Book Review: Marly’s Ghost by David Levithan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

If you ask me, David Levithan can pretty much do no wrong. I’ve now read at least a handful of books either written or co-written by this author, and I’ve love just about all of them.

I recently came across a review of Marly’s Ghost over at Chrissi Reads, and my curiosity was immediately piqued.

Marly’s Ghost was originally published in 2005, but it looks like a new edition is being published in the UK by Egmont Publishing.

This slim novel is a retelling of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and it’s a retelling in the truest sense of the word. The original story doesn’t just provide a launching pad for a new idea; instead, Marly’s Ghost faithfully follows the original, practically scene by scene, but transposes it into a modern love story that’s both incredibly sad and unexpectedly uplifting.

In Marly’s Ghost, Ben is bitterly mourning the death of his beloved girlfriend Marly, who died four months earlier after a long and painful battle with cancer. Marly was the center of Ben’s world, and without her, he sees no point in anything. He pushes away his friends, sees only bleakness in everything around him, and has a special sort of derision for Valentine’s Day. Marly’s death, to Ben, is proof that love is a crock. It can’t last, it only breaks you when it’s gone, and it can’t be worth pursuing if it only leads to pain.

On the eve of Valentine’s Day, when Ben has once again cruelly rebuffed his best friend’s attempts to connect and has needlessly lashed out at a couple in the early stages of love, he retreats to his room to surround himself with his loss and seek isolation. But his isolation is shattered when Marly’s ghost appears, weighed down by chains forged from a charm bracelet containing every memento of their time together. Ben’s grief is holding her and not letting her find peace. Marly warns Ben that he will be visited by three spirits… and, well, if you’ve ever read or seen a production of A Christmas Carol, you have a pretty good idea of what’s to come.

Ben is visited by the spirits of Valentine’s Day past, present, and future, and each shows Ben a piece of himself and illuminates his effect on those around him. Above all else, Marly wanted Ben to promise not to give up, and the spirits have come to hold him to his promise.

This slim novel brought me to tears at various points. It’s a terribly sad story of loss and suffering, made worse by the characters’ young ages, and yet it’s a pleasure to read as well. David Levithan refers to this book as a “remix” of A Christmas Carol, and that’s an apt description. He sticks to the basics of the original story, but turns it into something new and emotionally rich. The modern-day characters fit easily into the framework of the classic story, and Ben’s transformation from bitterness to hope is believable and lovely.

The book is further enhanced by black and white illustrations by the masterful Brian Selznick, who models his drawings on the illustrations found in the original edition of A Christmas Carol.

I recommend this book highly, for fans of the author and illustrator, for those who love A Christmas Carol, or for anyone who enjoys a well-written, honest look at love and loss. I borrowed this book from the library, but I think I need to own a copy for myself! Marly’s Ghost, along with David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary, proves that in the hands of a gifted author, good things really do come in small packages.

With thanks to Chrissi for inspiring me to track down a copy of this book!

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: Marly’s Ghost
Author: David Levithan
Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: Originally published 2005
Length: 208 pages
Genre: Young adult fiction
Source: Library

29Jan2015

Book Review: Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Silver Bay is an older work by bestselling author Jojo Moyes, originally published in 2007 and re-released in the US in fall of 2014. And while Silver Bay is perhaps not quite as tear-inducing as Me Before You, it certainly fits in with the author’s talent for portraying unusual relationships full of tragedy and redemption.

Silver Bay is a sleepy little coastal town in Australia, known for its harbor full of marine life, its ramshackle old hotels, and its whale-watching expeditions. Liza and her daughter Hannah live in Liza’s aunt Kathleen’s inn, which has been in her family for over 70 years. Liza keeps to herself, takes tourists out on her boat, and socializes each evening on the front porch of the inn with the other “whale chasers”.

But then Englishman Mike Dormer shows up on a secret mission, exploring Silver Bay as a possible development site for a luxury resort. Mike’s job is to secure the location and smooth out any local resistance to the plan so that his wheeler-dealer boss can pin down the venture capitalists’ money and make boatloads of money himself. Mike doesn’t count on the connection he starts to feel for the small town, the local folks, and most especially, for Liza herself.

But Liza has her own secrets too, and she’s not looking for love or anything like it. What’s more, when the truth about Mike’s mission comes to light, Liza, Kathleen, and all of the Silver Bay people feel betrayed by Mike… but his own beliefs have been shaken as well. Ultimately, it’s up to Mike to reverse the damage done and try to save not just the town, but the friendships that have come to matter so much to him.

I found the beginning of Silver Bay a bit slow. The book has multiple narrators, and after a brief introduction told by Kathleen, we spend the first long chapter of the book looking through the eyes of 10-year-old Hannah. This did not feel like a wise choice to me; it’s a book for adults, and the child viewpoint was by necessity somewhat weak and narrow. Once Mike is introduced, the story opens up in scope, and as I got a bit further into it, I was hooked.

