Book Review: The Graces by Laure Eve

The Graces by Laure Eve
Publisher: Abrams Kids/Amulet Books
Pub. Date: September 6, 2016
Genre: YA Fantasy/Paranormal
Source/Format: NetGalley/e-galley

Goodreads Summary:

In The Graces, the first rule of witchcraft states that if you want something badly enough, you can get it . . . no matter who has to pay. Everyone loves the Graces. Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer Grace are captivating, wealthy, and glamorous. They’ve managed to cast a spell over not just their high school but also their entire town—and they’re rumored to have powerful connections all over the world. If you’re not in love with one of them, you want to be them. Especially River: the loner, new girl at school. She’s different from her peers, who both revere and fear the Grace family. She wants to be a Grace more than anything. And what the Graces don’t know is that River’s presence in town is no accident. This fabulously addictive fantasy combines sophisticated and haunting prose with a gut-punching twist that readers will be dying to discuss. Perfect for fans of We Were Liars as well as nostalgic classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the 1996 movie The Craft, The Graces marks the beginning of a new wave of teen witches.

Thank you to Abrams Kids and NetGalley for giving me an e-galley in exchange for an honest review!

This book was at the top of my Most Anticipated Reads of 2016 shelf on Goodreads, first because of the gorgeous cover and second because heck yes fantasy series about teen witches! Needless to say, I was ecstatic when my request was approved on NetGalley! Sadly, though, The Graces fell short of my expectations.

My biggest issue with the book has to do with the main character, a girl who calls herself "River." The book summary isn't kidding when it says River wants to be one of the Graces––a trio of enigmatic siblings––more than anything. It's her defining personality trait, and it gets old really fast. Almost every thought she has revolves around the Graces and how she can infiltrate their circle to become one of them, popular and admired. Every action is done specifically to get the Graces––but especially the youngest Grace, Summer––to like her and see her as one of them. She's completely and utterly obsessed in a way that just made me cringe. She's unlike the typical YA heroine in that her motives are completely selfish, but she never does anything to redeem herself. Her insecurity and all-consuming obsession with trying to become a Grace make her completely unlikeable throughout the whole book. I never rooted for her, and most of the time I was just waiting for the Graces to finally see through her crap and be done with her. The interesting thing, though, is I don't think we're supposed to like her. In fact, the end of book one sets her up to be very much the antihero in future books.

As for the Graces themselves, for all the awe and fear they inspire in the town, they really aren't all that interesting. Rumor has it that their whole family is made up of witches. But apart from a rumor that a boy was possessed during a Ouija game gone wrong at Thalia and Fenrin's eighth birthday party, and Summer's occasional dabbling in minor spells––which the family disapproves of––there's not a whole lot going on to suggest that they're as sinister or mysterious as everyone thinks they are. They come off as snobs more than anything else. I didn't understand the hold they had over River or their classmates.

I might have been able to overlook some of these issues had the plot been more interesting, but it was slow going and didn't really ramp up until about the last quarter of the book. I'll admit that the showdown between River and the Graces was pretty intense, and it did redeem the book at least a little bit. I just wish there had been more intensity throughout the book as a whole.

Final Thoughts and Rating

Sadly, The Graces just wasn't my cup of tea. The plot was too slow and the characters too unlikeable for me to ever become fully invested in the story. I likely won't be continuing the series, but I'm still holding out hope for Laure Eve's other series, Fearsome Dreamer.

Mini Review: Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch

Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Expected Pub. Date: July 1, 2014
Genre: YA/Dystopian
Source/Format: Entangled Teen/E-galley

From Goodreads:

Perfection comes at a price.

As soon as the government passed legislation allowing humans to be genetically engineered and sold as pets, the rich and powerful rushed to own beautiful girls like Ella. Trained from birth to be graceful, demure, and above all, perfect, these “family companions” enter their masters’ homes prepared to live a life of idle luxury.

Ella is happy with her new role as playmate for a congressman’s bubbly young daughter, but she doesn’t expect Penn, the congressman’s handsome and rebellious son. He’s the only person who sees beyond the perfect exterior to the girl within. Falling for him goes against every rule she knows…and the freedom she finds with him is intoxicating.

But when Ella is kidnapped and thrust into the dark underworld lurking beneath her pampered life, she’s faced with an unthinkable choice. Because the only thing more dangerous than staying with Penn’s family is leaving…and if she’s unsuccessful, she’ll face a fate far worse than death.

For fans of Keira Cass’s Selection series and Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden series, Perfected is a chilling look at what it means to be human, and a stunning celebration of the power of love to set us free, wrapped in a glamorous—and dangerous—bow.

Thanks to Entangled Teen for providing a copy of Perfected in exchange for an honest review.

When I first read the summary for Perfected, I was immediately reminded of Lauren DeStefano's Wither and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, both of which revolve around women trapped in societies that treat them as little more than objects. Unfortunately, Perfected lacked the high stakes that made its predecessors so compelling. My biggest struggle while reading Perfected was that I was just...well, bored. While I felt sorry for Ella, I never really connected with her. She lacked the fire of other YA dystopian heroines, like Katniss Everdeen or Tris Prior or Juliette Ferrars. At no point did I feel fully emotionally invested in their stories. Another element that made the book boring for me was the incomplete world-building. From what I could tell, the story seems to take place during the present day, but I was never quite sure. Also, there's no backstory to set up how genetic engineering came about, or why. I'm still not even sure what "genetic engineering" means--are the pets clones? Are they birthed from surrogate mothers and then handed over to the kennels? And even if they are genetically engineered, how does that make them less human?

When I wasn't bored with the story, I was genuinely creeped out by the way Ella and the other pets were treated, particularly by men. Some passages were enough to make my skin crawl. Essentially, these human pets are treated like dogs; they're raised in "kennels," given I.D. tags, implanted with homing microchips, and sent off to their new homes with "care instructions" for their owners. At the kennels, Ella has been taught to believe that the pets are taken into their owners' homes to be displayed and admired. But as Ella adjusts to life with the congressman and his family, she quickly realizes she has been ill-prepared for life as a pet. Men leer at her, women look down upon her, and children treat her like a life-size doll. But rather than drawing me into the story and Ella's plight, these details only served to distract me. It just seemed too surreal that these girls were being treated this way, and I couldn't understand how it was being allowed to happen. I think that if Birch had provided us with some backstory, that would have at least helped to explain the mindset and justification behind the movement to create human pets.

Much as I hate giving a book a negative review, Perfected and I just didn't gel. That's not to say that other YA readers won't enjoy Ella's story, but it wasn't for me.