Title: Stolen
Author: Lucy Christopher
ISBN: 978-0-5451-7093-2
Story Length: 304 pages
Genre: Young Adult Drama

Three Quick Points About Stolen

• Point 1: Slow. No, that’s not right. In fact, a new word needs to be coined because “slow” (and all its various synonyms) is inadequate.
• Point 2: The camel won. It was the only character that felt genuine. Ty came close, but meh. Let’s not start on Gemma.
• Point 3: A twisted love story. Still, it was an interesting take on the evolution of Stockholm syndrome.

Short Synopsis of Stolen

Sixteen year old Gemma Toombs is stolen from the Bangkok airport and brought to Middle of Nowhere, Australia by a man named Ty. During her captivity, Ty explains how they’ll have a perfect life together away from the evils of the city. Gemma protests, and then after a late-night epiphany, she decides that Ty is only marginally insane and falls in love. Unfortunately, theirs is a complicated love and it comes with its own set of problems.

My Thoughts on Stolen

Let me say up front: This is a hard review for me to write. I wanted so much to love Stolen. So much. But, oh sweet Mother of All Things Good, the writing was bad. (Typing that broke my heart a little, but it needed to come out.)

For me, how a story is told is just as important as the story itself—sometimes more so. Stolen is told in the 2^nd person POV as a letter from Gemma to Ty, which can be an amazing style if done right. In this book, however, the narrative was more arid than the desert landscape it depicted; it meandered and drifted between various shades of lavender to purple. And at the end a justification was offered for the narrative choice, but it didn’t redeem the book, not one iota.

Of all the characters, I only cared about the camel. It was the only one who felt genuine. When she was left behind, I almost cried…almost. And if you force me to pick a human character to like, it would be Ty (yes, the mentally unstable kidnapper) because the only emotion Gemma ignited in me was apathy. I wanted to feel for her, and right when I thought I would, the writing got in the way

Ultimately Stolen is a powerful story drowned by stodgy writing and though it may seem like it, I didn’t hate this book; I just wish it were written differently.

Rating: Save Your Money [D+] (?)

Back Cover of The Well

If Hamlet thought he had issues, he should have talked to Cooper Warner.

His mother’s normally sunny demeanor has turned into something—homicidal.

And what’s worse, she has help in her hunt for Cooper: A ravenous monster living at the bottom of the old well in the woods behind their house. She’s determined to deliver her 14-year-old son straight into the creature’s eager clutches. Cooper turns to his girlfriend, Megan, for help, but then, to his horror, the creature takes her prisoner.

Now, it’s up to Cooper to fend off his murderous mother, finish his Hamlet paper, and enter the putrid lair at the bottom of the well to rescue Megan. And when he confronts the creature, Cooper must make the toughest decision of his life: kill, or be killed.

This horrific tale, inspired by Hamlet, puts a modern, terrifying twist on the Shakespearean classic.

Three Quick Points About The Well

• Point 1: This book needs a hacksaw—a big one. And to stop trying to sound cool. Most of the words contained within The Well’s two covers is effluvium. The repetition, the analogies, and the random references to every celebrity or HPotM (Hot Product of the Moment) wears a bit thin.
• Point 2: Why hasn’t Cooper been eaten yet? By chapter 11, that was the question I asked. I figured if he was eaten, it would put everyone (including Cooper) out of their misery.
• Point 3: Hamlet? Really?!? The only tenuous connection I saw between this story and Hamlet was the shoe-wedged storyline about Cooper and his classmates studying the play and hating every minute of it.

Full Review of The Well

Before reading the full review, please note that there may be some spoilers. I tried to keep it vague enough not to spoil the entire story, but be warned. If you’d rather not take any chances, skip the synopsis and go straight to the final thoughts.

The Well Synopsis

The story opens with the Well-Monster telling the audience that he’s been trapped for two centuries and when he finally gets out, he’s going to do naughty things to exact his revenge.

We then switch to Cooper’s point of view as he’s trapped at the bottom the well (yes, with the Well Monster). He’s rescued by his brother Faulkner, who then goes into sudden denial about seeing their mother toss his kid brother down a well.

