Tag Archives: young adult

Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale, Illustrated by Nathan Hale

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Rapunzel's Revenge
Rapunzel’s Revenge
Shannon Hale

I saw that Rapunzel’s Revenge was for sale at bookcloseouts.com for $2.99 and my husband is a lovely, lovely enabler so he bought it along with 6 other books.. ahem.

The Premise: This is a graphic novel adaptation of Rapunzel with a twist. Rapunzel grows up in a huge, lovely house, surrounded by servants and greenery, but she always wonders why she has strange dreams about another family and why her mother, Gothel won’t let her see what is on the other side of the wall that towers high above their mansion.  Every year, Rapunzel asks, but Gothel won’t answer, until finally Rapunzel finds out herself. This leads to a discovery which makes Rapunzel turn against Gothel and kicks off a series of adventures for Rapunzel on her way to enact revenge.

My Thoughts: I really liked this one. Shannon Hale is known for her young adult novels that are based on fairy tales, but this is her first graphic novel adaptation, which she wrote with her husband. The illustrator has the same last name, but isn’t a relation. As a graphic novel, it’s easily read in one sitting, and the artwork is really good (and it’s all in color). The layout of the panels is easy to read and the faces of the characters are consistent. The story spans a few years, and so we see Rapunzel growing from a child to a young woman, which is conveyed well in the art — she still looks like herself throughout the process, as do the other characters. I thought the artwork easily conveyed desert canyons, lush jungles, strange places, and rough people. It was all very adventurous and fun to look at.

The story was great too. Rapunzel doesn’t need to get rescued by the prince from her tower, she figures how to get out herself. And she’s not put in there by her witch mother to keep her away from men, she’s put in there for actually defying Gothel, who is a tyrant in this world. And Rapunzel kicks butt! Look at the cover for this graphic novel — that should give you an idea. Rapunzel goes through a lot on her way from her tower back to Gothel to show her that “she can’t be a bully without earning a swift kick in the rear”. I loved that independence. The use of her hair as a weapon (it’s a lasso, a whip, a rope) was one of my favorite touches.

There’s a a Wild West theme in the story, because the world has been turned into “every body for themselves” after Gothel took over.  I also liked the hints of other fairy tales that are peppered throughout which are like inside jokes for fairytale and tall tale lovers. I’m dying to talk about it in the review, but I think it’s more fun to find them yourselves, so I will restrain myself.

Overall: The inside of this book met the expectations I had after seeing the cool cover. Lots of fun and I hope there’s a sequel!

Buy: Amazon | Powells | Bookcloseouts

Other reviews:
Bookmoot – “who doesn’t enjoy a new twist on an old story?”
Books and Other Thoughts – “great fun to read”

Fire by Kristin Cashore

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Fire
Kristin Cashore

I was pretty sure I would like this book when Graceling got glowing reviews from the usual suspects (people who have tastes that tend to mesh with mine), which is why I got an ARC copy of Fire at BEA. The next day, when I saw that the author was signing the book, I got another copy. The first copy was contested off earlier this summer, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading Fire until now (what can I do, so many good books in my TBR, so little time).

The Premise: Fire is a 17 year old girl who lives in the kingdom of the Dells. This is a land where monsters live. Monsters are just like their normal counterparts, except they are gorgeous, with amazing colored skin and hair and fur, and they use their beauty to compel their victims to do what they want. Fire is the only human monster alive. The strong minded want to kill her, the weak throw themselves at her feet, and other monsters just want to eat her. This is the least of Fire’s problems because the country is gearing for war. The young King Nash’s position is threatened by a couple of power-hungry lords and although his brother and war commander, Brigan, doesn’t trust Fire, she soon becomes embroiled in their fight to keep the kingdom together.

Read a 40 page excerpt of Fire

My Thoughts: I haven’t read Graceling, and I had no problems because of this, so I will happily say that there is no need to read Graceling first. This is supposed to be an earlier companion novel set in the same world but a different geographical location, with ONE (I think) common character, and the rest are new characters. I didn’t even know who this common character was until I saw reviews by people who had read Graceling before reading Fire.

This book started off with a prologue which doesn’t come into play until much later on in the book. I spent some time wondering what the prologue was about because it didn’t seem to affect the story for a long time. But it does finally come into play, so you do have to read it. When the book really starts, we’re introduced to Fire who has just been shot by an arrow, but accidentally, which is a surprise to Fire. Fire believes at any time she could die, either from a monster attacking her and her not being fast enough to avoid it, or from someone going insane in her presence, killing her.  At first I didn’t really grasp the monster concept and what it really meant for Fire to be one, but over and over again, everyone’s reactions to Fire, and I do mean everyone’s, is to first see her as that beautiful monster. By the time I was done, I was right there with Fire in being completely sick of people who couldn’t control themselves absolutely hating her or throwing themselves at her on sight, but it was realistic and a huge part of what she is. It was really a burden, especially because she was a woman.

