Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda

Fracture
by Megan Miranda
January 17, 2012
Received from NetGalley
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: A-

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine-despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.

---

Here’s a tip: when you’re reading Fracture make sure you have some fluffy blankets or a nice animal or two to curl up on you because between the descriptions of the icy lake and the Maine winter, you’re going to want to warm up!

Much of this book felt like an adaption of a Hitchcock movie - suspenseful and cinematic with an overall feeling of dread even when chocolate chip cookies are baking in the narrative.  The writing is incredibly evocative both of the cold of the winter and of the bleakness of Delaney’s situation, and the cinematic qualities had me picturing cold winter light dulling every color it touches - except for the bright red of Delaney’s parka. 

I tend to enjoy character-driven books more than plot-driven, but Fracture is definitely an exception to that rule.  Though I have to admit, it’s not entirely plot-driven either.  There’s a Major Event - which is referred to in the synopsis so this isn’t a spoiler! - and the rest of the book is how Delaney reacts to it.  All of that is a roundabout way of saying that in some ways, I found that watching the characters’ reactions to the situation more interesting than the characters themselves.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t find the characters enjoyable! I empathised so much with Delaney and her focus on grades and uncertainty about her standing with her best friend Dexter and the friends that are more his than hers.  She’s a smart girl, stuck in a situation where intelligence has to give way to feelings and intuition.  Learning that sometimes intelligence can’t fix things is a hard, hard lesson when for a girl who’s always gotten A’s (yeah, I’m totally speaking for myself here, but for Delaney too).  I liked her best friend Dexter and his easygoing approach to life which was nearly shattered when his best friend fell through the ice, and I felt so much for both Delaney’s parents as they struggled to come to terms with the fact that their daughter before her accident may not be the same girl who woke up from the coma.

I think there may be criticisms of this book for being too slow or uneven pacing, but I didn’t find it so.  When the book slowed down to examine the day-to-day minutia of Delaney’s post-accident life, I felt it served both to give greater insight into these characters and to build tension about what was happening and what might happen.  Certainly it allowed Delaney to slowly but fully comprehend everything occurring around her. 

I found the climax a bit confusing, and there were questions raised that we never really got answers to especially in regards to Troy.  What really was going on?  But the overall message really touched me and makes me rather think that sometimes questions don’t need answers even when we really want them.  I very much want to talk about the conclusion, but I don’t want to spoil everyone so I’m going to avoid it.  Suffice it to say...I liked it.

This is a tense, suspenseful book that I’d recommend to anyone looking for a cinematic read with touches of horror.  I really enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to see what the author writes next.

Thanks to Walker Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this eARC!

Review: I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend by Cora Harrison

I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend
by Cora Harrison
September 28, 2010
Borrowed from Library
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: A-

When shy Jenny Cooper goes to stay with her cousin Jane Austen, she knows nothing of the world of beautiful dresses, dances, secrets, gossip, and romance that Jane inhabits. At fifteen, Jane is already a sharp observer of the customs of courtship. So when Jenny falls utterly in love with Captain Thomas Williams, who better than Jane to help her win the heart of this dashing man?

But is that even possible? After all, Jenny’s been harboring a most desperate secret. Should it become known, it would bring scandal not only to her, but also to the wonderful Austen family. What’s a poor orphan girl to do?

In this delicious dance between truth and fiction, Cora Harrison has crafted Jenny’s secret diary by reading everything Jane Austen wrote as a child and an adult, and by researching biographies, critical studies, and family letters. Jenny’s diary makes the past spring vividly to life and provides insight into the entire Austen family—especially the beloved Jane.

---

It's true, I overuse the word delightful, but this book was absolutely delightful in every sense of the word.  From the design and little pictures accompanying the text to the characters of a teenage Jane Austen and her cousin Jenny Cooper, everything about it made me want to buy my very own copy so I could read it on rainy days to cheer myself up.

The author made an excellent choice in writing this book as a series of diary entries by Jenny Cooper.  A more typical third-person narrative would have either invited comparison with Miss Austen or worse, caused the author to attempt to mimic that style.  As it is, the diary entries are in an entirely new and original voice, giving the reader a very different look at the famous novelist.

I loved Jenny's voice as conveyed through her diary.  She's both sweet and naive as she attempts to navigate her new life first as a ward of her brother and his less than congenial wife and then as she becomes a fixture in her cousin Jane's enormous and slightly rowdy family.  Jenny’s also coming to terms with the slight prospects of a gentleman's daughter without a fortune.  If it sounds like the plot of a Jane Austen novel, well, yes.  And that’s part of the brilliance of the book.  Any reader familiar with Austen’s novels will recognise situations, partial quotes, and even characters, and the fact that this is handled so well just made me smile. 

Some readers may find Jenny overly sweet.  In Pride and Prejudice terms, she’s much more a Jane than a Lizzie, but I found her gentleness and delicacy a nice change from the more usual YA heroine.  Jane is the character with all the fire, and while Jenny is both diplomatic and at times stubborn, Jane’s wit and sense of humour nearly flares off the page.  The friendship that develops helps both girls come of age.  Even as a teenager, Jane’s writing plays a major role in her life, and we get to see some of her rough stories and sketches.  I’m not familiar enough with Austen’s Juvenilia to know if these snippets come from her actual teenage work, but I based on how well the pieces fit into the action and themes of the book, I doubt it.

Not all the members of Jane’s large family are fully developed, and even towards the end, I was getting some of the brothers’ names mixed up, but they all are endearing.  I definitely sympathize with Jane though - I think if I had that large of a family, I’d want some peace and quiet for writing too!

If you’re a reader interested in Jane Austen or just want a lovely little story about two girls in Regency England, I’d definitely recommend this book.  It would be lovely “cuddled up during a snowstorm” reading!

Review: The Legend of Beka Cooper by Tamora Pierce

The Legend of Beka Cooper consists of three books: Terrier, Bloodhound, and Mastiff
by Tamora Pierce
October 24, 2006;  April 14, 2009; October 25, 2011
Purchased all Three
Goodreads Page
Overall Grade: A




Synopsis from Terrier:  Tamora Pierce begins a new Tortall trilogy introducing Beka Cooper, an amazing young woman who lived 200 years before Pierce's popular Alanna character. For the first time, Pierce employs first-person narration in a novel, bringing readers even closer to a character that they will love for her unusual talents and tough personality.

Beka Cooper is a rookie with the law-enforcing Provost's Guard, and she's been assigned to the Lower City. It's a tough beat that's about to get tougher, as Beka's limited ability to communicate with the dead clues her in to an underworld conspiracy. Someone close to Beka is using dark magic to profit from the Lower City's criminal enterprises—and the result is a crime wave the likes of which the Provost's Guard has never seen before.

---

With the publication of Mastiff over the weekend, the Beka Cooper trilogy is finally complete.  I stayed up all night Saturday to finish it, and while I’d feel silly writing a review of the third book of the trilogy, I figured I’d try to write a quick review of the trilogy as a whole for those who haven’t picked it up.

The Beka trilogy (or, more properly The Legend of Beka Cooper) is different from the majority of Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books in that you don’t really need to know anything about the multitude of other series because it’s set about 200 years prior to the general action.  It’s also really, really good.

Beka Cooper begins as a trainee Dog (a Puppy) - one of the Guards who act as police in the capital city of Corus.  In the Lower City, the Dogs are vastly outnumbered by thieves, slavers and murderers, and 2 Puppies in ten die before their year of training is up.  She’s incredibly shy but determined to protect her people and her city as well as she possibly can. 

