Month: June 2012

The Lost Code

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by Kevin Emerson
ages: 12+
First sentence: “The morning after I arrived at Camp Eden, I drowned for the first time.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the author, whom I met at KidLitCon 2011

Owen is not what you’d call the outdoorsy type. Growing up in the Hub — the caves where people live in the outer reaches of the society — he never really had a chance to go outside, to get much exercise, to enjoy nature. Sure, much of this has to do with the radiation levels from the depleted ozone. But, it’s also because that’s not exactly the person Owen is. So, when he gets a chance to go to Camp Eden — a nature preserve inside a dome that protects the world from the radiation — he takes it. Even if it seems like something he wouldn’t do.

Once there, weird things start happening: he drowns, but doesn’t die. He grows gils, he discovers a secret society. And the people who are supposed to be protecting him and the other campers turn out to be something more… sinister.

The thing that this book really has going for it is that it’s a unique combination of dystopian and fantasy: the world that Emerson builds is clearly dystopian: there’s talk of radiation leaks, and technology that has enabled people to be frozen and reawakened later. But, it’s also fantasy: the evolution of gils, and the set-up of a quest that involves Owen and some friends he makes at camp are clearly not in the realm of the possible. In addition, it’s got that summer-camp feel to it: there are typical power dynamics and interactions (including a romance) that could fit in any YA novel. It truly is a unique hybrid of styles.

Unfortunately, though, it’s all set-up, and it does take a long time to get to where the action really begins. There are a lot of questions, and while many of them are answered by the end, it almost takes too long to get there.

Still, it’s an intriguing enough beginning to make me curious as to where the series will go.

48 Hour Reading Challenge Starting Line

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So, for the next 48 hours, I will be reading as much as possible. No, I’m not going to read for the ENTIRE 48 hours, but I’m going to aim for at least 24. As always, thanks to my dear hubby who watches the kids and lets me lounge around reading for two full days once a year. He’s a dear.

Two more quick things. One: Pam wants us to donate something to Reading is Fundamental, as part of this whole readathon. So, here’s my goal: one dollar per hour spent, or $25, whichever is greater.

And two: here’s the pile I’m working from. Thought you’d like to see it. 🙂

(That’s the other TBR pile, mostly of ARCs from publishers — on the left — and work — on the right.) Here’s hoping I can make a dent.

And… I’m off!

The Serpent’s Shadow

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by Rick Riordan
ages: 11+
First sentence: “Sadie Kane here.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire

It’s the end of the world. Seriously. Apophis is rising and is going to swallow the sun, sending the whole world into Chaos. And the gods, from the dotty old man Ra down to Carter and Sadie Kane’s father in the underworld, are powerless to stop it.

Which means, saving the world is up to a 12- and 14-year-old.  Can they trust the dead, somewhat evil, ghost magician and go through with their certifiably insane plan? And if they do, will it actually work? (And in the meantime, can they figure out their love lives?)

I’m not sure that I have anything original to say about this one, that I haven’t said about the other two in the series. It’s still a fun adventure, and Carter and Sadie are still acting way older than their age (though Riordan deftly acknowledges this: he has a throw away line about how kids who channel gods and are technically orphans tend to act older). I still think the whole channeling gods thing is weird, though, again, Riordan deals with this in a clever way, addressing the readers’ concerns through the voice of Sadie.  It’s not as funny as the Olympus books, but there are moments of laughter. I do have to admit, that Riordan ended the series well. There are a few loose ends, so he could revisit Carter and Sadie if he wanted to (including a vague reference to joining up with “other gods”, which should make Percy fans happy), but this story is complete.  (And he managed without an overlong epilogue telling us where Carter and Sadie are in 20 years!)

It’s not my favorite series, or even my favorite of Riordan’s work, but it’s a good solid one, that should appeal to those fascinated by Egypt and Egyptian mythology.

Three Times Lucky

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by Shelia Turnage
ages: 9+
First sentence: “Trouble cruised into Tupelo Landing at exactly seven minutes past noon on Wednesday, the third of June, flashing a gold badge and driving a Chevy Impala the color of dirt.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.

It was all just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. See, Mo (that’s short for Moses; and yes, she is a girl) LoBeau’s (emphasis on the second syllable because it classes it up) friend Dale (Earnheart Junior III) just wanted to borrow Mr. Jesse’s boat, and then decided to return it for a “finders fee.” It wasn’t Dale’s fault Mr. Jesse turned up dead.

Honest.

