Thursday, February 16, 2012
Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
 While looking for something to read on a recent plane trip, I finally cracked open Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's Beautiful Creatures, a book that has been idling on my to-be-read shelf for over two years. Beautiful Creatures is set in Gatlin, South Carolina, a tiny town populated by "the stupid and the stuck... the ones who are bound to stay or too dumb to go". The novel's protagonist is sixteen-year-old Ethan Wate, who, still recovering from his mother's death and his father's resulting near-breakdown, is counting down the days until he graduates from high school and hightails it out of Gatlin. Ethan's single-minded focus on escaping his hometown wavers, however, when Lena Duchannes arrives in town. Lena is quiet and deliberately standoffish, but Ethan knows there's something strangely familiar about her. Much to my delight, there was no love triangle in this story. I can't even remember the last YA book I read without one, and I was so pleased about it I managed to forgive Garcia and Stohl for using one of my least-favorite literary cheats: dressing their heroine in Converse and emo outfits as evidence of her other-worldliness. (Note: Buying your clothes at Hot Topic instead of American Eagle doesn't make you special and hardcore and magical, kids. It just makes you a different flavor of mall rat.) In addition to the lack of a love triangle, the story was blessed with interesting secondary characters and an atmospheric—if clichéd—deep South setting. For once, my Converse-related irritation (which is normally a formidable force) didn't stand a chance. As you may recall, this was the series Warner Bros. bought the rights to, like, the second the first book came out, clearly hoping to enjoy a piece of Twilight-esque pie. I don't think Garcia and Stohl's series will ever achieve that level of popularity, but the first installment, at least, was love-triangle-free and more than entertaining enough to while away a plane ride, and for that I am sincerely grateful. Labels: Book Reviews, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Persuasion: An Annotated Edition, edited by Robert Morrison
 Before I get started, let me clarify something: this isn't a review of Jane Austen's Persuasion. It's more an extended hissyfit about the annotations featured in this particular edition of Persuasion, and therefore I'm going to assume it's only going to interest my fellow hardcore Austen nerds. (Sorry, non-hardcore-Austen-nerds. Try again tomorrow.) Anyway: VAGUE SPOILERS AHOY. I received this edition of Persuasion for my birthday, and—seeing as I'd suggested it to practically everyone I know as my ideal potential present—I was totally stoked about it. I read all of the annotations first, independent of the text, and then went back and re-read the book, finding at least 80% of editor Robert Morrison's notes both relevant and interesting. Unfortunately, that left the remaining 20%, which ranged from immaterial to incorrect to simply baffling. Examples include, but were not limited to: IMMATERIAL STUFF: Morrison's fondness for defining common Regency-era words: "'Consequence' is 'social status'"; "'Intelligence' is 'news' or 'information'", etc. I suspect most people willing to shell out $35 for an annotated edition of one of Austen's less popular books are already familiar with these terms.
INCORRECT STUFF: I really started to worry when Morrison defined "to be vain of" (used in Vol. II, Ch. 3 to describe Sir Walter, who found "much to be vain of" despite the "littleness" of Bath) as "to disregard, to treat with contempt". Uh... I'm pretty sure it means "to be vain about", at least in this context.
SIMPLY BAFFLING STUFF: There was a lengthy explanation of a minor change Morrison made to the text (replacing she with he in the line "she was at this present time... wearing black ribbons for his wife"). The original line refers to Elizabeth, Anne's older sister, wearing mourning for her cousin Mr. Elliot's recently deceased wife. Morrison's change switches the focus to Elliot himself, arguing that Elizabeth disapproved of the marriage in question, and therefore wouldn't be wearing black. Now, I'm no expert on early-19th-century social mores, but the Jane Austen Centre points out that "a show of respect was expected even for distant relatives". Wearing mourning for a relation (even despised one) was customary, particularly for upper-class women like Elizabeth. Sincerity was not required. Why on earth would Morrison tweak a nearly 200-year-old text in order to "correct" a phrase that is equally plausible in its original published state? Don't get me wrong: I'm still really happy Nathan paid attention to my subtle-like-a-brick hints and gave me this book for my birthday. It's a handsomely illustrated and beautifully bound edition, and I learned quite a bit from it. But I can't help but wish the annotations featured in this book had been blessed with a red-pen-wielding editor of their very own. Labels: Book Reviews, Jane Austen
Monday, October 24, 2011
The Game of Triumphs, by Laura Powell
