Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
This is one of those books that's so good, I have a hard time articulating why I loved it as much as I loved it. The story is compelling, the relationships between the siblings and the various other characters are compelling, the world-building is incredibly detailed, and the writing is full-grown. The ending blew my mind. I doubt I've read anything better in the last 12 months (and keep in mind I really, REALLY liked Philip Pullman's latest.)
"Must-read" is bandied about so much in book marketing that it loses all meaning, but in the truest sense, readers who appreciate good YA fiction must read this book. Tomi Adeyemi has the gift.
I borrowed this e-book from my library using the Libby app. I had to keep returning it and checking it out again because it's really popular and I kept stretching it out because I literally did not want this story to end.
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am SO MAD at this book -- HOW DAre it just end THERE?!?!
Seriously, though, this is well-crafted piece of historical fiction about three young adults on their Grand Tour of Europe in the early 18th century. Their adventures are over-the-top and ludicrous, and that's part of the book's charm.
The real "alchemical heart" of the book is the friendship between our heroes, Henry "Monty" Montague and his BFF Percy. As a clever(ish) social media quote goes, "A good romance starts with friendship. A bad romance starts with Rah rah ah-ah-ah! Ro mah ro-mah-mah..." Monty and Percy are friends, but Monty is desperately in love.
The question of whether Percy considers Monty as anything more than a dear friend is resolved at the very end, which is why I need there to be...more book. Overall, it's a charming adventure story, quite briskly paced in parts, with a throbbing emotional heart.
I purchased my copy at Forever Books with my own funds and was not obligated in any way to review it.
'Geekerella' is a sweet, fun, charming retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale. Its heroine, Elle, bonded with her late father through the sci-fi television series 'Starfield.' Its prince is Darien Freeman, an actor on a soapish evening drama series recently cast as 'Starfield's Prince Carmindor in a movie reboot.
Elle is not initially happy with this casting decision. A nice twist is that part of the book is written from her point of view and part is written from Darien's. I don't think I've ever read a "Cinderella" version that gives us the prince's POV before.
Darien and Elle correspond via text without knowing who the other person is in real life. They fall in love through each other's words and their shared love of 'Starfield.' In a way, they become Carmindor and the fictional TV series' heroine, Princess Amara. There's a wicked stepmother and a lost shoe, but this retelling is contemporary and fresh enough to make it all seem new.
An important detail about this book is that it has a Cosplay Ball, and at that ball, a Dean Winchester and a Castiel are a dancing couple. (Okay, maybe that's only an important detail if you're a Destiel shipper.)
I'm more of a fanfiction writer than a cosplayer, so I didn't quite identify with Elle as much as I did with Cath Avery in Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl. Still, this is in 'Fangirl's wheelhouse, and fans of Rowell's geeky romance should enjoy this romantic geeky retelling.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and was not obligated in any way to review it.
- Young adult books that deal with mature themes, including death and sexuality
- LOTS of plot twists
- Books with a dark, tense, and moody atmosphere
- Authors who can capture the feeling of first love
- Latina heroines
- Tense, suspenseful scenes
- Books set in the Ozark Mountains
- Stories set in modern times, but in settings in which the characters lead old-fashioned lifestyles
This novel is compulsively readable from the first page. While it hooks the reader from the start, the tension builds slowly but steadily to a hectic, harrowing finale. This is a well-crafted example of the mystery genre for young adults.
I received this book through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Ok, I admit it - I didn't read Les Misérables. My French is lousy, and - well, I haven't even attempted to read it in English. That book is like a brick, and I already have a beloved brick-like classic translated from the French (The Count of Monte Cristo). I saw the Hugh Jackman movie, though. I may not have caught all the finer plot points, but I think I got the gist. Overall I enjoyed the opera more than I thought I would.
I knew nothing about the background of Eponine. I knew she was a tragic heroine whose love for our hero, Marius, was destined to go unrequited. I felt bad for Eponine.
So, when the opportunity to read an adaptation that starred the unfortunate teenager as the heroine of her own story, I took that opportunity. I really enjoyed this book, even with my sketchy knowledge of Victor Hugo's original.
