Dairy Queen

Dairy Queen
Author: Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Publisher: Graphia
Release Date: June, 2007

Series: Book 1 of 2 to date

D.J. Schwenk is only 15 years old, but she has the work load of three adults. When her father injures his hip, the work of running a small, family dairy farm falls on D.J. Her older brothers, Win and Bill, have left home to play football in college, and even if they could come back, a falling out with their father makes that impossible. So D.J. must sacrifice the things she enjoys in order to spend her days doing the endless chores necessary to keep the farm operating. She quits the sports teams where she is the star player, and she even flunks her English class when her work keeps her from completing assignments.

Non-communicative and un-complaining, D.J. does what's asked of her without a word of refusal. When the quarterback from rival high school Hawley's football team shows up on the farm with instructions to offer a helping hand in exchange for training by D.J., she wants to refuse. But she agrees, and in between milking and haying and maintaining the farm, she spends her time with Brian Nelson coaching him to be a better player. Over the course of the summer, she realizes that the skills she has that allow her to be a trainer to Brian - hours of playing football with her older brothers - would also allow her to play on her own school's football team. The idea of for once doing something she wants to do and chooses to do for herself rather than all of the things people expect her to do is very appealing.

However, she's sure no one in her life would share this enthusiasm. Not her father, who's inability to show any appreciation for the work that D.J. does or the sacrifices she's made don't indicate a willingness to embrace such an unconventional concept as a girl playing on the football team. Certainly not Brian, who would become her competition and might view their time spent together as her way of spying on him rather than an attempt to make him a better player. Maybe not even the school's coach, who admits that he has no idea if a girl can play on the team, and even if so, not one who has flunked her English class.

Meanwhile, D.J. struggles to understand why the relationship with her long-time best friend, Amber, has grown so tense of late. She despairs at the feelings she's developing for Brian, a guy she's certain would never be interested in a stupid farm girl like herself. And she silently rages against her tight-lipped family that never talks about problems but rather shuts each other out so that they resemble a group of strangers living in the same house.

D.J. is a fascinating character. She's so unlike the normal girly-girl protagonists you find in so many young adult novels aimed at girls. Despite her advanced maturity and the adult-like burdens she carries, she's amazingly lacking in confidence. She truly views herself as nothing more than a hick farmer who will never fit in, so stupid she can't pass English despite knowing that it was not her lack of smarts but her lack of time for schoolwork that caused the problem. The idea of someone like Brian ever finding her in any way interesting is completely foreign to D.J., and when he does show interest, she sees it as fleeting at best.
Too, D.J. is unusual in that she does not speak often. While as readers we are fully aware of what she is thinking and feeling at a given moment, Murdock makes it clear that D.J. is unable to articulate these thoughts and feelings. While we want D.J. to scream and shout against the unfairness of her situation, D.J. herself never views things this way. Nor would it occur to her to say anything about it even if she did. She accepts her burdens stoically. Too, her inability to communicate causes rifts with Brian that are very realistic.

While I appreciated the fact that D.J. was not a whiner, I did grow increasingly frustrated with what I viewed was a certain level of child abuse that I thought her parents were engaging in. The idea that parents would allow working on a farm to interfere with their child's grades - to the point that D.J. flunks English despite many written warnings to her parents - is despicable at the best. They take advantage of D.J. to the degree that I would think a call to Child Welfare wouldn't be out of line. The amount of physical labor alone is horrific.

Too, I found it highly reprehensible that D.J. was expected to give up the things she loved to do - play on the basketball team, run track - in order to run the farm virtually alone. That her parents would not consider other options is unbelievable. Granted, I'm sure in such a situation options are very limited, but it was hard for me to read about D.J.'s experience without fuming at the unfairness of it all.

Murdock does an amazing job conveying D.J.'s feelings in such a way as you can believe D.J. is really describing them. She maintains D.J.'s voice throughout, and I wanted very much to know how things would work out for this girl. At times I wanted her to tell everyone around her that they are all jerks - especially D.J.'s father whom I found very hard to like or sympathize with - and at one point, D.J. does allow all of that low-simmering rage to come to the surface in her own way.

As a character, Brian Nelson is very three-dimensional. He's got both faults and virtues that make him real - he's a spoiled boy quarterback who's aware of it and doesn't necessarily like the fact. His feelings for D.J. remain undefined and uncertain, which is in line for what D.J. perceives to be the case. We're never quite sure how he feels about her, because neither is she.

All in all, I really loved this book. I expected something much lighter and more humorous when in truth, this book is rather dark in the way it portrays life on a family farm. There are no easy answers, and people are portrayed complete with some very serious flaws. Even so, I loved D.J. as a character and am anxious to read the next installment in the series.

Rating: Couldn't Put It Down
Status of Series: Outstanding first installment

The Book of Luke

The Book of Luke
Author: Jenny O'Connell
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/MTV
Release Date: April, 2007

"Nice Girl" Emily Abbott has really gotten handed a raw deal. Half-way through her senior year in high school, her parents decide to move the family from Chicago back to Boston. She's just received a letter from her first choice college, Brown, telling her she's been deferred. And on the morning that the family is scheduled to leave, her first real boyfriend, Sean, breaks up with her. Too add insult to injury, her father announces at the airport that, in fact, he's not moving with the rest of the family but rather staying behind in Chicago, to tie up some loose ends. Code for separation.

