When Gary was 14, he shot his father to protect himself and his mother. His mother died and he was sent to a correctional facility for boys. Now a foster family has decided to take him in and given him a new chance at a normal life. But, as Gary discovers, the past isn't that easy to break away from. As the secrets of those around him become unraveled and the typical pressures of teenagerhood build, Gary struggles with what he knows he must do and the anger that bubbles just under the surface. When he finds himself in a situation that's close to what happened when he was 14, Gary struggles to make the right choices despite the pain they will bring to him and the people he cares about.
Impression:Off Track is an intense novel that highlights the damage left behind by abuse. The author submitted this to LP as a young adult novel, but, despite the age of the protagonist, it's not a book I would let my teenagers read--much of it is too graphic and violent. That notwithstanding, is an excellent story. The reader is pulled in and pulled along--you come to care for Gary, want the best for him, and want it all to work out for him. You cheer for him, cry for him, fear for him. And, above all, you want to know what happens next. It's not a book I would have picked up if I had found it at B&N--it's just not something I would normally read, but it is an incredible journey that will not leave you unchanged. If the content matter won't bother you (violence, abuse in a variety of forms), then I recommend giving it a look when it's finally released in August.
Dr. Cherijo Torin has been taken captive by the Hsktskt, the lizard slavers who had raided the planet she was on at the invitation of her husband. Angry, hated by both captives and captors alike, with enemieis who would do anything to see her dead in both groups, Cherijo must survive to aide her fellow slaves with all the medical training she has. Even her nursing crew stands against her. As she struggles to aide those she can and come to terms with her traitorous husband, she becomes involved in a plot to free as many as possible without becoming a permanent part of the Hsktskt experiments on the races they enslave.
Impression: This is my first Stardoc novel, and usually diving into a series in the middle can leave a reader feeling like they are missing something. Not so with Endurance. Viehl makes sure to quickly catch any new readers up on what has gone before without boring them with huge chunks of exposition that have no bearing on the current story. She works the past in right when the reader needs to know it as quickly as possible. It slows the pace of the story itself a little, but not badly enough to bore the reader or even make the reader start skimming. The plot itself is pretty straightforward, but the ending has a nice little twist that works despite the being a little puzzling. The book itself isn’t all that deep, but the characters are and the setting and cultures are quite believable. There's no fat in this book--it's well written. I'm not much of a science fiction reader, and I prefer soft SF to hard, but this is one of those books that makes you think you just might be able to change that. Highly recommended.
Women are dying in Chicago. They are ruled as suicides, but Murphy suspects differently and brings in Dresden to have a look. When he finds a Bible verse written in such a way that only a wizard can find it, there's no doubt that the "suicides" are actually murders. As Harry digs deeper, his discoveries don't make the job any easier. An old enemy rears its head, the war between the White Council and the vampires hangs in the balance, and his half-brother becomes a suspect. He must unravel the mystery to protect those he cares about without tipping off an unknown informant in the Council or getting himself killed while also still keeping the fallen angel Lasciel at bay. It's just another day for Dresden....
Impression: I love the Dresden Files series and look forward to picking up the next book when it comes out, but White Night was a bit disappointing for me. It was still a fun read, I still enjoyed it and devoured it like the other books in the series, but it falls among my least favorite among the Dresden books. The writing felt off--less concise and polished than in previous books, and there were issues in the way the story was written that didn't sit well with me.
The plot was pretty simple, which has worked in previous books, but didn’t work so well in this one because I was able to figure out the bad guys before the main character did. Since I'm not the brightest with figuring these kinds of things out, the transparency bothered me; the fact that I had it figured out before Dresden bothered me even more. And there were, not so much holes in the plotting, but little bumps that puzzled me. For example, there's a point in the book where Dresden opens a doorway into the Nevernever and he herds a group of people through but never makes it through himself. It's never really clearly explained how these people got out of the Nevernever. As a reader of the series, I can pretty much figured out who helped out, but a new reader doesn't have that benefit of experience. Considering the amount of words that were extraneous in the novel, some of those words could have been cut to allow for a clear explanation of how people got out. (However, I will admit that it could have been slipped in and I missed it since I was reading quite late.)
On the upside, Dresden is as wonderful as ever and, even with the bloated feeling of the writing, the story does still pull you along. There's always a concern this far into a series (especially after the Anita Blake books) that the character changes will make the character unrecognizable, or the plotting will fall apart, and neither of those happen here. Dresden is recognizably Dresden, and the plot works despite the bumps. And I do love the interaction between Dresden and Lasciel--I was worried when she first showed up in his life, but now I'm sad to see her go (assuming she's really gone). And it's going to be interesting to see how the end events affect the Dresden world. So I'm not totally turned off by the book, just not nearly as impressed as I have been with previous books. I can still recommend it, just not for a first time Dresden Files reader--there's too much that requires someone who is familiar with the world setting.
