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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New Author Crush: KJ Charles

Last year, I totally fell in love with Laura Florand's novels. This year, I think KJ Charles is going to be my new book crush.

I first heard about KJ Charles at Portable Pieces of Thought. I bought The Magpie Lord a short time after reading rameau's review, then promptly forgot about it, even after Anachronist offered to loan me the second book in the series. The Magpie Lord would probably still be sitting unread on my Kindle if it hadn't been for a listicle on m/m romance writers I agreed to write for Book Riot. I found myself racking my brain for a scifi-fantasy m/m title, scrolling through my endless list of ebooks, when I happened across The Magpie Lord and remembered how much Anachronist enjoyed it.

Basically, The Magpie Lord is like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, only sexy, entertaining, NOT 600 pages too long, and with a romantic subplot that didn't make me want to shoot someone.

The novella is set in an alternate-universe Victorian England, where magic exists, albeit not in the open. While cleaning out his family estate, the newly anointed Lord Crane, Lucien Vaudrey, falls under a vicious curse, and the only person who can help him is "practitioner" (read: magician) Stephen Day. Once Day cures Lucien, however, the nature of the curse leads him to suspect it was meant not just for Lucien, but his entire family. Meaning his father and brother might have been the victims of a magical killer.

The Magpie Lord was a really fun, fast, and delightful read. I loved Lucien and his bestie, Merrick, and the fact that they had an extensive and very exotic backstory set in China. Lucien is your basic rake, but he's a rake whose actions are grounded in a personal history and are more about independence than rebellion. Stephen was also a great character, with a complex history involving Lucien's family. I loved that his sense of justice was more important to him than personal grudges. Not to mention that his historical crush on the first Lord Crane (aka the eponymous Magpie Lord) was kind of adorkable.

The ending felt rushed and too conveniently resolved, but for the most part The Magpie Lord was a really good book. I bought the second book in the series as soon as I finished it! (Kindle's really kind of evil when it comes to that.)

After I completed The Magpie Lord, I was going through Charles' Amazon page and ran across Think of England. Unlike Charles' Charm of Magpies series, this is a historical novella set in Edwardian England. Former army captain Archie Curtis gets himself invited to a house party at a remote country estate, all so he can poke into the affairs of the house's owner, whom he suspects sold defective weapons to the army. While at the house party, he meets Daniel da Silva, an effeminate poet who is clearly Up To Something.

COUNTRY HOUSE MYSTERY YOU GUYYYYYS. I was in the mood for a nice historical romp so I immediately downloaded Think of England, and I'm super glad I did. Despite containing the most awkward felattio scene I've ever come across, this book is absolutely fantastic. Again, I loved the characters. Daniel reminded me of a cross between Oscar Wilde and Ambrose from I've Come to Stay, both of whom I adore, needless to say. The female characters were also really sharp and completely awesome.

But my favorite thing about this book is how Charles references and roots Think of England in Edwardian adventure novels. Both H. Rider Haggard and E. Phillips Oppenheim are mentioned by the characters. Archie's uncle was the inspiration for Haggard's Allan Quatermain, and Archie finds himself thinking that if this was an Oppenheim novel, Daniel would be the villain. And he's totally right–in fact, the set-up for the book (obscure country house, no good being done there) was reminiscent of Oppenheim's The Great Impersonation. I love it when books are in conversation with other books, and Think of England definitely is. For a history and book geek, it was a definite bonus.

After I finished Think of England, Anachronist told me I should read Non-Stop Till Tokyo, because she knows I can't resist books set in Japan. Non-Stop Till Tokyo is very different from the previous books by Charles listed here. For one, it's a contemporary thriller. For another, I would never describe it as "fun, fast, and delightful" like I would the previous two books. Not that it isn't good, but it is different in tone and pace.

Kerry Ekdahl's life is spent in the shadows: she lives and works in Tokyo illegally as a "hostess" (kind of a low-rent geisha, providing company to lonely, workaholic salarymen at a bar), and as far as family and roots go, she has none besides her friends. In a single night, Kerry's precariously peaceful existence is torn apart when her least-favorite co-worker sets her up to take the blame for the murder of a yakuza boss. Now Kerry has to find his briefcase to save herself and her friends.

