Sentient frogs you say? Chaos Drive by Jamie Brindle

Matt and Charlotte, are young, vivacious, and just married. They haven't started to hate each other yet. Waking up the morning after their very normal wedding, they each wake up to find a not-quite-right version of the other. Oh, and Charlotte's somehow managed to get on a space ship, with a humanoid creature that seems a lot like her very normal cat to boot. Everything is decidedly strange and the not-quite-right versions of their partner are even stranger, babbling of stories and sentient frogs. If this sounds like a solidly weird sci-fi/fantasy novel to you, you'd be correct, but boy does it wear it well.

Like the Grand Idiot that I am I didn't realise that this was sort of part of a series before picking it up. And you make ask, how can a book be sort-of-part-of-a-series? The answer is of course The Storystream. This novel takes place in a universe of Brindle's creation in which many versions of a 'story' exist, the notion we simpletons would call a 'life' with parallel universes. The collective of these infinite versions is The Storystream. While we follow Matt and Charlotte in Chaos Drive, most other stories of the series do not so it can be read first with a little extra concentration. Each story must find balance between Order and Chaos, but the two stories of Matt and Charlotte which we follow don't seem to be doing that very well (of course leading to more glorious chaos.) I'm not going to lie, this took me a little to wrap my head around (probably because I didn't read the series in order), but once I did it was something I couldn't stop thinking about because it could entirely apply to our own boring world. And honestly I really hope some other version of me isn't sitting in quarantine.


This book was awesomely weird. From the race of sentient frogs to the magical cat, it never failed to make me smile at the simultaneous sheer stupidity and genious of its context. The sentient frogs were a complete and complexly thunk out society which we get to explore from the perspective of Headfrog 127, a Captain looking for power in the deceptive and bloodthirsty society of the Frogopolis. Do not underestimate the ability for one to enjoy the perspective of a sentient frog, because it's great. Throughout the book Brindle is able to weave a unique, whole and consistent look into the thoughts of Headfrog 127, allowing us to gain full perspective of a society which most values qualities of deception and a drooping underbelly are prized. This was a load of fun to explore this along with the rest of the oddness of The Storystream. As a sidenote, I also spent much of the book pretending Headfrog 127's commentary was that of Donald Trump, something that Brindle most probably didn't intend but made it even more entertaining.

Another fantastic thing about this novel was the way the dynamic switched it up around halfway through. I had just started to get a bit sick of the relationship between the Matts and Charlottes, but Brindle seemed to know that I would, and created character growth and layers for each through this change. This would also go on to be integral to the progression of the plot and our understanding of the implications of the predicament which they have found themselves in. As above, one of the three viewpoints which we read from is Headfrog 127, and the other two are the normal Matt and normal Charlotte. It was fascinating to see how their perception of themselves and each other mushroomed through their interactions with the other version and strangeness itself.

About a third of the way through, I realised that Jamie Brindle might just be shaping up to be a new favourite author. He combines the humour and worldbuilding abilities of Derek Landy with a splash of nitwit, blubber, oddment and tweak. In fact, I'd highly recommend getting into The Storystream for fans of Landy. At this realisation, I promptly went to amazon and bought the first two books of The Storystream, and immediately read The Hardblokes of Sparta after finishing this, about to start Chaos Born and I loved it. Definitely look out for its upcoming review. To conclude this one, I think it's safe to say that I am a fan of Chaos Drive and what it brings to the table, I'm also now obsessed with frogs. I gave this book 4.5/5 stars.

Check out this book on Goodreads and Amazon.

Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn (Pub June 9 2015) IBSN13:9781250063847

*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review*

From the Morris-Award winning author of Charm & Strange, comes a twisted and haunting tale about three teens uncovering dark secrets and even darker truths about themselves.

When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family’s California vineyard estate. Here, she’s meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she’s meant to do a lot of things. But it’s hard. She’s bored. And when Sadie’s bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.

Emerson Tate’s a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That’s why Emerson’s not happy Sadie’s back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won’t ever let him.

Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That’s what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past.

But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it’s all of theirs.

Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn is an incredibly disturbing yet fantastic psychological thriller. The characters in this novel are all incredibly disturbed and the story isn't one for the light-hearted. I would describe this book as very dark. The book was split into three different view points of Miles, Emerson and Sadie. Each of the characters faced different issues but were all troubled in some way. I really liked each of these characters but my favourite view point was definitely  Emerson's although my favourite character to learn about was Miles. Emerson's view point was definitely the most disturbing out of them all.

The ending to this book was not entirely satisfying and felt slightly rushed to me.If you don't like being left with unanswered questions you may finish this book leaving slightly frustrated. I was kind of frustrated but in a way there was something about the mystery of the ending that I liked. I don't believe that there was enough of a cliff-hanger to make a second book but if one was published I would definitely read it. From the reviews that I have read on Goodreads many found this book incredibly disturbing and for that they gave it less stars. This slightly concerns me because I found it disturbing but enjoyed the darkness in the storyline and the characters.

This is one of my favourite books of the year. It kept me up at night just thinking about it. The novel itself was only about 240 pages in print although it didn't particularly feel like a quick-read.I would really recommend this novel to certain people that I know although you should be careful about reading this if you are easily traumatized or are pretty innocent. I would like to thank NetGalley, Amazon Kindle, St. Martin's Griffin and most of all Stephanie Kuehn for giving me the opportunity to read this amazing book.

I rated this book a 4.5/5.