Book Reviews

Posted on by KatYa

Here are the latest book reviews for my novella, ‘Grand Theft Life’

so far only 5/5 stars!

katya

katya

5 STARS

Fast forward flash photosynthesized heroics
By Peaceseeker on April 30, 2015

This is a riveting read: gripping in the power of the telling, disturbing in the mindset of the teller. It is short enough to be read at one sitting, and fascinating enough to make it difficult to do otherwise. I suspect that the author – as she says about one of her characters – has “read a lot of culturally-sanctioned literature; from Charles Dickens to Jane Austen to Hemingway.” The style is assured and ambitious: crisp, focused and strong.

“The voices. They were incessant. They reminded me I was not like the others.” “There was a meanness about humans, to which I could not relate.” She says of Freddy – the man who snatched her when she was of age – that he was like family she never knew she had. “Maybe I was ready to start making my own Hallmark cards for a year. Ya. Then open my veins in a Sylvia Plath bath.”

Daughter of Darkness is a powerful poetic monologue from someone who felt so different from those she grew up with/around that she concluded she belonged to a different species altogether: one that looks human, and that lives among humans, but is in fact not ‘human’ in the accepted or acceptable sense. One that has no fear of consequences, and that feeds off human fear. You find them in numbers in the dangerous, poverty-stricken, blighted belts of every concrete jungle. They come out at night, and prey on humans whose fear of consequences makes them easy meat. They can also prey on each other when those inner voices scream…

I urge you to read this book. It thoroughly deserves to be widely read.

5 STARS
I enjoyed reading this book
By Kristina on April 23, 2015

I enjoyed reading this book. When I started to read, I couldn’t drop it from my hands. I could literary feel that I live in the head of the main character. It was always something happening, in her surroundings, or in her head. I look forward to the next part.

5 STARS

How can I headline a review for a masterpiece of literature?
By Jen Morrison on April 2, 2015

This was one of the most difficult books for me to review. I honestly took much longer than I expected to contemplate how to review this book. I had to talk about this book for days before I could coherently organize my thoughts for this post. I could say this book was stunning, amazing, wonderful–all the adjectives I might use for a 5-star review, but I wouldn’t be doing this one justice.

Writers of all ages often wonder about writing the next Great Amercian Novel. Katya Mills has done it. A hundred years ago, if the genre had existed, I believe William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying would have been something like paranormal fiction.

Wait. Did I just compare Katya to Faulkner? Yes. Yes, I did.

This is a masterpiece of urban fantasy that should be dissected in classrooms and universities. while I may not agree with the socio-political opinions, I recognize the importance of her vivisection of urban gangland. This book kept me engrossed and I even had to reread it before reviewing. I can say that very few books warrant a reread from me, but I got to the end and immediately reread the entire thing.

My first reaction to the first few chapters was, “What the hell?” and I honestly thought I was going to have to pass on reviewing this one, but as I read further on, my opinion sky-rocketed. She left me both confounded, confused, and amazed–and in dire need of a second read. Give this book a place on your shelf and in fifty years when your grandchildren are complaining about their reading in school, remember this moment. They will be complaining about Katya Mills.

5 STARS

Daughter of Darkness
By P. Kater on March 25, 2015

Daughter of Darkness is a different kind of fantasy book. It’s tense. Paced. Fast. And it introduces you to a world of people who are different from us. Different in a way you can’t see. Ame, the main character, is one of those different people. She grows up being ‘strange’ and it takes a drastic move and lots of strange encounters and experiences before she realises who she is and what she can do.
I was very entertained by the opposite of the title of the book and how these people, who are so different call themselves. If you want to know what that is I suggest you buy the book and read it.

5 STARS

on hold for second volume
By frank ramon on March 17, 2015

I have read this book three times and continue to glean more out of the story each time. Told by a protagonist (Ame) who is both good and bad, this tale intertwines adroit commentary on modern culture and the underlying affects of fear on human beings in general. This is all woven together in a well told story of a modern anti hero set on the soulful and gritty streets of Oakland California. From an area well known for earth quakes, the writer will certainly rattle your walls with this story. I eagerly await the next volume in this series, it is a real bargain, for a rich story.

To get a copy of the work reviewed, click on this link …  http://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Darkness-Grand-Theft-Life-ebook/dp/B00TKHAU22/

Book 3

Posted on by KatYa

EXCERPT. BOOK#3

“Yes, I have been troubled and I bring my troubles with me wherever I go cause home is wherever I am at any moment. I gotta be dim to think home is static, no, life proves me wrong all the time, stretches and yawns over the blue marble upon which we roll and slip, in our blue dreams it surfaces and dips, rounding us, our edges, in our black and blue jeans, replete with street and graffiti on the walls. A little cream, a little sugar in the coffee and stir. I cannot stop looking at you in my windowpaned heart. Maze. I keep losing and losing you, the rains came and washed you away, the sheets were in the streets and offline, the beats pushing the feet as we walked, the rhythms searching and climbing into the greater sound; the image of what we once were working toward dematerialized again, and just like watching television on the radio it was painful good. And here you are and the whistle has blown, kicking your board up to your hand for the catch, wheels spinning and I’m worried but what the fuck. I got nothing to lose cause with all this time talkin about my faith and talkin and talkin not daring to confront you. Had I already lost you? No, no. Truth, will you lunge at me like this? Boy oh boy. Can I stand there and stand this? Do I have a choice? And yet the big sky is bigger, and I cannot look up and not be amazed by the beauty in a puffed up cloud floating off to nowhere like a poached egg white after the gas is turned off and the waters navy blue… the smiling buddha of spaces, the proclaimer of all things inverted. Girl oh girl. In discordance sliding off a continuum because they forgot to put an end to it. Directly, mathematically correlated to my ability to see what was really going on here in my life, all alone. Yeah, there’s a freedom there. A painful kinda freedom because I will find you if I look hard enough. Painful good. I will get you back, I swear!”

-Ame, Book#3

peaches

Posted on by KatYa

peaches. subsumed

all the rest
made me only more tired
so i stopped sleepin
now im
trackin shadows
cross the wall
while my ice cubes
wave water trails
into ginger ale
rattlin the cubes
against the glass
to remember you
the man above me
looks off the wall into space
dreaming of life
with someone real
i am sunk into a couch
like buried treasure
all the gouramis gape at me
silent kissing
an air bubble
tough feelings to feel inside
more than i can handle
i
rattle the cubes
to remember you
another character
jumps off a page
into my heart
i wonder bout the man
the life in two
dimensions. how safe not having
a back to watch
not being real
how safe
how dry
how terrible
you cannot
lend a friend
a hand or take a stand
brushed off
like you are. canvassed
for meaning
pretty rendition
come into my heart!
lemme hold you there
make you real
i rattle the glass
and remember you
wax inwards
street sweep the cottons
real estate gets pricey
along the ear canal
listen
i need an extension
of gratitude
outward. my ideals are almost met
almost
there is
there is
still time yet