But when Emily arrives back at her old school, she finds that not much has changed. Her old best friends, Lucy and Josie, are there to welcome her back into the fold. And come to find out, they've been experiencing their fair share of boy troubles as well. In fact, Josie was just dumped - via e-mail - by hottest guy on campus, Luke Preston.

Fueled by their frustrations, the girls decide to write a guide-book for guys, a how-to-manual describing all the things boys do that drive girls crazy and how they can change for the better. Once this manual is done, the girls plan to put it in the senior class's time capsule so future generations can benefit from their knowledge.

But for some reason, Emily, Josie and Lucy determine that they need to test out their theories on a real live boy. And who better but the jerk Luke Preston? Emily is drafted into becoming Henry Higgins to Luke's Eliza Doolittle. Ostensibly, she will get Luke to fall in love with her, work her magic in changing him into the greatest boyfriend ever, then break up with him in order to add the humiliation cherry to the top of the cake.

As you can predict, this Grand Plan falls apart when Emily finds out that maybe Luke isn't so bad after all. In fact, he's actually kind of wonderful, and before she knows what's happening, Emily feels stuck between what she wants for herself and what she thinks she's supposed to be doing for the sake of her friends and for all girl-kind.
As a heroine, Emily had a great voice. She's easy to relate too, and despite all of the crap she's handed, she doesn't whine excessively. She constantly describes herself as a "nice girl", although other than spewing bits from her mother's etiquette books (her mother is a professional etiquette expert), I didn't find her any nicer or meaner than any other character.

My problem with this book is that the premise of the guide book is very flimsy. As it was described, this how-to manual the girls are writing is a list of observations of the things that boys do that drive girls crazy and suggestions to the boys on what not to do. When the threesome determine that the book needs to be "tested", I was thoroughly confused. The guide-book is not a how-to manual for girls, on things they can do to change the boys in their lives. So how was Emily supposed to "test" it on Luke?

Indeed, I never did see Emily testing Luke in any way. In fact, several times he did things she didn't like (standing her up for a dance, not calling her when he said he would), and she ignored her initial urges to call him out for acting like a jerk. Other than a handful of suggestions - like telling him to keep an umbrella in his car for rainy days and not sharing her french fries when he acted as if it were only natural that she would - it seemed Emily did most of the changing when she accepted Luke exactly as he was. In fact, the real test Emily seemed to engage in was to see if she could act in such a way as to get Luke to fall in love with her.

Too, the conflict in the book is based on a very weak base. Emily supposedly feels conflicted because 1) she's falling for Luke when she's supposed to be re-training him and 2) Luke used to date Josie and hurt Josie's feelings. If the focus of Emily's distress would have been on the fact that she'd developed real feelings for her best friend's ex-boyfriend, I would have been satisfied. As it stood, I never understood why, once she realized Luke was actually a pretty nice guy that she genuinely liked, Emily never put the brakes on and told her friends that it wasn't working.

So as the story continued, Emily's increasing conflict became more and more frustrating.

Additionally, in the end, Emily is left holding 100% of the blame when things spiral out of control. Despite the fact that the idea for the guidebook as well as the desire for Emily to be the one to test it out on Luke belonged to all three girls equally, everyone turns to Emily when it comes time to pass out blame and anger.

While this book kept me turning the pages, wondering how it would all work out, I did so with a lot of frustrations. Only Emily as a character kept me from not finishing it. I like her well enough even though I thought much of what she did towards the end of the book veered awfully close to Too Stupid Too Live behaviour. Add in a healthy dose of Big Mis that drives the conflict and I can't say that this was my favorite book ever.

Rating: Struggled to Finish
Status of Series: This is a stand-alone title

Adiós to My Old Life

Adiós to My Old Life
Author: Caridad Ferrer
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: July, 2006

Alegría Montero is a seventeen year old Latin-American girl, the daughter of a widowed music professor who finds herself the next potential super pop star, courtesy of a reality show competition to discover the hottest Latin music talent. Oye Mi Canto is the name of the show, and when Ali auditions, she never really expects to get through to the actual contest. But Ali's talent is unmistakable, and before she knows what's happening, she's caught up in the world of makeup artists, stylists, choreographers, fame, fansites, and career-destroying jealousy. Amidst the whirlwind of sudden fame, Ali meets Jaime, a production assistant intern who is interested in more than just her musical talents.

Adiós to My Old Life is a Young Adult title, told from Ali's perspective. It is well written, and the behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it might be like to be a contestant on an American Idol-like TV show is very compelling. Ferrer was extremely wise to use an ethnic culture to draw a parallel to the hugely successful talent show. While it would have been hard for me to buy into Ali's journey had Ferrer placed the story in the real AI world, I certainly could believe Ali's involvement on a smaller-scaled Latin version of such a show.
Ali was a very likable protagonist. She was savvy enough not to be a Pollyanna, yet she retained enough niaveté that I really felt sorry for her as the consequences of being on the show began to become problematic. When Ali becomes victim to the show's other female contender, Fabiana, a fame-whore type who will stop at nothing to win the game, I felt so sorry for her. Yet Ali was quite capable of standing up for herself.

