Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Marked
***** Marked by P. C. & Kristin Cast. Contemporary fantasy.
This is the first book in the House of Night series from this mother/daughter team. I'm a big fan of P. C. Cast's books, so I was very curious to see how her young adult series co-written with her daughter turned out.
I loved it.
Zoey Redbird is a typical 16-year-old (assuming there is such a thing!) until she's "marked" by a Tracker. This means she's a fledgling vampyre and has to go to the House of Night, a boarding school for those destined to become vampyres or die in the process.
Once there, she stands out because her mark is different, and she apparently has stronger powers than others her age... which doesn't exactly endear her to her peers.
The Casts have written a fresh take on vampires--impressive, given the vast number of vampire books out there. The characters are well-drawn and sympathetic, and the story pulled me in and kept me turning pages way past my bedtime.
I'm pretty sure the second book in the series, Betrayed, is in my TBR pile. I'm looking forward to it.
Disclaimer: I haven't read Twilight, though it is in my TBR pile, so I can't directly argue with the Amazon reviewers who said Marked was a not-as-good clone of Twilight. I seriously doubt that's the case, though. Meyer doesn't have a monopoly on vampires, vampire romance, or teen angst.
Categories: Books, 5stars, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Labels: 5 stars, books, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Monday, November 03, 2008
Forever My Lady
****½ Forever My Lady by Jeff Rivera. YA.
When Forever My Lady opens, Dio is preparing to interrupt the wedding of his true love Jennifer--with a gun. Then we back up a year to find out how he got to that point.
Dio is a 17-year-old gang member whose life changes when Jennifer ends up in the hospital with several gunshot wounds and Dio ends up in a prison boot camp.
Most of the story takes place at the boot camp, as Dio goes from surly and uncooperative to making friends and becoming competitive and determined to succeed. Through it all, his desire for a better life with Jennifer is his driving force.
The descriptions of his life in the boot camp are interspersed with memories and letters to and from Jennifer, and as the book progresses, you can see his growth both in the things he does and in the way he writes about them.
Boot camp was very vivid, particularly at the beginning, when it was all new to Dio. And it was very familiar. I kept thinking "and I volunteered for this?" (I went through army basic training--boot camp--O. M. G.--25 years ago, almost to the day. I hadn't realized it was that long.)
Dio's emotions and motivations were very clear, and right there on the page. I was moved to tears at several points, particularly when as an adult--or simply a reader, seeing things from the outside--I could see what was going to happen, but knew that given his personality and emotions, there was no way to avoid the upcoming pain or heartache.
Huge kudos to Jeff Rivera for treating Dio and Jennifer's emotions with the seriousness they deserved. So often, a teenage love affair is treated like puppy love, when that time of life is when emotions tend to be most intense. Plus, given these characters' backgrounds, they were certainly not children.
My only complaint is that the ending was just a little quick and easy. Maybe it needed to be that way, to fit with the beginning, and after all, Dio did do his soul-searching earlier. But it's not a big complaint--I love the way it ended, I'd just have liked the ending to be a couple of pages longer, is all.
I'll definitely be watching for Jeff Rivera's future books.
For an interview with the author, and a chance to win a copy of the book, go here.
Categories: Books, 4.5stars, YA
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Invasion of the Blue Lights
**** Invasion of the Blue Lights by Ruth Glick. Science fiction/YA.
In case you didn't know, Ruth Glick = Rebecca York. Which is why I bought this book. I'd found out about it in a discussion with Ruth here, and searched for it and bought it as a stocking stuffer for my youngest son (relevant post here). After he read (and enjoyed) it, I stuck it in my TBR pile and forgot about it.
It's a fairly simple story--only 126 pages, which makes sense, because it's for kids. Aaron is at loose ends after his best friend moved away. He sees a couple of blue lights in the sky, and one falls into the woods. When he investigates, it turns out to be a shape-changing alien.
He tries to befriend it, but then things turn dangerous, and he's forced to befriend the neighborhood bullies, first to save them, then to stop the alien.
