REVIEW: Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant

by Tony Cliff

Erdemoglu Selim is resigned to his lot as a low level officer in the Turkish Jannisary corps. Delilah Dirk is a globetrotting troublemaker, adventurer, and treasure seeker who ends up in the Turkish prison. Selim is in charge of interrogating her, and when she escapes, he is accused of being complicit, so he reluctantly accompanies her on her swashbuckling adventures. When he is given the chance, will he embrace the wonderous life she has shown him, or settle down and finally drink that perfect cup of tea.

Holy swashbuckling adventure, Batman! This book was just as rollicking as it promised on the cover. A daring, sassy female fighter with her steady companion face challenge after challenge, from burning airship to angry mob. Their banter and the deepening of their relationship are what cemented my love of this graphic novel.

It was a fast read too! I got it got to read on the metro to and from an event, and I finished it before I even got there. Fast fun kickass heroine adventure candy.

REVIEW: The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

The Last Dragonslayer

by Jasper Fforde

“Quarkbeasts, for all their fearsome looks, are obedient to a fault. They are nine-tenths velociraptor and kitchen blender and one-tenth Labrador. It was the Labrador tenth that I valued most.” 

Please forgive me if this review makes no sense. I have Thursday mush brain.

One of my favorite authors, Jasper Fforde, who brought us the Thursday Next series, tells us the tale of Jennifer Strange, a foundling who works for Kazam Mystical Arts Management, a company that contracts out wizards to do home repairs. Magic was once a powerful force in the world, and it is waning. Those who once could turn lead into gold now can barely manage to unclog a drain without help. When a prophecy declares that the last dragon will die on Sunday at noon, the magical community wonders if that means magic will be gone for good. Greedy land grabbers to wait with baited breath along the dragon land border with flags and twine, companies vie for merchandising contracts, and the two countries on either side of the territory are preparing for war. It is up to Jennifer and her pet, the terrifying Quarkbeast, to get to the bottom of this situation while trying to keep Kazam from falling apart.

This was an absolutely charming book. It felt like Harry Potter with all the serious parts taken out and all the goofy random fun stuff kept in.  For a while I thought it was just fluff, especially with Jennifer blithely and confidently sailing through the administrative troubles of Kazam, but the second she doesn't have a witty comeback, you know shit has hit the fan. Those are the juiciest moments, when she is vulnerable and out of her element and must regroup to succeed. I also cheered that Jennifer was a non-magical ADMINISTRATOR! She made sure people filled out the correct form for x or y spell and took care of the more artistically-minded magic workers.

The world is a charming mix of the medieval (wizards, dragons, castles, kings) and the modern (Jennifer's orange VW Bug, plumbing, paperwork, merchandising). Fforde is king of the mash up, and spices it with wonderful jokes like this: “It was written in the ancient RUNIX spell-language, and is read-only and can't be modified.” And a moose illusion that will not go away. And a Dragonslayer headquarters which is a bit like Ghostbusters.

I highly recommend this book if you love whimsy and kick ass female characters.

Other Jasper Fforde Books I Have Reviewed
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels 
The Fourth Bear
Shades of Grey

REVIEW: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress

by Marissa Meyer

“I am an explorer,' she whispered, 'setting courageously off into the wild unknown.' It was not a daydream she'd ever had before, but she felt the familiar comfort of her imagination wrapping around her. She was an archeologist, a scientist, a treasure hunter. She was a master of land and sea. 'My life is an adventure.' she said, growing confident as she opened her eyes again. 'I will not be shackled to this satellite anymore.'

Thorne tilted his head to one side. He waited for three heartbeats before sliding one hand down into hers. 'I have no idea what you're talking about,' he said. 'But we'll go with it.” 

Beginning where Scarlet left off, Cinder, Thorne, Scarlet and Wolf are on their ship (voiced by Iko, their droid compatriot) trying to think of a plan to overthrow the Lunar Queen, stop her from marrying Prince Kai and taking over the world. It is not a B movie, I swear. On a satellite circling earth, we find Cress, a long-haired Lunar shell (non-magical Lunar), who has spent her life working for the Queen, hacking their security feeds, monitoring their transmissions, and hiding Lunar movements. In all that time of solitude, she has fallen in love with earth, and more specifically with the dashing and suave Captain Thorne whom she knows is hiding a heart of gold under his selfish exterior. She teams up with our heroes, but when Thorne attempts to rescue her from her lonely outpost, Cress' guardian, the Lunar Thaumaturge finds them, and sends the satellite hurling to earth. In the process, Thorne is blinded (the witch throws the prince from the tower, he lands in thorns and his eyes are gouged out). Cress, newly shorn, and a blind Thorne must find their way across the desert, join Cinder and stop the royal wedding. 

Oh my god, these books are like fairy tale catnip for me. They are perfectly crafted adaptations. They touch on every single iconic moment of the original tales, but it is woven seamlessly into a new compelling science fiction political drama/ adventure novel. In every book, the heroines become more and more pleasing. Cinder was a determined kick-ass heroine along the model that we have seen before. Scarlet was a kick-ass heroine with beautiful weaknesses and flaws. Cress is a quirky shut-in damsel-in-distress, but in a way that does not diminish her complexity or humanness. She does not have awesome fighting powers, but is an intelligent and valuable contributer to the team. Meyer writes strong female characters who do not have to be physically strong, and I adore that. 

The women are not the only ones who develop in this book. Captain Thorne, swashbuckling wannabe extraordinaire who was introduced in Scarlet, must show his quality when he and Cress face the relentless desert, and underneath his swagger he has grit, determination, and genuine tenderness.He is not just prancing comic relief, but a man who deserves the love Cress feels for him. 

Dr. Erland also finds himself on a journey of self triggered by the revelation of his fatherhood, as he attempts to reconcile highly immoral medical practices and his conscience. In my head, I cast Saul Rubinek as Dr. Erland and I think it is perfect. Make the movie now, please. 

We also meet an assholic Lunar guard who might turn into the prince of the next book, Winter. I am super excited!

One last thing I appreciate (of the many things I appreciate in these books) is how Meyer writes romance. There (so far) has been no sex in these books, but the tantalizingly sensual way the characters fall in love is so erotic that there doesn't need to be. How one character touches another softly, or even imagines being touched, is so tinglingly delicious. And yes, romance is a thing, but the focus is saving the kingdom, which shows that their priorities are in order. 

READ THESE BOOKS. That is all. 

The Lunar Chronicles

Cinder

Scarlet

REVIEW: Ice by Sarah Beth Durst

Ice

by Sarah Beth Durst

“She had a hundred reasons: because Bear had carved a statue of her in the center of the topiary garden, because she could always make him laugh, because he'd let her return to the station, because he won at chess and lost at hockey, because he ran as fast as he could to polar bear births, because he had seal breath even as a human, because his hands were soft, because he was her Bear. "Because I want my husband back," Cassie said.” 

