Mini-Reviews 4: Never and Forever

The title is because the first three books in Cressida Crowell's Wizards of Once series all have ordinal-number-themed names (Wizards of Once, Twice Magic, and Knock Three Times) but the fourth one is called Never and Forever, which broke the chain. So when it came time to do the fourth mini-review collection, I named it this. There. Now you know.

 

Dead in the Water by Chris Lynch

This do be historical fiction, about a crewman on the U.S.S. Yorktown during World War II. We all know how well that ended. This dude |does survive, though|. 

The historical stuff is interspersed with baseball (because this was the 1940s and if you were in the States then everything was tangentially related to baseball) (please note that the previous statement is not entirely factually accurate) and a minor dealing-with-racism side plot (courtesy of the main character's friend, who gets hit with it a lot). (Also this paragraph is full of parentheses.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence and discussion of racism. Dead in the Water would make a reasonably good videogame in the right hands, although unless you let players change the story, it wouldn't have much replayability.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, airplanes, historical fiction, military, rated T, WWII

 

 

 

All Summer Long by Hope Larson

I didn't like this one. The art wasn't really good (for me, art quality is an important factor in how much I like a graphic novel; it's like use of language in a print book), and I didn't love the storyline either. Plus it did a |casual homosexuality mention|, which I strongly dislike. If you're going to have that in your book, be overt about it so I can avoid you.

Anyway, T15+ for sexual references. 1 star. Lame.

Tags for this one: 1-star, lame, manga/graphic novel, modern setting, rated T15+, school drama

 

 

 

Truesight by David Stahler Jr.

 

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king illegal. |But also king.|

Basically, this is science fiction about a community where everyone is genetically engineered to be blind. Because... well, honestly it feels quasi-religious, like one of those weird philosophical religion-but-not-really-but-still-kinda things.

Aaaaaaaand then one guy discovers he can see, that the genetic engineering failed on him, and everything goes to pieces.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for delayed-action creepiness. It would be pretty hard to make into a videogame, but it could be done.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, dystopian, rated E10+, science fiction

(Endnote: These have three very different covers. Dead in the Water is mostly realistic, All Summer Long is only vaguely evocative of the book, and Truesight... honestly looks almost like the cover of a horror movie.)