Mundie Moms

Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Broken Hearted by Amelia Kahaney, Book Review / Blog Tour



Mundie Girl tours (formally known as Mundie Moms blog tours)  is proud to be the tour host for The Brokenhearted by Amelia Kahaney.  The tour will run from October 7th-11th and will consist of reviews, excerpts, guest posts, and interviews.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A teenage girl is transformed into a reluctant superhero and must balance her old life with the dark secret of who she has become.
Prima ballerina Anthem Fleet is closely guarded by her parents in their penthouse apartment. But when she meets the handsome Gavin at a party on the wrong side of town, she is immediately drawn into his dangerous world. Then, in a tragic accident, Anthem falls to her death. She awakes in an underground lab, with a bionic heart ticking in her chest. As she navigates her new life, she uncovers the sinister truth behind those she trusted the most, and the chilling secret of her family lineage…and her duty to uphold it.
The Dark Knight meets Cinder in this gripping and cinematic story of heartbreak and revenge. From Alloy Entertainment, this inventive new superhero story is sure to captivate any reader.

Purchase links: Amazon — Barnes & Noble – Harper Teen

A city plagued with crime. A broken. A character who poses super human strength, and the desire to bring the criminal activity to a halt. This story sounds like one that will be action packed, and fast paced. This book started out great, but somewhere along the way plot fell apart, and the character found herself a little too late for me. Anthem Fleet's superhuman strength are just what her city, Bedlam, need. Riddled with crime, this city had a feel to it that reminded me of Gotham City. The setting itself is dark and a little twisted. It definitely set the tone for the book. It also set up some action scenes. Y'all know how much I love action scenes. Amelia did a great job with these scenes, and there are a lot of them. The action was one of the things I liked most about the book. 

Anthem Fleet is a girl who's been raised in privilege. A member of one of the richest families, she's not lived a rough life, though not everything in her life is as it seems. Money in her cause can't buy the thing she's looking for the most. Raised to do everything her parents of asked of her, she falls short of being the perfect replacement daughter for the girl her parents lost before Anthem was even born. Automatically that made me want to cheer Anthem on, even though at times she was a character I sometimes had a hard time relating to. I went back and forth with her, a lot. There were times I could see her inner strength I desperately wanted her to have through out the entire story, and then there were times I felt she totally fell flat and became so naive, it felt out of character for her.

When it came to the romance in the story, both Will and Gavin's relationship with Anthem were not that believable for me. Both guys were not good guys, and the fact that Gavin and Anthem had an instalove really bugged me. I have no problem with an instalove if it's written in a believable manner, and not thrown into the story for the sake of a plot twist. What bugged me the most about Anthem is something she does with Gavin that I felt was completely out of character for her, and made her lose all creditably with me. I got why she didn't want anything to do with Will, her boyfriend at the beginning of the story, and I admired her for standing up to Will when it came to not wanting to do anything other than kissing Will. Having said that, I didn't find it believable at all that then she would turn around and sleep with Gavin, whom she only had known  for an extremely brief time, given the fact she didn't want to do that with Will, whom she dated for quite awhile. Not only that, I felt that there was a point that was made with her not wanting to sleep with Will, but then dark, dangerous Gavin came in, and she gave it up to him in no time.

I will say these two relationships do end up serving a purpose, and one of them drives Anthem to take matters into her own hands. But unfortunately by the time Anthem decides to become the stronger character I was no longer as invested with her as I had wanted to be. Her strength in becoming the hero happens a little too late in the story. Sadly The Broken Hearted is one of those reads that I really wanted to like more than I did. That's not to say it's not a bad read, but for me, there were a lot of things I needed more of. Over all I felt that the story had a lot of potential, and I felt it fell by the way side. The world building and the plot weren't as strong as I had wanted them to be. One of the biggest issue I had didn't even have to do with the writing as did with the synopsis. This book is NOT similar to Cinder in any way, and it's such a pet peeve of mine when books are compared to other books. For someone who loved Cinder, when it's compared to it I go into the book with extremely high hopes. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Amelia Kahaney grew up an easily sunburnt child in San Diego, CA and Hilo, HI. At age 12, self-exiled from surf camp due to lack of coordination, Amelia sought refuge in her local library and spent the rest of her summer filling up yellow legal pads with her first attempts at fiction. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in English, she lived in Portland, Oregon and Quetzaltenango, Guatemala before landing in New York City with a giant suitcase and high hopes. Nine apartments and a dozen jobs later, she began to study fiction writing at Brooklyn College. Her short stories have appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading,One StoryCrazyhorse, and other literary magazines. She wrote most of The Brokenhearted in a coffee shop that has since gone out of business, and is currently testing out new locations in which to dream up superpowers for book two. She is still a fan of libraries, and is also partial to bicycles, art cars, fire, hermit crabs, voices harmonizing, flash mobs, hot springs, and voracious readers of all ages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.

AUTHOR LINKS -
Website - Tumblr – Goodreads – Facebook — Twitter 

UPDATE On Cassie's Signing in Italy *new date*


Hi Shadowhunters! Just in case you missed Cassie's post yesterday, her Italian signing has been moved back a day. Instead of the 10/25 signing, her's now signing on 10/26. Here's what Cassie told fans yesterday:

Signing in Italy!
Okay, so. I am STILL signing in Italy. But due to a mistake on the part of my publisher, for which they have been extremely apologetic, it’s now shifted one day.
The information is now:
I’ll be signing in Italy on October 26, in the lovely city of Florence. 
October 26, 6:30 pm
Italy
I’m SO sorry for the mixup. I’ll be there from 6:30 on, and I will sign and personalize anything you bring, no matter how many books! Admittance of course is free.
I’ll be signing in Italy on October 25, in the lovely city of Florence. I hope to see you there, Italian Shadowhunters!
October 25, 6:30 pm
FIRENZE Bookshop IBS
Italy

Shadowhunters, who's going to the signing?

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