Cassie has lived her whole life in her family's arctic research station. Her world is ice and science and tagging polar bears and survival. Her grandmother had told her fairy tales about her mother, the adopted daughter of the North Wind, who was supposed to marry the Polar Bear King but married a mortal instead. The North Wind was so angry that he threw the mother into the land of the trolls, never to be seen again. When Cassie grew up, she realized these were just stories to make her feel better about her mother's death. That is, until the Polar Bear King comes to claim Cassie as his wife. After agreeing to rescue her mother, Bear whisks Cassie away to his ice castle at the North Pole. She and Bear slowly and deeply fall in love, but when Cassie betrays Bear and he is torn from her side, she must brave the frozen wasteland to find him again.

I loved this adaptation of "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" even more than East. It is a rather faithful adaptation of the story, though elements are changed and added to enhance the themes Durst draws out of the tale. The story begins strong and ends strong, but when you hit the 3/4 mark, the story is difficult to adapt, as she travels to find Bear and encounters very vignette-y adversaries and friends, but such is the nature of the tale. Durst's adaptation is rooted in a very real exploration of a relationship: two people who love each other but have separate careers, interests, and plans for the future. They struggle and fight and that is what makes the story ring true. It is about coming to terms with who you are as a person and who you are as a couple. Cassie is 18, so she has a lot of growing up to do in a short period of time.

Cassie and Bear, the pillars of the story, are a joy to watch. Bear, unlike most Beasts or Bears or Cupids I have seen in "Beauty and the Beast"/"East of the Sun and West of the Moon"/ "Cupid and Psyche" adaptations, is not brooding or depressed or serious. His actually very loving and silly. They play together verbally and physically, ice skating in the ballroom and bantering back and forth. He cares deeply for Cassie and the polar bears he serves. He is easy to fall in love with. Cassie is smart and brave and stubborn beyond all belief. The amount of pain and suffering she must endure to find Bear is awe-inspiring. She is up there with September from The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairy Land in a Ship of her Own Making and Katsa from Graceling as some of the most resourceful badass chicks in literature.

Durst creates a fascinating mythology surrounding Bear and the creatures that help or hinder Cassie. Bear is a munaqsri, a being who cares for a particular species. He takes their souls from them when they die, and gives them to newborns. If they do not transfer a soul into the newborn, the baby is born dead. This element ends up being essential to the journey of Cassie and Bear and critical in the climax. I teared up on the metro as I read it, it is so well-crafted and emotionally satisfying.

I highly recommend this adaptation of "East of the Sun and West of the Moon."

Books Like This
East by Edith Pattou
Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Cinder and Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
Stung by Bethany Wiggins

REVIEW: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Scarlet

by Marissa Meyer

“A sickening howl stopped her, sucking the air out of her lungs. 

The night's chatter silenced, even the loitering city rats pausing to listen.

Scarlet had heard wild wolves before, prowling the countryside in search of easy prey on the farms.

But never had a wolf's howl send a chill down her spine like that.” 

This second book in the Lunar Chronicles follows a delivery girl named Scarlet whose grandmother has been missing for two weeks. The police have given up, but she tenaciously searches for clues. When she meets a young, handsome, ambiguously affiliated street fighter, Wolf, who might hold the key to her grandmother's disappearance, they embark on a journey that might save her grandmother, or doom Scarlet to the same fate. In the mean time, Cinder (protagonist of the last book), is breaking out of prison with the charming, but rather self absorbed Captain Thorne. And poor Prince Kai is left to deal with the evil Lunar Queen alone. 

I believe I loved this book even more than Cinder! Marissa Meyer creates awesome heroines, all of whom have very strong objectives having nothing to do with love. Any love that they may come across is secondary to their main drives. And so far they have each held jobs traditionally given to men (that of mechanic and delivery person) with unconscious aplomb.

The gentlemen, Thorne and Kai, are given equally complex treatment. Even though Thorne is shallow, you can tell he is capable of more than he gives himself credit for. And Wolf. Oh Wolf. I am a sucker for the primal but sweet and funny but also not-certain-if-he-is-going-to-eat-you wolfman (see Wolf in 10th Kingdom). And may I say, without giving too much away, that damn the romance in this one is passionate.

This book is action-packed with highly creative fights, chases, interrogation scenes, and brawls. The science fiction is deftly woven into the plot so that it is never to exposition or world-building heavy; it just flows with the story. I also appreciated how both the Scarlet story line and the Cinder story line were both equally as strong.

The Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Scarlet, are probably some of my favorite fairy tale adaptations out there. They give nods to the important elements of the fairy tale: the pumpkin, the shoe, the searching prince, the red cloak, the wolf, the grandmother. Yet they are not slaves to them. They creatively interpret them to create new and compelling stories. As these ladies join forces, I am excited to see who fills out their crew of powerful fairy tale heroes and heroines. The next book, Cress, comes out soon!

Books Like This:
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Terrier by Tamora Pierce
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

REVIEW: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Message from Me: I realize it has been an entire month since I have posted. That is because I have been reading a bagillion YA novels, some of which were great, some of which were crap. I have selected a few of the great ones to review (and will spare you the crap ones) and then I can get back to doing what I do best: reading books I want to read! Huzzah! Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

The Hunger Games 

by Suzanne Collins

“Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me. But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.” 

(If you have read the book, you can skip this part) Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 of Panam. Once the Districts rose up against the capital city, and now, to remind them of their terrible defeat, the capital city requires each district to send one male and one female child as tribute to compete in the yearly Hunger Games. The children must compete to survive, and there is only one winner. Katniss volunteers to spare her sister from the games and is plunged into a world of false pageantry and glamour until the day of the games dawns. She, and her fellow tribute Peeta, must survive at all costs. But in the end, only one of them can go home.

This is the third time I have traveled through The Hunger Games, but the first time I have read it in print. I first listened to the audio book, which did not leave a good impression on me. The actress playing Katniss had a thin whiny quality to her voice that made me dislike her. Then, I saw the movie, which I thought was a good adaptation. However, I loved reading this book.

Katniss is a smart, strong character, not at all whiny like the audio book had me believe. She focuses on the next thing that will help her survive. Her silence and distrust for everyone is not natural. It comes from her oppression. She learned to keep her mouth shut. She is pragmatic because she has to be. The one thing that remained from the audio book was my frustration at her being such a poor judge of character. If she had been horribly wronged in some way by someone she trusted out of malice, I could understand how she would see the worst in Peeta’s motives for so long. However, he has been nothing but kind to her, and she always questions it.

Now that I have read it again, smaller details start moving to the fore, like her relationship with her father and how it is a source of strength for her, and her relationship with her mother and her feeling of betrayal at her mother’s depression (which I had not realized was medical, rather than emotional).

The book is fast paced and action packed. It always seems longer when someone is reading it to you, but I zipped through this book, and was always surprised how the next adventure was right on top of the last one. It still dragged for me at the end, especially the one time when you think that Peeta and Katniss are getting out of the cave for good and going off to kill Cato, but then have to return for a final night in the cave.

The survival parts, where Katniss is alone in the woods, surviving and fighting and planning are so much more compelling to me than the romantic parts. In this read, I realized how truly clueless Peeta was that Katniss was pretending to love him. For some reason I thought the book had more Gale and Peeta romance bits, but perhaps that was because I listened to all the audio books in a row and lost the demarcation of each book.

This book is violent and disturbing, yes, but it is based on the old myth, Theseus and the Minotaur where young people were sent as tribute to feed the Minotaur. It is not as gory as Battle Royale, a movie of with a similar plot line, nor is it as disturbing as other books we have read this year (Never Fall Down). It is in fact, rather tame.

Children kill other children, but when you are a child, you see yourself as capable of adult things. You see yourself as the adventuresome hero who can do what must be done. In a way it is good that Suzanne Collins has so clearly defined the good guys from the bad guys, and that our protagonists only kill in self-defense, by accident, or through mercy.  If the delineations had been more nebulous, I would certainly be concerned or if our main characters had no regard for the lives of those they killed. As much as I love fully fleshed out villains, and ambiguous protagonists, the subject matter is such that it might have led to readers taking a callous view of human life.

Funny side note: The first time I listed to Hunger Games on audio book, my boyfriend and I were traveling to Disney World. We got to the hotel and were staring up at the plastic fountains and twinkle lights and smiling faces and perfect bedrooms, and the irony of the situation began to sink in.

Books Like This

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

True Grit by Charles Portis

After the Snow by S.D. Crockett

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

REVIEW: The Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Hate List

by Jennifer Brown

“I sat back and looked at it. It was ugly, dark, uncontrolled. Like a monster's face. Or maybe what I saw there was my own face. I couldn't quite tell. Was the face the image of something evil or the image of myself?

"Both," Bea muttered, as if I'd spoken my question out loud. "Of course, it's both. But it shouldn't be. Goodness, no.” 

Valerie and her boyfriend Nick are bullied in school so they create a "hate list" a list of all the people who make their lives miserable. Nick is funny and sweet and loves Shakespeare....and then on the morning of May 2nd he opens fire in the school cafeteria, killing the students who are on that list. When Val realizes what is happening, she tries to stop Nick and gets shot in the leg before he turns the gun on himself. In Hate List we jump back and forth between the morning of the shooting, Val's memories of Nick and the horrible consequences of the event. Val is seen sometimes as a hero, but more often then not as an accomplice. The book chronicles the healing process (or not) of Val, of the school, of the town. Emotions are so tangled up for the kids, the parents, the school officials that Val becomes a walking symbol of what happened that day. In the face of so much pain and hate, how can Val face another year at school?

Wow. This book was gripping, beautiful and moving. So very sad and hard and hopeful.  I loved how it was not just a story about a school shooting. It could turn into a voyeuristic slasher blood fest quickly. And it is not a sappy love fest where easy answers are found in platitudes.  It is about how you deal with something like that, not just the victims or the victims’ families, but the “culprits” and their families and survivors in all senses of the word. How the media spins it to make the country believe everyone has healed and accepted the loss when that is not the case, and probably will not be the case for a very long time. It does not make things simple either. Nick was a nice kid, a good boyfriend, intellectual and passionate. There is no cut and dried explanation as to why he did what he did. He was teased and he got angry and he took drugs, but plenty of people do that without shooting up a school. We never uncover the mystery. We never receive a satisfactory diagnosis of a disease that we can cure in our school system or society.

I very much appreciated how Brown wrote adults. I have noticed a trend in many YA books where the authors feel they have to remove parents from the equation in order for kids to strike out on their own. The parents and authority figures either are horrible people, ignore the kids, have died, or are unable to relate to the kids. This is why I really admire John Green when he has his characters sit down and watch TV with his loving parents and actually enjoy hanging out and talking with them. While I understand the trope, I also feel like it isolates kids from adults, making them feel like adults will not be there for them, or understand their problems. In Hate List, the adults were simply people. Flawed, yes, but well-rounded people. The teachers are not just authority figures. They are struggling through their grief and loss as well, and not in a generic way, but in very specific ways. Dr. Heiler, while idealized, is a SUPPORTIVE ADULT FIGURE that she can tell things too! Incredible! He has a mysterious family that Val wonders about, a life outside of his office. Val’s mother is both frustrating and heart breaking as she wrestles with the fact that her child inadvertently caused people to die. She blames her and protects her and protects other people from her and trusts her and doesn’t trust her. I appreciated the chaos of their relationship and how it developed, moving forward and then snapping backward throughout the book. Her relationship with her dad, though, was rather sickening and destructive and difficult to read.

Val herself is massively wounded and confused. I don’t know how she got through every day, but humans are built to be resilient. She is another badass heroine, not because she fought bad guys, but simply because she faced every day. She survived through time and sheer stubbornness and forcing herself to be vulnerable  when the survivalist in me would armor up. While I was not satisfied with the ending, which made me worry about Val more than feel confidant she was on the road to recovery, her journey of healing was inspiring.

One small note: this book makes me painfully aware of how casually we use language. Have a frustrating day, say “I’m going to kill someone!” Or miming putting a gun in our mouths and pulling the trigger. Some day someone might mean it, and we will not know. Or someone might have lived through a tragedy like this, and the reality of the phrase will slice their wounds open again.

REVIEW: Desert Angel by Charlie Price

Desert Angel

by Charlie Price

Angel wakes up one morning to discover that her mother has been murdered by the mother's horrible boyfriend Scotty. He has buried her in the desert. Angel's only focus is survival as Scotty hunts her down as the only witness. She must face desert, betrayal, and the constant fear of a wily predator. But when she finds help in a small town, what might ultimately destroy her is the her inability to trust.

This is quick and dirty because I am super busy, but here it goes!I couldn’t put Desert Angel down! It was a riveting story. Angel has such a unique voice. She is damaged, and always in survival mode, gathering information about her environment in case she has to run, playing an eternal chess game with her pursuer. I loved the moments when she would try and get into his head to predict his next move.

The sad thing is, she has never known anything other than survival mode. Her mother always chose the worst boyfriends, and she has learned how to cope and not to trust anyone. When she is confronted with love and help, she is not sure how to accept it, or if she should. Even if she does accept it, she will put those she cares about in danger as Scotty circles her hideout.

