REVIEW: The Skin Factory by Lucas Pederson - 4 stars

Title: The Skin Factory

Genre: YA Sci-Fi/Horror

Author: Lucas Pederson

Publisher: LVP

Publication: December 24th 2019

Cover Rating: 5/5

Reading Format: Provided eBook

Goodreads | Amazon

The Skin Factory by Lucas Pederson is the story of Chase and how he must overcome being a bodiless soul working in a factory in some twisted form of an afterlife to save his sister, mother and the girl he loves.

Chase is dead. Well, not DEAD, his soul still lives on, but his human body is very much dead. And if losing his human body wasn't bad enough, he was plucked off his path on his way to heaven to work in a twisted factory creating these robot type bodies for souls/creatures to inhabit in order to integrate themselves into life on earth.

When Chase finds out the bodies he and his fellow souls are creating are going to be used for the nefarious purpose of something called the Obsidious he decides that he must escape the factory in order to protect his sister and mother. 

With the help of Bal, the soul who removed him from his path after death, Chase jumps into one of the bodies he helped manufacture and warps back to earth. The problem is, Chase might have taken the wrong body. But no matter what vessel he is in he still has to save the people he loves and maybe even all of humanity if he is feeling up to the task.

One aspect of the authors writing that I really enjoyed was the fun 'cuss words' and phrases he made up for Chase to use. A few of my favorites being, fruitbatty, cheese'n'rice, thank the gods and crunchy peanut butter and, floundernuts of purgatory. These definitely added to Chase's smartassed attitude/behavior.

In the end, this was a very solid book and I just found out it's going to be in three parts so I can't wait to see what happens next. The only complaints I really have about the book are one, I wish it was longer and two, I wish his mom being in the asylum was more prevalent, I love asylums so I was hoping we would get a little more time there. Other than that, the book had minor spelling/grammar errors that you tend to find in self-published/indie books but they weren't insane like some of the ones I have seen that took away from the story. 

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.

Mini-Review: Reverie by Ryan La Sala - 4 stars

Title: Reverie

Genre: Young Adult LGBT Fantasy-ish

Author: Ryan La Sala

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Publication: December 3rd 2019

Cover Rating: 5/5

Reading Format: Provided ARC + Finished Copy

Goodreads | Amazon

Reverie by Ryan La Sala is a hybrid of a book. We get to follow Kane one his journey to get his memory back but along the way, we are shown some pretty epic fantasy worlds and some killer powers. This book really tested my imagination and I loved that.

Kane was recently in a pretty bad accident. An accident that caused the burning of a pretty important historical building, caused him to end up in a coma and caused him to lose his memory. But what if the accident wasn't what caused him to lose his memory? What is Kane has the ability to do something... magical? What if the life Kane remembers is just a ruse?

After the accident and Kane has had time to heal, he goes back to school only to realize that his memories are jumbled. Why does it feel like he knows some people when his memory is telling him that he hates or steers clear of them? Ursula, a girl he remembers not being friends with, ends up helping him out and that just opened up a floodgate of even more confusion and doubt.

This book is Magical Realism, at least by my definition. But when I went to check Goodreads, Magical Realism wasn't even remotely one of the genres listed for this book so that confused me. But I am keeping this review short because I feel like this is a book that needs to be experienced personally.

What I first picked this book up, I could not get into it. I have no idea what the problem was, maybe the fact that it was contemporary and I might not have been in the mood at the time but once I got past 100 pages I flew through the story. It was a wild ride about people's dreams/fantasies turning into something called a reverie which means it kind of comes to life but if it's not stopped it could end up destroying the people in the reverie. You know what, just read the book. 

In the end, I thought this book had a really solid storyline and plot but some things could have been written/portrayed better and there were some mistakes that transferred over to the finished copy of the book. I can't wait to see what the author writes next.

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.