The storyline itself isn’t particularly unique. I feel like I’ve seen the basic footprint of the story in other books or movies: Small town, outside big business coming to ruin things, quirky locals banding together to fight the good fight, etc. The love story too proceeds along mostly predictable lines. Of course, Mike falls in love with Liza. Of course, her secret, tragic past keeps her from being able to open up. Of course, Mike’s business dealings threaten all of the relationships he’s built.

All that being said, there’s a lot going for Silver Bay as well. There are some truly delightful supporting characters, especially tough old Aunt Kathleen and her would-be beau Nino, fellow whale-chasers Greg, Yoshi, and Lance, and even Liza’s daughter Hannah, who ultimately takes a big hand in helping to save the town.

What would a Jojo Moyes book be without a tragedy? Yes, the secret from Liza’s past that eventually comes to light is awful and terribly sad… and yes, I did get a bit teary in the final third of the book. The author does a masterful job of giving just enough hints along the way to let us know that the secret is a doozy, and once revealed, it’s impossible not to feel for Liza and her sad story.

Again, I saw the ending coming from about a mile away, but that’s okay. Having a pretty good idea of how it would all work out didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. It’s a quick read, and after the first several chapters, it’s a book that will pull you in and make you care.

This isn’t my favorite Jojo Moyes book, but it’s a good choice for fans who’ve read all of her more recent novels and want more.

Interested in this author? Check out my reviews of other books by Jojo Moyes:
The Girl You Left Behind
One Plus One
The Ship of Brides
Me Before You
The Last Letter From Your Lover

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: Silver Bay
Author: Jojo Moyes
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication date: Originally published in UK in 2007
Length: 338 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library

25Jan2015

Take A Peek Book Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought. This week’s “take a peek” book:

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

My Thoughts:

I find myself not quite knowing what to say about this unusual, lovely book. I love the juxtaposition of the modern world, with its IPods and high school parties, alongside the hidden world of the Folk who live in the deep, dark forest. In fact, the opening lines create such a magical aura that it’s a bit jarring to realize that this story is set in a 21st century real-world town with ordinary teens who drive cars, drink beer in the woods, go to football games, buy vintage clothing, and have all the usual rivalries, gossip, and tensions you’d see in any young adult novel.

And yet, in the town of Fairfold, residents know that there are other beings in the forest, and it’s best to be wary. Every child knows the rules, such as never saying “thank you” to a fairy or eating any food offered. It’s just tourists, flocking to what’s known as a kitschy destination with cutesy, magic-themed main street shops, who get into trouble, finding their money replaced by leaves or, in more recent years, being subjected not just to harmless pranks but to actual life-threatening danger.

Hazel and Ben have grown up with the stories and know the ropes. They’re also each crazily infatuated with the sleeping prince in the glass coffin in the woods, and have concocted all sorts of fantasies about him and his world. As the story progresses, we learn much more about Hazel and her secrets, and what she’s done to help her brother, despite all the warnings and scary-sounding rhymes.

While the book is a bit odd at first, introducing plot points as facts already known (so that I kept having to flip back and say, “wait, when did that happen?”), it eventually settles into a logic and rhythm that work. The everyday lives alongside the magical, and the writing too can veer from the commonplace to the enchanted in the blink of an eye.

I loved the strange interplay between waking life and dreams, and I especially loved how traditional fairy tale gender roles are turned on their heads. A girl is the wielder of a powerful sword, defending family and all those who need her strength. A boy can find true love by waking a sleeping prince.

Meanwhile, there are changelings, goblins, a terrifying Alderking, and a creature so consumed by the loss of her true love that she literally becomes a monster.

In The Darkest Part of the Forest, author Holly Black creates a spell-binding tale of sibling love, bravery and devotion, with language that weaves its own magical enchantment.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Darkest Part of the Forest
Author: Holly Black
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date: January 13, 2015
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Young adult fantasy
Source: Purchased

23Jan2015

Book Review: The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

This is the second book in a series, so here come the warnings:

SPOILER ALERT: This is the follow-up book to The 5th Wave. Events from The 5 Wave will be discussed! So, need I say it? If you haven’t read The 5th Wave, now would be a good time to look away. (Better yet, go get a copy of The 5th Wave! It’s good.)

KINDA SPOILER-ISH ALERT: There are some elements from The Infinite Sea that I’ll have to talk about in order to write any sort of review. I’ll try not to go into a tremendous amount of detail, but if you prefer to know nothing about what happens, well, here’s another good time to look away.

And that concludes the housekeeping portion of this post. Moving on…

In The 5th Wave, the subject matter is nothing less than the destruction of the human race at the hands of alien invaders. Over the course of an apocalyptic few months, 98% of Earth’s population has been killed in all sort of horrifying ways. The story focuses on a handful of survivors, each on their own, trying not only to stay alive themselves, but to save or sustain the people they love.

