Eragon: A book with the kiddo, & a book review with a twist

This started out as a straight-forward book review, but I think it’s now turning into more of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” deal. I wrote a review. Then I thought about a completely different angle. And thought I’d include both! So, choose which version you want to read, or read both! Either way, you’ll hear my mouthy opinion, for better or for worse.

Version #1:

Eragon (book #1 of the four-part Inheritance Cycle) is a good old-fashioned epic fantasy quest, filled with dragons, monsters, good guys and bad guys, swords with names, wise old mentors, and one very special young man who spends the book discovering that he may in fact be the Chosen One.

I’ve always enjoyed reading with my son, and now that he’s 12, our reading time has changed. We still hang out and read together, but we’re often looking for books that we can read in parallel, then chat about for a while. Eragon is LONG book, well over 500 pages in our paperback copy, and I’d say it took us close to five months to get through the whole thing. Because I wanted this to be a shared experience, I did not read ahead — and when we had days or even weeks when my kiddo was distracted or just not into it, we both went without.

Consequently, I think, my enjoyment of the story was already a bit lower than it might have been if I’d just read straight through. More on this later.

In terms of plot, Eragon more or less follows along well-trodden paths. We start with 15-year-old Eragon as an ordinary boy, being raised by his uncle on a simple farm. When Eragon finds a dragon egg, it sets in motion a series of life-changing events, some tragic, some full of promise.

When the egg finally hatches, out comes a cute baby dragon with whom Eragon immediately bonds. The two share a psychic link, and Eragon discovers that her name is Saphira, and that they can have full conversations in their heads. But there are dangerous foes who want the dragon too, and when Eragon’s uncle is brutally murdered, Eragon and Saphira flee for their lives, along with the town storyteller, an old man named Brom who has plenty of secrets and wisdom to share with Eragon.

There’s a road trip of sorts, as Ergaon, Saphira and Brom chase the bad guys who killed the uncle. More than that, though, Brom starts to teach Eragon about his true heritage and calling: Eragon is a Dragon Rider, one of an ancient line with magical powers, thought to be more or less extinct. The evil king Galbatorix would surely kill him if he could, and they spend much of the book moving from place to place, pursued by nasty creatures, always in danger, and busy making sure that Eragon is transformed from simple farm boy to magic-wielding powerhouse.

So. What did I think? Well, for starters, this is a tough book to read in small chunks. Eragon is highly detailed, and the telling of the backstory and mythology is uneven and occasionally awkward. Brom tells Eragon about the Riders and how the king became so evil in a single story, about three pages long, early on in the book — and yet this informs almost everything that comes later. Should a reader really be expected to keep all the details straight hundreds of pages later? It seems a bit daunting, especially considering that this is supposedly a kids’ book.

Reading it as I did, no more than a chapter at a time, sometimes with days in between, it was hard to maintain the flow of the story. But even so, I do think I might have felt similarly if I’d read it straight through. The chapters are long, and the entire plot is one episode of danger after another, often with very little natural flow between scenes or locations.

Much has been made of the fact that the author, Christopher Paolini, was only 15 when he wrote this book, which is utterly remarkable in terms of a teen literary phenomenon. It’s pretty mind-boggling to me that someone his age could create such a large, densely packed book. But should a book be judged by the age of its author, or on the merit of its content, plot, characters, and overall effect?

If I ignore what I know about the author, I’m less impressed. Much of the story feels derivative. Young apprentice, old mentor? Check. Newly discovered magical powers? Check. Coming of age due to the death of the hero’s family/support system? Check. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Brom could be any one of a dozen or more wise, old, mysterious magical gurus from fantasy — Gandalf, Dumbledore, Obi-Wan Kenobi. There’s a magical elf girl, because of course there’s a magical elf-girl. Cities full of suspicious or untrustworthy residents. Dwarves, elves, mad kings… it’s like every fantasy epic, put into a blender and poured out into a new glass.

