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?

Two for the Circular File

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Huntress
by Malinda Lo
ages: 15+
First sentence: “She saw a beach made of ice, and she felt her heart breaking.”
Others in the series: Ash

I really enjoyed Ash, and so I was quite looking forward to this prequel, of sorts. Set in the same world, but centuries before, it’s the story of two girls, a warrior and a seer, who are chosen to go on a mission to the fairy realm. I really don’t know much more than that, because I bailed about 100 pages in. It wasn’t the characters; I found Kaede, the warrior, to be fascinating, though Taisin, the seer, was a bit cloying. It wasn’t their gayness; it’s so matter-of-fact that it wasn’t even an issue, really. I’m thinking it was something about the pacing: it was taking so long for the story to get started that I lost interest before it even began. It was all language and no plot, and I decided that I had better things to read with my time.

The Final Four
by Paul Volponi
ages: 13+
First sentence: “Just because the game clock has stopped, don’t believe for a single second that the hearts of the ten basketball players on the court have quit pounding.”
Review copy provided by the publisher.

This one was easy to pinpoint why I didn’t finish it: I didn’t like the format of the book. The story is of four basketball players: two from each team, Michigan State and Troy University (ha, the Spartans vs. the Trojans), that have made it to the NCAA final round. It alternates between the actual game, and the histories of the four players, as well as the paths they took to get there. But it’s not a straight-forward story: there are TV broadcast transcriptions, newspaper articles, journal entries. I think for some people, this would enhance the reading experience. But for me, I found it distracting, and the whole arc of the story hard to follow. Chalk this one up to being the wrong audience for the book.

Audiobook: Castle in the Air

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by Diana Wynne Jones
Read by Jenny Sterlin
ages: 12+

Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Howl’s Moving Castle

Abdullah is a mediocre carpet merchant in Zanzib, living a terribly boring life. Sure, his daydreams are exciting, full of princesses and beautiful gardens, but his life? It’s just selling carpets and dealing with his father’s first wife’s relations. That is, until a stranger comes by and sells Abdullah a magic carpet.

The first night he has it, he goes to sleep on it and wakes up in the garden of Flower-in-the-Night, a smart, yet naive (and very sequestered) princess. Abdullah, of course, falls instantly in love. Everything was supposed to be happily ever after, but a powerful djinn kidnaps Flower-in-the-Night, and Abdullah’s life suddenly gets more complicated. There’s a cranky genie, a trip to Ingary, falling in with a bitter Strangian soldier, and finally, a castle in the air where Abdullah has to save 30 princesses from their fate of being brides of an evil djinn.

It’s the perfect kind of fairy tale (which is, of course, what DWJ is known for): romance, adventure, humor, magic; sweeping grand panoramas that captivate you fully. No, Howl and Sophie aren’t in this one (well, hardly at all), but that’s really just fine: Abdullah, the pompous flatterer and coward that he is, made up for that. I was constantly rolling my eyes at him — the way that Sterlin made him sound was quite grating at first — but that didn’t mean I didn’t like him. On the contrary, he was quite enjoyable to go on an adventure with, even if he was lovesick and heartily silly.

Sterlin (aside from the grating-at-first Abdullah) was a stellar reader, doing voices for all the different characters and keeping me entertained throughout the story. I’m glad I picked this one as an audiobook; it was definitely an enjoyable way to spend a commute.

Before I Fall

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by Lauren Oliver
ages: 14+
First sentence: “They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not how it happened for me.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Samantha (Sam to her friends) Kingston has it all: popularity, three best friends, a hot boyfriend. Not bad for a senior at Thomas Jefferson High. Then one night, everything goes wrong and she’s killed in a car accident. (Trust me: that’s not a spoiler.) Then she’s given the Groundhog Day treatment (to Oliver’s credit, she tipped her hat in that direction with a mention), and forced to live the last day of her life over (seven times), until she gets it “right”.