The pace slowed down a bit in the middle and I found myself missing the action and the emotional connection. The story began to drag when the author focused on Scotty almost doing something, but not doing it yet. I was hoping for a big pay off, as there is a large piece of information that the reader knows, but Angel does not know when she is extrapolating his next move. Alas, the ending was a little anticlimactic. You expect a large confrontation with those she has come to care about fighting for her against Scotty, or her confronting Scotty alone and avenging her mother. However, there is only so much a YA book can allow a 14 year old girl to do, I guess.

It is an exciting thriller, but it is ultimately about opening yourself up to trust.

REVIEW: True Grit by Charles Portis

True Grit

by Charles Portis

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.” 

14-year-old Mattie Ross has come to avenge her father's death. She is looking for a man of "true grit" to accompany her into Indian Territory to find Tom Chaney, the man who shot him, and she lights on the trigger-happy Marshall Rooster Cogburn. Together, stubborn, fierce and intelligent little Mattie and the dissolute, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Rooster (and a fancy Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf) face gunmen, snakes, and dangerous conditions to bring Frank Ross' killer to justice.

This might be one of my favorite books this year. Mattie is the definition of a bad-ass heroine. She is focused and does what needs to be done. She does not hem and haw. She will ask you for what she needs, and she will lean on you and negotiate with you until she gets it. She is unflinching, smart as a whip, straight-shooting and no nonsense. She has an incredibly refreshing voice, and there should be more characters like her.  

I think the best part about her, though is that she has an incredibly open world view. She knows that her way of life is not the only way of life, and her talents and skills are not the only ones to be valued. She has her opinions, but she lets other people have their own, and that is their own business. There is an incredibly touching paragraph early on when Mattie describes her mother: "Mama was never any good at sums and she could hardly spell cat. I do not boast of my own gifts in that direction. Figures and letters are not everything. Like Martha I have always been agitated and troubled by the cares of the day but my mother had a serene and loving heart. She was like Mary and had chosen 'that good part.'" 

The meat of the story, however, lies in her relationship to Rooster. While he is highly reluctant to take her to the Indian Territory, even so far as ditching her at the ferry (she fords the river and chases him), his affection for her grows as she takes him to task for his flexible morals and lax discipline. Her esteem for him grows as he tells her the story of his life, protects her, and is there for her when it matters most. 

Portis writes with deliciously dry wit. He creates highly-complex characters, and then just lets them at each other. Each argument ping-pongs back and forth, and you often end up agreeing with whoever spoke last. His wild west world and the language of the time is straight-forward and yet often times Shakespearean (I found the phrase "something touching her father's death" and conversations about Ophelia that subtly hearkened back to Hamlet and his search for revenge. ) 

I may go out and buy this book and read more of Portis' work. Though technically an adult book, I think its great for YA folks too!

REVIEW: Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

Flygirl

by Sherri L. Smith

"'Just listen to me. Listen to me!' I all but shout, and Mama stops in her tracks. I've never raised my voice to her and gotten away with it. But I am not a little girl anymore.

'Somebody has got to do something. So I went. I put my name on Daddy's license and I went and got an interview. And you know what? I wasn't hiding anything when I went into that room and sat face-to-face with an actual woman Army Air Forces pilot. And do you know what she saw? Not a Negro woman, not a white woman, not a high yellow. But a pilot, Mama. A good pilot that they need. Don't you see? This is what Daddy used to fly for. The chance to be something other than the color of his skin...'

Mama laughs then, a low chuckle... 'Baby you don't know what you are getting in to. You do not know. But your daddy did. He knew what his mother was asking of him, every day to turn his head away from his people but never really hold his head up with the white folks either... Are you willing to give up your brothers? Grandy? Me?'"

When Ida Mae Jones is denied her pilot's license because she is a woman, she is determined to become a WASP, a Woman's Airforce Service Pilot. Only one problem: they don't accept African Americans. With WWII raging, Ida uses her light skin to pass as white at the WASP training camp in Sweetwater, TX where she could be killed if her lie was revealed. However, as she bonds with the white girls in her camp and gets more and more comfortable entering "whites only" places, she worries that she is betraying her heritage and her family. How can she be true to herself when she must either lie about who she is or deny the part in her that wants to fly?

This book had a bit of a slow start, with some exposition heavy conversations, but once the characters begin to wrestle with racial identity, the story really gets going! Ida Mae's father's family purposefully married up the color scale, getting lighter and lighter children until they could marry white men. Ida Mae's father married a black woman and was disowned. The fears of Ida Mae's mother come to the fore when she sees Ida Mae coming down the sidewalk dressed as a rich white woman. She is afraid her daughter will deny the proud black culture of their  Louisiana community and her family. There is a heart-breaking scene where Ida Mae's mother comes to base to visit her and she must pretend her mother is her family's maid, acting aloof and imperious while receiving some devastating news from home.

While Ida is at the WASP training facility, race only rarely rears it's head, and the main focus is on Ida's efforts to become a pilot and the ensemble of girls with whom she has built strong supportive friendships. The world of the training base is well-researched and rich. Here, she must face prejudice against her as a women in the armed forces and is given challenges far greater than many male soldiers because some officers wish for the women to fail. She also must face personal demons that, if unconquered, could cost her everything.

It is such a meaty exploration of race, gender and personhood. What makes us who we are? A pilot? A woman? A white, black or "high yellow" person? What is inside, or what is outside? Where we come from or where we are going? What is worth the risk? And if we make a choice, can we ever go back? The story is left open ended. There are no easy answers for Ida Mae, or for us.

REVIEW: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

The Wee Free Men

by Terry Pratchett

"All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany's Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things because they are mine! I have a duty!"

Tiffany Aching wants to be a witch. She is a girl from a shepherding family on a land unkind to witches, but she pays that no mind. And when the queen of the fairies steals her brother, she must summon up every inch of witchiness in her to handle the tiny Nac Mac Feegles, nagivate fairyland, and rescue him. 

This book was supposed to be a palate cleanser after the intensity of Company of Liars, and but alas the taste jarred a little. When I began to read it, it felt like fluff. The Nac Mac Feegles were silly, but unremarkable, and fairyland itself, though dangerous, was forgettable.

However, Tiffany Aching herself is a badass. I believe she might be my favorite female Prachett character to date. She does not have crazy fighting skills like many of the "strong female characters" in books these days (aside from walloping monsters with a frying pan). She has sense. And perseverance. And a deep connection to her roots. She is my kind of gal.

When battling with the queen, she must struggle with her own self-worth, her place in a vast universe, whether everything she ever thought about herself is wrong. It feels like the slippery slope of depression that I feel we have all struggled with. But thanks to her strong roots, she comes out on top. (And made me cry.)

The best parts of the book describe Tiffany's relationship with her grandmother, Granny Aching. Granny Aching is an old shepherding woman with two dogs, Thunder and Lightning. She tramps all over the hills in her giant boots in any weather, saving lost sheep and birthing lambs. She quietly and wisely protects the town and it's inhabitants from any wrong doing. She has died before the book begins, but it is from her lingering presence and her memory that Tiffany draws strength. She takes up the mantle of her grandmother to protect  what is hers. They are the kind of heroines I like to see, and I kind of want to be Granny Aching.