And then there’s the writing. Remember being in high school English classes, writing essays, and trying to use as many SAT-level words as possible in the attempt to impress your teacher with the power of your vocabulary, even if you had nothing much to say? Yeah. It’s like that. I stopped noticing quite so much after a while, but particularly early on, it’s irritating and distracting to be subjected to such overblown language constantly. The author’s approach seems to be: why use a one-syllable word when there’s a longer one that will do?

So did I enjoy Eragon? Yes and no. I enjoyed the experience of sharing it with my son, being able to talk about it with him, and seeing his less-jaded response to the plot and characters. He really liked it, which made me like it too. Left to my own devices, I’d probably say that it was at least a third longer than it needed to be, in dire need of editing, and overall a not terribly original remash of standard fantasy themes and plot elements.

Version #2:

I mentioned Obi-Wan Kenobi before, right? On further thought, a cup of tea and a shower later, I’ve started to think that the entire book of Eragon (and who knows, perhaps the rest of the Inheritance series as well) can be boiled down to “Star Wars with Dragons”.

We’ve got the story of a young man raised on a farm by his uncle. Parentage unknown. He unwittingly comes into possession of something sought after by the Empire. Agents of the Empire slaughter his uncle and destroy the farm. He has to flee. He receives a vision of a beautiful young woman who desperately needs his help. He is guided by an old man with mysterious knowledge and powers, who tells him that he himself has abilities he was unaware of, and that he belongs to a group with special abilities and — can we call magic “the force”? He begins to learn to use his powers and becomes a skilled flyer and fighter. His mentor ultimately dies, after setting the hero on his path. The hero allies himself with a rogue with a heart of gold, whose skills help him avoid capture…

Okay, it gets a bit murkier after that, since there’s no Death Star. But there is an epic battle at the end, and our hero emerges triumphantly, but with the knowledge that he needs further training in order to prepare for the challenges still to come. Which nicely sets us up for the next installment in the series.

So does this mean that Eragon’s father is really the evil king Galbatorix? It would fit. After all, Galbatorix was originally a Rider, before going mad from grief and pursuing total domination and dark powers.

Wow. Mind blown.

But do me a favor! If you’ve read the rest of the Inheritance series, don’t tell me if my Galbatorix theories are correct! I need to leave some mysteries to look forward to.

Wrapping it all up:

I tried to get my kiddo to contribute to this review, but apart from saying “it was good”, he wasn’t willing to play along. He does like my Star Wars theories! The kiddo, for all his middle-school cool, was actually pretty enthusiastic about the story, except for when it bogged down in chapters full of traveling from point A to point B to point C. He enjoyed it enough that he insisted that we start the second book, Eldest, right away… and so we have.

Sigh. We’re one chapter into Eldest so far, and I can tell we’re in for a long haul. 600+ pages! I don’t love this series so far, as you can probably tell, but it also hasn’t turned me off completely, and at this point, thanks to the kiddo, I’m involved enough to keep going. I’ve just got to see how it all works out!

And hey, who knows? Maybe there’ll be some Ewoks along the way.

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The details:

Title: Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle, book #1)
Author: Christopher Paolini
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication date: 2002
Length: 528 pages
Genre: Fantasy (kids/teens)
Source: Purchased

18Jun2015

Thursday Quotables: Paper Towns

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

Paper Towns by John Green
(published 2008 )

While I didn’t necessarily love everything about the plot of this young adult novel, I did really enjoy the voice of the main character — especially his inner voice, as he comes to realize that by idealizing the perfect girl next door, he’s failed to understand her basic human essence:

I was sitting back. I was listening. And I was hearing something about her and about windows and mirrors. Chuck Parson was a person. Like me. Margo Roth Spiegelman was a person, too. And I had never quite thought of her that way, not really; it was a failure of all my previous imaginings. All along — not only since she left, but for a decade before — I had been imagining her without listening, without knowing that she made as poor a window as I did. And so I could not imagine her as a person who could feel fear, who could feel isolated in a roomful of people, who could be shy about her record collection because it was too personal to share. Someone who might read travel books to escape having to live in the town that so many people escape to. Someone who — because no one thought she was a person — had no one to really talk to.