There's a lot going on in this short book. Friendship is explored from several angles--the friendship Aaron had with his friend who'd moved away; his friendship with the first alien, which was one-sided; and his friendship with the two bullies, which started out as mutual need, then evolved into true friendship. There's a theme of loss--his first friend moving away, and the aliens leaving.
The boys are very realistic--for example, the two bullies are different from each other, and, of course, they're not horrible kids.
The adventure part of the book is likewise well done. The problems aren't solved all that easily, and even though it's a short book, there's not just one single problem.
I think what I liked best about this (and probably what Camden did, too) is that it wasn't dumbed-down for kids. There's trickery and treachery, and a bittersweet but hopeful ending with the aliens. Too bad Scholastic only bought the one story--I can see there's room for a sequel here.
Categories: Books, 4stars, ScienceFiction, YA
Labels: 4 stars, books, ScienceFiction, YA
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
**** Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling. Contemporary fantasy/YA. re-read.
This was my morning read with the boys. We've been doing this on school mornings for probably 8 years: while the kids eat breakfast, I read aloud to them. It started because the younger ones just wouldn't eat much, and I didn't want them to go off to school hungry (my kids are all skinny like I was as a kid--oh, how things change *sigh*). Now it's just something we all enjoy, even though the youngest is a teenager now.
Anyway. Harry Potter. It didn't improve for me on the re-read--in fact, I liked it better the first time through. And while the boys enjoyed it, they also got quite bored through the middle. Some mornings, we only read a handful of pages because they kept getting so distracted and going off on tangents. Contrast that with our current read, Guards! Guards!, and the difference is very noticeable. Instead of making silly comments and talking about unrelated topics, they're quiet, except for a laugh now and again. I think they were even more upset than I was with how the deaths were treated.
-read more-
Categories: Books, 4stars, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Labels: 4 stars, books, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
It's Not About the Accent
***** It's Not About the Accent by Caridad Ferrer. YA.
This time, I didn't buy the book from Cherry solidarity--I bought it because I knew it was going to be wonderful. I was right.
Caroline Darcy wants more than her boring small-town Ohio life, so when she goes off to college, she reinvents herself, using her Cuban great-grandmother as a role model, speaking Spanish, and calling herself "Carolina."
Her first day, she meets two guys: frat boy Erik, who finds her exotic; and quiet, serious Peter, who's half-Cuban himself.
She starts dating Erik and becomes close friends with Peter, and her best friend back home keeps telling her to give up the charade, but it just never seems to be the right time.
Then disaster strikes, Peter comes to her rescue, and with his encouragement, she starts researching Nana Ellie's life and discovers herself in the process.
Although I'm more than a couple decades older than Caroline, she's very easy to relate to. I vividly remember reinventing myself when I went off to college, as I'm sure a lot of us did. It's the perfect time to do so, and a time in your life where you're trying on different identities. I wasn't quite as brave and bold as Caroline, but I could understand how she felt.
What's best about Accent is how real it feels. More than once, I laughed aloud, and more than once I had tears running down my face--not just a lump in my throat, but actual tears. The characters are vivid and 3-dimensional. Even the ones who aren't heroes (trying to avoid spoilers) aren't all bad--they're human and understandable, and people you might meet.
Barb's an outstanding writer, and I'm looking forward to whatever she writes next, regardless of the genre. She has a gift for bringing characters to life.
...more
Categories: Books, 5stars, YA
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
****½ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling. Contemporary fantasy/YA.
Book 7. The end. And really, kudos to Rowling for sticking with making it a finite series. Kudos, too, for writing something that captured the imagination of so many people of all ages. It's incredible how widespread the appeal of Harry Potter is. I'm in awe of her imagination and ability to strike such a nearly-universal chord.
I very much enjoyed this book--all the wrapping up of various threads, the explanations, tying things together--it was a satisfying conclusion, fitting to the rest of the series.
