Taste the Books: Review Morsels #40 Chelsea Sedoti, Vincent Tirado, M.R. Carey

Intro

Hello beauties!

Welcome again to my own brand of mini reviews! I never thought I'd do minis, until I recapped a few of my long reviews in some digest post in 2014, and then guest-posted some shorties for a blogging event in 2015. And Karen from For What It's Worth started praising my short recs/recaps 😊. Just to be clear,  I'm NOT taking a break from writing long reviews - no such luck LOL (though for anthologies, shorter books or books that I didn't enjoy/I don't have enough to say about, I decided to stick to minis). But while I'm making up my mind about a new book I've read, I might as well give you the short version 😉. Just be warned - this feature will be VERY random!

Oh, just so you know...this is a DNF bunch. Or to be more precise, a bunch of ARCs I DNF 😱. Unprecedented for me, I know...

Note: all the mini blurbs (in italics) are of my own creation.

Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti (ARC Review)

★★

On the heels of a girl's disappearance during a camping trip, the four friends who were in the woods with her are interviewed by the police about the fateful night when she went missing (or died?).

***

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Sourcebooks Fire for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

I'm usually intrigued by books that employ unusual narrative styles, but alas, this one didn't work for me, so I threw the towel early on. The story is told via a series of statements given in an interrogation room by four suspects, each of them answering a question (when not rambling LOL), or following a prompt from the authorities in charge. It got old fast, and I found it was distracting me from the plot/whodunnit, which I guess wasn't the intended effect - not to mention, it made it difficult for me to get emotionally attached to the characters. Also, I didn't buy that real teens would be that snarky and articulated when questioned by the police (Petra, I'm looking at you). I applaud the author for trying a different (and risky) format, but as I said, it ended up not being my thing.

Note: definitive review (I don't have enough to say to justify writing a full-length one later, and of course I don't plan to reread this book).

We Don't Swim Here by Vincent Tirado (ARC Review)

★★

A teenage competitive swimmer is dragged by her parents to her dad's rural hometown where her grandmother is dying, finds out that nobody ever goes near the water there, and sets to uncover the reason, despite her cousin's efforts to keep her out of trouble.

***

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Sourcebooks Fire for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

First off - please note that I didn't have any issues with the writing style or the characters, but regardless, I had to throw in the towel after a few chapters 🙁. This ended up being another instance of "I didn't buy the premise" - and yeah, of course I read the blurb before I requested an ARC, but I guess I expected something different...something, well, less forced. For one thing, there's no foreshadowing whatsoever - the visiting girl is dropped straight into a world of rituals and secrets, except everyone expects her to be a passive spectator and not to ask questions. Besides, I can't believe that no one in Hillwoods ever considered relocating (unless there's a reason why they can't, but if there is, I didn't get that far...and anyway, why was the protagonist's family able to leave, then?). And I can't buy that the visiting girl's dad (who grew up in Hillwoods) didn't know anything about the local curse, whatever the explanation was (again, I didn't get that far). All this was keeping me at an arm's length from the story, so I decided a DNF was in order. But if you're interested in small-town supernatural mysteries, familial relationships and Black + lesbian rep, and if you can suspend disbelief about the points I made, by any means pick this book up.

Note: definitive review (I don't have enough to say to justify writing a full-length one later, and of course I don't plan to reread this book).

Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey (ARC Review)

(Pandominion #1)

★★

The lives of three people all based in Lagos, but from three different versions of Earth - a female scientist, a male rogue and a rabbit girl - get intertwined when the first accidentally stumbles across the secret of interdimensional travel.

***

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

This pains me to no end, but despite the juicy premise and my having loved The Girl with All the Gifts by the same author, I stopped reading around the 1/3 mark. The first section was hard sci-fi enough to trouble me a bit, but the first protagonist (a lone Black female scientist living in a dilapidated world that she's intent on saving, if at the expense of others) and her AI helper were interesting enough to keep me going, especially when the actual multiverse stuff made its (albeit timid) appearance. Alas, I never warmed up to the second main character (a Black male hooker/rogue trying to rise out of poverty by any means), and when the more political aspects of the story took center stage, I started to get bored. I'm not sure what I expected - maybe more of a multiverse romp with different, fascinating versions of our planet to visit - but what I got sure wasn't it. I commend the book's being diverse and ambitious in scope though (especially given that it's only the first volume in a series), and I hope - or better, I'm sure - it will find the right audience...

Note: definitive review (I don't have enough to say to justify writing a full-length one later, and of course I don't plan to reread this book).

So, have you read/are you planning to read any of the above? And if you have, what do you think of them? Do you post mini reviews? Do you like to read them?