I’ll get straight to it, since most of you have already read this one: I hated Sam. I hated her friends. I hated her boyfriend. And yet, I couldn’t put the book down. I think we’re supposed to hate Sam at the beginning (while I never really liked her, I didn’t hate her as much by the end), we’re not supposed to like the person she is or the choices she’s making. Because, honestly: she and her friends were the girls I despised in high school. They were, as another character says, bitches. (Sorry. There really is no better word.) So, that I actually could tolerate Sam (though I understood her friends by the end, I didn’t like any of them, and wondered why Sam would hang out with them) is a marvel of good writing.

There’s a lot to think about in this one, too. Choices, especially in regards to friends. As M pointed out, why Sam turned her back on the nerd she was in order to be “popular.” (That’s a crime in M’s mind. I don’t blame her.) And then the progression of learning that she went through. For the record: day five was my favorite.

Was it a comfortable, happy read? No. Was it a good one? Well, surprisingly, yes. There’s a lot to think about, and while you’ll probably hate the characters too, I bet you won’t be able to put it down either.

Karma

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by Cathy Ostlere
ages: 13+
First sentence: “How to begin.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

It’s 1984 and Maya (to her mother; Jiva to her father; she’s half Hindu, half Sikh) is growing up in nowhere Manitoba. It’s not the best place; the town is small enough and isolated enough that Maya and her parents stand out.  And not in a good way. Even so, it’s “home” to Maya, even if it isn’t to her parents.

Her mother dies, and Maya and her father decide to take her ashes back (“home”) to India. They get to New Delhi just as Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, which sets off mass violence and murder of Sikhs. Her father, being one, finds that his life is suddenly in peril, and leaves fifteen-year-old Maya (!) in their hotel to fend for herself. This, of course, is not a good thing: the hotel is attacked, Maya sees a man murdered before her eyes, and has a complete psychological breakdown. She is thankfully rescued by a kind doctor, who ships Maya off to her family to recover. Except that doesn’t help. Not really. Except she meets Sandeep, a fellow rescue — they saved him from certain death once his parents had been killed — and somehow, he makes all the bad things she’s discovering about the country of her heritage better.

A heartbreaking novel in verse, Karma looks at difficult issues — religion-based violence, suicide, arranged marriages, preconceived notions of both women and Westerners to name a few — but does it in a way that is neither heavy-handed or preachy. As a reader, you come to care about both Maya and Sandeep — two-thirds of the book is narrated by Maya; one-third by Sandeep; both are imperfect people, and while neither sets out to make a difference in the world, they both do.

It’s an intriguing book: a haunting, lyrical story that will make you think.

The Floating Islands

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by Rachel Neumeier
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Trei was fourteen the first time he saw the Floating Islands.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

The world: a large country, Tolounn, whose only art is war. A small country, The Floating Islands, which are technically part of the Tolounn empire, but have been nominally independent for 200 years. There’s magic —  mages and dragons and flying men (called kajuraihi) — and the books goes for an ancient feel, with boats and horses, though it has steam-powered engines.

The characters: There’s Trei, half Tolunnese and half Islander, which makes him an outcast, at least in Tolounn. He relocates to the Islands after his family’s death, mostly because his father’s family won’t take him and his mother’s will. There he meets his cousin Araene, who is a brilliant chef and chafes against the really strict rules for girls: she wants to be able to follow her passions. (Who wouldn’t?) It turns out that she has an affinity for magic, and the mage school pulls her in; however, since she’s a girl it means she needs to go out as a boy. While she follows her passion, Trei follows his: to be a kajuraihi. Both of them will have roles to play in the conflict between the Islands and ; both will help determine not only their fates, but the fate of their country.

There are other minor characters, boys from the mage school and boys from the kajuraihi school, including Prince Ceirfei, a nephew to the Island king.