I loved Cashore”s writing style. Fire is written in the third person, but the focus is mostly on Fire, and I think the author makes a deliberate choice to have the reader experience what Fire experiences. So there’s a lot of showing, not telling, especially when it comes to emotions that belong to people other than Fire. We can see their faces, but we’re left to interpret what emotions propel their facial expressions and body language. I love that I don’t always know whether my guess is correct, and the author doesn’t lay it all out there clearly. It also makes Fire the focus of all my emotional empathy, and boy, does this girl go through things. Because of Fire’s father, another human monster, a selfish man who was adviser to the previous king, Fire is the target of hatred because of his sins. There’s only her neighbors, Lord Brocker and his son Archer who seem to care for her, but as the book continues, Fire’s strength earns her more friends. It’s not easy. There are some scenes of very realistic grief, the kind where you are so sad and depressed, all you know is feeling, not logic. I wanted to cry with her. Don’t worry though, this is not, for the most part, a sad book because Cashore writes things in a way where I could accept the sad parts and move on. There is more hope and happiness, and a big part of that is the romance.

The relationships between characters in this book were just amazing. Even the minor characters had individual personalities and impacted the major characters, but my favorite relationship was of course the romantic one! I think it was quite obvious from quite early on who Fire was going to end up with, but the journey to get there was gradual and lovely. It was a mental process, although Fire and other characters are not shy about sex. Actually, despite their young age, and although Fire is categorized as young adult, most characters had adult responsibilities and were mature people. The writing has a simple, no frills feel of a young adult book, but there are a lot of themes which makes this book have an adult appeal.

Overall: I thought I would like it, but Fire really bowled me over: I loved it! Superb writing, fantasy with a really sweet romance, and amazing character development. It’s a young adult book that has adult appeal. I highly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of Robin McKinley or Sharon Shinn or Maria Snyder. I closed the book with a sigh, and then I hugged it.

Other reviews:
Angieville – she loved it
The Book Smugglers gave it a 9, Damn near perfection
Steph Su Reads – 5 out of 5

Other links:
Kristin Cashore’s blog
Fire Blog Tour

Crazy Beautiful by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

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The Premise: Well. I really think the blurb for this is better than anything I could say because…hooks for hands people:
“In an explosion of his own making, Lucius blew his arms off. Now he has hooks. He chose hooks because they were cheaper. He chose hooks because he wouldn’t outgrow them so quickly. He chose hooks so that everyone would know he was different, so he would scare even himself. Then he meets Aurora. The hooks don’t scare her. They don’t keep her away. In fact, they don’t make any difference at all to her. But to Lucius, they mean everything. They remind him of the beast he is inside. Perhaps Aurora is his Beauty, destined to set his soul free from its suffering. Or maybe she’s just a girl who needs love just like he does. “

My Thoughts: At 197 pages (at least that was the length of my ebook), this was a short read that I read in a couple of hours. The narrative goes back and forth between Lucius and Aurora’s points of view, but they are very short passages, sometimes just one sentence. There’s a sort of poetic quality to the writing, as if sentences are used sparingly for maximum dramatic effect.

This is a Beauty and the Beast tale, but there’s a lot more going on than this (although it’s one of my favorite tropes). Lucius and Aurora are both high school students going to a new school. They’re both sophomores and encounter different reactions from the student body.  Lucius is treated badly, both for his appearance and rumors of what he’d done to get his hooks, but Aurora is immediately accepted and well liked. The way it was written, it conveyed high school and family in a believable way. Lucius is an outsider but he didn’t strike me as a real bad boy, despite what he’d done (and this book’s cover). His attitude was more of an intelligent guy who is marginalized by others, but I liked how Aurora trusted her own judgment in him. I could see this happening in any high school with regular students rather than a Hollywood version of high school with the usual cliches. There’s the idea of starting over, which both Aurora and Lucius have to do, going with or against the crowd, rumors, the consequences of your actions and a really sweet romance. And had a couple of laughs at Lucius’s sarcastic sense of humor, especially when he goes shopping with his younger sister and is forced to discover how pitiful his fashion sense is.

When I look at other reviews for this book I see people wanting more to the story, wanted to see more of what happened after it ended, but I didn’t have so much of that problem just because I knew that the book was short, and I guess I had that in the back of my mind. I think I ended liking it better than them. The only minor complaint I’d have is wanting to know a bit more about what Lucius was up to when he blew up his hands. It takes a while before we get there and when we do, his reasons behind it weren’t delved into and I wish they were, but maybe this book didn’t want to focus on the past as much as focus on moving forward.