That said, though, I'm not one of those who thinks these are the Best Books Ever™. Sorry, but I'm not. I acknowledge and applaud their popularity and entertainment value, but they're not perfect.
Everybody knows the story already, yes? Basically, it's Harry Potter, boy wizard, vs. Voldemort, the evilest dark wizard ever. And this is the last book, the showdown. Everything else is secondary to that. Right, then.
The biggest problem I had with Deathly Hallows is the Great Swampy Middle. Harry and only one or two of his friends (see how cleverly I avoided spoilers, there?) spend almost the whole middle half of the book wandering around pretty much aimlessly. Oh, things happen, but it's mostly just by luck or happenstance, and they spend an inordinate amount of time bored and discouraged, and that emotion really gets passed on to the reader. Case in point: I'm currently reading it aloud with my sons at breakfast. We're smack in the middle. At the beginning of the book, they were quiet, hanging on every word. Now, they interrupt, go off on tangents talking about other things--in short, they're not involved in this part of the book. They're bored.
My second biggest problem was the deaths. Oh, come on. That's not a spoiler. Everybody knows there are deaths--people have been speculating for years about who it'll be. I'm fine with there being deaths--it is a war, after all, and people die--but it's the way Rowling writes them. It's very casual, a behind-closed-doors sort of thing, the way some authors treat sex scenes. Which is also okay, in theory, except that generally, even if they close the door, you know the gist of what's going on behind it. Not so, here. I'm all for leaving out the gory physical details, but not the emotional ones. They were so down-played that I didn't even believe them, and that also goes for the previous two deaths in the series--I fully expected the characters to pop up again, because she didn't make the deaths real. I'm not sure I've explained it completely--every time I discuss it, somebody ends up thinking I'm either wanting nobody to die, or I'm wanting blood and guts. I guess the main thing is I wanted them to be more believable, and I wanted them to mean something. Yes, yes, in real life death is often pointless. But this isn't that kind of book.
Then there were the Deathly Hallows. Yes, they explain a couple of things, and answer a question I hadn't even thought to ask, but they seemed to come out of nowhere, and we're still burdened with the Horcruxes that came out of nowhere in the last book, and they really seemed to clutter up the plot.
The "romance" with Ginny was another pointless cluttering. She's hardly in the book at all, except for the occasional wistful thought from Harry, and I'd have been happier without it.
And Dudley. There's a Big Deal with him at the beginning of the book, but that's it. Over. Finished. No follow-through. Reeaaaally annoying.
Don't get me started on the epilogue. It was reminiscent of romance series epilogues, listing all the couples from the various books, and the number and gender of their offspring and pets. And it's just as pointless.
But yeah, apart from all that--I did enjoy the book, and I'm glad I read it, and I really meant all those earlier kudos.
...more
Categories: Books, 4stars, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Labels: 4 stars, books, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Wintersmith
***** Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett. Fantasy/YA.
I read this one in the mornings with the boys, before school was out--which gives you a little idea of how far behind I am, darnitall.
How to write about a Pratchett book without it degenerating into incoherent fangirly squeeing? I'll try, but I'm not making any promises.
This is the 3rd Tiffany Aching book, which is a subset of the Discworld series. Tiffany is a young witch-in-training.
In Wintersmith, Tiffany turns 13, which is a difficult enough time in any girl's life. But Tiffany's not just any girl, so things are exponentially more difficult. Her biggest problem starts when she (unintentionally, to be sure) steps into the dance between the Wintersmith and the Summer Lady, resulting in her taking on some of the attributes of the Summer Lady, and in the Wintersmith falling in love with her.
Then her current mentor, Miss Treason, announces that she'll be dying soon, and the race is on to decide who should take over her cottage. Tiffany is likely the best qualified, but Annagramma is older and more likely to be accepted by the locals.
Enter Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. Granny manipulates things in her usual twisted way, and Nanny is her usual blend of practicality and earthiness. And of course there are the Nac Mac Feegles, who are just hilarious.