While it wasn’t a bad story, or even poorly written (it’s pretty good on both accounts), I really wanted this book to be more than it was. I had a hard time keeping all the characters and places and terms (*sigh* Why is it when some fantasy writers create a whole new world, they feel a need to create a new language along with it?) straight, and eventually stopped trying for pronunciations. I also expected it to be more about Trei and Araene, and their determination to make their way against all odds. Instead, it turned out to be more about the conflict between the two countries, and everything else was swept aside. So, by the end — when there were still 60 more pages to the book — it felt really anti-climatic. I wanted everything to be stronger, more forceful, more gripping. It was nice, but that’s about it. (I feel bad for saying this because it really was a nice read. Not terrific, but nice.)

So, maybe this one was just a victim of my expectations. That does happen sometimes.

Something Like Fate

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by Susane Colasanti
ages: 12+
First sentence: “I never meant for it to happen like this.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I don’t read a lot of chick lit, really. Though I do know good YA chick lit when I see it.

This was not it.

Things against it:

The whole idea of Fate, that Two People (in this case Lani and Jason) are Supposed to Be Together in spite of everything (including the fact that Jason is dating Lani’s best friend, Erin). Ugh.

Dumping one’s girlfriend VIA LETTER (really??? People still do that??).

The stilted dialogue.

He’s like, “Whoa.”
“What?”
“That can’t be right.”
“What?”
“What time did you say you had to be home?”
My stomach sinks. “Eleven. Why?”
“It’s one fifteen.”
“Shut Up.”

The really lame homophobia of the school that comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere and really has no point with the rest of the book.

The bashing the pro-environment philosophy over my head. (I consider myself a bit of a tree-hugger, and I was turned off. C’mon, do it subtly!)

The incredible cattiness of Erin and the rest of the freaking school (calling her slut, her so-called close friends refusing to talk to her, creating a web site just for bashing her) after it comes out that Lani and Jason had been dating. All summer. Seriously???

The pat ending.

Bottom line: read Maureen Johnson’s books instead.

Grave Mercy

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by Robin LaFevers
ages: 15+
First sentence: “I bear a deep red stain that runs from my left shoulder down to my right hip, a trail left by the herbwitch’s poison that my mother used to try to expel me from her womb.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by my place of employment.

I feel like I’m the last on the bandwagon with this; everyone seems to have read it already, and everyone seems to have loved it (including M who, 17 pages in, came to me and said, “This book is awesome.”). Thankfully, it was one that quite lived up to the hype.

It doesn’t hurt that it has a pretty cover (or a catchy tagline), either.

It’s Brittany, 1485, and Ismae, our fair heroine, has been married off (at the paltry age of 14!) by her abusive father to a hulking brute of a man. Consigned to her fate, she is surprised when a series of herbwitches and priests save her, sneaking her off in the night. She ends up at the convent of St. Mortain, one of the old gods, where they worship Death.

And train the girls who are brought to them to be assassins.

Three years pass, and Ismae is ready to be sent off on assignments. She performs well, and so is thrown into something more grand and complex: court politics. She is sent off to keep an eye on Gavriel Duval, adviser to Anne, duchess of Brittany. Ismae is supposed to pose as his “cousin” (*coughcough*), and keep an eye on him; if he turns out to be a traitor, as the abbess and Count Crunard, a patron of the convent, suspect, then she is to kill him.

However, once there, Ismae discovers that court politics — as well as her heart — are much more complex than that.

I realized about 30 pages in that if Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon and any Phillipa Gregory book had a love child, this one would be it. There is court intrigue, romance, fights, horse chases, desperate situations, historical trappings, sweeping European settings, all covered in a sheen of mysticism that makes everything sparkly.

In other words, quite awesome.

Remarkable

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by Lizzie K. Foley
ages: 9+
First sentence: “High on the top of a majestic mountain, in a spot where every view of the valley below was more breathtaking than the next, was a small town called Remarkable.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.

I have to admit up front that any book with the title “Remarkable” has the decks stacked up against it. Because to be remarkable, you have to be so much better than good, you have to be, well… remarkable.

And so it helps that this one, at least in my opinion, is using the word somewhat ironically. See, in a town full of remarkably talented, amazing, wondrous people, ten-year-old Jane Doe is just average. Plain, not especially talented in anything, she goes through life in the shadow of her remarkably talented architect mother, best-seller novelist father, supremely talented painter (of photorealistic portraits) brother, and math genius sister. That’s not even mentioning her grandmother, the mayor. The only person in town who even comes close to Jane in plainness is her grandpa, who people generally seem to forget is there.

