"The Game With No Name" Has Potential But Needed More Drafts

Thank you so much to GoodReads and L.G. Cunningham for giving me a free copy and the opportunity to review it.

"The Game With No Name" isn't horrible, but it feels like a first draft that needs work.

Izzy Miller is a girl who just moved to a mysterious old house with her family. Everyone is excited except for her. Though, it isn't the house she objects to as much as having to move to a new place because her genius twin brother, Noah, got into a special school for gifted kids. Izzy is a moody 12 year old girl, jealous of her twin brother receiving praise. She is also sick of her family's game nights. That all changes when a new neighbor boy shows up named Walter , and a mysterious board game appears.

The writing is fine, and very readable. This book is meant for a younger audience, and for the most part, the writing is clear. However, I didn't know Izzy was a girl until chapter two, as no hints about her gender were given in chapter one. I thought she was a boy, with her talk of basketball and her twin brother.

The neighbor kid, Walter, just shows up out of nowhere, without even a knock at the door. Izzy even thinks he's a ghost at first. He just appears in the house, which is odd. Then when they discover the game, the story kicks into a lot of action and fantasy sequences a little too fast. There are no set ups, and I didn't feel like I got to know the characters well enough.

The fantasy sequences also feel a bit disjointed. One minute they are in a jungle with a rhino and the next they are in a haunted manor and the next they are in Monopoly for some reason. Then there's a twist which I didn't really get and a backstory to Walter. That's a lot to stuff in 207 pages and doesn't really allow anything to develop on a deeper level.

I could see this being a good lower middle grade novel, but this felt like a first draft. I don't think L.G. Cunningham is a bad writer, and I think he could be a really good kids writer with a couple more drafts, but this needed some work. Two stars. 

16 Years Ago, "Twilight" Didn't Bite Me But Why Should I Hate It? It Wasn't Supposed To

“Twilight” came out 16 years ago in 2005. I didn’t read it until a couple years later. In college, I took a course on vampire literature, and got to read some great stuff like “Dracula” and a bunch of other classic vampire novels I don’t remember, but I’m sure they were classic. I was already a fan of vampires, having devoured a bunch of Anne Rice novels. Anne Rice’s classic 1976 vampire novel “Interview With The Vampire” is still one of my favorites to this day. However, because “Twilight” was the face of vampires at the time, the professor started out with the class reading “Twilight”. I read it in 2 days, and didn’t love it but didn’t hate it either. It was alright. It had some compelling characters, a ton of wish fulfilment for it’s readership and oddness I chalked up to poor writing. It needed an editor, and it felt like there was a better novel in it with good polish. Most of the class hated it and went on and on about how it was a fantasy novel about male abuse. Obviously I was the only one who read paperback novels from my local drug store, because I saw it for what it was: a paperback novel from my local drug store, except a YA version with vampires.

I got it’s appeal, as it had no appeal to me but if I was a 12 year old girl with a poster of Harry Styles on my wall, it would have a ton of appeal to me. Stephanie Meyer was basically Danielle Steel or Nora Roberts or Judith Krantz for the younger set with teen vampires thrown in. She wasn’t even Anne Rice. She wasn’t good enough to be.
 

The response to her novel felt like, in hindsight, a prototype for woke culture. A friend of mine, a 20 something guy trying to make it as a freelance writer, wrote a long article hating on “Twilight” and Stephen King was taking shots at it. It did strike me as odd that two male writers, a mega star like Stephen King and an aspiring freelance fiction writer like my friend, were taking shots at this YA fluff novel obviously targeted to female readers. Not all novels speak to people's experiences. A lot of novels speak to people's fantasies, and there's really nothing wrong with that as long as you can either move on, or when your reading it, know what this is. Because the "Twilight" readership was often young, I assume they moved on. King said Harry Potter was about the importance of friendship and courage and "Twilight" was about the importance of having a boyfriend. Yeah, because "Twilight" inspired to be mostly escapism, not something deeper. There's room for both. Also, it didn't speak to King's experiences and fantasies, because he's a straight guy, and you know what? It doesn't speak to mine either because I'm a straight guy.

