Review: Raven Rise (Pendragon Book Nine)

Raven Rise by D.J. MacHale

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
In the ninth installment of Bobby Pendragon's quest to save Halla from the clutches of Saint Dane, things go from crummy to worse. Mark and Courtney don't know what to believe when Saint Dane tells them that Bobby has given up the fight, don't know what they've started when Mark loses his traveler ring, and don't know what to do when they return to a Second Earth where nothing is as it once was.

These books are really interesting to me on a craft level. On the one hand, the plotting is top notch; with most of this series, I think I see the final twist coming, I usually predict one right, and then WHAM! Something comes flying in out of left field that I never anticipated. But it doesn't feel like a cheat. It's just really excellent story telling.

On the other hand, I find myself pretty much constantly annoyed with some of the actual writing. D.J. MacHale is a perfect example of telling instead of showing. What he normally does is show us something and then tell us about it. Several times. For example:

"Welcome back," he said warmly, as if he actually meant it. "I was afraid you'd miss the festivities. Close your eyes; I'll put some lights on."

What a courteous guy! He didn't want me to be uncomfortable when he flicked on the lights. How thoughtful. I'd have thanked him if I hadn't wanted to hurt him.

MacHale is trying for the easy conversationalism and sarcasm of Bobby's internal monologue, but really, he just succeeds in telling us the same thing twice. And he does it over and over and over again throughout the book. The tome's 544 pages could probably have been trimmed by a third by an editor with a canny eye. As it is, I spend a lot of time skimming with these books.

Also, his tenses bother me. Everything Bobby writes in his journals is in the past tense. Everything. Even things that are still true. If he means, "I love Coke," as in, he still loves it even when he is writing the journal, he will nevertheless say "I loved Coke," as if the love had passed. I know, it's a grammarian thing, but it bugs the heck out of me and has for all nine books.

But that's the interesting part. I still love the story. I'm still coming back for more. And I'm still REALLY disappointed that the last book of the series isn't out yet so I can run out and read it.

Definitely good for guys, especially guys who like a series they can sink their teeth into. But girls will probably like it just as much. Hooray for female characters who kick ass!


View all my reviews.

Review: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Aly Carter

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have to admit: I've really got a thing for spy books, especially spy schools, and the Gallagher Girls really hit me right where I live. So fun! So snarky!



Cammie, the main character, has such a wonderfully realized voice. These books work because Cammie is believable not only as a spy, but as a teenage girl.



While I tore through this one almost as fast as the first in the series (I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You), I wasn't quite as engaged. It seemed like we were covering similar ground even though the boy was at the school this time instead of outside of it. I really wished there was more at stake for Cammie, and I found myself disappointed that the big sting at the end was a manufactured test rather than a real emergency. I want Cammie to have more riding on her decisions than just whether or not she gets the guy.



I'll probably keep reading this series in the hopes that Aly Carter will up the ante for her Gallagher Girls. I feel like there's a lot I can learn from her voice and tone.



Great for any YA reader, especially girls with some spunk. 10+


View all my reviews.

Review: The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love a book that takes an familiar trope and turns it on its ear. Forget what you know from other books about fairies; Charles de Lint's fairies aren't particularly beautiful, but they are a little bit wicked. I loved the way he mixed elements from fantasy, science fiction, even horror to create his world.

The characters are realistic and believable, and the issues they deal with are real as much as they are fantastic. Bullying, oppressive parents, parents who don't care enough, image and one's real self all come into play. Not to mention soul sucking shadow creatures, fairies, ghosts, angels and an imaginary friend named Pelly who is half boy, half hedgehog, half rabbit.

Great book, probably for slightly older YA audience. 14+ for good measure.

View all my reviews.

Review: The City of Ember

[Reposted from 2005]

I have to admit, The City of Ember caught my eye because of its cover. The cover of the paperback is a slightly shiny metallic bronze color, with a single light bulb, the filament of which spells out the word "ember." It's very aesthetically pleasing.

Ember is classified as a young adult book, and while I did end up enjoying it, it commits itself to a fallacy that I think young adult literature needs to strive harder to overcome: it talks down to the reader.

One of the main reasons that the Harry Potter books are so insanely popular is that, while definitely aimed at a young audience, Rowling never dumbs down her story or her language to "accommodate" her younger readers. Quite frankly, they don't need it. Society does quite enough dumbing down for our kids, and personally, I think what they need more of is a challenge.