Each book is told through Beka’s journalling of the events, and while sometimes the journals feel more like simple first person narration, I love that we get not only the action and conversation that occurred but also Beka’s thoughts and reflections on the situation.  She has a very definite viewpoint on the proper way of things (which, happily, is not the same as a modern person’s proper way of things), and her devotion to duty and sense of humour shine through the writing.  I also really enjoy that Beka often brings up the memory tricks (memory palace!) she was taught that allow her to remember events as accurately as possible.

Through the three books, we get to watch Beka grow from a shy adolescent Puppy to a fully grown woman confident in her own power and capabilities.  It’s a really well done character arc, and while Beka at the end of Mastiff is very, very different from the girl at the beginning of Terrier, the path she took to get there is completely clear.

Along with Beka, we get a wide range of secondary characters from the other Dogs at the station  to some colorful ladies and gentlemen who range themselves on the other side of the law to Beka’s siblings and friends in the Lower City.  Her training officers, Goodwin and Tunstall, are some of my favourite characters.  They’re wonderfully written hard-bitten and incredibly competent police officers who teach Beka the ropes of their difficult and dangerous job.  I also adore the flirtatious and snarky Rosto the Piper who manages to make friends with Beka even though he definitely has little use for minor things like laws against thievery or murder.

As opposed to a more typical fantasy world storyline, these books all are police procedurals with definite homages to the classics of the genre.  Gods and magic come into play as they always do in Tortall, but the relationship of Beka and her compatriots to most mages is one of slightly annoyed cooperation.  Think of the reactions of Law & Order detectives to the psychologists or sometimes lawyers - it’s kind of awesome especially from the typical fantasy perspective of mages as the ultimate source of knowledge and competence.

There’s a lot of dialect and slang in these three books, but most of the terms are either easily understood from context or there’s a nice glossary and cast of characters at the back of each book.  I’m not the best judge because I don’t have much of an issue with crazy fantasy dialects, but I don’t believe they’d cause much of a hurdle for a new reader.

Most of this review is towards non-Tortall readers, but if you have read some Tortall books, you'll get even more out of these books including bookend cameos by that other slightly less law-abiding Cooper, George, and a starring role by one particular black Cat with purple eyes. Also a really neat look at how society was before lady knights faded away and bits about why that changed (beyond, you know, making Alanna special).

These is a seriously fantastic trilogy.  The Aly books (Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen) remain my favourite Tortall series, but I can’t help but look at Beka Cooper’s trilogy as the best written.  The first and third books are stellar, and while the second droops a little under the weight of second book syndrome, it’s still a worthwhile and good read.  If you haven’t read any Tamora Pierce yet, consider starting here.  She’s one of the godmothers of the strong YA heroine, and she’s worth reading by every YA reader who loves powerful and capable characters.

Review: If I Tell by Janet Gurtler

If I Tell
by Janet Gurtler
October 1, 2011
Received from NetGalley
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: A

Jasmine Evans knows one thing for sure... people make mistakes. After all, she is one. Jaz is the result of a one-night stand between a black football player and a blonde princess. Having a young mother who didn't raise her, a father who wants nothing to do with her and living in a small-minded town where she's never fit in hasn't been easy. But she's been surviving. Until she sees her mom's new boyfriend making out with her own best friend. When do you forgive people for being human or give up on them forever?

---

I read Gurtler’s I’m Not Her and enjoyed it, but I wasn’t blown away.  (And since it’s a cancer book, I didn’t review it.)  Still I was looking forward to If I Tell and was terribly excited when I received permission to read it through NetGalley.

Let me tell you, if Janet Gurtler improves upon If I Tell as much as she improved from I’m Not Her to If I Tell, that third book is going to be the best book ever written.  If I Tell absolutely blew me away in every sense.  The main character, Jaz, had an amazing, incredibly believable character arc, the supporting characters all read as real, fully-developed people in their own right, and the writing was searing and honest that a way we don’t often get to see.

Jaz is a good example of a character that I didn’t always like but I loved anyway.  The book begins as she’s possibly just witnessed the straw that may cause her to wall herself off from people forever - the utter betrayal of her mom’s boyfriend making out with Jaz’s best friend, and the rest of the story is her deciding how to react.  I can’t say I enjoyed watching her reactions because some of it was so very painful, but they were very realistic and just made my heart hurt. 

I also appreciated the examination of her race and the repercussions of both being biracial and the only biracial girl in her school.  Jaz’s feeling of never really belonging anywhere was clear, and her discomfort in her own identity came through in a sometimes uncomfortable reading experience.  I probably say this every time I get to read a book with a non-white protagonist, but young adult lit is so whitewashed, that I’m always happy to see someone addressing issue.  To have Gurtler really examine the issue in such a skillful way is an even bigger bonus.  Someday I’d like to read a book with a non-white protagonist and feel like it happens often enough that I don’t even need to comment!

In a less weighty issue, I adored adored the love interest in this book.  Jackson is both a great character and utterly wonderful.  He reminded me in the best ways of one of Sarah Dessen’s love interests.  And that’s a high compliment from me because I love me some Dessen boys.  He also is more than “just” the love interest.  He’s definitely a three-dimensional character who’s respectful, totally sweet to his mother, and someone trying to rebuild his life after his own mistakes.

So yes, this is seriously a great book.  It’s not always the easiest to read because of the emotions brought up, and Jaz probably will make you want to shake her as she works through her plot (seriously, Jaz, call your friends! That’s what they’re there for!), but it’s really, really good.  I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an excellent contemps read with very interesting and relevant themes.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcefire Books for allowing me to read this book!

Review: Little Women and Me by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Little Women and Me
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
November 8, 2011
Received from NetGalley
Amazon Page
Goodreads Page
Grade: B-

Emily is sick and tired of being a middle sister. So when she gets an assignment to describe what she'd change about a classic novel, Emily pounces on Little Women. After all, if she can't change things in her own family, maybe she can bring a little justice to the March sisters. (Kill off Beth? Have cute Laurie wind up with Amy instead of Jo? What was Louisa May Alcott thinking?!) But when Emily gets mysteriously transported into the world of the book, she discovers that righting fictional wrongs won't be easy. And after being immersed in a time and place so different from her own, it may be Emily-not the four March sisters-who undergoes the most surprising change of all. Lauren Baratz-Logsted's winning confection will appeal to fans of Little Women as well as anyone who enjoys a modern twist on an old favorite.

---

I think I need to preface this review by saying Little Women and Me was not for me.  I definitely think there’ll be readers who’ll enjoy this romp through the classic nineteenth century novel, but I can’t count myself as one of them.

I try to take a book’s premise at face value – e.g. I don’t have a problem with the main character being sucked into a book, and I don’t feel the author needs to explain how this happened, but I greatly prefer the rules of the ‘magic’ stay consistent once they’re established.  While Emily’s within Little Women, at times she remembers what’s going to happen next and at times she has ‘story amnesia’ and which happened when never seemed to have a reason beyond increasing tension.  The original book characters also seem to have a difficult time remembering that Emily is there which was an intriguing idea but also frustrated me because again there didn’t seem to be any real consistency which happens when.

I’d have been able to overlook a lot of the above if I was more engaged with the main character.  Emily never really gelled into a real ‘person’ for me.  Instead - like some of the plot devices - I felt like Emily’s personality bent at the whim of the story.  She was definitely amusing, and I especially enjoyed her observations about the nineteenth century and the March family as a whole.  Her relationship with Beth was also incredibly sweet, but beyond that Emily seemed more inclined to chase boys (all the while declaring that she needed to change the book so Jo ended up with Laurie) than interact with either her real sisters or her March sisters in any meaningful way.  Being self-centered isn’t anything new for a YA heroine, but that coupled what seemed like a complete lack of empathy (other than towards Beth), Emily never seemed to develop beyond this until her sudden realisation at the end of the book.