My favorite thing about Non-Stop Till Tokyo were the descriptions of Japan. They were highly detailed and, as in Ink by Amanda Sun, it's clear Charles has spent extensive time in Japan and is very familiar with its language and culture. The picture she painted of Japan here was probably the best I've ever come across in a novel.

That said, while I enjoyed the book, there were times when it felt like it would never end. There were always things happening, and maybe that was the problem–too many challenges, not enough down time? In any case, the pacing was a little off.

The tone is also much darker and more cynical than Think of England or The Magpie Lord. Kerry's involvement with the Yakuza has some very real, very nasty consequences for herself and her friends. Even with a "happy ending," this isn't the type of book where the protagonists skip into the sunset scott free.

The other thing that really hooked me when Anachronist told me about Non-Stop Till Tokyo was that the hero was a former sumo wrestler! Fun fact: sumo wrestling is one of the few sports I will watch on TV. While I liked Chanko and thought his and Kerry's interactions were fun, but to be honest I didn't feel any romantic chemistry between them at all. That part of the book felt a bit forced, perhaps because Chanko's personality wasn't very detailed. He was basically a fat, grumpy bastard with a short temper who beat people up. He had the whole knight-in-shining-armor thing going on, but it seemed like Kerry won his trust over too quickly. (It would have actually been fun if he'd double-crossed her later in novel, but I'm not the one writing the book here, so.)

It was also kind of hard to picture Non-Stop Till Tokyo set in 2014–who puts information on a CD anymore? It felt like Charles had written this in the 1990s when people were still confused over what the Internet could do. Although I certainly wouldn't say no to a sequel of Non-Stop Till Tokyo–the possibility of which Charles left wide open–it's probably my least-favorite of the KJ Charles books I've read so far.

I'd definitely recommend Think of England if you're considering trying one of Charles' books, or The Magpie Lord if you're in the mood for some historical fantasy. Non-Stop Till Tokyo is also good, and a must-read if you're a sucker for books set in Japan like I am, but it's probably skippable if romantic suspense isn't your jam.

Do you have any new author crushes you'd recommend?



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Review: SECONDS by Bryan Lee O'Malley

It's probably not totally obvious, but I am a huge Bryan Lee O'Malley fan. I loved his first graphic novel stand-alone, Lost At Sea, and I think Scott Pilgrim might have ruined me for all other graphic novel series. It was that amazeballs. So to say I was looking forward to Seconds would be putting it mildly—I've been wound up like a spring waiting for O'Malley's next project for YEARS.

Was it worth the wait? Well...

The start of the comic is actually pretty strong. The main character, Katie, is the head chef at a hip restaurant named Seconds. She's the queen bee of the place, but she wants more. To that end, she's opening another restaurant across the river, creatively named Katie's. However, the old building is a money pit and renovations are dragging on and on and on, so in the meantime Katie's stuck at Seconds.

Katie isn't the best person. She's selfish, oblivious to the people around her and their feelings, and like many people who work in top kitchens (I'm guessing, based on all the reality TV chef shows I watch), she's a ball buster. But O'Malley manages to make her sympathetic, especially when she uses the mushroom a house elf gives her to rewind time and save a shy waitress from a serious kitchen accident.

Of course, once Katie finds the elf's stash of mushrooms, she uses them to rewind time and erase really stupid stuff like staying up all night watching Breaking Bad on Netflix. Would any of us do any different? Probably, because I'm assuming y'all aren't assholes. But I think we can all understand the temptation, despite the fact that Katie's constant rewinding is obviously going to fuck up the space-time continuum.

Here's the thing with Seconds: it's good, because it's by Bryan Lee O'Malley. But it's not as good as either Scott Pilgrim or Lost At Sea. O'Malley's strength—aside from his visual style, which is slightly muted here but still evident—lies in creating characters that are at once really quirky and yet totally identifiable. As I said in my review of Lost at Sea, I KNOW these people. That's not the case in Seconds. Katie's well-drawn(ish), but the secondary characters? Not so much. I was particularly annoyed with the whole love triangle between Max, Katie's cool ex, and Andrew, the chef she trained to take over for her at Seconds. What either of these bozos see in Katie, or vice versa, I have noooo idea. Their personalities, if one could call them that, were interchangeable, and Katie didn't seem to think of either of them as more than convenient bed partners. I didn't care which guy she wound up with because it didn't really matter, and I was kind of irritated she did settle with one of them by the end of the book.

The story also starts getting really boring and repetitive about 2/3rds of the way through the comic, especially since the solution to the whole problem seems really obvious. Everything is fixed too easily, with too little consequences, and as a result the themes of Seconds—responsibility, patience, growing up—aren't effectively fleshed out.

There's also nothing original in Seconds like there was in Lost at Sea and Scott Pilgrim. It's very self-referential, which COULD be amusing, but turned out to be annoying instead. Just because a joke worked—and brilliantly—in Scott Pilgrim doesn't mean it will work here. There's not enough distance between the two comics that fans of O'Malley will pat themselves on the back for remembering the reference, which is really the only reason to insert jokes like this:

You should be sorry, O'Malley.

Keep in mind that I'm being hyper-critical here because I expect a lot out of O'Malley, and for good reason. Seconds is by no means a terrible comic. But does it stand up to O'Malley's previous works? In my opinion, no. If you're starting out with O'Malley, I wouldn't recommend Seconds; and if you're already a fan, you probably already bought it anyway. I just hope O'Malley can shake off whatever malaise he's got himself mired in and give us something with more energy and a more developed storyline for his next project.




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Thoughts on THE HOBBIT by JRR Tolkien

Once there was a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who was very respectable, at least until a wizard named Gandalf tricked him into going on an adventure with a bunch of dwarves to steal a dragon's treasure.

This was my first time reading The Hobbit. Remember that ugly-ass cartoon based on the The Hobbit that they used to show sometimes on Saturday mornings? Yeah, that removed any desire I might have had to read the books. Ever. (It's kind of weird how awful those cartoons were--I think there was a LotR one, too--because they actually seemed to follow the books pretty closely. But without any artistry or interpretation.) Anyway, I didn't intend to read The Hobbit now; however, I was googling something--I forget what--and came across the audiobook on YouTube (fun fact: The Hobbit was in the public domain in the US until January of this year, which means you can still find the audiobook and eBook versions for free online). I hit play just out of curiosity and was totally sucked into the story.

Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed The Hobbit--in fact, I would say it's impossible not to like this book. There's something very innocent and disarming about it. I absolutely fell in love with Bilbo; he is an awesome character. And the stand-out scenes in The Hobbit absolutely sparkle. I loved the beginning where the dwarfs come to Bilbo's house, when he trades riddles with Gollum, and when he steals from Smaug. Smaug was awesome as well!

That being said, I do have one major beef and few minor ones with this book. I'm not sure I would have gotten through it if I had read it rather than listened to it. I mean, for one there are NO WOMEN anywhere in this novel. All the main characters are men. And even the minor characters. I mean, I've read books from the 19th century that were written by men, take place almost entirely on a battlefield, have five characters, and they still manage to fit a female character in there. So how about a shout out for the ladies, JRR? I really wonder how any of the peoples in his novels manage to self-populate considering the ratio of women to men. Maybe we should have put some more thought into that and less thought into how the Elves talk, hmmmm? Why on earth would I be interested in a book with no women in it? Answer: I wouldn't. Secondly, The Hobbit feels uneven at times (especially at the end, which seems to go on and on). Then Tolkien goes into a political rant wherein Smaug is equated to a dictator whose death brings instability and infighting to the region, and the book gets slightly academic. Read: boring.

The no women thing aside, though, The Hobbit was a fast, fun read. Unless of course you start to think about what it all sets into motion in Lord of the Rings, in which case it's actually kind of chilling. But try not to think about that.

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.

A More Diverse Universe: THE ARRIVAL by Shaun Tan

To escape dragon creatures, a young father leaves his family and travels across the ocean to a fabulous city, full of helpful animals and exotic food. There he makes many friends, all of whom also came to the city looking for better lives, free from oppression and war. After some false starts the man settles himself in his new life, but will he ever see his family again?

It seems like I've been wanting to read The Arrival by Shaun Tan forever, ever since I first heard about it on You've GOTTA Read This, but my library didn't have it at the time, and then I forgot about it. Fortunately, thanks to A More Diverse Universe, I remembered!

The Arrival is unusual in that it doesn't contain any words. Instead, everything is conveyed through pictures. Personally, I didn't miss the words at all--I didn't even realize there weren't any until after I'd finished! The book has a very cinematic feel, almost like a storyboard, and is a great mix of the familiar and the fantastic. Although The Arrival is a secondary world fantasy, that's not immediately apparent, and the story itself is one that's easily relatable to any immigrant or descendant of immigrants.



Even though the basis of the story is firmly planted in a familiar story, the fantasy elements don't feel out of place or gimmicky. Tan uses them to great effect to convey elements and emotions that, if The Arrival was told "realistically," would be too complex for this format. Instead, the fun animals, exotic setting, and shadowy monsters efficiently tell us very important things about this world and the characters' journey.

As for the art, I LOVED it. It was very surrealism-meets-Dark City. Tan's drawings remind me of one of my favorite artists, Remedios Varo, in that I could see the influence of artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Odillon Redon, along with a quirky sense humor.

Aside from all that, though, The Arrival is a super-sweet story. I adore stories about people who travel and make friends. Basically there is nothing not to like in this book, aside from maybe the fact that it was so short!

I highly recommend this, especially if you also happen to like The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (review here). It's really lovely.



Check out the other stops on the A More Diverse Universe Blog Tour and celebrate POC authors in science fiction and fantasy!

Manga Review: BRIDE OF THE WATER GOD by Mi-Kyung Yun, vols. 1-7

Soah is a young woman whose destiny is to be the bride of water god, Habaek. But when she finally travels to the land of the gods on her wedding day, she discovers that Habaek is a grumpy little boy who doesn't expect her to fulfill her wifely duties. What she doesn't know--even though someone mentions it in every single freaking volume--is that Habaek is cursed to be a boy during the day and turns into a man at night. A handsome man, no less, who tells Soah his name is Mui and whom Soah really likes. Now she's torn between her husband and... her husband. If only we all had such problems.


Habaek as a kid in day mode.

I first heard about Bride of the Water God on Stella Matutina, and wanted to read it because it's pretty clearly based on the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast: Soah's father sells her to the town as a sacrifice, and she winds up going to a magical castle filled with quirky characters and a mysterious hubby who's not what he appears. Habaek may not be a monster looks-wise, but personality-wise the kid's a terror.


Habaek and his friends life among the stars.

The first few volumes of Bride of the Water God are really funny and entertaining. But they get harder and harder to follow as the series goes on. The stories are told in a very non-linear way, with multiple flashbacks and viewpoints. I approve of non-linear storytelling, but there's nothing to differentiate when you're reading a flashback scene, so that made it extremely confusing. Plus, I started to get very frustrated with the characters, particularly Habaek. It seems as though in every volume, Nakbin, Habeak's evil bitch of a first wife, comes back from the dead; except she's never the real Nakbin, even though Habaek thinks she is. I don't know if all of these impersonations are by the same person or not, but it doesn't really make a difference. The important point is it happens at the cost of further character development and moving the story forward.

As for the art, it's gorgeous--very ornate and detailed. One of my favorite parts of reading this series is Habaek's palace, because the architecture is fantastic and you feel like you can just walk right into it. That being said, there are times when the art is TOO ornate and it's hard to figure out what the heck you are looking at. Even if the story didn't have its own problems, the manga wouldn't flow well due to the occasionally incomprehensible art. Oh, and the characters speak with a lot of dots and exclamation marks (!). They gave me a headache.