If I have any complaints about Ali it is that she is perhaps a bit too perfect as a character. Through the course of the story, Ali turns out to be the most talented singer, the most talented musician, the most adored by her fans, the most professional performer, the most self-confident (despite being the youngest contestant), the best friend to other contestants, etc. She handles all of the obstacles thrown at her with a maturity that most adults would envy. Even at the end, when a terrible revelation is made, Ali's reaction is much less extreme than I would have expected. I wish that Ali had shown a bit more self-doubt about her abilities. Then again, as she is presented, she had no reason to doubt herself because Ali was the most talented.

Too, Ali tended to lapse into teen-speak clichés that got tiresome after awhile. For example, she referred to songs as "charts" and the large mansion where the contestants lived as a "barn". Her guitar was her "ax". Rather than giving Ali a distinct voice, I just found use of such slang in such a repetitive way to be an affectation.

What did work was the way that Ferrer sprinkled Spanish words into the dialog and narrative. I speak no Spanish yet was able to glean the meaning of the words via the context, and the use of Spanish kept me firmly rooted in the culture of the story. Never for one minute did Ali sacrifice who she was.

I was a bit disappointed at the predictable send-up of the show's fashion coordinator being a gay man. Too, a subplot involving Ali's chaperone Elaine, a long time family friend who harbored hidden feelings for Ali's father, left me kind of cold. The end to this subplot was a foregone conclusion so the whole thing seemed a little pointless.

What wasn't as predictable was how the competition played out. Needless to say, Ferrer didn't let Ali come to a happy ending by the normal route, although I did find things wrapped up a little too neatly as far as Ali's future relationship with Jaime went.

I did enjoy this book. I would recommend it for older teens rather than younger ones as Ali and Jaime do become somewhat physically involved. But anyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a reality TV superstar would appreciate Ali's story.

Rating: Held My Attention
Status of Series: This is a stand-alone title.

Dark of Night

Dark of Night
Author: Suzanne Brockmann
Publisher: Random House Publishing
Release Date: January, 2009

Series: Troubleshooters
Position in Series: 14 out of 14
Main Characters: Lawrence Decker, Tracy Shapiro, Sophia Ghaffari, Dave Malkoff, James Nash, Tess Bailey
Returning Characters: Jules Cassidy, Robyn Chadwick, Sam and Alyssa Starrett, Ken Karmody
Sequel Bait: Jay Lopez
Bad Guys: a shadowy government black ops group gone bad

This book was quite possibly the most polarizing series entry that I've ever encountered as far as its reception by the fans. There was no middle ground on this one - you loved it or you hated it. But more on that in a minute.

A handful of years ago, Lawrence Decker met Sophia Ghaffari under some horrific circumstances. They had a sexual encounter that left both of them emotionally scarred, and Decker has never forgiven himself for what he did. Sophia, however, has harbored feelings for Decker that she finally realizes he will never be able to return. Ready to move on with her life, she turns her attentions towards her best friend, Dave Malkoff, a man who has been quietly waiting in the wings and will take Sophia in any way he can, even if he feels as if he's her second choice.

Meanwhile, Decker has thrown himself into his latest mission, trying to discover who it is exactly who has been trying to kill fellow Troubleshooters operative James Nash. Decker's investigation throws him together with the group's receptionist, Tracy Shapiro, and no one is more surprised than Decker when sparks start to fly between himself and the fiesty girl.

As his friends work desperately to keep him safe, James Nash grinds his teeth with frustration. Recovering from a near fatal gunshot wound, he's forced to remain behind at the safe house while his fiance, Tess, puts herself in danger in order to clear his name once and for all. Too, he's beginning to realize that if he ever hopes to have a future with Tess, he's going to have to reveal his darkest secrets to her, admit his worst sins, and hope that she'll accept him as he is.

The action in Dark of Night is certainly fast-paced. The story takes place over the span of only a few days, and the characters are always on the move. While this action keeps the story moving, it did create a little bit of confusion for the reader. Several times I had to rethink who was doing what where and why. And because more of the characters found themselves in mortal danger as the story progressed, you began to wonder how the problems would ever be solved to satisfaction.
I mentioned above the kerfuffle this book caused with fans when it came out. Thing is, over the past few books in the series, Brockmann has been dropping hints and clues that the predestined couple would be Decker and Sophia. It is no spoiler to reveal that in this installment, Decker finds romance with Tracy Shapiro and Sophia is perfectly happy to spend the rest of her life with Dave. Many long time fans of this series felt betrayed by this turn of events - so betrayed they are planning to boycott any further books in the series.

I did not harbor any major disappointment with the pairings that resulted in this book. My only issues came from other problems I had with the Tracy/Decker romance.

First of all, Tracy and Decker move from some previous minor flirting in one other book to a full-on love for all time romance in the course of only a few days. I always have a problem with books that throw a man and a woman together and have them fall deeply in love in such a short time. I can buy lust and infatuation and even the sparks of something they both know is going to develop into something big and great and longlasting. But this courtship-on-speed makes me doubtful for the couple's longevity.

Too, for many books we have been shown that Decker's sexual encounter with Sophie has left him wracked with guilt. He believes he took advantage of a desperate woman, and his self-loathing is so great he can't manage to overcome the guilt to see that he made a human mistake. This is why he can't allow himself to reciprocate Sophia's love.