Wintersmith is a young adult novel, but that's mostly because the heroine is 13. The story is universal enough and complex enough to appeal to adult readers as well.
Tiffany takes responsibility for a serious mistake--she gets advice and help along the way, but ultimately, she has to fix the problem herself.
She also has to bite the bullet, swallow her pride, and focus on what's best for everyone in the long run rather than what makes her happy now.
Both of those are lessons that aren't limited to young people--they're not easy for us grown-ups, either.
*sigh* Instead of squeeing, I ended up synopsizing. Sorry about that. It's a great book. I'd recommend reading Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky first, and maybe a couple of the Discworld witch books too, so you're familiar with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, but you probably don't have to.
...more
Categories: Books, 5stars, Fantasy, YA
Labels: 5 stars, books, fantasy, YA
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Total Constant Order
***** Total Constant Order by Crissa-Jean Chappell. Young adult.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, though I knew I was intrigued. The back cover blurb calls it "a haunting exploration of one teen's experience with OCD and Paxil," which kind of makes it sound like an informercial.
I think that's selling a wonderful story very short.
Fin is a high school student. Her parents are divorced, and she and her mother have moved to a new town in a new state. But her outside world isn't all that's out of control. Her mind is, too. She finds herself obsessed with numbers, with counting, with doing things in a precise pattern, and she feels helpless to stop.
Then she meets Thayer, who's even weirder than she is, and the unlikely pair begin a friendship that helps both of them.
Yes, Fin has OCD, and yes, she ends up taking Paxil and we see the effects it has on her, but Total Constant Order is about so much more than that. It's about growing up, about being a teenager--and let's face it, teenagers with or without OCD feel that their lives are beyond their control. It's about facing the problems of life with a friend, about learning when to ask for help, and about discovering that parents are fallible people, too.
In other words, it's a coming-of-age story, not unlike a fairy tale. Only Fin's battling OCD instead of a dragon.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and couldn't put it down. The descriptions of what was going on in Fin's head were so vivid and clear that the lines between "normal" and "crazy," never very distinct to begin with, were blurred, reminding me of the hero's POV from Tod Goldberg's Living Dead Girl. I felt with her the frustration as she tried to get help, and fell a little in love with Thayer along with her.
And at the same time, Fin's mom in particular made me think about parenting and trying to do our best with imperfect knowledge and difficult situations, while being imperfect ourselves.
All in all, a wonderful, relatable story that applies to everyone who is or has been a teenager.
...more
Categories: Books, 5stars, YA
Monday, April 16, 2007
Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
***** Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos by R. L. LaFevers. Y/A fantasy.
You may notice that my cover says "Theodosia Throckmorton and the Serpents of Chaos." Apparently, the title got changed. Weird.
Theodosia (her last name remains Throckmorton--it's only the book title that's been changed) is 11 years old and lives in London. The story takes place in 1906.
Theo's parents are archaeologists--her father runs a museum of antiquities while her mother is in the field. Her younger brother is away at school, something Theo's been working very hard to avoid for herself for two reasons: she feels it's a waste of her time, and she's busy enough as it is, trying to protect everyone from curses.
See, Theo can sense ancient curses on many of the artifacts in the museum, and she's developed ways of neutralizing them. And nobody else seems to realize they're there at all. With her mother and brother gone, Theo and her father spend most of their time at the museum, where he tends to lose himself in work, and she ends up spending her nights sleeping in a sarcophagus. It's safer.
When Theo's mother returns from her latest expedition, she brings the Heart of Egypt, which is seriously cursed. Theo needs to return it to Egypt, but before she can accomplish that, she teams up with her little brother and a street thief to foil evil villains, falls in with a secret society, accidentally curses her cat,... well, life is pretty hectic.
It's a wonderfully exciting story that doesn't talk down to kids, and provides quite a few situations they (or an adult who remembers being a child) can relate to. Even though Theodosia does possess a special gift, and her parents are neglectful and oblivious to the dangers she sees so clearly, the adults in this book aren't painted as bumbling idiots. Theo's parents and the adults of the secret society do their best with the information they have, and Theo knows when she needs the assistance of adults. Likewise, the children are neither completely helpless nor stupid. It's a nice balance.
Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos will be the Cherry Book Club book for the two weeks beginning June 1st.
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Categories: Books, 5stars, YA, Fantasy
Labels: 5 stars, books, fantasy, YA
Monday, January 29, 2007
Adios to My Old Life
***** Adiós to My Old Life by Caridad Ferrer. YA
Okay, so I bought this book out of Cherry solidarity, not because I expected to love it. I loved it anyway.
Ali is a 17-year-old musician. She lives with her widowed father, who's slightly overprotective. With the aid of her best friend Sosi, she sneaks out of the house to audition for Oye Mi Canto, a Latin version of American Idol.
When she wins the audition, her life is turned upside-down. She has to deal with her father's reaction to her deception and the conflict between what he wants for her and what she wants for herself, but that's just the beginning. Despite the fact that as the only underage contestant on the show, she has a chaperone (her father's best friend, Elaine), Ali is plunged into an adult world full of competition, backstabbing, and betrayal. Balancing it out is success, a better understanding between Ali and her father, first love, and above all, the music.
The best thing about Adiós to My Old Life is how real the characters are. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to turn on the TV and see an episode of Oye Mi Canto, or to browse through the CDs at the BX and find ones by Ali Montero or Guillermo, or Fabiana--though I wouldn't buy Fabiana's, and might hide it so nobody else could either, the bitch. Whoops. See what I mean? Real.
Other people have done much better jobs at dissecting this book--check here for a bunch of intelligent commentary, for example. I'll just say that Adiós to My Old Life made me laugh, cry, cheer, scream, and fill up my Your Music queue.
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Categories: Books, 5stars, YA
Saturday, January 27, 2007
The Magician's Ward
****½ The Magician's Ward by Patricia C. Wrede. Fantasy/YA.
This is the sequel to Mairelon the Magician. A couple of years after Mairelon (known in society as Richard Merrill) discovers Kim and takes her on as his apprentice, they're living in London with his prim and proper aunt.
When Kim discovers someone breaking into Mairelon's house, attempting to steal a particular book, it leads them into a mystery involving the disappearance of people with minor magical talent, hidden treasure, and ultimately the theft of Mairelon's power, leaving novice Kim to handle the magical part of their investigations.
In the meanwhile, Mairelon's mother and his disapproving aunt are busy introducing a reluctant Kim to Society. When she begins to be courted by young men, she realizes it's Mairelon she's really in love with.
One of the Amazon reviewers called this "J. K. Rowling meets Georgette Heyer," and that's a very apt description. The Magician's Ward is just as much a Regency romance as it is a Regency-set fantasy-mystery.
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Categories: Books, 4.5stars, Fantasy, YA
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, fantasy, YA
Sunday, December 03, 2006
**** Fangs 4 Freaks by Serena Robar. Contemporary fantasy/YA.
I was at a bit of a disadvantage with this story, which is the second in a series, because I hadn't read the first one. There was enough information that I wasn't lost completely, but there were still some things that weren't quite explained and left me wondering.
Colby Blanchard is a young woman (teenager?--one of those things that wasn't explained), a half-blood vampire (another thing that wasn't explained, though I surmised that it's someone who was turned into a vampire by a sire who's not powerful enough to make a full-blood vampire). Because she's won the right for half-bloods to exist (another question), she's been put in charge of training and protecting the other half-bloods, and keeping them under control. To that end, she's established a sorority house on the campus of a local university.
Not everyone is happy with her accomplishments, though, and her life (un-life) and those of the young women in her care, are in danger. Then one of them is murdered, and it seems as though there's a traitor in what she'd expected to be a happy little group of sisters (another thing I'm assuming was addressed in the first book--why all the half-bloods are female).
So Colby has to find the killer, with the help of her best friend Piper and her boyfriend, vampire investigator Thomas--when she allows him to help, that is.
The mystery aspect was pretty good, almost Christie-esque. The limited pool of suspects, all living together, all with opportunity, and all seemingly innocent, except the one suspect that no one likes, so you know they can't be the guilty party.
The world-building, on the other hand, was such that I'd say it's important to read the books in order. I could follow the story, but there was quite a bit that left me scratching my head.
Then there's the story of Colby herself, how she's growing into her role as protector, and the relationship between her and Thomas. And that, I think, was the book's biggest weakness. I realize that, as an ongoing series, you don't want the character to change too much, but Colby didn't change at all, and I was expecting her to. She's blundering ahead, thinking she knows everything, refusing to listen to advice, and angry when things go wrong. I'd have liked the book much better if she'd learned that sometimes you need to ask for help.
I was also a little confused by the tone of the relationship between Colby and Thomas. Throughout the book, she's pressuring him for sex, and reminds me of the girlfriend in 40 Days and 40 Nights with her either/or attitude. Either they have sex, or they break up. There's a brief, very erotic scene about drinking blood, and quite a lot of frank discussion about desire, but the actual sex scene is blurred over. Here's where knowing her age might have helped make some sense of it. And despite my liberal beliefs about sexuality, I was still a little squicked that this is a YA book--intended for readers the age of my younger son.
(postscript: in the previous book, Colby is 16, making her 16 or 17 in this one. Thomas's age isn't mentioned, but he's obviously much older. I'm squicked.)
The voice, also, didn't grab me. It's too much like too many other paranormal and chick lit voices--rude, bossy, and know-it-all, even, or maybe especially when she obviously doesn't. And it doesn't have the saving grace of humor, except at the expense of others. In short, I didn't like the main character. She sounds very much like Betsy from MaryJanice Davidson's Undead series, but without the warmth. Maybe it's her immaturity.
Still, it was an entertaining story. The characters of the other half-blood vampires were interesting and unusual, and the mystery was very well done. I'm not intrigued enough to search out the first book in the series, but other readers might. Bottom line: it seems like a good series for teens who aren't quite old enough for MJD, and who'd presumably be more tolerant of Colby's voice.
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Categories: Books, 4stars, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Labels: 4 stars, books, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Monday, June 26, 2006
****½ Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi. Contemporary fantasy, young adult.
I haven't read the first book in this series, Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace, so it took me a chapter or two to familiarize myself with the world. After that, though, it was a fast-moving, action-packed story.
In the story world, there are three supernatural races: beaststalkers, weredragons, and werachnids (were-spiders, etc.), in addition to ordinary humans, and the three races are enemies. Jennifer, however, is both a beaststalker and a weredragon, putting her right in the middle.
She's up against enmity and prejudices from both sides, and a half-brother who's weredragon/werachnid, who's just shown up wanting revenge for being stuck in what would be called on Angel a hell dimension.
The characters are well-developed and sympathetic, and there are no easy answers. I'll be looking for the first book.
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Categories: Books, 4.5stars, Fantasy, YA
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, ContemporaryFantasy, YA
Thursday, June 15, 2006
**** Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede. Fantasy, young-adult.
It was no Enchanted Forest Chronicles, but it was a fun story, nonetheless. 17-year-old Kim, a girl disguised as a boy, is a thief in Regency England, until she gets caught burgling an actual magician's wagon. But instead of being arrested or turned into a frog, Mairelon the Magician invites her to become his apprentice.
What follows is a madcap adventure, reminiscent of, say, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with several different parties, each with their own motivation, racing to be the first to collect the Saltash Platter and put together an entire set of magical artifacts. It's heavily flavored with 1800s English street cant, but it's easy enough to figure out once you've been reading for a while.
I've put the sequel on my list. Maybe I'll be able to talk my youngest into trying these, now that he's suddenly rediscovered reading.
....more
Categories: Books, 4stars, Fantasy, YA
Labels: 4 stars, books, fantasy, YA