 15-year-old Cat Harper, the orphaned protagonist of Laura Powell's debut novel The Game of Triumphs, is not your typical wide-eyed fantasy heroine. After witnessing a murder, streetwise, pragmatic Cat becomes an unwilling participant in the Game of Triumphs, an ancient magical contest based on the rules of the Tarot. Success in the Game can win a player fame and fortune, while failure means suffering and loss, but Cat is only a "chancer"—the Game's equivalent of an accidental bystander. With no prizes on offer, Cat has every intention of simply ignoring the weirdness the Game has dragged into her life... until she discovers a horrifying link between the Game and her parents' deaths, twelve years earlier. The Game of Triumphs kicks off with a bang (Cat is neck-deep in danger well before the end of the first chapter), and the hell-for-leather storytelling pace is maintained throughout. There is an impressive amount of Tarot-related information stuffed into the novel, but the author deftly balances exposition with action. We wish Powell had spent a little more time exploring her characters' pasts, but The Game of Triumphs is only the first installment in a series, so we're hoping the next book will manage to be equally entertaining and a little richer on the character-development front. On one final note, may we say how pleasant it was to read a fantasy novel about a dangerous game that doesn't feature the majority of participants dying horrible deaths? We understand that The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner were best-sellers, but we have been sent piles of gore-filled YA novels this year. Even stories of pearl-clutching horror are boring when done to excess, so we want to commend Ms. Powell for having the imagination to propose different—but still meaningful—stakes. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Fantasy, teen literature
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
So Shelly, by Ty Roth
 Let me start by giving credit where credit is due: the Wordcandy to-be-read bookshelf is overflowing with YA gothic romances, but Ty Roth’s novel So Shelly stands out. Inspired by the notorious love lives of the Romantic writers and their various paramours, Roth has taken the "rich kids behaving badly" formula and infused it with some scandalous 200-year-old literary gossip. Set in modern-day Ohio, So Shelly is told from the perspective of John Keats, a lonely high school junior whose only friend—Michelle "Shelly" Shelley—has recently drowned in an apparent boating accident. Accompanied by Shelly’s lifelong friend Gordon Byron, Keats steals Shelly’s ashes from her memorial service. The boys are determined to lay her body to rest on a small island in Lake Erie, and as they make their escape they analyze their shared past, romantic and otherwise. Despite its title, So Shelly is really about Byron. George Gordon, Lord Byron, is one of the most notorious figures in the history of English literature, and Roth faithfully includes many of the eyebrow-raising elements of his life story, including his childhood sexual abuse at the hands of his governess, his incestuous affairs with his half-sister and cousins, and his obsession with Greek freedom fighters. Shelly’s life is much more freely adapted—Roth combines elements of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s biographies into one character, and [SPOILER] adds some deeply unnecessary drama to their already drama-filled lives in the form of an incestuous rape storyline. Keats gets the shortest shrift, and appears as a nebbishy kid whose family members have a bad habit of dying young. Byron could be the poster boy for the list of literary geniuses whose work has to be admired despite the horrific behavior exhibited in their personal lives, and Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats were no charmers, either. Plus, all three writers have lost much of their name recognition, although we sincerely hope most high school students have heard of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. This left us scratching our heads over who, exactly, Roth’s novel was written for—because if you’re unfamiliar with (or unimpressed by) Byron’s literary output, So Shelly is just a novel about a womanizing jackass. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Texas Gothic, by Rosemary Clement-Moore
 The title of Rosemary Clement-Moore's new novel Texas Gothic is misleading: there are no gloomy mansions or dark family secrets, and Clement-Moore's heroines have never been fragile*. It would have been far more accurate to call the book Supernaturally-Gifted Nancy Drew and the Case of the McCulloch Ranch Ghost... but we can accept—grudgingly—that doesn't really roll off the tongue. When Amy Goodnight agrees to spend her last summer before college house-sitting at her Aunt Hyacinth's herb farm, she doesn't expect everything to be normal. Life is never normal for the Goodnights, a family of witches and psychics, but Amy has a lot of practice at keeping other people from noticing her quirkier relatives—like her older sister Phin, a science major who's spending the summer at the herb farm measuring the physical aspects of paranormal phenomena. Unfortunately, there are two things distracting Amy from her self-appointed role as the family's protector: her cranky (but hot) neighbor Ben McCulloch, and the Mad Monk of McCulloch Ranch, a legendary ghost who seems all-too-interested in the Goodnight sisters. It's tough to pick our favorite aspect of this novel. Amy and Ben's prickly romance, Phin's endearing weirdness, and the organically-incorporated magical elements were all great, but we particularly enjoyed the book's many tongue-in-cheek tributes to Nancy Drew: Emery cut in impatiently, “For crying out loud. Who do you think you are? Nancy Drew?”