Overall: I liked this quite a bit. A short, feel-good kind of read with a sweet romance in it.

Buy: Amazon | B&N

Reviews elsewhere (seems to be rated average by most, so I think I liked it a better than them. Main issue was wanting more fleshing out to the story):
Genrereviews – 3 pints of blood
Fantastic Book Review 3.5 out of 5 stars
Tempting Persephone wanted a bit more

Win it (contest ends Sept 25th) at Fantastic Book reviews

Intertwined by Gena Showalter

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Intertwined by gena showalter
Intertwined by gena showalter

This is a review for an ARC copy that I got at BEA. Intertwined is another offering from Harlequin’s new line: Harlequin Teen (I reviewed another of their books, Rachel Vincent’s My Soul To Take on this blog in July – LJ | wordpress).

The Premise: Aden Stone is a teen who has been in and out of trouble for a really long time. The reason is that he can hear voices that no one else does. When he replies to them out loud, people think he’s crazy. What’s really going on is that Aden has four souls trapped inside him, who each have an ability which means Aden also has that ability. One day he runs into Mary Ann Gray, a girl who completely stops the voices inside him. They feel an interesting bond between them, but soon afterwards they meet a werewolf who has an interest in Mary Ann and a vampire princess who Aden is pulled towards.

My Thoughts: I liked that Aden Stone was a character with very serious past mistakes, the kind that means treatment options and people not trusting him. This is something you don’t always see in YA, but I’ve seen in before in another Showalter YA novel, Red Handed (where the main character was a drug addict in recovery). For this reason I found Aden the strongest character in the book, although the focus sometimes shifted off him onto Mary Ann. Mary Ann had a happier past, but she also had some depth, particularly in her relationship with her father and best friend.

There are two romances in here and although the blurb pretty much gives you an idea of who is interested in who (so this isn’t a spoiler), the first people who meet in this book are Aden and Mary Ann.  The third person narration focuses on them, so I thought they were being set up as a couple, but they’re not. They meet the other two main characters and immediate crushes are fostered. I would have liked the getting to know you to happen before each character decided they were smitten, and less telling rather than showing, so the romances didn’t do it for me, but were a couple of sweet moments. I of course had my cynic’s cap on regarding the vampire princess being 80 years old, but that’s a personal pet peeve, and here vampires mature less slowly (the equivalent of terrible twos is several years for example) which made it feel a bit more acceptable.

Besides the action in the very beginning of the book, it was a lot of set up into the world and the pacing felt slow at first. It is a long book (442 pages in this ARC) and about 200 pages of it is the protagonists meeting, finding out about each other’s powers and basically going to school. Things became more interesting when Aden’s time travel came into play. From that point on, I was reading at a happy speed, but once the significance of what he saw when he time-travelled was resolved the book sort of fast forwarded through to a quick ending that left me a little unsatisfied. It wasn’t quite a cliffhanger, but it felt really abruptly (and conveniently!) done.

A biggest problem I had with the book was that there were a lot of ideas being thrown at the reader. It’s hard to list them all. There’s all of Aden’s abilities, his past, Mary Ann’s affect on Aden, their relationship to each other, romances with others, and several kinds of supernatural creatures for starters. There felt like a lot of story arcs without a distinct focus. I think I’d have preferred that the author concentrate on Aden and his story rather than bringing in all this outside elements and jumping back and forth between Aden and Mary Ann.

Overall: As escapist fun, this was OK but flawed (uneven pacing and too much going on, things where YMMV). If I think about it there were a few things plot-wise which I hope get cleared up in later books, but the start of this series hasn’t wowed me.

Other reviews:
The Book Smugglers – Ana liked it and gave it an 8

Steph Su Reads – 2 out of 5 (had some similar complaints as me re: too much going on)
Links:

There’s Intertwined sweepstakes with a $10,000 grand prize! You can enter every day until November 16th

Geektastic – Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

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Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

I picked this one up at BEA since I’m a Holly Black fan and she was signing it.

Geektastic is an anthology of geek related stories. According to the charming Editors’ note, the idea was formed after Comic Con, where, in line for a burrito, Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci discussed what would happen if “you were a Jedi and you woke up with a Klingon in your bed” (the first story in this anthology). It’s a fun concept, and this book has different varieties of geeks represented.  Although some stories have me thinking the idea was better than the realization, it was cool to see how many big names in the YA genre have geek cred.

Throughout the anthology are one page comics illustrated by Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O’Malley about geeks like “How to Hook Up at the Science Fair”, “What your instrument says about you” and “Top Five Words or Phrases You Need to Know in Klingon” – these were amusing and nice breakpoints between stories.

