Wildcat Fireflies by Amber Kizer

Wildcat Fireflies
Amber Kizer

Grade: D


Description from goodreads.com
Meridian Sozu is a Fenestra—the half-human, half-angel link between the living and the dead. She has the dark responsibility of helping souls transition safely into the afterlife. If people die without the help of a Fenestra, their souls are left vulnerable to be stolen by the Aternocti, a dark band of forces who disrupt the balance of good and evil in the world and cause chaos.

Having recently lost her beloved Auntie—the woman who showed her what it meant to be a Fenestra—Meridian has hit the road with Tens, her love and sworn protector, in hopes of finding another Fenestra. Their search leads them to Indiana, where Juliet, a responsible and loving teenager, works tirelessly in the nursing home where she and several other foster kids are housed. Surrounded by death, Juliet struggles to make a loving home for the younger kids, and to protect them from the violent whims of their foster mother. But she is struggling against forces she can't understand . . . and even as she feels a pull toward the dying, their sickness seems to infect her, weighing her down. . . .

Will Meri and Tens find Juliet in time to save her from a life of misery and illness? And will Meri and Tens' own romance weather the storms of new discoveries?


My thoughts on the book:
Honestly, I was hoping that Kizer would grow as an author and not do the telling instead of showing again. Instead, she told even more and showed even less. I still got no sense of emotion from these characters. The only thing that made me read this sequel was the fact that the story is interesting. Unfortunately, the story isn't enough to make me read the next one. The emotions and fake "Native American" lore were terrible, and the fake American Indian story was disrespectful, to say the least. I don't think she was disrespectful toward an entire race of people on purpose, but people seldom are. Furthermore she referred to the pioneers as the first Americans, which is basically pretending that the Native Americans weren't here first. Then she went on to talk about some Native American story that, from what I could tell, was  made up. Why is this the only group of people who still gets constantly disrespected? As an American Indian Studies major, that kind of thing really bothers me. Moving on before this entire review turns into a lecture on racism in the 21st Century. 


The characters... They all cried at the drop of a hat. I'm assuming this was an attempt to try to show emotion, but it failed miserably. It just made all of the characters seem weak. I got so tired of people crying, but I finished this book so I could review it. I kept thinking maybe it'd get better, but it didn't. The new characters introduced in the book would have been likable had they not burst into tears constantly over nothing. They were all a bit unique and easy to relate to. I felt that Kizer tried too hard to make Rumi different though, and his "word game" thing got really old really fast. We got to learn more about Tens, and that was cool, but he ran around crying like a freaking girl half of the book. It was just obnoxious. And Meridian went from being a likable character to a whiny, jealous brat. Juliet was boring, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make myself care what happened to her. I did like Mini, however. I'm a sucker for cats. 


It was obvious who the bad guys were from the start, and there was no sense of mystery or suspense in this novel. It was 500 pages of nothing. And I swear to you, the descriptions actually were longer than in the last novel. I counted the paragraphs of descriptions in one chapter. I found 8 paragraphs of descriptions, all bunched together, in two pages. I did not need to know THAT much about anything. Unless this is a textbook (which it's obviously not because it's historically inaccurate), then there is no need for that level of description. Also, the explanation of who Mistress is and what part she plays was cut short. Basically every time Kizer got to an interesting part, she sped through it , giving no details, so she could go back to describing snot (yea a lot of snot and things ingesting snot in this novel... I felt like I was reading a novel Beavis and Butthead wrote at times) or the color of grass or something.  The "big reveal" which wasn't a big reveal at all was the most anti-climactic thing I'd ever read. It was just bad. 


The one redeeming factor for this book is that it was told from 2 perspectives, Meridian and Juliet. Kizer actually did okay differentiating between the 2 voices, and it was believable that different people were talking. And, as I said, I did love Mini. She was the best character in my opinion. However, as juvenile as some of the book was (snot, snot, snot... and discussions of going to the toilet), it was a bit graphic in the sex department. Too graphic, if you ask me, for a YA audience. I didn't need to know about what anyone's business looked like. I thought I was reading a YA book, not smut. Just a helpful suggestion, less is more when it comes to sex and violence (and bodily fluids... just sayin'). All in all, I wouldn't recommend you buy this novel. I checked it out from the library, and I'm glad I did. And I certainly wouldn't give it to anyone under the age of 18 to read. Yucko.