There were valid criticisms of “Twilight”, as the book was too long, a ton of it played out like a real over the top teen fantasy, with over descriptions of Edward looking amazing, a supernatural war over a girl who was nice enough but nothing really special looks wise or personality wise, and the fact that she herself was enamored with Edward to a dangerous degree. That’s not unusual with girls her age, but usually a parent or in this case, Bella’s single dad, would step in to monitor the solution a bit to make sure it played out safely, vampire or not. I mean, if a teen boy was watching my teen daughter sleep outside a window, I simply open the window bemused at the teen boy, but also tell him if he wants to date my daughter, this isn’t how this is going to play out. Go home or I’ll call your parents. The writing of Bella's dad allowing this didn't read as realistic to me, even more so because he was a small town cop.  A lot of the book doesn’t play out great in the MeToo era. Also Bella comes off very melodramatic, but she’s also a teenage girl. Teenagers, both boys and girls, are melodramatic. That’s the age. You're basically a mixture of angst and hormones you don’t understand. That’s science. You’ll be wondering what you were so angry about 20 years from now.

However, on the other hand, the book itself does embrace the totally silliness of teen romances and stories in general. It’s melodramatic, like when she tells Edward to say what he is in the woods! Say it! You're a vampire! SAY IT! Edward swooped in to save her from some creepy older guys! Edward played the piano because she inspired him! Edward being more like James Dean then Anne Rice’s complicated vampire creation Lastat! He even wears a leather jacket! He’s more like the Fonz or Uncle Jesse! He’s a bad boy...but not really! The Cullen family are all being overly attractive! Them being young forever! (well, that’s normal with vampires) The whole middle of the book where Edward gives an overly dramatic information dump about his backstory went on forever! The whole fact the vampires play baseball and the fact they sparkle! (seriously, that’s the cheesy factor up to 11). The fact I end every sentence in this paragraph with “!” is a testament to the book! 

“Twilight” was a huge deal because it was the first novel to knock “Harry Potter” off the top of the New York Times bestseller list. I really didn’t hate “Twilight”  to be honest. I was never going to read the sequels, but it was the literary version of “Saved By The Bell” for me. A silly thing you liked as a teen. All in all, I have never been a 12 year old girl but I can see the value of it for a 12 year old girl or even an older female reader. It’s pure escapism. Orson Scott Card, who is a way better writer than Stephanie Meyer, nailed it in his piece for Time Magazine the year Meyer made the Time 100 list. He said she doesn’t stand between the reader and the dream, and that does make sense. So 16 years later, what do I think of “Twilight”? It’s fine.

 

 

"A Stolen Heart" is Both A Solid Pageturner and Heartwarmer

Thank you so much to GoodReads and Kayelle Allen for giving me a free copy of this book and the opportunity to review it.

"A Stolen Heart" is an impressive feat. It balances a space opera, fully developed characters, and a heart-warming story at its center without fail.

Luc Saint-Cyr is an immortal warrior, who seems to do his job but also has questions about the ethics of what he does. Going through centuries killing for an empire while also training young warriors, Luc seems to be looking for something more to his existence. When he meets a young boy who is a half kin, which is a cat-like alien, the deeper meaning to his existence is found.

The writing is very well done, and I enjoyed the ability of the author to go back and fourth between warm interactions with the heroes of this book and this child, and the darker corners of the science fiction universe the book takes place in. Kayelle Allen does a great job juggling a ton of characters and the different tones of the book depending on where we are in the story. It's often hard for an author to do this, but Allen does so wonderfully. She also poses some interesting questions about gender, justified killing and what it means to be a parent.

I recommend the book. It's a solid space opera and heart-warming. Four stars.