Buy: Amazon | B&N

Really quick reviews follow (My favorites were by David Levithan, Lisa Lee, Wendy Mass and Cassandra Clare):

1) Once You’re a Jedi, You’re a Jedi All the Way by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci: A Jedi and a Klingon wake up together in the same hotel room. Overall: OK. Funny and cute in a very geeky way. I enjoyed picturing the melee described here, but seems to focus more on Jedi vs. Klingon than their story.

2) One of Us by Tracy Lynn: A cheerleader tries to learn more about her football player boyfriend’s interests in geeky things by taking “lessons” from the the high school Genre and Nonsense Club – This one was like a primer into geekdom as each member of the club highlighted a particular aspect. Chock full of geek references, maybe too many, but ends nicely.

3) Definitional Chaos by Scott Westerfeld: A gamer responsible for bringing Con money to a hotel in Florida gets saddled with his crazy ex-girlfriend on the trip. The story seemed to focus on the idea of alignment, both in games and offline, and I found that aspect hard to connect to. This one took me a while to read because I kept putting it down.

4) I Never by Cassandra Clare: A girl and her friend who role play online as their favorite characters meet some other players of The Game in real life. Of course online characters differ greatly from their real life ones. A bit of a predictable Liking the Wrong Boy story, but ends up rather sweet.

5) The King of Pelinesse by M. T. Anderson: A boy discovers his mom gets love letters from one of his favorite fantasy authors and takes a trip to meet him. Um.. rather weird and somewhat creepy and sad. I’m pondering if this is saying something about certain fantasy authors or if it’s revealing the negative side of geekiness. Not sure.

6) The Wrath of Dawn by Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith: A girl named Dawn attends a Buffy screening where people interact with the movie much like people do with Rocky Horror, and objects to the way the character Dawn seems universally despised. My reaction to this was “Eh”. I’m not sure why, but it didn’t move me.

7) Quiz Bowl Antichrist by David Levithan: A gay teen is part of his school’s quiz bowl team and butts heads constantly with the team leader while harboring a crush on another teammember. Told in the first person, this teens sarcastic observations had me chuckling. There were also some painful situations. This was probably my favorite short story.

8 ) The Quiet Knight by Garth Nix: Tony, a loner kid spends his time live action roleplaying as the Quiet Knight, and wondering what the Quiet Knight would do helps him come out of his shell. This was alright, sweet, but short.

9) Everyone But You by Lisa Lee: Felicity has just moved from Ohio to Hawaii, going from her High schools’ MIss Pep to No one she feels out of place and invisible. This is another growing pains sort of story and another one of my favorites. I also liked the details of Hawaii that the locals know about.

10) Secret Identity by Kelly Link: Written as a letter from a teenaged girl to someone named Paul Zell. She alternates between writing in the first and third person about herself, but I figured she met him online in a game called FarAway and they were to meet in real life at a New York City Hotel but he doesn’t show. This is a confusing story which was almost a DNF, but it did get better once I realized she was serious about the superheroes in the lobby and ignored the changing POV. In the end it left me wanting to know who Paul Zell really was, but I didn’t like the shifts in POV at all.

11) Freak the Geek by John Green: Two best friends, outcasts in a all girls high school are the targets for a school tradition to haze two geeks for a day. A nice friendship story, with I think a lighter dusting of geekiness. Left me with a warm fuzzy. One comment: Pokemon? I thought that was only a fad in the nineties?

12) The Truth about Dino Girl by Barry Lyga: Katherine loves dinosaurs and spouts off knowledge about them to her best friend Sooz, an artist in the making, but lately her obsessive nature has a new target – an unattainable guy with a perfect girlfriend. An illustration that evolution can favor the little guys too, but I thought Katherine’s “revenge” was hypocritical and crossed a line.

13) This is My Audition Monologue by Sara Zarr: A monologue by Rachel Banks arguing why she should finally get a part as cast in the latest theater production and not be shuffled off into the crew. Rambly, embarrassing, ambitious, geeky, desperate and defiant all rolled into one. I liked and disliked it for those reasons. I wonder if she got a part.

14) The Stars at the Finish Line by Wendy Mass: The narrator, Peter, has had a crush on Tabitha Bell since they were in grade school. When she declares her ambition of being an astronaut when she was nine, so does he, and the rivalry began.  Eight years later, Peter still has his crush and Tabitha still thinks he’s her biggest competition. Astronomy geeks, very cute. Another favorite.