“Hey,” I snapped, because no one sniped at my sister but me, and Mark echoed with a stern “Chill, dude.”
Phin was unperturbed. “Those books were highly unrealistic. Do you have any idea how much brain damage a person would have if she were hit on the head and drugged with chloroform that often?” We have no reason to suppose there will be a sequel to Texas Gothic, much less an effort to turn the Goodnight family's adventures into a Nancy Drew-style series, but we totally enjoyed this supernaturally-tinged take on the girl sleuth genre, and—once again—were left eagerly anticipating Ms. Clement-Moore's next book. *To be fair, the book is set in Texas. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Rosemary Clement-Moore
Friday, July 15, 2011
Kiss of Death, by Lauren Henderson
 Kiss of Death is the fourth and final book in Lauren Henderson's Scarlett Wakefield mystery series, after Kiss Me Kill Me, Kisses and Lies, and Kiss in the Dark. While the first few books focused on the bizarre death of Scarlet's first crush, Dan McAndrew, the sequels have expanded in both scope and location. When she travels to Edinburgh for a school trip, Scarlett becomes the target of a series of dangerous pranks. Unfortunately, Scarlett's suspect list keeps expanding: the friends she abandoned at her former school, Dan's surviving twin Callum McAndrew, and even her normally straightforward friend Taylor, who seems to get weirder with every attack. Apart from a couple of painfully obvious subplots, the vast majority of Kiss of Death feels like a worthy final installment for this entertaining series. The attacks on Scarlett (which range from a drugged water bottle to a shove down a smoke-filled stairwell) don't inspire much excitement individually, but they add up to a convincingly creepy atmosphere. Better yet, this is one of the few girl-in-peril novels with a "happily ever after" ending that actually feels plausible. Scarlett is understandably freaked out by her situation, but she never feels irreparably traumatized. By Kiss of Death's final chapter, all of the books' loose ends have been tied up, teen angst has dropped to non-toxic levels, and Scarlett's dream of a normal life seems both doable and totally well-deserved. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Lauren Henderson
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Abandon, by Meg Cabot
 I was thrilled when I heard that Meg Cabot was once again tossing her hat into the supernatural romance ring. After all, her The Mediator and 1-800-Where-R-You? series are some of my all-time favorite YA titles, so my hopes for her new book Abandon were very, very high. Abandon, the first book in a projected trilogy, is a modern retelling of the Persephone and Hades myth. It's been two years since 17-year-old Pierce Oliviera had a near-death experience in her backyard pool, but her life has never been the same. She's been kicked out of her former school, her mother has moved them to Florida's Isla Huesos, and John, the hot, broody guy she met in the afterlife—the same guy who, disturbingly, seemed to be in charge—keeps turning up in unexpected places and yelling at her. Long-time fans of Cabot's books will recognize elements of this story. John is the quintessential Cabot love interest: devoted, bossy, and (way) older than the heroine. Dreamy, scatterbrained Pierce initially seems like more of a pushover than Cabot's previous heroines, but her easy-going nature hides a stubborn streak that prevents John from overwhelming her. Cabot has explored the overprotective guy/independent girl romantic dynamic before, but she takes it much, much further in this book—John is convinced the only way to protect Pierce is to imprison her in his Underworld bachelor pad forever, and Pierce is (understandably) voting no. I have no idea how Cabot plans to transform her hero from what can only be described as a creepy stalker extraordinaire into the kind of guy a modern girl would actually date, but I look forward to finding out. However! A word of warning! I really recommend waiting to read Abandon until the final two books in the series have been released. One of the most appealing things about Cabot's earlier series was the way she balanced the slow development of her romantic storylines with the immediate gratification of solving each installment's central mystery. Abandon, on the other hand, is 90% romantic tension and only 10% everything else, so while one or two plot points were tied up in this book, the majority were left unresolved. This means I'm in for a long, frustrating wait until the next book—2012's Underworld—hits bookstore shelves. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Meg Cabot
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Spaghetti Detectives, by Andreas Steinhöfel
 If we gave out awards for Most Misleading Cover Art, today would go down as the day Josh Berk's The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin passed the torch: Andreas Steinhöfel's novel The Spaghetti Detectives might look like a PBS cartoon aimed at pre-schoolers, but it reads like a junior version of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Originally written in German and translated by Chantal Wright, The Spaghetti Detectives is told via the meandering narration of Rico Doretti, a boy with an unspecified learning disability that severely limits his ability to focus. While investigating the origins of a stray spaghetti noodle found outside his apartment, Rico meets a paranoid child genius named Oscar. The boys couldn't be more different, but they form an instant, oddball connection—and when Oscar becomes the latest victim of a notorious child kidnapper, Rico is determined to find his new friend. The Spaghetti Detectives is endearingly weird, atmospheric, and frequently very funny, but that cheery cover and wholesome tagline (“They've got to use their noodles!”) is a total bait-and-switch. While children will probably find this story less disturbing than this adult reviewer, this is still a novel that boasts passages like the following: "Mr. 2000 has been keeping everybody in Berlin on the edge of their seats for three months. On television they said he was probably the most cunning child kidnapper of all time. Some people call him the ALDI kidnapper, after the cut-price supermarket, because his ransoms are so low. He lures little boys and girls into his car and drives off with them, and afterward he writes their parents a letter:
DEAR PARENTS: IF YOU WOULD LIKE LITTLE CLAUDIA BACK, IT WILL COST YOU ONLY 2000 EUROS. THINK CAREFULLY BEFORE GETTING THE POLICE INVOLVED OVER SUCH A RIDICULOUSLY SMALL SUM, BECAUSE IF YOU DO, YOUR CHILD WILL COME BACK TO YOU PIECE BY PIECE.
Up until now none of the parents have told the police until after they had paid up and their child popped up safe. But everybody in Berlin is waiting for the day when some little Claudia or Alexander doesn't come home in one piece because their parents have messed up. Maybe some people would be secretly happy that their child had been kidnapped and wouldn't cough up a penny. Or they might be really poor and only have fifty euros to their name. If you only gave Mr. 2000 fifty euros, it's likely that the only piece left of your child would be a hand. It would be less noticeable. And a giant box for everything-minus-the-hand would cost fifty euros in postage all by itself." See what I mean? That cover is doing this well-written, original mystery no favors: middle readers (and older kids) will be turned off by the cartoonish artwork, and little kids will be stuck reading a book they're too young to appreciate. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Children’s Books, Cover Art
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Dark and Hollow Places, by Carrie Ryan
 The Dark and Hollow Places is the final book in Carrie Ryan's nihilistic girls-vs.-zombies trilogy, following The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead-Tossed Waves. I enjoyed the first story in this series, and while I was slightly less impressed by the sequel, I was still sufficiently invested to embark on this book with an open mind—maybe even a little optimism. The protagonist of The Dark and Hollow Places is Annah, the long-lost twin sister of Gabry, the heroine of The Dead-Tossed Waves. Annah is a survivor, even in this grim world of zombies and religious fanatics, but the horrors she has experienced have left her physically and mentally scarred. When she is reunited with her sister and meets Catcher, a boy with an inexplicable immunity to the zombie virus, Annah experiences a brief flash of hope... but she soon discovers that any emotional bond will be used against her. Ryan's world has always been a dark one, but The Dark and Hollow Places really ups the horror ante. This book is so overwhelmingly grim it frequently crosses the line into unintentional humor. The plot is stuffed to bursting with attempted rape scenes, betrayals, and death, death, and more death. Nearly every named character—apart from the four primary ones—dies, always horribly. People are torn apart, fall off buildings, and die in zombie cage fights. (Seriously. Zombie cage fights.) Despite all the over-the-top horror, the novel might have kept my interest if Ryan had moved the final quarter of her book in a fresh direction—offering some hope of a cure for the zombie infestation, or at least a more concrete plan for her protagonists' future. Instead, the book kept the festival of gore rolling until the final pages, when things took an abrupt turn towards relative optimism. Unfortunately, by this point my emotional investment in Ryan's characters had been exhausted, and it was going to take a lot more than an upbeat final scene to revive it. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Carrie Ryan
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Faking It and Fast Women, by Jennifer Crusie
The fine people at St. Martin's Griffin continue to trot out reprints of Jennifer Crusie's earlier work. Their latest offerings are freshly re-covered editions of 2001's Fast Women and 2002's Faking It—both of which make for awesome summer reading, although I have some concerns about their updated packaging.  Fast Women is one of my all-time favorite romance novels, not least because it boasts two of the most entertaining "wronged woman seeks vengeance" scenes ever. (One involves an implied lesbian fling; the other involves the wanton destruction of fourteen "Best Ohio Insurance Agent" awards. Both are delightful.) It's the story of Nell Dystart, a 42-year-old woman who has recently lost her job, her marriage, and her self-confidence. Nell has spent the past year sleep-walking through life, but when she's hired as the receptionist for a straight-out-of-film-noir private investigator's office, things take a turn for the better... or at least the more exciting.  Faking It features several of the characters from Crusie's Welcome to Temptation. There's Davy Dempsey, a former con man, and Clea Lewis, a professional trophy wife whose husbands tend to die young. Davy is trying to go legit, but that's before he meets Tilda Goodnight, a painter with a long list of buried (well, stored in the basement, actually) secrets. Tilda and Davy have no reason to trust each other, but they join forces regardless, determined to right a very long, very strange, and very funny list of wrongs. These titles will probably be labeled as romances, although the strong mystery storyline in Fast Women expands its potential audience beyond romance readers. Faking It is more overtly romantic, but it has plenty of crossover appeal as well—in addition to the numerous criminals featured in the story, there's forged artwork, a family history of fraud, and at least one potential hit man. Both books are perfect escapist reading: as wickedly amusing as they are smart and sexy. However, while I am totally in favor of keeping Crusie's books on store shelves, I am less enthusiastic about the cover art featured on these particular editions. As standalone images, the covers are eye-catching and fun, but they don't really fit the books. The vintage car featured in Fast Women is a 1977 Porsche Carrera, not a... whatever that car is, and the furniture in Faking It is hand-painted wood, not a purple armchair that looks suspiciously like the one from Blue's Clues. If the cover artist* wanted to include plot elements from the books, she might have been better to go for something generic (like a typewriter for Fast Women, or an empty frame for Faking It), rather than aiming for details and getting 'em wrong. *Mollie Smith, whom I believe is Cruise's daughter. Although I'd like to note that Crusie was clearly involved in the cover art decisions, and I have to give Ms. Smith full props for her "Nuts" Crazy For You cover, which I so wish the publisher had used. Reviews based on publisher-provided copies.Labels: Book Reviews, Cover Art, Jennifer Crusie
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Exposed, by Kimberly Marcus
 Kimberly Marcus's Exposed is a YA novel written entirely in free verse. It's a gimmicky approach, but the poetry format proves to be a perfect fit for this book—it takes a dark, gripping story and boils it down to its essence. Exposed is told from the perspective of 16-year-old Liz, an aspiring photographer with a great boyfriend, loving parents, and a lifelong best friend, Kate. The girls have a minor spat during their monthly sleepover that leads to them sleeping in separate rooms. Liz is quick to apologize, but Kate seems determined to end the relationship entirely. Liz can't understand such a huge overreaction... until Kate announces that she was raped by Liz's older brother after Liz left her alone downstairs. Marcus's poetry skills might fall short of, say, Sylvia Plath, but she does a more-than-adequate job of conveying Liz's confusion, misery, and doubt. The verse format also eliminates many of the more irritating elements of "normal" teen literature. I have reviewed so many pages of couture-clad bullies and pointless love triangles that I tend to think of those things as unavoidable aspects of modern YA fiction. It was with surprised delight, therefore, that I read the following: "Soon, others stroll in:
Javier, the Hoopster.
Nathan, the Nuisance.
Brenda, star of The Brenda Show." See? In less than twenty words Marcus describes a jock, a class clown, and a snotty school princess, without resorting to boring (and instantly passé) descriptions of shoes, hairstyles, and cell phones. It's the teen literature equivalent of a Christmas miracle. Exposed is Marcus's first novel, and she clearly embraced the "Write what you know" axiom: she's a clinical social worker who specializes in the treatment of traumatized children and adolescents, and she lives in Massachusetts, where Exposed is set. One wonders if her next book will venture into different territory, or if she'll try to make a career out of writing stories about Serious Teen Issues, à la Chris Crutcher. Either way, I'll be keeping an eye out for her second book, because a debut novel this creative and moving promises great things for the future. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, teen literature
Monday, May 23, 2011
Get out your magnifying glass and deerstalker
 If you're interested in Tighter, the Turn of the Screw modernization by Adele Griffin currently featured on the Wordcandy main site, Ms. Griffin has written an iClue mini-mystery featuring two of the book's minor characters. Solving the mystery gives you a password that you can use to enter a drawing for a grand prize of an iPod Touch. Labels: Book Reviews, mysteries, Wordcandy main site
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Flight: Vol. 7, edited by Kazu Kibuishi
 The seventh volume of Flight is another solid installment in Villard Books' series of lavishly illustrated graphic novel anthologies. These sixteen short stories—edited by contributor and art director Kazu Kibuishi—feature a variety of genres and artistic styles, but one thing remains consistent: the authors' commitment to creating the most sumptuous, richly imagined visual worlds possible. Flight is expensive, it includes a disproportionate number of male contributors, and some of its stories work better than others. The artwork in Kostas Kiriakakis's Premium Cargo is exquisite, but the story is schmaltzy rather than genuinely affecting, and Bannister and Grimaldi's Career Day is too much of a one-note joke to merit 12 pages. Still, the joys of this series far outweigh its disappointments. Katie and Steven Shanahan's goofy Fairy Market, Kean Soo's sweet-natured Jellaby: Guardian Angel, and Cory Godbey's mythology-inspired Onere and Piccola are all outstanding, boasting memorable storytelling and dazzling imagery. In fact, I would have preferred it if Villard Books had actually charged a little more for Flight* and released the series in hardcover. Imagine what an awesome coffee table book it would make: delightful to flip through, but sufficiently entertaining to actually read. *I know. I can't believe I wrote that, either. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Comics