Susan Fletcher has done a really nice job of imagining Eponine's world. Through Eponine's voice, she gives us a lot of sensory details about what it must have been like to be a poor woman in 1830s France.
Eponine clearly knows the difference between right and wrong, and most often she chooses to do what is right. Sometimes, though, she goes along with her family's unfortunate habits of lying, cheating, and stealing. She treats her would-be friend, Cosette, quite horribly when they are small children. When they are teens on the verge of adulthood, Eponine is indirectly responsible for Cosette's beloved foster father, Jean Valjean, being gravely wounded.
Determined to reclaim her own soul, Eponine uses her intelligence and kindness to protect Cosette. This is especially painful since Cosette and Eponine are both in love with the same man. But in order for Cosette and Marius to get their happy ending - frankly, one of the only redeeming plotlines in this tale of misery and woe - Eponine has to make a sad, sad sacrifice. This isn't really a spoiler, since we know from the first page of the novel that Eponine is dying because she saved Marius's life.
The ending isn't as sad as it could have been, though. As far as Eponine knows, her little brother Gavroche is still alive. In the opera, Gavroche dies too.
Eponine in this novel is a fully developed, well-rounded character who isn't entirely good and isn't entirely bad. She's a person, with a past and interesting point of view. She's definitely well worth reading about, and Fletcher has written a narrative that flows smoothly and seems authentic. I read this in four short sittings. It's quite fast-paced.
FYI, there are some non-explicit threats of sexual assault in this novel. Readers who are sensitive to this type of content should be aware before reading it.
I received this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review through the Amazon Vine program.
FYI, this post is going to mention Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, including a key plot point in the third book. If you don't wish to have His Dark Materials spoiled, please come back and read this post after you finish The Amber Spyglass. I'm also going to be sharing a spoiler from the third book in the Time Quintet.
A Wind in the Door is the second book in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet. It continues the story of Meg and Charles Wallace Murry, begun in A Wrinkle in Time. AWIT was first published in 1962, and AWITD first appeared in 1973. I listened to this book on CD, performed by Jennifer Ehle (of Pride and Prejudice fame).
Titular Allusion: The unusual title comes from Le Morte D'Arthur. Sir Thomas Malory's 1485 compilation of tales of Arthurian legend is written in English even older and stranger than Shakespeare and the King James Bible. (The KJV is currently 404 years old, but Le Morte D'Arthur is more than 100 years older.)
In this volume, Charles Wallace - age 6 - is terribly ill. It's bad enough he's so much smarter than the other first graders and they beat him up because of his unusual-for-his-age interest in mitochondria and farandolae. (L'Engle invented farandolae, organisms so tiny they live inside mitochondria, and named them after a type of European folk dance.) Even worse, his mother - who is a microbiologist - suspects something is wrong with Charles Wallace's mitochondria. He's pale, exhausted, and beginning to have trouble breathing.
But is he hallucinating? Meg suspects her youngest brother may be when he claims to have seen dragons in the twins' vegetable garden. He's not exactly wrong, it turns out. What he mistakes for "a drive of dragons" is actually Proginoskes, a cherubim. Yes, "cherubim" is a plural noun (masculine plural, to be exact, since Hebrew is a gendered language), but Proginoskes is "practically plural." He only materializes for the sake of the humans, but in his material form he appears as a swirl of wings, eyes, smoke, and flame.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the word "cherubim" is borrowed from the Assyrian word for "to be near." It implies the cherubim are the order of angels who are near the throne of God - God's "bodyguards," one might say. L'Engle's description of a cherubim is based, in part, on the tenth chapter of the Biblical book of Ezekiel. She leaves out the strange wheels-within-wheels the prophet saw, and the prophet's description of the angels as having four beastly faces.
According to Wikipedia, Proginoskes is Greek for "foreknowledge."
Proginoskes, Meg, and Meg's sort-of boyfriend/friend who is a boy Calvin O'Keefe are cosmically selected to be members of a class that must pass three tests and intervene to save Charles Wallace -and, possibly, the universe. To do so, they must go inside one of Charles Wallace's mitochondria and meet one of the farandola. The farandola, called Sporos, is much chagrined to be partnered with Calvin. Sporos considers Earthlings beneath him.