Other books like this:

Equal Rites by Terry Prachett

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her own Making by Catheryne M. Valente

REVIEW: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

by Catherynne M. Valente

“She did not know yet how sometimes people keep parts of themselves hidden and secret, sometimes wicked and unkind parts, but often brave or wild or colorful parts, cunning or powerful or even marvelous, beautiful parts, just locked up away at the bottom of their hearts. They do this because they are afraid of the world and of being stared at, or relied upon to do feats of bravery or boldness. And all of those brave and wild and cunning and marvelous and beautiful parts they hid away and left in the dark to grow strange mushrooms—and yes, sometimes those wicked and unkind parts, too—end up in their shadow.” 

September once went to Fairyland. She went on a quest, and lost her heart, and saved Fairyland from the evil Marquess. Now she is back home in Wisconsin, waiting for the day when her chance will come again. When it finally does, September returns to a Fairyland very unlike the one she left. And it seems to be mostly her fault. The shadow that she sold in Fairyland in return for a girl's life has taken over Fairyland-Below and begins to steal the shadows of those people above. The shadows hold the darker, more passionate, hidden desires of the bearer, and most of the magic as well. Fairyland is being drained of magic as September's shadow, The Hollow Queen, Halloween, "frees" the shadow people and builds up her kingdom below.

Last time, September was a heartless child. She was selfish, in the unapologetic way children are selfish, and her adversaries are external. She creates a boat out of her own clothes and hair and kills a fish with her bare hands. She wrestles her best friend to get a wish. She defeats a girl who is very like herself, or who she could have been. This time, September is older. She has a growing heart, as the book says, as she enters her early teens. Her adventures are internal, examining the idea of relationships through the eyes of deer people who see marriage as hunting and slavery. She struggles with shadows of friends she thought she knew. She wants to find the thing she is supposed to do with her life. She feels she has lost the wilder parts of herself since she has lost her shadow, but she equated it with growing older and more sensible. While the obstacles she faces are quieter and subtler than those in the first book, they touch the heart of one who feels she has lost her wildness from growing up.

Again, Valente creates a glorious world, this time Fairyland-Below. The shadow people, the Goblin Market, the Vicereine of Coffee and the Duke of TeaTime, the Forgetful Sea, the kangaroo-like miners who wear memories as a necklace, the Onion Man, the Prince sleeping at the bottom of the world, Quiet Magic (which I want to master), and the chilling, yet sad Alleyman who is responsible for stealing shadows for the Hallow Queen.

And as always September's lessons ring true for the reader, wisdom is dropped like breadcrumbs. Here are a few of my favorites:

- “For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.”


- “I’m a monster,” said the shadow of the Marquess suddenly. “Everyone says so.”

The Minotaur glanced up at her. “So are we all, dear,” said the Minotaur kindly. “The thing to decide is what kind of monster to be. The kind who builds towns or the kind who breaks them.”

- “For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength. Neither do they know reason or restraint, and if you want to know the truth, a goodly number of grown-up hearts never learn it.”



- “Because it's my fault, you see. I did it. And you must always clean up your own messes, even when your messes look just like you and curtsy very viciously when what they mean is, I am going to make trouble forever and ever.”

- “Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re grown, and the face they’ve earned when they’re old. But when you live as long as I have, you get many more. I look nothing like I did when I was a wee thing of thirteen. You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.”

Books Like This:
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

REVIEW: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Graceling

by Kristin Cashore

“She couldn't steal herself back from Randa only to give herself away again - belong to another person, be answerable to another person, build her very being around another person.”

Katsa is a Graceling, a person gifted at a young age with a magically enhanced talent. You can be graced with swimming or fighting or painting or really anything, and find yourself preternaturally disposed to succeed in this particular activity. Katsa's grace is killing.

Because of this, she has become the reluctant enforcer of her Uncle, King Randa's tyrannical whims. As an escape, she and the Council she created secretly right the wrongs in the 7 kingdoms. On one such mission, she meets Po, youngest son of King Ror, and a graceling fighter, or so he says. Through her relationship with Po, she finds the strength to break free of Randa's influence, and she and the young prince embark on a dangerous mission against a deadly enemy, a king who may have the power to control people's minds.

This book began very much like a Tamora Pierce book: established world, young girl who is a stubborn fighter who never wants to marry. I thought it would follow the same way: girl meets guy and they are friends until they defeat the evil guy and at the very end they decide that they love each other and want to get married.

Not so with this book, resulting in a fuller, meatier story.

Katsa falls for Po right away, at first in a cute, blushy, must-ignore-his-pecs kind of way. However, in the middle of the book, it deepens into something true and resonant. It makes them weak and it gives them strength. In a book that wrestles with what it means to have power over someone (psychological, physical and magical) it also explores the power of loving someone. Katsa wrestles with giving someone power over her in this relationship, and in the end, the power of their relationship is what gives them the strength they need to endure not just the bad guy, but their own internal struggles.

Neither of them are perfect, but they fight and they communicate and they listen to each other and they wrestle with very real relationship problems. And both characters are so compelling and kick-ass that you are invested in them every step of the way.

There are kingdoms at stake too, and one small girl named Bitterblue who steals the show as a 10 year old who has had to grow up too fast. But the relationship is the core of the book.

Often this would bother me. "Why can't we have a girl story where she is not mooning over a guy?" I would lament. But usually, in those stories, the relationship is a reward, or a sidebar to the main plot. A nice way to tie up the story. In this book, the relationship is the point, the catalyst, the driving force, the problem, and the solution.

The story also explores the idea of self-perception. If someone tells you you are one thing ever since you were little, how does that change your life when you realize you are something else. Katsa thinks her grace is killing. But what if it is not?

This is an excellent book, and I am so excited to read the rest of the trilogy!

REVIEW: Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

Un Lun Dun

by China Mieville

"'There it was in the index. "Shwazzy, Sidekicks of the.'' Below that were subheadings, each with a single page reference. 'Clever One,' she read. 'Funny One.' 

'Look...' the book said. 'It's just terminology. Sometimes these old prophecies are written in, you know, unfortunate ways...'

'Was it Kath who was supposed to be the clever one?' Deeba said. She thought about how she and Zanna had become friends. 'So... I'm the funny one? I'm the funny sidekick?'

'But, but, but,' the book said, flustered. 'What about Digby? What about Ron and Robin? There's no shame in -'

Deeba dropped the book and walked away. It yelped as it hit the pavement."

Deeba has noticed something strange about her best friend Zanna. There was a picture of her face in the clouds. Animals behave strangely around her. Someone spray painted "Zanna forever!" on the wall. When Zanna and Deeba follow a strangely animated umbrella one night, they leave London and enter Un Lun Dun where Zanna is proclaimed "the Shwazzy": the Chosen One who will help save their city from the Smog. Only things don't happen exactly as they were prophesied and Deeba has to take on her friend's mantle to save the city she has come to love.

This book was pretty insane. And awesome. It took me a while to get used to the world; trash with a life of it's own, city bus airships, men with pins in their heads and clothes of books, houses with forests in it, a man who is a bird with a human body as it's vehicle, "binjas" (trash can ninjas), bookaneers (librarian adventurers), the Umbrellissimo (the man who controls the broken umbrellas that find their way to Un Lun Dun). It helped as soon as I started picturing it animated like a Studio Gibli film.

I loved the way it played with the idea of choice and free will, of prophecy and how it limits us. How those who were not supposed to do things can just say "fuck it" and do them because they need to be done.

This is another juvenile fiction book that does not coddle the reader in any way shape or form. Mieville paints, waltzes and plays chess with words. It doesn't matter that a word is not supposed to be in the vocabulary of a child. There is an incredible sequence with Mr. Speaker, the leader of words, who speaks and Utterlings appear to do his bidding. Deeba cleverly banters with him that words do not always mean what we want and turns his words against him.

Deeba is an amazing heroine. First, she has brown skin, which I am sorry to say is rare in science fiction and fantasy. I was so happy to see a non-white heroine! Second, she is urban London, lower class, and speaks in London slang. Another anomaly in sci fi/ fantasy. Third, she is clever as all get out. She outwits and logics (or un-logics) her way around Un Lun Dun, learning the rules, using them, and breaking them as she sees fit. She goes from being a side kick who just wants to go home to a true heroine and full-blooded citizen of Un Lun Dun.

Yet another kickass heroine who must lead her troops into battle, deal with losses, make mistakes, and outwit terrible enemies. And in the end, when she must choose between Un Lun Dun, and real London, she turns convention on its head!

And I must say, the epilogue is one of those pump-your-fist-in-the-air-yelling-WOOO! moments. Damn, it's a fun ride.

REVIEW: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairy Land in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Vanente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making

by Catherynne M. Valente

“There must be blood, the girl thought. There must always be blood. The Green Wind said that, so it must be true. It will be all hard and bloody, but there will be wonders, too, or else why bring me here at all? And it's the wonders I'm after, even if I have to bleed for them.”

September is a heartless girl, bored of her life, fed up with her mom who works in a factory all the time, and with her dad who left for war. So, when the Green Wind comes to abduct her to Fairyland, she doesn't even say goodbye, or leave a note. She must do favors for witches, befriend a wyverary (a wyvern whose father was a library), outwit the evil Marquess, and, as the title implies, circumnavigate fairy land after she looses her shadow and her heart.

This was an exceptional book, even more exceptional that it was juvenile fiction. It did not pull punches, either emotionally, complex-ily (if that is a word... meaning that it did not paint the world in black and white), and vocabularically.

It reads as a modern day Alice in Wonderland. September is just as curious, just as impertinent, and just as heartless as Alice, and she meets strange and fantastic things, like the herds of bicycles that roam the land, or the half-people who can only speak in complete sentences when joined together, discarded furniture that takes on a life of its own when it is 100 years old, or the land of Autumn.

While Alice simply wanders and has things happen to her, however, September struggles with morality in a morally grey world (does she aquiess to the evil queen to save her friends? Is the evil queen very different from herself?). There is a wonderful theme of what it is to be chosen and what it is to make a choice.

Early in the journey, she is given the choice to loose her way, lose her mind, or loose her heart. Since she was heartless, she chose to loose her heart. She managed quite well until she grew to deeply care for the friends she made. When she looses them, all hell breaks loose, and you can see what a twelve-year-old girl is really capable of.

This is not pretty Narnia adventure hardship. September must make a raft using her clothes and her hair so she stands naked and shorn against the elements. She bludgeons a fish to death out of desperation, and nearly die horribly several times to get where she needs to go, and even then, she has not faced the worst.

She is the embodiment of badass heroine who does what needs to be done and sacrifices what she has to to save the ones she loves.

It also make an incredible statement about regulation. The marquess has started to bring over rules and regulations to Fairyland to make it "safe" for children who cross over. But that is not the point of Fairyland. It must be dangerous and hard, so the children can emerge strong and confidant and brave. Same thing could be said with a lot of things in our world, including regulation of books and education.

I recommend this to everyone!


There are so many good quotes, I have to add this one at the bottom:

“When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk, and crusty things, and dirt, and fear, and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in awhile, you have to scrub it up and get the works going, or else you’ll never be brave again.” 

REVIEW: A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

A Tale Dark and Grimm

by Adam Gidwitz

“You see, Hansel and Gretel don’t just show up at the end of this story. 
They show up. 
And then they get their heads cut off. 
Just thought you’d like to know.”

It is true. Hansel and Gretel get their heads chopped off. And then their story begins. Hansel and Gretel were the son and daughter of a king and queen. In order to save the life of a loyal servant, they had to chop their children's heads off, so the children thought that after that, they should probably go and find new parents. 

They travel through different, more obscure fairy tales with themselves as the main characters, starting with "Faithful Johanness," "The Seven Swallows," "Hansel and Gretel," "Brother and Sister," etc trying to find a better family to take care of them, and in the process, they grow up. And they deal with some pretty deep stuff. Each of them makes mistakes with deadly consequences, but they learn from them. Each of them have to make terrible sacrifices. But they gain strength, intelligence, and willpower so they can safe the kingdom and come to grips with their horrible parental trust issues. 

This was a fantastic book! The style was delicious! Each section begins as a fairy tale; "Once Upon a Time, there was a ______" It continues in that style with frequent interruptions from a very chatty narrator, snarkily judging the character's decisions, explaining to the reader the feelings the characters must be going through, and most of all, vehemently warning of the impending gore and frightening subject matter, employing the readers to take the children out of the room, etc. It is absolute genius. It warns them, but then dares them to read on, and when bad things occur, the reader is prepared and brave, and is able to go on. They are not shocked by the horrible things happening and have to put the book down. This is juvenile fiction after all. 

In the back, the writer tells the story of how someone came into his second grade classroom and read "The Seven Ravens," in which a girl cuts off her finger. After being assured that he was not fired, he realized the kids got a lot out of it, and they begged him to tell more stories, asking questions, shouting responses, and getting involved in the story telling. 

With all the discussion recently about if kids can handle dark fairy tales, I think the answer is a resounding YES. This book shows that kids can have the strength to go through dark times and come out the other side. Kids need dark stories to know that people can survive and be better for it. If they don't put themselves in the right story when they encounter a dark time, they will crumble. If they think of themselves as a hero with a possibility of winning, they will fight. 

