Saturday, December 31, 2016

Blog Tour and Giveaway! Freeks by Amanda Hocking



Image (c) St. Martin's Griffin
Freeks by Amanda Hocking
Release Date: January 3rd, 2017
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Book Format: eBook from the publisher
Rating: Three Stars
Welcome to Gideon Davorin’s Traveling Sideshow, where necromancy, magical visions, and pyrokinesis are more than just part of the act…

Mara has always longed for a normal life in a normal town where no one has the ability to levitate or predict the future. Instead, she roams from place to place, cleaning the tiger cage while her friends perform supernatural feats every night.

When the struggling sideshow is miraculously offered the money they need if they set up camp in Caudry, Louisiana, Mara meets local-boy Gabe…and a normal life has never been more appealing.

But before long, performers begin disappearing and bodes are found mauled by an invisible beast. Mara realizes that there’s a sinister presence lurking in the town with its sights set on getting rid of the sideshow freeks. In order to unravel the truth before the attacker kills everyone Mara holds dear, she has seven days to take control of a power she didn’t know she was capable of—one that could change her future forever.

Bestselling author Amanda Hocking draws readers inside the dark and mysterious world of Freeks.



Huge thanks to St. Martin's Griffin for sending me a copy of this book. Seriously - thank you for giving this new blog a chance. <3

First Impressions:

I found myself mainly excited for this book because... well, it's a Amanda Hocking book. I had read the Kanin trilogy (well, sort of... I've yet to get to the third book yet. : ( ) and I was excited to read more. The moment when I discovered Freeks on Goodreads (this was before the official book art had been released) I knew I had to grab my hands on it.


I mean... magical paranormal happenings in a circus? And, well... I just love Amanda's books, lets be honest. The book cover is beautiful as well as incredibly creative. Part of me is sort of disappointed that this is only a standalone book, but the other half is sighing with relief. Only because there's so many books to read and so little time to read them all. D: Why, real life duties, whyyyyyy???

Aftermath:

This book involves a young woman named Mara. She has been with the circus for as long as she can recall with her mother. It's all she really knows. Struggling with finances isn't new either - they go from place to place constantly just to live. To some, it may not seem like a good life, but to her and her family it's the only thing they got.

That doesn't mean Mara doesn't crave a life outside the home she's traveled with. Even with the locals insulting and mocking their lifestyles, part of her wonder what life would be like had she had the chance to change it. It's not too strange to check out the local town that they recently plop their roots down for a week. It may not even be strange to hook up with a random stranger. But, for some reason, Gabe's got her hooked. He's different. Another thing that's different compared to other towns: her friend getting injured by a mysterious creature at night and learning that all of her friends' powers are acting up.

Something's going on and no one knows why. But, due to being broke, they're forced to stay - but for what price?

I didn't like the first bit of the beginning of the book, to be honest. I was almost kind of debating on just putting this one down and never return to it but... clearly I was against it in the end. I've always told myself that, especially if I'm part of a book tour or something, I should be honest my thoughts and not worry about anything else. I also don't like the idea of backing out only a couple days before my promised blog post.

There's a lot to mention so I'll try to explain as clearly as I can. Within the first 25% of the book, I learned, I was confronted with plenty of ableism and mental health issues. It was this that made me hesitate from reading further. I hope pointing out the flaws will help others in the future. I'm definitely hoping that these issues will be fixed in the final printing because, otherwise, there wasn't much more problematic issues in this book.

Mara's mother, just like most of the people joined with her in the circus crew, have some sort of power that's used on display as their act. Hers involve reading the future of other people. It's only a front: her power is actually necromancy. She can listen to the dead that will help her guide her thoughts. It's something she's been forced to live with most of her life and it's something she refused to allow Mara to even experience. This is due to her having massive headaches after doing her readings and not being herself afterwards.

It is in Mara's mind that we learn that her mother is schizophrenic.

I know, finding a book that talks a little bit of mental health is a good step forward. I'm happy that things like this are being pushed forward more often. The problem is... I don't know if Mara's mom was written properly as such. I can't speak too much of it, as I don't personally deal with it, but it did make me wary. Especially since it seems like Mara's mother only really transition from this mood change after she spends most of the day with her headache getting significantly worse.