His pride is one of the reasons why Sporos is vulnerable to attack by the Echthroi (Greek for "enemy"). These awful creatures seek to destroy, or un-Name, all of creation. Proginoskes calls them fallen angels.
Fallen angels is just another name for demons. In this novel, they even possess Mr. Jenkins, who used to be the principal of Meg's high school and is now the principal of Charles Wallace's grade school. Calvin being called upon to fight demons is all the more reason for young!Jared Padalecki to portray him, in my imagination.
You can't tell me this isn't Calvin O'Keefe. Doesn't he look like a demon fighter? http://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/114668118490/jared-padalecki-at-seventeen-magazine-re-look#notes
I can't help it: I'm in love with the slow, innocent way Meg Murry and Calvin O'Keefe are falling in love. It reminds me of how [SPOILER ALERT] Lyra and Will fall in love in The Amber Spyglass. BUT I'm certain Calvin and Meg have a much, much happier ending. I mean, I already know that in the third book, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, they're married and she's expecting their first child. I should add that the third book is set 10 years after A Wind in the Door.
I enjoyed this book much, much more than I thought I would. Now I'm excited to read the next book. I wish my library had it on CD, but it only has it on tape. I do happen to own the paperback, though.
Know who else is a cherubim? Castiel (whose name means "shield of God"). When he's not using the body of Jimmy Novak as a vessel, I imagine, Castiel also looks like a drive of dragons, a great throbbing cloud of fire and flapping wings and winking eyes. As Meg Murry learns, cherubim are inherently lovable. It's no wonder Dean Winchester is so strongly bonded to Cas.
Jimmy Novak may be a dead guy - I mean, I don't really know because I don't watch Supernatural - but he makes a very pretty vessel. Apparently one time Dean kicked Castiel out of the house. http://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/114171542335
The premise is fun - a 21st-century high schooler suddenly finds herself inside the world of Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women. The characters in the book take it for granted that Emily is the middle March sister, right between Beth and Jo. Emily takes it upon herself to save Beth from you-know-what, but she also takes it upon herself to put the moves on Laurie Laurence, since Jo isn't using him.
The whole book is clever, and the ending is especially satisfying. Tasked by her English teacher Mr. Ochocinco (tee hee) with changing one thing about her favorite book, Emily manages to alter the ending of 'Little Women' in a way that goes straight for the heart. A large twist near the end makes the premise even more fun and the ending all the more satisfactory.
I purchased this book with my own funds from Better World Books and was not obligated in any way to review it. My particular copy came from Keesler Air Force Base, located in Biloxi, Mississippi. I'm not affiliated with Better World Books in any way.
Shift by Madison Dunn. $8.99 from Smashwords.com
I'm not sure why it happens, but when I focus just right, I can slow time. Things around me become lighter somehow, and I almost feel the tiny particles of energy spinning inside of them. The thing is, having the ability to transform the world around you isn't all it's cracked up to be -- especially when you are running from the Valencia without any deodorant.
What I liked about this book: In Sara Benincasa's young adult retelling of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway's stand-in is Naomi Rye, the Chicago-bred daughter of an upwardly mobile cupcake magnate who now summers in the Hamptons. (Rye - caraway seed - get it?) Her Gatsby is her mother's mysterious next-door neighbor, Jacinta Trimalchio, rarely seen in public but famous in the fashion world for her high-end style blog.
Jacinta's Daisy Buchanan is aspiring supermodel/congressperson's daughter Delilah Fairweather. Delilah and Jacinta were friends in primary school, then drifted apart, only to reunite in a flower-filled room in Jacinta's mansion.
They become a couple even though Delilah has a boyfriend. The Tom Buchanan of this story is Teddy Barrington, who was a child sitcom star. Teddy's Myrtle Wilson is a waitress named Misti, and Misti's George is a bartender named Giovanni.
Having some of the characters in this American classic be gender-swapped was a refreshing twist on an old favorite. Nice touch: Naomi spends an afternoon reading Save Me the Waltz. Benincasa doesn't mention the author's name, but the "old novel" happens to be the only extant work by Zelda Fitzgerald.
What could have been improved about this book: F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing in The Great Gatsby is so literary it's almost poetic. Fitzgerald's wistful, thematic prose has here been replaced with nuts-and-bolts storytelling that's not quite as much fun. Benincasa's narration in the voice of Naomi is rough in some places, inelegant in others, and downright clunky in some spots. Places where the narrator seemed much older than her supposedly 16 years, where she said things only us grown-ups would say, took me out of the story.
Not great: As narrator, Naomi refers to boys and girls as gay and to girls as lesbian. She seems to think Delilah's relationship with Jacinta makes Delilah a lesbian, but obviously that isn't necessarily the case. She's been in a long-term relationship with Teddy for years, so Delilah seems to be bisexual/pansexual. While it's not a requirement for every person to wear his or her sexuality label on his or her sleeve, it's not acceptable to pretend as if gay/lesbian or straight are the only sexualities that exist. Say no to bi erasure, kittens.
Overall, this was a fun book because of the thrill of the familiar, beloved classic American novel, combined with a new setting and new personality traits among the characters. If you haven't read The Great Gatsby but you saw the Leo movie and liked it, you'll probably think this is a pretty good book.
P.S. I looooove the Leo movie.
View all my reviews on Goodreads. I received an ARC of this book free from Amazon Vine in exchange for a review. This review represents my own honest opinion.
One of my very favorite books when I was actually in the young adult target audience - 12 years old or so - was Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. It's a little bit fantasy and a little bit science fiction. Its protagonist is Meg Murry, a smart but socially awkward girl with whom I strongly identified.
In 2003 we got the A Wrinkle in Time TV movie. It wasn't great, but it was better than nothing.
Meg Murry is played by Katie Stuart, a Canadian actress perhaps best known for the CW drama series The 100. It only lasted one season, but I didn't mind that so much, because I'd rather have Paige Turco playing her recurring role as Zoe Morgan on Person of Interest than on some CW show. Stuart also made a single appearance on Supernatural, as a comic book store clerk.
Meg's 14-year-old schoolmate Calvin O'Keefe is played by Canadian actor Gregory Smith. He's perhaps best known as Epstein on Rookie Blue. I never watched that show, but it lasted four seasons.
For me, the best performances in the WIT movie are by Alfre Woodard as Mrs. Whatsit and Kyle Secor as The Man With Red Eyes. The red-eyed man is a detestable representative of pure evil, but Kyle Secor is still my sweet, sweet baby. Even post-Veronica Mars I can't hate him, because he'll always have played Timothy James Bayliss on Homicide: Life on the Streets. Detective Bayliss remains one of the few canon!bisexual fictional characters on mainstream U.S. TV series.
But what if?
Netflix recently added The Gilmore Girls. I've seen the first four seasons or so, but never finished the series. I'd love to revisit it...but I can only watch it when Tit Elingtin isn't around. Lorelei Gilmore's mom, Emily, reminds Tit of my mom - his mother-in-law - and he gets upset at my mom. I can't have a TV series causing me family discord. It's just not worth it.
Given my recent Destiel fixation, it's only natural that I occasionally remember Jared Padalecki as Dean Forester. Wouldn't young!Jared have made an excellent Calvin O'Keefe? He's neither red-haired nor blue-eyed like the book character, and it's Jensen Ackles who can lay claim to the most freckles, but these details are minor.
In my overactive imagination, Dean and Rory would make an excellent Calvin and Meg.
Charles Wallace: Tell me about him, Meg.
Meg: What would I know about him? He's a couple of grades above me, and he's on the basketball team.
Calvin: Only because I'm tall.
Calvin: Okay, old sport. I'll tell you this much. Sometimes I get a feeling about things. You might call it a compulsion. Do you know what compulsion means?...When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can't explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn't happen very often. But I obey it. And this afternoon I had a feeling that I must come over to the haunted house. That's all I know, kid. I'm not holding anything back. Maybe it's because I'm supposed to meet you. You tell me.