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Torment, by Lauren Kate
 As I turned over the final page of Torment, the second book in Lauren Kate's best-selling Fallen series, my first thought was Aw, man... now I'm totally gonna need to read the third one. Not the world's most enthusiastic recommendation, but a step up from her first book, which I damned with even fainter praise*. The love triangle established in Fallen is sidelined in Torment. Fallen angels Daniel and Cam have declared a temporary truce in order to protect 17-year-old Luce from the "Outcasts"—fallen angels rejected by both Heaven and Hell. Continuing his hot streak of being infuriatingly patronizing, Daniel stashes Luce in a Northern California high school for children with angelic ancestors, hoping that her fellow students will be distracting enough to keep Luce from falling into the Outcasts' clutches. Naturally, he doesn't share his plan with Luce, who grows increasingly testy as her otherworldly suitor refuses to explain a single damn thing to her. I found Torment infinitely more fun than Fallen, mostly because Luce is beginning to notice what was obvious from the first book: Daniel is a bossy, condescending creep. (Unfortunately, his actions are occasionally redeemed by an out-of-character moment of stupidity from Luce, but those are few and far between.) I suspect they will end up together—the laws of teen supernatural love triangles are probably too strong for any other outcome—but I'm still excited by Luce's baby steps towards independence. The final chapter of Torment does a solid job of setting things up for the next book in the series, but I don't care so much about all the angel/demon/Outcast stuff. I just want Luce to kick Daniel to the curb until he gets over himself, and I'm gleefully looking forward to seeing it happen. *I said it was much better than Twilight. Review based on publisher-provided copy.Labels: Book Reviews, Lauren Kate, teen literature
Monday, February 07, 2011
The Gallagher Girls series, by Ally Carter
 I charged through Ally Carter's YA caper novel Heist Society like a rhinoceros on a mission, so I was hoping her Gallagher Girls series would prove equally absorbing. Unfortunately, I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You and its sequel, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, were disappointingly light on plot despite the charms of their "teen girls at spy school" premise. Happily, the series won me over with its third book, Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover. It has plot developments oozing out of its ears, making it an excellent pick for reluctant readers and balancing out the flimsiness of the two earlier installments. The Gallagher Girls books are told from the perspective of Cammie Morgan, a high school student attending the Gallagher Academy, a top-secret boarding school for female spies-in-training. Cammie has spent years studying hand-to-hand combat, foreign languages, and advanced encryption, but her real skill is the ability to fade into a crowd. She's a gifted pavement artist—a spy who specializes in following people in public. The first book in the series focuses on Cammie's feelings for Josh, a civilian boy with a gift for picking her out of a crowd despite her spy training. One wonders if Carter originally intended to make their relationship an ongoing one, but by book two Josh has been replaced by Zach, a mysterious spy-in-training from the Blackthorne Institute, the male equivalent of the Gallagher Academy. Carter might have been better off condensing the first two books into one. As it is, the romantic drama from the first is a non-starter in the second, and the two books feature embarrassingly similar climax sequences. Combining the stories would have created more personal conflict—which boy should Cammie pursue?—and given that poor, overused plot climax a rest. (Plus, it would have saved me nine bucks. What is up with charging $8.99 for a 288-page paperback, Hyperion?!?) Thankfully, book three finally gets the plot moving. There are new enemies, deepening relationships, and a fun twist ending, making it a huge step forward for the series. I'll be reviewing the fourth Gallagher Girls book on the main site tomorrow. It features the series' best blend of plot elements and relationship evolution to date, and I really enjoyed reading it. However, if you're unwilling to wade through hundreds of pages of pointless teen angst just to get to the butt-kicking/name-taking bits, skip this series entirely and pick up a copy of Heist Society instead. It's cheaper*, it works as a standalone novel (although Carter is planning a sequel), and it offers a similar blend of romance, suspense, and cheesy-fun action. *Amazon is currently selling it for a mere $6.80! Labels: Ally Carter, Book Reviews, Suspense, teen literature
Monday, January 03, 2011
Three Black Swans, by Caroline B. Cooney
