Honesty Hour (1)

Hello everybody! Sorry for the late post but I've been sick in bed and only now did I muster the courage to get online. Anyway, Honest Hour is a new thing I'll be doing possibly weekly. While it might seem like a review, it'll be full of spoilers and can talk from one book to multiple books. The reason for this is that my reviews are usually spoiler-free and I don't really go into length talking about it. I don't want to give away anything that might ruin the story during those reviews so I warn you that this will be full of spoils and should only be read if you have read the novels. 

To start this off I chose a series that I read two of its books last year.


Starting with Nightshade by Andrea Cremer. When I read this book I was all into it. It was something new, dark and humorous. The love-triangle that was in it was different than what I had previously read before. Instead of a girl falling for two people she had to choose between someone she was falling for and someone she had to be with due to her laws. 


When I began reading Nightshade I was also watching Skins UK from E4 so I kind of put the two together. Skins is about a group of teens in their last two years of High School with different personalities and it chronicles the events that lead up to graduation. Nightshade reminded me of that with how it was two groups coming together as one with everyone having a different personality. How they would hang out in the cafeteria and go to a night club even if it was to investigate. It was a really good novel that I went in with low expectations. The action was great, the characters were awesome and the ending was just intense. 


Then comes Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer. Before the book came out they decided to change the covers to what is up top. For some reason I felt as if this would ruin the story for me as I compare the covers with the novel itself. I decided to forget about it and finally read it. Boy was I disappointed. I went into this with such high expectations and was greatly let down. The magic of the characters were gone. Although most of the characters aren't there for part of the story because of certain reasons, the new characters just weren't working for me. Their introduction was too abrupt and not enough development went on. The story seemed too rushed and yet it dragged on. 


I kind of confused myself with that when I first said it but then I thought about it. Wolfsbane felt as if it could have been a couple of chapters in Nightshade, if some scenes were taken out of course. But for the scenes that were in it, it took a long time for the story to get there and when it did it was just bam, done, over. It should have been longer, more properly developed. It took almost two hundred pages before anything exciting happened. And when it did I was thinking to myself how out of place it seemed. The world we were introduced to in the first novel had changed drastically in the second that it seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing really felt familiar and it felt as if Calla herself had changed overnight. But read it I did and when I got to the end I just felt as if time might have been wasted. I wasn't feeling the story but I was still going to read the third novel.


Before even reading Wolfsbane I looked it up and saw that the cover for the third novel was out and that's when I found out.


Bloodrose by Andrea Cremer was set to be released January 2012, just mere months after the release of the second. I thought it was mistake but then it was confirmed that the release date was true and I thought to myself that it was over. I don't know what happened, if she previously wrote all three books and they were just now getting published or if she rushed through them but that kind of killed it for me. 


I have this thing with authors not taking their time writing books. To me a book should be properly done and not rushed through. When I see an author writing two books per year it freaks me out because I wonder if they're really doing it for the story or for the money. For some authors it does work such as Ellen Hopkins. She writes an adult novel and young adult novel a year and when we read it it's amazing. But the thing is, she writes in free verse. It doesn't take long to do and yet she does her research and her studying and it shows in the work. Yet we see Cassandra Clare releasing two books per month and the result is one such as City of Fallen Angels which was the shortest book and something that shouldn't have ever been published. It just felt like an excuse for more of Clary and Jace make-out scenes.


But when I recently got Bloodrose I saw that it was bigger than the other two and I thought maybe she it might redeem herself and that I shouldn't give up on it. Perhaps it'll have the same BAM as the first one and give me something that I actually want. But I won't exactly know until I start reading it.


And so with this I leave you guys here. What do you guys think of these novels? Give me your thoughts on them and let me know if you think authors should take their time with their writing. 


I also would like to say that I respect every author and would never say anything to bash them. If I'm against something it would be their work and not them as a person. I am a fan of Cassandra Clare and even though I might not like City of Fallen Angels I still like her other work. The same goes for Andrea Cremer. Even if I didn't enjoy Wolfsbane as much as Nightshade I will still go into Bloodrose with hopes that it'll get to me and enjoy any other work she releases.