[/soapbox]

The City of Ember is the story of a city where it is dark all the time, but there is no moon, and no stars. The sky is black, and the city is lit entirely by electric lights, which have begun to fail. At one time the citizens of Ember had all they could want in the way of material goods like clothes and canned food, but now things have begun to run out. There is even a rumor going around that they are running out of light bulbs, and if the lights go out in Ember...

The story follows two twelve year old children, Lina and Doon. At the end of their school year when they are twelve, all children get assigned a job in the city. Lina wants to be a messenger, but she draws the dreaded job of pipesworker, fixing and maintaining the water pipes that run under the city. Doon draws messenger and offers to trade -- he wants to work in the pipeworks, because he wants to try to figure out how to fix the electricity.

But there's very little a twelve year old boy can do, when no one in all of Ember really understands the generator, or the electricity. When Lina finds part of an old message, however, she and Doon realize that there may be a way out of Ember and a better life for everyone.

The plot and the characters are engaging, but, as I said, unsophisticated. Lina and Doon don't think or speak or act the way I would expect a normal twelve-year-old person to act, and they certainly don't act as though they are adults, which is what the book would have you believe -- they get jobs when they are twelve and become productive members of society.

Honestly, I feel as though the author might have been missing a bet, trying to simplify her story for children. The message that Lina finds could have been an excellent plot device to engage the audience into trying to figure it out with her, but the author doesn't provide us with enough clues to figure it out for ourselves; so when Lina and Doon do begin to translate bits of the message, it's almost anticlimactic, because it seems to come too easily to them.

The one other thing that bothered me about this book is that it ends with a cliffhanger. It's a particular pet peeve of mine that books should not end with the characters hovering between life and death, and although Doon and Lina are not dangling from a cliff or watching an army ready for the attack, their situation at the end of the book is no less hazardous. The City of Ember is not a long book, which makes me wonder why the author chose to make it two (the second is called The People of Sparks) instead of simply continuing the story to its logical conclusion.

Overall: a tad disappointing, which, I suppose, teaches me that I should stop choosing my books by their covers, no matter how intriguing...

Review: Into the Wild

Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a GREAT idea! Wish I'd thought of it!

Julie lives in suburban Massachusetts with her mother, Rapunzel, and her adopted brother, Puss In Boots. Her mother, brother, and a host of their friends all escaped from The Wild hundreds of years ago, where they had been imprisoned, forced to relive their fairytale stories over and over and over again. The Wild is now imprisoned under Julie's bed.

Until it isn't.

I loved the way this story took every fairy tale convention and turned it on its head. Goldie(locks) is a self-centered woman only concerned with what SHE wants; Cindy wears ridiculous clothes and drives around in a bright orange suburban; and Snow's seven have very old-fashioned ideas about whether young ladies should be wearing jeans at the dinner table. So fun!

This was a quick, fun, energetic story, and the characters were so compelling, I can't wait to read the sequel.

View all my reviews.

Review: Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you don't read the blog boingboing.net, you should. And if you like what you see, then you should definitely read Little Brother.

Written by Cory Doctorow, one of the editors of the delightfully subversive, fascinating and informative blog Boing Boing, Little Brother doesn't disappoint in any measure. It's a quick read, with lots of action, strong characters with good voices, and a quick-moving plot.

Like another of my recent reads, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, this book is a pseudo-issues book, tackling the issue of individual freedoms versus national safety.

In the near future, Marcus and some friends ditch school to participate in the scavenger hunt portion of an online game, and are therefore in the wrong place at the worst possible time when a terrorist attack blows up the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Arrested and held by the Department of Homeland Security, Marcus and his friends quickly learn what personal freedoms really mean, and when the DHS takes over the city, detaining, questioning, and wrongly imprisoning hundreds of innocent civilians in the pursuit of terrorists, the teens decide to fight back.

Part of the fascination of this book is its plausibility. Doctorow takes his plot to logical extremes, and all of the digital subversion the teens participate in is based in real technology and theory.

As with The Disreputable History, I was impressed with the way the author's argument was presented. While it's clear where Doctorow and his main characters stand on the issues, he presents the arguments of the other side and allows his characters to argue smartly, even eloquently for their side. We sometimes see the opposing characters as bumbling or moronic because they are seen through Marcus' eyes, but Doctorow doesn't take any shortcuts explaining his side of the argument.

It's also a great example of another trend I've been seeing in YA lately — authors giving their intended audience a great deal of credit. These books treat their teen audience as near-adults who think and decide for themselves, which is as it should be.

I've no doubt Little Brother will be challenged and banned widely — for a lot of reasons. So pin your "I read banned books" button proudly to your lapel and download it for free from the author's website if you can't get your hands on a copy anywhere else.


