Review of The Wild's Call

The Wild's Call
by Jeri Smith-Ready

A fair prequel novella to a series of books called Aspect of Crow about an emerging magical society where survivors of 'the Collapse' each have some kind of spirit-animal super power. We don't know any details, the story begins in medias res, and the author does a pretty good job hinting at the post-apocalyptic context rather than explaining the details. The emphasis is on the two main characters as they escape a volatile Baltimore and head for the woods where they meet up with others like them.

It's a mildly interesting premise, but I was put off by all the sexual innuendo, sex talk, and actual sex that occurs between the two main characters. The story could have done without it. After I finished I saw that it was originally published by e-Harlequin Romance and thought maybe that's what they expect of their authors. I won't be reading the actual trilogy (Eyes of the Crow, Voice of the Crow, The Reawakened) that follows since I'm not into explicit romance. But if this is your thing, you'll probably want to read the whole series as this prequel affords just a taste and not the satisfaction of a complete story. I think I got it free on Amazon a few years ago.

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Review of Divergent Series by Veronic Roth

Four: A Divergent Story Collection
by Veronica Roth

Really enjoyed these four 'prequel' novellas. They provide the necessary background information on the factions to understand the Divergent trilogy. For those yet to discover this series, I'd even recommend you read this collection first (but ignore the short snippets at the end). Four stars.

The other books in the series are: Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant.

Here's my review of the third book and the series as a whole.

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Well, the series as a whole wasn't as good as Hunger Games, but it was better than Maze Runner. Of course, all three series are dystopic favorites among the YA crowd and each involve some "big bad government" tyranny involving tests or manipulations or conspiracies. If you're into that genre, I guess you could do worse than Roth's venture, though it does kind of get lost in itself during book 3 when you realize the secret to understanding their society isn't the ultimate secret. It's like those Russian dolls, you only reveal another manipulator behind the first one you unmask. So there is really no resolution to the "big bad government" problem and the state of the world continues on in its path of hopelessness at the book's end.

Which I think is the overall message here. The author tackles issues of sin (though she doesn't use this term), guilt, forgiveness, community, and friendship - within the conceit of genetics and human conditioning. And the answer to the human dilemma of evil and tragedy and loss? Well, there is no answer, but we soldier on anyway relying on love to guide us. Sort of a half-baked humanistic solution that is ultimately all the world can offer. It's the same answer the movie Wonder Woman gives (which I just saw recently) so it seems to be a common theme right now, which I guess is better than straight up nihilism. I'll give the whole thing 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

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