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?

State of the TBR Pile: March 2016

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It’s spring! And with spring comes all sorts of fun reading. Or maybe that’s just me being hopeful. I’ve got a mix of old and new (and ones I really should get to) on the pile these days…

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Summer Days and Summer Nights ed. by Stephanie Perkins
Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Egar
The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry
The Haters by by Jesse Andrews
Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum
The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk
Nocturnals by Tracey Hecht
Flawed by Cecelia Ahern

What’s on your TBR pile?

A Darker Shade of Magic

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darkershadeby V. E. Schwab
First sentence: “Kell wore a very peculiar coat.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are three f-bombs, some reference to sex (but none actual) and a lot of violence. That said, I think it’d be a good crossover for the high school set. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

I want you to know up front that whatever I write here won’t do this book any sort of justice. I really do need to work on an elevator speech for this one at work, because it really is THAT good, and I’d love it if more people read it. But, summing up the plot? Not as easy as it sounds.

Kell is many things: a brother, a prince, a magician, a smuggler. He lives in what he calls “Red” London, a world of magic and opulence, where the Thames runs red with blood. The reason he needs to give it a marker other than the city name is because Kell is one of the few people (well, really only two) who can travel between worlds. He moves through doors of his own making to “Grey” London (ours, set in the early-1800s) to “White” London (an incredibly violent and vicious place), but never, ever to Black London. That’s been sealed off from the other worlds after the magic there went bad and began killing people. However, when Kell accidentally brings a token from Black London back into his world, he discovers that he’s created a problem almost too big for him to handle.

I didn’t even mention Lila… a thief and pirate wannabe that Kell picks up in Grey London, who ends up being more than a sidekick.

Seriously: I don’t know where to start with this. It feels like a Gaiman novel, rich and opulent with its world-building, and yet Schwab never forgets the plot (not to mention the palpable tension when Kell’s life is on the line, multiple times). It twists and turns and weaves and is just unputdownable.

It’s also nice that it comes to a conclusion (albeit a bit rushed, but that’s often the case for me in fantasy novels), while leaving the door open for the sequel. Which, of course, I can’t wait to get my hands on.

The Magnificent Mya Tibbs: Spirit Week Showdown

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spiritweekshowdownby Crystal Allen
First sentence: “I’m only wearing five braids to school today.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy snagged from the ARC shelves at the bookstore.
Content: There’s a bit of mean girl-ness, and bullying, but the language is simple and the story pretty straight-forward. Give it to a strong second grade reader and up.

Fourth grader Mya Tibbs’s elementary school always has a Spirit Week competition right before the fall festival in their small Texas town. It’s always a tough competition, but this year the stakes are higher: VIP seats to the festival. Mya is sure that she and her best friend, Naomi, are going to win. Except they don’t get chosen as partners: Mya is paired with the school bully, Connie. And she won’t trade. Which makes Naomi more than mad, it means that she and Mya are no longer best friends. Period.

But as Spirit Week goes on, Mya realizes that she’s having fun with Connie, and that maybe things aren’t exactly what they seem.

This was such a charming school story.  The stakes weren’t high, but a fourth grader, they were high enough. Friendship is important, as is doing something fun and doing it well. And even though the whole pageantry of the Spirit Week felt really implausible (all the people were SO good at everything they did!), I rolled with it. I liked that Mya figured out what a real friend is like, and found out that she could stay true to her interests and herself on her own time line. It was wonderful that the main character was a person of color, as well. It’s a great early chapter book.

The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle

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charmedchildrenby Janet Fox
First sentence: “It is 1863.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: March 15, 2016
Content: There’s some scary imagery, and the narrative is a bit confusing. I’d give it to a precocious 3rd grader, but definitely 4th and up. It will be in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

At first glance (at least for me), this looks like a kind of off-beat historical fiction. It’s the middle of WWII, and the children in London are being sent out to the countryside in order to escape the bombing. Kat and her siblings Robbie and Amelie are among those kids sent away, in this case to a castle in Scotland where a boarding school of sorts has been set up.

But things aren’t always what they seem. Including this book.

Rookskill Castle is a dark place (and not just because fall in Scotland is dreary), and the lady of the castle is up to something. Kat is sensible and practical, and not at all inclined to believe that what it going on could be dark magic.

And yet.

I loved this book, with reservation. On the one hand, the story was compelling — by the end, I was flying through it — and I adored Kat. She was practical, mechanically-minded and good at math, all things you don’t usually get from fantasy heroines. She was also willing to admit when she’s scared, and the boys were mostly willing to support her in the decisions that had to be made.

However,  I have issues when I know more than the characters. Fox flits back and forth through time, from WWII backwards to the mid-1800s, in order to give the reader the backstory of the castle. I’m not the most careful reader, and so I was able to piece things together before the characters did. I’ll admit it kind of heightened the tension — I wanted Kat to figure things out before they got too bad — but I was also annoyed that it took her so long. In the end, I found I didn’t mind so much, but it did niggle at the back of my mind while I was reading,.

The magic, however, was great. I loved the way Fox wove good vs. dark magic, and how it was a very practical sort of magic as well. That much — plus the  general, overall creepiness — definitely nakes the book worth reading.

First Sunday Daughter Reviews: March 2016

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Happy (almost) Spring! I’d say it feels like it here, but we never really had much of a winter. It is nice to see flowers coming up though. (On the downside: allergies are back in swing. Yippee!)

We started watching the Shadowhunters TV show, and A got into it so much, she plowed through these:

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She has all the feels.

I brought home an advance copy of this for K

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She LOVED it. Seriously. Thought it was wild and fun.

M and E are reading Antigone in class. They’re familiar with the story already, and are loving the reactions of the class as they go through the story. We do love our Greeks around here.

What are you reading this month?

Driving Heat

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drivingheatby Richard Castle
First sentence: “The last thing Nikki Heat expected when she received her promotion to captain of the NYPD was how much the proud expression on Rook’s face in the audience would make her want him.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Heat Wave, Naked Heat, Heat Rises, Frozen Heat, Deadly Heat, Raging Heat  (Yes, I really have read the whole series.)
Content : Loads of f-bombs (though less than other books, I think), plus some tasteful sexytimes. It’s in the adult mystery section at the bookstore.

I realized, at some point while reading this, that I don’t actually remember much of what happened in the 7th season of Castle (not its best season) and I waited a lot longer before getting around to this one, so I really didn’t pick up on all the show references in the book. Which means, I was forced to take it on its own merit.

Nikki Heat has been promoted to captain and has to deal with the new pressures that come with that job. It doesn’t help that she catches a high-profile case right off the bat: the murder of a police psychologist, Lon King. HER psychologist. It’s not an easy death for Heat to deal with, especially since King had been helping her deal with her feelings about her impending marriage to Jamison Rook.

But, things aren’t always as it seems, and soon one murder turns into five (and the entire NYPD gets hacked)  as Heat and Rook try and solve this case.

Y’know, on its own merit, these still aren’t bad. The mystery was complex enough that I didn’t quite figure it out (though it did leave out one crucial piece of information, I think, in order to fully solve the mystery)  but it wasn’t super out of left field when they finally figured it all out. The plotting’s good, the writing’s not half-bad (I’ve read worse), and aside from a few editing mistakes (c’mon editors, get your act together. I know you’re trying to churn these out but, take a deep  breath and double check your work), it really is a halfway decent (if pulpy) mystery series.

Rebel of the Sands

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rebelofthesandsby Alwyn Hamilton
First sentence: “They said the only folks who belonged in Deadshot after dark were the ones who were up to no good.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: March 8, 2016
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s some pretty disturbing violence near the end of the book. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

The store’s Penguin children’s rep (whom I adore, and not just because she’s got an Irish accent) told me when she handed me the ARC of this book that it was Totally Brilliant and that I was going to Totally Love It. (Just imagine that in an Irish accent. She’s great.) I said okay, I’ll read it. And then it got stuck on the back burner. Things crept up, and then A stole it from me and plowed through it. And she said that it was really really good and I should totally read it. And still it was on the back burner.

(This is less a review a more of a “why didn’t I read this SOONER” post. Sorry.)

But then a day came when I was shuffling through my shelves and piles looking for something Really Good, and this finally Called to me.

And as I plowed through the first two chapters — in which our heroine, Amani Al’Hiza finds herself in a shooting contest in order to get out of her dead-end desert town and away from her lecherous uncle and demanding aunt — and was hooked. Seriously. I was reminded of Harry from The Blue Sword and of Katsa from Graceling and I was in love. I plowed through this book like I didn’t have to work or do dishes or manage four kids in the house.  (Some people are calling it East Meets West — it’s set in a Middle Eastern-like country, with djinn but there’s guns — but I disagree. Sure, it’s pulling on all influences, but I really didn’t get the whole “Western” vibe. It’s a fantasy with guns instead of swords. I can go with that.) I loved the characters (yeah, so I called the love interest from the first chapter, but I did love the twists that came), I loved the complexity of the mythology Hamilton created, I loved that she didn’t give me a clean ending. (I didn’t love that it’s probably not a stand-alone, but at least it came to a conclusion.) It definitely hit all the right buttons for me.

Which leads me to say, don’t do what I did and put this one off. It really is THAT good.

In My Spare Time…

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I’ve been working on getting the site and dates for KidlitCon 2016 settled. I haven’t settled on a site yet, but since all the places I’m looking at have the same date open, I went ahead and settled on that.

KidlitCon 2016 will be here in Wichita on October 14 and 15.

I’ll have hotel information and a site here soon (probably within the week unless something drastic happens in my life to put that off), and then we can start working on keynote and content.

At any rate, stick the date on your calendar, and I hope to see you here!

Monthly Round-Up: February 2016

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Somehow, this month, I feel like I fell behind. I really don’t know why. Probably has something to do with four girls pulling me in four different directions, plus a husband, plus a job that takes some of my time, plus there are actually more TV shows I’m watching (one per girl, really. A quick aside, we’re actually quite liking the Shadowhunters TV series, but mostly because everyone’s so pretty to look at.). But I feel like there’s just less time for reading than there used to be.

Times and seasons, I guess.

My favorite of the ones that got read this month, though was this one:

iamprincessxI Am Princess X

There were a lot of good ones, though, this month. The rest:

YA:

salttothesea hellogoodbye schoolforbrides

Salt to the Sea
Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between
A School for Brides (audiobook)

Non-Fiction:

wild littledribbling radioactive

Wild (audiobook)
The Road to Little Dribbling
Radioactive

Middle Grade:

keytoextraordinary fridays

The Key to Extraordinary
Fridays With the Wizards

Graphic Novel

firelight
Amulet: Firelight

What were some of your favorites this month?

Amulet: Firelight

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firelightby Kazu Kibuishi
First sentence: “Okay, Emily. I think this is a good place to start.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper’s Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council, Prince of the Elves, Escape from Lucien
Content: There’s a lot going on, and sometimes the vocabulary is a bit challenging, it’s good for a strong 2nd or 3rd grade reader. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) graphic novel section of the bookstore.

Picking up where we left off in the last book…

The powers of the stone are getting more, well, powerful. Emily’s nightmares are beginning to become more intense, and her control over the stone is slipping. And yet, she and Trellis head to Algos Island to recover Trellis’s memories, so they can defeat his father, the evil Elf King. Navin meanwhile, needs to head back to the resistance and there’s a delightful side trip with a sassy robot chef (and an encounter with some elf bounty hunters) before he does. But everything (as it often happens with epic adventures) doesn’t go according to their plan.

I feel like a broken record with this series. I love it, I buy it, I read it, and I want the next one immediately. (I’m kind of beginning to think that I should have waited until all 9 were out… But then I might not have started.) I adore Kibuishi’s art. I can sense where the story is going, but I’m also wondering how it all fits together. (Mostly because I forget parts from one book to the next. I really should do a reread one of these days.) But, I’m not going to give up on Emily, Trellis and Navin. I most definitely want to see how their story ends.

Especially after this installment.