Speculative Fiction

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.

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
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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.

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.”
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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.

The Winner’s Kiss

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by Marie Rutkoskiwinnerskiss
First sentence: “He told himself a story.”
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Others in the series: The Winner’s Curse, The Winner’s Crime
Content: There’s some sexytimes, but it’s tastefully off screen. Mostly. I am toying with moving this to the Teen section (grades 9+). (I hate doing that, especially since the other two are really pretty firmly in my 6-8th grade range. But, I also don’t want one in the Teen section and the other two in the YA section, so I may just move them all, or keep this one in YA. Frustrating.)

Spoilers for the first two, obviously.  Also: I still hate these covers with a passion. I mean, they’re pretty and all, but they’re NOT the books.

Kestrel has been arrested as a traitor to her country and shipped off to a work camp in the frozen tundra. Arin is still reeling from betrayal, when Kestrel rejected him and is throwing himself into his alliance with the Dacrans, determined to beat Valoria out of his country once and for all. He’s still in love with Kestrel, but she doesn’t seem to return his affections.

Both are determined to make the best of their situation. Both are determined to exact vengeance upon the leaders of Valoria, which includes Kestrel’s father. Neither are prepared for the directions that goal will lead them.

I don’t want to give more away from the plot (though if you’re smart, you can make some assumptions from the content…), but I’ll say this. It’s a good ending. I liked how Rutkoski wrapped things up, giving the story a complete finish, while not giving us every single little detail about the future. I love how she gave both Arin and Kestrel moments to shine, moments to grow, moments to be complex and do the unexpected. I liked that there was palpable tension, not necessarily between people but in situations. I found myself biting my nails, hoping things worked out okay. I loved how no one was black or white, and that even the bad guys were complex and interesting.

I’m definitely sad that this series is ending. It was definitely a good story.

Hour of the Bees

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hourofbeesby Lindsey Eagar
First sentence: “Something flies too close to my ear.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It’s a tricky story, moving between “reality” and “magic” for much of it. Though there’s really nothing content-wise that would be inappropriate for younger readers, they might lose interest with the plotting. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore, though I’d give it to a 4th or 5th grader if they expressed interest.

All Carol wants to do the summer before 7th grade is hang out with her friends and have pool parties and sleepovers, but instead she’s stuck out at her grandfather’s ranch in southwest New Mexico, helping her family pack him up in order to send him to a nursing home. Not exactly her idea of fun. And it doesn’t help that her grandfather is suffering from dementia, either. It’s shaping up to be a long, hot, boring summer.

Except, once she gets there, Carol finds out that her grandfather is full of crazy, magical stories, ones that may or may not be true. And, over the course of the summer, Carol decides that maybe it’s not too bad.

Okay, that’s not exactly all there is to it. There’s a whole thread about a drought, and a tree, and bees taking away the rain that, honestly, I didn’t find all that interesting.

Maybe I should start with the good: I really like that there’s a book out there that deals with grandparents, dementia and death. It’s something that children do need to deal with, and it’s good that there’s a book that does take something like moving a grandparent out of the house and into a nursing home as well as tackling the mood and personality swings that come with dementia.

That said, this smack WAY too much of the Magical Mexican for me. Truthfully, it may just be me (though as I was relating it to E — who’s Mexican — she said, “Um. No.” But she may have been biased from my retelling); please let me know if you read it and you think I’m wrong here. But, I felt like the whole thing of “needing to get back to your roots” and the whole magical realism story thing just didn’t work. Yes, roots are important. But, so is change and growth. You don’t need to sacrifice one for the other (and I felt like Eagar was coming down firmly on Family and Roots are Very Important, especially since we’re Mexican).  It just felt… forced. Off. Not quite natural. And then there was Carol’s whole flipping from being a city girl to being a ranch hand at the end. I just didn’t get WHY. Was it her grandfather’s stories? Where did this deep connection to her roots come from? Why did it happen so suddenly, and so deeply that she would do drastic and rash things at the end? It didn’t make sense to me. (Again: it may just be me. I’ll admit I skimmed a lot.)

At any rate, it ended up not being one that I really loved.

The Wild Robot

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wildrobotby Peter Brown
First sentence: “Our story begins on the ocean, with the wind and rain and thunder and lightning and waves.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: April 5, 2016
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It’s fairly large print, with illustrations. It’s good for third grade and up (and is in the middle grade section of the bookstore), but would make a great read-aloud for younger kids.

After a hurricane, the ROZZUM unit 7134 robot washes up on the shore of an uninhabited island. The robot is inadvertently activated by some otters, and Roz (as she introduces herself) comes on. She doesn’t know that she isn’t supposed to be on the island, so she sets about trying to figure out what this place is and how to fit in. She initially meets resistance from the animals: they call her a monster and try to run her off the island. But, through time and some cleverness, Roz learns to adapt. She makes friends with the beavers. She accidentally orphans a goose, but then adopts him as her son. She learns how to fit in.

There really isn’t much to this book; there’s a lot of narration and an intrusive narrator that I didn’t mind terribly much. Because of that, I think this would probably make a better read-aloud than one kids are going to want to pick up. That said, I tossed it in K’s direction for a book report, and so far she’s enjoying it. It helps, I think, that the chapters are short (some as little as one page) and there are illustrations liberally scattered throughout.

In the end, I found I really liked it. I came to really care about Roz and her relationship with the animals. And while I didn’t really care for the abrupt ending (sequel, anyone?), I cared about the journey. And it was an interesting mix of tech — Roz was able to use her computer database to find out answers — and nature — the winter was rough, animals (even though they were talking) died.

A very intriguing book, in the end.

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 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.

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.

Fridays with the Wizards

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fridaysby Jessica Day George
First sentence: “It was good to be home.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Tuesdays at the Castle, Wednesdays in the Tower, Thursdays with the Crown
Content: These books are so great for those middle readers who don’t like super long books, but want action-packed stories. Not too many difficult words, and George keeps them short and sweet. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Now that Castle Glower is whole again and Wizard Arkwright is captured, Celie figures her work is done and she can just go back to normal. Except that normal isn’t, well, normal anymore. Lilah and Lulath are engaged (yay!) and so there are preparations to go to Grath and meet Lulath’s family. The king decides that a ship really needs to be built. And people keep bonding with all the baby griffins, though they soon learn that it’s the griffins who choose, not the people.

Celie isn’t happy with all these changes, but she can deal. Until they discover that Wizard Arkower has escaped his prison and is creeping around the secret passageways of the Castle. Celie’s the one who knows the Castle best, and so it falls on her to figure a way to capture the wizard. If she can.

This series is such a delight. I love that the family is a good one, that Celie has challenges that are outside of her family and that her family is generally supportive of her as a person. It’s wonderfully refreshing. I also enjoy that these books build on each other while offering an individual adventure that actually comes to a stopping point. No real cliffhangers, which is nice. And that she writes at a kids’ level without talking down to them. It really is a fun series. I’ll definitely be sad when it ends.

As a bonus, I got to host her here for school visits and a store event a couple weeks ago. She’s just as delightful as her books!

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