But when Decker manages to open up with Tracy and reveal the real truth behind why he has such baggage over that one episode, the reasons completely blindsided me. This is a bit of a spoiler, so you may want to stop reading. Come to find out, Decker actually got a special little thrill out of the danger inherent in his encounter with Sophia. He's horrified that he was sexually aroused by being dominated (and very nearly killed) by Sophia. In short, he feels like a dirty boy for finding pleasure in a non-traditional sexual situation.

I had a bit of a WTF? reaction to this revelation. The whole reason he can't let himself love Sophia is because she turned him on in a way he felt was wrong? I guess I was expecting something much more debilitating than this bit of Freudian upset.

As for the Sophia/Dave pairing, the main conflict rests on Dave's fears - and rightly so - that Sophia has settled for him since Decker won't have her. She struggles to convince him - and herself - that this is not the case, and over the course of the story she does come to realize that the love she feels for him is as real and pure as anything she'd ever felt for Decker.

Dave as a character completely baffles me. Brockmann describes him as schlubby and very un-CIA stereotypical. In my mind I imagine a balding man with a bit of a gut, not very handsome or physically fit. Yet when Dave is put into a life or death situation, he becomes a Power Ranger extraordinaire. This creates a disconnect for me that I can't quite overcome. It's as if Brockmann is unable to let any of her heroes be anything less than super macho warriors. Perhaps Dave's challenge shouldn't have been so much physical as intellectual. Let him be smart and sexy instead of requiring him to be smart and super powered to be sexy.

The other couple featured heavily in this story is James Nash and Tess Bailey. This is another pairing that doesn't quite work for me. In "their" story (that is, the story when Nash and Tess supposedly had their HEA, which turned out to be not so much "ever after"), Nash was portrayed as a black ops assassin-type who barely walked on this side of good. Tess was a sweet, freckle-faced girl next door. I couldn't quite understand the attraction between them. In this story, my reaction to their continuing saga was lukewarm. I didn't really much care. I'm not sure what this means.

I have one other minor complaint. As much as I love Sam Starrett, he's beginning to turn into Dr. Phil. He offers relationship advice to pretty much every guy he encounters, and I'm wondering when he became such an expert. I liked Sam much better when he wasn't so well adjusted.

Despite these problems, I enjoyed this book. It kept me turning the pages pretty steadily. I won't say it was my favorite in the series, but I certainly did not have the negative reaction that so many others did.

Rating: Held My Attention
Status of Series: Has reached a love it/hate it point, where many readers have grown weary of the same characters and situations, while others who love returning to this world are happy to have more. The writing is still top-notch.

The Boys Next Door

The Boys Next Door
Author: Jennifer Echols
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: June, 2007

This book is not part of a series.

The story described on the back cover blurb held so much promise. Lori has grown up on the shores of a small lake, next door to three brothers whose family owns the local marina. They spend their summers working at the marina and wakeboarding their way back and forth across the lake. As Lori has grown older, her crush on middle brother Sean has grown proportionately. And through the years, her friendship with youngest brother Adam has become rock solid.

Finally, Lori has reached the critical mass of maturity and bodily development that she thinks she has a chance at making Sean see her as dating potential instead of just a tag along tomboy little sister type. Over the course of the summer's first new weeks, she employs all of the standard femme fatale tricks to gain Sean's attention, most of which involve exposing her newly developed body for all and sundry to admire. Too, she believes for some convoluted reason that pretending to have a thing for Adam will make Sean jealous enough that he'll go for her. All the while, she seems oblivious that the attentions Adam is showing her might mean his feelings run deeper than mere friendship.

At this point I'm sure it doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to figure out that Adam is, in fact, the right boy for her in all ways. Why it takes Lori the course of 300 plus pages is beyond me.
I have to confess right here that I did not finish this book. I gave it the old college try - got through seven whole chapters and skimmed the rest of the book before the poor writing overcame any resolve I had and knocked me out once and for all.

Because the writing is just plain bad. Not only were there numerous type-Os that did not get corrected in the copy editing stage, but sentences were so awkwardly worded they actually reminded me of something a fifteen year old might write.

But I should back up. My first problem with this book came in the form of the narrative. The story is told in the first person via protagonist Lori's viewpoint. Her thoughts are so scattered, I felt like I actually was inside the head of a fifteen year old girl. You might think this is a good thing, that the author really captured the narrator's voice. Not so much. It was simply hard to read.

Unfortunately, this scattershot approach extended to the dialog as well. The conversations took such sharp turns away from the original topic that I wondered if some of the text hadn't been dropped during the printing process. It felt much like the writer had an agenda to accomplish during each instance of character interaction, a number of plot points she had to establish, and whether or not they fit into that particular conversation didn't matter.

Too, I had to wonder about the intelligence of Lori as she's portrayed. At one point, Lori, who has lived next door to the Vader brothers her entire life and has supposedly spent a lot of time at their home, shows up to attend a party at the Vader house. She rings the doorbell, and when no one answers the door, she looks for security cameras. Wouldn't she know if the Vaders used a high tech security system? In fact, if she's so comfortable with this family and she knows they are having a huge party, wouldn't she just knock and walk on in and join the festivities?