This issue only unfolds even more before we learn about Mara's mother's mental illness. This isn't a direct quote, but when Mara's sitting in the ferris wheel with Gabe, she tries to lighten the mood by adding 'My mom always says the full moon brings out the crazies,'. The word 'crazies' is a pretty disrespectful term for those who have mental health issues and I was a bit disappointed that the word had been placed into a conversation without a second thought. The term 'carnies' was tossed around a bit too casually as well, in my opinion, and... I don't know. I guess using such a negative word added more to how 'normal people' react to people working at a carnival can be pretty effective despite them finding entertainment at a carnival. But I digress.

I was worried about the romance before, especially since beforehand I learned from some of the reviews on Goodreads that there were too much focus on the love interest. To be honest, in comparison to other books I've read, it felt balanced enough for me - although it did get tiring when Mara and Gabe kept kissing and couldn't stop touching each other when they were finally near each other. You'll probably need to constantly remind yourself that all of this happened within a span of a week, especially since they act like they've been together forever. Not enough time to really develop anything sort of connection with each other.

To be honest, I'm actually kind of hesitant to call it a romance. I feel like it's more of Mara just wanting to unfold her wings and explore more of what's out there and not be identified as someone who works at a circus. Since she's been on the road for as long as she can remember, it just feels like that she finally found this one thing that made her feel normal again. So... I guess I thought it felt like more of an infatuation of the norm?

Beyond that, though, the story was pretty slow. Other than expecting some sort of mystery that occurs every night, there wasn't much interesting going on. There were some things about the book that I easily predicted beforehand so that probably didn't help at all. Mentions of mental health and ableism terms didn't pop up again, though, so that was nice.

The author did mean well, I think, when they tried to add in a bit of diversity to their writing... it kind of worked? I liked it better when they stuck to what they know, to be honest, because it didn't feel like the writing wasn't as forced. As I kept on reading, I felt the spark of passion that was put into this book and that what was kept in going in the end.

Overall, though, it was an interesting book. I know, it's weird to say considering I admitted that most of the middle of the book was pretty bland, but the passion is still in there. It's a good casual read, though, but in comparison to their other written works... it's just not as effective as I hoped it would be.



Credit: Mariah Paaverud with Chimera
Photography
I live in Minnesota with my two dogs Isley and Sawyer, my three cats Sophie, Nikki, and Squeak, my hamster Mulberry, my husband Mike and my stepson Gavin. I do many things, most of them lame and boring, but the thing I get paid to do is write young adult books.

I enjoy Red Bull, Jim Henson, Batman, dinosaurs, sharks, Lego sets, and I absolutely hate long walks on the beach out of my intense fear/hatred of wet sand.

I have published five different series, with a total of 20 different published works. Two of my series and one standalone novel are self-published, and three of my series are with a traditional publisher, St. Martin’s. My zombie series, The Hollows, has been adapted into a graphic novel by Dynamite.

My next book is the final book in the My Blood Approves series, Swear, and that will be out November 9, 2016. For more info on that, please go: here. After that, I have a standalone YA paranormal romance novel set in the 1980s that follows a travelling sideshow called Freeks. I pitched it as Pretty in Pink meets The Lost Boys (minus the vampires) meets Carnivale. It will be out January 3, 2017, and you can find out more about it Freeks: here.

Biography taken from Amanda Hocking's official website.
Purchase Links:

Macmillan | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Social Links:

Author Blog | Pinterest | GoodReads

Amanda, herself, has also been nice enough to answer some questions for the blog tour. Yay! c: I know, this means a much longer post, but I hope this gives you a bit of insight on some things. Who knows - maybe one of your questions will be answered here.

1.     What do you listen to while you write? Or do you prefer silence?

I almost always listen to music when I write, unless I’m writing a really difficult scene. Sometimes the silence helps me focus, but most of the time, I prefer music. For FREEKS, I got to make a really fun 80s playlist, so I especially enjoyed working to that.