(It has occurred to me that I’ve read a number of middle grade books with dead people recently. Must be a trend…)

From there, of course, Mr. Jesse’s murder (It’s not grisly, at all. Promise.) turns the tiny, rural, North Carolina town of Tupelo Landing upside down. And Mo and Dale are smack dab in the middle of it. To clear Dale’s name, they set out trying to solve the mystery, and are thwarted at every turn by Detective Joe Starr, the adult who’s (really) working the case. Mo and Dale keep at it, though, because the whole case somehow seems to involve the Colonel and Miss Lana, the two people to whom Mo, an orphan, is closest.
Honestly: I’ve read my share of Southern novels, and so I figured it was just another run-of-the-mill, murder-mystery-light/Southern thing. But I couldn’t put it this book down. In addition to murder, this book has everything: drama, car racing, suspense, plucky kids, arch-enemies, robbery, unrequited love, and karate.  It’s everything Southern, but the pecan pie. (And I’m sure that would have shown up, had the book been set at Thanksgiving instead of during the summer.) There’s a little something for everyone here, which makes any book appealing.

But the real reason to fall in love with this book — as I did — is because Turnage has created a wonderful couple of characters in Mo (“My heart leaped like the cheerleader I will never be.”) and Dale (“Dale may not know much from the classroom, but his recess skills are legendary.”). In fact, all the characters, from Miss Lana (“I passed the wigs to Miss Lana, completing her Hollywood Through the Ages collection. Miss Lana has a flair for drama.”) and the Colonel (“Miss Lana says hugging the Colonel’s like hugging a turning plow.”), down to Mayor Little (“We always choose a Little for mayor in case a television crew ever comes to town. Littles like to talk and they’re naturally neat; even their babies dress good.”) and aspiring lawyer Skeeter (“Rumor has it she’s already written to Matchbook University for a paralegal course under an assumed name. She won’t say if that’s true or false, only that unsubstantiated rumor won’t hold up in court.”) pop off the page, and it’s entirely because of the way Turnage writes.

It’s also the small-town, rural Southern feel: kids biking everywhere, technology limited because coverage is spotty, rusted cars on lawns. It’s a place caught out of time, perfect for two kids to have the adventure of a summer. And perhaps to learn a little bit about themselves, and the meaning of family, in the process.

For us, it means an perfectly charming book. Period.

Good Omens

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by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
ages: adult
First sentence: “It was a nice day.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

This is one of those “everything but the kitchen sink” kind of books. There’s witches (who carry bread knives around for protection, because that’s the sort of witch they are) and witch hunters. Prophetesses (well, one: who wrote the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, which is surprisingly correct) and anti-Christs (well, one. He’s eleven.). Demons and angels. Not to mention the four riders of the Apocalypse, as well as several telephone salespeople.

And all are headed toward Lower Tadfield. Because, of course, that’s where the End of the World/The Great War/Impending Doom is going to take place.

I adore Gaiman and Pratchett separately, so I figure together (and, yes, it was about time I read this book!) they’d be brilliant. And they were. So much so, that I think I missed a good 60% of the jokes. Completely. It’s not that I didn’t like the book: I did. I laughed at parts, I kept turning pages, I did love bits and pieces of it. But really (and Hubby says it’s because I haven’t seen The Omen, nor do I have plans to), I felt like I was sitting in on a conversation where I got some of what was being talked about, but was, for the most part, left completely out to pasture.

Which means, although it’s brilliant (I really did like the forward and afterward in my 2006 edition), it’s not my favorite Gaiman or Pratchett.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

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by Jennifer E. Smith
ages: 13+
First sentence: “There are so many ways it could have all turned out differently.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Hadley Sullivan is being forced to go to her father’s second marriage. To a woman (That British Woman) she’s never met. In London. It’s not a happy idea, and when all sorts of little things go wrong, she ends up missing her flight. Which means making it to the wedding will be tough.

Then she meets Oliver. In the airport. They strike up a conversation, and it turns out that they’ll be sitting next to each other on the plane.  They end up talking on and off the entire flight, and by the time they land in London, Hadley’s starting to wonder: could this attraction be something… more?

For long-term readers of my blog, you know that I have Issues with True Love and Love at First Sight and Fate. And this book deals with all three. So, by any measurement, I should have hated it. But I didn’t.

I think it was possibly because the book isn’t wholly about True Love. Sure, Hadley meets Oliver, they fall into… something… but it’s really about her relationship with her father, whom she hasn’t forgiven for divorcing her mother a year ago. It makes the book a bit angsty, but for me, her struggles to understand and accept her father’s decision, to realize that he’s not Evil (and neither is her stepmother) balanced out the sappy of the True Love.

Except, it wasn’t sappy. It felt more natural — and even though Hadley’s hunting down Oliver when in London seemed improbable, I could still believe it — and because the book only took place over 24 hours, it made it less cloying. It was really a book about beginnings, sweet and tender. Sure, maybe Hadley and Oliver’s relationship will work out for Forever, or maybe it’ll fall apart once school starts, but that’s immaterial. It’s a beginning. It’s a story.

And that’s honestly the best part.