Habaek in night mode with Soah.

Technically, Bride of the Water God is a manwha, which is the Korean version of manga. Maybe my ignorance of the Korean style of art contributed to my confusion and frustration with this series, but it does require some patience. Either way, I think it's worth checking out for the art alone, or if you enjoy beauty and the beast-type stories. And who knows, maybe everything starts to make sense at some point.

Book Review: SILVER PHOENIX by Cindy Pon

Through a bizarre series of circumstances, Ai Ling is an unmarried seventeen-year-old in olde-timey China. When her father goes missing, she decides to find him. Along the way, she encounters many demons and a few friends, especially Chen Yong, a young man with mad fighting skills. Why are so many demons targeting Ai Ling and her companions? And does Chen Yong really like-like her? Questions!

Silver Phoenix--or, to be more precise, its cover--is one of the more infamous incidents of white washing by the publishing industry in recent memory. Ai Ling is Chinese and her adventure is set in China, something that's very clear in the hardback cover and very unclear in the paperback cover. Apparently the sales of Silver Phoenix were lower than expected and Barnes & Nobel even refused to carry it. The publisher decided this was because readers are racists (or, at the very least, xenophobes) and revamped the cover with something less obviously "ethnic."

I don't know if this marketing strategy worked, but I don't think the lack of sales for the book had anything to do with the hardback cover (which is gorgeous, anyway). People may be pretty shallow, but it's still what's between a cover that really matters.

This novel starts off really great. It's one of those books that doesn't really start at the beginning, which regular readers of this blog know is one of my pet peeves. But the unofficial prologue was interesting, and arguably pertinent to the story, so I didn't mind it as much as I usually do. Plus, once the book did get going, it didn't let go. There was always something exciting happening. I loved the tone of the narrative, the sense of adventure, and the characters Ai Ling met--especially Chen Yong. They meet some wickedly cool things in this novel: dragons! Goddesses! Myths that come to life! It was like a book version of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which in my world translates to a way more awesome version.

But then, about a third of the way through, I started to feel like Ai Ling's journey was becoming episodic. It didn't seem like her meeting with demons or various people was moving the story anywhere. Once the plot did make an appearance, it was a little late to capture my attention and too thin to support the entire length of the book. I also felt like the character development had stopped and Chen Yong had become more of a convenient plot device than an actual character.

A little past the halfway mark, an incident occurred that was clearly meant to give some emotional heft and depth to the story, which it definitely needed. But to me the decisions made by Ai Ling's character and didn't make any sense. It also didn't fit in with the tone of the novel up to that point. It was then that I pretty much lost interest--I didn't care about the characters at all anymore, and now they were TSTL on top of it.

This isn't a bad book, but I don't think its audience is as "young adult" as what it's marketed to. If it is YA it's definitely for the Y end of the YA crowd, and in actuality is probably suited more for a MG audience. The story is very light and exciting, but doesn't contain a lot of emotional resonance, and I personally don't think there's a lot of adult crossover appeal.

Just to be clear, I picked this book up because I wanted to read it and have ever since it came out, not because of the cover controversy. Pon is a good writer and I think this story had potential, but was forced into a box that it didn't fit into.



Musical notes: "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence

THE MAGICIAN KING by Lev Grossman: Drinking Game!!

   

Take a drink:

• Whenever the characters drink (natch)
• Every time Quentin says or thinks, "I'm a king in Fillory!" (Is that like being big in Europe?)
• ...of butterbeer for every Harry Potter reference
• ...of G&T for every Narnia reference
• ...of grog for every Lord of the Rings reference
• ...of a Red Bull Jaegerbomb for every gamer/computer geek reference
• Whenever it's mentioned Julia is wearing black.
• It seems like these characters have a lot of 'issues.'
• Every time Quentin goes through a door, metaphysical or otherwise.
• Whenever you fantasize about re-naming your cat Pouncy Silverkitten.