Reading the author’s notes, I saw that she had written the book by reading one chapter of Little Women and then writing one chapter of her book, and suddenly much of the book made more sense to me.  Perhaps the author wished to have an episodic style, but while Little Women obviously has overarching themes and plot, Little Women and Me never seems to achieve that.  Even Emily’s realization at the end of the book seemed out of nowhere, and I think the novel as a whole would have benefited from a more consistent dramatic arc to aid in both gradual character development and thematic structure.

There was a twist towards the end that made me laugh out loud, but when looking back at it, I still can’t see more than one indication that it was coming.  I really love surprise twists where the framework is laid more consistently throughout the book.  As it is, I’m left feeling like the author simply wished to throw a plot twist in the ending pages.

I’m seriously disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book more.  I’d been really excited to get the opportunity to read it – especially since Little Women is one of my favourite books.  (Though I have to admit that I’m possibly the only reader ever who thinks that Jo marrying Laurie would be a terrible, terrible idea.)  But unfortunately neither the book nor the characters lived up to my expectations.  It may be that my love for the source book is standing in the way of a love for this one, but I don’t think so.  I enjoyed the outsider’s perspective on the March family and their admittedly slightly insane way of life, and I enjoyed the idea that some of the family’s most charming traits for a reader would be incredibly annoying to a participant.  What kept me from enjoying the book as a whole was an uneven structure and a frustration that the main character was never developed fully enough to love or hate.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for allowing me to read this!

Review: The FitzOsbornes in Exile by Michelle Cooper

The FitzOsbornes in Exile
by Michelle Cooper
August 2, 2010
Borrowed from Library
Amazon Page
Goodreads Page
Grade: A

Forced to leave their island kingdom, Sophie FitzOsborne and her eccentric family take shelter in England. Sophie's dreams of making her debut in shimmering ballgowns are finally coming true, but how can she enjoy her new life when they have all lost so much?

Aunt Charlotte is ruthless in her quest to see Sophie and Veronica married off by the end of the Season, Toby is as charming and lazy as ever, Henry is driving her governess to the brink of madness, and the battle of wills between Simon and Veronica continues. Can Sophie keep her family together, when everything seems to be falling apart?

An enticing glimpse into high society, the cut and thrust of politics as nations scramble to avert world war, and the hidden depths of a family in exile, struggling to find their place in the world.

---

I loved this book.  Like “it needs to come live with me right now” love.  But I’m not entirely convinced that all the readers of A Brief History of Montmaray will feel the same way.  While A Brief History... is a short book with spurts of adventure and action, FitzOsbornes in Exile feels much more like an ‘adult’ book set in late-1930s high English society.  There are debutante balls, politics, references to the Mitford sisters and British Fascists and the League of Nations, and a great cameo by a young Jack Kennedy.

So I think you need to be at least a little interested in interwar Europe or high Society to really enjoy this book.  Or possibly just too much in love with the wonderful FitzOsborne siblings.  Otherwise it may seem overly long and boring in places.

With that out of the way, I’ll continue!  We still get Sophie as our narrator though this time her journal entries are often from a much greater distance that in the first book.  I kind of loved how much the book felt like a real journal with Sophie often opening the entries with “I meant to be writing in this more often, but...”  Or maybe that’s just my journals that always end up that.  She’s definitely grown up after the events of A Brief History..., and I loved seeing how she’d matured (and continued to mature). She’s no longer the sweet, slightly naive girl - well, she’s still sweet - but she understands politics much more deeply and comes to play an ever more important role in Montmaray politics (otherwise known as the disputes within her family).  Sophie’s the girl that no one notices because she’s shy and quiet but who observes absolutely everything and then uses it to her (sometimes) slightly Machiavellian advantage.

It’s really interesting to see England as a whole and London Society through the lens of a girl who’s only ever lived on an island and barely known more than 15 people in her entire life.  Sophie, her cousin Veronica (my second favourite character in the books), and her little sister Henry all have to adapt to the expectations of girls - and Princesses! - by the upper class.  For all of them, the adaptation is difficult, but perhaps especially so for the incredibly intelligent and outspoken Veronica who can’t bear to play the sweet, silent debutante.  Her arguments about politics during dinners and parties are some of my favourite parts of the book.  As is Henry’s expedition to have tea with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at Buckingham Palace.

I didn’t mention it in my previous review, but I also liked the not-just-friends relationship between Toby (the new King of Montmaray and Sophie’s elder brother) and Simon (the ‘Lord Chancellor’ of their country).  The reactions of the older girls to the discovery of this relationship is perhaps a little too blase for the times, but watching both Toby and Simon try to decide if their connection is worth maintaining in the face of a society that wholeheartedly disapproves of it - not to mention the fact that Toby needs to produce an heir - was both interesting and a little heartbreaking. 

The climax of the book is just before World War II breaks out and occurs at a League of Nations meeting (seriously.  My little international relations-loving heart was a-flutter) which was again, very different from the first book and perhaps exemplifies the completely different tack this book takes.  The reader gets to watch Veronica come into her own, and it took everything I had not to stand up and cheer.  Well, also I don’t want people to think I’m entirely insane.

I’m thrilled to find out there’ll be a third book featuring the FitzOsbornes, and I look forward to reading it as soon as it comes out.  Like I said at the beginning, this book won’t be for everyone, but if you’re at all interested, I’d completely recommend it. 

Review: Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

Dearly, Departed
by Lia Habel
October 18, 2011

Received from NetGalley
Amazon Page
Goodreads Page
Grade: B+

Love can never die.

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

---

I’ve been struggling with this review forever!  Seriously, I read Dearly, Departed about two weeks ago, loved it, and then tried and failed, tried and failed at writing a review.  When I started the novel, I was skeptical that a post-apocalyptic steampunk, neo-Victorian zombie novel – cool as the description sounds! – could really work in any reasonable way, but I was proved completely wrong by Lia Habel’s writing.

We’re introduced to the society of New Victoria slowly as Nora leaves her girls’ school and returns to her aunt’s house for the first time since her father’s death a year prior.  The history of the society is explained in what can only be described as a well-written info dump, but I didn’t mind the flood of information at all because a) (like I said) it was very well done and b) the history and world-building involved was so intriguing!  We also get a nicely detailed explanation of both the zombies and how some manage to keep their personalities and other turn into ravaging monsters.  I also totally enjoyed the descriptions of the medical care needed to keep the ‘good’ zombies viable.  It was definitely macabre but also incredibly interesting.

The chapters switch points-of-view between Nora and Bram, the soldier with mysterious links to Nora’s father, plus three other characters.  Bram’s probably the most interesting character in the book at least partially because he’s revealed to be dead.  Seriously, this guy is the most sympathetic zombie character ever.  Which isn’t necessarily saying a lot since most zombies are anything but sympathetic, but even the fact that he could become both a character I’d root for is a huge achievement.  (Cause really, normally zombies cause me to get my baseball bat ready)

While I’m still not a big fan of swapping viewpoint characters, for Nora and Bram the technique really worked well.  The characters come from such different places that seeing their perspective filtered through their vastly different background knowledge helped both focus the book and provide the reader with a better understanding of the action.  However the other three points-of-view were weakly done and didn’t add much to the story.  I’d have been much happier if the only points-of-view we saw were the two main characters, and I think it would have helped to tighten and focus some of the rather sprawling story.

