Mini Reviews: 2 YA Fantasy Novels

Sometimes I have some things to say about a book, but not enough for a whole post. Enter mini reviews! This week I'm reviewing two young adult fantasy novels that, on the surface, have a lot in common: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken and Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Both have one-word titles. Both are the start of a series (but then what book isn't these days). And both were kind of a mixed bag. However, I think one was slightly more successful than the other. Read on to find out which!

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Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

A gifted violinist, 17-year-old Etta Spencer is eagerly awaiting her professional debut concert. But her career and everything else in her life is put on hold when she's literally shoved through time and into Revolutionary-Era America. Trapped aboard a pirate ship, Etta has to figure out how to get back to her own time and save her mom.

I can never say no to a story about time travel, especially when it involves romance, so when I saw this book on Booktalk & More Too, I immediately requested it at my library. I definitely enjoyed reading Passenger, but there were some inconsistencies and issues that kept pulling me out of a story I desperately wanted to be sucked into.

I loved the beginning of Passenger, where we get a peek into the life of a child prodigy and witness Etta's passion for violin. It reminded me of Mozart In the Jungle, which is one of my favorite TV shows ever. I also liked that Bracken didn't completely whitewash the past and that Nicolas was black (that said, I would have liked it even more if he wasn't the only black person in the book). The story itself was perfectly paced and it's the type of book you don't want to put down.

Unfortunately, Passenger also has some major weaknesses in regards to plausibility and continuity that made it a frustrating read, especially in the second half. I'm not talking about the time travel aspect–I don't expect that to make sense, and it doesn't–but character motivation and practical details that the author skips over or makes a hash out of.

For example, when Etta first time travels, she gets "Traveler sickness" and is unconscious for several days, allowing Sofia to take her from the time portal and deposit her on a ship. Okay, fine. But how did Sofia get Etta from the portal to the ship? Did she have someone carry her? Fireman's hold? Wingardium Leviosa? Teleportation? I guess we'll never know.

Then there's the romance, which I simply did not feel at all. It's one of those romances where they're attracted to each other as soon as they lay eyes on one another, but then spend 500 pages not doing anything about it BECAUSE REASONS. And let me add here that the male half of this equation is a pirate. I found his behavior distinctly un-piratical.

Add to all that long-ass passages of really headslappingly stupid exposition ("Marrying up was the only way that any number of women in history had escaped their pasts and whatever stations they’d been born into. They couldn’t work to improve their lives the way men did, and live by their own means. It was grossly unfair to them–" Thanks for that), and descriptions that are just a bunch of words strung together in sentences that honest to god mean absolutely nothing, and I couldn't work up more than a like for this one. But, it's a decent and fun time travel story, and if you enjoy shows like Timeless you'll probably enjoy this read.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

In an alternate world, Katsa is graced with a powerful fighting ability, which her cousin and king exploits to his own advantage. But when she meets similarly graced Prince Po, he inspires her to rebel and set out on an adventure.

Graceling is another novel with a well-told story, but some problems that prevented me from really getting into it.

When I was reading reviews of this book on Goodreads shortly after I started it, I noticed that some people were grouchy about "the raging feminist agenda." And, about halfway through, I understood why. Graceling makes a big show of being "feminist," with a heroine who literally kicks people's asses. But when there's only one female character (aside from a maid whose only purpose in the narrative is to make Katsa attractive so she can attract boys) and the book doesn't even pass the Bechdel Test, the feminist agenda feels more like patronizing lip service than empowerment. I got pretty damn cranky about the whole thing myself, I have to say.

I also was not into the romance between Kat and Po. I did like that they were equals and Po treated her as such, but for me personally it's hard to wrap my head around a positive relationship built on fighting. And the sex scene was like something out of a different novel. A bad one.

But! In the last quarter of the book Po is out of the picture, and I have to say Graceling improved by about 1000 percent. More female characters showed up–a princess, who while a little kid is pretty smart; a sea captain; Po's mom–and since Po's not around, Katsa can do what she does best: survive against the elements and baddies.

I probably won't read the second book in this series, but Graceling was okay. I'm glad I finally got around to finishing this book that's been on my shelf for years.




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A Heap of Mini-Reviews

I've been neglecting book reviews on this blog for much too long. The problem is, while I do have things to say about the books I've been reading, I rarely have bunches to say about them. So, enter mini-reviews!

For this batch of mini-reviews, I'm looking at a mystery, YA dystopian, fantasy novel, and thriller. Which were worth my time and which made me want to set fire to something? Read on to find out!

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Noblesse Oblige by Cynthia Smith (mystery)

Emma Rhodes has a very unusual job: essentially, she's a private problem resolver. Rich people hire her to solve their problems, big or small, in just two weeks for the low low fee of $20,000. Business is strange, but good: Emma wears the best clothes, drinks the best booze, and jets between her three homes in NYC, London, and Spain. On this particular week, she's house-sitting in Bruges when she happens to be in the right place at the right time to stop the kidnapping of a member of the Belgian royal family. The royals quickly retain her services, but Emma soon realizes she may not survive the two weeks until she can collect her fee.

I read this book when I was a teenager, and I remember being all about Emma Rhodes. She has everything a girl could want: a life full of travel, handsome men, excellent food, exciting puzzles to solve, and best of all complete independence. She's practically the female version of James Bond. As an adult, I found this more irritating than anything else (jealousy? perhaps) and also found it hilarious how Emma goes into rants that leave her sounding like an octogenarian whig. Some of the things Emma has issues with:

• Kids these days! They blame their parents for everything!
• Cell phones: terrible invention of the 20th century, or WORST invention of the 20th century?
• People who don't say good morning. Even if you're a not a morning person, there's no excuse for being rude!

Anyway, I did like this book, but Emma probably won't be my role model. Anymore.

The Heir by Kiera Cass (YA dystopian-ish)

Princess Eadlyn is the first female to ever be in line for the crown, thanks to her politically progressive parents. But despite their open-minded policies, her parents think forcing her to submit to the traditional Selection–where suitors are gathered from all over the kingdom to compete for a royal's hand in marriage–is a good idea. Eadlyn disagrees, but is forced to go along with it. Nevertheless, she is determined never to fall for any of these "boys."

This is the first Selection book I've read. It was okay. I liked that Eadlyn was a total bitch, but in a good way. Cuz, you know.

I found the details of the Selection often vague or illogical. For example, the cameras–when and where are these people being filmed? Sometimes it sounds like there are hidden cameras on them all the time, and sometimes it's only when they're permitted. If they're only allowed during official times, how would they have "caught" her kissing Kyle? Makes no sense. Perhaps it's explained in the previous three novels.

The book ends on a cliffhanger, sort of, and there's another book to wrap everything up, but I'm not sure I'm going to read it. I don't really care who Eadlyn winds up with and the drawn-out passages about other couples in love and how mayyyybeeee she might want that (or not) made me want to scream. How on earth has this been stretched into five books?

Masked City by Genevieve Cogman (fantasy)

Librarian Irene has been permanently assigned to Viction Steampunk London with her apprentice, Kai, a dragon. Then Kai is kidnapped by the fae, the dragons' mortal enemies, and taken to a fae-controlled Venice that's a mix of fantasy, dream, and nightmare. Will Irene be able to rescue him and prevent a war between the dragons and the fae that could stretch across worlds and destroy everything the Library has accomplished?