Calvin: He's not handsome or anything. But I like him.
Meg: He is too handsome.
Calvin: Nah. He's tall and skinny like me.
Meg: Well, I think you're handsome.
Meg: You’re good in school. Everybody likes you.
Calvin: For all the most unimportant reasons. There hasn’t been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody else, I can hold myself down, but it isn’t me.
Meg: I’m all confused again.
Calvin: Oh, so’m I. But now at least I know we’re going somewhere.
Calvin: Do you know that this is the first time I've seen you without your glasses?
Meg: I'm blind as a bat without them. I'm near-sighted, like Father.
Calvin: Well, you know what, you've got dream-boat eyes. Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses. I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have.
Calvin: Go ahead and cry. It'll do you good.
Meg: I cry much too much. I should be like Mother. I should be able to control myself.
Calvin: Your mother's a completely different person and she's a lot older than you are.
Meg: I wish I were a different person. I hate myself.
"Now instead of reaching out to Calvin for safety, Meg took his hands in hers, not saying anything in words but trying to tell him by the pressure of her fingers what she felt. If anyone had told her only the day before that she, Meg, the snaggle-toothed, the myopic, the clumsy, would be taking a boy's hand to offer him comfort and strength, particularly a popular and important boy like Calvin, the idea would have been beyond her comprehension."
When he is 14, Calvin's home life is rather sad. The O'Keefes have 11 children in all; Calvin is somewhere in the middle. (I think he has two older siblings.) His mother is an unpleasant woman who beats her children. She's like Peeta Mellark's angry, abusive mother in The Hunger Games. But...
SPOILER ALERT! When one gets to the third book in the series (and by the way, I've never finished reading any of the sequels, although I took a stab at the second one once), nine years after A Wrinkle in Time, Calvin and Meg are married and she's pregnant with their first child. The third book is called A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I think Meg becomes a physicist like her parents, and I know Calvin becomes a marine biologist. For some reason I think the total number of children they have is seven.
This is a lovely book - one could almost say spellbinding - a combination of young adult paranormal fiction and Southern Gothic.I saw the movie in June 2013, but since my morning commute now allows me to listen to audiobooks, I checked this one out from my local library.
Some thoughts.
- Sixteen-year-old boys, please be more like Ethan Wate. Play basketball and keep books under your bed. Return to your favorite classics again and again for the comfort of familiarity. Care what your friends think, but not all that much. Get your girlfriend a birthday present when she says she doesn't want one.
- Marian Ashcroft and Lilah Evers Wate, please be real. I would love to read their history books - and to explore the secret underground Caster library.
I like the name Lilah Evers, and it is somewhat similar to the name of Harry Potter's deceased mother, Lily Evans. I wonder if that was an intentional homage.
- Ethan isn't an orphan, though. His father, Mitchell, is alive, and he's clinically depressed. Ethan - realistically for a 16-year-old narrator - refers to him as "crazy." However, as adults we know that people with depression don't deserve to be stereotyped or stigmatized because of their illness, and we should try to back away from using the c-word. People who have serious mental illnesses have enough to deal with without the burden of dismissive labels.
- It's also realistic that Ethan would be somewhat dismissive of Charlotte, because like all teenagers he's been encultured to think that "pretty" means "skinny." The Charlottes of the world should know there is nothing wrong with being fat, though. People - fat, skinny, and in between - don't need to be shamed because of our body types.
Charlotte makes some unsavory choices because she's trying to fit in with the popular girls; Emily is just a bitch. I can't believe my sweet, sassy Dhampir - Zoey Deutsch, a.k.a. Rose Hathaway - played that awful Emily in the movie.
- I don't remember Uncle Macon being an incubus in the movie? But fortunately he's not the sexual kind, like the incubi of traditional mythology. In fact, he seems to be repulsed by the whole idea of sex. Is Macon Ravenwood an asexual character? Asexual people need positive media representation too - although I do think incubi are technically demons, so I don't know how "positive" this portrayal actually is.
I myself do not identify as asexual, but I understand that asexuality is a normal variation under the human sexuality umbrella.
- Was Boo Radley in the movie?
Also, kudos to Garcia and Stohl for the tons of literary references they worked in. Perhaps they are the real-life Lilah and Marian - except, y'know, neither one of them is a ghost.
- The next time I go to the movies, I would like to try mixing Milk Duds with my hot popcorn, a la Lena. (Unlike Lena, though, I like "butter.")
- The ending of the book is very different from the ending of the movie. Lena doesn't leave Ethan. Instead there's a vague but ominous warning that all Lena has really done is put off her Claiming until her 17th birthday, buying Lena and Ethan an additional year together.
- I typically read one YA series a year. In 2012 it was Hunger Games, in 2013 it was Divergent, and this year it's been Vampire Academy. I think I would like to read Beautiful Darkness (the second book in the series) and its subsequent volumes in 2015.
I enjoyed this young adult/high school romance novel about the new kid in town who gets involved with a popular football player. The edition I read has some typos, but I didn't think they distracted me too much from the story. The author can also get a little heavy-handed with the "prejudice against gay teenagers is bad" message, but that's okay too, because I really liked Andrew (the new kid) and Jack (the jock) as characters.
But I also understand why these kinds of stories are important, because sadly, abusive parents are still an issue faced by LGBTQIA youth. (ALERT: Jack's father is physically abusive toward him, and Andrew's parents punish him by starving him. This book may be a trigger if you are sensitive to reading about abuse and/or issues around eating.)
This is only the first book in a series, though. I hope Jack and Andrew get the happily-ever-after they're planning for and dreaming of. They're really a good couple. What York has written especially well in this novel is the gradual way the guys go from physical attraction to falling in love. It's realistic and it makes for a satisfying reading experience too.
I downloaded this book to my Barnes and Noble Nook when it was available for free on the B+N website. I was not compensated for this review, which represents my own honest opinion.
Bonus: You can change the name "Jack" to "Dean" and "Andrew" to "Castiel" and read this as a Destiel high school AU.
I got a free Scribd membership through Smashwords, and I read this book there. I'm glad I didn't have to pay money for it, because it wasn't nearly as good as I hoped.
I liked Charlie well enough, but I didn't care for the narrative voice. The tone was flat and dry, and it didn't seem to fit with a supposedly above-average 15-year-old. The narration made Charlie seem so much younger than 15, I wondered at first if he was intellectually disabled rather than intellectually gifted. After all, what gifted teen can't think of how to use words like "corpulent" in his school essays?
Perhaps Charlie falls somewhere along the autism spectrum and is high functioning. He certainly seems to be clinically depressed, and his mood swings might indicate bipolar disorder as well. It's hard to say; he's a bit of an unreliable narrator since he's not always insightful into the behavior of others or himself. At times he's very insightful, but clearly, he has enormous blind spots.
(Can you tell I was a psychology major and used to work in a child and adolescent mental health care facility?I have met many a Charlie in my day.)
This is probably a fantastic book when you're 15, but I'm not anymore.
Now that I've read the book, I give myself permission to watch the movie, which features Emma Watson as Sam. I don't know of the actor playing Charlie himself, Logan Lerman, but the actor playing Patrick is Ezra Miller. I last saw Miller in We Need to Talk About Kevin, a film I watched despite not having read the book.
This is Ezra Miller in a 2014 photo by Nick Step, via Wikimedia Commons.
Of all U.S. actors of Eastern European Jewish descent, he is surely one of the most Middle Eastern-looking, with dark eyes, olive skin, and dark curly hair. Of course, we Jews are a very diverse ethnicity, all sharing the same Middle Eastern DNA (also shared with our Arab sibs) yet ranging from blond and blue-eyed to brown-skinned with African features. Ezra Miller could join the Israeli army and from his looks, no one would know he wasn't a sabra. Especially since he practices Judaism as a religion.
Going on this year's list of Hanukkah hotties? I think maybe so.
But I digress.
I'll have to get The Perks of Being a Wallflower at the video store, since it's unavailable on streaming Netflix, and my local library doesn't have it. Streaming Netflix actually kinda sucks when it comes to catching up on young adult page-to-screen. It doesn't have The Book Thief, Ender's Game, or The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
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You Say Witch Like It's a Bad Thing: Thea by George Saoulidis. $2.99 from Smashwords.com
When a teenage witch goes to a new school, she finds herself in an unfamiliar place with no friends. But will she manage to befriend some of the girls in class, when she’s anxious about revealing herself to others, when she’s still coughing up water from the last time she trusted people and when her new friends want to try her magick on a tennis match?
Dying to Tell Me by Australian author Sherryl Clark is a paranormal mystery with a young adult protagonist. Before I read it, my grandma read it. She doesn't usually read YA or paranormal, so I'm not sure where she picked it up. A friend must have passed it along to her. Her copy is inscribed, "To Emily York, Enjoy your book! Love in Jesus! Bro. Ed + Sis. Betty Borlik 9/5/11." I don't know the Borliks or Emily York, but maybe the Yorks are some of my grandma's neighbors. Alternatively, she may have bought this at the thrift shop.
It was a fairly quick read - I read a large chunk of it while waiting at my husband's doctor's office. I'd never heard of Clark before, but judging from the back matter, she's a popular children's picture book and young adult author Down Under.
The heroine is Sasha Miller, age 13. Her mother recently left the family, so Sasha's dad Dennis is moving Sasha and her 10-year-old brother Nicky to the small town of Manna Creek. There, Dennis will be the new chief constable.
Sasha isn't getting along very well in Manna Creek, though. Her first day, she slips near the creek and hits her head on a stone, landing her in the hospital with a concussion. Then she discovers a dilapidated old building in the back yard of the house they're staying in, and it turns out to be the town's first jail which, incidentally, is haunted by the ghost of a man who committed suicide a hundred years before. Or did he?
That would be bad enough, but when some of Dennis's mates bring around King, a trained police dog, to be the newest member of the Miller family, Sasha thinks she's hearing things. In fact, she thinks she can hear King's thoughts telepathically, and he can hear hers. Is Sasha going crazy, or simply coming into her special powers?
This book reminded me, to varying degrees, of three other things I really like:
Still, these elements added up to a unique story. I liked this book, and my grandma liked it, too. Clark's storytelling makes this a compelling read even if you're not normally a mystery reader, not normally a paranormal reader, and/or not normally a YA reader.
My grandma is currently reading, and enjoying, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, a Canadian author. I haven't read the book, but I did like the movie. I'm still working my way through Middlemarch - I'm almost at the middle - and my secondary book is The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling.
SPOILER ALERT! Go away and DO NOT READ if you don't want to know what happens in the 4th book in Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy novel series, Blood Promise: A Vampire Academy Novel. This post will discuss the plotline of Blood Promise and will include spoilers. You've been warned.
Previous Reviews in This Series: Vampire Academy Frostbite Shadow Kiss Let me just say this: I hate Strigoi!Dimitri. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. But now I have some hope that Strigoi can be brought back to life with some kind of magic. In this book, Rose arrives in Dimitri's home country, Russia, and visits his Siberian village. She meets his grandmother, mother, his three sisters and their kids. She also meets a human named Sydney who belongs to a somewhat mysterious society called the Alchemists. She has a gold tattoo made of Moroi blood on her face, and she seems to be aiding Rose on Rose's mission. The Alchemists reminded me a little bit of the Talamasca in Anne Rice's novels. The Talamasca are impartial observers, though, while the Alchemists seem to be actively involved. In return for being of service to the Moroi, the get limited dhampir-like powers through their gold tattoos.
Rose also meets Abe. It took me a little while - but not as long as it took Rose - to realize the brown-skinned, possibly Muslim Abe must be the same person as Ibrahim, Rose's Turkish father. I'm sure Abe Mazur comes back in later volumes. Sydney refers to Abe as Zmey, a Russian word that means "snake," but (at least in the book, if not in the actual Russian language) there's a connotation of a wise snake, a trickster that could be either helpful or mischievous, and occasionally outright evil. Sydney explains that the Garden of Eden serpent in the Bible is a Zmey to the Russians. Basically, Rose's dad is a Turkish version of Loki. Strigoi!Dimitri will be back, alas. Although Rose staked him twice - once with wood and once with silver - she didn't quite get his heart the second time. He's still walking around as an evil Strigoi, and he seems to be out to get Rose. Whether he'll try to kill her next time or try again to turn her into a Strigoi will be the question. I have a feeling it will make for some harrowing reading either way.
I didn't really enjoy this book as much as feel compelled to read it. I had a feeling it would end badly, like the last one did, but I had to know what happened. It was a tiny bit hopeful. But Christian broke up with Lissa. But I'm also hopeful the two of them will get back together again. They might not, though, because kissing her ex-boyfriend was a real jerk move on her part. I checked this book out from my local library. I wasn't solicited or obligated to review it in any way. This review represents my own honest opinion. Next Up:The King: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhoodby J.R. Ward, another library book.
P.S. If you have movie theater money and need something to do this weekend, please go see and support the movie From the Rough. It opens today. The movie stars Taraji P. Henson as Catana Starks, the first African-American woman to coach a collegiate men's golf team. Tom Felton - Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films - stars as one of her golfers, Edward. It also features the late Michael Clark Duncan.
No, I am still not over the Person of Interest thing. Yes, I will support Taraji P. Henson in all of her projects.
P.P.S. This is how Taraji would look as a vampire.
I received an advance reader's edition of Panic at no cost through the Amazon Vine program. I received no other compensation for this review, which represents my own honest opinion.
Panicis a contemporary young adult novel with a realistic plot and characters. It takes place in the small town of Carp, New York. The high school seniors in Carp play a game over the summer called Panic; the winner takes a pot of somewhere around $50,000. To many in the economically depressed town, the money represents the only chance they'll ever have to live better lives than their parents.
The novel is written in the third person, but chapters are divided into Heather and Dodge chapters, depending on which of the two main characters they follow. Heather Nill lives in a trailer park with her alcoholic, drug-addicted mother and her younger sister Lily. She has no plans for her life beyond high school. She dreams of leaving Carp, but she can't stand the thought of leaving Lily behind. And yes, Heather is aware that her last name literally means "nothing."
Dodge Mason comes from a similar background. He never knew his father, a Dominican roofer. His lighter-complexioned half sister Dayna played Panic when she was a senior, and in the final round she was in a car accident and lost the use of her legs. Their mom can't afford the most advanced medical treatment for her, so chances are she'll never walk again.
Dayna had been competing against Luke Hanahran when she was injured. When it's Dodge's turn to compete, Luke's brother Ray is also a contestant in Panic. Dodge intends to get revenge for Dayna - that's his main motivation for playing the game.
Along with Dodge and Heather, Heather's best friend Natalie (Nat) Velez is a competitor. Nat doesn't have a very strong stomach for dangerous activities, but she wants to win the money to further her dream of being an actress in L.A.
Panic is kept secret from the town's adults, with ever-changing rules, locations, and judges. None of the players know who the judges are.
I've been wanting to read the first book in Lauren Oliver's Delirium trilogy, which is also called Delirium, for quite a while now. After reading Panic, I'm not so sure I want to read it anymore. I just haven't fallen in love with Oliver's writing the way I have, say, Veronica Roth's. I thought Panic was interesting, but not great. There are moments of mild suspense when the characters seem to be in great danger, but very few consequences actually happen to the four main characters. The suspense is kind of a tease.
I hoped this would be more of a "what if real kids had their own version of The Hunger Games" kind of thing, but it was even more realistic than even that - which I didn't love. I knew going into this reading that it wasn't any kind of dystopian or fantasy novel, but it turns out I simply like the speculative genres of young adult books more than the more realistic kind.
This is the second stand-alone Lauren Oliver book I've read. The first was her middle grade fantasy novel The Spindlers. I thought that was just okay, too.
But if you like realistic YA fiction about what kind of trouble bored kids with very little to lose could get into, you may very well enjoy this book.
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