I’ve already admitted that Bram’s my favourite character, but Nora was nonetheless interesting.  She’s perhaps cast a little too much in the mold of a typical ‘tomboy heroine’ and the special quality she’s revealed to possess made me roll my eyes slightly.  Still her characterization never falls flat, and her determination, sense of humor, and devastation over her father’s death really made the character for me.  I also enjoyed how slowly the relationship between Nora and Bram developed, how the trust and enjoyment of each other came slowly over time, and how they both had to deal with their own issues about not only relationships but also the idea of a relationship between a living person and a freaking zombie.  Zombies aren’t lovable.  This is a tenant of my paranormal beliefs that was absolutely shattered by this novel.

So this lovable zombie, Bram.  He could almost be too perfect but it never felt like that. He was respectable and honourable and cared about his soldiers.  He knows he only has a few years of ‘unlife’ available, and he’s decided to use them to protect civilians and to be a good soldier.  That whole devotion to duty is a huge story kink of mine so it’s probably not surprising that I love the character so much. 

There are some points where the writing drags a little, and they mostly come in the POV chapters that aren’t Bram or Nora’s.  I think this may mostly be first-novel syndrome and hope that in the future the author will be able to edit her next books more deftly to avoid the tempo changes and slight loss of interest that occurs during them.  I was really amazed with how well Habel wrote the action scenes.  I never felt lost or wondering who was where during them, and they included awesome bits like stabbing a zombie in the face with a parasol.  In the FACE. With a parasol.

I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to blow their minds with such things as good guy zombies or just read a great action Steampunk tale.  There are some issues with the book, but nothing serious enough to significantly downgrade my enthusiasm over it.

Thank you to NetGalley and DelRay for allowing me to read this e-ARC!

Review: Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

Five Flavors of Dumb

by Antony John

November 10, 2010

Amazon Page

Goodreads Page

Grade: A

The Challenge: Piper has one month to get the rock band Dumb a paying gig.

The Deal: If she does it, Piper will become the band's manager and get her share of the profits.

The Catch: How can Piper possibly manage one egomaniacal pretty boy, one talentless piece of eye candy, one crush, one silent rocker, and one angry girl? And how can she do it when she's deaf?

Piper can't hear Dumb's music, but with growing self-confidence, a budding romance, and a new understanding of the decision her family made to buy a cochlear implant for her deaf baby sister, she discovers her own inner rock star and what it truly means to be a flavor of Dumb.

---

This might not be the most coherent of reviews because I totally loved this book.  It’s the whole cliché – I laughed, I cried, and I was completely disappointed when it was over.

Piper was a fantastic heroine with a great character arc.  Sometimes you read a book, and even when it’s good, the character journey is pretty predictable, but I never felt that way with Piper.  She begins as a fantastically intelligent girl who struggles to express her personality both at school and with her family.  Many of her difficulties originate in her lack of confidence – not in herself so much but in her ability to find a voice in a world that highly values hearing and speech and dismisses most other forms of communication.  When she decides to become the manager of a high school band, she’s forced to confront society’s paternalist attitudes towards Deaf people and Deaf culture head on.  Piper moves from mainly a passive role in society to a person who knows what she wants and how to achieve it.  It’s something she’s always known – we learn very quickly that she’s an insanely good and aggressive chess player but the process of applying this to her own life is a complicated one.

She’s snarky, determined, crazy smart, and completely stupid about boys.  I absolutely fell in love with her the instant she appeared on the page. 

I also loved every member of her very present family.  Each member of the family is going through their own struggle.  Her father’s trying to adapt to the loss of his job and becoming the stay-at-home parent, her mother deals with suddenly being the sole income and the secondary caregiver, her little brother Finn (who I utterly adored and wanted as my own brother) is trying to adapt to going to high school as the “brother of the deaf girl.”  And the baby just received cochlear implants that will allow her to enter the hearing world.  Sometimes even when a family or parents appear in a YA novel, their lives seem to revolve around the central character’s, but it’s clear in The Five Flavors of Dumb that each of these people has their own life, their own inner struggles, and the story becomes not just Piper’s but the entire family’s especially as they all try to resolve the conflicts between the hearing members – now including the baby, Grace - and Piper’s Deafness.

The titular band is also comprised of strong and interesting personalities, and there’s really no need for external conflict because the interpersonal issues are set up so well.  Even so, there’s definitely two tiers of character development within the band – the girls - Tash and Kallie - and Ed become fully three-dimensional characters while Josh and Will lurk in the background even when Josh acts as antagonist to his own band. 

While there isn’t any overt violence or sexual themes in the book, the narration shies away from absolutely nothing.  Some of the themes and emotions are raw enough that it feels like the book is addressing much more controversial issues, and that just strengthens the overall text.  There’s so much in this book that I loved!  If I could think of a cool way to do it, I'd draw a comparison between this book and the movie Almost Famous because while the story is completely different, the ability of music to save and transform lives comes through in the similar ways.  Seriously, go read this book.  I can’t even stress that enough.

Review: Bunheads by Sophie Flack

Bunheads
by Sophie Flack
October 11, 2011
Bought on Kindle
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: B+

As a dancer with the ultra-prestigious Manhattan Ballet Company, nineteen-year-old Hannah Ward juggles intense rehearsals, dazzling performances and complicated backstage relationships. Up until now, Hannah has happily devoted her entire life to ballet.

But when she meets a handsome musician named Jacob, Hannah's universe begins to change, and she must decide if she wants to compete against the other "bunheads" in the company for a star soloist spot or strike out on her own in the real world. Does she dare give up the gilded confines of the ballet for the freedoms of everyday life?

---

Bunheads is a really interesting addition to the canon of girls-who-dance literature.  Hannah has already ‘made it.’  She’s a member of the corps de ballet in one of the best ballet companies in the world, the Manhattan Ballet Company (clearly supposed to be the New York City Ballet both because the author Sophie Flack danced there and because that’s the New York company that performs Balanchine’s Jewels).  Between that fact and that Hannah’s the rare YA protagonist who’s college aged instead of in high school, this book is both a fantastic read and something very different to enjoy.

Hannah’s life is something very few of us can even begin to imagine.  She’s utterly devoted to her art, and since she moved to New York to study, she’s barely had a chance to see any of the city beyond the interior of the Manhattan Ballet’s studios, theatre, and school.  Even though she’s accomplished far more than the vast majority of ballet dancers ever manage to, it’s not nearly enough, and she and her friends in the corps work even harder now to try to be cast in bigger roles and be promoted to soloist.

I really enjoyed Hannah as the main character.  She breathes ballet, but ever so slightly she’s beginning to wonder if she’s missing anything in life.  The idea begins (as so many do) with a chance encounter with a boy, but the author really does an excellent job making sure that Hannah’s decision is never between the boy and ballet but rather the entire world and ballet.  If it had been just the first, this would be a much, much weaker book.  While she’s obviously an intensely dedicated person, we meet her as her devotion may be waning.  She decides over and over to try to rededicate herself to ballet.  If it was something less than her entire life, she’d seem awfully wishy-washy, but the enormity of any decision has been firmly established, and instead Hannah is a woman trying to decide the course of the rest of her life.

The reader is given an in-depth look at the world of the corps de ballet and the short dancing lives of the people who inhabit it.  One of my favourite lines was at the very beginning when Hannah remarks that dancers rarely buy new practice clothes because no one knows when their career will come to a sudden halt.  The dressing room more than the stage is the central focus of the book, and along with Hannah, the reader meets the dancers who share the room and also rotate through roles as friends, confidants, rivals, backstabbers, and sisters-in-arms on a near hourly basis.  The ever shifting alliances and jealousies make for an interesting and slightly confusing set of personalities, and the confusion the reader feels only enhances Hannah’s continual uncertainty about where she stands.