Lori also had a habit of mistaking the two male leads of the story - brothers Sean and Adam. More than once Lori thought she was dealing with Sean only to realize it was Adam whom she was caressing or admiring. Even if these two boys looked so similar, I still find it hard to believe that a girl who has known these guys since early childhood wouldn't be able to tell them apart fairly easily.

Another issue I had was the animosity between brothers Sean and Adam. Now, I know brothers fight with each other. But these two boys really seem to hate each other. They verbally slam each other and physically pound out their frustrations on each other's faces. Again, this isn't necessarily a problem, per se, if the tone of this book wasn't that of a light-hearted romantic comedy. We are supposed to find this amusing. If that's the case, then I would have expected at the very least an undercurrent implying that the brothers really do care for each other and that most of their animosity is of the teasing variety. The portrayal didn't fit the tone of the story, much like finding a sardine in the middle of your hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I'm the wrong audience for this book, given that I'm far from my teen years. However, I would argue that this is not the reason for my dislike of this book. The story itself is passable - what a fabulous premise. Who wouldn't love living next door to two gorgeous hotties and appreciate the fantasy of them falling in love with her? I'm there. But the writing was so awful I couldn't ignore it to focus on anything else. Since I know that there are many, many YA romances out there that do not have this problem, I can't simply chalk it up to an issue I have with the genre.

I wanted to like this book. Heck, I bought it.

Rating: Didn't Finish

Eclipse

Eclipse
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Release Date: August 7, 2007

Series: the Twilight series
Position in Series: Book 3 of 3 to date
Main Characters: Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, Jacob Black
Sequel Bait: Children of the Cullen family: Rosalie, Alice, Emmett, Jasper
Bad Guys: newborn vampires and their mistress, Victoria

You know how you feel when you look forward to something so much you know the exact number of days before it’s going to happen? And how you feel all giddy inside as you settle in for what you expect to be a wonderful experience? And how angry you get when you find out you’ve been roundly duped?

Well, that’s pretty much the story of my experience with Eclipse, the third title in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I adored Twilight. Adored it. I enjoyed New Moon, even if I didn’t love it as much as Twilight. I gave it a pass because, really, how could anything be as good as Twilight? But with this installment, my goodwill has run out.

First, the story. Bella Swan, high school senior, is facing a monumental life change. Not only is she about to graduate, she has grand plans to join her one true love Edward in eternal life as a vampire. For Edward’s part, to say he is conflicted is an understatement. He loves Bella and can’t imagine life without her – so much so that he was ready to kill himself when he believed her dead – but he doesn’t want to be responsible for damning her eternal soul by turning her into one of the undead.

Bella is also struggling with her friendship with Jacob Black, the local Native American-slash-werewolf who became Bella’s lifeline when she sank into a pit of depression after Edward had abandoned her in New Moon. Jacob and Edward hate each other on principle (one being a bloodsucker and the other a mangy animal) and both believes that he is the right guy for Bella. Now that he’s back in town, Edward wants Bella to have nothing to do with Jacob, a fact that he makes loud and clear by some dominating behavior that crosses dangerously over into father-figure territory. Jacob also goes to extremes in trying to convince Bella that she belongs with him.

And because her life isn’t weird enough, Bella is also being stalked by a crazy vampire-ess who’s bent on revenge. Since Edward was responsible for her mate’s death, Victoria has determined that an eye for an eye – or a mate for a mate – is in order and has been working hard on spawning an army of newborn vampires to carry out her orders. Thing is, these newborns don’t really care who they kill, so a lot of innocent bystanders are being killed as Victoria gets closer and closer to Forks, WA. Desperate to save Bella, Edward and Jacob manage to put aside their differences long enough to form a vampire/werewolf coalition.

I had so many problems with this book, I can’t even decide where to begin.
Let’s start with characterization. Or rather, character assassination. Honestly, I kept flipping to the cover of this book to reassure myself that the same author who’d written the amazing Twilight with a heroine I loved and a hero I worshipped had also written Eclipse. Because Bella Swan as I had come to know her was nowhere in sight. In her place was a whiny, self-centered brat. For 640 pages, the only person Bella seemed to care about was…well, Bella.

Bella didn’t want anyone to give her graduation presents and pouted when they did. Bella sulked when Alice Cullen planned a graduation party for her. Bella snuck around behind Edward’s back when she wanted to see Jacob and Edward asked her not to. Bella held Jacob’s hand and broke her boyfriend’s heart just so she could see him, then smacked him and derided him when he got the wrong idea and thought she might be interested in him romantically. Basically, Bella did absolutely nothing heroine-worthy in this entire book. I almost rooted for Victoria’s army of newborns to find Bella all alone in the woods and put an end to my misery.

And where or where did my beautiful Edward go? Apparently, he never really came back from Italy at the end of New Moon and sent his evil twin to Forks. Edward started off as an overprotective, overbearing tyrant when he forbid Bella to have any contact with Jacob. Little did I know that this Edward was actually the more appealing of the two Edwards who appeared in Eclipse. The second Edward was little more than a doormat, stepping aside with a smile as Jacob and Bella explored their “friendship” in ways I don’t imagine many boyfriends would appreciate. He not only forgave Bella far too easily for some serious boyfriend/girlfriend infractions, he downright encouraged her to treat him like crap. What happened to my Edward? The one who was so full of confidence and uber-coolness that I wanted to cry when Twilight came to an end? Edward Cullen has become something worse than an overprotective, over-perfect vampire-without-a-fault. He's become a prudish overprotective, over-perfect vampire-without-a-fault.