15) It’s Just a Jump to the Left by Libba Bray: Leta and Agnes have been friends for a long time and friday night at the Rocky Horror Picture Show is their thing. Unfortunately things don’t always stay the same. Agnes gets a boyfriend and Leta feels left behind. This gave off a very nostalgic, teens-in-the-seventies vibe. I thought it had interesting things to say about geekiness and it’s relationship with identity, friendship, and coping with life. Liked it.

SciFiChick has 3 copies of Geektastic she’s giving away (contest ends August 22nd)

My Soul to Lose // My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent

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My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent
My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent

My Soul to Lose is a free short story prequel (free!!!) which is available here at Rachel Vincent’s site.

The Premise: This is prequel happens about a year before the events in My Soul to Take, and is referred to in the book. Kaylee is shopping in the mall with her best friend Emma when she sees someone who triggers an attack. It is so bad that Kaylee’s aunt and uncle go to extremes for her own safety- they put her into a psychiatric hospital.

My Thoughts: A substantial freebie and worth reading. My Soul to Lose fills in some back story mentioned in My Soul to Take, while hinting at Kaylee’s problems in that book. It also was a little illustration on Kaylee’s relationship with her friend Emma – who sticks by her through everything. The setting seemed well researched as well. I’ve visited psych wards and Vincent does well to describe the setting, although I would say in my experience there is a mixed bag – friendly and not so friendly people, not all scary which seemed to be the perception here. I found it interesting that the reader finds out some things in the short story that Kaylee doesn’t remember in the first Soul Screamers book. I’m curious if she begins to remember in later books.

My Soul to Take (Harlequin Teen)
My Soul to Take (Harlequin Teen)
Rachel Vincent

I wanted to read My Soul to Take after I saw Tez’s review, and was happy to the ARC at BEA at the Harlequin booth. Harlequin is starting a new Teen line (Harlequin Teen) and My Soul to Take is their first offering.

The Premise: Kaylee Cavanaugh is a teen with a secret problem. Sometimes she sees people and knows they’re going to die, and this causes an unbearable compulsion to scream – loud, scary, wails that she has no control over which scares everybody and herself. Her family treat her like she has some kind of panic attack and seem afraid of her episodes. One night Kaylee and her best friend sneak into a nightclub and run into Nash, a very popular guy at school. Remarkably, Nash seems interested in Kaylee, and when she starts feeling an episode coming along, he has an idea of what to do and how to help. But things don’t end there, girls Kaylee’s age keep dying for no visible reason, and Kaylee begins to feel convinced that they were never supposed to die.

My Thoughts: Kaylee seems like an average, run-of-the-mill teenager. It seems to be an unremarkable life except for her strange “panic attacks”. I prefer hearing about a “normal” teen, not someone who is a teen cliche, like “the cheerleader” or some other stock character.  She isn’t too angsty despite her problems either – she has a balance and a small, but good support system.  She approached her problems with a level head even though she was confused and frightened about what was going on. As heroine’s go, she’s not too bad: I wouldn’t call her voice distinct, but she has interesting abilities and life.

The world building is the best part of the story. When you first get into the book there are a series of questions that as they get answered, provide the basis for a whole world unbeknown to most. What Kaylee’s screaming really is and why it’s happening. What the people around Kaylee know. How the world we don’t know about works. What Nash knows and how he fits into things. I enjoyed the way the author took a seldom used aspect of the supernatural in this book and put her own spin on it, but I won’t go into detail because that would be spoilerific. I DID come into this with a guess as to what Kaylee was because: girl who senses death and cannot stop a scream? It points to one obvious thing. However, Vincent makes it a little more complicated than that. This is told from the first person point of viewpoint of Kaylee, so we learn as she does at a natural pace as events unfold. I thought this was well done and made me keep turning the pages to learn more.

One thing I have to say though: What the hell is up with the adults in this book? They did some questionable things, particularly Kaylee’s dad and his decision regarding her upbringing. I guess his past was his excuse but I found the excuse a little flimsy and felt as annoyed as Kaylee at all the adults around her when she discovers what had been going on. It seemed to be more of a convenient way to keep Kaylee ignorant rather than believable parenting. I hope they redeem themselves in some way in the next book because I wasn’t satisfied here.

The other minor issue I had was to do with the romance. I believed that Kaylee and Nash made a cute couple, and Nash seemed to care about Kaylee once he made it known he was interested, but I couldn’t quite trust his explanation for why he was interested in the first place. He’s a known player in school, going from girl to girl and tossing them aside like Kleenex, and suddenly he seems genuinely interested in Kaylee. Kaylee herself half expects his attention to be a big joke and for him to ignore her the next day at school. It’s true that they have more in common then you would initially suspect, but I can’t believe it’s just what Kaylee really is that attracted him, yet that’s what seems to be his reason for noticing her. This didn’t satisfy me as a reason to date someone, and his explanation to Kaylee contradicted his mom’s comment about “finally” meeting her. I hope more is explained in the next book because right now it makes me feel a bit like something is “off”, despite the pacing and other aspects of the romance being fine. Kaylee genuinely seems to connect with Nash, and he is the only one who can calm her or know what’s going on with her “panic attacks” which brings the two of them closer fairly quickly. It just bugs me that his motivations don’t seem clear, and that I know why Kaylee likes him (he’s charming despite her reservations), but not vice versa (but this could be a downside of the first person POV). Hmm.

Overall: A solid read. It didn’t bowl me over, but I really liked the world building in this one and there’s enough mystery and suspense in it to keep me reading. There’s a decent teen romance here as well, secondary to the main plot.  Although the romance’s pacing is fine I still have an unexplained niggling feeling about it  (expounded on above), which may be splitting hairs. I’m interested enough to probably read the second book My Soul to Save which comes out in January 2010.

My Soul to Take is released August 1st.

Jess is giving away a copy but deadline is TONIGHT (July 24th)

Other reviews of My Soul to Take (Most I see so far loved it):
Sci Fi Guy gave it a glowing review
Anna’s Book blog gave it a 5/5
Book Reviews by Jess – she gave it an almost perfect score
Tez Says – also a good review with a profound reaction
Reviews of My Soul to Lose
Dear Author gave it a C-
Anna’s Book blog gave it 3/5

The Eternal Kiss by various authors, edited by Trisha Telep

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The Eternal Kiss: 12 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire
The Eternal Kiss:
12 Vampire Tales
of Blood and Desire
I actually tend to like anthologies because it gives me a chance to “try out” or find new authors I may not have tried out on my own. Usually there are always hits and misses, but what I liked about The Eternal Kiss was that although it is a young adult anthology and it’s about vampires it doesn’t make the mistake of only being about teenage romance, and it doesn’t shy away from the darker side of vampires. I picked this ARC up at BEA.

I did something a little different here – I wrote up my review as I read the book, just jotting a couple of sentences on each short story. Very brief reviews follow (my two favorite stories were the ones by Karen Mahoney and by Sarah Brennan):

1) Falling to Ash by Karen Mahoney – Vampire girl (Moth) comes home to find her sire wants her to get the ashes of a recently staked vampire. Really like this one, this author has been on my radar on LJ, but I hadn’t connected the the LJ user with “Karen Mahoney” (sometimes things get past me), until I had already read and liked this.  This is the introduction to a series about Moth, so now looking forward to it.

2) Shelter Island by Melissa de la Cruz – 15 year old Hannah has a mysterious visitor at night. I couldn’t connect with this one. I think the characters, particularly the female protagonist were a not substantial enough in the amount of pages this story was for me to grasp them.

3) Sword Point by Maria V. Snyder – Girl fencer discovers that the prestigious fencing school she goes to is more than it seems – interesting at first but then I started to lose interest halfway when the relationship part occurs. The action at the end felt very perfunctory.

4) The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black – A bitten girl tries to stay human, but then learns her ex-boyfriend and a neighbor girl have run away to Coldtown, the vampire section of town. A dark story about the glamorizing of vampirism. Liked it, nice and chilling.

5) Undead is Very Hot Right Now by Sarah Brennan – A nineteen year old who has been a vampire for a year joins a boy band. Hilarious. I laughed aloud so much reading this one. Another author I plan to look for in the bookstore.

6) Kat by Kelley Armstrong – A teen is awoken by her vampire guardian and try to escape would-be captors in the middle of the night – Interesting. Ending makes me want to read more, maybe the start of a series?

7) The Thirteenth Step by Libba Bray – Teen gets a job at a halfway house which may not be all that it seems. I think my own experiences cloud the way I read this story. It bothered me that the protagonist become like the addict sister she considered selfish.

8 ) All Hallows by Rachel Caine – Vampire boyfriend of the narrator gets into trouble and she goes in to save him. Readers may need to have read other Morganville books. This is a short story in that world that seems to fit in the timeline after the first 4 or 5 books.

9) Wet Teeth by Cecil Castellucci – A vampire begins to feel alive for the first time in a long time after meeting a strange girl in the park. This one seems to focus on the ending, and left me a bit wanting for the rest of the story, but seems to be in the right vein for horror.

10) Other Boys by Cassandra Clare- A girl begins to get interested in the new boy in school, who says he’s a vampire. This one had elements of nice old school horror.

11) Passing by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié – A girl has to pass the final class in her vampire hunter academy – only one student will get a special elixar. A bit too complex of a back story to cram into a short story space.

