Mundie Moms

Thursday, October 5, 2017

JANE, UNLIMITED by Kristin Cashore, Blog Tour: Book Review / Giveaway #JaneUnlimited


Welcome to the next stop on the JANE, UNLIMITED blog tour, hosted by Penguin Random House. I'm a huge fan of Kristin Cashore's and so thrilled to help promote her newest release. Below you'll find information about the book, my review, the blog tour schedule and be sure you ENTER TO WIN! First, about the book:

ABOUT THE BOOK



By: Kristin Cashore
Published by: Kathy Dawson Books / Penguin Teen 
Released on: September 19th, 2017
Purchase from: The PublisherAmazon | B&N
Add it to Goodreads
Source: Purchased Books / an arc of this book was also furnished by the publisher, in exchange for my honest review

The highly anticipated standalone from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the Graceling Realm series—a kaleidoscopic novel about grief, adventure, storytelling, and finding yourself in a world of seemingly infinite choices.

Jane has lived an ordinary life, raised by her aunt Magnolia—an adjunct professor and deep sea photographer. Jane counted on Magnolia to make the world feel expansive and to turn life into an adventure. But Aunt Magnolia was lost a few months ago in Antarctica on one of her expeditions.

Now, with no direction, a year out of high school, and obsessed with making umbrellas that look like her own dreams (but mostly just mourning her aunt), she is easily swept away by Kiran Thrash—a glamorous, capricious acquaintance who shows up and asks Jane to accompany her to a gala at her family's island mansion called Tu Reviens.

Jane remembers her aunt telling her: "If anyone ever invites to you to Tu Reviens, promise me that you'll go." With nothing but a trunkful of umbrella parts to her name, Jane ventures out to the Thrash estate. Then her story takes a turn, or rather, five turns. What Jane doesn't know is that Tu Reviens will offer her choices that can ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But at Tu Reviens, every choice comes with a reward, or a price.


Jane, Unlimited is a very unique, intriguing story. It's story structure is one I've never before read in a book. Mixed into it is an intricate setting and character relationships. Together, these elements some how all managed to work together to create a truly original story, and unlike I've ever read before. I love it when I come across books like that. I for once am at a loss for words on how to describe this book. It's kind of like a mesh up of Doctor Who meets a number of classics. 

Cashore has created one of the most unique story structures I've ever encountered in book. At first I really liked it. It's intriguing. I liked the weirdness of the details, which quickly captured my attention. However, soon after the book really begins to pick up, I quickly felt confused by everything happening. There is a lot of weird things happening that continually don't get explained, leaving readers in the dark along with Jane, the main character. Normally I like this, but not when there aren't many answers until three-fourths into the story. 

The premise of this story is a complex, organized mess. Which I was purposely done. I got what Cashore was trying to do, but in the end it felt like it wasn't quite executed the way it felt is should be. The oddness of the story was the most intriguing part of it, which I liked. This story very much had a mixed feel of Doctor Who, The Twilight Zone, and Stranger Things. Despite my confusion for much of the story on what was going on, I kept reading the book because I wanted answers as much as Jane did. I really had to figure out what the heck was going on. 

One of my favorite elements of this story is the setting. Tu Reviens is really cool, and extremely complicated. Kind of like how the story, and the characters are. It almost felt like a character in and of itself. Let's just say you don't want to make that house mad..... when you read this book you'll get what I'm talking about.

The character dynamics were definitely interesting. These were very conflicted characters with some and very complicated relationships. Similar to what you'd find in early, classic literature (from Bronte or Eyre). Their interactions where at times extremely odd. I, unfortunately didn't feel drawn to any one character in particular. Nor did I feel like I really got to know any one of them personally. The not knowing their true character selves made sense for part of the story, but after awhile I felt like I needed a little bit more from them. However, if I had to pick, I'd say Aunt Magnolia and Ivy were the most likable of the characters for me. 