View all my reviews.

Review: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am not a very good feminist. I always thought I was sort of fair to middling, but now I realize that I usually only see something through a feminist viewpoint if someone else points it out to me. It's something I'd like to change.

In fact, I wish I had had this book when I was a teenager (or, more specifically, I wish it has existed when I was a teenager) because it really made some great points about being a young woman in a male dominated society.

Frankie Landau-Banks attends a prestigious boarding school whose students go on to Ivy-League colleges, big business and politics. At first, she doesn't think much about the Old Boys network she is a part of until she decides she really wants to be a part of it — and can't. It might have to do with the fact that she's not rich enough, not well-connected enough, maybe even not Christian enough (at all) — or it might just be that she's not male enough.

I loved the way the author wove in the feminist ideas without beating people over the head with them. Frankie's older sister is away in college at Berkley and has a lot of strong feminist ideas, not all of which Frankie is ready to accept. After Frankie's (rich, powerful, old boy) boyfriend gives her his favorite T-shirt, Frankie and Zada have the following conversation:

But when she told Zada about it, Zada said, "Ugh. Frankie, don't be so retro. I mean, Matthew's a good guy and all, but wearing his T-shirt is like wearing a sign that says 'Property of Matthew Livingston' on your breasts."

"Zada!"

"Well, it is."

"It is not."

"It's like he's marking you."

"On the contrary," Frankie snapped. "He gave me something he loves, something he usually wouldn't want to be without."

Throughout the book, Frankie needs to make up her own mind about how she sees the world. Unfortunately, she doesn't always like what she sees. But the author doesn't villify anyone, either. There are other young women in the book who are happy being trophy girlfriends, or enjoy being domestic and fitting traditional female roles, and neither Frankie nor the author judge them for their decisions. They leave that entirely up to the reader.

Even the boys, who are sometimes less than virtuous knights in shining armor, aren't truly the villains of this story. They are as much the heroes of their own stories as Frankie is of hers.

The story was fun and rambunctious even without getting into feminist theory, but I think the underlying message is a really great one for young women to think about — and make up their own minds about. I wish I'd had a big sister Zada, or an E. Lockheart to make me think about these things when I was a teen.


View all my reviews.

Suite Scarlett

Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I had trouble getting into this book. I liked Scarlett as a character, and I liked her quirky family and odd guest at the hotel, but I felt like nothing ever really happened. It had a very episodic feel to me, as if I were reading the quirky adventures of Scarlett in her hotel. Tune in next week! There also never really seemed to be very much at stake for her or any of the other characters.



I wanted to love it! But ended up thinking it was just OK.


View all my reviews.

Currently Reading:

Or, about to start reading, at any rate. I've heard great things about this book, and I've had a hold on it at the library for AGES, and it finally came in! WOO!

Thoughts and Books

It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that I don't write when I'm unhappy. I don't do much of anything I'm "supposed" to do (exercise, eat right), but it seems particularly hard to force writing.

This past week has been something of an unhappy week for me, for various reasons. I turned to journaling to help me through it, but I didn't do much of any writing on my project.

And maybe that's OK. It seems worse to force it. It seems like it would only make me feel worse to write crap, and have to deal with the subsequent self-doubt that would emerge. I'm much better at dealing with crap when I'm feeling generally positive about the rest of my life.

~*~

On a lighter note, I finished "The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney" last week, and quite enjoyed it. It was a library read, and not something I would normally have picked up, but I am trying to broaden my horizons.

Now I'm working on "Specials" and man — why didn't I pick this up sooner? It's everything I love about scify, and well written to boot. So yay for that.

YA

There's a great post from Boing Boing's Cory Doctrow about good reasons to visit the YA section of your bookstore.

Reviews: Trickster's Queen and In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce

I have a bad habit of starting to read some series right smack dab in the middle. And then, of course, once I realize that it's a series, I have to go back to the beginning and read everything I can get my grubby little paws on as quickly as possible. I love to read series. I love having my favorite characters grow and change and -- best of all -- keep growing and changing for as long as possible. Frankly, I never want them to end.

In reading Trickster's Choice I was unwittingly doing just that. I thought it was the beginning of a series -- which it is -- but it is also the next generation of an already well-developed and well-loved fantasy universe with at least eight (probably more) books preceding it. Intrigued, I picked up one of its predecessors, In the Hand of the Goddess, at a used bookstore and read it in one sitting on my flights from Albquerque to Orange County this weekend. Trickster's Queen, the sequel to Trickster's Choice, was one of my freebie selections for joining audible.com, so I listened to it on my iPod.

First, a little background information: In the Hand of the Goddess is the second book in the first cycle of books based in the Tortall universe, and centers around Alanna, a young woman who has switched places with her twin brother in order to become a knight. By this second book, she has made it past her years as a page and has been made personal squire to Jonathan, the prince of Tortall, who is one of the only people who knows her secret. The Trickster's books are about Aly -- Alanna's daughter -- and set some twenty-to-thirty odd years later.

The most interesting thing for me to note reading these two books in such quick succession is how much the author has grown. In the Hand of the Goddess is often trite, clichéd, jumpy, and a much simpler story than Trickster's Queen. (I got quickly sick of the beautiful and spunky Alanna turning down the advances of the handsome prince and the clever king of thieves because she claimed she would never love a man. I got equally tired of their persistent fawning over her as well.) Where the one is predictable and ultimately unsatisfying, the other is engrossing, intricate, and unique.

It's a very interesting contrast to compare the two books from different points in the author's personal history and realize how much she has grown as a writer. Trickster's Queen is probably twice as long and infinitely more complex than In the Hand of the Goddess, yet one can see the burgeoning talent of the author peeking through even in this earlier work. I was fascinated.

Also, as an aside, in Trickster's Queen, Aly finally gets it on with the hottie crow-man Nawat. Thank GOD. I was going crazy on her behalf. ;c)

Review: Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce

Yesterday, it was POURING down rain -- again. (Seriously people, if anyone has an extra ark they could lend me, I think we're going to need it.) And yet, undeterred by said downpour, at 3:30 yesterday afternoon, I went downstairs, out to my car, in the pouring rain, wearing a suit and dress shoes, so that I could spend my 15 minute break reading and finishing Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce.

Trickster's Choice revolves around a girl named Aly who is, as far as I can tell, a second generation heroine in this series, which is to say, there are quite a few books which come before which seem to have to do with her parents and godparents and their generation. Aly is the only daughter of The Lioness, the first woman knight of the realm and champion to the king, and a common thief turned master spy. Her godsparents include the king and queen of her country, a mage and his demigoddess shape-shifting wife, and probably others. Aly wants to be a spy for her father, but he refuses, saying that the life is too hard and too dangerous for his only daughter. In a fit of impetuous independence, Aly takes her boat out with the intention of visiting friends up the coast, but is instead captured by pirates and sold into slavery. Luck -- and a lot of uncommon good sense -- are on Aly's side, and she is sold to a kind family. She is about to be sold again when the Kyprioth, the Trickster God, appears to her and makes her a wager: if she can keep the children of her Master's family alive through the summer, he will send her home and help her maker her father see reason and let her be a spy.

Of course, one should never make a wager with a god, especially not a Trickster.

This is the first real high fantasy novel I've read in I can't tell you HOW many years, and I had forgotten why I used to love fantasy novels so much. This book has everything a fantasy lover could want: rich details, complex political and social histories, and intriguing lands, peoples, magic, creatures, etc. etc. etc.. Aly's world is distinct, unique, and interesting, and it doesn't fall back too much on clichéd fantasy stereotypes. The characters are realistically drawn, and even though it is a cast of dozens (there's a glossary of people and places at the back to help you keep track) each character is unique and compelling. These kinds of books suck you straight into their world and clamp down, holding onto your attention with an iron grip.

My favorite character -- besides Aly -- was the crow sent to help her, Nawat. The crows are servants of the Trickster God, and Nawat chooses to take on human form to help Aly. He's very quick, very strong, and very smart, but naive to the ways of humans, of course. He brings Aly shiny things that he thinks will please her, and catches arrows with his bare hands, and teaches Aly to understand the language of the crows. And he eats bugs. But he's delicious and sweet and if Aly doesn't want him, I'll take him. Some of the bits with Nawat made me giggle right out loud like a sixteen-year-old fangirl myself. =)

The best part of this book is that the author knew she had an epic story to tell, so she doesn't try to tell it all at once. The story never feels rushed, but at the same time, when the book ends, you don't feel as though you're left hanging -- you just want to dash out an buy the next book as soon as possible! (Which I shall probably do on my lunch break today!)

I'm such a sucker for a series. If the first book is halfway decent, as long as it has compelling characters, I am there. I'll be loyal to a series and read it 'til it's through. (The only series I've ever dropped part way through was Piers Anthony's Xanth books, but I think I can be forgiven for that, as there're about 50 of them now, and the last 25 or so are all complete and utter crap.) So I'm entirely excited about having a new series to follow, and desperately eager to go out in the rain -- again -- today, and buy the next in the series, Trickster's Queen.