And following up:

Yes. The fundamental mistake I had always made — and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make — was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

17Jun2015

Book Review: Blue Stars by Emily Gray Tedrowe

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

The Blue Star service flag: A simple flag, displayed in a window to indicate a family with a member serving in the US military during wartime. In Blue Stars, author Emily Gray Tedrowe introduces us to two women whose lives are turned upside down and inside out by their experiences dealing with their loved ones’ service and the aftermath of devastating, life-changing injuries.

The two main characters are Ellen and Lacey, and on the surface, they couldn’t be more different. Ellen is a midwestern college professor specializing in the works of Edith Wharton. Widowed many years earlier, Ellen has two children — a daughter in her late teens who is full of rebellion and sarcasm, and a son in graduate school. Ellen also has a ward, having become legal guardian to Mike, a young man befriended by Ellen’s son as a teen, whom Ellen took in, took under her wing, and made part of the family.

Lacey is a working-class mom in New York, married to army reserves officer Eddie, but not particularly happy in her marriage. Lacey married Eddie after a long string of go-nowhere relationships, needing stability and meaning in her life and a father for her son Otis. Lacey thrives in the tight-knit circle of army wives and their non-stop projects and activities, but she also drinks too much and hides her secret dissatisfaction with a husband whom she married in haste.

As the book opens, it’s 2005, and Mike and Eddie are both preparing for a 15-month deployment to Iraq. Mike has just enlisted in the Marines, much to Ellen’s dismay, and Eddie is being sent overseas as well. All too soon, though, Ellen and Lacey each receive the news they dread: Their loved ones have been injured, and will be brought to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC for treatment.

Mike has lost a foot due to a grenade. Eddie has lost an eye, most of the vision in his other eye, and has suffered severe head trauma. Ellen and Lacey uproot their lives and, for months and months, become permanent fixtures at Walter Reed, overseeing their soldiers’ care, dealing with bureaucracy, substandard housing, and the patients’ distressing physical conditions. The horrors of war are driven home by seeing the extent of the damage to these formerly healthy men, as well as by seeing the other patients and their families. And to add one horror upon another, the women and families there are pretty much on their own, fighting for benefits, living on pennies, scrambling to make ends meet, and desperate for any shred of hope.

The relationship between Ellen and Lacey is at the heart of this touching novel. In a “normal” world, these two would never meet, much less become friends. Yet through their shared experiences, each finds in the other something she desperately needs. Ellen represents calm and order to Lacey, instilling the belief in Lacey that she’s worth more than she thinks. And in Lacey, Ellen finds a woman who isn’t afraid to speak out, to confront hard truths, and to bring people together.

I found both women very inspirational, in their own ways. Lacey is a mess in so many ways, and it’s hard to approve of much of her behavior early on, yet she displays a courage and loyalty that are quite remarkable. Ellen, too, has to deal with her own feelings of inadequacy, yet her devotion to Mike never wavers for a moment, despite the often brutal emotional toll taken by dealing with a man traumatized by PTSD and haunted by his war experience.

We all know that war is hell, and there are countless war novels that focus on the front lines. Here, in Blue Stars, it’s the home front that’s the focus, and the book does an outstanding job of showing that the misery and trauma don’t stop just because a soldier’s battle days are over… and that the trauma and pain are felt in myriad ways by the families back home as well. The military families described in Blue Stars aren’t idealized or seen through a rosy filter. They have faults, and we see them, but we also see the dedication, courage, and sheer determination that help them stand by their wounded soldiers.

My only frustration with Blue Stars is that I wished to know more about Mike himself and his experiences, but of course that would have been a different book. We get to know Mike through Ellen’s eyes, and it’s Ellen’s experience of Mike’s war — and by extension, Ellen and her family’s war as well — that’s the essence of this book. Blue Stars is about the ravages of war, on individuals and families, and about what it takes to rebuild a life — the life of the wounded soldier, and the life of the damaged family.

Reading about the badly wounded soldiers, so young and so full of promise, is moving and tragic. I was filled with anger over their pointless suffering, and filled with admiration for the tough parents, spouses, children, girlfriends and boyfriends, who give 110% for the sake of their loved ones’ recovery. Blue Stars is a moving and powerful novel — not always pleasant, but an important and emotionally rich look at the lives of military families, the power of friendship, and the many ways that love and commitment make a difference.