The Infinite Sea picks up pretty much right after the big, blow-out ending of The 5th Wave. Our little band of survivors is hunkered down in an old, abandoned motel, waiting for whatever comes next, listening to the rats in the walls. (The rats are important — more on this later.)

What else? Well, that’s mostly it.

In The 5th Wave, our main three point of view characters are Cassie, Ben, and Evan. Each has his or her own intense story to tell, with a unique viewpoint on the events unfolding. In The Infinite Sea, the perspective expands to include chapters narrated by several other characters. Does this help broaden the view of life after the invasion? Not really.

It’s not that I wasn’t interested in what happened in The Infinite Sea. I was. But at the same time, the story somehow feels narrow, almost claustrophobic.

Part of what really impressed me in The 5th Wave was the epic scale. As seen through the eyes of our POV characters, the destruction is devastatingly huge, yet also intimate in that the impact of the invasion is highly personal. Family members die cruel, bloody deaths. Trusted adults betray in horrible, mind-breaking, soul-damaging ways. Safe havens turn out to be hell on earth. Humans yearn for companionship, but safety lies only in isolation. The loss each character experiences, especially Cassie, is enormous not just for the character, but because of what it means for the entirety of human life.

Compared to all that, The Infinite Sea feels small. In a most literal sense, it is: Going by my physical copies of both books, The Infinite Sea is about 150 pages shorter than The 5th Wave. The invasion is still underway, but not much has changed. We spend all of this second book holed up with our group of characters, waiting for the next awful thing to happen. The relationships barely move forward, and they have very little to do other than hide and speculate – and talk and talk and talk.

The endless talk is yet another piece that works less well for me in The Infinite Sea. In The 5th Wave, the language is often highly dramatic, much more figurative than you might expect out of the mouths of teens dealing with disaster, but somehow it matches the grand tone of the entire book. Sadly, in The Infinite Sea, the language tends toward an overuse of imagery and metaphor, and rather than feeling epic, it ends up sounding like borderline mumbo-jumbo.

I understood. In the safe room, a billion upraised faces populating the infinite, and the eyes that sough mine, and the question in those eyes too horrible to put into words, Will I live? It’s all connected. The Others understood that, understood it better than most of us. No hope without faith, no faith without hope, no love without trust, no trust, without love. Remove one and the entire human house of cards collapses.

It’s all about a search for meaning in disaster, but the discussions go in circle upon circle: There are rats in the walls. Are we the rats? Is the Earth the inhabited house the aliens want to move into? Why not kill all the rats? Why leave some rats alive? There’s the rock problem: Why not just use a big rock (i.e., a meteor) to wipe out all life? Why embed aliens inside the humans? Why play all the mind games? Why, why, why… this books amounts to a never-ending litany of characters discussing “why” — but unfortunately, we end with little more understanding than we had at the beginning of the book.

Another problem: In what felt like a baffling shift to me, the entire second half of the book is focused on Ringer, a character in a supporting role in The 5th Wave. We barely know her; we never saw her point of view in the first book. An awful lot of space is devoted to Ringer’s experience, trapped and cut off from the other characters, and it’s a weird shift in emphasis. Cassie was established in The 5th Wave as our primary character, yet she and the rest of her entourage are absent for almost half of this book. Ringer’s story adds some knowledge to the mix, but it’s kind of jarring to have the book split like this, with two stories that don’t fit together.

The Infinite Sea is clearly the bridge book in this trilogy. We need to get from the introduction of the disaster in The 5th Wave to the final resolution in the 3rd, yet-to-be-published book, but other than as a connection from point A to point B, The Infinite Sea adds very little to the world-building or the story arc of the series. By the end of this second book, I would have expected to understand much more about the reasons for the invasion and the strategies employed by the invaders. Instead, the only real progress is that the characters are beginning to understand that there’s a lot that they don’t know, that there has to be more to what to the invaders want, and that there are major pieces of the strategy that remain to be figured out.

The more I write about The Infinite Sea, the more I realize how unsatisfying I found it. With very little story progression or character growth and very little in the way of unraveling the mysteries of the alien plan, it’s very difficult to point out much that’s gained by reading The Infinite Sea, other than a reshuffling of the chessboard and a set-up for a finale. Perhaps this series should have been two power-house books instead of a trilogy with a tepid middle. I’m hoping that the final book, supposedly to be released in September, will blow the story out of the water.

The 5th Wave was amazing. I suppose if you want to find out what happens next, you have to read The Infinite Sea. But unless something is revealed early on in book #3 that demonstrates how the events of #2 matter, I’d say that The Infinite Sea is a mostly unimportant interlude that comes nowhere near to matching the power and scale of The 5th Wave. Proceed with caution — or perhaps wait until the release of the 3rd book and read it as an introduction to #3. Read on its own, as the eagerly anticipated sequel to a fantastic first book, The Infinite Sea disappoints.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Infinite Sea
Author: Rick Yancey
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Publication date: September 14, 2014
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Young adult/science fiction
Source: Purchased

17Jan2015

Book Review: Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

In Breathe, Annie, Breathe, the main character is a 17-year-old girl facing one of life’s cruelest moments: The boy she loved, her boyfriend of three years, died in a tragic accident. Annie’s whole life had revolved around Kyle. The two were inseparable, and so long as Annie had Kyle, she didn’t need other friends or anything else in her life.