From that premise, however, things get both really weird and yet never quite develop in ways that I wanted them to. There’s something about a bell tower and pirates and the sea monster in the lake and a jam feud with the next town and evil genius twins, but it all kind of just seemed like it was a hamster on a wheel: spinning in circles, but never really going anywhere.

I wanted it to be more ironic, more of a parody (it was, to an extent, but not far enough for my tastes), but most of all, I wanted Jane to do something. I wanted her to be a hero, to discover that she was remarkable, in some little way. (You know have the reverse happen: since everyone is remarkable, only those who aren’t labeled as such really are?) Or maybe for everyone else in the town to discover that being remarkable was overrated, and stop discriminating against unremarkable people. But, it just kind of petered out by the end, which I found disappointing.

That said, C really enjoyed reading this one, so maybe it’s a case of me not being the right audience for the book. Which is not really remarkable at all.

Crow

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by Barbara Wright
ages: 11+
First sentence: “The buzzard knew.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by my place of employment.

It’s 1898, and eleven-year-old Moses Thomas has a good life in Wilmington, North Carolina. He enjoys school, having a perfect attendance record, has friends he likes hanging out with, and a good relationship with both his parents and his grandmother, whom he calls Boo Nanny.

Then things start to change: Moses’s idyllic life falls apart when the white people in Wilmington decide — for what reason we’re not ever really, fully told — that having a black middle class is no longer something they want, and the Red Shirts, North Carolina’s answer to the Klu Klux Klan, performs a coup d’etat, rigging an election, and running the mayor, the chief of police, and most of the African American businessmen out of town, before massacring a number of blacks.

Unfortunately, that paragraph was true. The Wilmington Massacre really happened, and to see it through the eyes of Moses was heartbreaking. However important the massacre, it’s really only the last third of the book. Up until that point, we get glimpses of Moses’ life. His friendship with a white boy named Tommy. His attempt to win a bicycle thwarted because he’s not white. His pride in his father’s college education and involvement in the only black daily in the South. But most of all, his relationship with Boo Nanny, a former slave and the most important person in Moses’ life. It’s a book of little things, small moments, culminating in something horrible and sad.

It’s an interesting look at a time period in history not often explored.

Reread: Dealing with Dragons

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by Patricia C. Wrede
ages: 9+
First sentence: “Linderwall was a large kindgom, just east of the Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were highly respected and the number five was fashionable.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I didn’t really give much of a review when I read this one seven (!) years ago, so I thought I’d do it up proper this time. Especially since I just finished reading it aloud to my current 8-year-old, A.

Princes Cimorene doesn’t like being a princess. She would much rather learn magic, Latin, fencing or *something* other than being proper and embroidery. So, when her parents drag her to a nearby kingdom in order to marry her off to an insipid prince, she does the only reasonable thing: she runs away and becomes a dragon’s princess. The dragon is Kazul, and she (the dragon is a she) is smart, reasonable, interesting, and makes Cimorene feel useful. So, aside from the stupid knights who keep trying to rescue her, Cimorene is perfectly happy in her new life. Then she gets wind of a plot the wizards are cooking: after the death of the king, they’re going to rig the trials in order to get Waroug, who happens to be sympathetic to the wizards, in as king. And it’s up to Cimorene (and her new friends) to stop them.

I do love these little books. Sure, they’re light and frothy fantasy, but they’re fun. And Cimorene is one of the great heroines out there: a strong, smart girl, who knows what she wants and is willing to work for it, is kind without being a pushover.  The books are funny, too: I was constantly cracking up while I read. Lest you think it goes over an 8-year-old’s head, some of it did, but I was always able to stop and catch her up. She adored Cimorene as much as I did, and is quite excited to see what adventure they go on next. And since I never did get around to reading the rest of the series, I am as well.