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The details:

Title: Blue Stars
Author: Emily Gray Tedrowe
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: February 17, 2015
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

16Jun2015

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Secondhand Souls

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

There’s nothing like a Wednesday for thinking about the books we want to read! My Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday post is linking up with two fabulous book memes, Wishlist Wednesday (hosted by Pen to Paper) and Waiting on Wednesday (hosted by Breaking the Spine).

I realize that I haven’t done one of these wishlist posts in quite a while… but how could I resist?

This week’s pick:
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore
(to be released August 25, 2015 )

In San Francisco, the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing—and you know that can’t be good—in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore’s delightfully funny sequel to A Dirty Job.

Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone—or something—is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He’s trapped in the body of a fourteen-inch-tall “meat” waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host.

To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together: the seven-foot-tall death merchant Minty Fresh; retired policeman turned bookseller Alphonse Rivera; the Emperor of San Francisco and his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus; and Lily, the former Goth girl. Now if only they can get little Sophie to stop babbling about the coming battle for the very soul of humankind…

I love Christopher Moore pretty much always, and I’m really looking forward to this sequel to a book that thoroughly entertained me. Now I just need to squeeze in a re-read of A Dirty Job before the end of August!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays? Come join me for my regular weekly feature, Thursday Quotables. You can find out more here — come play!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I’m building a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

15Jun2015

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books on My Summer TBR List – 2015 edition

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is about reading plans for summer. What’s on my to-be-read list? As usual, it’s a mix of new releases and books from my shelves…

1) Another Day by David Levithan

2) What You Left Behind by Jessica Verdi

3) Jesse’s Girl by Miranda Kenneally

4) Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

5) A Window Opens by Elizabeth Egan

6) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (a book group pick for this summer)

7) The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (another one for the book group)

8) Ross Poldark by Winston Graham (because I’m dying to watch the BBC version)

9) Depth by Lev AC Rosen

10) Dreams of the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn (the sequel to After the Golden Age, which I just read and really enjoyed!)

What books are you looking forward to reading this summer?

Share your links, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider following Bookshelf Fantasies! And don’t forget to check out my regular weekly feature, Thursday Quotables. Happy reading!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

15Jun2015

Take A Peek Book Review: Paper Towns by John Green

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.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Who is the real Margo?

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew…

My Thoughts:

Oh, where to start? This was most decidedly a middle-of-the-road, “meh” sort of read for me. On the plus side, John Green is an indisputed talent when it comes to getting inside teen brains and portraying the shifting loyalties and tensions of teen friendships. On the negative side, I have very little tolerance for this type of tale, starring an every-boy main character — decent guy, not too remarkable, not part of the in-crowd — who is drawn to the oh-so-special wild girl, the one who can’t be pinned down, who acts out in crazy ways that are supposed to be a sign of just how special her specialness is.

I enjoyed the scenes of Quentin embarking on a crazy road trip with his best friends — a wild 24-hour drive up the coast on the trail of Margo’s confusing clues, with all sorts of escapades, close calls, and silly/manic rest stop shopping sprees. But… all this is in search of the elusive Margo, who, quite frankly, doesn’t seem to want to be found. And if she did want to be found, she made it next to impossible. I found it pretty hard to believe that the gang managed to decipher the obscure patterns that form a sort of roadmap to her — and further, I had a hard time seeing her all-night adventure with Quentin as something that he’d actually enjoy or go along with.

I loved The Fault in Our Stars and Will Grayson, Will Grayson — but Paper Towns had about the same effect on me as Looking For Alaska. Clearly, books about boy-next-door types falling under the spell of the elusive, magical, tormented, magnetic (etc, etc) wonder girl just don’t work for me.

Note: I picked up the e-book of Paper Towns a couple of years ago, and finally read it this month in preparation for a book group discussion. Who knows? Perhaps the amazing folks in my group will convince me that I missed something!

