J.C. Buchanan

** This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.**

Title: Counted With The Stars (Out of Egypt, #1)

Author: Connilyn Cossette

Published By: Bethany House (2016)

Synopsis: 

Sold into slavery by her father and forsaken by the man she was supposed to marry, young Egyptian Kiya must serve a mistress who takes pleasure in her humiliation. When terrifying plagues strike Egypt, Kiya is in the middle of it all.

To save her older brother and escape the bonds of slavery, Kiya flees with the Hebrews during the Great Exodus. She finds herself utterly dependent on a fearsome God she’s only just beginning to learn about, and in love with a man who despises her people. With everything she’s ever known swept away, will Kiya turn back toward Egypt or surrender her life and her future to Yahweh? (Taken from Goodreads)

Review:

Wow. I do not usually read Biblical fiction, mostly because I really was unaware it existed. I loved this book immensely, so maybe it’s a genre I need to look into more.

Authentic to its time period and to the Bible story, this tale had a tangible feeling of reality attached to it as the author showed the story in a new way. Now doubtlessly no story, no matter how well written, can replace the original when it comes to Bible stories; but a talented author can still make a well-known story come alive in their own style, and that’s exactly the case with Counted with the Stars.

Obviously fictional—for there is no place in the Bible that talks about Kiya—but still believable, this story was thought-provoking from the start. After all, when you stop to think about it, surely there were Egyptians that escaped with the Hebrews. I was really enthralled by the concept of this story and it took hold of me. It made me think and really ponder the truths of God’s love in a new light.

I loved the characters and how the author wasn’t afraid to show their flaws right along with their good qualities. They were real and raw, yet true to that time period from what I could tell; it was truly incredible, when you think about it, how characters that have such a different upbringing and mindset than today’s culture can still be so relatable, and the author did a fantastic job portraying this.

I especially loved Shira and Kiya’s friendship; it was so beautiful and so tearjerking at the same time. I liked the romantic side plot. While the story might have gone on a bit too long for my taste, I’m not sure what could have been condensed and still produced the same effect. The very fact the author can write this well for this long goes to show how much talent she has! A lot of stories like these tend to get worse as they go on, but her breathtaking way of holding the reader was consistent all the way through.

Negative Content/Notes:

A few more mature things are mentioned. There are implications that the main character has slept with others. Later, she is kidnapped and thinks her attacker is going to rape her, but nothing actually happens.

Overall:

I was very impressed and pleasantly surprised, not just by the talent but also the incredible authenticity. I look forward to continuing this series!

Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

Recommended to: Readers 14+.

** This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.** 

Title: Purple Moon

Author: Tessa Emily Hall

Published By: Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas (2013)

Synopsis: Selena’s life isn’t turning out to be the fairy tale she imagined as a kid.

That hope seemed to vanish long ago when her dad kicked her and her mom out of the house. This summer might finally hold the chance of a new beginning for Selena … but having to live with her snobby cousin in Lake Lure, NC while waiting for her mom to get out of rehab wasn’t how Selena was planning on spending her summer. She soon begins to wonder why she committed to give up her “bad habits” for this.

Things don’t seem too bad, though. Especially when Selena gains the attention of the cute neighbor next door. But when her best friend back home in Brooklyn desperately needs her, a secret that’s been hidden from Selena for years is revealed, and when she becomes a target for one of her cousin’s nasty pranks, she finds herself having to face the scars from her past and the memories that come along with them. Will she follow her mom’s example in running away, or trust that God still has a fairy tale life written just for her? (Taken from Goodreads)

Review:

I truly wanted to like this book. No, I take that back—I hoped to love this book. It seemed like such a beautiful and touching premise, seemed to be deep read with significant themes, and all the reviews were just glowing…it seemed like the type of book which I love.

While this definitely doesn’t qualify for anything near “falling flat”, it didn’t live up to my expectations, either. The depth was fantastic in some areas, but didn’t come through at all in others. It was almost as if there was too much depth to articulate in one book and thereof laxed in some places. For example, the Hilarie storyline (more on this below).

Romance: while I did like the romance in some areas—and I really admired all the Christian themes that it communicated—I didn’t appreciate other aspects at all, such as the way the author painted kissing to be so okay before Selena even wasn’t sure she liked Austin. While I certainly agree that Christian authors have to be careful around romantic topics, not to scare off readers but also to say the truth, some fall through and I did not like the way it was done in Purple Moon at all. Aside from that, I adored Selena and Austin together.

I thought there were plenty of powerful themes sent about life in general, and I absolutely LOVED the way the author delivered the Christian message. It was so clever and wonderfully done.

The family storyline was realistic and done nicely. I know that’s rather a bland description, but that’s all I have to say about it. No complaints, but nothing super exceptional.

And I was really dismayed that we never got closure or any sort of follow-up on the Hilarie storyline. Like, what did she decide? How did she go through that? What happened? It was a geniunely captivating side plot, and when it disappeared it gave the impression the author wrote it in just for the purpose of Selena finding out the truth and nothing else. I was very disappointed. I wish we could have gotten at least a hint at what happened.

Also I found Whitney’s “apology” super cheesy and quixotic….maybe that’s just me though.

Overall:

Good premise and overall good story, it just lacked follow through in quite a few places and didn’t line up with the depth it implied. It was quality writing though, excellent characterization and great descriptions, storyworld, etc, so I did enjoy it. Just some elements bothered me.

Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Recommended to: Readers 13 & up.

** This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.**

Title: Beautiful Blue Word

Author: Suzanne LaFleur

Published By: Wendy Lamb Books (2016)

Synopsis: Sofarende is at war. For twelve-year-old Mathilde, it means food shortages, feuding neighbors, and bombings. Even so, as long as she and her best friend, Megs, are together, they’ll be all right.

But the army is recruiting children, and paying families well for their service. If Megs takes the test, Mathilde knows she will pass. Megs hopes the army is the way to save her family. Mathilde fears it might separate them forever.

A reimagining of war, where even kindness can be a weapon, and children have the power to see what adults cannot. (Taken from Goodreads)

Review:

What is there to say about this book? It was breathtaking. The relationships and characterization were absolutely phenomenal, rich, deep, and full of life and animation. Mathilde was such a great character to lead this book, Megs a great companion and all the others great tag-alongs.

Cons: I didn’t like how the story tied together. It ended well and all—actually the ending was pretty awesome—but the story as a whole didn’t match up one hundred percent. Maybe this is just something I’m not seeing, but it seemed like the book was divided into two sections—part one, which focused on everything in the blurb: war, friendship, love, etc; and then part two, which was completely unexpected and almost unrelated to anything in the previous part. None of the friendship themes really were completely transferred into the second part; it seemed like two individual plots merged together. Yes, they flowed together well for the most part, but I can’t say it wasn’t choppy at times. Usually this kind of thing is super awesome, but since almost none of the friendship things transferred over it made me wonder what the point of it was. Now understand I am saying this from an objective point of view; I loved the book and both parts whether choppy or not, but coming from an objective standpoint it didn’t work as well.

And again, it’s also very likely once the second book comes out this will all make a lot more sense. Essentially I didn’t understand how all the plotline in the second half fit into the plotline of the first half.

The ending was awesome. Cleverly done, clear and concise but also super cliffhangery. I’m satisfied, but I’d also take more.

Pros: Putting aside the two-halfs dilemma, I loved each part in its own way. Megs’ and Mathilde’s friendship was beautiful. So beautiful. I don’t usually cry easily over books, but Beautiful Blue World had me shedding beautiful blue tears. (Which I guess could actually kind of be a con in its own, since not a lot of this beauty transferred to the second half.)

The second half of the book, which was provoked from a twist I certainly didn’t see coming, took on its own story, plot, and shape. Putting aside the fact the idea, to me, lacked tangible orginality—personally it reminded me too much of The Ability, though I doubt it was intentional—and the fact it didn’t line up with the first half, I did like the things portrayed during this part of the book.

I’ve said a lot about different halves and parts, and still trying to grasp what was off about them to put into words because they both were beautiful, but together it was—mismatched. Two gorgeous pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit together. I think this could have been avoided by lengthening the book; draw this book out a little more and it works wonderfully. It was just a bit too short to fully envelop the ideas.

I guess the main thing that bugged me was that the blurb was so misleading. It got me thinking the whole story would be about friendship when really the blurb could summarize about the first fifty pages and that’s it. The rest was scattered and totally different. So my assumptions and expectations were set at the wrong level. Not at a higher or lower, because quality-wise this book met my standards. Just a mismatched level. I was at green instead of blue.

Also I want to know what the whole sub-idea of “It’s easy to love those you care about, but not so easy to love those you don’t know” was exactly portraying. It’s a great theme, but putting it with this book makes it look like the whole friendship between Megs and Mathilde is meaningless because Mathilde should have been caring about others. It’s supposed to be a heartfelt novel about friendship power, not about how said friendship shouldn’t have such power. I was very confused.

Bottom line, I wish this novel could have had more length to develop these key aspects.

All things aside, I did absolutely love this novel. Just because I love it so much is why I want to know why I love it, and what I don’t about it, and that’s where all these cons came from. I wanted to objectively analyze this book and this is what I came up with; however, don’t let that make you think I didn’t like it. I LOVED THIS BOOK TO TEARS. I’ll definitely be re-reading it soon to see if I can find answers to these questions I have. I’d definitely recommend it.

Side note: I hated the line about no such thing as heaven. I get what it’s supposed to be saying, but it was unnecessary.

Negative Content:

None.

Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

Recommended to: Readers 12 & up will probably most appreciate this book!