2. What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve looked up in the name of research – or what do you think the government has maybe flagged you for?

There are sooo many things. For FREEKS, I had to do fun stuff like, “What does a dead body smell like?” and “How much blood can a human lose?” And then after those macabre questions, I did a bunch of googling on fireflies and tarot cards. My search history when I’m working can be pretty exciting like that.

3. What was your favorite part of writing FREEKS?

I love Southern Gothics and I love pulpy 80s horror movies, so I was excited to be able incorporate those things in FREEKS. But my favorite part was actually Mara and Gabe. I think they complement each other well, and it was fun writing their banter and flirtations.

4.  Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?

I usually write between 11 am and 7 pm. I’ve tried to write earlier in the day and have more of a 8-5 type schedule, but I am not a morning person. My brain just doesn’t want to work much before noon.

5. When you develop your characters, do you already have an idea of who they are before you write or do you let them develop as you go?

With all my main characters, I have a really good idea of who they are, and it’s just a matter of showing that to the readers. With the side characters, they tend to be rather one-dimensional, and they grow into the story as they’re needed.

6. How did writing Freeks differ from your writing your previous novels?

FREEKS was the first thing I had written in awhile that was started out just for me. For most of the past ten years, I have been writing my books with the intention of publishing them, with the audience and readers and trends in mind. I think I had gotten a little burnt out on trying to make everyone happy (mostly because it is impossible to please all readers all the time), and I just wanted to write something that for the sake of writing it.

And that turned out to be a gothic love story about a teenage girl travelling with a band of misfits in the 1980s. It was a very cathartic writing experience for me, and it reminded me of exactly why I loved writing in the first place – I love getting lost in the world, with the characters.

7.   Can you please tell us a little bit about Freeks and where you got the inspiration to write it?

I was going through a rough patch, creatively speaking, and so I just sat back and tried to think of my favorite and what I loved most that I would want to write about.

When I was a kid, I used to get old books at garage sales all the time, and I distinctly remember getting Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King and a few old V. C. Andrews novels, which are pulpy Southern Gothic-esque novels. I also watched The Lost Boys and Pretty in Pink over and over again (I think I literally ruined the old VHS of The Lost Boys from watching it too much).

So I basically threw all those things together in a soup, and I picked apart the things I liked and wanted to explore more. That became a travelling sideshow in the 80s stopping Louisiana, where a supernatural monster is afoot, and a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is smith with a local boy with secrets of his own.

8.   Freeks is full of many amazingly talented characters and I imagine it was really fun to create some of them, but which one was your favorite and why?

Mara and Gabe are my obvious favorites, since they’re the main characters because I was drawn to them and their story the most. Both of them of them have complex feelings about family and personal identity, and their instant chemistry was fun to write.
But I think Gideon – the namesake and head of sideshow – was actually the biggest surprise, which made him fun in a different way. In the original outlines of the story, he was much a different character – very one-note and cruel – but he completely changed and evolved as I was writing.  

9.   What do you hope readers will take away from FREEKS after reading it?

With some of my other novels, I deal with heavy themes like life and death, identity, honor, mortality, classism, and family. And while I do definitely touch on those themes in FREEKS, I mostly wrote it as an escape for myself, and that’s what I hope it is for other readers. Life can be hard and frustrating, and I just wanted to write a fun book that readers could get lost in for awhile.

10. What is something people would be surprised to know about you?

Probably how chronically shy I am. Writing is a weird profession, because a good 90% of it is perfect for introverts – you sit alone by yourself and make up imaginary friends to go on adventures. But the last 10% – which involves introducing the whole word to your imaginary friends – is the most exciting and rewarding part, but it’s also the most difficult when you’re as shy as I am. 


Does this seem like the kind of book you'd like to read? Or, at the very least, are you interested in getting a free book? I got a giveaway for you for Freeks! Sadly, it's a US only giveaway - sorry. But hopefully one day I can fix that!

Only enter if you're willing to share your address as well as I'll be sending a physical copy. It'll be use only to send the book your way - promise. <3

This will be going on until the end of the blog tour, which is January 10th, 2017. Good luck everyone!


2 comments: