Witchy Review: Tough Girl by Libby Heily

Title: Tough Girl

Author: Libby Heily
Published: Nov. 2012
Words: 57707 (approximate)
Language: english

Format: Given by Author

Synopsis:
Danger lurks everywhere in eleven year old Reggie's world—from the bully next door to the unwanted attentions of a creep at school. Raised by her mentally ill mother, Reggie is left to fend for herself in a rough neighborhood. She escapes in daydreams, battling aliens with her alter ego, Tough Girl.


Review:


The moment I started reading "Tough Girl," I couldn't--and wouldn't!--put it down. In fact, I've been done with it for a few days but didn't know how to wrap my head around the novel enough to begin to review it.


Reggie's story is so perfectly told by Heily. Reggie, as the synopsis tells us, doesn't have the easiest of lives. She is the victim of frequent bullying at school, lives on the rough side of town where she falls asleep to the sounds of sirens, drug deals, and her neighbors being beat up. Her mother is no more than a person frozen in time to a couch lost in the glare of a broken digital alarm clock.


Reggie's only solace is Tough Girl--it's not her name--it's a warning. Tough Girl is everything Reggie wants to be--beautiful, an intergalactic war hero, the person defending her family's honor. Tough Girl stays close to Reggie at all times, warning her of the upcoming danger, only disappearing to go to her home planet and fight when she is needed. Slowly, Reggie begins to come out of her shell and make friends with a boy from school and her new, fancy neighbors.


You can't help but love Reggie. Heily writes in a way that your heartstrings get wrapped around her to the point that you want to reach out and save her yourself. The story weaves seamlessly between fantasy and reality and the lines blur exactly when necessary.


To say any more would spoil the story as it unfolds, but trust me--even though it seems evident that Heily's target audience is Young Adult, anyone can pick this novel up and adore it. I can't wait to see more from this author.

Witchy Rating: 5 Black Cats (BRAVO!)

Review brought to you by Galinda at Witchy Reviews

Witchy Review: The Mighty Quinn by Paula R. Stiles

Title: The Mighty Quinn
Author: Paula R. Stiles
Publisher: Dark Continents Publishing, Inc
Length: 242 Pages
Release Date: September 2012
Misc: ARC
Kindle edition given by publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
There's a milk truck on the US/Canadian border with a detonated nuclear bomb that didn't explode and a pile of mummy dust for a driver. Vermont Homeland Security Agent Nan Carreira is having quite the morning and she hasn't even met her witness yet. Quinn Bolcan just got out of Vancouver, in a hurry and under a dark cloud. The last thing he was looking for in Vermont was trouble and that's the first thing he found. Soon, he and Carreira will be neck-deep in black helicopters, low-rent necromancers, zombie suicide bombers, and vengeful were-bikers. And that's just the beginning because Quinn is a wild card in a league all his own.

***

I was thrilled by the first paragraph of "The Mighty Quinn." Hell, by the first sentence, I pegged the novel as a page turner, one I couldn't see myself putting down. I could not have been more wrong. The reader is dropped into the middle of Quinn fleeing town after getting caught in a grow-op situation armed with a warning of "wares" as he travels and with a package that needs to be delivered across country. What began so strongly is quickly weakened by too many twists and turns, completely unnecessary subplots, and the confusing and exhausting constant first-person to third-person to first-person storytelling. Over and over and over again without a stitch to thread it all together.

Stiles fails the reader by getting too excited to bring in every aspect of the occult and every potential horror trope she can imagine. We have werewolves, ghouls, humans casting spells, demons, vampires…does the list end? Every trope has it's own subplot and the worst part? They don't resolve. It seems like this book could have been split into three different novels, all which I probably would have loved. Stiles is an incredible writer--her descriptive imagery puts pictures and scenes into the reader's mind that Hollywood would have sincere problems recreating visually and I often lost myself, thinking I might be feeling that breeze, or smelling that scent she so adequately describes.

Overall, would I recommend this novel? Yes, but with caution. The writing is both incredibly strong and incredibly weak. If you love the kind of authors who can get your mind turning with imagery, Stiles is the author for you. If you are easily annoyed by back and forth storytelling, pass. 

***  

Witchy Rating: 2 Black Cats

Opinion has been brought to you by Galinda at Witchy Reviews