 Note: We failed to post a couple of contest entries, so the last three book reviews will go up between now and Wednesday. Better late than never, right?Contest Book #19First cousins Missy and Claire, the heroines of Caroline B. Cooney's latest novel Three Black Swans, are so close they can finish each other's sentences. They also look uncannily similar, so when Missy is assigned a school project on scientific hoaxes, she and Claire successfully trick her classmates into thinking they are long-lost identical twins. A video of the girls' dramatic "reunion" is posted online, but what began as a joke raises some very disturbing questions—particularly when a third teen contacts them, claiming to be their triplet. If Three Black Swans had been written by any other author, my suspicions about where the plot was heading might have gone in a very different direction. (Human clones? Space aliens? A science experiment gone wrong?) But Cooney has made a career out of writing angst-filled suspense novels about long-buried family secrets, and it was immediately obvious that this was yet another entry in a long list of smart, teen-friendly dramas about dishonest parents and courageous children. I found certain plot elements—like the speed with which the video reaches the third girl, or Missy's parents' efforts to conceal the circumstances of her birth—far-fetched, but Cooney's many fans are sure to enjoy her latest effort. [Review based on a publisher-provided copy.]  Labels: Book Reviews, Caroline B. Cooney, Holiday Contest
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Knight Life: Chivalry Ain't Dead, by Keith Knight
 Contest Book #18Keith Knight's The Knight Life: Chivalry Ain't Dead is a low-key but consistently entertaining comic strip centered around Knight, an African-American cartoonist and musician living in L.A. Knight's family and friends (including a former rapper whose label has faked his death in order to boost record sales) are heavily featured in the autobiographical strip, which dabbles in everything from public transportation to his German wife's maladroit attempts at embracing American slang. Sadly, the advance-reader copy we received was a stapled-together collection of 4 pages of introduction and 12 pages' worth of strips, so we were just guessing on the contents of the book's remaining 195 pages... until Wikipedia informed us that one can read the past Knight Life strips here. Flipping through the strips online is a testament to Knight's flexible sense of humor, which seems equally comfortable taking jabs at Dick Cheney's reserved seat in Hell and poking gentle fun at his wife's fear of spiders. Individual strips were rarely laugh-out-loud hilarious, but this is one of those strips that is best read as a collection—like early Bloom County, The Knight Life combines the personal and political in a way that manages to be as endearing as it is amusing. [Review based on a publisher-provided copy.] Labels: Book Reviews, Comics, Holiday Contest
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Gimme a Call, by Sarah Mlynowski
Contest Book #17I've been following Sarah Mlynowski's career ever since the publication of her first novel: 2001's Milkrun, one of the first offerings from Red Dress Ink, the now-defunct Harlequin imprint devoted to modern, stylish "chick lit". I found the heroine of Milkrun grating and the plot so pointless I could barely finish the book, but look at how cute the cover was:  Fast-forward a few years, and I ran into another Mlynowski book: 2005's Bras and Broomsticks. It came out several months before Twilight, making it one of the earliest entries in the current YA fantasy/romance boom. Again, I thought the book was obnoxious, but again, it had an cute, eye-catching cover:  By this time, I was familiar with Ms. Mlynowski's strengths and weaknesses. Her books feature irritating heroines and unsatisfying plot lines, but she gets in early on literary trends and has a positive gift for scoring attention-grabbing cover art. I promised myself I'd never read another one of her books ... but check out last spring's Gimme a Call. Doesn't it look fun?  Clearly, I am weak. Gimme a Call is classic Mlynowski: the heroine is infuriatingly self-obsessed, 95% of the plot is wheel-spinning, and what little resolution the book offers comes late and falls flat. Gimme a Call is the story of Devi Banks—actually, it's the story of two Devi Bankses. When seventeen-year-old Devi drops her cell phone into a fountain, she discovers a surprising new feature: the phone only calls her fourteen-year-old self. This development comes at a particularly useful time, as Devi has alienated all of her friends, recently been dumped by her longtime boyfriend, and finds herself scraping the bottom of the college barrel. Devi is convinced she needs to change her present by altering her past, even if she has to run her younger self ragged trying to do it. Time-travel books make my brain hurt, but I do my best to suspend disbelief. Unfortunately, most of Gimme a Call was so repetitive—younger Devi obediently makes a change, the change backfires on her older self, lather, rinse, repeat—I was left with nothing to do but ponder the many reasons the book made no sense. (Older Devi's reality keeps