Review: Whale Talk by Chris Cutcher

If I had to choose one word to describe this book, it would be harsh. And I mean that in a good way.

Whale Talk was one of the books on the recommended reading list for my upcoming Children's Author's Bootcamp conference, which is why I went out and bought it. I probably would not have been drawn to it or purchased it otherwise, because the cover and the summary make it seem like it is a book about sports.

It is, in fact, so much more.

The main character is a boy named T.J. Jones (the J is redundant). He is part black, part white, and part Japanese, living in a small town in Washington state. He is adopted. He is exceptionally athletic, but has anger management issues, so avoids organized sports. Because of this, he is ostracized by his highly sport-centric high school. (Think "Friday Night Lights.")

T.J.'s favorite teacher is told by the administration that he has to take on coaching duties because they are short on male teachers, and they suggest he be the assistant wrestling coach. The teacher doesn't want to, and instead proposes that he form a swim team with T.J. -- an accomplished amateur swimmer -- as its core.

T.J. is skeptical. He wants nothing to do with organized sports, so at first declines. However, on his way home from school, he sees one of the football gods of the school hassling a mentally challenged boy who wears his dead brother's letter jacket. T.J. stands up for the other boy, and the football jock declares that no one should be allowed to wear a letter jacket unless he earns it, which sets T.J. to thinking.

Agreeing to join the swim team, T.J. goes out of his way to recruit every outcast, misfit, and weird-o the school has to offer, including the mentally challenged boy. His plan is to get them all into letter jackets by the end of the year.

Their struggle for recognition and acceptance is the underlying plot of Whale Talk, but it has more subplots than "General Hospital" and "Days of Our Lives" combined. Each character has a story; each story will break your heart. Whale Talk does not sugar coat the teenage experience. In fact, one might go so far as to say that the circumstances given to the main characters of this book are all rather extreme, yet that is part of what makes this book so powerful. T.J. tells the story honestly from his own point of view, and he realizes that, while he most definitely has his share of problems, they are frequently dwarfed by the everyday challenges some of his peers are met with.

Although this is classified as a Young Adult novel, it is not for the faint of heart. In just a few hundred pages, T.J. encounters racism, mental illness, poverty, homelessness, child abuse, manslaughter, murder, sexual abuse, date rape, cruelty to animals, bigotry, elitism, mob mentality, and small town politics -- just to name a few off the top of my head. Parts of this book had me practically in tears from the sheer horror of what was going on. More than once I actually had my hand pressed over my mouth in shock, even as my eyes were glued to the page.

And the novel never fails to keep you on your toes. I was still being surprised and knocked off my feet by the plot twists to the very last page. You will NEVER see the ending coming.

The characters, while laden with more emotional baggage than your average group of high schoolers should rightfully have, are nevertheless all starkly and accurately drawn. We have all known these kids, or some iteration thereof, and T.J.'s ragamuffin swim team gives them a credible excuse to all be in the same place at the same time. The boys are all lovable in their own unique ways, some because you feel so sorry for them, others because they are ennobled through their thoughts and actions, others because they are simply and purely lovable. The bad guys, while the quintessential extremes of small town evil, are also given enough background to make them seem credible and understandable. Again, most of us will (sadly) recognize these boys, these men, from experiences in our own lives.

T.J.'s voice is the glue that holds these many interwoven plots together, and it is a strong voice. You know this kid from the moment he starts to speak; he is frank and frustrated, honest to a fault, angry with good reason, and trying desperately to be the good person he knows he is deep inside. He is fascinating, charismatic, and enthralling, and his story is brutal, painful, and true.

To say that this book is a page turner is putting it very lightly. It is short, and a lightening fast read, but it will have you wanting to finish it in a single sitting. Several times I found myself reading passages out loud to my husband because they were just so taughtly written and so perfectly worded. It is, as a whole, and exercise in decadent minimalism, telling you only what you need to know, but in such a way that each detail is as sharp as a razor, and as clear as the most perfect diamond.

To say that I liked this book is a revelation for me, because I can honestly say it's one of the first books of its kind that I ever enjoyed. Books of teenage angst didn't hold much interest for me as a teenager, let alone as an adult. Yet T.J. attacks his problems with such honesty and aplomb that you can't help but feel an affinity for him. For him, there is no angst, no wallowing in his ill luck. He simply lives his life and moves on, because if he pauses long enough to dwell on it, it will swallow him whole.