As we meet Annie, Kyle has been dead for about six months, and Annie can barely function. Somehow she’s arrived at the idea that to honor Kyle’s memory, she’ll run the marathon he’d wanted to run but didn’t live long enough to accomplish. Annie is not a runner, however, so she joins a training program where, over the course of six months, she’ll push her body and mind into shape for the upcoming October marathon.

At first, she’s in constant pain and doesn’t believe she can do it. But her stubborn determination that she has to do this for Kyle keeps her moving forward. And then, on the trail, she encounters Jeremiah, the adrenaline-junkie brother of her running coach, and she feels something that she never thought she’d feel again. Sparks fly. It doesn’t hurt that he’s gorgeous and muscle-y, and seems instantly drawn to Annie as well.

Stop rolling your eyes! My description might make this book sound run-of-the-mill, but it’s not. True, on the surface, it’s “poor bereaved girl learns to love again”, and that’s been done before. But there are many elements that make Breathe, Annie, Breathe a cut above typical YA fare.

For starters, Annie herself is an interesting, conflicted, smart girl who doesn’t always make good choices. She’s the daughter of a single mom, Annie’s dad having walked out before she can even remember, and she, her mom, and her brother live in a trailer park. And that’s totally okay — Annie doesn’t feel shame, and the trailer park isn’t the stereotypical redneck, trashy place that you see in so many books and movies.

Because of her low economic status, Annie has to work for whatever she wants. She sees herself as weak many times, but it takes a lot of strength and commitment to do what she’s doing. The only way she can afford her running program is through hard work. Every shift at the restaurant matters; every bit of her tip money is accounted for, whether it’s her running gear, her living expenses for college the next year, or the cost of her school books. Annie doesn’t begrudge her mother anything or resent anyone — this is just her life, and she deals with it.

For another thing, Kyle is never torn down or criticized. In many books, the heroine finally moves on when she realizes that the dead boyfriend/lover/husband isn’t as perfect as she’s made him out to be. Not here. Kyle wasn’t perfect, but neither was Annie. Their relationship had flaws, but Annie does not for a moment stop wishing that they could have had the life they’d dreamed of. She moves forward by cherishing her memories of Kyle while also setting her sights on a life that no longer revolves around him.

From the early descriptions, I thought Jeremiah would be the bad-boy-saved-by-a-good-girlfriend stereotype, but that’s also not the case. Jeremiah is a great guy, a Southern gentleman, whose only flaw is his need to do extreme sports, to the extent that he’s been hurt so many times that his mother has kicked him out unless he promises to slow it down. He treats Annie with the utmost respect, and there’s never a doubt that he’ll be good to her and for her.

An added element that really makes this book a treat is the community it’s set in. Miranda Kenneally’s books take place in small-town Tennessee, with a rural setting, a close-knit community, and a Southern sensibility that involves hospitality and good manners. Characters from her previous novels show up in minor roles in Breathe, Annie, Breathe — but it doesn’t matter if you’ve read those books or not. It’s like getting a visit from old friends, which makes it fun if you recognize them, but their backstories don’t contribute to the plot of Breathe, Annie, Breathe in any way that would be confusing to someone unfamiliar with them.

I really enjoyed Breathe, Annie, Breathe. Annie’s emotional journey is portrayed with sensitivity, and her struggles and conflicts feel real. The guilt she feels over her attraction toward Jeremiah, the growing awareness that she needs to rebuild her life, reconnect with the friends she lost over the years by her own negligence, and think about what she truly wants for her future — all seem realistic and are easy to relate to. Meanwhile, Annie’s running journey is the backbone of the story, and it’s fascinating and inspiring to see how a person can transform herself if she’s willing to commit and throw herself into it.

Although categorized as young adult fiction, I’m not entirely sure that that’s the right place for this book. It skews a little older than YA, covering both the end of high school and the start of college. The sexual content is somewhat more explicit than I’ve seen in a lot of the contemporary YA that I’ve read lately, all of which seem to be more focused on flirting, popularity, and high school drama rather than on actual relationships with emotional and physical connections.

I’ve read one other book by Miranda Kenneally, Racing Savannah (reviewed here last year), and after reading Breathe, Annie, Breathe, I’d like to read more. Her books center on girls striving for success in typically male-dominated athletic pursuits, while at the same time sorting out their lives, their dreams, and their relationships.

In Breathe, Annie, Breathe, the story is quick-moving, but doesn’t skimp on emotional challenges or character development. Annie is a terrific main character, and readers will be cheering for her to succeed, in running and in rebuilding her life. The book tackles the subject of terrible loss without becoming maudlin; instead, the loss is acknowledged and honored in a way that feels appropriate and respectful. I recommend Breathe, Annie, Breathe — and Miranda Kenneally’s work in general — for readers who enjoy their YA a little on the older side.

