surprise. Of course, some of the smoothness of a longer novel is missing, letting the events jump from one right to the next, since this is a short but packed adventure. And still, it flows well enough not to let that hurt the read.

With all of it's richness, the read is still short and easy. At around only 100 pages, it invites even more reluctant readers to take a glance, and the pacing keeps a reader in the pages until the very end. There are hints at more adventures to come, and I'm more than curios to see what Blue will experience next.
I won a complimentary copy through Library Thing and was surprised how grabbing this read is.

I won this through LibraryThing ER. I am also an adult who often reads YA and passes it along to her niece.

THE CROSSWOOD is probably the best of the "high-interest" novels I've read through LibraryThing. (The dyslexia-friendly font was appreciated, and I hadn't realized how much difference a small change like that could make.) Blue Jasper, the protagonist, is relatable and has a nice balance of virtues and flaws, and the faerie characters are engaging. The story has enough magic and adventure to keep readers intrigued without getting bogged down in a ton of detail, and the ending leads in nicely to future books in the series.

A great short story for the audience and age group it was intended for. Writing is clear and accessible, the story is flush with plot hooks and twists that keep the reader engaged in the action. Clever thinking wins the day rather than might, which isn’t unusual when dealing with fae folk. The end provides a perfect segue into a second book.½

A black girl with afro-puffs and a white boy with glasses are spending the night in a tent in the backyard, talking about space and the planets, finding relative sizes to compare them on a scale that regular humans can wrap their minds around; e.g., if Pluto was a pea, Earth would be a golf ball, Mars would be an acorn, Jupiter would be a beach ball, etc. Very cool concept, good art, lends itself to art and science projects (STEAM). Excellent!

See also: The Sun Is Kind Of A Big Deal by Nick Seluk

*

Re-read July 2020

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Re-read March 2021

I loved The Frail Days as it was a fantastic short story that moved along at just the right pace, with well thought out development and characters. I could not put it down and only wish I had one more page by the end, and for me that is great. I love a book that leaves me wanting so much more and has me experiencing so many emotions. The book was also well written, great job to the author for writing a fantastic book. I will be keeping an eye out for more.

I was debating between 2 and 3 but I didn't want to be too cruel.

Zero Repeat Forever is a book about aliens invading Earth - the two protagonists are Eighth, one of the invaders who becomes a deserter, and Raven, one of the survivor humans.

And... I didn't enjoy it very much. I liked the set-up of the book, and I liked Raven's parts sometimes -but I couldn't emotionally relate to Eighth, his parts were often difficult to understand, and I'm still not sure how the Nahx society works at all.

Also, I'm not sure if this counts as a spoiler, but the book ends on a cliffhanger, which... okay, I get that it's the first in a series, but I still like when each book is a complete story on its own, you know?

Here, I felt like I finally got through an almost 500-page book that was much longer than it needed to be, and it wasn't even the complete story.

tldr; The book had some interesting ideas, but overall I couldn't relate to one of the protagonists, and I felt like the book was much longer than necessary.

I do like the title and its significance, though. That's a nice one.

I may have liked this better than the first book in this series. Prendergast writes lovely verse, and the characters are offbeat and unusual and the plot twists are often quite unpredictable -- which all makes it more realistic, somehow.

**I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own and not influenced by my source.**

Invasion stories seem to be all the rage lately and so I was eager to see what this one would deliver. I love stories where hated enemies become unlikely allies and sometimes more and I couldn't wait to see what would happen with these two.

Unfortunately, this novel just wasn't for me.

It is terribly slow; going through the mundane motions of Raven and company trying to survive. And I get why the pace is slower. They are now living in an unknown world and don't know how to proceed--I know I sure wouldn't. But I wanted more action and not just mini cut scenes of them being attacked by the Nahx here and there.

It would have helped to get a little more insight into the situation at hand. Again, I get that they are on their own and lost but an attempt to investigate more of what is happening in the world would have given my something else to focus on. I needed more clues about who the Nahx were; why they wanted to invade earth--not just how to kill them. This simply becomes a story about survival and not one about trying (or even attempting to learn how) to save the world.

I also wanted Raven and Eighth to meet a lot earlier than they did (I think it was around the 50% mark?). I craved that interaction between them because I simply got tired of Raven moping about Tucker (her dead boyfriend) and the stalemate her present company seemed to be stuck in. By the time they (her and Eighth) meet, I wasn't as invested as I wanted to be. They have a confusing relationship and I will be the first to admit I didn't understand how their relationship evolved as it did. It didn't win me over.

The last 20 pages were rather exciting. Finally, we get some action and Raven starts to actually do something about the situation at hand. It's a good twist but at this point, it was a little too late for me to be truly impressed.

Now, I think I will be in the minority with this review and there are a lot of positives to this book that will draw readers in. I loved the setting (rarely do I get to read books set in Canada). I loved how diverse the cast was and how natural the diversity was. I never felt like characters were thrown in simply to get the "diverse" label. Additionally, Eighth's character development was intriguing.

It's just that I need action or various plot twists to keep me invested. I'm not one for slower plots. But readers who like novels that gradually build or if they particularly loved the movie Arrival (2016), I think they will truly enjoy this one.

Check out more spoiler-free book and series reviews on my blog SERIESousBookReviews.com as well as read book series recaps!

Full Review: http://wp.me/p7hLUw-2db
Actual Rating: 2/5

The Frail Days was just an okay book for me. It has a great message but it’s a super fast read and I think that is why I can only give it two stars. I wish it had been longer. It just seemed like everything was happening too fast. It might have been a three star book if it was even 200 pages. It had everything it needed to be a good book, but unfortunately it was just okay.

If you want a fast, easy read, than you might want to check this one out. It might also be a good one for a kid that likes to read but can’t sit through bigger books. I wish I would have picked this up for a read-a-thon.

Okay, I hate to be that person who gives a book a low rating because of a little thing that ruined it for me. But it wouldn't be an honest review otherwise, so let's do this.

Audacious, you had me. The main character -- who is equal parts artistic, techie, and feminist. The plot, which deals with body shaming, personal autonomy, art and artistic expression, racism, religious beliefs, and more. The writing, which is gorgeous and poetic. I don't normally go for novels in verse, but this one pulled me right in.

And then I got to Ella's art project, which centres around a vagina as a determining factor of who is and isn't a woman, that thing that we all apparently have in common.

That doesn't sit right with me, for a couple of reasons. For starters, there's the existence of transgender people. You absolutely do not need a vagina to be a woman, and thinking that way excludes a lot of awesome ladies. Secondly, even from a cisgender perspective, I mean, I prefer not to be reduced to what's between my legs. I'm more than a body part.

And yeah, yeah, the main character is in high school. I don't expect her to have some nuanced understanding of gender -- I sure as hell didn't back then. But having a pivotal part of the plot be about anatomy being what all women have in common? That felt unnecessary.

So, much as it pains me to say because I love the rest of it, this really wasn't the book for me.

I got this book because I saw one of the book bloggers talk about it in an enthusiastic way and I got excited. The cover is just stunning and it was almost 500 pages, I just like big books!

The beginning was good but then somehow it slowed down, the pace of the events was very slow, and some parts were repeated. But towards the end, things started speeding up and getting more interesting for we starts to find out more about the Nahx ...

You may ask, who are the Nahx?

Well, the story is about Eighth, a Nahx soldier who loses his offside and becomes lost, until he meets Raven, who has also lost her boyfriend at the same time. They find each other, and they might find hope!

But how can they find hope when their people are fighting?

I can't wait for book 2 :S

This was described as the Canadian version of the 5th Wave and I’d have to say that was pretty accurate; that’s not a bad thing it just helps to provide a visual framework in which to approach this story.

If you aren’t into slow buildups you may have some trouble with this as the pace is more of a steady stroll than a sprint but if you can hang in there it grows on you.

You get aliens, diverse characters, an intricate storyline and an emotional spectrum that actually works to make it all feel captivatingly real. Prendergast made his characters feel relatable, strong but still flawed so we didn’t get more of the type where seemingly normal people can do things that feel impossible.

There are a few plot points I wasn’t very happy with, actions taken by the characters that kind of irritated me, and I felt weren’t necessary to moving the story along but it seems lately everyone has to throw in some kind of soap opera-drama stuff.

The settings were beautiful and perfect for this story so it helped ground the characters more in reality which also felt surprising considering it’s a story about Aliens. By the end you’ll be looking forward to the sequel so if you enjoyed 5th Wave definitely check this out.

A nice Canadian story....

Alien invasion.... In Calgary?

This book was a bit slow for me I had a hard time staying interested.

There is Raven and her friends who were at a camp working off their "community service" for some misdeeds

Along comes an alien invasion that they have to survive. One alien (8th) is not like the others (he is defective) and does not want to continue with the orders he is given.

Raven and 8th meet and 8th feels he must save the human.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Ebook to read for an honest review

Goodreads Synopsis:
He has no voice, or name, only a rank, Eighth. He doesn’t know the details of the mission, only the directives that hum in his mind.
Dart the humans. Leave them where they fall.
His job is to protect his Offside. Let her do the shooting.
Until a human kills her…
Sixteen year-old Raven is at summer camp when the terrifying armored Nahx invade, annihilating entire cities, taking control of the Earth. Isolated in the wilderness, Raven and her friends have only a fragment of instruction from the human resistance.
Shelter in place.
Which seems like good advice at first. Stay put. Await rescue. Raven doesn’t like feeling helpless but what choice does she have?
Then a Nahx kills her boyfriend.
Thrown together in a violent, unfamiliar world, Eighth and Raven should feel only hate and fear. But when Raven is injured, and Eighth deserts his unit, their survival comes to depend on trusting each other…

My Review:
I received an arc of this book from Netgalley after reading the description and deciding to request it. I'm pleasantly surprised with it. Set around Calgary, AB, my hometown and current living area, aliens have invaded. They're quickly taking over the planet and shooting darts into ever human in site. Eighth is empty and emotionless. His free will is dwindling. He has no past, only knows what he feels in the present, and all he can focus on is anger and obedience. Barely conscious of his own life and actions, fighting humans and following orders from his superior, Sixth, a mean girl who his life depends on but who treats him badly. The other main character Raven, or Rave as many of her friends call her, is a human lost among the apocalypse, trying to survive despite what the rest of the world thinks, and she changes everything for Eighth. The story switches between the two characters every chapter, and although I don't usually like viewpoint changes, I liked them a lot in this book. They have barely any internet use, no phones. Barely working satellites. The world is chaos, everyone fighting just to stay alive. Tucker, her boyfriend who has been through a lot with her, is the only thing keeping her going lately. Eighth is defective, or so Sixth likes to remind him. I love that the aliens use sign language to communicate. But Raven loses everything she holds close, and so does Eighth, and even though it's obviously very hard for them to stay alive, they do it. Things might have been different if Raven were a different person, not so full of rage and easier to control, but that just isn't the case, and I'm glad. The characters are just so realistic despite their surroundings, and despite their differences. They developed so much through the book and I was sad to finish it. I'm glad that there will be more to read because I can't even begin to imagine what's next. I absolutely loved every second of this book and it really was emotional at times for me. It's definitely one of my new favourites and you should check it out!
Thanks for reading! Check out this review and more at my blog.
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Simon & Schuster Canada, the publisher of Zero Repeat Forever, the YA novel by author G.S. Prendergast describes the story as ‘The Fifth Wave meets Beauty and the Beast”. That’s a fair assessment, well, except that it’s sort of the Canadian version which means there’s a whole lot of apologizing in the story and the pace is a bit slower – okay, some stereotypes are true… sorry. But, all joking about Canadian content aside, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Zero Repeat Forever given the publisher’s description. It is fairly long and I did feel that it could have been tightened up a bit especially as Raven and Eighth spend time together while she heals from an attack by another Nahx. Overall, though, I enjoyed the story quite a bit – and that’s mainly down to Eighth who was the only character whether human or alien who seems not to have lost his humanity (can you say an alien displays humanity?). The story does end on a rather large cliffhanger and I am already looking forward to where the story takes us.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

I received this as an early reviewer. This is the second book in a series. I hadn't read the first book, so I was a little lost on some of the background details. However, I don't think that this is a bad thing; a second book should not rehash the whole first book. I enjoyed the verse format and found it easy to follow the story. I gave it four stars because there were some really interesting poems, but I felt that, especially given the subject matter, the poems could have been a little more emotional/deep/poetic.

I received this book for free through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers.

When I had entered the giveaway for this book I did not know that it was a sequel so I am rating this book without having read the previous book.

I really liked this. A lot. I've never read a novel in verse form before and I really dug it. The poetry worked so well in telling the story. It was such a creative way to tell a story and it gave you an inside look into the main character's thoughts and feelings. I loved the diversity of poems (pantoums, haikus, etc.) because it never got boring or repetitive. Also, you don't have to be a poetry fan to enjoy this.

Overall, I loved this book and will definitely be looking for more book like this.

This is a sequel. I did not know that, so clearly I haven't read the first part of the series. I can happily say that reading "Audacious" is not 100% necessary to understand 'Capricious'. For the most part, what you need to know about the first book is sprinkled in here and there when needed, which is great. There is nothing worse than page after page of a half-assed recap. Of course, there are a few things that I wish were elaborated on a bit more. Such as the relationship between Ella and Genie and Sarah. The lack of knowledge doesn't make anything incomprehensible, just a tiny bit confusing. Though truly, this just makes me want to read "Audacious" even more. So that's clever on the authors part.

A big thing with this book is that despite being teenagers, they don't talk how teenagers talk. But at the same time, they do. The subjects, the feelings, they're definitely relatable. It's the delivery that is unrealistic. But for this type of book it's fine. I might even say great. It works because this is a story written in verses. I think verses, I obviously think of poetry. And what they are saying, how Ella is thinking, it's poetic. Without a doubt. If this were written like the average novel, I would have ripped this book a new one. But it's not. So I applaud it.
I've attempted reading a verse novel before, what a disaster that was. It came out seeming like the author was just too lazy to write an actual novel; I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried this would be the same. 'Capricious' is not like that- for the most part. There are sections which do feel like that, but I think it's a bit necessary to further the plot. I do wish that they had just a little something though.

I was not a fan of the ending. I feel the final conversation between Ella and David isn't something Ella would've ultimately excepted. But given that she did,I felt that there needed to be some type of follow up to it. Then, the actual ending is a bit of a cliffhanger. That would be fine if there were a book chronicling her 12th grade year and her school trip, relationship with Genie, etc. But there doesn't seem to be one. Which is unfortunate as it leaves a lot unanswered.

All in all, this is a quick (It took me roughly 4 hours to finish) and beautifully written book that does a good job at capturing the emotion and thoughts and irrational actions of a teenage girl. I give it 4 stars because of the ending. But I give the cover a perfect 10, wowza!
And I need to find a copy of 'Audacious' ASAP.

First of all, thank you to Orca and LibraryThing! I received a free copy of Capricious as part of the Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.

So, I read Capricious before I read Audacious. And, I've got to say, this book holds up very well on its own. There were a couple of moments when I felt like I was playing catch-up and that maybe I should have read the books in the correct order, but these were few and far between, and everything I was wondering about was eventually addressed.

The writing itself is gorgeous. I normally don't go for books written in verse (and especially not ones that include rhymes. Rhyming poetry is one of my pet peeves). But you know what? Capricious absolutely pulls it off. These poems are awesome. They're written in this sort of confessional style that bring me back to writing in my own poetry jouranl in high school... only way better.

And the plot itself is pretty great, dealing with female desire (which is frankly not addressed enough, especially not in YA fiction), religious differences, honesty and communication, and the expectations that we place on people. Lots of heavy content presented in a beautiful way.

While I had some qualms about Audacious, I would definitely recommend Capricious. If you've got a teenager in your life who has an interest in feminism and social issues... this might be one for them to try out.