Of course, rather than try to convince his brother that something sinister is going on, he decides to try and run away from his problems. Unfortunately, the Well Monster has great and terrible powers and it sends creepy green oozing vines to find Cooper wherever he goes—sitting at his desk at school, viewing his MySpace page at home, having dinner with his girlfriend’s family.

Of course, no one besides him can see these creepy vines, so he appears to be going insane.

He also hears the monster’s voice inside his head, which lends to his increasing dementia.

Finally he can’t take it anymore and with the aid of his girlfriend (technically, ex, since he pushed her away to save her life), they decide to kill the Well Monster.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out as planned and Cooper is back at the bottom of the well, his girlfriend has gone missing, his stepfather is acting creepy, his mother seems randomly possessed, and there’s a big mystery surrounding the affluence of the vineyard on which the well resides.

Final Thoughts On The Well

I wanted very much to like this book. In fact, I wanted to love it.

I could do neither.

Coming in at just over 300 short pages, this should have been one easy afternoon read. It wasn’t. Everything about this book is superficial and tiresome.

The story is told mostly from Cooper’s point of view, but a few chapters switch to the Well Monster’s third person POV. No big deal, and I felt those switches helped the book entirely because those chapters were economical in their writing.

None of the characters, or their relationships with one another, were believable. Cooper is a sarcastic kid, but throughout most of the book, it reads like he’s trying too hard for a laugh. He was all over the place—character-development-wise—as was his brother.

The relationship between Cooper and Megan seemed obligatory and, again, the actions were inconsistent.

Then there are the never-ending analogies and references to celebrities, TV shows, or hot products that are sure to date this book in a few years.

“Wasn’t spelling out the school’s letters with all the passion of Fall Out Boy groupies.” –pg 58

“Made money like a Coke machine from his jobs delivering babies and making wine.” –pg 87

“It was so…ordinary, so normal, when I’d just been running from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” –pg 122

“The truth hit me in the solar plexus like a UFC fighter.” –pg 127

“For a second, I could believe I was in a Manga comic or, one of those prisoner dudes in Battlefield Earth.” –pg 144

(*These quotes were taken from an ARC, so someone may just take a hacksaw to it before its release…one can hope.)

That’s only a small sampling—there’s plenty more, sometimes three on a page. The first couple of times, it was cute, but by chapter 11, I was skimming whole chunks of text and wishing Cooper would just be eaten already.

Here’s where it really nicked, though—there is an entertaining story in there (yes, you heard right), but it’s almost snuffed out due to poor, long-winded writing. It’s a shame really.

Rating: Save your money (?)

The Well at Amazon

Back Cover of Uninvited

When rejection comes back to bite you…

Jordan’s life sucks. Her boyfriend, Michael, dumped her, slept his way through half the student body, and then killed himself. But now, somehow, he appears at her window every night, begging her to let him in.

Jordan can’t understand why he wants her, but she feels her resistance wearing down. After all, her life — once a broken record of boring parties, meaningless hookups, and friends she couldn’t relate to — now consists of her drinking alone in her room as she waits for the sun to go down.

Michael needs to be invited in before he can enter. All Jordan has to do is say the words….

Three Quick Points About Uninvited

• Point 1: This book reads like the anti-Twilight. The characters are shallow and the plot is paper thin. The difference is, rather than a clean cut honor student being completely enamoured by the new vampire who’s been stalking her, it’s the story of a constantly drunk honor student wishing she weren’t being stalked by the new vampire.
• Point 2: Redefines the term “lush life.” Everyone is drunk and high (except maybe the parents, but I can’t be certain) throughout most of the book. It became redundant.
• Point 3: Jordan needs a lot of therapy or to develop an actual personality. I really wanted to like Jordan’s character, but didn’t. Throughout the book, we’re trapped inside her head while she complains about every facet of her life (and it feels as though the air is slipping away fast). In the end, she turns over a new leaf, sort of, but never quite redeems herself.

Full Review of Uninvited

Before reading the full review, please note that there may be some spoilers. I tried to keep it vague enough not to spoil the entire story, but be warned. If you’d rather not take any chances, skip the synopsis and go straight to the final thoughts.

Uninvited Synopsis

Uninvited begins with Jordan talking to a vampire who’s perched in a tree outside her bedroom window. The story then walks us through how that situation came to be.

