Significance by Shelly Crane

Maggie's life is a mess. Maggie's mother left the family in August, her father has lost his job and emotionally shut down, her long-term boyfriend broke up with her right after Maggie's mom left, and Maggie has become so apathetic that she's surprised that she passed enough of her classes to graduate. She is alone and she feels that there's no what out. This changes right after Maggie saves the life of an attractive boy; their eyes meet and all of a sudden they're connected. Maggie discovers that the Caleb's family is special, when they find their soul-mate, a significant, they 'ascend' and they receive a special magical ability. Maggie is Caleb's significant. As their bond becomes stronger and closer, Maggie must deal with Caleb's cousin's flirtation, her ex-boyfriend's sudden renewed interest, her father's sudden overbearing involvement in her life, and a horrible enemy set out to destroy her and the one she loves.

I would first off like to say THANK MOSES I ONLY PAID 99 CENTS FOR THIS CRAP-TASTIC BOOK! Crap-tacular. Crap-errific. If only it were free... This was ridiculously sappy and teen-angsty in the worst way. I feel like Shelly Crane read Twilight and ripped out the worst parts of it and magnified them. Follow the jump if you dare:

Thirst (Ava Delaney #1) by Claire Farrell

Ava Delaney doesn't belong, shouldn't exist. Infected at birth with vampire poison she is not entirely human, not 100% vampire. She has lived by herself for the past seven years after running away from her zealot grandmother at the age of eighteen. Fighting her growing urge to drink blood and trying to stay hidden from the local vampire clans becomes more difficult after saving a young man from a vampire. Carl becomes enslaved and he mindlessly pressures Ava to drink from him. In desperation Ava reaches out for help, and unfortunately gets Peter Brannigan. Peter hates all vampires after they killed his family, but he also happens to have a lot of underworld connections and have a general knowledge of vampire culture. As they work together to free Carl, Ava finds herself in the middle of a vampire turf war, and of course is the only one to be able to stop the stalemate.

First off I would just like to say that I had assumed this entire time, just until about twenty minutes ago when I reread the first chapter, that Ava was like eighteen. Not to be a total ditz about it, but doesn't this generally sound like something straight out of a young adult book? I'm not saying that it isn't inclusive for a young adult audience, the violence is pretty low key and it's not uber sexy, but you would think that with a twenty-five year old protagonist that it would be a bit grittier than it was. The storyline, violence, and sexuality were all pretty PG-13. Practically PG if you compare it to some other things. I guess my gripe is either amp up the gritty or make her younger...... which isn't really possible since this book is already published.

Otherwise, pretty decent. There isn't a ton of depth to the story, perhaps that might come into play more as the series progresses? The characters are solid, though not quite three-dimensional. Ms. Farrell has some very interesting elements to work with, such as Carl and Ava's relationship post-enslavement, Peter's background, Ava's employment by Daimhin, and so on and so forth.

This e-book wasn't quite novel length, more novelette, so I'm trying to give it the benefit of the doubt that it could've been more thorough if given greater length. Makes sense right? Right? It also could help that I got this for free..... just sayin'. Worth the free read, I will probably check out the sequel and then make a final decision on the series.

Bad Move, HarperCollins

Oh HarperCollins.  I'm afraid you have made a terrible, terrible mistake.  Because now you are in a fight with every single library that buys your e-books.  HarperCollins has changed its policy so that when a library buys an e-books, it will vanish after 26 check-outs.  Then the library can purchase the book again, at a slightly lower cost.  To be blunt, this is stupid and a step back.  The 26 check-outs were apparently reached as the average number of times a book circulates before it has to be withdrawn.  I would have loved to be in the room when they were working through the complex mathematical equation they used to work that one out.  A hardcover book can withstand more than 26 check-outs just fine.  Maybe not a paperback.

Also, this is dumb.  Has HarperCollins not realized yet that libraries also purchase Kindles and Nooks and whatevers and download books to them and then circulate them?  Many, many times?  More than 26 times?  What do you plan to do about that?  Or is that somehow OK?

boingboing declares that libraries shouldn't purchase HarperCollins ebooks, but also not to buy any DRM (digital rights management) media (ebooks, videos, games). This can be hard, I know.  A good start would be boycotting HarperCollins until they realize this was NOT a good idea.

I don't think this particular situation will last long.  People are pissed, and HarperCollins will probably pull back.  It was a stupid move.  Maybe it will prevent other publishing companies for making similarly stupid moves?  Only time will tell.