Sunday Salon: State of the TBR Pile 8

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A new month: a new pile.I do have to confess, that my pile was down to three books (She Walks These Hills, The Sherlockian, and My Life as an Experiment), and so I picked up any and all books that looked interesting the last time I was at the library, so my pile didn’t look so lonely. Yes, I am hopeless.

Yes, Chef, by Marcus Samuelsson (because I was in the mood for something foody, and I happen to have this ARC from work)
Breaking Stalin’s Nose, by Eugine Yelchin
The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander (because I’m due for a re-read)
She Walks These Hills, by Sharyn McCrumb (no longer for my in-person book club — we abandoned because of one f-bomb — I’m still curious about it.)
The Returning, by Christine Hinwood (because I like the cover)
Ghost Knight, by Cornelia Funke (because Charlotte liked it)
The Books of Elsewhere: The Shadows, by Jacqueline West(because it’s about bloody time I read these)
The Books of Elsewhere: Spellbound, by Jacqueline West
Sloppy Firsts, by Megan McCafferty (because Sya in my book group said it was good, I think.)
The Sherlockian, by Graham Moore (this poor book; will I ever read it??)

What’s on your pile?

Audiobook: Cinder

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by Marissa Meyer
Read by: Rebecca Soler
ages: 12+
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Cinder is a cyborg — part human, part machine — which puts her at the fringe of the New Beijing society. She’s just a mechanic, even if she is a good one, and just barely tolerated by her stepmother and stepsisters. (Well, one of her stepsisters, Peony, is her friend. The other, not so much.)

Then, once day the crown prince Kaito shows up at her booth, dragging an android that needs to be fixed. And Cinder’s world — for better and for worse — is changed forever.

I should get this out of the way for all of you who haven’t read it: yes, this is a first in the series. I somehow missed this fact, and so by the end of the book, when it was clear that it wasn’t going to be wrapped up in one story, I was pretty frustrated. I think, if I had known this would go on longer, I would have been less impatient with the story.

Because, really: it took too long to tell. I know it didn’t help that I figured out the twist a little ways into Book 2, but really: this story could have been told sufficiently in one book; making it a series just felt forced to me.

That said, there were elements I did like: I liked Cinder’s android friend, Iko, and Cinder’s relationship with her. I liked Cinder, and the way her cyborg elements helped, enhancing her as a character. I liked the doctor (I don’t remember his name; since I listened to it.), and his role in the story. I liked the world that Meyer built: part dystopian, part fairy tale. I did like the way she was morphing the Cinderella story into something else: the basic elements were still there, but melded quite well with the world that Meyer created. I loved the reader: she was brilliant, and her reading made the story pop.

I guess, in the end, the positives of the book outweigh my frustration at the story taking too long to tell.

Ilium

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by Dan Simmons
ages: adult
First sentence: “Rage.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

There are books and then there are Books. Ones that throw their heft around, demanding things (heaven forbid!) of you as a reader. This is one of Those Books.

To be fair: I don’t think I’m smart enough for this book. For starters, there’s just so bloody much going on. It’s got Greek mythology, dystopian post-apocolyptic societies, Proust, Shakespeare (in more ways than one!), magic, technology, robots, some weird species called morovecs, and Little Green Men on Mars.

The plot, you ask? Well, there’s three:

  • On Mars, the Gods of Olympus are re-enacting (possibly) the Iliad, using dead 20th- and 21st- century scholars to observe and predict the action. 
  • On Earth (possibly), there is a group of friends who end up setting off to find the post-humans (no, I’m not quite sure what they are, either) and end up meeting a 1400-year-old Jewish woman who leads them to an asteroid above earth where the post-humans are supposed to be. Along the way, one of the party gets eaten by a dinosaur (or maybe that happens first?) and they meet Odysseus.
  • There are two moravecs (robotic entities, mostly scholars of Earth, that live on the moons of Jupiter) sent on a mission to figure out why Mars has been terraformed.

 For me, the Iliad one was the most interesting, and really what kept me reading the book. Then came the dystopian-human-Earth one. I do have to admit, that for a good half of the book, I skimmed the moravec chapters. I can only take so much Proust. That said, I kept hoping the three plots would converge and start to make sense. They do end up converging — and honestly, about two-thirds of the way through, it got really interesting — but I’m not sure about the making sense part.

See, the entire book, all 570 pages of it, was an elaborate set up for the next book, Olympos. (I’ve never read the Iliad: is it just a huge set-up for the Odyssey?) Which really, really frustrated me. I wanted some sort of ending, some sort of resolution, and I’m left hanging in a major way. So, I’m torn: do I want to read yet another Book (it’s 690 pages, for heaven’s sake!) just so I can figure out what the whole story was about? Or do I just cut my losses and walk away?

I’m leaning toward the latter.