Book Review: Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Mass

My obsession with this series began with an ARC I was given through Net Galley. I was like, “Hmmm.. this sounds vaguely interesting. I don’t know about the fae and magic business, hopefully that won’t be too overwhelming.” Dude. Just, dude. I began by getting the first two copies from the library, and delved into a whirlwind reading week, where I could barely think beyond wanting to get back to whichever page I left off. Even while working, I would be daydreaming about what would happen, what violence, apparition, or twist would throw my perception of events out the window! Phew. I was becoming a tad bit obsessed and was so thrilled at the aspect of being able to finish the trilogy. Sigh. But it’s not a trilogy is it? There is no way it could just end how it did. So I’m partly looking forward to the next books, but wishing I knew what happened already!

So. It begins from Celaena Sardothien’s perspective; being brought before the prince of Adarlan, son of her sworn enemy, in the salt mines of Endovier. She was sent there after being caught–for being one of the region’s most notorious assassins. Prince Dorian gives her an offer she definitely couldn’t refuse–a chance at her freedom, but at a definite cost. The king is holding a contest for someone to become his “champion”, to serve him by doing his dirty work (i.e. assassinations, right up Celaena’s alley). If she wins, she’ll serve him for several years, then will be freed. So, all in all, already an interesting plot. But, oh ho, the plot does thicken! After she travels back to the kingdom, the reader is allowed small glimpses of her past and origin. She was found by Arobynn, the leader of the Assassin’s Guild, half-dead in a river bed and groomed to become the Assassin of Adarlan. There is not any inkling of her earlier life, not until later in the series. Being groomed to be such a renowned assassin came at a cost; she was forced to complete many painful and excruciating tasks to make herself so focused and “well-rounded”.

Ultimately, her true enemy from day one seems to be the king, mostly due to his unjust rule, massacre of many peoples, and forced enslavement at such locations as Endovier. Somehow, not long after he established his reign, magic seemed to vanish across the kingdom and fear seemed to take its place. Magic consisted of the Little Folk, fae, and other mystical forces that all kinds of creatures possessed. Any mention of magic was promptly squashed, books burned, and magical beings retreated or vanished. Hints about magic are mentioned in some of Caleana’s thoughts and actions, but are mostly hidden or dismissed due to the stigma surrounding it.

Anywho, she’s in the castle, under careful watch of not only Dorian and the castle guard, but the Captain of the Guard as well, Chaol. Of course, if there is a powerful and cunning, strong female lead, then there must also be an intriguing love triangle. Both Dorian and Chaol elicit strong emotions from Celaena, and her focus on the championship seems to almost take the back burner to her relationships. She also finds a true friendship in the princess of Ellywe, Nehemia. In the championship trials and tests, she battles for the top spot against a behemoth, Cain, and many other strong or conniving thieves, assassins, and soldiers. To limit the supposed scrutiny and help her in the competition, she keeps her identity secret (if that’s one thing about this book, its secret identities…and Celaena sure does have a lot of them), posing as a jewel thief from the country. Trial after trial, she still finds herself in the top ranking, and her freedom seems almost within reach. But there’s another twist–candidates for champion are dropping dead all over the castle, being gored and disemboweled before being left in cold, dark forgotten corridors. In her curiosity and sense of self-preservation, Celaena seeks to find the killer. In her quest to discover the truth, she finds not only a hidden passageway in her chambers, but a long forgotten tomb and secret. She comes across Wyrdmarks around the bodies, as well as all over the castle and in the tomb. She keeps delving into the mystery without the approval of Nehemia, and disapproval from Chaol, finding dark truths about the King and what ultimately threatens the entire kingdom. But will she like the answer, once she discovers the true threat? Dun-dun-ddddduuuunnnnn!

I would write more, but there are so many spoilers that pop up in each novel, and so many neat things you discover as you read this series. So read it! Tell me what you think! Become obsessed as I did! My favorite book so far has been Hero and the Crown, but this series reminds me so much of many of my favorite elements…this may become my new favorite. Check it out!