I liked previous book in this series, The Invisible Library, but I adored Masked City. First of all, Venice! And not just any Venice, but the Venice of imagination, with prisons straight out of a Piranesi sketch and a constant whirl of masked balls and mysterious happenings. Another highlight was Sherlock Holmes–oh, sorry, he's called Vale in this alternate–who remains true to the Holmesian tradition by being at once an irritating jerkface and completely awesome. I am totally shipping him and Irene, I don't care about the canon. The ending of the story was very abrupt but left me wanting more and more. I definitely recommend this series!

The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer (thriller)

The Chemist is basically Meyer channeling David Baldacci or Lee Child. Unfortunately she's really bad at it. Basically, you've got a woman of several names and unknown age, hiding from an evil government department she used to work for. What exactly this department does, is called, how she got the job, and what she did there, is never specifically addressed. At some point someone decided she and her mentor were expendable (again, we're not really told why) and attempted to kill them both. They succeeded with the mentor, but she survived. Now she's on the run, dodging assassination attempts. Perhaps she would have more luck with this if she moved beyond driving distance of DC (just a suggestion on my part but what do I know). But then! The department contacts her, asking her to return to the fold and stop a nonsensical terrorist plot that only she can prevent.

I appreciate that the smart, ruthless main character in The Chemist is a woman–you'd never see her like in a Child novel, for sure–but nothing in this book sounded plausible, and reading the long-ass explanations of our paranoid heroine's daily routine was like watching paint dry. Meyers gives us all the details we don't give two shits about and skips over the information that would make this book feel at least slightly grounded in reality. When the secret twin showed, I was done.

Major ugh.


Stay tuned next time for more mini-reviews!


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6 Foodie Books You Should Definitely NOT Read While Hungry

Portions of this post originally appeared on Book Riot. I received copies of All For You and Mastering the Art of French Cooking for review consideration. For more on my review policies, please see my Full Disclosure page.

What Did You Eat Yesterday? by Fumi Yoshinaga

Shiro Kakei is a lawyer, but he's not one of these lawyers who work sixty hours a week and spend their lives at their desks. No, Shiro happily takes the most boring cases so he can put in his eight hours and go home, where he throws himself into his true passion: cooking!

I was expecting a light, entertaining slice-of-life story with What Did You Eat Yesterday?, but it was much better and more powerful than I thought it would be. First of all, for being printed in black and white, the food looked and sounded crazy delicious. This was my face the entire time I was reading:

Also, the recipes are kind of inspiring. As soon as I finished this manga, I started making side dishes for breakfast and dinner, trying to use up what we had in the fridge. I didn't consciously decide to start doing this, incidentally, it just seemed to happen naturally as an extension of reading the book. I have to agree with Shiro's boyfriend, Kenji, that adding side dishes makes the meal more satisfying. I began to feel so much healthier. Add to that Yoshinaga's beautiful, delicate drawings, awesome characters, and vignettes on how food can express love, carry memories, and is more than just following a recipe but also about using what you have and shopping for the best ingredients, and there really is nothing not to like about this manga.

Verdict: Definitely buy. In fact, after I returned What Did You Eat Yesterday? to the library, I bought a copy for myself, I loved it soooo much.

The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, ed. by Kate White

Death and food go together like sun and shade. Why? No one knows, except maybe Hannibal Lecter. In this cookbook, some of the greatest mystery writers in America (Scott Turow, Louise Penny, Mary Higgins Clark, Charlaine Harris, James Patterson, etc.) share their favorite recipes, from family standards to food straight out of their books.

For some crazy reason I decided to start reading this while I was waiting for dinner. Bad decision, or worst decision? The recipes were so good I started ROTFDMAO (rolling on the floor drooling my ass off). But even if you don't like to cook, this book is filled with entertaining stories and essays from mystery authors. I cried at Richard Castle's "pancakes are love," declaration, laughed at Nelson DeMille's Male Chauvinist Pigs in the Blanket recipe, and loved Lorenzo Carcaterra's story about Grandma Maria's Pasta Puttanesca. Lee Child closes the book out admirably with an essay on The Right Way to make coffee. The chapter on side dishes is pretty weak, but this is America we're talking about.

Verdict: Buy. Actually, this is another book I bought after borrowing from the library. Good ol library!

All For You by Laura Florand

Sassy and cute Célie is chef to one of the best chocolatiers in Paris, but her life wasn't always truffles and ganache. She grew up in the banlieue dreaming of marrying her brother's bestie, Joss, until he abandoned her to join the Foreign Legion. Now he's back, acting like nothing ever changed, and Célie has all the feels.

I've never been one of those people who get hungry or crave chocolate while reading a Laura Florand novel, although I do find her food descriptions to be fascinating and on fleek. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I can't eat chocolate, who knows. But with this book, I not only started craving chocolate, I had an entire dream about drinking hot chocolate, the one chocolate treat I really, really miss indulging in. It's kind of strange, considering that All For You is probably one of Florand's less food-centric novels. But then again, it did give me all the warm fuzzies. It's sweet and comforting and just what you need to lift your spirits, kind of like a cup of hot chocolate in book format.

Verdict: Buy.


The following books were ones I wanted to include in the above Buy, Borrow, Bypass, but life and work got in the way and I wasn't able to finish them before the deadline. However, I do still want to review them, so here they are!

Taste Test by Kelly Fiore

Nora is a small-town girl who grew up working in her dad's barbeque joint, but her dreams are much bigger than that. When she gets the chance to be on Taste Test, her favorite cooking competition show, she leaves District 11 her dad and BFF, Billy, to compete in an arena against kids from across the country. Only one can survive win the chance to study cooking in Paris. The problem is, can Nora trust the other contestants, particularly the infuriating and arrogant Christian Van Lorten?

In case you can't tell by the summary, this book reminded me a bit of The Hunger Games. Too bad that title was already taken, it would have been much better than Taste Test. Anywho, this was a really fun, quick read. I loooooooooove books where the two main characters fight all the time. Nora had a few moments where I thought her behavior was unreasonable or annoying, and the ending left almost everything completely unresolved, but the bottom line is this is the kind of book you can kick back and read in an afternoon when you're after some lighthearted entertainment. As for the food, all but one of the recipes were dumped in at the end, and none of them sounded particularly appetizing or easy to make. I wouldn't call this a book NOT to read while hungry.

Verdict: Buy or borrow.

The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain

Laurent Letellier owns Le Cahier Rouge, a Parian bookstore. One day he stumbles upon an abandoned purse in the street and becomes obsessed with finding its owner after reading all the personal secrets she's written down in her little red notebook. She owns a red notebook, he owns a bookstore called The Red Notebook–clearly these two are meant to be together. But will they ever meet?