12) Ambition by Lili St. Crow –  Smart but poor schoolgirl meets boy at club. Girl falls out with rich best friend. Boy may be supernatural. Dreamy, sort of hazy relationship that may be dangerous à la Heavenly Creatures. I keep re-reading the last three lines, wanting questions answered.

13) All Wounds by Dina James – Girl discovers her grandmother and the bad boy in detention aren’t exactly who she thought they were, and neither is she. Looks like the start of a new series so there’s a lot of plot set-up, but not much time for more than brief character sketches.

The Eternal Kiss will be released July 27th.

The Season by Sarah MacLean

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The Season
The Season
Sarah MacLean
The Premise: This is a young adult version of adventure/romance in Regency England. Seventeen year old Lady Alexandra Stafford (aka Alex), daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Worthington and her two best friends Lady Vivian Markwell, daughter of the Marquess of Langford and Lady Eleanor Redburn, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Marlborough (aka Vivi and Ellie), are all coming out in one season. The three headstrong girls aren’t really loving the idea of being paraded around in a marriage market, but things are made interesting when the girls stumble upon something suspicious regarding the death of the Earl of Blackmoor, who was the father of Alex’s childhood friend Gavin.

Thoughts: There are a lot of young friendships in this book. Alex has her three brothers, William (Will), Nicolas (Nick) and Christopher (Kit), her lady’s maid Eliza, her two best friends Vivi and Ellie, plus Gavin. All of them seem to get along very well, and they are all talented and striking according to the descriptions in the book. It’s in their conversations that I thought the book’s strong points lay: everyone is very articulate and well spoken, which fits with the time period and their upbringing in London society. It was nice to read conversations between teenagers where there’s wit and proper manners.

The problem I had however was there were a lot of characters to take in and after a while some of them sort of blended in together. Alex’s brothers seemed indistinguishable to me besides one being the oldest and one being the most tactless (can’t remember who that was though). They had very small roles as just annoying older brothers who liked giving their sister a hard time and to give a male perspective on also hating having to deal with the marriage market. Vivi and Ellie also have very similar voices, and when the three girls spoke, I couldn’t really tell them apart besides their names, because their personalities are so similar. I only know Ellie really likes to write and draw, while Vivi lost her mother and claims she’s looking for “The One” but may have already found him and isn’t telling. I’m not sure that most of these characters brought much to the story and I had the niggling feeling that all these characters were being set up for their own romances in later books. Besides that, they were very wholesome and supportive of each other here, which lends to some amusing conversation when they got together, but I wish they were a bit more distinguishable and maybe a bit more flawed. There were so many times that Alex felt proud of her friends and family and they were so perfect, I was starting to feel very guilty. Guilty of feeling like a hardened cynic and wondering whether it was just me.

Their flaws were pretty much their headstrong characters, which in this day is more of a strength. In Regency London however, it made me remember I was reading fiction. Even with strong wills and an interest in politics, I didn’t find it believable when the girls started reciting facts about Napoleon to people at balls as proving they were well informed, or that Alex wouldn’t be at all concerned about her reputation when she tells all her friends she was kissed and she wanted it to happen again. There needs to be a suspension of disbelief in these areas to enjoy the book and I couldn’t quite muster it.

The best part of the book is Gavin. He’s the one whose father has just died in what looks like an accident, but turns out to be more than that. I had a guess within the first few chapters as to who the villain was, because there just isn’t anyone else to choose from, so the mystery in this book was very obvious, it’s more of an addition to the romance between Gavin and Alex. Gavin reminded me a little of Mr. Knightley from Jane Austen’s Emma. He’s a childhood friend of the main character and sometimes he disapproves of Alex’s behavior and tries to caution her in ways that just tick her off, but she also begins to realize her feelings for him aren’t sisterly. Their scenes are the best ones in the book and luckily there are quite a few of them, though their relationship seemed to repeat itself – from normal to scorching and back again. Alex isn’t an Emma in that she doesn’t try to play Cupid, but she and her friends do get very curious, so in that regard, maybe there are similarities.

Overall: I was pimped this book by a couple of girls at BEA, and the author was so nice that I really wanted to like this book. Part of me cringes a little writing this review, but I have to be honest: this was not quite for me. I think it’s one of those books I thought was just “OK”, but others really loved it.  I see a lot of glowing reviews online. For me, the best parts involve the romance and the conversations between characters, and it’s still a quick, fun read but the plot is a little too predictable and the characters a little too wholesome for my tastes.