A final, personal note: I hate to say it, but I’m mostly a couch potato at this point, with my exercise routine limited to long walks on the weekends and not much else. I loved reading about Annie’s training, though — and this book has made me start thinking that I should break out my old running shoes and give it another go!

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: Breathe, Annie, Breathe
Author: Miranda Kenneally
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication date: July 15, 2014
Length: 306 pages
Genre: Young adult contemporary fiction
Source: Library

14Jan2015

Take A Peek Book Review: The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Love is all you need… or is it? Penny’s about to find out in this wonderful debut.

Penny is sick of boys and sick of dating. So she vows: no more. It’s a personal choice. . .and, of course, soon everyone wants to know about it. And a few other girls are inspired. A movement is born: The Lonely Hearts Club (named after the band from Sgt. Pepper). Penny is suddenly known for her nondating ways . . . which is too bad, because there’s this certain boy she can’t help but like. . . .

My Thoughts:

I’ve read and completely enjoyed Elizabeth Eulberg’s two most recent books, Revenge of the Girl With the Great Personality and Better Off Friends. When I happened to stumble across her debut, The Lonely Hearts Club, at the library this week, I thought I’d give it a try.

Elizabeth Eulberg excels at portraying the ups and downs of the high school pecking order. Her female characters tend to question the norm and make their own way. Penny isn’t a revolutionary, though — she’s just a girl who’s been dumped on and duped by one too many jerky boys. She’s not looking to start a movement, but by taking a stand for herself, she sets the stage for a lot of soul-searching.

Suddenly, the girls at school begin to realize that being with a boy who treats you badly is not actually better than not having a boyfriend at all. Penny and her small circle rediscover the value of having friends to rely on, friends who put their friends first and don’t dump them the second a boy comes calling (or texting).

It isn’t preachy, though: No one here is saying that boys are bad, or that feeling pretty and popular is shallow, or that strong girls should never flirt or care about dating. It’s really about balance, and the takeaway here seems to be that girls have the right to expect to be treated with respect, to decide whether they want a relationship or to go it alone, to pursue what makes them happy and not just what makes them popular.

One great little tidbit that you don’t get from the synopsis: Penny’s parents are Beatles fanatics. Penny’s full name is Penny Lane Bloom, and her older sisters are Rita (Lovely Rita) and Lucy (in sky with diamonds…). Mom and Dad are quirky and hip, occasionally embarrassing, but also unabashedly pro-independence and nonconformity in their daughters — so, for example, it’s no surprise that they take Penny’s side against the principal who tries to crush the club. So what if they call her “Penny Lane” in public? They’re still great parents.

A teeny example — following Penny’s disclosure that she’s in a club:

“Penny started it. It’s called The Lonely Hearts Club,” Rita chimed in.

“Oh, oh, Penny Lane, that’s so, so wonderful!” Mom put her hand up to her chest, thrilled that I’d named something after the Beatles, although she had no idea what the Club stood for. I could’ve started a club called the Yellow Submariners that went out in the ocean and clubbed baby seals and they still would’ve been proud.

“Kiddo, it’s so great you’re taking an interest in your heritage. Goo goo g’joob!” Dad beamed.

The writing is cute and clever, with snappy dialogue that never feels too over-the-top or that it’s trying to hard to be hip. The story is fast-paced, and this is a quick, zippy read.

I’d happily recommend The Lonely Hearts Club to teens, parents of teens, anyone who enjoys contemporary YA, and — of course — to Beatles fans. I understand the sequel (We Can Work It Out) is coming soon, and I’ve already put in my request for it at the library.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Lonely Hearts Club
Author: Elizabeth Eulberg
Publisher: Point
Publication date: 2010
Length: 290 pages
Genre: Young adult contemporary fiction
Source: Library

11Jan2015

Series Wrap-Up: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede encompasses four novels set in one world — and be warned ahead of time: Your enjoyment of this series is by no means guaranteed just because you liked the first book. Each book is quite different, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

First things first: If we were only talking about book #1, Dealing with Dragons, my enthusiasm would be much higher. In Dealing with Dragons, we meet Cimorene, a princess who doesn’t want the typical Happily Ever After with a handsome prince, fine gowns, and a kingdom to be pampered in. So Cimorene runs away and finds herself a large dragon, Kazul, who just so happens to need a princess of her own. In this world, princesses serve dragons — some willingly, some not so much — usually until they are rescued by a brave knight who comes to free them from “captivity”. Cimorene has no patience for such nonsense, and soon finds herself an indispensable assistant to Kazul, keeping house, observing dragon politics, learning about magic, and warding off dangerous wizards who want to steal the dragon’s magic. The book breaks gender roles in all sorts of interesting and unusual ways; my favorite is that the leader of the dragons is called King, which denotes a position, not a person. Kazul is a female dragon, but is still able to vie for the position of King…. and woe to anyone who mistakenly refers to her as the Queen.

Unfortunately, in my view, the focus shifts from book to book. Dealing with Dragons is the only book of the series I rated as 5 stars on Goodreads. I loved Cimorene’s courage and brains, the clever wordplay, and the way Cimorene defies expectations to become the person she wants to be. But suddenly, in book #2 (Searching for Dragons), Cimorene is a supporting player, and instead, the story is told from the point of view of Mendanbar, the reluctant king of the Enchanted Forest. Mendanbar’s story intersects with Cimorene’s as they go on a quest together to find out who is draining magic out of the Enchanted Forest and to rescue the kidnapped Kazul. Mendanbar and Cimorene have good chemistry, and Mendanbar is a fine leading man, but unfortunately, the zippiness of Cimorene’s grrrl power is a bit more subdued here.

In Book #3 (Calling on Dragons), we barely see our familiar characters at all, as the focus shifts once again, this time to the witch Morwen, a supporting player in the earlier books. I came close to abandoning the series altogether early on in this book. True confession: I have a dislike for talking animals, particularly when there’s an overabundance of them — and this book has more than enough to go around. Within the first few chapters, we meet all twelve of Morwen’s cats, each of whom has a name and a distinct personality and contributes to conversation, as well as a bewitched bunny named Killer who transforms first into a six-foot-tall bunny and eventually into a blue, winged, flying donkey. Killer is meant to be the comic relief, but is more annoying than funny most of the time. There’s a quest and an adventure that ends up involving Cimorene and Mendanbar, but they’re quite peripheral. The magical adventure aspects of the book become more enjoyable by the end, but there’s a lot of space taken up by new characters, odd magical rules, and never-ending journeying.

And then we come to the final book, Talking to Dragons, in which there’s a brand-new main character, Daystar, who must travel into the Enchanted Forest and figure out for himself what the purpose of his quest is. There he meets a temperamental young fire-witch named Shiara — clearly there as his love interest — and encounters talking lizards, elves, dragons, and dwarves before arriving at a climactic battle scene. I won’t tell you how Daystar’s story intersects with the characters from the earlier books (spoilers!), but they are all connected and come together for an exciting and satisfying conclusion.

As a series, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles feels a bit disjointed. The shift in main characters from book to book didn’t really appeal to me. I suppose the intent is to broaden the scope of the world of the Enchanted Forest, but in my opinion, Cimorene and Kazul are the most interesting characters — and once they leave center stage, the story loses some of its charm. I was never bored exactly (although I was awfully close during the talking cat chapters), but I did find my attention wandering from time to time, and I found it a challenge to get into each new book, where we readers are required to leave behind the characters we’ve become fond of and start fresh with with a whole bunch of new ones.

All that said, let me now point out that I read this series in partnership with my 12-year-old son — and from that regard, I’d say the series was a success. My kiddo is a very reluctant reader, and so to encourage him, we read these books in tandem. He enjoyed the stories quite a bit, liked the action sequences involving dragons and wizards especially, and liked that there were plenty of funny scenes, humorous dialogue, and even some hints of danger (nothing too life-threatening, but still risky business).

Bottom line: While the Enchanted Forest Chronicles doesn’t strike me as strong enough to really hold adult attention, I do think it’s a great choice for middle grade readers, either to read on their own or as a very fun parent-kiddo reading partnership. And as an alternative for those who aren’t looking for a multi-book series or don’t like the sound of the focus changing from book to book, I think Dealing with Dragons would work perfectly well as a stand-alone. As the best of the bunch, it’s certainly a great read — and maybe if I’d stopped there, I’d have avoided the frustrations I had with the subsequent books.

10Jan2015

Take A Peek Book Review: The Adventures of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

What if you can leap tall buildings and defeat alien monsters with your bare hands, but you buy your capes at secondhand stores and have a weakness for kittens? Cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks brings charming humor to the trials and tribulations of a young, female superhero, battling monsters both supernatural and mundane in an all-too-ordinary world.

* A lighthearted twist on the superhero genre!

My Thoughts:

Superhero Girl rocks! I giggled my way through this delightful collection of Faith Erin Hicks’s comics. Superhero Girl can jump over tall buildings, throw disgusting alien monsters into outer space, and defeat ninjas with a few well-delivered pows and bams. She also rescues kitties from trees, worries about how to pay the rent, and feels particularly out of place when her roommate drags her to parties. And then there’s her brother Kevin, a chiseled, handsome success of a superhero who has crowds of cheering fans and lots of merchandising value as well. Superhero Girl is just looking to fight crime and do good, but also suffers the challenges and humiliations of being 20-ish and looking to find her place in life.

And oh, the horror of wearing her mask on a sunny day but forgetting to put on sunscreen! Or finding herself at a job interview up against King Ninja. Or getting kicked out of college because the university’s insurance won’t cover superhero fights.

This is a quick book, but lots of fun. Highly recommended for when you need a break and just want to kick back and enjoy. The drawings are terrific, and Superhero Girl herself is a quirky, flawed, loveable main character — who is super talented when it comes to defeating evil ninjas and helping old ladies cross the street.

I’m looking forward to reading more by Faith Erin Hicks! And if you want a recommendation for another of her books, check out my review of Friends With Boys.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Adventures of Superhero Girl
Author: Faith Erin Hicks
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Publication date: 2013
Length: 112 pages
Genre: Graphic novel
Source: Library

10Jan2015

Book Review: I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

In this unusual and affecting young adult novel, colors explode off the page, ghosts of dead relatives give sassy advice and float off the ground, and a girl’s hair smells like “sad flowers”.

I’ll Give You the Sun is the story of twins Noah and Jude and the tumultuous, tragic events that propel their lives onto unexpected trajectories in their teen years. Noah and Jude are an inseparable, mind-melded duo up until age 13. They’re so close that they can never play Rochambeau — they always choose the same option: rocks/rocks, scissors/scissors, paper/paper. But then their lives explode into pain, jealousy, and hurt, and nothing is the same.

The story is told in two voices and in two timelines. Noah narrates the 13-year-old pieces of the story. Noah is a gifted artist, who paints in his head when he doesn’t have paper at hand. His imagination is wild and bold, and he sees the world as art constantly. He’s also a misfit, picked on and bullied by the local “surftards”, the older, cooler surfer boys who dominate the teen social life in their small Northern California town. When a new boy, Brian, moves in next door, Noah falls instantly and utterly in love, and is in a constant, euphoric torment as he spends all his time with Brian, best of friends — yet wondering if he’s interpreting Brian’s reactions correctly.

Jude, at 13, is an aspiring artist too, creating wild sand sculptures on the beach that get washed away as the tides change. But when their mother seems to home in on Noah as the gifted one, Jude turns away and focuses on becoming a hellion of a teen girl, wearing too much make-up, too short skirts, and flirting excessively with boys who are not going to treat her well.

From meeting Jude through Noah’s eyes, we jump to Jude’s piece of the story, when she is 16, enrolled in a prestigious art school for sculpture, worried that her dead mother is haunting her, and in desperate need of a way out of her misery. From a 13-year-old sex kitten, Jude has become a girl in hiding, dressed in baggy tshirts and jeans with her hair cropped short and hidden under a hat. Jude worries about Noah, who’s the epitome of normalcy, running cross-country, hanging out and drinking with the in-crowd as his public high school, and not doing a shred of art.

What happened to these two? How did their lives goes so completely off the rails? What cataclysmic event caused the 13-year-olds we knew to become 16-year-olds we can barely recognize?

To say that it’s complicated is an understatement.

As the plot moves forward, we get bits and pieces of story from both Noah and Jude, and come to understand both the terrible loss they’ve suffered and the crushing guilt each bears. Noah and Jude each feel responsible for what’s happened, but they don’t talk about it with each other. Each feels that they deserve whatever punishment comes their way; each feels the need to atone and make amends, but both feel that they’ve already screwed up and are beyond forgiveness.

I won’t give away much more of the plot. Suffice it to say that as new people enter their lives, Noah and Jude each learn more about what they did and didn’t do, what else contributed to the events in their family’s life, and start to understand why and how their lives changed so dramatically.

I’ll Give You the Sun is a celebration of the artistic impulse, the need to create and make, the innate ability to see the world in colors, shapes, and textures that the rest of us miss out on. There’s a sense of magic in the air, as Jude converses with her dead grandmother and observes her folk superstitions about love and healing. The writing is full of imagery, letting us inside the brains of two characters whose senses inform everything they see and do:

I start to run, start to turn into air, the blue careening off the sky, careening after me, as I sink into green, shades and shades of it, blending and spinning into yellow, freaking yellow, then head-on colliding into the punk-hair purple of lupine: everywhere.

The sky’s overflowing with orange clouds and each time one floats down, Brian bats is back up like a balloon. I watch him hypnotize the girls as he does the fruit in the trees, the clouds in the sky, as he did me.

Sometimes now, I swear I can see sound, the dark green howling wind, the crimson crush of rain – these sound-colors swirling around my room while I lie on my bed thinking about Brian. His name, when I say it aloud: azul.

In terms of pacing, I found myself a little impatient at first. After a relatively short Noah section to start the book, there’s next a very lengthy Jude section, and I just didn’t feel that I knew her well enough to care that much or spend that much time with her — I wanted more Noah! Eventually, by mid-book, the stories seem to reach a better balance, each one absorbing in its own way, so that I didn’t mind bouncing between the two time lines. I think it was at this point that the threads connecting the two sides of the story become clearer, so that in a way we end up in a detective role, seeking the clues to the mystery of how before turned into after for these two unique but matched people.