 

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Book Review: In Real Life (graphic novel) by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang

In Real Life was a new take on gaming (as far as readers go), and portrayed gaming as many girls see it when first introduced. An alluring and mystical place, where you can any person you want to be, not necessarily tied to who you are in “real life”. It can show you, deep down, who you really are…bringing out your best (or worst) traits. In Real Life shows how a teenage girl can become enthralled with a fantasy land, but still stand up for what she knows is right. This graphic novel helps show that there is more than just suburban Americans playing these type of games, and the struggles that some in other countries might face. I like how Anda is a simple girl, timid even, but becomes this ravishing and confident warrior in the game. The game, and the friends she finds within, help break her out of her shell, and give her a similar personality on the outside that she discovers during game play.

 

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Book Review: The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

The world has changed since all the countries rebelled against one another in an all out battle to the end. Bombs dropped on major cities in the United States have rendered many of the animals extinct or mutated. The ground is infertile, and plants struggle to produce anything edible. In the aftermath of the devastation, people are trying to rebuild. The old-world city of Wichita is transformed into Tosu City, the hub of the country where many of the governmental choices are made, and the future leaders are primed after they undergo “The Testing”. There are a multitude of counties/colonies surrounding this main hub, where some previous students of the University (those who pass “The Testing” are allowed to go to school there and learn ways to fix and revitalize the country) have families and hope to send their own children to become the future leaders. Malencia is one of these students. All her life, she’s wanted to go for The Testing and prove her worth among the best and brightest. There haven’t been any candidates chosen from their colony of Five Lakes in almost a decade, but she hopes she will be “the one”. Even though it’s kind of obvious that’s what is going to happen, “Surprise!”, Malencia, as well as three others, are chosen and whisked off to the city. But before they go, there are quick words of doom and warning from her father, a previous University student. He  warns her not to trust anyone, and to prepare to survive some pretty traumatic and freaky stuff. Things that will more than likely prompt her to have nightmares like the ones he still has to this day.

She makes it to the city, and launches into the Testing. Betrayal, dishonesty, manipulation, death, suicide, murder, disappearances, subterfuge, and more occur within days, and continue to mount in severity up until the last stage of the test, where they throw these kids into the ruins of Chicago and tell them to make their way back to Tosu on their own. It is a game of survival, wits, and endurance that many of them face, and not all of them can win. If they pass this test, then they’ll make it to the University. Will Malencia make it?

I really, really, really got into this book. It seems like over the last few weeks I’ve been kind of dredging through the last few books I read. I mean, I’ll enjoy them mostly, but they just drag. This one was interesting to me, and picked up almost immediately. It had many of the same qualities as a Hunger Games type setting…more or less tranquil, with undertones of something more dangerous going on in the background. While there isn’t the immediate threat of death due to rebellion, its more like the colonies are in a fragile state, and don’t want to revert back to the previous way of life that led to the world war. And then The Testing begins. This brings in more of the survival, kill or be killed kind of attitude, and the moral high ground the protagonist finds herself on. Malencia, or Cia, wants to do things the “right” way, and not succumb to the desperation or brutality some of the other “future leaders” rely on. Her quick intellect and intuition guide her through the difficult tests, but ultimately putting her trust in others helps her meet the end goal. I liked the quick pace, and the way the reader can discover things about the facilities, students, and testing officials as Cia discovers them. There isn’t any of the background insight into what is going on with other characters or behind-the-scenes. This helps keep the mystery alive, and allow the reader to ponder the possible outcome along with Cia. While there was a lot of similar characteristics to dystopian stories like the Hunger Games, thank goodness they didn’t bring in a love triangle. Cia only loves one person, more or less, but the story line brought in the element of trust, and how far she would put her trust in Tomas. But also like the Hunger Games, the officials are always listening, always watching, and this knowledge helps Cia “play the game” and survive.

Despite all the similarities to some other dystopian novels/trilogies, I like the premise, and the higher dependence on knowledge and skill they place on the characters. If, say, the world did come to a crashing halt, I would love to imagine that we would band together and put a serious dependence on knowledge, learning, and learning skills to fix the world. But, you know, without all the killing and manipulation for a test. Just saying.