I liked Jacob well enough when he was being the shoulder for Bella to cry on in New Moon. Heck, I even felt really sorry for the guy when it became clear he had romantic feelings for Bella, feelings that she would never return given her complete and total love for Edward. But Jacob turned the corner from sweet infatuation to scary stalker. He pushed Bella even after she told him no (although, to his defense, many of Bella’s actions belied her objections, so I can understand some level of confusion on his part). When he used the threat of suicide to manipulate her into kissing him, I lost any remaining respect I had for the guy. He’s a creep.

So, none of the characters I’d come to love in Twilight showed up for Eclipse. Which was just as well, because the story itself was pretty pitiful. In addition to becoming a pouter, Bella has also become a Victim in the purest Damsel In Distress sense. For some reason, everyone wants to kill Bella Swan. The Volturi, vampire royalty, want Bella either dead or vampire-ized because humans aren't supposed to know about their dark world. The newborn vampire army all lust after Bella's particular blood because...well, I never did figure out why on that one. I keep waiting for Meyer to reveal that Bella is something pretty spectacular as far as humans go that make her worthy of such persecution.

And the whole premise of Victoria wanting to kill Bella as revenge on Edward for killing Victoria's mate is a bit to round-about for me. Why wouldn’t she just want to kill Edward? I know, I know. If she kills Bella, Edward would suffer an eternity of torment having lost his true love. Believe me, I think Victoria would have been doing Edward a favor.

Even worse than the Bella-in-peril plot was the love triangle between Edward and Bella and Jacob, which is forced to the point of silliness. We are to believe that Edward and Bella have a love of all time. So introducing Jacob Black as a potential rival for Bella's affections does nothing more than weaken our belief in this Great Love, thus diminishing the story of Twilight a thousandfold. I think Meyer realized this, because never for one minute did Bella mentally waiver in her claims that she loved and wanted Edward most of all. She resented Jacob's attentions, and was quite vocal in her refusals (although I cry foul at Bella and Jacob's hand-holding and clandestine meetings behind Edward's back), yet I always felt that we were supposed to harbor angsty doubt over who Bella might end up with. Not only did this insult me as a reader, it made me think of Jacob as more than a little obtuse when he continued to claim that Bella loved him deep down where she herself didn't even realize it.

What is really sad is that there is plenty of conflict inherent in the situation that Meyers has created that we don't need any of the false melodrama that we get in Eclipse. One of Twilight's most intriguing premises - the fact that Bella's particular blood tempts Edward like no other - offered Meyer an almost unlimited supply of Unresolved Sexual Tension between the couple. The almost perfect Forbidden Fruit. I wanted to watch as Edward continued to struggle with his overwhelming desire to drink Bella's blood while battling his growing physical desires for her as well. They want to, but they just can't because if Edward would lose control...my heart should just ache for these two unfortunate souls. It's Buffy and Angel revisited.

Instead, we get a Bella who is more than ready to jump the Final Intimacy Barrier only to be thwarted not by Edward's fear that he might lose control and drain her dry, but instead by his newly developed Victorian repression. He doesn't only worry that he might hurt her, he fears her immortal soul might be damned if she has The Sex before The Marriage. Too, Edward has developed some kind of Zen-master ability to ignore something so huge in the first book. In fact, Edward's barely controlled lust for Bella's blood has pretty much disappeared.

As for non-Bella-centric stuff, we learn Jasper and Rosalie Cullens' backstories. Why? I'm not sure. Interesting? Moderately.

Eye muscle strain must be a common complaint at the Fork Optometry Clinic because characters are forever engaged in eye-rolling. It's a nitpick, I know, but it's up there with characters constantly calling each other by name in dialogue in that it pulls me out of the story faster than the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven.

What I dismissed off-hand in Twilight because I was so consumed with the initial love story I couldn't ignore in this book. Vampires in Meyer's universe are granite-hard and ice cold. Fair enough for a vampire, until it comes time for some serious physical contact. Time and again Bella describes Edward's cold touch and his literally rock-hard body. She goes so far as to imagine that snuggling with Edward must be a lot like snuggling with Michelangelo's David. Um, okay. Not very appealing, actually. Sure, I can appreciate a cut physique with rock hard muscles. But I need warmth and give in my man. Cuddling up with a slab of frozen granite just sounds uncomfortable, not sexy.

I think one final, fundamental problem sums up my frustration with Eclipse: Bella wants to commit her life for all eternity to Edward by becoming a vampire. But – get this – she doesn’t want to marry him. Her rationale: marrying Edward would make her one of those lame girls who gets married right out high school and has no life. Excuse me? She’s about to become immortal, and she cares what people who will be dead in seven or eight decades think about her? This attitude sums up Bella’s immaturity throughout this book. She’s really all about Bella.

I suspect that Meyer's decision to maintain Bella as the Point of View character for the entire series really locked her in to the detriment of the story. Not only did Bella lose her appeal as a character by the end of New Moon, Meyer had to stoop to some pretty iffy techniques to infodump both backstory and various character emotions. At one point, Meyer handles an intense conversation between romantic rivals Edward and Jacob by having a half-sleeping Bella "dream" their conversation. She doesn't participate or even react for several pages of dialog entirely about her, yet she's lucid enough that we get to hear every word. Perhaps Eclipse would have benefited from a fresh perspective.

After all of this ranting, I do have to give Meyer her proper due in that despite my complete frustration with Eclipse, I did finish the book. I did want to know what happened next. And some sick part of me does want to read the next book. I equate it with rubbernecking past a horrible car crash. You know you should look the other way, but you just can’t help sneaking a peek. Mostly I’m disappointed that the stink that is Eclipse will linger so strongly as to ruin Twilight for me forever, and I resent the hell out of that.

Eclipse serves as a perfect example of what happens when a writer falls in love with her characters and doesn't want to say good-bye to them. Unfortunately, loving them doesn't justify their continued existence. I can see no reason whatsoever for this book to exist. It moved Bella and Edward's story ahead only minimally. They ended up only millimeters from where they began. Because of this, the entire work comes off as self-indulgent.

Yes, I loved the characters of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan from the book Twilight. And yes, I looked forward to spending more time with them as their love story played out. I wanted to find out how they overcame his vampire-ness and her human-ness. I wanted to watch Edward struggle with his temptations. I wanted to take that train ride to Happily Ever After with them. But I didn't want to spend 600 plus pages of what amounted to navel gazing and high melodrama. This book actually damaged my initial love for these characters because they've become annoying.

I get the feeling that Meyer and her publisher figured if three books would be good, four would be even better, but there simply isn’t story enough to fill more than two. So we get New Moon and, sadly, Eclipse. I can only hope that Breaking Dawn washes the bitter taste from my mouth.

Rating: struggled to finish
Status of Series: Critical condition. Worse, if the final book doesn’t offer some major redemption, the other titles will have been irrevocably tainted.

Dark Lover

Dark Lover
Author: J.R. Ward
Publisher: Signet Eclipse
Released: September, 2005

Series: the Black Dagger Brotherhood series
Position in Series: Book 1 of 4 to date
Main Characters: Wrath, Beth Randall
Sequel Bait: Rhage, Phury, Vishous, Zsadist, Torhment, Butch, Marissa
Bad Guys: The Lessers
Minor Characters: Havers, Wellsie

Wrath is a member and the de facto leader of a warrior class of vampires known as the Black Dagger Brotherhood. The BDB is charged with protecting the vampire race against soul-less ex-humans known as the Lessening Society, a group hell-bent on eradicating the entire species from the planet. The last pure-blood vampire left, Wrath is blindingly loyal to his fellow BDB brothers but remains separate much of the time, preferring to keep to himself and denying his destiny to become the Vampire King.

All of this changes, however, when Darius, a fellow BDB warrior, asks Wrath for a special favor. Darius has fathered a half-breed girl who is nearing her time of transition – the time when a vampire reaches full maturity and undergoes extreme physical changes in a very short amount of time. Darius fears that without a pure-blooded male vampire to help his daughter, Beth, through her transition, the girl will die. Wrath is horrified at the though of performing such an act and declines Darius’s request. However, when Darius is killed soon afterwards, Wrath feels he has no choice but to seek out Beth and give her whatever help he can. Problem is, Beth has never met her father, has no idea that vampires even exist, and certainly would never believe herself to be one.

Wrath does find Beth, and despite his reluctance to get involved, finds himself attracted to her in ways he’s never before experienced. For her part, Beth feels an immediate attraction for the dark and scary Wrath, although swallowing the fact that she’s about to become a vampire herself proves a little more challenging. The two of them navigate the rough terrain of Beth’s acceptance of who she is and her change into a fully mature vampire, constant attacks by the lessers, and Wrath’s coming to terms with his dark past and his need to embrace his role if the vampire race has any hope of survival.

In addition to meeting Wrath and Beth, we are also introduced to the other members of the BDB. There’s Rhage, the vampire with the face of an angel and the sexual appetites of the Sixth Fleet after eighteen months at sea. Tohrment fills the role of the settled vampire, his wife, Wellsie, pregnant with their first young. Vishous is mysterious, with tattoos covering his face and a glove-covered hand that seems to contain unspeakable power. Phury is the metrosexual of the bunch, a sharp dresser with a head of amazing hair, a false leg, and a vow of celibacy. His twin brother, Zsadist, is perhaps the most intriguing of the whole bunch. A former blood slave who spent the first 100 years of his life serving a mistress in needs too dark to discuss, Zsadist is a shell filled with nothing but rage and hatred.
Too, there is homicide detective Butch O’Neal, who enters the story as a potential love interest for Beth. However, as Beth becomes part of the BDB world, Butch’s role becomes much more complicated when he tries to protect her from forces he can’t begin to understand.

The story takes place in fictional Caldwell, NY, amidst the clubs and back alleys and sprawling countryside just beyond the city’s borders. This setting allows for a menacing darkness, one never certain what might lurk down a dark alley or around the next corner either in the form of a lesser, a vampire or even an unsavory human.

The first thing that strikes the reader about Ward’s world is that these vampires are not your traditional European-born, pasty-skinned seducers who creep about in the night. You won’t find a single puffy-shirt in any of the closets of the BDB, although you would find a lot of Armani, Gucci and Ferragamo in Phury’s wardrobe. Ward’s vampire males are modern day warriors more in common with street gangs than Count Dracula. They drive monster SUVs, listen to rap music at ear-splitting decibles, play pool, follow the Boston Red Sox on plasma screen TVs, drink beer and spend the time they aren’t hunting lessers giving each other a hard time. They’re computer savvy, sport tattoos in a variety of places, and leather is their uniform of choice. In short, these brothers are cooler than cool.

Gone, also, is the traditional vampire desire for human blood. Ward’s vampire race gain their sustenance and power via the blood of a vampire of the opposite sex. While human blood offers a tiny boost, it is viewed as inferior to vampire blood, leaving the human inhabitants of Caldwell free from fear. Ward turns the vampires’ need for blood of the opposite sex into a direct correlation to sex: sharing blood is considered an extremely intimate act and quite often leads to other physical expressions of desire. A vampire male would as soon let his mate share her blood or take the blood of another male as he would sit by and watch her have sex with him. Bloodlust is on par with pure lust, and rather than being disgusting as one might expect, scenes depicting blood drinking are highly erotic.

Ward has chosen to follow traditional vampire lore by making sunlight lethal to her particular species. They also possess extraordinary strength, the ability to dematerialize (as long as they are not in a steel-lined room), and nearly immortal constitutions affording them very long lives. The structure of vampire society is multi-layered, with the BDB warrior class, the civilian population, and even an aristocracy, making it easy to believe that an entire other world exists once the sun goes down.

The story’s heroine, Beth Randall, begins as a smart, self-reliant woman who seems to have a lot of good common sense without being unbelievably kick-ass. When she’s attacked by some street thugs, she fights back, but it’s a struggle. When she learns about her half-vampire heritage, her reaction rings true, a mixture of disbelief, fear, and dawning understanding about why so many parts of herself had never seemed normal. She’s attracted to Wrath from the beginning even as she fears him. However, she never resorts to playing the game of coy maiden, taking what she wants from him without apology or self-flagellation.

However, Beth does spend a good amount of time in Wrath’s bed, waiting for him to return from his job as fighter-extraordinaire. Too, one can’t help but wonder how easy it was for Beth to give up everything in her human life to join the vampire world. We are asked to believe that no-one would notice her sudden disappearance off the face of the planet. Nor does she show much regret in the life she must leave behind, especially as the picture we are given of the future she faces is not full of much other than sex with Wrath and hanging around the Black Dagger Brotherhood headquarters.

It becomes easy to overlook the flaws in Beth because the dynamics between the members of the BDB are so amazing. Alpha-males without apology, these guys are dangerous to the nth degree and utterly fascinating. Their interactions with each other are spot on, supportive and unflinchingly loyal, with the perfect amount of friendly adversity to ring true. You feel like an insider at the hottest frat party in town. The dialogue is authentic, and reading this book it is easy to see that Ward loves these guys and enjoys spending time with them.

As a hero, Wrath easily fits the mold of brooding, tortured soul/reluctant leader. Painful experiences in his past have made him unwilling to embrace his role as the leader of the vampires. His neglect has led to the near destruction of the vampire race, and its only with Beth’s help that he’s able to face his demons. Their romance is white-hot and intense, with very little foreplay and nearly zero guilt. Wrath’s reaction to Beth and his subsequent obsession with her perfectly exemplifies the nature of the vampire race, which they themselves consider as more animalistic than human. Instincts are the driving force behind the possessiveness vampire mates feel for each other, and Wrath’s struggle with his mental unwillingness to bond with Beth even as his body and soul betray him provides the majority of the conflict between the two.

The pacing of the story keeps the action moving at a nice clip. Despite the high number of characters introduced, you never become confused about who is who, nor do you feel that any one character gets short shrift. While Ward provides enough action with the BDB fighting the lessers, the story remains character-driven. By the end of the book, you feel vested in more than just the hero and heroine, however no single character has emerged as blatant sequel bait. Each character introduced plays an important role in the story and is interesting in his or her own right.

While the villains of the story – the lessers of the Lessening Society and their leader, The Omega – were certainly creepy and menacing, I was left a little fuzzy about their motivation for wanting to eradicate the vampire race. There is explanation about the creation of vampires leading to some resentment among the vampire gods that is supposed to explain the animosity, but I found it a bit of a flimsy motivation to explain the lengths to which the lessers go to kill vamps.

This review would not be complete without addressing Ward’s creative spelling and unusual character names. It took me a while to get used to the names of the BDB warriors, and I puzzled over why Ward added so many un-necessary letters for what seemed like nothing more than effect. However, by the end of the book I couldn’t imagine any other names for Rhage, Vishous, Phury, Zsadist, Wrath and Tohrment. I found the glossary at the beginning of the book useful. I liked having that bit of foreknowledge before I began reading and much prefer getting such information in a straightforward manner rather than in some contrived exposition in the middle of the story.

Overall, I found Dark Lover an excellent introduction into the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.

Rating: Couldn’t Put It Down
Status of Series: Outstanding introduction, can’t wait for the next installment