Overall I'm really conflicted with my feelings on this story. I love the originality  of it. However, I felt like I spent much of this book feeling confused about everything happening. That part of was frustrating. What starts off making this book truly mesmerizing is the unique story structure and mixture of strange things happening (something I really liked at the beginning of the book). With these, there is an overwhelming amount of details to help explain the weird elements to the story. I felt in the end, and overall, this is what ended up hurting the story. What starts off being quirky and odd about the book ends up taking a way a lot of what this story had going on for it and overly complicating the storyline. 

I am a huge fan of Cashore's books. I love her books. Graceling is still one of my all time favorite books (and the series is one of my favorites as well). I have waited for years for Cashore to write a new book, and it pains me to say that I wasn't a fan of this book. I really hate it when I don't love a book I've been looking forward to reading. 


ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Kristin Cashore grew up in the northeast Pennsylvania countryside as the second of four daughters. She received a bachelor's degree from Williams College and a master's from the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College, and she has worked as a dog runner, a packer in a candy factory, an editorial assistant, a legal assistant, and a freelance writer. She has lived in many places (including Sydney, New York City, Boston, London, Austin, and Jacksonville, Florida), and she currently lives in the Boston area. Her epic fantasy novels set in the Graceling Realm--GracelingFire, and Bitterblue--have won many awards and much high praise, including picks as ALA Best Books for Young Adults, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Booklist Editors Choice, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. In addition, Graceling was shortlisted for the William C. Morris Debut Award and Fire is an Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Winner.

ENTER TO WIN


Enter for a chance to be one (1) of three (3) winners to receive a hardcover copy of JaneUnlimited by Kristin Cashore. (ARV: $18.99 each).
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between 12:00 AM Eastern Time on September 11, 2017 and 12:00 AM on October 9, 2017.  Open to residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia who are 13 and older. Winners will be selected at random on or about October 11, 2017. Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

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FOLLOW THE TOUR
Week One:
September 11 – Alexa Loves Books – Bookish Style Files
September 11 – The Bookiemoji – Review
September 12 – Tales of the Ravenous Reader – Playlist
September 12 – Wandering Bark Books – Review
September 13 – Sarcasm & Lemons – Umbrellas Jane Would Make for YA Characters
September 13 – Arctic Books – Review
September 14 – Book Nerd Addicts – Review
September 14 – In Wonderland
September 15 – YA Book Central – Excerpt
September 15 – My Friends are Fiction – Promo
Week Two:
September 18 – YA Bibliophile – Review
September 18 – Across the Words – Umbrellas, A History
September 19 – The Eater of Books! – Mood Board
September 19 – NovelKnight
September 20 – Great Imaginations – Review
September 20 – The Wednesday Blog for Books – Review
September 21 – Icey Books – JaneUnlimited Quote Candy
September 21 – A Page With a View – Favorite Quotes
September 22 – A Thousand Books to Read – Review
September 22 – BookCrushin – Review
Week Three:
September 25 – Teen Librarian Toolbox
September 25 – The Young Folks – 10 Reasons to Read JaneUnlimited
September 26 – Live Love Read – A Mood Board for Every Story
September 26 – No BS Book Reviews – Review
September 27 – Andi’s ABCs
September 27 – The Novel Hermit
September 28 – Paper Trail YA – Review
September 28 – Swoony Boys Podcast – JaneUnlimited Fan Cast
September 29 – I Am A Reader
September 29 – Fiction Fare – Review 
Week Four:
October 2 – Don’t Fold the Page
October 2 – Rants and Raves of a Bibliophile – Characters & Tea
October 3 – MuggleNet – Review
October 3 – Xpresso Reads – Top 10 Awesome Umbrellas
October 4 – The Book Wars – Review
October 4 – Once Upon a Twilight – Guess the Story in GIFs
October 5 – Mundie Moms – Review
October 5 – YA Romantics – Review & Quiz
October 6 – Bookworm Everlasting – Book Photography
October 6 – Here’s to Happy Endings – Bookish Style Board


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