Blog Tour: Arrows by Melissa Gorzelanczyk (REVIEW + PLAYLIST)

aaryn

Synopsis (via Goodreads): A modern cupid story set in present-day Wisconsin combining the fantastical elements of Greek mythology with the contemporary drama of MTV's Teen Mom.
People don’t understand love. If they did, they’d get why dance prodigy Karma Clark just can’t say goodbye to her boyfriend, Danny. No matter what he says or does or how he hurts her, she can’t stay angry with him . . . and can’t stop loving him. But there’s a reason why Karma is helpless to break things off: she’s been shot with a love arrow. 
Aaryn, son of Cupid, was supposed to shoot both Karma and Danny but found out too late that the other arrow in his pack was useless. And with that, Karma’s life changed forever. One pregnancy confirmed. One ballet scholarship lost. And dream after dream tossed to the wind.

A clueless Karma doesn’t know that her toxic relationship is Aaryn’s fault . . . but he’s going to get a chance to make things right. He’s here to convince Danny to man up and be there for Karma. But what if this god from Mount Olympus finds himself falling in love with a beautiful dancer from Wisconsin who can never love him in return?
 
This fast-paced debut novel explores the internal & external conflicts of a girl who finds herself inexplicably drawn to a boy who seemingly doesn't reciprocate her  feelings, touching on the issues of love, sex and responsibility, with a heroine struggling to control her destiny--perfect for fans of Katie McGarry's novels and MTV’s 16 and Pregnant.

Author: Melissa Gorzelanczyk
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: January 26th, 2016
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fantasy, Mythology, Romance, Fiction, Retellings


A story about love, decisions, teenage pregnancy, and mythology all in one! It's amazing to think about all of these things being written in just one book. Reading this book, I found it a bit difficult to get through Karma's narration because it would start a rage-filled fire inside me, not for Karma, but for Danny. If this was any other book, and if the circumstances were different, I would have definitely hated Karma, but I understood the situation, and I just couldn't blame her. At the same time, she was also very nice and very talented. She was the type of character who had just been screwed over by life (or by Cupid's son), and you would just want everything to get better for her. 

What I like about this book was that it touched on sensitive topics that most authors don't dare to touch on or cannot pull off well. Teenage pregnancy and the unhealthy relationship between Danny and Karma are two of the issues Gorzelanczyk addressed, and I believe she did do them justice while also presenting to us a strong but realistic heroine. Another thing that I would commend the author for is being able to write about this topic without having to make the story dark, depressing, or sad. It was easy to get through it, and she was able to create an impact without having to change her tone in writing. 

One of my favorite things about this book was that the romance was not pushed to the forefront of everything. Because this story has a lot of important themes, I would absolutely hate to see the relationship drama get in the way. It was a beautiful addition to the story, but it never took the limelight away from the parts that really mattered. I also found it great that readers can also see the strong female bonds here. Oftentimes, female bonds in YA is shown as petty and shallow rivalry, and to see that in this book, the author created a female support system that really meant well and was essential to Karma's development.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading this book. I believe that the author was able to portray the more sensitive issues accurately for the most part and was able to write a brilliant YA novel that deviated from the norms. It's a great book that's not too heavy and still very meaningful.

PLAYLIST:

1. Youth by Troye Sivan
2. Skinny Love by Birdy
3. Fools by Troye Sivan
4. On My Mind by Ellie Goulding
5.  Headlights by Robin Schulz ft. Ilsey






Book in Review: Down the Wormhole by Ana Franco

1-star rating


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Title: Down the Wormhole
Author: Ana Franco
Publisher: French Press Bookworks
Publication Date: March 17, 2015
Format: ARC

Summary (via Goodreads)
In a city there is a tiny lane that seperates two orphanages - one for boys and one for girls. Inside live two very special groups of teenagers. These teenagers carry a secret and leave it tucked safely away in their mysterious lives. 

Then one day, a girl named Kitty arrives. No last name, just Kitty.

Before Kitty has time to be astonished by the teenagers' real identitites, she is whisked into a magical realm that slowly unfolds her own. She must come to terms with her true place in the world while she can, because time is ticking and there are secrets in the wormhole.

Travel with Kitty and her new friends Down The Wormhole into a mysterious world of magic, mythology, and mayhem.

I am so disappointed. I have so many things to say about this book, but I don't know exactly how to explain them. I felt like this book could have done really, really well if the writing was different. 

 When I started reading this book, I thought that I would love it since the characters seemed promising and the plot was unique. The length worried me, though. The story is one that you have to draw out and explain, for not everyone knows about the mythology behind these things, especially since it is a fusion of multiple mythologies. I don't think it's sufficient to introduce a god simply by telling us that they are the goddess of chaos or the god of mischief. If you're gonna talk about this, you have to describe, you have to give us more background. For a story that requires details, explanations, background, this book seemed too short. Even so, I thought to myself that length doesn't matter if the plot was laid out well. Unfortunately, the more I read, the more I realized that the length was going to become an issue. 

 At the start of this book, Sif and Eris were battling. The scene was written well and made me excited to read the rest of the book. Unfortunately, when Kitty and the other gods were introduced, the book seemed to lose that quality. If the author was consistent in the way that she wrote the scenes, this book would have turned out great. 

 I'm gonna state the problems one by one as I think that that would be the best way to talk about this.

 1. The Writing
Franco wrote this book like she had so many ideas that she wanted to pack into a few pages. The writing was rushed, there weren't much descriptions, I couldn't connect with any of the characters. For me, the most important part of a story is the writing. You can write a cliche and it wouldn't matter to me if you could write it in a way that would interest me, make me connect with the characters. You could write an essay on pencils,  and I would read it if you gave me something that interested me. Down the Wormhole's plot interested me, but the writing was a letdown. I wouldn't mind if you made this book 500 pages long as long as you wrote everything you needed to write, and honestly, with the plot given, you could do exactly that. I also felt like the author changed her mind quite a few times on whether or not she wanted to make the book humorous or serious or deep or light. Sometimes, the writing did not match with what the scene is supposed to be, funny when the severity of the situation required serious handling. I also believe that she wanted to put so much into her work, and she wasn't willing to sacrifice some of it, so the entire thing became a big mess. There were also a lot of typos, grammatical errors, misspelled words, and jumbled sentences. I know that it's just an ARC, but the amount really distracted me from the story itself, and sometimes even caused me to become confused.

 2. The Characters
So, nearly all of the characters are actually gods here, but aside from their godly names, they have normal names and normal personalities too. The problem with this is that the fact that they're gods don't really seem to have much importance. I mean, yes, I understand why they had to be that particular god, but on a much deeper level, it doesn't really serve any purpose. As stated above, I can't really relate to the characters. Kitty overreacts all the time, picks fights for no reason, and is, all around, a horrible person. Thomas... I don't really know. I don't like him, I don't hate him, and I don't really care about him. Some of the important characters seemed to be tossed aside at the end, and some of the characters brought back and suddenly important even though they served no purpose for more than half of the book. The romance happened quickly, and the book kinda focused on that more than the plot itself. I just think they could have focused on a lot of other relationships that would have made the story really great. The relationships were unnecessary, and there wasn't much character development.
Down the Wormhole holds potential that, unfortunately, wasn't carried out well. I think that this book could probably be really good if it was revised and edited. The writing was not great, and that ruined the book for me, the story becoming uninteresting and not relatable. I'd love to read the book in its final form just to see if the book is better after its final edits and revisions. I look forward to reading Franco's next works, and I believe that she does have great potential to become a very good author. 

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Kimi has read 3 books toward her goal of 100 books.
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