"The Rosie Project" Should Of Been A Movie Project

The 2013 bestseller "The Rosie Project" by Graeme Simson is a breezy read. Don Tillman is basically a middle aged Sheldon Cooper. He has Asperger's syndrome, works at a university and hardly gets everything going by him. He's even described as tall, and looks and sounds like Sheldon Cooper. He also narrates the book. The story starts with his friend Gene deciding to help get him a wife, and Don creates a checklist, put together like a scientific paper, to figure out a formula to get him a wife and how to figure out women. Don ends up finding romance with a way younger woman who's really attractive. I mean, it's a bit of a male fantasy to think this woman would throw herself at Don, but this isn't going to win any literary prizes and who knows? Maybe it isn't that much of a reach.

 

It's also really a mystery why this was never made into anything for a screen. His friend Gene is a perfect example of why it's baffling this novel was never made into anything for a  Gene, love basically means getting his friend laid. Gene is basically a sitcom stock character off a CBS multi cam sitcom, like Barney Stinson or Charlie Harper. Yet, the book feels more like a ABC single camera sitcom made to appeal to a female viewership. The fact this book was never made into anything, like a sitcom or a movie is baffling. This would been a great project at the height of nerd TV like "The Big Bang Theory". It was a well reviewed national bestseller, with two squeals to boot which I actually read. 

What the reader should know is this book actually started out as a screenplay and it shows. Every cliched detail down to the insanely attractive and younger women trying to make Don into her husband material screams MOVIE. That actually works though for the readability of the book. As I said, breezy is the perfect way to describe the writing. It's also funny. 

 It's basically a chick lit novel for socially awkward guys and women who want a guy and women who dream of having a socially awkward guy they can make into good husbands. These kind of guys are already half way there anyway. Their hobbies can still be done when married, and they aren't going to be longing for their fun single days because they didn't happen. 

 It is a new category of chick lit. Women who dream of an ultimately nerdy and intelligent but also inoffensive guy they can meld into their dream man. There's a 98% Don is never going to leave you either. Believe me, I even get it. You girls want a man who can be whipped? Get a nerd. Hell, send me an e-mail. I'll send you my number. 

 It can work both ways as a bit of a fantasy, both male and female, which makes the book unusual in a way. Both male and female readers can enjoy an equal amount of peasant reading and eye rolling at times. It's not going to win any literary prizes, but it's a fun read. The part of the book that really works is watching these two people figure out each other, making each other into what they want. Three stars.

I Am Looking Back Fondly On A 2008 Book By The Father Of The Tea Party (How Far Have We Fallen?)

He does make good points, and I don't think his arguments are unintelligent, but the logic doesn't really work. While I respect his commitment to his beliefs, refusal to go along with his own party and his opposition to the war on terror and drugs, it's just hard to get over his flimsy logic that the answers to America's problems lie in a strict interruption of the Constitution and the ideas of the Founding Fathers, as well as other figures from the 1770s. 

I agree that the Founding Fathers were brilliant men, and you can admire them without thinking they have the solutions to today's problems. It's not even their fault. It's just a lot that has changed since 1776. By Ron Paul's logic, I shouldn't be typing this review on a laptop but with a quill and pen instead, and instead of posting it online, I should find an old wall to post it on and publish a pamphlet like Thomas Paine with this review of the book. It's not that Thomas Paine wasn't a brilliant man. He absolutely was. It was that he lived in the 1770s. However, the idea a lot has changed since the 1770s can borrow the title from Thomas Paine's most famous pamphlet, which was "Common Sense." 

Some of Ron Paul's ideas are awful, mostly on going back to the gold standard, getting rid of public education and replacing actual health care coverage with basically negotiating with a doctor one on one. I actually found I like  Ron Paul and found him to be a thoughtful and interesting guy who really believed in his ideas, and as I said, I respect that, and despite what I felt was backwards logic at times, Ron Paul was good at explaining his point of view, and unlike today's GOP, he explained his point of view in a respectful way. Three stars.