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Book Review: Far From You by Tess Sharpe

Sophie has survived trauma in her teenage years, which range from car accidents that almost leave her crippled, to surviving an attach where her best friend is shot and killed. Far From You is the aftermath of Sophie’s ordeals, as she struggles to stay clean of her painkiller addiction and find the reason her best friend had to die. The police, one detective in particular, chalk it up to Sophie’s addiction and that it was a drug deal gone wrong. Sophie’s internal mantra of the months, hours, and minutes of her being clean say otherwise. Through the years and reflections on times past, we see Sophie and Mina’s friendship grow (and their love) and the events that surround Mina’s death. There is mystery and intrigue about the secrets both the girls kept, and how they knew everything about each other with the simplest touch or glance, yet would hide things–even from themselves. Sophie feels lost without her friend, but after struggling through her grief in an unnecessary stint in rehab, she vows to discover a secret about Mina she never knew, and find the person(s) responsible for her death.

This novel not only is a murder mystery, but ultimately a reflection on grief, how one struggles with addiction, friendship, and love. I figured this was just going to be another angst-filled story about some obvious-killer-boyfriend who “accidentally” murdered Sophie’s best friend (and was “Gonna get her too!”). One of those that there seems to be dozens of out there. Then the story started to blossom and show deeper sub-plots and further mysteries that were hidden from the reader. It became more a story of a hidden love between the two girls, and how they struggled to not only hide it from their friends, families, and lovers, but from themselves. There was real, raw pain behind many of the girls’ actions, especially when Sophie started to fall deeper into her drug addiction. I liked how Sharpe didn’t immediately make it an unrealistic dive into the drug world, but a slow and irreversible descent. Sophie was in real pain from her car accident, and was struggling with the physical therapy and the realization she would never be the same again. That’s one of the things I could never stand from other books that talk about drug addiction…it seems so staged and unrealistic. But here, Sophie just digs herself deeper into it, even astonishing herself when she steals her father’s prescription pad, and prolongs her unnecessary pill-popping.

The greatest thing from this book was the realism; the emotions of the family members, the betrayal of friends for love, unrequited love, odd stages of grief (and how everyone handles it differently), and ultimately, just how people grow from trauma and great relationships. Sophie wasn’t the deepest or most well-rounded of characters, but you understood her emotions and actions, and how they aided her recovery from such death and self-destruction. Her relationship with Trev was full of tension and sadness, and her parents seemed, well, like parents. No one’s perfect, and all the characters were able to make mistakes here and there with little detriment to the story. I really enjoyed the realism, and gut-wrenching, tear-jerking moments. Sigh. But the ending. The wrap up with the criminals was a little odd, and felt misplaced. I felt the main story with Mina and Sophie’s relationship and turmoil was the real focus, and the murder mystery an afterthought. Besides that…pretty darn swell.

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Book Review: Grim, ed. by Christine Johnson

This book, a compilation of short stories inspired by the prolific Grimm fairy tales, explores lives of traditional characters in a variety of situations. Whether in the future, in alternate realities, or just re-imagined by talented writers of youth literature, these classic and creepy tales are fantastic. The authors include: Ellen Hopkins, Amanda Hocking, Julie Kagawa, Claudia Gray, Rachel Hawkins, Kimberly Derting, Myra McEntire, Malinda Lo, Sarah Rees-Brennan, Jackson Pearce, Christine Johnson, Jeri Smith Ready, Shaun David Hutchinson, Saundra Mitchell, Sonia Gensler, Tessa Gratton, and Jon Skrovan.

I enjoyed almost 90% of the stories included, and while I didn’t recognize some of the characters/story lines/themes, I still got a kick out of the sheer expansiveness of the stories and their awesomeness. Their was a fair amount of brutality, sex, hate, deception, secrets, love, mystery, and everything that is quintessential in a classic fairy tale. Some were particularly short and sweet, with a quick concise wrap-up; while there were others that had more characters, a more extensive plot-line, and occasionally, drug on for longer than felt necessary. Some stories were honestly surprising! I would be half-way through a story, and then *duh!* would realize the characters related to, say, Red Riding Hood, or Sleeping Beauty, or (quite often), Beauty and the Beast. That was one thing that I kind of disliked–there were multiple versions of the same story/tale. I think it would have been preferable to stick to all different stories, or at least have separate versions that were so different, so altered, that they wouldn’t be comparable. I did enjoy the theme of the Grimm fairy tales, or classic fairy tales–doing just fantasy seems to run to close to other short story compilations like Firebirds, Firebirds Rising, or even the third in the compilations, Firebirds Soaring (which I totally need to get to at some point). Anyhow, the stories were intriguing and unique, and kept me interested throughout the entire book. I recommend it!

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Book Review: Half-Bad by Sally Green

There are White witches, and Black Witches, and now and then, there comes a son or daughter born of both. This “half-blood” is never truly accepted amongst White witches, who think that the evil part of them will overshadow the “good”. This story follows the half-blood Nathan as he grows up, comes into his powers of strength and healing, and tries to find his way without much guidance. While most of his family is accepting, his non-existent father (who is the most evil of the Black witches), makes the rest of the White witch community afraid, or at least wary, of Nathan. This causes him to become very bitter and seek escape from the constant assessments and sidelong glances. Ultimately, a prophecy overshadows Nathan’s escape, and he must decide which side he belongs, if there is ever a choice.

This took me some time to get into, as the story never seemed to pick up. There were odd gaps in time and story, which could be seen as a writing technique, but occasionally made me feel as if I missed a paragraph or skipped something. I’d be going along, getting into a really intense scene where there was torture, or an escape, or something, then it would just stop. And then Nathan would wake up, or he’d all of a sudden be doing something else. WTF? Nathan himself was not a full character, and had erratic and irregular behavior that was distracting and not really explained fully. I know that most of this may have stemmed from his need to escape the ideal behavior that was expected of him, but sometimes it was confusing why he would travel to a certain destination, flip off his chain and get angry at some people (such as Gabriel), or just have no reply. Yes, this could be part of his character and the “deeper” meaning behind certain things, but it was awfully stagnant and confusing.

I did enjoy the book by the end, when the action had picked up–yet there were still many pieces that felt empty or half-justified. Nathan’s relationship with his brother was interesting, with a little weirdness in the kissing (unless that’s just something witches do–I was unaware). While I’m kind of on the fence with this one, I would like to see more from Green. I think that the later books could hold that further explanation of events that I’m  looking for (what ever happened to his captor? Annaliese? Gabriel?), so I’m not quite ready to write this one off yet.

 

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Book Review: Big Fat Disaster by Beth Fehlbaum

This book follows the whirlwind trauma of Colby Denton as her life quickly disintegrates into a big, fat, disaster. After her father is found embezzling funds from his campaign donations, and Colby discovers a scandalous picture of him and not-her-mom…Colby loses the ability to cope. Smaller issues from the past seem to snowball as she feeds her pain by devouring anything and everything she gets her hands on. One after another emotional breakdowns in her family leads to Colby, her mother, and younger sister to move to a small trailer behind her aunt Leah’s house  in Piney Creek, TX. Colby continuously suffers from embarrassment from her family and peers as she is not only the new student, but the embarrassingly large new student. Her mother is not supportive, her Dad has vanished to live a new life, and she never has comfort except in food.  After a surprising death in the family, Colby’s problems escalate until it looks like there is no way out. Her problems lead to her own self-discovery, and awareness that she is not alone, nor unloved.

Whew! What an emotional roller-coaster! I full-on expected this book to be another one of those teen, weight issue books with a simple solution and the girl is skinny by the end. Nope, nope, nope. From the very first chapter, I was like, WTF? Whoa!

Colby reminds me a lot of myself (minus the cheating, thieving dad; horrid mother, and extreme bullying). She internalized a lot of what is going on around her, and heads to an alternate method of coping instead of communicating with her family. In all likelihood, from how her family is portrayed, I don’t think they would have listened to anything she said anyhow. I feel very connected to this story because of the location, the thoughts on life/family/politics/religion, and the simple cruelty of teens and ignorant people. I did not expect the story to head into these deeper issues, but it ultimately portrayed a darker side of humanity, and what some girls are facing these days.

This was not my typical read, but I sure am glad I delved into this storm of brutal emotions. Colby made me proud by the end, and I don’t think I’ve hated any character (perhaps Joffrey and Cersei from GOT) more than her mother and some of the punk high school kids. Ah, to feel like a super adult.

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Book Review: Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return (graphic novel) by Denton J. Tipton

This illustrated story tells of the next villain to plague the colorful lands of Oz: The Jester. He’s the long-lost brother of the Wicked Witch of the West (WWotW), and he seeks to rule over the entire land of Oz by controlling the troupe of flying monkeys and threatening the villages across the land. Once the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and (no-longer-cowardly) Lion hear of his evil plan and witness the havoc he’s already wreaked, they devise a plan to bring the only thing that could save Oz: Dorothy Gale. They traipse across Oz, encountering new fantastical beings and lands, all while magically surviving attacks and setbacks. It ends with a cliffhanger, a mystery of what will happen to Oz and Dorothy–destined to be revealed in the upcoming animated film.

I think the colorful and minimalist illustrations meld well with the stories of Oz, and capture a small sense of how the mystical world would be, just as the movies and books have. It reminds me of Lisa Frank and the colorful, over-the-top girly-ness of it all. While the dark and evil colors of the Jester’s scenes do wonderfully juxtapose the bright and cheeriness of Oz, the Jester’s stupidity is slightly off. Since he is the brother of the WWotW, it seems like he would be just as evil (which he is). Yet, on the other hand, he is no where quite as bright. He has a method worked out for his evil plan, but fumbles and makes things almost comical. This is probably a good idea for a children’s book–lends to the lightheartedness of it and doesn’t seriously scare the living daylights out of a child. Reminds me of an extremely PG version of the Joker from Batman comics. A neat version of the L. Frank Baum stories; I’m definitely looking forward to the upcoming sequel to the story, Legends of Oz.

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Book Review: Little Monkey Calms Down by Michael Dahl

A cute and simple board book that relates a teeny monkey with behaviors of small children and babies. After dropping his ice cream and having a fit, calming activities help bring the little monkey’s temper down.

Monkey goes through several volatile emotions, many of which plague young children. This would be excellent for association with children; refer to them as “your little monkey” and try to tie this book with their actions. If your child gets upset or flustered, you could help him or her out with some of these easy phrases. You could sing a song, distract, or cuddle with your child to help them feel better. The bright alternating colors and large illustrations would help capture children’s attention, while simple involving actions would keep their focus. A good choice for toddler time or mother goose story time.

Book Review: Clara’s Crazy Curls by Helen Poole

I enjoyed this book; Clara is unique, colorful, and an independent child who knew what she wanted. Her desire to have the biggest, tallest, and curliest hair in the world comes true after she snags some of her mother’s hair cream. Clara soon discovers, though, that having the biggest and tallest hair might not necessarily be all that she imagined. Soon, others are grumpy about her hair getting in their way, and Clara back into the corner in several occasions.

Nobody puts Clara in the corner!

So she chops it off, and it is magically whisked away to become a planet’s rings. Very odd, but distinct and unique. I liked the portrayal of her curly hair being her “purse” or book bag of sorts, and how she stored everything in among the curls. It’s refreshing to see a young child manifested into one who knows what she wants, and is completely confident about what cards she’s been dealt. This would be a wonderful book to give to girls who aren’t as confident about their awesome curly hair. Would also be a good choice for a story time about loving yourself. The illustrations were gorgeous and colorful–not overly girly with pinks and purples, but a nice mix of bright, flamboyant colors. Nice!

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