By the end, I was deeply moved by the story and the way Noah and Jude lost and then found each other again. With a cast of interesting and unusual supporting characters, the world of I’ll Give You the Sun feels full and well developed. It’s interesting to see the lines of connection between the different players, and how each played a part both in the earlier events and in how Jude and Noah finally find a way forward.

If you enjoy your fiction with a touch of magic and wild flights of imagination, you’ll love the writing in I’ll Give You the Sun. I know I did. With unusually lovely language and a plot full of heart-wrenching emotion, this book should be savored for its sounds and textures as well as for its plot.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: I’ll Give You the Sun
Author: Jandy Nelson
Publisher: Dial
Publication date: September 16, 2013
Length: 371 pages
Genre: Young adult fiction
Source: Library

3Jan2015

Review & Reaction: Winger by Andrew Smith

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Speechless.

That was my first reaction after finishing this powerful book at 1 am last night. After a restless night’s sleep in which I couldn’t stop thinking about this book, I thought I should at least attempt to capture a few words about my reaction to Winger.

All I knew ahead of time was what the blurbs told me: Winger is the story of Ryan Dean West, a 14-year-old eleventh-grader attending a posh boarding school in the Pacific Northwest. Ryan Dean (both parts are his first name — he does not go by just Ryan) has a tendency to get into trouble, as evidenced by his placement in O-Hall (Opportunity Hall), the dorm for kids on disciplinary lockdown, for his junior year. Despite being super-smart (hence being two years ahead in school), Ryan Dean considers himself a loser, a little kid hanging with kids two years older than him, never quite grown up enough to really fit in.

Ryan Dean thinks about girls and sex constantly, when he’s not thinking about rugby. Rugby is the center of his life at PM (Pine Mountain). All students are required to play a team sport, and playing wing on the rugby team, Ryan Dean is part of a greater whole, where’s he’s valued, has mates, and is really good at what he does. His small size doesn’t matter — he’s fast, and he throws himself into it with gleeful passion.

Meanwhile, Ryan Dean is madly in love with his best friend Annie, shares an awful dorm room with a dense and menacing large rugby player named Chas, and is determined to get out of O-Hall as soon as possible so he can pick up with his normal life back in the regular dorms.

But there’s so much more to this chunky book, and before I go any further, take note!

SPOILERS: While I won’t discuss specifics, I think this book is best read without knowing too much ahead of time, so look away if you haven’t read the book! From here on out, I’ll be referencing the book’s ending, not in terms of what happens, but in terms of impact and weight, and you’re really better off not seeing this part before reading the book.

Look away now.

I mean it.

Are you gone?

Good.

Moving on…

Winger is light-hearted and funny and heart-warming and utterly charming for about 80% of the journey. I absolutely adored Ryan Dean and his messy life. He’s not the loser he thinks he is. He charms everyone around him, when he’s not pissing them off. He’s obviously smart to the point of brilliance, draws amazing comics, and has a sense of humor that’s just killer. He may be on the little side for a junior, but the girls seem to like him just fine. He’s a terrific athlete, and isn’t afraid to throw himself physically into any conflict (as evidenced by his array of bruises, cuts, stitches, and general state of injury at all times).

Ryan Dean has a big heart, and is a good friend. Even when he’s mad or not quite doing what he should, he’s a decent guy. And I so want things to work out for him.

And then there’s the end of the book, which hit me like a freight engine. I was destroyed. Seriously, utterly destroyed. I could not believe where this book went, seemingly out of nowhere, although of course, the warning signs are all there. And the sense of complete shock and out-of-the-blue tragedy are what Ryan Dean must be experiencing as well. There’s nothing in the earlier parts of this book that warned me to expect such an awful turn of events, and I was simply horrified beyond belief by the way this story ended.

Which is not to say that it’s not a wonderful and beautiful book. It is. But it also knocked me for a complete loop, and here I am, 24 hours later, unable to stop thinking about it.

The writing in this book is empathetic and full of respect for the characters. I felt that the author captured the heart of the story so well, making me see inside the world of this unusual 14-year-old — a pretty remarkable feat, considering I’m nowhere near 14 and I’ve never been a teen-age boy. Still, I could feel Ryan Dean’s joy and pain, and glory with him in the true friendships he forms along his journey. That the end of the book is devastating in no way detracts from the overall success of Winger; and there’s a certain character who is so wonderful and noble and good that he’ll remain with me for a long, long time to come.

I read and loved Andrew Smith’s Grasshopper Jungle last year, and I’ve requested a copy of 100 Sideways Miles from the library. At this point, I think I’ll read whatever he writes! I love the humor, the courage, and the heart of his characters, and have found the two books I’ve read by him to be compelling, enjoyable, and thoroughly unique reads.

Okay, final note: I just saw on Goodreads that there’s a sequel coming this year! Stand-Off will be published in September, and will focus on Ryan Dean’s senior year. To which I say… where do I sign up?

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: Winger
Author: Andrew Smith
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: May, 2013
Length: 439 pages
Genre: Young adult fiction
Source: Library