Mini Book Reviews: Singing the Dogstar Blues & The Book of Dead Days

Seventeen-year-old Joss is a rebel, and a student of time travel at the prestigious Centre for Neo-Historical Studies. This year, for the first time, the Centre has an alien student— Mavkel, from the planet Choria. And Mavkel has chosen Joss, of all people, as his roommate and study partner. Then Mavkel gets sick. Joss quickly realizes that his will to live is draining away. The only way she can help Mavkel is by breaking the Centre's strictest rules . . . and that means going back in time to change history.

Singing The Dogstar Blues
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 288 (paperback)
Part of Series: -
Purchased: Bought
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
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REVIEW: After reading Eon and Eona, i just wanted to read every book by Goodman. So i got Singing the Dogstar Blues even though sci-fi is not my favorite genre to read about. Surprisingly i liked it. The writing was simple and the plot was fast, excited with mystery and action. The idea of minds connecting and the characters were likeable. I only had problem to imagine the aliens. They had 2 of everything which was pretty weird to create the image in my mind, but mostly the fact that they weren't speaking but singing. Everything they were saying had notes, etc etc. Those two aspects really created a problem to connecting with the book. I can't say i didn't enjoy, just that i not completely enjoyed it. I didn't get the story to its full.

THE DAYS BETWEEN Christmas and New Year’s Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives. A magician called Valerian must save his own life within those few days or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him. Helping him is his servant, Boy, a child with no name and no past. The quick-witted orphan girl, Willow, is with them as they dig in death fields at midnight, and as they are swept into the sprawling blackness of a subterranean city on a journey from which there is no escape.

The Book of the Dead Days
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 288 (paperback)
Part of Series: Book of Dead Days #1
Purchased: Bought
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
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REVIEW: I bought this book for its cover and title. I was like how this book can be bad, right ?:p Well it wasn't bad, but it was different. At start it was a little confusing cause i couldn't exactly grab the story or the fact that the main character was called "the boy" (no he doesn't get a name at all). Then magic and some steampunk comes in which actually make it quite interesting and dark. And by dark i mean dark. Black magic, demons, cemeteries, hunting, little violence and weird experiments. It's not a bad book, i just found it a little weird and difficult to understand it. It took half the book to really get into it.