Three months prior, a year after she and Michael dated for two months, Michael Green up and dies of an apparent suicide, then he makes a reappearance at her house the night of his funeral. At first, Jordan thought a mistake had been made and he was still alive, but she put the pieces together when he explained what really happened to him.

So, her routine changed as a result. For three months, she holed herself in her room before nightfall and waited for Michael to come calling. Every night he’d ask to be let in and every night she’d deny him, because, apparently, becoming a vampire makes you more patient than you were in life.

Jordan’s life (social and otherwise) suffers due to this change and she regularly finds her solace at the bottom of an empty bottle (alcohol or otherwise). Finally, her friends—who she’s not quite sure are really her friends, but then why would they show concern for her well-being if they weren’t?—ambush her and take her to a party to get her out of her funk.

At the party, Jordan has an epiphany about her life and what she’s doing to herself. She also learns that Michael followed her there and what she once thought about his motives, she now has to rethink.

When she gets back home, she finds her friend Lisa there who is behaving strangely and apologizing profusely for telling Michael about the party. Thus begins Jordan’s mission to finally face her problem head on.

Final Thoughts On Uninvited

I wanted very much to like this book; it has such a cool cover and plenty of positive reviews at Amazon. However:

• Half-way through the book, I began mixing up the characters because they all seem to be the same person—one dimensional and struggling for a voice.
• By chapter six, I wanted to put the book down and not really pick it back up again because I was afraid the whining about life would continue endlessly.
• And when I closed the book, I said “meh, that’s it?” and then it just became another foggy memory.

Let’s tackle these bullet points in order, shall we? The characters are all one-dimensional and sometimes stereotypical. Jordan, who narrates the story, has a social anxiety disorder and a self-centered absentee mother. Her way to deal is by partying, and by partying, I mean drinking to get “faced”, partaking in various illicit substances, and having random “flybys” with guys she doesn’t know.

Of course, that’s not my main problem with her. My problem is that her ennui drones on for about a hundred pages and when other characters did pop in, they were just another version of Jordan.

There’s an effort to make them different, but it never quite worked. Some exaggerated to the point where it wasn’t believable; especially Michael, the vampire who’s stalking Jordan, and Lisa, the convenient catalyst, who makes an appearance late in the game.

For the first half of the book, we’re basically getting the back story explaining who Michael was in life and Jordan’s quest to find out why he’s chosen to torment her of all people. Unfortunately, the revelation of said back story is banal and redundant.

I stopped caring that Michael smelled like coconut suntan lotion, that he was an asshole who chased anything with legs, and that Jordan felt she wasn’t stalk-able because she was some lowly prole he dated for two months.

The final let down came at the big climax where we all learn the reason Michael is stalking Jordan. This is going to be a huge spoiler, but necessary to see the plot’s paper thinness. If you wish to read it, highlight the following paragraph:

The back cover lied. Michael did not dump Jordan, she was the one who dumped him. The first line (i.e. when rejection comes back to bite you…) is a play on the storyline in which Michael begins stalking Jordan because he can’t believe she, the pathetic lush, dumped him. I guess when you have an eternity on your hands, it’s best to torment the one that got away.

Then to throw a chunk of salt into the gaping wound, we have Lisa who enters the story as the catalyst (I won’t reveal more than that, but that’s another spoiler). The relationship between Jordan and Lisa didn’t translate well (i.e. the closeness which would cause Jordan to uproot her previous behaviour) and seemed very rushed which made the situation unbelievable.

In that vein, Lisa’s character could easily have been replaced by Nutty, Jordan’s cat. The conversation could go something like:

Michael: “If you ever want to see Nutty alive again, you’ll beg me to come in…”

Jordan: “Oh gawd, no, not Nutty…Michael, come in. Please. I’m begging you to come in. Just leave Nutty alooooonnnneeee.”

Michael: “I knew you’d cave.” Starts climbing in window, then stops. “Oh wait…I think I’ll still kill Nutty just because I’m an asshole. Muahahahaha”

Jordan: Uh oh, no. I love Nutty so much I can’t let him do it. I better grow a pair and do something. Where’d I put that stake again?

My apologies for the snark, but, I hope it helps to get the point across.

While I don’t regret reading the book, I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it either.

Rating: Save your money (?)

If you’re truly interested in reading this one, check it out at the library or borrow it from a friend.