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The details:

Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Publisher: Speak
Publication date: 2009
Length: 305 pages
Genre: Young adult
Source: Purchased

15Jun2015

The Monday Check-In ~ 6/15/2015

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.

I’m back! I was away last week, on a combination theme park vacation and visit to see family. I’ll share some Florida pics later this week… including all the latest from Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley (via Universal). I had some days full of leisurely reading, and some days where I only managed to read a few pages before falling asleep. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

What did I read last week?

Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave: Done! My review is here.

Alive by Chandler Baker: Done! My review is here.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn: Done! My review is here.

Paper Towns by John Green: Done! I read this one for an upcoming book group discussion, but will probably write up a mini-review to share later this week as well

Fresh Catch:

No new books! Sure, I may have placed an order or two, but since I’ve been away, nothing new has actually reached me yet.

What will I be reading during the coming week?

Currently in my hands:

Two books competing for my attention:

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
Blue Stars by Emily Gray Tedrowe

Now playing via audiobook:

I didn’t do any audiobook listening while I was gone, so I still have about a week’s worth of Dead Heat to go… loving every minute.

Ongoing reads:

One with the kiddo, two with Outlander Book Club!

So many book, so little time…

12Jun2015

Take A Peek Book Review: After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

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.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Most people dream of having superheroes for parents, but not Celia West. The only daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark, the world’s greatest champions, she has no powers of her own, and the most exciting thing she’s ever done is win a silver medal in a high school swim meet. Meanwhile, she’s the favorite hostage of every crime boss and supervillain in Commerce City. She doesn’t have a code name, but if she did, it would probably be Bait Girl, the Captive Wonder.

Rejecting her famous family and its legacy, Celia has worked hard to create a life for herself beyond the shadow of their capes, becoming a skilled forensic accountant. But when her parents’ archenemy, the Destructor, faces justice in the “Trial of the Century,” Celia finds herself sucked back into the more-than-mortal world of Captain Olympus—and forced to confront a secret that she hoped would stay buried forever.

My Thoughts:

I have been meaning to read this book for over a year now, and I’m so glad that I finally did! How does an ordinary girl grow up when she has superheroes for parents? Not easily, that’s for sure. Now an adult, Celia West is finally reconciling with her parents and figuring out how she fits into their world of crime-fighting, where the city’s needs come first and Celia is always a distant second. Meanwhile, Celia’s secrets from her teen years have resurfaced in a most unpleasant way, and the consequences of this exposure are upsetting, to say the least.

After the Golden Age is much more heart-felt than I’d expected. Despite the urban fantasy setting, Celia deals with real emotions and crises, and her struggle to find her place in the world and figure out how she can possibly make peace with her parents has a universal feel to it. There’s romance, intrigue, and adventure, and despite the often desperate throes, also plenty of snarky humor. I knew I was in for a treat when, in the first chapter, Celia’s response to being kidnapped is:

Damn, not again.

I really enjoyed After the Golden Age. The fantasy elements work well as a framework, but it’s the main character and her friends and family that make the book come alive. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel!

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The details:

Title: After the Golden Age
Author: Carrie Vaughn
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: April 12, 2011
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Purchased

11Jun2015

Thursday Quotables: The Everglades edition!

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas
(published 1947 )

I’m wrapping up a family trip to Florida, combining visiting the folks (taking the kiddos to see their grandparents) with a bit of sightseeing — including, I hope (writing this before I leave) a tour of the Everglades. And while Carl Hiassen is the author I truly associate with the Everglades, I thought I’d share some thoughts by a woman who wrote extensively about the Everglades and was a champion for its preservation.

There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them; their vast glittering openness, wider than the enormous visible round of the horizon, the racing free saltness and sweetness of the their massive winds, under the dazzling blue heights of space. They are unique also in the simplicity, the diversity, the related harmony of the forms of life they enclose. The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

10Jun2015

Book Review: Alive by Chandler Baker

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Stella Cross is a living, breathing miracle. At age 17, she was barely hanging on to life, waiting for her name to come up on the heart transplant list. Her heart began failing two years earlier, and since then she’s become the sick girl, having to give up her dreams of competitive swimming, surviving from doctor visit to doctor visit. As Alive opens, a donor heart finally becomes available, and Stella is rushed to surgery. Will she make it? Technically, she’ll be dead for a moment as her own heart is removed to make way for the healthy one that will replace it.

The surgery is a success, and Stella starts to reclaim her life, supported by her best friend Brynn and her super-best-friend-but-wants-more, the loyal (and adorable) Henry. But things are not 100% fine. Stella feels an ache in her chest that her doctors can’t explain, and every day at 5:08 exactly, she experiences an attack of blinding, debilitating agony. Is it all in her head? Psychological trauma would be normal after a heart transplant, after all. But no counseling and no medication seem to help, and to Stella, it’s very, very real.

When a new (gorgeous) boy joins the senior class at her high school, Stella is instantly drawn to him. Levi is seemingly perfect (did I mention gorgeous?), and is attracted right away to Stella as well. Weirdly, when Stella is near Levi, the constant aches seem to vanish. Life without pain is quite a temptation (and plus he’s gorgeous), and almost in the blink of an eye, Stella is glued at the hip to her new boyfriend, ditching (and being mean) to Henry and Brynn.

Is Levi really all that perfect? I think not. There’s something suspicious about the connection she feels to him, and he just keeps doing slightly odd things that set my alarm bells a-ringing. Surest sign that Levi is a creep? He pushes Stella to smoke for the first time. She’s a heart transplant patient! For god’s sake, run for the hills, Stella!

Alive is quite a tale. I don’t know why, but I expected something of a supernatural romance (perhaps à la “Return to Me” – did anyone else see that David Duchovny/Minnie Driver movie?). Instead, it quickly becomes clear that this is a horror story. And not just because Stella and Henry have a history of bonding over their shared love of Stephen King.

Stella is plagued by disturbing, bloody hallucinations – bloody handprints on her shirt, seeing a heart oozing blood in the school anatomy lab, and more disturbingly, the drowning death of her baby sister. When a classmate disappears and is later found dead, Stella’s fears grow even more intense, and she finally begins to heed her friends’ warnings about Levi.

And yet my heart still claws for him, storming the prison made from nothing but the bones of my rib cage. It beats so hard that I know it’s trying to fracture my skeleton. I wait for the first shard to puncture my skin or lung.

I really liked the development of the story. Stella just seems like a normal girl at first, a bit of an outsider thanks to her medical condition, trying to fit back into the life she thought she’d never have. And sure, it seems understandable that she basks in the glow of attention from the new boy, even if she is really cruel to cutie-pie Henry along the way. When the story veers off into gushing blood and scary fits, it’s even better. Look, it’s not just a YA love triangle! There’s something icky and scary going on, and my initial guesses about what and why were actually pretty far off.

The author makes great use of heart imagery as Stella contemplates whether she’s falling in love, thinking about what she may have in her heart and what she physically has going on inside her chest at the same time. There are some really stand-out phrases and passages that capture both essences of the heart, and the writing overall flows well and is easy to become lost in. I found myself completely absorbed, only looking up to discover that an hour had gone by!

What didn’t I love? Well, the end seemed a little muddled to me. I wasn’t entirely clear on how the various points came together and why things worked the way they did, although I was satisfied by the ultimate outcome.

Other than that, I had just a few little nitpicks about the plot itself, a major point being how Levi was able to enroll in and attend Stella’s high school without anyone blinking an eye. Without giving away spoilers, I can’t say more about why this point doesn’t really make sense… but there are a few small items like this that seem a bit too convenient or glossed over.

All in all, though, I though Alive was a good scary thrill, with an insta-love plotline that actually supports the overall story in a way that’s justifiable. Alive is tense and hard to put down, and Stella is a really interesting main character. It’s interesting to see inside the mind of a girl who’s gone through what she has, and I enjoyed seeing her growth and development over the arc of the story.

Alive is the debut novel by Chandler Baker, and I look forward to reading more by her in the future.

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The details:

Title: Alive
Author: Chandler Baker
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publication date: June 9, 2015
Length: 368 pages
Genre: YA horror/supernatural
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley