Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle

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hiddenoracleby Rick Riordan
First sentence: “My name is Apollo.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Well, it’s the first one, but it helps if you’ve read Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus series first.
Content: There’s no swearing, and only some violence. Riordan hints at an abusive relationship, but there’s nothing graphic. I’d give it to a 10-year-old who loves the Percy world. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) with the Heroes of Olympus and Magnus Chase because it feels right there.

I think the best way to review this is to go over the arc that A — who read it before I did — expressed.

  1. Apollo is awful, I hate this book. She’s right: Apollo is awful. But: character growth. I was glad to see Apollo change from a first-class ass to a halfway decent human being by the end. That said, there were some nice touches, even if they were annoying: the “Me Cabin” and his daily affirmation (“You are beautiful, and everyone loves you.”) both made me smile.
  2. Meg is fantastic.  A new character, a daughter of Demeter, and also the person Apollo is (accidentally) pledged to serve, she’s a great character. More Meg please.
  3. Will and Nico are adorable. All the fangirl feels. Yes please.
  4. Haiku! This one’s mine. I loved the (bad) haiku at every chapter. A’s favorite:
    Practice makes perfect
    Ha, ha, ha, I don’t think so
    Ignore my sobbing
  5. As for plot, etc? It wasn’t bad. Riordan wrapped up some loose ends that I never really considered loose ends, but it’s nice to know. He did break a couple of rules (too spoilery to tell, but left me kind of meh) that he’d set up, but other than that, it was a basic hero-quest, and I liked that it took place entirely at Camp Half Blood (over a short period of time). I liked the Big Bad he’s created (no more Huge Gods being Scary); he kept this one small and simple.

Was it the best book I’ve ever read? No. But it was lots of fun. Which is all I really wanted.

More Lumberjanes

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lumberjanes2Lumberjanes, Vol 2: Friendship to the Max
Lumberjanes, Vol 3: A Terrible Plan
by Noelle Stevenson & Grace Ellis
Support your local independent bookstore: buy vol 2 here, and buy vol 3 here!
Content: There’s some violence, a bit of kissing, but mostly, it’s okay for ages 10 and up. It’s in the teen graphic novel section of the bookstore.
Others in the series: Beware the Kitten Holy

A, K, and I all fell head over heels for the Lumberjanes, so we ran out and go volumes 2 and 3 in quick succession. Both are individual story arcs in their own right, so it’s really not something you need to read in order (though I suppose it helps). In Friendship, our illustrious Lumberjanes find out that there’s a Greek God in their midst, one whose set upon causing mischief, and they have to figure out how to stop them. It’s definitely my favorite of the three; there’s a ton of humor and action, and Jen (their illustrious cabin leader) even gets to play a pivotal role.

However, none of us really got into a Terrible Plan all that much. Mal and Molly are off on a picnic and end up following the Bear Lady down a portal into another dimension. They’re off trying to figure out their relationship (and how to get back) while the others are trying to earn badges. That, actually, was my favorite part: April, Jo, and Ripley trying to decorate cakes, make beds, dance, and just do Anything that doesn’t involve the Supernatural. Pretty funny stuff. But the art changed, and it while doesn’t seem like that should really make a difference, it did. It was more difficult to get into the story line, and to connect with the characters when they didn’t look like they were supposed to.

Maybe that’s nitpicking, and I’ll probably check out the next Lumberjanes (assuming there is one). But, the first two volumes are definitely the best.

State of the TBR Pile: May 2016

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Happy Mother’s Day, if you celebrate that! I recently decided that my piles of TBR books were out of control (no surprise), and since I’m the sort of person who doesn’t like out of control things (much), I sat down with E and A and we went through and tossed all the books that sounded “lame”. This is what I’m left with (that comes out in May and June. I haven’t even looked at the year past that. It just keeps growing), that sounded remotely interesting.

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The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett
Nothing Up My Sleeve by Diana Lopez
When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin
If I was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed
With Malice by Eileen Cook
Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee
And I Darken by Kiersten White
The End of Fun by Sean McGinty
The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry
The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley
Ms. Bixby’s Last Day by John David Anderson
Everland by Wendy Spinale
The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood
Summer Days and Summer Nights ed. by Stephanie Perkins

Whew, that’s a lot! What’s currently on your TBR pile?

Counting Thyme

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countingthymeby Melanie Conklin
First sentence: “When someone tells you your little brother might die, you’re quick to agree to anything.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s a slight bit of romance (no kissing, just like likeing), but otherwise, it’s great for 4th grade on up. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Thyme has a good life: a best friend, a home near her grandmother in sunny San Diego. But her younger brother has a rare form cancer, and an opportunity for a new treatment has opened up in New York City. Suddenly, Thyme’s good life is taken away from her: in the middle of her sixth grade year her family up and moves. To say she’s not happy with this is an understatement.

It doesn’t help that home isn’t the best place. The treatment is hard on her younger brother, which puts everyone on edge. Her older sister is lobbying for more freedom, which terrifies her mother. And Thyme is just trying to find a place to fit in at school; it’s so very different from home. Which is where she’d rather be.

Cancer books are a dime a dozen, it seems like, so it takes something different to make one stand out. Told from the perspective of a sibling rather than the cancer patient helps. But it’s really the fish out of water theme that makes this one stand out for me. Sure, Conklin captures the stress cancer treatment puts on a family and how difficult it is for everyone, not just the cancer patient. But the parts I liked better were the ones where Thyme was torn between her old life and making a new one. That feeling of being in two places, of having to start over when you move is one that’s hard to capture. And I think Conklin did that well. I liked the variety of people — from the grumpy downstairs neighbor to the Italian babysitter to the friends the Thyme made at school — that populated the book.

A good read.

Audio book: Six of Crows

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sixofcrowsby Leigh Bardugo
Read by: Jay Snyder, Brandon Rubin, David LeDoux, Lauren Fortgang, Roger Clark, Elizabeth Evans, and Tristan Morris
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is a lot of violence, some of it on the graphic side. Illusions to prostitution, and two swear words (they stood out). It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8), but I’m glad I read it. It’s probably on par with Hunger Games, so if your kid/you can handle the content of that, this one is probably okay.

I put this one off. I know I did. I know I should have read it last fall when it was Hot and Everyone was reading it. But, I was busy, and I kept putting it off. Until I was in need of a new audio book and I stumbled across this one. I finished it, went into work and declared “So THAT’S what I was missing!” Yeah.

Kaz Brekker has worked his way up in the Dregs — a criminal gang in the island city/nation of Ketterdam — and has a reputation for being brutal and willing to take anything on. So when he’s tasked with springing a scientist out of the most secure prison in the world — the Ice Fortress in Fjerda — of course he accepts. The price is right, after all. He gathers together a crew of six people — ranging from a merchant’s exiled son to a Grisha —  and they set out to achieve the impossible. Of course, they don’t get along, there’s a lot of internal mistrust and bickering. And, of course, things go badly. (I was wondering how it was all going to fit in one book. The answer is it does but it doesn’t.)

This was enormous amounts of fun. Perhaps part of that fun was the audio form: there were five different people doing the five different narrators, which helped immensely. I really enjoyed the way each one did the other characters slightly differently as well as the way each actor interpreted their own character. It definitely added something more to the book.

I have to admit that I liked this one better than the Grisha books. For whatever reason, I love heist books, I love books with twists and turns (though some of the twists were unfair; she didn’t give me enough information to see things coming and I was genuinely surprised a couple of times) and this one had both. I came to like the characters — Matthais the Fjorden had the most character growth (I wanted to throttle him in the beginning), but I loved the rest of the crew as well. I liked the diversity — it felt effortless and natural rather than an author just trying to be diverse. Bardugo expanded the narrow world she’d created in the Grisha books, and gave it much more depth, which I absolutely adored.

I’ll most definitely be picking up the next one (maybe even in audio) to see how this adventure ends.

First Sunday Daughter Reviews: May 2016

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I’m not the only one not reading a lot around here.  Life certainly has gotten busy for all of us, and reading — especially reading for pleasure — isn’t on the top of the list. Which, not surprisingly, makes me sad.

C’s group bailed on Code Name Verity (boo!) (Though E’s group is still going strong, and she’s actually kind of liking it.), and has instead chosen to read To Live. However, the next Kiera Cass book comes out on Tuesday, so that’s really what she’s looking forward to reading:

9780062392176 I do have a mild beef with this one — for whatever reason, there’s a Super Special Exclusive edition with a Super Special Epilogue (guess which one C wants), and it’s only available through Barnes and Noble. And as an employee of an independent bookstore, I was a bit miffed (that’s being mild). Yeah, I did pre-order it through B&N (I love my daughter) and it’s getting shipped to the house (convenient, sure). But aside from shopping at the competition, my complaint is this: go ahead and do super special stuff for your book and your fans, but don’t favor one place to purchase the book over another. (At least when Rick Riordan does it, he does something Super Special — and different — for each place the book is sold.)

A has been working on reading non-fiction this past week or so for school. But what she’s REALLY looking forward to is this:

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She’s VERY excited about this one. (And as a side note: we’re one of a handful of stores that got a Deluxe Trials of Apollo Party Kit — I now have an Official Camp Half Blood shirt! — which I’m throwing on May 14th. I’m actually quite excited about this one.)

K has fallen for these:

lumberjanes1So much that she nags me about picking them up from the library. And she reads them over and over. We may just have to buy them! Ripley is her favorite. (Mine, too.)

What are your kids reading this month?

Monthly Round-Up: April 2016

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It was a crazy month; lots of drama around the house, and I really don’t think I’m reading as much as I used to. Times and seasons, no? That said, I did read some, and my favorite (no surprise), was this one:

ravenking

Raven King

It was such a great ending to a fantastic series.

Oh, and a couple of pics from the event last night:

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And after:

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And what I ended up writing on the car cover:

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She was amazing. That’s really not overstating it.

As for the others…

Middle Grade:

raymie aintsoawful terribletwogetworse

Raymie Nightingale
The Terrible Two Get Worse
It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel

Young Adult:

winnerskiss wolfhollow lovegelato

The Winner’s Kiss
Love & Gelato
Wolf Hollow

Non-Fiction:

furiouslyhappy quietpower

Furiously Happy (audio book)
Quiet Power

Graphic Novel:

phoebe lumberjanes1

Phoebe and Her Unicorn
Lumberjanes: Beware the Kitten Holy

What were your favorites this month?

The Raven King

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ravenkingby Maggie Stiefvater
First sentence: “Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lilly, Lilly Blue
Content: Like the others, this is intense, heavy on the swearing and violence.

I’m always a little sad when a series I’ve loved for years comes to an end. I get so invested, waiting for each one, that it almost feels anticlimactic when it actually comes to an end. I feel let down that I no longer will get to look forward to visiting with characters I love, following their story through pages.

Sometimes, my expectations are too high and while I like the ending, I’m not wholly satisfied with it. However, this was not the case with the last in the Raven Cycle. (No, I didn’t read the others in anticipation. Maybe I should have.) Maggie Stiefvater has come up with an ending that is so perfect for the series, that captures everything, that ends it so wonderfully, that I am genuinely sad that I will not get to visit this world again. (Well, I mean, I can always re-read, but there will be nothing NEW.)

The plot is really immaterial: there’s something attacking Cabeswater, Blue and the boys are dealing with Great Things and small things. There’s a new character, Henry, who has showed up as a minor character before (or at least I got that impression, since, you know, I didn’t reread), but I fell in love with him as much as I do Blue and the boys. He melded perfectly into the Raven Boys, and played a pivotal role in the narrative; he wasn’t just window dressing. And while the psychics weren’t as much a part of this — it is a YA novel after all — I did love them and Mr. Gray when they showed up. The sum total? It really was everything I could have hoped for in the end.

Maggie’s going to be at Watermark Friday night. I’m going to be a basket case, gushing at her about this. It’s going to be wonderful as this ending.

It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel

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aintsoawfulby Firoozeh Dumas
First sentence: “Today’s Sunday and we’re moving, again.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s no swearing (well, maybe a mild one) but the subject matter — middle school and the Iran Revolution in 1978 — might be a little mature for the younger set. It will be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section (or the YA — grades 6-8 — section, I haven’t decided) of the bookstore.

I was in third grade in 1981 when the American hostages in Iran were released and I have a vague memory of it. Nothing substantive, just some hazy images of me seeing the news on TV. I don’t know much else about that, and even though I’ve read a bit about the Iranian revolution, that’s one aspect that I didn’t know much about.

Zomorod Yousefzadeh is in America because her father has a job with an oil company in California. They’ve been here before, when Zomorod was younger, but now she’s going into 6th grade, and she wants to turn over a new leaf. Be more American. So, she changes her name to Cindy and sets out to make new friends. It’s not easy being Iranian in California in the late 1970s (most people either think she’s Mexican, or ask her if she owns a camel. The answer is no to both), but eventually, Cindy figures things out. And then the Iranian revolution happens, and suddenly the home she and her parents thought they could go back to is no longer there. Add to that, Americans were taken hostage, and suddenly Cindy and her parents find themselves subjected to anti-Iranian sentiment. Her father loses his job. Garbage is left on their doorstep. Kids at school tell her to “go home”. It’s not easy.

Loosely based on Dumas’ life, this novel not only captures a slice of history (fairly accurately, but without being kitschy) but also manages to be timely as well. I found myself thinking about how Americans reacted to Muslims after 9/11 (or now, really). Or how immigrants are treated in general. It’s a good thing to see American life from the perspective of an immigrant, and to find out that we’re equal parts good and bad. (Which really isn’t a surprise.) Dumas also manages to capture the awkwardness of middle school with grace and humor. There were some actual laugh-out-loud parts. She definitely understands middle school, with all its ups and downs. And it was delightful to read a book where the parents weren’t bad or sick or dead.

It’s definitely an excellent read.

Three Books for National Poetry Month

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This month’s list was obvious: it’s an easy grab to find a few poetry books for teachers. I did pull the Cybils poetry winner because it’s such a great book. For the other two, I picked a novel in verse (which I’ve read and liked) and a poetry collection that I read had good crossover appeal. How did I do? What else could I have picked?

Here’s the list:

9781627791038

Flutter & Hum by Julie Paschkis

9780525428756

Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton

9780812982671

Aimless Love by Billy Collins