Froggy Style

    Fairy tales. I love my fairy tales and Froggy Style by J.A. Kazimer is a retelling I happen to like. I'm on a roll with picking books I like! The cover makes me laugh.  The subtitle reads "A F***ed-Up Fairy Tale", and that's what it is. This is definitely a more adult telling of The Frog Prince.

Rating: 4/5 

Overview:

    Jean-Michel (puke to the name?) is our leading male. The Frog Prince. If you've read the story this book is based on, you have the frog who returns a golden ball to a spoiled princess and depending on the version of the story either gets a kiss or thrown against a wall. At this time, he returns to being a man! Woo! In this story, Jean-Michel is a boy, yes child, stuck in froggy doomdom. That is, until a blonde toddler shoves him in her mouth in an attempt to eat him, as toddlers are prone to doing with anything they can get their hands on. Poof! Frog becomes boy! He'd been saved by THE ONE. Happily ever after is ready to begin! Or so you'd think.

    For some reason unbeknownst to me, the royal family decides not to keep track of this girl who broke the curse. There is no story about losing her. It just fast forwards to our Froggie's approaching 30th birthday and he's on the search for her. Why? Because if he doesn't marry the slobbering child, he turns back into a frog. Ribbit! We learn some background, our frog has grown into a playboy prince. A selfish one at that. He's more than made up for all those beginning years as a frog. He has a drunk ass fairy godmother, a cousin who is a villain and days to secure an engagement and marry the princess he believes broke the curse. Enter Beauty.

    Beauty is a fricken wreck. She's narcoleptic. She's gross. She stays in pjs all day. She's annoying. She's THE ONE. He's sure of it. Lucky him. After a drunken night of self pity on the town, he learns he may have accidentally put a hit on his new bride-to-be. He also finds himself with a new tattoo from a beautiful tattoo artist. Enter the second love interest! (We discussed last time that there was always two, right?)

    Lollie is the opposite of beauty. She's smart, sexy, inked and fairly kick ass. She also is the probably girlfriend of the assassin for hire. Dun Dun DUN. So naturally, Froggie-boy starts to fall in love with her while racing to save his bride-to-be. Will he save her? Who will he choose? Why the fuck does he keep Karl around? Read it and find out?

Thoughts:

    There were characters I both loved and hated in this book. I never really came to love our frog prince, even though I loved the story and how it turned out. I hated Karl, the manservant. Seriously. I just wanted him to be fired or hit by a car. Beauty actually became my favorite character, pre-big ending. Toward the middle of the book. I still liked her at the end too, of course.

    There are some twists I didn't see coming in this book. There are a few I kind of saw but wasn't sure of and when they happened, it wasn't quite what I expected.  Naturally, I can't tell you. That would ruin the book. This book was hard for me to get into at first, but once I did, I finished it quickly. This is not a kid appropriate retelling. There is lots of sex talk. It's pretty much always on Froggie's mind. There are strippers and street walkers. The story is set in the fairy tale version of Las Vegas if that helps. It really is a fucked up fairy tale. I've learned this is actually the sequel to another book on my list, however I am positive they can be read as standalones.They follow different sets of characters, with cameos from the first book. Check back later to see a post on the first book when I'm done with it!

Guess I better get reading,

Cho

Splintered

    When I was searching through the list for books that were available at my library, I didn't refresh myself on what they were about. They were on my list, that meant I had wanted to read them at some point. Right? I'm never going to look at what they are about. I'm simply going to keep typing in titles until one pops up that says "available".
    Splintered, by A.G. Howard, was one of those books whose plot I had no idea about when I picked it up. I added it to my stack, checked it out and didn't read the synopsis until just before I started the first page. When I did, I was excited. I have a huge love of fairy tales.I will pick up all the retellings I find and read them because I love them so much. They are the top of my list, above paranormal romance. When the book jacket informed me that this would be an Alice in Wonderland spinoff? Squee?

Review: 4/5

Overview:
    Alyssa is the descendant of Alice. The Alice who fell down the rabbit hole into wonderland. Ever since that fateful day all the women in her family have gone insane. They talk to plants and bugs. They generally end up committed or dead after having a female heir. Alyssa is heading down the same road, she believes. Naturally, it isn't something she wants. What teenage girl wants that? Her life is already a mess. She visits her mother routinely in the asylum. She's in love with her hot best friend. She has the bully who is out to ruin her life and date said hot best friend. It can't get any worse, right?
      Enter second hot guy. There is always a second hot guy. We wouldn't have a story if there wasn't a second guy, right? Of course not. Ooh, and this second guy holds the key to proving she's not insane? Proving none of the women in he family are insane? Also, add in an accent, because who can resist a man with fricken accent calling you "luv" and telling you to fall down the rabbit hole? (I can't. Ask my boyfriend. Just the accent part though?) Alyssa listens to him, because, hello? Accent? And she wants proof she's not insane. Really, the proof part may be the biggest reason. It is her last chance to save her mom from the asylum, after all.
    Without giving too much more away, what follow is a journey into the heart of Wonderland to reverse a curse, the meeting of strange and beautiful creatures and the choosing of who to love when the heart is split in two. There are surprise twists, twists you saw coming and some "really, Alyssa? Are you that stupid?" moments. How will she make it through a world that is nothing like the children's book we grew up on?

Thoughts:
    In general, I like the characters. I grew to like Alyssa. Like any female lead, she's beautiful and doesn't see it. I enjoy that she's a bit morbid and weird, being weird myself. Taelor is your typical mean girl whose been hurt deep down. Your male leads are Jeb the skater boy best friend and Morpheus, the Wonderland magical creature.
    Jeb is a down to earth good guy with a troubled past. He's incredibly protective over Alyssa and always there for her. I honestly like Jeb. I probably wouldn't pick him for myself because he reminds me too much of my best friend, who I happen not to be in love with, but hey. He's just that all around great guy. Except Alyssa IS in love with him, so there is all that tension there.
    Morpheus is the accent toting magical creature boy. This would be my pick. I usually pick the magical creatures though. He's confident (bordering on cocky, actually), secretive and beautiful. He's loved Alyssa her whole life and has been with her that long.
    Like any story, it lulls in a few spots and has some moments that were confusing. For the most part, it kept my attention. It was a nice spin off from a childhood story I happen to love. I like the new take. The story is unique. The scenery of Wonderland is different and sometimes beautiful. The creatures you know from the original story change into things you may not want to encounter in real life. Many spinoffs just spout the same story. (Not that I won't read them anyway.) Once again, I managed to pick a book that is NOT a standalone! That means I have to find more books in this series. This list is never going down.

Guess I better get reading,
Cho