changing, but Mlynowski skirts issues like how one would handle the sudden switch from rudimentary to advanced classes, or from playing mini-golf to being the school's golf champ. Instead, the story focuses the important stuff, like what dreamy boy Devi is dating now.) I actually found Gimme a Call the most irritating Mlynowski book I've read to date, probably because it was the first one that had real potential. The "If I knew then what I know now..." set-up was fun, if clichéd, and the younger Devi was sweet and appealingly awkward (particularly in contrast with her manipulative, selfish older self). If the time changes had ended halfway through, forcing the older Devi to actually grow up and fix her warped new reality, the book could have been great. Sadly, Mlynowski settles for riding her paper-thin premise into the ground, skipping any pretense of character development, and ending things with a quickie moral about making your own choices, leaving Gimme a Call a weak, dumbed-down version of what it might have been. [Review based on a publisher-provided copy.] Labels: Book Reviews, Holiday Contest, teen literature
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Crossbones: Skeleton Creek #3, by Patrick Carman
 Contest Book #16We liked the first two books in Patrick Carman's "Skeleton Creek" horror/mystery series. Sure, we moaned about having to access hokey online videos in order to fully experience the story (in our defense, we are way older than Carman's target audience, and probably even lazier) and made some cracks about Scooby-Doo, but we described the books as "entertaining enough", gave Carman full props for writing something to tempt reluctant readers, and made a mental note to keep an eye out for the next book in the series— The Crossbones, which came out this fall. Like Carman's earlier installments, The Crossbones centers around the mysteries of a fictional Oregon fishing town called Skeleton Creek. The story is told via the implausibly articulate journal entries of a teenage boy named Ryan and the (equally implausible) videos shot by his best friend, Sarah. While the ghost story that propelled the first two books was largely tied up by the end of Ghost in the Machine, a mysterious card was left unexplained. Ryan is determined to investigate further, but Sarah's family has left town, which limits their interactions to terse—and unintentionally amusing—e-mail interactions like these: "Hi, Ryan,
I had a dream you were at the dredge without me and it made me sad. I miss you. I miss our secrets. There must be something we could do to get the magic back. But what?
S." Followed by... "Sarah,
I can bring that feeling back. Tell no one, especially your parents.
R." Heh. Yeah, it's not exactly Shakespeare, but fast-paced, Ghost Adventures-style entertainment doesn't require much in the way of dialogue. Patrick Carman is like a mediocre chef with a gift for food styling—he understands the value of presentation. The Skeleton Creek series offers a smörgåsbord of gimmicks in an effort to attract readers, and while the techie tie-ins will probably be hopelessly out-of-date in a few years, we're hoping this series manages to attract—and retain!—plenty of new readers in the meanwhile. [Review based on a publisher-provided copy.] Labels: Book Reviews, Holiday Contest, Patrick Carman
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Goats: Showcase Showdown, by Jonathan Rosenberg
 Contest Book #15According to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, an immortal monkey hitting a keyboard at random for an infinite amount of time will eventually replicate the complete works of Shakespeare. Flipping through Jonathan Rosenberg's Goats: Showcase Showdown is like reading that keyboarding monkey's literary output at the halfway point—recognizable words have been formed, but it's still total gibberish. The plot (such as it is) centers around a human dude named Jon and his companions, a constantly shifting group of demons, aliens, and talking animals. The characters drift through an alternate universe created by some of the aforementioned immortal monkeys, squabbling and hitting on each other and hanging out in a bar staffed by a Swiss bartender named Alfred. There are frequent outbreaks of gore and occasional references to Reese Witherspoon. Oh, and an anthropomorphic stalk of broccoli wearing Converse. Even if I understood Goats, I don't think I'd love it. Rosenberg takes too many cheap shots at Britney Spears and Paula Abdul and doesn't include enough girl characters, although I was intrigued by his cigar-smoking, gun-toting take on Rainbow Brite. I laughed at the odd line (“I look like I had a knife fight with Violet Beauregarde.”), but found the larger story too self-indulgently kooky to be worth puzzling out. [Review based on a publisher-provided copy.] Labels: Book Reviews, Comics, Holiday Contest
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While looking for something to read on a recent plane trip, I finally cracked open Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's Beautiful Creatures, a book that has been idling on my to-be-read shelf for over two years.