Other reviews (mostly positive):

Fantastic Book Review – 4 out of 5
Steph Su Reads – 3 out of 5 (and a review with similar thoughts as mine)
Pop Culture Junkie – 5 out of 5 (she was one of the people who recced it to me)
Tempting Persephone – cements my belief if you just view the book with a less jaded eye you’d like it more
Sharon Loves Books and Cats – she loved it too. Also pimped this book to me, especially Gavin.

Interesting..

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Hush, hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
Hush, hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

An interesting YA – I’m drawn to this cover! I found this via Steph Su reads while I was surfing online today. This book comes out in October. The author’s website says:

Falling in love was never so easy . . . or so deadly.

High school sophomore Nora Grey is irritated to find herself partnered in biology class with a “tall, dark and annoying” senior named Patch. But their barbed exchanges only showcase their undeniable chemistry, and Nora soon finds herself lured toward Patch’s shadowy past, frequently enlisting her best friend Vee to help uncover his secrets.

Then, a vindictive young man from a nearby private school begins stalking Nora. He’s been double-crossed, and he wants payback. Nora goes to the police, but they don’t believe her. Alone and vulnerable, she turns to the only person she believes can help her – Patch. But when she discovers scars on his back, she realizes she may be in more danger than she bargained for: Patch, a fallen angel banished to Earth, has crossed centuries on a single-minded mission to get his wings back. But for his wish to come true, someone must die…and Nora may be the perfect sacrifice.

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

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Strange Angels
Strange Angels
Lili St. Crow

Note: this review is based on an ARC I received from the publisher

Premise: Dru Anderson knows all about scary creatures like werewulfen, suckers, gator-spirits, chupacabras, ghosts, and zombies and she’s helped her dad track and kill a few. It’s a rough life but Dru has been doing this since her grandmother died and her dad came to take her with him. They’ve moved from one town to the next while tracking down the next supernatural target. Now Dru is sixteen and the latest town is Foley, South Dakota. They’ve been here for a very short time, still unpacked (though they never unpack anymore), when one night Dru’s dad goes out after something doesn’t come back the next morning. Dru knows something horrible has happened – her gifts warn her in her dreams and it isn’t long before she’s forced into battling creatures by herself. An unexpected ally appears in a schoolmate – goth boy Graves has taken an interest in Dru and offers his help despite not knowing anything about the trouble she’s in. Both of them are alone in the world until that point, but things get further complicated when Christophe shows up talking about the Kouroi and telling Dru she’s more special than she thinks.

Excerpt of Strange Angels

My Thoughts: This is the first young adult book by Lili St. Crow. She’s also written adult books like the Dante Valentine series, the Jill Kismet series and others.

I’ve read a couple of books into the Dante Valentine series and Dante to me is a really tough kind of character and once I read some of her past I understood where her demons were coming from. I think it’s Lili St. Crow’s speciality to create strong women characters because Dru also has some elements of this toughness in her. She’s also realistic. Dru has been through a lot and her coping with her father’s death was dealt with in a reasonable way. Dru has to fall apart a little bit, and that’s when Graves finds her. She’s in shock, but she rallies because her life is in danger, and part of her coping mechanism is hearing her father’s voice pushing her on to survive. I prefer having a main character like this, especially since she’s our narrator.

Graves too is not without his depths. To Dru he first he came off as naive, but as she gets to know him she learns he’s smarter and more resilient than she’d expected. I’m always happy (um, possibly biased) to see half-asian characters in books so he’s already a positive addition to the book there, but his sense of humor in scary situations also endeared me to him. I hope in the next book we can learn a bit more about his back story (and Dru’s).

Lots of action is going on as Dru and Graves run into supernatural creatures I was not familiar with along with some familiar ones (werewolves, vampires, zombies) with their own special twist. The zombie scene was particularly nerve wracking and brought to mind those horror movies where you have to watch through your hands! But maybe I’m the only chicken who does that.

It’s a sensory read – for example, weather is one of the things I found very well described. It’s winter in the Dakotas, and the descriptions of the cold and the snow and ice in a small town were prevalent throughout the book. Boy, am I glad it’s spring now because St. Crow’s descriptions took me to a place with bad winter storms and a hushed world covered in white.

Overall: If you want a recommendation for a young adult urban fantasy, I’d put this on the list. It has a serious, believable teen as a protagonist and the creatures that roam around in this book are really creepy.  It’s refreshing to read an urban fantasy aimed at teens that doesn’t have a high school cliche as a main character  because I don’t recall knowing anyone really like that.  Dru on the other hand is tough, but she’s also vulnerable and scared and thinks that she’s just a kid, and she is believable. This is the start to a very promising series.

Strange Angels is available May 14th.

Betrayals (book 2) is available November 17th (this date I’m not 100% sure of)

Reviews elsewhere: