Book Review – ‘Fatal Abduction’ by Julia Crane

Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse…

Genre: Y/A, Science Fiction, Adventure

No. of pages: 262

From Goodreads:

There’s a serial killer at large. His victims just happen to resemble Kaitlyn—dark haired, pale skin and athletic build. Kaitlyn goes undercover, attending a prestigious high school to try to lure the killer into a trap and save the lives of other potential victims. Will she be able to catch the killer before his body count rises? Or will she become the next victim? 

I’m glad to be done with this series.

When did Kaitlyn turn into a 40 year old noir gumshoe? Seriously, Julia Crane needs to set up her motivations and stop making generic statements which are out of character. This book was one big sarcastic eye-roll for me.

So much flawed reasoning and immature behaviour. Many situations feel like they are half out of context. I was skimming and angry reading. It was frustrating but my OCD had me seeing it right through to the end – I can’t leave something unfinished. And I had to find out what happened.

This final book in the trilogy (hopefully) added yet more perspectives: Madeline, then Kaitlyn, Elliot and Eliza… No one book in this collection is in the same format as another. It is agitating. We also see an Ouija board used as a plot device, which certainly did not match the mythology/history of the series and felt cheap.

Kaitlyn broke character as well – her train of thought bordered on paranoid, which digressed from her established personality in the previous books and did feel not realistic for a girl her age.

Eliza had her head screwed on right and I was starting to enjoy ‘Fatal Abduction’ in parts until just after halfway through, and then I lost all hope. This character would be the books redeeming quality as far as the multiple protagonists go, but the behaviour of her parents added to the books descent into ridiculousness.

The only other good point I can think to mention was that the last five or so chapters had great pacing and action scenes. I was hoping this series would get better, but it became more disjointed and convoluted. I wound not recommend these books to anyone I know. Interesting concepts, but needs to go back to the drawing board, address the basics in storytelling and go through an extensive editing/vetting process.

The print was bad too – askew on the page throughout the entire book. How can a writer get things so consistently wrong in every aspect of the writing-publishing process? Every book in this series has had spelling errors, grammatical errors, formatting issues and low production quality…. I should also lump the publishing team in with this, they are responsible for representing the author and preventing this kind of low quality getting to bookstores. Valknut Press – you need to up your game.

Overall feeling: Don’t bother – seriously!

© Casey Carlisle 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Book Review – ‘Fractured Innocence’ by Julia Crane

Hoped for more…  

Genre: Y/A, Science Fiction, Adventure

No. of pages: 298

From Goodreads:

Kaitlyn and Erik are sent on a mission to track down Vance Dasvoik, a ruthless monster. His latest thrill—abducting and selling young women.

Vance’s current victim: Aaliyah, a seventeen-year-old who never imagined walking her brother home from school one evening would change her life forever.

The mission quickly turns personal for Kaitlyn when she finds Aaliyah beaten, her mind and soul fractured from abuse of the worst kind. Kaitlyn knows firsthand what it’s like to be haunted by the past and resolves to bring justice to the elusive Dasvoik. 

I was hoping book two, ‘Fractured Innocence’ would redeem this series after my opinion on ‘Freak of Nature,’ the debut of this series, completely bombed. But unluckily, this was yet another lemon.

The beginning still had that annoying childish tone which did not gel well with Kaitlyn’s robotic nature, or the relationships and situations the novel started with. Not a good sign when I felt tense and squirmy with the first few pages…

Differing from the ‘Freak of Nature,’ this instalment followed the format of a dual P.O.V. between Kaitlyn and Aaliyah. The latter, a new character is the most realistic of all the cast, but still not someone I could readily identify with.

Kaitlyn is still hard to relate to, and her reactions/behavior is inconsistent with her cyborg condition, and frankly, annoying most of the time. Make up your mid Julia Crane, either she has emotions or she doesn’t, either she obeys commands or not – personality traits were all over the map and added to my confusion. Additionally, it was idiotic with Kaitlyn ignoring her superiors and risking another person’s fragile psyche – professionals are there for a reason, they know what works and what doesn’t. Her blatant disregard left me assuming Kaitlyn is a blunt instrument with little intelligence.

Interactions between Kaitlyn and Lucas (her love interest and overseeing technician) felt very one dimensional. He kept commenting on her looks as if that were the only important thing about her. His objectification, and her wondering if she is an object (being a company asset) left the story flat and superficial. Leading on from this, I did like the conundrum of whether Kaitlyn is alive, has rights, or is owned. But we never get any type of resolution, it’s only pondered.

Aaliyah’s narrative is the one saving grace, it was gritty, raw and heart-breaking. But as her story continued I became less interested. The choices she made, and some handling of the situation by the author left it feeling less and less authentic. But I highly commend the tackling of shocking and confronting material. A huge trigger warning for sensitive types – this book revolves around human trafficking, sexual abuse and rape. I personally found it to be vile and skipped over those parts. It’s not in my taste, but well written to have me feeling so disgusted.

Julia Crane should have done a little more research in maritime jargon to add authenticity as well, some of language was laughable. But ‘Fractured Innocence’ is another quick read, and not for everyone. I had so many problems with this it’s hard to give it a proper review without sounding like I’m completely flaming the book.

My copy had several typos and formatting errors, like it was not proofread properly. I feel embarrassed for Julia, issues like this are a red flag to me as far as quality goes.

Overall, a bit of an inconsistent, hot mess. Definitely great potential, and Julia Crane has the makings of a great writer, but ‘Fractured Innocence’ needs a few more drafts before I’d recommend it to anyone.

Overall feeling: Flatlined

© Casey Carlisle 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Book Review – Freak of Nature by Julia Crane

A cyborg cacophony!

Genre: Y/A, Science Fiction, Adventure

No. of pages: 284

From Goodreads:

Donate Body to Science. Check.
When seventeen-year-old Kaitlyn checked the box, she never suspected she’d have her life–and her body–stolen from her. She awakens one day in a secret laboratory to discover that her body is now half-robot and is forced to hide her own secret: that she still has human emotions and a human mind. If the scientists who made her find out, they’ll erase what remains of who she was.

Kaitlyn finds an unlikely ally in Lucas, a handsome, brilliant scientist who can’t get over the guilt he feels knowing she was once a vibrant, beautiful young woman. He never expected a science project to affect him the way she does. As he tries to help her rediscover her past, he finds himself falling for the brave girl struggling to find her place and acceptance between the human and computer worlds. 

A nice little book – just nice. It could have been fantastic. I was lead to believe such great things from some fellow bloggers I follow, but it fell way short. Such a great premise for ‘Freak of Nature’ – waking up a cyborg, a clandestine company overlord and forced to perform nefarious stunts for someone else’s regime. There is a lot to like.

For me, the biggest part that held my heart from falling in love with Julia Crane’s love child, is that I could not relate to either of the main characters. Kaitlyn’s mentality did not match her predicament. Her reactions varied from fantastic and engaging, to way off base. She was everywhere, and did not make sense to her character. Switching from mature to immature – it left her wishy-washy when I felt a great arc would have been about her rising out of confusion and uncertainty to assume her identity and ideals.

Lucas was the most frustrating. For someone intelligent enough to build a cyborg, he sure was dumb. I didn’t feel any of the chemistry between him and Kaitlyn. His inner turmoil fell flat, and as it was dragged out for so long through the story line of the novel, soon became tiresome. He was in a great position to make this character amazing, with compassion and power, trying to buck the man and a yearning like Frankenstein for his monster, I wanted to experience some torment, angst, and covert operations… and it was there, but just like a whisper in the dark.

Gracie made the most sense, but still her behaviour and manipulations sometimes jumped out of character and left me grinding my teeth. She was allowed too much freedom for it to feel realistic, and the way she fell into fast friendship with Kaitlyn, superficial. She seemed to wave too much control over key players in the plot for me to swallow. I’d really have like to see her challenged and need to test her strength for the sake of her friendships and relationships.

Much of the science around Kaitlyn being a cyborg did not add up and annoyed me throughout reading the entire book. It turned in to a bit of a struggle, and I put it down on several occasions. As did some of the twists at the end… and left me rolling my eyes.

If you overlook the glaringly obvious shortcomings this is a fun escape. Free flowing narrative style, though a bit juvenile for my tastes. It did conclude nicely (also leaving enough open for a sequel), but even that felt a little too trite. I felt this book more suitable for middle graders with the way it was written – but some of the steamier scenes wrote it out of that category leaving it ill placed for its target market.

I really wanted to love this book – but in the end it just felt like a dog’s breakfast.

Overall feeling: Frustrated.

     

 

© Casey Carlisle 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.