This is my favorite quote in the book:

“There is a certain kind of pain that can change you. Even the strongest sword, when placed in a raging fire, will soften and bend and change its form. So it was with Hansel. The fire of guilt and shame was just that hot.

Trust me on this one. I know this from personal experience. I hope that you never will, but, since you're a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes, you probably will one day know what this kind of guilt and shame feels like. And when that time comes, I hope you have the strength, as Hansel had, to take advantage of the fire and reshape your own sword.” 

Oh and check out the trailer. It is awesome!

REVIEW: East by Edith Pattou

From my other blog Palimpsest: 

East

by Edith Pattou

"Rubbing linseed oil into my blistered hands, I thought wistfully of how magic lets up skip over the steps of things. This is what makes it so appealing. But, I thought, the steps of things are where life is truly found, in doing the day-to-day tasks. Caught up in the world of enchantment as I had been at the castle, it had been the routine things I had missed most, which was why I had set up that laundry room and insisted on doing my own washing. But I had missed so much."

An immersive, detailed and faithful YA retelling of the fairy tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," East tells the story of a girl named Rose who, by an accident of birth, is destined to have wandering feet. She is an adventurous child, much to the chagrin of her family, and attracts the attention of a lone white bear. One night the white bear visits them, and states he will bring their poor family prosperity and health if he can have their youngest daughter Rose. Rose makes the sacrifice against her family's wishes and travels with the bear to his lonely mountain castle. She is surprised to discover that each night a naked man visits her and lies next to her in bed, but never says a word. A great mystery surrounds her imprisonment, but, when her curiosity gets the best of her, her transgression has horrible consequences, and she must undertake an impossible journey to make everything right.

I was nervous about this book at first. It is lauded as one of the best fairy tale adaptations on the market, but  I worried it would be superficial. Boy, was I wrong. Pattou is a master of adaptation. She remains faithful to the story, while giving life and breath and texture to the familiar tale. She takes the symbolic compass directions mentioned in the title and makes them reverberate throughout the book, creating a mythology of birth direction (like the zodiac) that determines your personality and your fate. Rose was born to replace her dead sister, who was an East, and thus mild. But Rose was accidentally born a North, which gave her an itch for exploration. Her father is a map maker, and creates an artistic compass rose for each member of the family. 

She also takes some of the more abstract elements of the tales, like traveling on the north wind, and finds ways to practically embody that in a real adventure: Rose takes a turbulent sea voyage with a drunken captain. She also rather deviates from the story at the end, but creates a compelling climax.

The story is set in 1500s Njord. They travel through countries like Danemark, Fransk and Arktisk, which are apparently the Norwegian names for Norway, Denmark, France and the Arctic. It was fascinating to explore a country that is not England or Italy in the 1500s. The names grounded it in time and space, but their unfamiliarity still give it a fairy tale quality. 

Pattou structures the story with multiple narrators. We hear the story from the Father, Neddy (her brother), Rose, the Troll Queen who enchanted the white bear, and the White Bear himself. They each have a distinctive narrative voice; the White Bear, as it is painful for him to talk in bear form, speaks in short sentences and images, like poetry. She has a talent for selecting which narrator will tell what section of the story. We hear Rose's struggle to make her decision to go with the White Bear from Rose. We see the aftermath of her struggle from Neddy, and we see the actual surprise of her leaving from her Father, each perspective bringing startling and heart-wrenching elements to the story. 

Also, I have been struggling with what my image of a kick-ass heroine is. Is she just a character with awesome fighting skills? With inner strength? Who speaks her mind? This book clinched it for me. A kick-ass heroine is someone who has an impossible task ahead of her, sucks it up, and does what needs to be done, even if it is crossing a narrow ice bridge over deadly water, or rebuilding a boat and learning how to sail it while the captain wallows in despair and drink, or traveling for weeks in the arctic alone to rectify a mistake. Rose is a kick-ass heroine and a role model for girls of all ages. 

Books Like This:

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones 

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

REVIEW: Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

Goliath

by Scott Westerfeld

"Reality had no gears, and you never knew what surprises would come spinning out its chaos." 

Surprised to see me again so soon? Me too! I read this book in 3 days!

Goliath is the thrilling conclusion of the Leviathan/Bohemoth/Goliath steampunk WWI series. Goliath finds our intrepid team of Prince Alek and Deryn/Dylan still on the Leviathan, off on a secret mission to Russia to rescue an eccentric scientist, Nicola Tesla, who claims to have a weapon that will end the war.

This book basically covers the rest of the world: Book 1: Europe, Book 2: Ottoman Empire: Book 3: Russia, Japan, Mexico and the USA. While each country adds their odd quirks and flavor to the Clanker and Darwinist technology, they didn't have the depth and texture of Book 2's Ottoman culture. Granted, they only leapfrogged to each country, and couldn't stay too long. We get a nice historical figure cameo parade, though; we meet Tesla, William Randolph Hearst, Pancho Villa, and a few minor figures here and there.

This book was a lot less epic in scope than I expected. Spoiler alert: the war does not end. In fact, America is only just joining the war as the curtains come down on the trilogy. But I realized it is not the story of the war, it is the story of Alec and Deryn and their relationship, and that story ended very satisfactorily.

Alek finally discovers that Deryn is a girl, and the shock and betrayal and sulking, and eventual awkward reconciliation, tension, and intimacy are incredibly emotionally rewarding. Deryn's struggle with her growing feelings for Alek is much more compelling than other books I have read recently (see my review of Hunger Games if I ever get around to finishing them), because she doesn't spend hours moping and then never resolve anything. She thinks about it, basically says "Well, that sucks" and moves on. Or she does something about it. Or she ignores it and does her job. She's one tough chick. Yet, Westerfeld allows her moments of incredible vulnerability in this book, and it makes her and Alek's relationship that much more special that she allows her veneer to slip a little when they are alone together.

Alek also has to come to terms with his "destiny." He feels he is meant to end the war, since his family started it.  He backs Tesla, even though the inventor is bat-shit crazy, because Tesla claims he can end the war with Goliath. When Alek discovers the purpose of Goliath, however, he is caught between ending the war quickly at the cost of innocent lives, or letting the war drag on, perhaps at the cost of more.

The story weaves together their struggle between their duty to the war/ stations in life, and to each other. While the plot itself is a bit thin, the emotional payoff is fantastic. The two have grown so much since we first met them in Leviathan, and it kinda makes you proud. Well done them.

Oh, and read this book just for the perspicacious lorises, the mystery beasties we were introduced to in the 2nd book. They have some of the best lines in the series. Trust me.

All in all, a solid, clever, quick YA read.

My reviews of the rest of the series:
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

REVIEW: All Men of Genius by Lev AC Rosen

All Men of Genius
by Lev AC Rosen

"Furthermore, I don't recommend emulating the behavior of any of the characters contained within.