There isn’t a lot of high drama in this book which matches well with Flack’s reserved writing style.  Unfortunately it was so reserved that at times I wished for a little more intensity to the scenes especially the higher tension ones – between Hannah and the ballet master or between Hannah and Jacob.  It’s clear that this is Flack’s debut novel, and I’ll be interested to see if she succeeds at writing a different story, one that’s not based on her own life.  For Bunheads, the tension of the ballet scene is enough to carry novel, but there’s a decided lack of any external tension or plot movement.

I also wasn’t enamored of Jacob.  He was never fleshed out into a truly three-dimensional character or even move much past ‘interested in the narrator.’  I never really understood why Hannah liked this awfully stereotypical musician.  On one hand, this makes sense since part of the conflict is that Hannah can’t spend much time with him, but on the other hand, a more deft rendering of his character would have been really nice.

There’s a possible love triangle that’s sketched in, and while the character remained fairly two-dimensional, I could definitely understand Hannah’s attraction to him since he represented all the acclaim a true ballerina, not just a corps dancer, could attain.  However beyond that, there isn’t much to the love triangle plot, and it quickly fizzles out. I would have liked to either see it developed more or removed completely to help tighten the structure of the book.

Overall I very much enjoyed Bunheads and loved the realistic – no stage magic and no pink gauze to add to the romance – look at the ballet world.  There were some flaws, but it remained a good if quiet read for anyone even remotely interested in ballet or the theatre.

Review: Prized by Caragh O'Brien

Prized
by Caragh O’Brien
November 8, 2011
Received Arc from NetGalley
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: A-

Striking out into the wasteland with nothing but her baby sister, a handful of supplies, and a rumor to guide her, sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone survives only to be captured by the people of Sylum, a dystopian society where women rule the men who drastically outnumber them, and a kiss is a crime.  In order to see her sister again, Gaia must submit to their strict social code, but how can she deny her sense of justice, her curiosity, and everything in her heart that makes her whole?

---

I reviewed the first book in this trilogy a week ago.  If you haven't read Birthmarked yet, this review contains spoilers for the outcome of that book but not for particulars.

My favourite thing about Caragh O’Brien’s dystopian societies is that they make so much sense.  Slyum, the main society in Prized is completely different from the Enclave that Gaia escaped in Birthmarked, but the reader can clearly see how both societies developed in reaction to their particular circumstances.  As I said at the end of my review of Birthmarked, O’Brien threw all the pieces up in the air at the end of that book, and as the sequel begins, those pieces are still falling back to the ground.

After a horrific journey and almost losing her baby sister to starvation, Gaia Stone is rescued by the people of Slyum and given an immediate choice.  If she chooses to stay, she must allow her sister to be raised by a ‘more fit’ mother, but she and her sister can stay in this veritable paradise of lakes and greenery unknown to the drought-stricken Enclave.  There are, however, two other conditions.  If they stay, they can never leave because everyone who leaves the area dies, and they must obey the Matrach.  On the other hand, Gaia and her sister are free to continue traveling into the wilderness, leaving the place her mother told her to find.

The repercussions of Gaia’s choice resonate through the rest of the book.  I really enjoy this type of catch-22 especially when the consequences are so dire.  Slyum has very few women, and the percentage of baby girls born has been falling every year so their society has developed to value being female above anything else.  Only women – and only women who agree to follow the Matrach’s dictates and bear at least ten children - are allowed a voice in society decisions.  Men compete to gain a woman’s attention and perhaps her hand in marriage, but touching a woman without being engaged to her is viewed as the crime attempted rape.

Gaia continues to be a fascinating character, and I appreciate how the author allows her to be flat out wrong at times and be judged by the other characters for it.  She never falls into that trap where the main character appears to be wrong, but at the end she’s shown to have been right all along and just misunderstood.  Gaia makes terrible choices, and she and her friends sometimes suffer from them.  She’s still the stubborn and intelligent girl that she was in Birthmarked, but it’s clear that Maya near brush with death as a result of Gaia’s actions along with the events of Birthmarked have changed her.  She’s almost grateful at first to accept the Matrach’s authority over her – anything to prevent all responsibility from falling on her shoulders.  It’s frustrating as a reader to watch her allow herself be led so obviously, and it’s an utter relief to see her finally accept the inherent injustice in Slyum’s society and start to rebel against it.

I complained a little in my review of Birthmarked that Gaia swung too quickly from accepting the Enclave’s system to rebelling against it, but after reading Prized, I feel quite a bit differently.  She almost takes too long to act against Slyum’s injustice, and the difference makes an interesting study of how power affects actions.  In Slyum, for the first time, Gaia is a highly valued and potentially powerful member of the society as midwife but more importantly as a potentially fertile woman.  Her acceptance of this position makes it more difficult for her to support reforms against the establishment even when she notices and knows that the society is far from just.

As I touched on earlier, the author’s worldbuilding is absolutely fantastic.  She obviously has a firm grounding (no pun intended) in the geographic reality of her story, but also the way her society is structured, the firm internal rules of the world and characters, and the effects of the environment on both personal and societal development.  That last is something that often seems negligible, but I believe it’s one of the most important factors in making a society feel real to the reader instead of just dreamed up and plopped anywhere convenient.

There’s much more romance in this book than in the first, and it’s here that O’Brien seems most uncertain.  The love quadrangle that develops makes sense within the society – when there are so few women, of course men are going to compete for a viable mate, but the reasons why two brothers choose to focus their attention on Gaia seem less clear.  William’s interest makes more sense to me – Gaia’s the only person in the society with the same insatiable curiosity for figuring out why their society is, but Peter’s seems tacked on.  Perhaps the societal impulse is all there needs to be, but I kept hoping for more.

Leon was a character I loved in Birthmarked, and I was so happy to see him reappear.  He rejected his privilege in the Enclave, but his adjustment to the true loss of it in Sylum was an interesting character arc.  Again, that theme of power affecting actions came into play, and in Prized, it’s Leon who instantly wants to rebel against the system and make changes to the way things are done.  The swap in roles between him and Gaia affect their relationship dramatically, and while I didn’t always agree with Leon’s handling of the situation, here too, I appreciated that the author let the character be absolutely wrong at times.

By completely changing the surroundings and forcing Gaia and Leon to adapt to a new society, O’Brien managed to avoid the typical second installment letdown.  Prized is built upon the reader’s previous knowledge of the characters, but it allows itself the freedom to tell a different though complementary story to the first book.  I enjoyed Prized even more than I did Birthmarked, and I absolutely look forward to seeing where the third book in this trilogy leads us.

Thank you to NetGalley and Roaring Book Press for allowing me to read this arc!

Review: Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble

Dreaming Anastasia
by Joy Preble
September 1, 2009
Borrowed from Library
Amazon Page
Goodreads Page
Grade: B-

What really happened to Anastasia Romanov?

Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn't. Instead, two gnarled old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead.

In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn't know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college—until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams…

---

This was an odd little book that, despite the subject of Anastasia Romanov, really felt completely original as I read it.  Perhaps it’s in part because there are so few retellings of Russian fairy tales – or Russian influence on typical young adult paranormal books, but while some of the elements were familiar, the story as a whole was incredibly fresh.

We start with Anna, a modern Chicagoland teenager, who’s having weird dreams of another teen girl trapped in a little cottage on chicken legs.  Anna tries to brush the dreams off – as well as the odd sightings of a boy who seems to be following her – in order to focus on her schoolwork and ballet, but nothing seems to work. 

The author quickly introduces two other points of view – that of the boy, Ethan, who’s been looking for Anna for one hundred years and the other girl, Anastasia Romanov.  When the Romanov family was killing that day in Ekaterinaburg, Anastasia was saved by the hands of Baba Yaga and taken to live with her in her hut for eternity.

From the beginning, there are many mysteries to simultaneously unravel.  Who’s Ethan and what does he want with Anna?  Why is Anna dreaming about Anastasia and conversely why is Anastasia dreaming about Anna?  How was Anastasia saved from death, and can she be rescued from Baba Yaga’s hands?  What does Anna have to do with any of this?  Maybe there are almost too many threads for them all to be handled well because the characterization of most of the characters suffers as a result.

Anna seemed the typical teenage girl – almost too typical at times.  Her side comments and attempts to be snarky took the place of a developed personality.  And while she certainly was brave and I cheered her on, I also wanted to see a more of a three-dimensional character emerge from the demands of the plot.

Surprisingly, Ethan was much more developed as a character.  Other than his (sigh) instant love for Anna, his motivations and goals were both clear and reasonable.  I loved the idea of an order of eternal Brothers searching for the girl who possesses the power to free the Last Romanov from her prison.  I rarely believed that Ethan was actually over a hundred years old – he read mostly as a teenager, but there was a definite weight to him and his actions that felt appropriate.

My favourite character of the trio definitely was Anastasia.  All her scenes had a dreamlike quality that really intrigued me.  Perhaps I expected less because she truly was a fairytale character, but she jumped off the page even though she’s trapped within a tiny hut for the majority of the book.  And – without spoilers – her actions at the end of the books felt entirely true both to her character and to her role as a Romanov princess.

The ‘letters’ Anastasia writes to her family were the worst part of her storyline.  I love the idea of letters written by Anastasia from her prison, but from a purely superficial view, the handwriting font used is incredibly difficult to read, and while I completely can believe this great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria would write in English, the English she uses is colloquial and full of late twentieth and twenty-first century slang to the point of being jarring.  The letters also spent a lot of time discussing Romanov history sometimes to the point of an infodump.  From an alternate point of view, I couldn’t help wondering why Anastasia would write to her family about history they already would know or why she’d do it so awkwardly “…as you probably remember, dear papa,” etc…  Perhaps a diary or letters to an unknown recipient would have served this aim better.

The dream sequences set in Baba Yaga’s hut are handled much, much more skillfully, and at times, I almost wanted to have the entire book set there in the odd fairytale world of talking matryoshka dolls and magic.  The fairytale atmosphere really takes over here, and the dreamlike quality I mentioned before is very, very well done.

This is definitely a plot driven story as opposed to a character driven one.  The plot is both intriguing and ambitious, but it would have been better served by more completely drawn characters and more of a focus on making sure the characters would feasibly perform the actions the plot requires.  I’m not entirely sure this book had gelled completely in the author’s head, and I think it could have withstood another draft or two to really develop into a worthy vehicle for these interesting and original plot ideas.

I didn’t realize this was the first in a trilogy until I just looked the book up on Goodreads this moment.  It felt like a standalone novel, and while I can see the hooks into a second book, the second book also doesn’t feel necessary.  However I’ve requested it from my library, and we’ll see how it goes.

Review: Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Spoiled
by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
June 1, 2011
Borrowed from Library
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: B

16-year-old Molly Dix loves her ordinary life in suburban Indiana, so when her single mother passes away, she is shocked to discover that her biological father is Brick Berlin, world famous movie star and red carpet regular.

Equally intrigued and terrified by her Hollywood lineage, Molly moves to Southern California and plunges head-first into the deep end of Beverly Hills celebrity life. Just as Molly thinks her new life and family couldn't get any stranger, she meets Brooke Berlin, her gorgeous and spoiled half-sister whom welcomes Molly to la-la land with a healthy dose of passive-aggressive "sisterly love."

Set against the backdrop of a sparkling and fashion-filled Los Angeles, this deliciously dysfunctional family soap opera will satisfy every reader looking for their next lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous beach read.

---

There’s no doubt that Spoiled is a really, really fun book.  I’ve enjoyed the Fug Girls’ snarky fashion and celebrity blog for years, and Spoiled is written in the same breezy and hilarious style.  The plot isn’t as fantastic as the writing style, but I wanted to forgive the book anything just because the ride was a blast.

As mentioned in the synopsis, our co-heroines are half-sisters suddenly introduced to each other after the death of Molly’s mother.  And their father just happens to be one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.  Very often Molly comes across as just too sweet to be real.  She forgives insult after insult and even when she decides to fight back, she instantly feels terribly about it.  Her naivety is also played up a little too much especially when she first meets Brooke.  Brooke’s insincerity and sabotage of Molly nearly drips off the page, but Molly doesn’t even suspect anything until she’s been publicly ridiculed for the results of Brooke’s actions.

Brooke, on the other hand, is delightfully mean though she doesn’t quite reach the heights of her hero, Blair Waldorf.  Her nastiness is a lot more interesting than Molly’s sweetness, and as badly as I felt for Molly, I tended to root for her mean girl sister.  Brooke’s dark secret is also maybe a little too easily revealed.  Once she’s hugged, she lets go of that mean girl image almost instantly to try to form a sisterly bond with Molly.

My absolute favourite character was the movie star father, Brick Berlin.  Every time he appeared, I couldn’t help laughing at the perfect satire the authors created.  He was hilariously over sincere, and his ever-present iPhone with its note taking app provided more than a few laughs even as the reader felt badly for any child of this self-absorbed man.

I definitely want to read the upcoming sequel to Spoiled.  None of the plot devices or characterizations (other than maybe the father Berlin) were terribly original, but the writing more than made up for it.  Also the authors really seemed to enjoy themselves.  You know how sometimes you read a book by established authors just entering the YA field, and it feels like they figured it’d be easy money so no need to actually write well?  The Fug Girls are the complete opposite.  The authorial voice is obviously having a great time, and it pulls the reader along for the ride.

Review: The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

The Girl of Fire and Thorns
by Rae Carson
September 20, 2011
Bought in Hardcover
Amazon Page
Goodreads Page
Grade: B+

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.

Elisa is the chosen one.

But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can’t see how she ever will.

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he’s not the only one who needs her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people’s savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.

Most of the chosen do.

---

This is one of those books where there are problems and frustrations you note as you read it, but then when you close the book after the last page, sigh happily, and say ‘that was a good story.’  Carson wrote a very satisfying type of traditional fantasy that I, an inveterate fantasy reader, couldn’t help but gobble up in one sitting.  And yet there are many of the flaws of a traditional high fantasy book as well.

Elisa is an interesting heroine who makes me oh-so-conflicted.  She hates herself so very much at the beginning of the book that it’s difficult to get much of a read on her personality.  Always shadowed by talented older sister, Elisa’s never had much asked of her, and even if she’s the bearer of the Godstone, she’s pretty certain that standing up for herself is something she’ll never be able to do.  Yet when she’s married off to a neighboring monarch, she manages incredible bravery under very difficult circumstances. That contradiction between her bravery and sense of duty and self-loathing provides much of the internal conflict throughout the book.

My problem here is one that has been mentioned many times, and that’s the issue of Elisa’s weight.  I absolutely love seeing a heroine who’s both a POC and not perfectly fit, but so much of her self-hatred is based in her weight, and much of it - both self-hatred and weight - disappears once she experiences near literal starvation in the desert.  I always enjoy seeing a character come into her own, but I would have loved it so much more if Elisa came to love herself and respect herself as she was at the beginning of the story.  She’s brave before she loses weight, but she becomes a respected leader afterwards.  I think the entire character journey could have been so much more powerful done differently.

But for the parts of Elisa that I loved, I loved her booksmarts and ability to think completely tactically when needed.  There are several times where very difficult decisions had to be made, and I admire the character for being able to make those unflinchingly.  I loved watching her attempt to adapt to different cultures.  I really liked how she apologises when she’s in the wrong, and how she’s determined to fulfill her duty as the bearer of the Godstone.  The character rarely felt sixteen to me.  Often she seemed much older, but I can find that believable as a simple function of having been raised a princess.

Carson’s world-building is consistently well done from the Spanish influence of Elisa’s home kingdom of Orovalle to the hill people to the mix of cultures in Brisadulce.  And the fact that the desert wasn’t immediately home to a fantasy version of Bedouins was fantastic.  As much as I like gorgeous horses, that particular stereotype is overdone, and it’s neat to see the idea of a nearly unlivable desert play out.  The city of Brisadulce confused me a little bit in that it seemed a desert city but then at one point was mentioned to be on the ocean.  For this reasons and others, I’d have loved if the author had included a map of her world.  Some of the routes traveled from city to city got confusing especially towards the end of the book when the speed required didn’t seem to match with earlier information, and it would have been really nice to be able to look at a map and trace the journeys!

Throughout the book, there seemed to be some pacing issues.  I completely am fine with the slow set up as Carson built her world and provided the reader with enough information to understand the plot, but after that, the pace seemed to be a little bit jerky.  One hopes to have a plot build, reach a minor conflict, build some more, reach another conflict, build again to the climax, but The Girl of Fire and Thorns never really settled into a rhythm for me.

I hope in the final two books of this trilogy, we get to see more of the Perditos and Inviernos, and hopefully see both cultures as more than the godless savages of this first book.  I appreciate the book for embracing religion as a major part of the characters’ lives - it’s high medieval fantasy, some type of religion is definitely appropriate, but I’ll be less comfortable if the cultures apart from the religion continue to be portrayed as little more than animals.

In a lot of ways, I’m hard on high fantasy because I’ve read so much of it over the years making me less of tolerant of some of the tropes of the genre.  I truly don’t mean to pick The Girl of Fire and Thorns to pieces because it was a satisfying and enjoyable read, and I do look forward to next two books in the trilogy.  (And I very much appreciated that this book had a definite ending instead of a cliffhanger.)  But there were issues that niggle and that are possibly a function of this being the author’s debut novel. 

If Carson continues writing in this tradition of Tamora Pierce and Kristin Cashore with strong female heroines and well developed worlds, I think she’ll be a force to be reckoned with in the young adult arena.  I’d recommend The Girl of Fire and Thorns to anyone looking for an enjoyable high fantasy read featuring a strong heroine - and strong supporting female characters, and I very much look forward to what Carson comes up with next.

Review: Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien

Birthmarked
by Caragh O’Brien
March 30, 2010
Borrowed from Library
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: B+

IN THE ENCLAVE, YOUR SCARS SET YOU APART, and the newly born will change the future.

Sixteen-year-old Gaia Stone and her mother faithfully deliver their quota of three infants every month. But when Gaia’s mother is brutally taken away by the very people she serves, Gaia must question whether the Enclave deserves such loyalty. A stunning adventure brought to life by a memorable heroine, this dystopian debut will have readers racing all the way to the dramatic finish.

---

I wanted to reread Birthmarked before reading its sequel Prized, and since I never reviewed it, I’m going to do so now.  Of course, I’m not totally comfortable reviewing rereads so we’ll see how this goes.  On the second read, this book still makes me love it and shudder at the thought of my beloved Great Lakes going dry and becoming desert-dry valleys or ‘unlakes’ in the parlance of the book. 

Gaia is an interesting heroine.  She’s a midwife instead of the ass-kicker more common to young adult fiction.  She’s also incredibly stubborn, not terribly quick on her verbal feet, and has built rarely-breached walls around herself.  Gaia believes she fell into a pot of hot melted beeswax when she was a baby, causing a massive scar across her left cheek.  The scar and the stares caused by it have caused her to pull into herself, pushing away anyone who tries to become anything closer than an acquaintance.  I seriously enjoyed watching her grow from a reticent village midwife into someone who could very easily be called a freedom fighter. 

On the other hand, her about face from dutifully taking newborn babies from their mothers to deliver to the walled Enclave to thinking that the Enclave’s system was evil happened almost too quickly - within just a matter of pages.  But once Gaia decides something, she decides it with her entire heart and judges all those around her accordingly.  It’s a trait I enjoy in main characters even when it makes me want to repeatedly beat them over the head for being a judgemental ass.  Her utter loyalty to those she loves - her parents who she runs into danger for, the babies she delivers, her friend Emily who she’d protect at all costs - dovetails nicely with the decisiveness.  They combine to effect most of the action in the book.

The overarching world-building in Birthmarked isn’t always of the highest caliber.  It’s understandable that the characters wouldn’t wander around talking about whatever happened 300 years ago to cause the climate to change and the lakes to dry up.  But some additional information about the current society, how the Enclave and Wharfton developed and how they currently function would have been interesting. My biggest issue here is the use of hemophilia.  Those who live in the Enclave (inside the wall) are suffering from inbreeding, and one of the results in this society is ever more common occurrences of hemophilia.  Except that it seems to be used incorrectly.  Hemophilia is a recessive trait carried on the X chromosome which makes boys more likely to inherit the disease while girls tend to be carriers.  So why then does O’Brien have a family with a healthy son and a daughter who died of hemophilia?  If both parents have the gene, than both the father and the son should also have the disease.  It’s a frustrating problem because hemophilia is such a well-known disease.  A rare disease could have gotten away with some errors, and I wish O’Brien had chosen to go in that direction.

This bugs me even more because so much of O’Brien’s other worldbuilding is incredible.  Her details about midwivery and herbs are obviously well-researched and considered.  The description of Gaia’s rundown village of Wharfton as teeming with life contrasting with the literal and figurative sterility of the Enclave was very well done.  The comparison managed to be subtle and slowly grow throughout the story instead of hitting the reader over the head with its obviousness.

There’s very little romance so if that’s what you’re looking for, I’d probably advise another book, but Gaia and her potential love interest have a well-developed relationship that moves from antagonism to uneasy allies to antagonism again to potential friends or more.  I was pleasantly surprised that the interactions managed to avoid all the cliches from hate-at-first-sight to insta-love or starcrossed lovers.

The end of Birthmarked throws everything completely up in the air, and I don’t expect Prized to cover any of the same ground (literally or figuratively) as the first book in the trilogy.  It should be an interesting ride!  I’d definitely recommend Birthmarked to anyone looking for a character-driven dystopian novel with a stubbornly determined heroine at the heart.

Review: Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus Book 2)

by Rick Riordan

October 4, 2011

Bought in Hardcover

Goodreads Link

Amazon Link

Grade: B

In the first pages of this standalone sequel to The Lost Hero, Percy Jackson remembers only his name and the name of Annabeth, a mysterious woman he associates somehow with the city of San Francisco. From those sparse clues, he must somehow complete a mission for the leader of the Roman camp even as he is being pursued by the two sisters of Medusa, who possess an apparently unquenchable thirst for vengeance: Even when killed, they spring back to life. Rick Riordan's second Heroes of Olympus promises even more excitement than the first.

---

Rick Riordan has a very simple formula for his books.  There’s some camp life, a demigod receives a quest, the chosen teen and his friends go off into Incredible Danger. run into gods and monsters to help or hinder them, complete the quest against all odds, and come back to camp victorious.  Knowing that, I probably shouldn’t enjoy them as much as I do, but the books are also a great example of ‘it’s not the destination; it’s the journey.’

Son of Neptune is no different, but I still waited breathlessly for a year after reading The Lost Hero, and I totally expect to wait on the edge of my seat for the next twelve months until The Mark of Athena is released.  Actually I’m pretty sure I’m going to be even more desperate to read book 3 because the set up for it at the end of this book is so incredibly cool!

The eponymous Son of Neptune is, of course, everyone’s favourite Son of Poseidon Percy Jackson (well, okay, if Tyson’s your favourite, I can get behind that).  He begins the book remembering nothing about his past except a name – Annabeth.  Even though Percy only slowly regains his memory, he’s still the badass but dorky guy who’s completely and inexorably loyal to his friends.  The mystery that made Jason so intriguing in The Lost Hero is nowhere to be found since the reader already knows the truth about Percy, but it’s still interesting to watch the character we know so well interact with a entirely new society in the Roman demigod camp.

And the Roman camp is very cool.  The contrast with Camp Half-Blood is instant and major as the Romans run their camp as (what else) a Roman legion.  Each demigod serves 10 years in the Legion before being released with an option to live in the small city protected by the legion.  While Greek demigods assume they’ll die young, the Romans have figured out a way for generations of demigods to exist.  I loved the legion and cohorts and Reyna as the ultimate badass Praetor.  The Romans have the same rivalries and politics as the Greek camp; they’re just oriented differently - between cohorts rather than between children of different gods.  And like the ancient Romans, the Roman establishment is aware of - and completely distrusting of - the Greeks.  I completely cracked up at one point when a Roman demigod busts out the old “don’t trust Greeks bearing gifts!”

The two demigods who accompany Percy on the inevitable quest both have the typical Riordan ‘horrible secret’ that must never be told to their friends.  I was happy that that particular plot point was resolved earlier than the similar one in The Lost Hero, and both demigods - Hazel, daughter of Pluto and Frank, son of ...well, that’s a bit of a plot point - are interesting and endearing.  I especially enjoyed Hazel who’s the complete opposite of what one would expect from a child of Pluto/Hades.  She’s a little bit younger than the other demigods but probably way more responsible than most, and she’s the excellent contradiction of a sweet badass.  I loved Frank in all his ineptness and growing confidence, but he was on the more typical ‘I need to learn to trust myself’ journey, and while the specifics of the journey were interesting, it mostly felt like we’d already traveled that road more than a few times in this series.

So yeah, I enjoyed Son of Neptune, but the seams of Riordan’s writing show more in this book.  Much of it felt like action that simply had to be slogged through before the possible (hopeful!) gamechanging of the third book.  I liked Percy, Hazel, and the Roman camp, but the specifics of the quest weren’t entirely enjoyable this time.  I’ll definitely stick with the series because book 3 looks really cool, but if I were trying to get people to read the books, I wouldn’t start with this one!  (Other than, you know, it’s book two.)

Review: The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

The Name of the Star
by Maureen Johnson
September 29, 2011
Bought in Hardcover
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: A+

The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it's the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper events of more than a century ago.

Soon “Rippermania” takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police believe to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him. Even her roommate, who was walking with her at the time, didn't notice the mysterious man. So why can only Rory see him? And more urgently, why has Rory become his next target? In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, full of suspense, humor, and romance, Rory will learn the truth about the secret ghost police of London and discover her own shocking abilities.

---

The only book of Maureen Johnson’s that I read before this was 13 Little Blue Envelopes, and my attention wasn’t really caught by that one. But between the London setting and the boarding school and the main character’s awesome name, I had to pick up The Name of the Star.  I’m so happy I did.  This book was atmospheric, suspenseful, spooky, and downright hilarious.  It’s an odd combination if you look at it that way, but trust me, it worked. 

I seriously enjoyed how Johnson began the book in a completely normal world.  Rory was concerned about moving to London, adjusting to boarding school and her roommate, dealing with classes, differing expectations, and the cold for the first third of the book with only the slightest hints of the paranormal oddness to come.  I could see where some could be annoyed by the long introduction, but I thought it did an amazing job in both setting the scene and introducing us to Rory as she is before her life is turned about.  Also it gave the author the opportunity to write some absolutely hilarious narrative sequences.  I don’t usually laugh out loud during a book, but The Name of the Star had me absolutely cackling in places.

The hints of the paranormal were introduced subtly and could easily go unnoticed, but slowly they begin to pile up until neither Rory nor the reader can ignore the evidence in front of them.  I don’t mean to imply that Rory was unobservant because I felt her slow realization was a nice touch as the completely normal girl was introduced to a world beyond the obvious.

As the ghostly storyline began to take over, we see less and less of Wexford School and the friends Rory made there.  It certainly makes sense since Rory’s focus is anywhere but on schoolwork, but I did miss the school details and Rory’s interactions with her friends and classmates.  A fair amount of the action here begins to seem implausible.  Not the actual ghost plot because that was both well-done and an interesting take on the idea.  Instead I mean the fact that the housemistress and headmaster of Wexford seem to not mind at all as Rory is taken in and out of their locked down school or that Rory’s (or the other students’) parents are completely pacified by reassurances and don’t immediately pull their children from school after a murder occurs on school grounds.

Rory was an intriguing and endearing heroine.  Her reactions to all things British were absolutely hilarious without ever crossing the fine line of mocking either Rory or British customs.  Rory’s stories about her family and life back in Louisiana also stayed on the good side of that line.  In the hands of another author, the stories could have turned into mere stereotypes or picked up a nasty or derisive quality.  Instead each of them was hilarious, gently mocking and loving. I liked that Johnson allowed her main character to be smart and resourceful enough to figure things out instead of always needing to get explanations or spoonfeeding the information to either Rory or the readers.  Managing to avoid the cliche of rushing into everything, Rory absorbs every single bit of information and then sits down to put it all together later.  The conclusions she comes to aren’t always correct but at least she thinks about her observations!

Despite not having a huge amount of face time, Rory’s classmates mostly managed to be three-dimensional characters who one could really believe lived a whole life apart from their interactions with the main character.  Jazza especially was fantastic, and every scene she appeared in made me smile or want to reassure her or just be her friend myself.  I also enjoyed Alistair in all his sullen snarkyness, Jerome and his attempted muckraking, and Charlotte the officious Head Girl.  In the interest of keeping this review as spoiler free as possible (and not violating the Official Secrets Act), I’m not going to really get into the members of the Ghost Squad, but suffice it to say that they were also fully defined and interesting characters.  I’d read a full novel about any of the secondary characters in this book - they all intrigued me that much.

I knew going in that The Name of the Star was the first book in a new series so I was pleasantly surprised to find an actual conclusion to this volume.  There’s still a hook which would make it clear another installment was coming, but the so-called A plot of the book was happily resolved.  Thankfully because I can’t take another series of cliffhangers!  I'm a little sad this book is going to be billed as a ‘paranormal romance' because the romance part is much smaller than one might expect given that description.  It's much more of a contemporary ghost story! I really was pleased that the main focus was not on what guy Rory was or wasn’t in love with though some readers may definitely prefer more swoonage in their paranormal read!

From the length of my review, you can tell how much I enjoyed this book!  It’s a talky enjoyment as opposed to utter flaily ‘I have nothing to say except squee!’ enjoyment, but I love it all the same.  I’d definitely recommend The Name of the Star to anyone looking for a new take on a ghost story, an amazing atmospheric setting, and really great characters to fall in love with.  ...now does anyone know when the second book will be coming out?