Start chugging:

• When the book focuses on Julia's past (you'll need it).
• When Quentin starts talking about being a hero (ditto).
• If you sense an extended metaphor coming on.
• Whenever your realize the words on the page are actually an anagram of YOU'RE GOING TO DIE AND LIFE HAS NO MEANING, repeated over and over. (Retroactively drink when you realize that really the entire book has been like that.)

Take a shot for:

• Every key Quentin loses.
• Every talking animal who serves as a convenient plot device.
• Every obscure secondary character that reappears out of nowhere.
• When you come across a line you want to turn into a t-shirt.

I read this book as part of RIP Challenge VI, hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings. Click on the link to learn mores.

Dragonborn by Jade Lee

Setting:  "fantastical" land of Ragona (see cover)

Stereotypes:  Sexual attraction=love

Major likes:  The dragons; Natiya

Major dislikes:  Naked fighting scenes, politics

Category:  Cheetos for the brain


Review

Oh, Jade Lee.  Why do you do this to me?  "Clutching cave"?  Men spending at least 150 pages fighting in the nude because they can't keep their "belly-horns" in their pants?  Sometimes I really wonder.  Yet I keep coming back because your books are just so freaking out there.

Kiril is a dragon hunter in the land of Ragona, which is ruled by an evil totalitarian Emperor named Dag Racho.  The Dag means that he controls a dragon--the only dragon left in the kingdom, thanks to Kiril.  But Kiril isn't killing dragons in the service of his emperor, whom he hates; he's killing them because he thinks they're evil.  He also has some plan to kill the Emperor that involves getting rid of all the other dragons, but how exactly this is going to work is never explained.

Meanwhile, there is one dragon egg left in the kingdom, and it's being incubated inside Natiya, a tavern dancer whose parents were murdered by the Emperor.  She plans to use her dragon to kill the Emperor, but then Kiril wanders into her tavern and, overcome by lust, they somehow fall in love.  All the while Kiril never notices that Natiya's carrying around a dragon egg, even though he's a dragon hunter.

This book is okay.  I never really got where Kiril was coming from in his attraction to Natiya, and actually expected it to be a complete ruse so he could capture the dragon egg.  The sexual imagery with the caves and dragons was out of control, and the politics side of it varied between nonsensical and boring (it's really hard to make fake politics even remotely interesting).  Not to mention the ending was completely ridiculous and there were lots of loose plot threads left hanging.

Yet the thing I really like about Jade Lee is that her books are so unconventional--she's not afraid to push the envelope or turn romance genre formulas upside down, and this book is no exception.  Who else would write a romance novel where the hero and heroine are separated for a good 100 pages right in the middle of the book?  Or where the hero fights at least three battles completely in the nude?  Plus, I have to say the sex scenes were really hot.

This isn't my favorite Jade Lee book by any means, but it wasn't as awful as I was expecting it to be, and provided a decent diversion.  I'm not going to say I recommend it, but hey, if you're interested go for it.

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Faces Under Water by Tanith Lee

After eight years, two continents, five countries, and countless states, I have finally read this book.  And it was good--actually, really great!

Furian is a mysterious figure on the Isle of Venus, an alternate world obviously modeled after 18th-century Venice.  Although Furian is an educated gentleman, he lives in the gutters of Venus and makes money through odd jobs such as collecting bodies from the canals for the mad scientist, Doctor Shaachen, to experiment on.  One night during Carnival, he spies an elegant and expensive mask floating in the canal.  Not having found any bodies that night, he takes the mask to Shaachen and unknowingly sets himself on the path of searching for a group of killers in Venus who use magic to ensnare their victims.

This is not the type of book where things are laid out clearly at all.  At first you have no idea what's going on.  Then Lee lays a trail of breadcrumbs, promising that eventually you'll find out.  Things are never what they seem in this world or in the words used to describe it, which are lyrical and beautiful and obfuscating, most especially when describing the basest actions.  There is also tons of symbolism in the novel, which I'm not even going to attempt to unravel at this point.  But color, statues, and masks obviously have some sort of iconic meaning.

This is the first book in a series that is themed after the elements--fire, water, earth, and air.  As you can probably guess by the title, this one is dedicated to water--and there is a lot of water, as well as the color blue and green, in the world of Furian.  However, I think blue represents much more than just water--it's indicative of magic, divinity, love.  Green hides vast secrets.  Still waters definitely run deep in this novel, as the reader discovers.

The more I think about this book, the more it reminds me of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell--not because the plots are similar at all, but because they both death with themes of magic, lust for power, hidden worlds and dangers, and love.  However, I think Faces Under Water is by far the better book--not just because it's about 600 pages shorter, but because the writing style is much more lyrical and beautiful, the story is told in a more interesting way, and it makes a bigger impact on the reader.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating that Tanith Lee is one of the most underrated authors out there.  I honestly think she is one of the greatest fantasy writers of our generation, and this book only confirmed my opinion.  The first fifty pages of Faces Under Water are hard going simply because everything feels so impenetrable, and I didn't think the reveal at the end of the book came together as smoothly as it could have; but overall this is a great, enthralling, and very quick read.  I know the cover is terrible, but I would recommend Lee's novels to anyone who enjoys fantasy.


Venice Challenge: 2/6 books read

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Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs

I am a long-time Patricia Briggs fan, ever since The Hob's Bargain.  I think she's a brilliant story-teller and really one of the best fantasy writers out there.  That being said, I haven't read her books in a long time because... I don't really like the Mercy Thompson series at all.  I know there are people out there who love it, and I'm glad Briggs is getting a lot of attention and press with it, but ever since the first book I haven't seen the appeal at all.  Maybe it's Mercy, maybe it's the genre, but I have absolutely zero interest in continuing to read it.  I'm finally admitting it!

One of the parts I did like about the first Mercy book, however, was when she visited the Marrok's pack in Aspen Creek, Montana.  So when a book about that pack, Cry Wolf, came out, I bought it--with admittedly low expectations.  And it's been sitting on my shelf for about two years since, which is stupid because I really loved it.

Cry Wolf is the continuation of a short story Briggs wrote for On the Prowl--which I haven't read.  Being thrust into the narrative without that background reading is a little disorienting, but the basic facts are quickly apparent:  Anna, an Omega werewolf, has been physically and sexually abused by her Chicago pack ever since she was turned against her will three years ago.  After finally calling the Marrok (the leader of every pack in the U.S.) for help, he sent his son and enforcer, Charles, to Chicago.  Charles killed the leaders of the pack and also mated with Anna.  Now they're off to Montana to live happily ever after.  But once in Aspen Creek, some interesting things start to happen.

One of the things I loved about this book is that I can totally picture Aspen Creek as a real town.  The sense of place and community is so convincing that I went to bed just a wee bit paranoid about any witches that might be wandering around.  I also loved that the werewolves are more human than wolf--I'm not a big fan of werewolves in fiction, but these characters are so easy to relate to because they are basically human.  Or at the very least they have human emotions and motivations. 

The most fascinating character by far is of course Bran--the Marrok.  He appears a little bit in the Mercy Thompson books, but here we learn much more about him.  He's not what one would expect from an Alpha werewolf so strong he can control all the packs on an entire continent, at least not immediately; but that only makes him more attractive as a character study.

Finally, the way Briggs tell this story is really excellent.  At first it seems like a pretty simple plot, but then it veers in a direction I didn't expect at all.  Really the story is all about love and relationships, betrayal and trust--of others and of oneself--which are my absolute favorite themes.  Even if the book hadn't appealed to me on that level, it was such a quick, engrossing read that I would have devoured it anyway.  I easily stayed up until 5 in the morning finishing this, after working all day, and it's been a long time since a book was such a good read it made me do that.

So in case you can't tell, I loved this book and highly recommend it.  I can't wait to return to Aspen Creek and see what all the characters are up to! 

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