They're all quite mad.

The truth is, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Except about love. We all know a little about that.

Or nothing at all."

- Author's Note

This book is a basically a steampunk mashup of Twelfth Night and The Importance of Being Earnest. Need I say more? Well, I will anyway.

Violet Adams is not your typical Victorian girl. She spends her spare time up to her elbows in grease and gears in her family's basement inventing wonderful things. She is serious and bullheaded, and frustrated that because she is a girl, she will never be recognized for her genius by her scientific peers. Her twin brother, Ashton, is the opposite: an easy-going poet and all around foppish cleverboots. 

She hatches a plan to dress as a boy so she can enter Illyria College, the best scientific school in the city. Along the way she makes friends and enemies (an excellently bitter and entitled Malcom Volio), falls in love, fights against an evil plot, is awesome and smart, and fights an incredible battle to win her place in the scientific community. 

I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. It is crammed with characters and references to both Twelfth Night and Importance of Being Earnest, but it is not slavishly devoted to either story. You get themes, characters, delightful flavors, and sometimes direct quotes, but Rosen makes them his own. For example, Mariah from Twelfth Night is Miriam Issacs, a "Jewess" born in Persia, married and widowed in Paris, and then employed as governess to Cecily (Cecily/Olivia). Miriam's relationship with student Toby Belch warms my heart. Cecily is as naive and youthful as Cecily Cardew, and falls for Violet-dressed-as-a-boy a la Olivia. Violet herself (after a long struggle) falls for Earnest, Duke of Illyria. Another example: One of the Professors is named Bunburry, and he rather accident prone. 

Like Neverland, it is nicely crammed, and there is hardly any space between one reference, and another, but if you don't know either play, you can appreciate the book for its own merits. And if you do know both plays, you will not be ruined on the story. 

It sounds complicated, but it doesn't feel that way while you are reading it. Reading the book feels like surfing, where you ride the rhythms of each section, and switch to the next wave of text as it comes. It is easy and exciting, and flows really well. And then, like a video game, you collect the little gold coins of allusion as you ride. 

The 3rd person point of view slides just as easily. Each character, including all the minor ones, gets their moment (or more) of perspective. You get to look through the eyes of of the all main characters, of course, but then you have moments when you are in the brain of Lothario Prism, the aging professor, to get his unique perspective on the science faire set up at the Crystal Palace, or Fiona, the burlesque actress Violet hires to be her maid, and who ends up seducing Drew Pale (a still pitiful, but happier Andrew Aguecheek). 

I also loved Violet's character development. At the beginning she was brash and fearless because she was naive and young. As she matures, she hones those features into a genuine bravery and strength of character. She learns that femininity is not weakness, and she that she can be both a girl, and fully herself. 

The book is also chock full of imaginative, steampunky science, which for the most part I loved. However, biology class made me cringe a bit. The biology class's sole purpose is to experiment on animals. Rosen does have Jack Feste upset when he kills an animal in his experiment, but the idea of "improving" animals (giving ferrets bat wings, or switching animal's voice boxes), while it lead to comical outcomes, made me uncomfortable.

Other than that, this book was probably the best book I have read on a long time. It is not a heavy, weighty tome of genius, but it was clever, funny, engaging, exciting, and had wonderfully detailed characterization.

Books like this:
Leviathan, Behemoth and Goliath by Scott Westerfield

REVIEW: Hogfather by Terry Prachett

Hogfather

by Terry Pratchett


"HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM?" - Death

(A rather unfortunate caveat for this post: I saw the movie before I read the book, so my view is a bit tainted.)

I wish I had waited to read this book, and not excitedly snatched it off the library shelf right after I watched the movie. It is meant to be read on a cozy chair looking out at the falling snow and contemplating the meaning of Christmas-- I mean Hogswatch-- being jolly and surrounded by mistletoe and holly. And other things ending in olly. 

'Twas the night before Hogswatch and a lot of things are stirring: Ridcully of the Unseen University is trying to break in to an ancient bathroom to have a bath, Susan (the granddaughter of Death and governess) is beating the monster-under-the-bed with a poker before tucking her employer's children into bed, Death himself is on his nightly rounds, and the Auditors (spirits who make sure that gravity works, and that the earth turns, etc) have decided that the world is a bit to messy, and put a hit out on the Hogfather (Discworld's Santa Claus). When the Hogfather disappears, Death takes up his mantle and begins delivering toys, while Susan quests to put a stop to the hired Assassin.   

Terry Pratchett is such a strange writer. He is deceitfully fluffy and silly, and then packs a wallop of TRUTH underneath it all.  The book is a treatise on belief: why we need to believe in things that obviously aren't real,  how beliefs evolve (from winter sacrifice to merry Hogfather), what happens when you stop believing.

While the book follows several groups of characters throughout the evening's adventures, the strongest and most exciting parts of this book were those that followed Susan and Death. Susan was the reason I picked up this book in the first place. She is the adopted granddaughter of Death and has inherited some of his deathly powers along the way, but all she wants is a normal life. She took a job as a governess and takes comfort in such things as bedtime and using doorknobs. She is sensible and no-nonsense: a dark Mary Poppins, though she says herself that " if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.”


After Death tells her almost too pointedly NOT TO GET INVOLVED, she takes up her grandfather's sythe (though not literally, she takes his second favorite weapon: a sword), and goes forth to investigate the disappearance of the Hogfather. She seems to get lost in silly fluff during the middle of the book, while we read about the antics of the more ridiculous and one dimensional characters, but she is incredibly strong in the beginning (as the monster-fighting governess) and at the end as she confronts the Assassin (a grinning and psychotic Mr. Teatime).

The most delightful character in this book, however, is Death as he takes on the incongruous role of Hogfather on Hogswatch night. Though unsteady in the beginning, he practices his HO HO HOs and wears the false beard and puts a pillow up his shirt and travels down the chimneys (even though he feels it is much easier to go through the wall). He gamely travels to each house to deliver presents, and in the meantime has an existential crisis. No one usually is glad to see him as Death, and he has a soft spot for humans. He starts to change the rules, giving the children exactly what they want (a real sword: "IT'S EDUCATIONAL.""What if she cuts herself?" "THAT WILL BE A VERY GOOD LESSON"), giving life to the Little Match Girl,  and lamenting "BUT I'M THE HOGFATHER" when he is told he can't give poor people everything they want. He is a heartwarming, and heart-wrenching figure as he struggles between what he feels is right, and what is traditional. And he has the best about-to-kick-your-ass quote at the end of the book.

For me, I wished Terry Pratchett had written the book with a bit more depth and a little less fluff, but then he wouldn't be Terry Pratchett, and we couldn't have that.

If you liked this book, you might like:
Anything by Terry Prachett
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett