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[katara]

Title: Handbook for Mortals (Handbook for Mortals #1)
Author: Lani Sarem
Format: Epub
Rating: 1/5
Status: Did Not Finish
Reading Date: September 22, 2017 to September 20, 2017
Book Summary: Zade Holder has always been a free-spirited young woman, from a long dynasty of tarot-card readers, fortunetellers, and practitioners of magick. Growing up in a small town and never quite fitting in, Zade is determined to forge her own path. She leaves her home in Tennessee to break free from her overprotective mother Dela, the local resident spellcaster and fortuneteller.

Zade travels to Las Vegas and uses supernatural powers to become part of a premiere magic show led by the infamous magician Charles Spellman. Zade fits right in with his troupe of artists and misfits. After all, when everyone is slightly eccentric, appearing "normal" is much less important.

Behind the scenes of this multimillion-dollar production, Zade finds herself caught in a love triangle with Mac, the show's good-looking but rough-around-the-edges technical director and Jackson, the tall, dark, handsome and charming bandleader.
Book Review: I tried to read this. I really tried. I took it with me up to the hospital when I had to admit my Mom but the I could not connect with any of the characters whatsoever.

On top of that, this novel felt like it was written by a teenager on the cusp of writing her first fanfiction.

And this is where this story should have been - the fanfiction section.

The main character, Zade, is this beautiful young woman but she does not see herself in such a way. She sees herself as "plain" and "different". These are typically the red flags of the makings of a Mary Sue. The plain girl with these supernatural powers whom everyone either hates because of her beauty and power or falls in absolute love with.

From the chapters I have read, there really seemed to be no character built. We don't learn how she gets to the point where she has made the ultimate decision to leave behind what seems to be a normal home and strike out on her own. I understand that all teenagers go through this stage but all we are given at the beginning is Zade doesn't want to be part of what her mother's world - tarot reading. Instead, she wants to strike out and work on a magic show.

A magic show?

Is that like going from the pan to the oven? Because I thought she didn't want to be in a world filled with things she was trying to get away from? Or am I missing something?

Honestly this book should be removed and returned to the drawing board. The entire story needs an overhaul and lots of edits to it.

But I suppose when you buy your way into NYT Best Seller list, you really believe your story is the "bestest" out there.

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[katara]

Title: Jean Grey (2017-) #7
Author: Dennis Hopeless, Alberto Alburquerque (Illustrator), David Yardin (Illustrator)
Format: Epub
Rating: 3/5
Status: Finished
Reading Date: September 22, 2017
Book Summary: Traveling the Marvel Universe preparing herself for her inevitable encounter with the Phoenix force, JEAN GREY has learned how to fight from the likes of Namor, Thor and Psylocke. But now she wants to know more about her opponent than the best way to punch it. She wants to know what makes it tick. She wants to know what it's made of. And to learn that, she'll go to one of the few women who've harnessed its power: Wanda Maximoff, THE SCARLET WITCH!
Book Review: In this issue, we find a young Jean Grey being "haunted" by the older Jean Grey. Haunted would not be the right word, I would think to describe the older Jean. I would think younger Jean would see her as perhaps a mentor of sort but younger Jean doesn't. She seemed to be more annoyed by the fact of older Jean's presence.

The two of them begin to butt heads and this makes a spectacle of herself since she is the only one who can see "ghostly" older Jean. It is at this moment that the Scarlett Witch appears. Once Wanda has placed all the innocent humans in another place, she tells Jean that she had heard from Doctor Strange and that young Jean was a bit wound up over the Phoenix force.

Older Jean is not quite happy with the idea of the Scarlett Witch butting in and she is even made more unhappy when she whisks Jean away to the Savage Lands to enjoy some relaxation (is that what they are doing?).

Then they head to Rio to take down a monster.

All this starts to make Older Jean rather unhappy that she hijacks young Jean's body and forces her to leave Wanda behind to meet an older acquaintance - Emma Frost aka The White Queen.

Okay this issue did not even impress me at all. They made older Jean the comedy sidekick. Please don't get me wrong I enjoy humor but I don't see it Older Jean's character to be anything like that especially when she is in the seat of mentor. I believe that older Jean is really trying to help out her younger counterpart prepare for what is to come but younger Jean doesn't seem to really appreciate it at all. Maybe if younger Jean was serious about being stronger when the Phoenix arrived, she would listen to any advice Older Jean had but that won't be the case at all.

Overall, I was happy to see the Scarlett Witch and even happy that she did not treat Jean like a kid in any way, but more like a younger sister. I just wish Wanda had offered something more than being just a filler character in young Jean's quest to halt herself from being taken by the Phoenix Force.

So let's see what Emma does in the next issue.