This is a charming, short novel in a similar vein to the movie Amélie, although not as fantastical and twee. It sounds like it could go into creeper territory but it really doesn't. I loved how there were a bunch of jokes you would probably only get if you spoke French–the name of Laurent's shop, for example; or the name of his daughter's cat, Putin, which can mean everything from damn to fuck depending on intonation (or the name of the Russian president, for that matter). Actually, now that I think about it, double meaning in names is kind of a theme in this book. As for why The Red Notebook is on this list, it's surprisingly chock full of delectable descriptions of food and drinking and eating, from pot-au-feu to hachis Parmentier. And if you don't know what either of those dishes are, don't worry–googling photos of them is half the fun. I started craving French food like whoa.

Verdict: Buy or borrow, but definitely read.

Mastering the Art of French Eating by Ann Mah

Francophile Ann Mah thought her dreams had come true when her hubby got a job in Paris. But just a few weeks after the big move, he had to go to the Middle East for a year, leaving Mah lonely and bored until this food writer finally had a lightbulb moment: she could write about French food! Using Mastering the Art of French Cooking as a travel guide, Mah set out to discover the stories "behind" the famous regional dishes of France.

Another day, another foodie memoir inspired by Julia Child. I mean, I get that she's a BFD to a whole generation of cooks and foodies, but it's getting to be a bit cliché at this point. I admit I had trouble getting into Mastering the Art of French Eating. I probably should have known better, seeing as how memoirs are not my thing, but I was expecting a lot more food in this book. Instead, it's mainly about Mah's struggles living as an expat–not just in Paris, but in other parts of the world (her hubby's in the diplomatic service). Which is fine, but I'm not super interested. I also thought the choices for and execution of Mah's quest were pretty damn lame. For Paris–the first chapter in the book no less–what dish does she choose? Steak and frites. Really? Out of all the dishes she could have written about? Giant snooze. In another chapter, Mah highlights two famous andouillette recipes of Troyes, but she doesn't even try them! At that point this book lost me. I will say, however, that the recipes at the back of each chapter sound tasty and I totally want to try them.

Verdict: Bypass, or borrow for the recipes.



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Review: INSURGENT by Veronica Roth

After turning off and stealing the simulation that was forcing members of Dauntless to kill Abnegation, Four and Tris leave Chicago to escape the Erudite. But with Jeanine still alive and determined to control all the factions, they're quickly drawn back into the city, where Marcus wants to unveil the secret Jeanine was ready to kill for. Will he convince Tris she needs to risk everything to help him?

If that summary made a lick of sense to you, congratulations, you've likely read Divergent! (I know I should probably review these books in, like, order or something, but hey. It's my blog, I do what I want.) I immediately downloaded Insurgent after finishing Divergent, because hellloooooooo, I loved it. Divergent, that is. Insurgent was a bit of a letdown.

First of all, Four. In Divergent he was a total hottie, but in Insurgent there was no chemistry between him and Tris WHAT. SO. EVER. Their makeout sessions read like a microwave instruction manual. And I got sick of his constant whining pretty damn fast. Waaaah, you never tell me every single damn thing that's going on with you right away, waaaaaaahhhh. By the time the storming of the Erudite compound rolled around, I was rooting for them to break up.

The ending in particular was SUPER annoying because there were several things that did not make sense:

1. Why is Tris considered a traitor to Dauntless? It's not like she's siding with Erudite or helping Jeanine escape; she just wants to make sure the information in Erudite's computers doesn't disappear and innocent Erudites don't die. Where's the conflict with Dauntless here? She's working toward the same goal, just with different priorities.
2. Why doesn't Tris tell Four about Marcus' plan? For that matter, why agree to help Marcus at all if she's so worried about Four's reaction, especially when Marcus never tells her exactly what he's doing or why it's so important, other than, "It's essential to the preservation of society"? As Tris herself pointed out, their society is already in ruins, so what exactly are they risking their lives and personal relationships to save? Seems unnecessary. And it's not as if Tris is THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD who can help him. He can go pick on someone else.
3. The big reveal at the end (which let me assure you was underwhelming) negates the messages and themes of Divergent, namely that people are more than the places they grow up in, or their families, or their jobs, or their major. You don't have to be just one thing. But the reveal shows exactly the opposite: they're breeding for divergence. In other words, the only reason Tris and the other divergents have different abilities is because their parents belonged to other factions. So that whole thing about people being more than the sum of their parts and free will? I felt like it went out the window.

Not to mention the fact that by the end, I wanted Four to throw himself off a cliff. Let's break down Worst Boyfriend of the Year's actions a bit, shall we?

• Instead of supporting Tris when she gets into a fight with Peter, he tells her to calm down. AWESOME, WOMEN LOVE BEING TOLD TO CALM DOWN! Keep that up.
• Instead of being understanding when he finds out Tris killed Will and that's why she's been freaking out lately, he tells her, "It's not easy being with you." Are you kidding me? Look in the mirror, buddy. LOOK IN A FREAKIN MIRROR.
• Most hilarious (if by hilarious you mean awful) part: when Four breaks into Erudite and you THINK he's going to rescue Tris, but instead he tells her that he *could* break them out of Erudite at any time, except he needs to do yada yada some such to prepare for the Dauntless attack. So she should just hang in there with the mental torture for two more weeks, and then maybe probably he can get them out. Tris: "I don't think I can last that long, I really can't." Four: "You're a strong Mädchen, you can do it." [I may be projecting a bit here.] NO. Tris has to be rescued by fucking Peter. What is even the point of you, Four?
• When Tris is caught as a "traitor," Four doesn't even attempt to talk to her or offer an explanation for her behavior that would, presumably, save her from being KILLED. To repeat: we're supposed to believe that Dauntless is ready to execute Tris, and because she was helping his dad, Four sees her dying as a completely reasonable outcome to not-exactly-being-a-traitor. For someone who keeps yelling at her to stop risking her life, he seems pretty copacetic with Tris getting executed and/or tortured.
• Then, twenty minutes after Tris yells at him for being a jerk (finally), Four comes hop-skipping over and says, "You were right. I do know who you are. I just needed to be reminded." COOL STORY, BRA. At that point I would have been like, "I think we need to start seeing other people." BUT NO. Everything magically becomes happily every after ville again, and they kiss and make up. Literally.

I want at least one scene of abject apologies and groveling. To the level that it's so pathetic, it's embarrassing.

Not to mention the fact that the writing style in Insurgent read VERY YA. Like Harriet the Spy. The number of conversations Tris eavesdropped on was ridic.

So yeah. I found this book to be EXTREMELY annoying. But I will say Veronica Roth can still spin a fast-moving story, even when it makes no sense.


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Review: MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Collins

After I finished Catching Fire, I tried to read something that wasn't a YA dystopian novel... for about five seconds. Then I finally gave in to my obsession and started Mockingjay.

I knew going into Mockingjay that a lot people on the bookternet were disappointed by it, but I didn't know why or wheretofore. If only I could go back to that time of blissful ignorance. Now I understand completely, though there is no comfort in it. And I didn't even spend a year waiting for this book to come out, imagining way better scenarios than what actually happened!

Going into Mockingjay, here's what I was expecting would happen:

• Katniss rescues Peeta from the Capitol.
• She gets close enough to President Snow to kill him, but probably doesn't end up assassinating him. Maybe someone else (Peeta, the Unexpectedly Badass Baker?) does that for her.
• Katniss and Peeta take on leadership roles in the new government, get married, and live more or less happily ever after.

Here's what actually happened: NONE OF THOSE THINGS.

Oh, and I guess I should say there's going to be spoilers out the wazoo in this review, although the book's been out four freaking years. If you haven't read it yet, and you were planning to read it, um... maybe you should get to doing that.

Okay kids, put on your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Mockingjay starts out okay. Katniss has been "rescued" (or more like recruited?) by District 13, which also took in Katniss' and Gale's families after the Capitol burned District 12 to the ground (OR DID THEY? It would have been more interesting if they hadn't). Peeta is being held hostage by the Capitol and is begging for peace, which 13 interprets as a Benedict Arnold-type betrayal. So, to save Peeta from execution, Katniss agrees to be 13's poster child as long as Peeta is given immunity by the rebellion.

Okay, fine. I enjoyed the James Bond atmosphere of Katniss and Gale receiving fancy new weaponry and outfits, and I liked how Collins set up District 13 as being just as bad as the Capitol, or possibly even worse.

It was when Peeta is rescued from the Capitol that I started feeling little niggles of discontent. Here's how it went down: about halfway through the book, Katniss realizes the Capitol is punishing her by torturing Peeta. It takes her that long to come to this realization? Anyway, she freaks the hell out and 13's like, "If we want to keep using her on TV it looks like we're going to have to rescue Peeta." So they drug her into a stupor and Gale and some other people traipse on over the Capitol to get Peeta and the other Hunger Games contestants who were left behind at the end of Catching Fire. Then they traipse on back and plop him down in the middle of 13.

So just to sum up: They could have rescued Peeta AT ANY TIME, if Katniss had demanded it. But she conveniently didn't, so now Peeta's been brainwashed to kill her. And the whole rescue happened completely off-page while Katniss was unconscious. HOW FREAKING EXCITING.

There is no happy reunion between Katniss and Peeta. She can't deal with him calling her "a piece of work," so after taking more drugs (13 is very free and happy with the benzodiazepines–I found it hard to believe either Katniss or her family would be hunky dory with this considering her mother's refusal to give Gale morphine after he'd been whipped in Catching Fire, but apparently they are. And hey, why expect consistency?) she's off to do more war/TV stuff with Gale.

Time and preachy scenes about "panem et circenses" pass. Finally the rebels are set to take over the Capitol, and Katniss is determined to be part of the fighting. So there's a long section about training and she finally gets put on a unit with Gale and Finnick and some other people. Peeta is also part of Katniss' unit, because that's a great idea. Naturally things take a turn for the FUBAR and Katniss decides to lead the team into the heart of the Capitol to kill Snow. Pretty much everyone dies or is captured along the way, but Katniss manages to make it just outside the Capitol building where, presumably, President Snow lives. That's when her sister and a bunch of kids are killed by IEDs.

LAME, so lame. First of all, the fighting scenes read like Collins was describing one of those single-shooter video games. There was no sense of reality. Secondly, to paraphrase Alfred Hitchcock's comments on his movie, Sabotage, DO NOT BLOW UP THE INNOCENT LITTLE KID. The audience will never forgive you because you've crossed the line from narrative suspense into base shock value. I feel like that's what Collins did in Mockingjay by killing Prim. IT WAS TOTALLY POINTLESS.

Katniss goes into major freak out mode again (side note: I am so sick to death of female protagonists who start off really awesome and then collapse into emo can't-deal-with-it mode as soon as shit starts affecting them personally. coughOliviaPopecough). Katniss never makes it into the Capitol building to kill Snow, and the rebellion is won completely off page. AGAIN. Meanwhile, she wanders around crying and drugged up. When Katniss does find an opportunity to see Snow, he's like, "Hey, 13 arranged that entire thing with the bombs that killed your sister to expedite the end of the war," and Katniss is like, OH YEAH I forgot I didn't trust that bitch with the perfect hair. So she kills the president of 13 instead of Snow.

Okay, fine (again). But here's where I started getting really pissed off: Katniss is tried for the murder of 13's president, but we never see a single second of the trial, nor do we ever receive an explanation as to how or why she wasn't convicted. Was the defense temporary insanity? Justifiable homicide? Did anyone mention the whole thing with the bombs that killed the kids? I don't know! After the trial, she's shipped back to 12 with a "There, there now, little lady," pat on the head–metaphorically speaking, of course–which she accepts with nary a whimper of protest. In 12, she lives in the Victor's Village all by herself, wallowing in depression, until Peeta shows up. They have a bunch of kids and never leave 12 again. The end.

Seriously, what the freaking fuck????

1. So basically at the conclusion of this nonsense, everyone is in more or less the exact same place they were in at the start of Catching Fire, except for Prim (who's dead) and Gale (who was the architect of the bombing that killed Prim). That doesn't make me feel like I wasted my time at all!
2. Congrats, Collins, you just completely removed any agency from the main character of your novel who's supposed to be a "kick-ass heroine." You know what would be great? A book where the main character actually does stuff instead of wallowing in drugs and self-pity, or acting out emotionally instead of using her intelligence, or following that up by just doing whatever other people tell her to do. What a great message, keep this shit up.
3. There was no emotional closure whatsoever. Sorry, I don't consider pushing babies out of your vagina closure. Katniss never acts proactively for her own happiness or fights for justice for Prim, and her confrontation with Gale over the bombing was lame. He was just like, "Did I have something to do with that? IDK. *shrug* So... this is going to be an issue between us now, right?" YA THINK. She also never confronts either Gale or Peeta for the numerous hurtful things they said about her during the course of the novel, for instance, "Katniss will pick whoever she can't survive without." What in the name of beejesus is that supposed to mean? I would have thrown a crowbar at both their heads.
4. And speaking of Katniss choosing between Peeta and Gale, she never actually does! Gale gets some fancy-ass job in District 2 and never visits–which admittedly is understandable, since he killed her sister with his bloodthirsty warmongering, the asshat–and Peeta just kinda shows up. So the conclusion to their story is essentially: Hey, you're here, I've given up on life, let's have babies together.

The ending of Mockingjay was THE ACTUAL WORST. I'm not even being hyperbolic. I was so upset when I first finished it I couldn't sleep, and I was depressed for DAYS afterward. I have no idea what the hell Collins was thinking with this novel, but I feel like it betrayed every fiber of trust and time I invested in the series. I want to burn the shit out of it. I want to forget I ever read it. I want to rewrite the whole book into something that's actually decent.

After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that reason I had such a strong negative reaction to the end of Mockingjay was that, despite the supposedly "happy" ending, the novel is actually a tragedy, and a cynical one at that. On the micro level, it's the story of a woman who is systematically beaten down, used until she's completely empty and has lost everything: her friends, family, home; but even worse than that, her sense of self-identity, strength, and authority. In the technical sense Katniss survives The Hunger Games: Game On with a Vengeance, but in terms of her personality I feel like Katniss was completely erased, and no one noticed or cared.

On the macro level, the people who act without conscience or morals during the course of the novel, like Gale and Plutarch, are rewarded, while those who try to save lives or demonstrate caring for other people either die or are rendered completely powerless and irrelevant.

THE ACTUAL WORST.


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Review: CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins

Welcome to The Hunger Games All Stars: the Peeta Bread Boy show! Having survived the Hunger Games thanks to some quick thinking on Katniss' part, Peeta is baking his feels and painting, because he's the sensitive artist type. Meanwhile, Haymitch is drinking his feels and Katniss... no one's quite sure what Katniss is doing. Luckily she has Peeta! Peeta makes everything better, as evidenced by this graph:

As you can see, the amount of time Katniss spends with Peeta is directly related to how likable she is, and in Catching Fire she and Peeta spend a lot of time together. So much time, because President Snow isn't convinced they're really in love. BUT THEY ARE YOU GUYS. They just don't know it yet.

Anyway. It took me a long time to read Catching Fire because I was meh about The Hunger Games–both the book and the movie–and then I discovered through a Sesame Street skit of all things that Peeta and Katniss go back to the Hunger Games. At first I thought they were joking, but then the Internet confirmed that they weren't. At which point I was just like, "Yeahhhhhhhhh. Nope."

Like seriously, back to the Hunger Games? The first time wasn't enough? It then took me a good long while to even work up enough fucks to watch the movie. I would consider watching it, and then I would remember they go back to the Hunger Games, and I would decide to do something else like wash the dishes. Surprisingly, however, I actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit when I finally did watch it; and when I hit on a I've-been-meaning-to-read-that jag recently, I decided to pick up the book as well.

Like the movie, Catching Fire the novel is a big improvement over The Hunger Games the novel. For one thing, there's a lot of Peeta in it. I've said before that Peeta's the heart of the series, and this book is probably the most emotionally resonant of the entire trilogy. Peeta's totally sweet and swoonable and I just want to hug his little face.

Aside from Peeta, there's a lot more wry humor in Catching Fire than I remember being in The Hunger Games. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

I find myself in the position to console them. Since I'm the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying.

Yes, it's great to have allies as long as you ignore the fact that you'll have to kill them.

I really can't think about kissing when I've got a rebellion to incite.

Good call. Remain focused.

"My nightmares are usually about losing you," [Peeta] says. "I'm okay once I realize you're here."
Ugh.

That last quote is my absolute favorite. It's the perfect summation of Peeta and Katniss' relationship.

There are also cool new characters introduced in Catching Fire, like Finnick and Johanna, who for some reason reminded me of Katy Perry (also, why is she the only person with a normal name?).

So yes, I finally get why everyone was so obsessed with The Hunger Games after Catching Fire came out. It tells a much better story (although there are some boring stretches when Peeta's not around), with more humor and personality. It doesn't feel stiff or mechanical like The Hunger Games did; it actually reads like a human being wrote it! I enjoy books by humans. And while most cliffhangers annoy me, this one's a killer.

Next up, my review of Mockingjay!



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Review of INK by Amanda Sun

I received this book for review consideration from the publisher via Netgalley. For more about my review policies, please see my full disclosure page.

After Katie's mom dies, she has to move to Japan to live with her aunt. In the midst of dealing with a new culture, new school, finding new friends and learning a new language, Katie meets the mysterious Tomohiro, a guy with awesome hair and a serious personality disorder. One second he's super-nice, then the next he's a broody jerk. Rumors swirl through the school that Tomohiro got a girl pregnant while dating someone else, almost killed his best friend, and is involved in the Yakuza. BECAUSE EVERY JAPANESE PERSON IS INVOLVED IN THE YAKUZA, apparently. Katie's friend, Yuki, warns her that Tomohiro is dangerous and she should stay away from him, not realizing that's American for, "Totally hit that, girlfriend!" But Tanaka, who's known Tomohiro since childhood, thinks he's just a misunderstood painter. A DANGEROUS ARTIST, YOU GUUUUUUUYS. Will these two crazy kids get together?

Something you should know about me is that I am a total sucker for stories set in Japan. That's why Tokyo Drift is my favorite F&F movie, and Ice Blue is my favorite Anne Stuart novel. And that's why I requested Ink even though I've been feeling burned out on YA for a while (the whining, the love triangles... sigh). I have to say, as far as the setting goes, Ink definitely delivers. You can tell Amanda Sun has lived in Japan and knows her stuff. Katie's assimilation into the culture was a little too smooth and precipitous, but I liked how Sun showed it was happening through Katie's increased use of Japanese words (there's a dictionary of Japanese phrases in the back in case you can't figure it out through context) and how she adopted different mannerisms and hobbies to fit in. That was definitely the strongest part of the novel.

Ink is basically like Twilight (in case you were thinking, "Hey, this sounds kind of like Twilight!"). Dangerous guy who's not quite human and has to keep the girl he loves at a distance, etc. etc. But it's a very inventive twist on the Twilight plot. The "living ink" element went in a direction I totally wasn't expecting. Even the Yakuza part of the story wasn't too bad, although, really. Allllllways with the Yakuza.

And I have to admit that Tomohiro was a major hottie, what with his mad kendo skillz and painting and kick-ass hair, even if he was super-confusing and high maintenance. He laughed when any normal person would be pissed off and got angry when it seemed like there was nothing setting him off. I found myself thinking being around him had to be EXHAUSTING. But that kind of dual personality characteristic seems typical for animé and manga characters, so I just went with it.

Basically, if you love Japan or manga you probably-definitely want to read Ink. Parts of the story go on for way too long, and I am kind of annoyed it's the first of a series because the story does NOT support that; but judging the book as a standalone it's enjoyable and a bit like an animé in novel form. I actually found it pretty compelling. And hooray for books set in Japan!




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Review: CHOPSTICKS by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral

Glory, a piano prodigy, has a nervous breakdown and obsessively plays Chopsticks over and over. Then one day she simply vanishes from the "rest facility" she's staying in. What happened to Glory? Why did she go crazy and where did she disappear to?


An example page from Chopsticks, via the novel's Tumblr.

Chopsticks is a book told almost entirely in pictures. Not so much like a graphic novel, more like a scrapbook. I've been wanting to read it for a long time, ever since I read Vasilly's review of it at 1330v. I have to say, I'm very torn about this book--on the one hand, I love the concept and definitely think creative ways of storytelling like this should be encouraged. But on the other hand, the execution left a lot to be desired.

The photographs and visuals in Chopsticks are gorgeous, certainly, but not consistent with the time period the novel is set in. It starts in the early '90s, but everything in the photographs--from the type of film used to the clothes and hairstyles of the subjects--look like they're circa 1970s. There are also visual themes in the book that are never explained and seem really random. If any of you follow me on Pinterest, you know I love octopi (they're my favorite animal), but why all the octopi in Chopsticks? Glory's obsession with Jo Ann Castle was also really weird and anachronistic. At first I thought it was a metaphor for Glory's life, seeing as how Castle seems like a performing monkey; but by the end I realized this isn't the type of book that trades in metaphors and no, Glory actually just liked Jo Ann Castle and watching The Lawrence Welk Show. You know, like a normal teenager! The Malbec wine theme also seemed really random and weird. I don't know a lot of teenagers who are that into wine, and these teenagers even say they're not! Yet Glory's boyfriend's parents give him wine for a birthday present? MAKES NO SENSE. Who does that?


An example page from Chopsticks, via the novel's Tumblr.

As for the story, I found it really shallow and obvious. The characters had no depth. Glory's dad was over-the-top controlling, the school administrators were cartoonishly bureaucratic, and Glory and her boyfriend only had two speeds: histrionic whinging and total freak out. I'm not saying I didn't understand their frustration, but that's ALL we ever got of their personalities. It needed to be balanced out with some cognitive reasoning (not lovey-dovey make-out sessions) in order to be believable. Or bearable. I knew exactly where the book was going by the end of the second chapter and was disappointed that there were absolutely no surprises or twists in the story. The conclusion to Glory's serious psychiatric problem was laughably simplistic, not to mention kind of unrealistic.

So while I liked the concept of Chopsticks and would definitely encourage Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral to continue experimenting with telling stories in this format, I don't think this particular book was successful. A better option if you're looking for a story told in pictures might be Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.




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Review: CAT'S CRADLE by Julia Golding

After traveling through the British colonies in America and the Caribbean, orphan Cat Royal has returned to London only to discover that her long-lost family wants to get in touch with her. But are they looking for her, or for money? Cat decides to travel to Scotland to find out.

I'm beginning to think the quality of any Cat Royal book can be immediately ascertained by the cleverness of the "The Critics" section in the front matter of each book. For example, I loved loved LOVED Cat Among the Pigeons and Black Heart of Jamaica, and in both of those novels "The Critics" sections were so cute and hilarious I could barely contain myself. In Cat O' Nine Tails, however, "The Critics" section was really blah and uninteresting, kind of like that book! The same was true for Cat's Cradle, and therefor I had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn't be the best Julia Golding novel I'd ever read when I started it. I was right.

Cat's Cradle was basically really boring and felt episodic. I was glad Cat got to find her family, and I thought some of the locations she went to in this book were interesting (a fabric mill, for example); but it didn't feel like there was a central challenge or antagonist for her to overcome, and as a result the whole things felt really blah. Don't get me wrong, Cat's Cradle was still enjoyable, but as soon as I put it down I had NO desire to pick it back up again. Not even when I was bored out of my mind and actually in the mood to read something.

Another thing that was kind of disappointing about Cat's Cradle was the lack of Billy Boil. Billy, if you haven't read the series, is Cat's archnemesis who insists that they belong together. He's my FAVORITE character, and he's not involved in the story of Cat's Cradle at all. Frank (son of a duke who's super-fun and nice) and Syd (leader of the Covent Garden gang and Cat's bestie) are in the novel quite a bit, and they're great; but Cat just isn't Cat withouy Billy pushing her buttons. He's like the Fred to her Ginger! Now that I think of it, all of the books I've really liked in this series have featured Billy prominently.

I'm not ready to give up on the Cat Royal books, but Cat's Cradle was REALLY disappointing. About halfway through I realized I'd either have to DNF it or skim through it. Since I didn't want to DNF it, I skimmed, and it was still really hard to finish. I DO want the series to keep going, just because I love the characters so much--but I hope the next book is better, especially since I have to special order them from the UK.



Further Reading:

• The Diamond of Drury Lane, Cat Royal #1 
• Cat Among the Pigeons, Cat Royal #2 
• Den of Thieves, Cat Royal #3 
• Cat O' Nine Tails, Cat Royal #4 
• Black Heart of Jamaica, Cat Royal #5 

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Review: MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN by Ransom Riggs

Instead of reading the prologue, you can just watch this book trailer!

Jacob grew up listening to his grandfather's stories of "peculiar children"--orphans who were rescued and sent to live on an island during WWII, one of whom was Jake's grandfather. Unlike most orphans, however, the orphans Jake's grandpa knew had strange powers and abilities, which were captured in photographs that his grandpa kept. After Jake's grandfather is murdered, he sets out on mission to find out the truth about his grandfather's odd stories.



Despite the fact that there are reviews of this book all over the freaking place, I started Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children with very little idea of what it was about. When I read the reviews, all I heard was: "Pictures! Creepy pictures of olde-timey kids being creepy!" That alone was enough to make me want to check Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children out, of course, but there's a lot more to the novel than just pictures, and honestly the creepy kid photos are probably the least-successful element of the book.

Not that they're UNsuccessful. I can see where Ransom Riggs (incredible name for a writer, by the way) was going with that idea, and I love it. But I'm not sure including the photographs in the text was necessary, and at times it felt gimmicky. Why are these kids running around taking pictures of themselves and then saving them all? Where are these photographs even developed in the time loop, hmmm?

I did adore Riggs' writing style and the voice of the main character, Jacob. As someone whose own grandparents come from Germany and lived through WWII, I really connected to all the generational things going on between Jake and his dad and grandpa. He also freaking TIME TRAVELS--I mean, come on. That's really the best part of the novel (although the entire time I kept thinking, "Nazis aren't enough, we need wights and hallows too?" A little OTT). Riggs can write creepy REALLY well. Honestly, for the first three-fourths of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, I didn't want to put the book down at all.

Then I hit the last quarter of the book and it started to literally put me to sleep. I think it's mainly because the "magical" elements of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children aren't grounded enough in the world of the novel; or maybe they're just too obvious? It was as if Miss Peregrine's started off as magical realism and then switched to middle-grade fantasy. I pretty much lost all emotional investment in the story by the end of the book.

My feelings about Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children are very mixed at this point, but I have say it's interesting--and I mean that in a good way. Intriguing concept, unexpected story, and a writer who's not afraid to take chances. I love how Riggs took real photographs and quilted them together into a story with emotional depth. As I'm always willing to reward experimentation even if it doesn't quite hit the mark, I think this might be one of my more memorable reads of the year.

Review: ENSHADOWED by Kelly Creagh

After leaving Varen in the Edgar Allan Poe dreamworld, Isobel has not moved on with her life. Instead, she's spiraling into a depression and has horrible dreams. If only she could find a way to be in Baltimore on Poe's birthday, she might be able to convince Reynolds to show her a way back to the world she left--for good reason--in the last book.

I really enjoyed Nevermore by Kelly Creagh when I read it a few years ago (review here), so I was super-excited about the planned sequel, Enshadowed. Nevermore had everything: a broody, Snape-like hero; the big dance at the end where EVERYTHING HAPPENS; poetry (you guys know I love it when characters quote poetry); a Gothic atmosphere; and a romance where the hero and heroine fight. The only thing I didn't like about Nevermore was the last third of the book, which was all about "nocs" and the spooky Poe dreamworld. It felt tacked on and completely nonsensical. Plus, Varen (aka Young Snape) was not in it.

The thing about Enshadowed? It's basically the last third of Nevermore, but spread out over another 500 pages.

I still enjoy Creagh's writing style, and for about the first 100 pages Enshadowed I was completely gripped by the story. I loved Isobel's brother and their interactions, and I liked the idea of setting the book during Christmas while Isobel's on break. BUT. The spooky incidents that lead nowhere started to get really repetitive, really fast, especially as they were pretty dang corny: The TV that plays a static-y black and white video clips. Shadows on the wall. Books o' mysticism. The ethnic minority who knows way too much about demons. Also, THERE WAS NO VAREN. Instead, Isobel hangs out with this girl named Gwen, whom I honestly do not remember from the previous book at all.

But the real drag on Enshadowed is that this is not a story. Or if it is, it's a short story, and one about which I probably give only a marginal shit. The actual story lies with Varen--he's the one trapped in Poe World (coming in 2013, brought to you by Dickens World) with a demoness. What's he doing to get himself out of this mess, hmmm? What if he likes it there? Reading about this story from Isobel's perspective is like reading about Harry Potter from the perspective of Mrs. Weasley. SHE'S NOT EVEN AT HOGWARTS. You get what I'm saying?

Enshadowed wound up being extremely skimmable, and I'm very happy I waited for it to come in at the library rather than shelling out money for it. Based on the (rather ridiculous) cliffhanger at the end of Enshadowed, I'm guessing there's going to be a third book in the series, which will hopefully be better.

Review: BLACK HEART OF JAMAICA by Julia Golding

Cat Royal was left on the steps of the Royal Theater of London when she was a baby, and grew up amid the actors, stage hands, street gangs, and aristocratic patrons of Drury Lane. As a result, even though she's only fourteen, she's very plucky and independent, and has lived through a vast array of adventures. Now she's taking part in a traveling production of Shakespeare's plays that is touring the Caribbean. But with slave revolts, pirates, kidnappings, and Cat's arch-nemesis Billy Shepherd roaming around, it's doubtful Cat can stay out of trouble for very long.

It's been over a year since I read the novel previous to this one in the Cat Royal series, Cat O' Nine Tails (review here), and it wasn't because I had to order Black Heart of Jamaica from the UK; it was because I was so disappointed in Cat O' Nine Tails that I couldn't face another Cat Royal adventure. After finishing Scaramouche, however (review at PGP), I was in the mood for more swashbuckling and Black Heart of Jamaica sounded like it might fit the bill. Here's the good news: it definitely did!

The bad news? I have to order the next book from the UK now, and it's going to take FOREVER to get here.

I've said before that I want to live in these books, and Black Heart of Jamaica renewed that sense of stepping into a fully-realized world. This time, Julia Golding brings to life Kingston, Jamaica, in 1792; and while I had some issues with her research in the past two Cat Royal novels, in Black Heart of Jamaica I thought she did an excellent job. Admittedly, I'm already interested and know quite a bit about this time and place in history; but even if you don't and just want to take a Caribbean trip by proxy, Black Heart of Jamaica should be the cure fer what ails ye.

Of course, considering that Cat's adopted brother, Pedro, is a former slave, and the Haitian Revolution is underway on Saint-Domingue--literally right next door to Jamaica--Golding isn't going to shy away from issues of slavery in the Caribbean. As this is a basically a middle-grade adventure novel, I thought she did a fair job. One of the things about the Cat Royal novels is that Cat always struggles to be recognized as a human being, both because of her gender and the fact that she has no family and therefore no status. As far as the law is concerned, she barely even exists--anyone can do whatever they want with her. Because of that, Golding often draws parallels between Cat and outsiders or underdogs, like Pedro in Cat Among the Pigeons (review here), and the same thing happens in Black Heart of Jamaica. Cat gets into a horrible situation and I was literally on the edge of my seat, wondering how she would get herself out of it.

Which brings me to Billy Boil Shepherd, my favorite character in a series filled with great characters. Billy is a Covent Garden street thug who's branching out into "respectable business" and has an itsy-bitsy obsession with Cat. Cat, meanwhile, finds him completely repulsive--OR DOES SHE? Black Heart of Jamaica is the first book where Cat's willing to think Billy might not be completely terrible. Although I thought Cat forgave him a little too easily (and that it was awfully convenient for her to do so), I love that Golding managed to tie them together without any reference to physical attraction at all. Plus I still have no idea where their relationship is headed--it could become a romance, or they could go back to being mortal enemies. You just don't know!

Black Heart of Jamaica restored my faith in the Cat Royal books. You can read it in a day and it's highly entertaining, especially if you've read the other books already. I can't wait to read Cat's Cradle and think I'm due for a reread of The Middle Passage, the free novella that got me started on the books in the first place.

PS-When you read the Cat Royal series--when, not if--make sure to check out the "The Critics" and "Glossary" sections at the beginning and end of each of book. They are so cute and clever I can barely contain myself. Here's a sample of the funnier ones from Black Heart of Jamaica:

'She is a tyger burning bright in the forests of literary night'--William Blake
'Mademoiselle Royal strikes a blow for emancipation.'--Toussaint L'Ouverture, slave revolt leader on Saint-Domingue
'Give Cat Royal your vote and I'll kiss you!'--Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, political campaigner
'Another book from Cat Royal? She's always worth a gamble.'--John Montague, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich

Guest Post: SUZANNE SELFORS

Today YA author Suzanne Selfors is here to discuss the inspiration for her latest novel, The Sweetest Spell. Suzanne is also the author of Coffeehouse Angel and Saving Juliet. You can contact her by e-mail if you so wish.

Welcome, Suzanne!

I don’t know why it took me this long to finally write a fairy tale. But writing The Sweetest Spell was a blast from the first word to the last, in part because I grew up on fairy tales. I guess the happily-ever-after formula is cemented in my story-craving brain. But I love the idea of playing with the formula, giving it a modern twist, messing things up.

Like many fairy tales, my story is about transformation. Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling, Beauty and the Beast are examples of such stories in which the unloved (Cinderella)/ugly (Duckling)/ selfish (Beast) hero becomes loveable/beautiful/selfless. My Ugly Duckling is a peasant girl named Emmeline Thistle. Born with a clubfoot, and born to the lowest economic class in the kingdom of Anglund, this dirt-scratcher girl is shunned by everyone. She is unwanted and unloved.

But, like most heroes, Emmeline discovers a secret about herself. She has the mysterious and rare ability to churn cream into chocolate, a substance that exists only in legend. A substance that is desired by everyone, including the royal family. And so, Emmeline Thistle is transformed from the most unwanted girl in the kingdom to the most desired. The duckling becomes a swan. The slave becomes a princess.

Though there is much comedy, romance and adventure in this story, there was one darker issue I wanted to explore – greed. With our economy in the tank and corporate greed gone wild, this seemed like the perfect time to explore such an issue. And it felt much more appealing to do so in a make-believe kingdom, where tax collectors control the population, and the king and queen exploit the peasants. Emmeline is one of those peasants. She’s a dirt-scratcher. She is poor and homeless. All that changes when she begins to make chocolate. But this blessing turns out to be a challenge and she’s faced with a dilemma. When you have something everyone wants, do you sell it to the highest bidder, even if that means going against your values? Do you choose comfort over integrity? This was the question I wanted to explore.

Of course, I didn’t forget about the boys. You can’t have a fairy tale without some strapping hunks. They’re in there too.

Review: RADIANT SHADOWS by Melissa Marr

Devlin is the faerie High Court assassin. He has only ever disobeyed his queen once: when he spared the life of a halfling named Ani. Now Ani is all grown up, and Devlin likes what he sees. Boom chicka wow-wow!

I have to be honest here and say I really didn't like Radiant Shadows. At all. Actually, I couldn't even finish it--I got about halfway through and decided life was too short to waste on this book.

My main problem with Radiant Shadows is that it seems like a novella artificially stretched out into a novel. There simply is not enough material here for a full novel. The conversations run in pointless circles that lead nowhere, and events and information are very repetitive. How many times do I need to be told Ani's been threatened and is completely capable of killing? Or that Devlin saved her life? Once is enough, thanks.

In addition, there are a lot of continuity issues, and things happen randomly with no explanation. In one scene, Ani asks her brother to make dessert, then calls Irial to tell him she's making dinner. Then she asks him to come over a protect her from Bananach and immediately packs a bag and leaves the house. Um, wut? I have no idea what Rae, Devlin's dead mortal friend who can walk in people's dreams, has to do with anything in this story, or why she's in this novel; and ditto with Ani's steed, which just appears with no explanation. You're not going to wonder where that came from, Ani?

The strength of Melissa Marr's novels are that she takes the tropes of a typical YA romance and really thinks about how they would apply to her characters, twisting the story in unexpected ways--that's what I loved about both Wicked Lovely (review here) and Ink Exchange (review here). I didn't get any sense of characters or thought in Radiant Shadows, though. It felt like Marr was making the novel up as she went along.

To me Radiant Shadows was nothing but filler in between Fragile Eternity (review here) and Darkest Mercy. Not that anything I say is going to stop a fan of the series from reading it--nor should it, since you probably don't want to be lost when you start the final book in the series--but personally I was pretty disappointed.

Review: SPELL BOUND by Rachel Hawkins

The last book in the Hex Hall trilogy starts pretty much where Demonglass (review here) left off: Sophie coming out of the Itineris in search of her mom and the Brannicks, a group of Amazonian-esque redheads who want to destroy people like Sophie--i.e., demons, witches, werewolves, fairies, etc. With her best friend, dad, fiance, and boyfriend all possibly dead, Sophie has to figure out a way to stop the Casnoffs from turning the rest of her high school into a demon army.

That plot sounds like bit of a potboiler, doesn't it? Actually, Spell Bound is a very light, fun read with a lot of humor. I think it's a successful conclusion to the Hex Hall series, although not as good as Demonglass. Sophie is always quick with the one-liners, and that gives Spell Bound some much-needed humor (my personal favorite was, "Jackass, jackass on the wall, where's the info on Hex Hall?").

That being said, it doesn't feel like a lot goes on in Spell Bound. For most of the book Sophie is recovering from her adventures in Demonglass and trying to figure out how to defeat the Casnoffs. There is a lot of build-up to the final battle, but the solution feels too easy and pat. I also have issues with the events that happened in the last fifty pages--again, it was all just too convenient. There wasn't really a sense of emotional resonance at the conclusion of the series that I would have liked.

Overall, though, I think Hex Hall has been a pretty successful YA trilogy. I had some doubts when I read the first book (review here), and there are things in the plot that are very cheesy and predictable; but Rachel Hawkins manages to pull it off with great writing that makes the novels fun and enjoyable.

Review: BEHEMOTH and GOLIATH by Scott Westerfeld

Despite my problems with Leviathan (review here), I still felt compelled to go to my library and immediately pick up Behemoth and Goliath. What can I say, I really wanted to know how Alek and Deryn's relationship was going to shake out. So basically I read this entire series in under a month, which for me is quite a glomfest.

If you don't know what the Leviathan series is about, it takes place in an alternate WWI, where the Axis powers' technology is machine-based and the Allies use genetically modified animals for their technology. In Behemoth, Alek, a runaway Austrian prince, and Deryn, a girl serving in the British Air Service, are on board the Darwinist airship Leviathan and headed for Constantinople. Alek needs to escape both the Darwinists and the Germans, but Istanbul is under German control, and both he and the Leviathan are in danger. How will they escape? And will Deryn EVER tell Alek she's a girl?

Shortly after starting Behemoth, I had a revelation: this series is kind of like a steampunk version of Battlestar Galactica! Alek is Apollo, Deryn is Starbuck, Count Volger is Adama, and Dr. Barlow is... Six? Okay, maybe it's not really that much like BSG, but in both cases the only thing I care about is the romance between the two main characters. And as long as Deryn and Alek were together, Behemoth was much more interesting than Leviathan. I loved the interactions between Alek and Deryn, and the scene where Alek confesses he loves the Leviathan may be one of my favorite YA scenes ever.

Another thing that made Behemoth more interesting to me than Leviathan was that there were more women in it! Yay Team Vagina! There were two new female characters: a young woman named Lilit, and her grandmother, Nene. Nene is in charge of a group of Istanbul revolutionaries, and Lilit pilots a walker, fights in her family's revolutionary army, and publishes pamphlets about women's rights. There was definitely some subversion of gender stereotypes in this book--at least as far as the stereotypes the characters have, including Alek, who can't believe a girl would be capable of fighting or piloting a walker.

Even beyond that, though, women are just more visible in the street scenes and society of Istanbul than they were in Germany or England. I feel like the setting itself is more feminized than that of Western Europe and that's at least part of the reason. Both Germany and Britain are attempting to court Istanbul, whose Sultan behaves with remarkable passivity. Even the Istanbul technology, a mix of Darwinist aesthetics and Clanker mechanics, seems like a compromising, gentle version of the two extremes.

Although there were scenes that went on a little too long, and the story definitely lagged in the middle while Deryn and Alek were separated, for the most part I think Behemoth is the best book in the entire series. There's tons of action, and the world building Scott Westerfeld set up in Leviathan starts to really pay off.



In Goliath, Alek and Deryn are headed to Japan on board the Leviathan when a message from the kaiser of Russia (the book's terminology, not mine) reaches them asking for help in a rescue mission. The man they pick up, Nikola Tesla, claims his weapon of mass destruction, the Goliath, will stop WWI. Shades of the atomic bomb! Naturally the British want their hands on this weapon, and soon the Leviathan is sailing over America on its way to London, where the only action the characters are in danger of facing is that which is shouted by a director from behind the lens of a motion picture camera.

Honestly, I was a little disappointed in Goliath. This book is different from the previous two in that the Leviathan is largely removed from the European theater and instead spends at least half the novel in America. Tesla wants to use Alek's notoriety as the lost Hapsburg prince to generate publicity and investors for the Goliath, and as a result the only challenges Alek seems to face have to do with newspaper reporters and cameras.

The fact that I just used the words publicity and investors in the same sentence should tell you all you need to know about this book.

As for Deryn, she wasn't given a lot to do in Goliath. She loses a lot of her swagger and literally spends a good portion of the book in her room, whining over how everyone is going to find out she's Team Vagina. I also felt like her autonomy was undermined in this novel--subtly, but it's still there, especially in the use of cameras. The camera has often been connected to the "male gaze," and when Alek first encounters them he's very uncomfortable about being exposed. Yet soon he's watching--along with a bunch of other men--a woman on the screen in Perils of Pauline, and when Deryn is captured on film it presages the fact that she's about to be exposed as a female.

As far as the threat of Tesla's superweapon was concerned, I thought was a little lame. I was never entirely sure how the Goliath worked, what it was supposed to do, or why I should care. It was quite snooze-worthy, and I couldn't help but wish the Leviathan had headed west instead of east.

I do still love the world of this series as a whole, and a part of me even wishes there were more books about the Leviathan to read, but I think the highpoint of the series was definitely Behemoth.