YA

Anna Dressed in Blood

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by Kendare Blake
ages: 14+
First sentence: “The grease-slicked hair is a dead giveaway — no pun intended.”
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For the YAckers book group.

Cas is a ghost killer.

How can that be, you ask, since they’re already dead?

Well… some ghosts don’t want to stay dead. And some ghosts start acting out against humans, harming them. And it’s those ghosts that Cas, with his family heritage — his father was a ghost killer before him — and his athame — the knife that does the killing, tackles.

That doesn’t mean everything is coming up roses. In fact, quite the contrary. Cas’s father was brutally  murdered by a ghost outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Cas has been spending the last several years working to get good enough to go back and face whatever it is. And so, when he gets word of an especially violent ghost in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he knows he has to go get it. Her.

Anna Dressed in Blood.

A bit of an aside here: I don’t do horror. Period. Never have, never will. And yet: I found myself attracted to this book. From the ink the color of dried blood, to the violence that Anna does (and she does some violence), to the intense (for me!) climax at the end (they got the ghost with a hundred pages left to go, and I was wondering what Drake was going to do with them; worry not: they’re incredible), I couldn’t put this one down.

Another quick aside: the over quote from Cassandra Clare is “Spellbinding and romantic.” Um. NOT. This is not a romantic book. This is a violent, bloody, intense book. Sure, there’s a bit of love-falling-into, but honestly: don’t let the girl in the dress on the cover throw you off. It’s an episode (or three) of Supernatural. It’s a ghost Buffy (the comparison is aptly made in the book, actually). It’s a ramped-up, less funny Ghostbusters. It’s awesome. Perhaps it’s spellbinding. But it’s not romantic. Unless, of course, you find grappling with a deadly ghost romantic. Then, yeah. It’s romantic.

Either way, it’s worth the read.

The Raven Boys

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by Maggie Stiefvater
ages: 13+
First sentence: “Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.”
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It would be a lie to say I am a longtime fan of Maggie Stiefvater’s. I’m not. I made it through Shiver and Linger, but gave up on the wolves after that. Even after hearing her speak at KidlitCon 2010 I wasn’t all gungho about her writing. Then, I read The Scorpio Races, and my mind began to be changed. After this one, though, I have to admit: I’m a fan.

There’s just something eloquent in this book: it’s not that its prose is beautiful; I can’t thing of a single passage that stood out. But rather, Stiefvater is eloquent in her simplicity. There’s nothing outstanding about any of the characters individually, and yet as a whole they become remarkable.

The girl is Blue, the daughter of a psychic, who aspires to be “eccentric” but really is only “sensible.” She has been told since she was little that she would kill her true love with her kiss. Because of that, Blue has two rules: 1) don’t kiss anyone, and 2) don’t get involved with the Raven Boys. They’re the upper crust blue bloods that populate the pre-Ivy League boarding school in this small mountain Virginia town. Except rule number two changes after Blue gets involved with Gansey’s — one of those blue bloods with an affinity for a 1973 Camaro — quest to find a mysterious Welsh king he believes to be buried nearby. Gansey doesn’t come alone, but rather in a pack: there is Ronan, a hot-blooded Irish boy who has gone off the deep end since his father’s mysterious murder; Noah, who lurks around the outskirts of everything, but still is somehow part of it all; and Adam — the one Blue falls for — who has his pride and not much else. Their quest starts out innocently enough, but becomes increasingly darker as the book goes on. It’s this slow descent into the strange, supernatural, and eerie that kept me reading, not wanting to put it down.

It was pointed out in the YAckers that it’s a good gender-neutral book: the love bits aren’t all smushy, and the male characters are pretty amazing. As is everyone else.

I’m blathering. Just go read it (if you already haven’t).

Days of Blood & Starlight

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by Laini Taylor
ages: 14+
First sentence: “Prague, early May.”
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Others in the series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

First off: if you haven’t read Daughter yet, you need to. Unlike other books, even though Taylor (thankfully) includes information to remind you of what went on in the first book, to really, fully understand what’s going on in this one, you have to have read the first. (Not that it’s a chore to do that.) (And you should probably do so before continuing on here because there will be spoilers.)

We last left Karou and her angel love Akiva, they weren’t on good terms. Karou discovered that she was formerly Madrigal — a chimera, an enemy to the seraphim — and that while she was Akiva’s lover, that didn’t end well. And Akiva didn’t bounce back happily; being the Beast’s Bane for the seraphim emperor, he waged war on the chimera, killing off everyone Karou loved.

That’s something you don’t forgive easily.

So, Karou has thrown herself in with the chimera, becoming the resurrectionist — the person who brings souls back to live in new bodies — for the rebellion army, headed up by the White Wolf, Thiago. Getting it out of the way here: there are some despicable male characters in this book. Horrible isn’t a strong enough word. And the things they do to innocent people are, well, contemptible. Taylor doesn’t hold back on the horrors of war, the terrible things power-hungry men (always men; though there’s a couple of — I’m running out of adjectives — loathsome women, too) will do to gain their power. And the pitiable state of their victims. It’s one of the reasons why this book is so dark and, as a result, so powerful.

Akiva, on the other hand, is trying to reconcile the horrible things he’s done with his feelings for Karou, searching for some way to get her forgiveness. He starts saving chimera from the angel attacks, which leads him — and by extension, his brother Hazael and sister Liraz — directly on a path of conflict with their father, the emperor Joram, and their uncle Jael.

I’ll leave the plot summary there, because there’s so much more going on. Zuzana and Mik show up (happily) and not everyone gets out of this one alive. It’s a trilogy, so don’t expect a conclusion — much like the first one, it comes to a stopping point, but there’s so much left unresolved, and so much happens in the last quarter that I’m anxious for the next one. (A year is so long to wait!)

But, I do have to  mention this: as far as second in a series books go, this one is phenomenal. Taylor’s such a gifted writer and storyteller, that she was able to take a middle book that’s mostly about revenge and war and make it into something grander. Every character was fully dimensional — even the horrid ones — and I was fully invested, emotionally as well as intellectually, in where the story was going.

I’m starting to think, however, that I’m going to be sad when this series ends. It really is that good.

Under My Hat

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Tales from the Cauldron
edited by Jonathan Strahan
ages: 11+
First sentence: “The stories all start with a hat, specifically a tall, black, pointy hat.”
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I know it’s bad form to start a review with “I never read x” but in this case it’s true. I don’t do short stories and I’m not a big fan of witches. (Tiffany Aching aside.) But, in this case, I’m glad for the Cybils: I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of short stories about witches.

The stories themselves were good, taking in a wide breadth of witch lore. It went from modern Wiccan (Holly Black’s “Little Gods,” which — since this is a book aimed at the upper-middle grade audience, I feel compelled to add — contains the book’s only f-bomb), to traditional fairy tale (Jane Yolen’s fabulous “Andersen’s Witch”) and everything in between. There are some fantasy  heavyweights here as well: aside from Black and Yolen, Neil Gaiman weighs in with a quirky poem; Patricia McKillip has a story about a witch band fighting evil (way cool); Frances Hardinge was her elegant self in the smart, funny “Payment Due”; Charles De Lint explores the idea of a Hispanic witch in “Barrio Girls”, and Garth Nix offers up a creepy boarding school witch story.

Obviously, there were some that I liked more than others, but hands-down my favorite was from an author I’d not heard of before: Tim Pratt. I guess he’s solely a short story writer, which is why I haven’t read his stuff, but his story “The Carved Forest” was amazing. It’s basically the story of a girl who is having conflicts with her family, so she runs away to the witch’s house. Her brother comes to get her, and discovers that the witch has an entire forest of carved trees. They’re of people in his town, and the witch’s job is to keep them rooted, never leaving her care. It works on several levels: as a brother-sister story, as a creepy witch story, and as an allegory for letting people follow their own path. Perhaps it’s what I wanted to read right then, but it really affected me.

Overall, it’s a great collection of stories, perfect for anyone who is into witches (or just wants to explore the topic a bit).

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

The Crown of Embers

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by Rae Carson
ages: 13+
First sentence: “My entourage of guards struggles to keep pace as I fly down the coridors of my palace.”
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Others in the series: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

(Obviously, slight spoilers for the first one. You really should read that first.)

On the heels of the war with the Inviernos and the death of her husband, the king, seventeen-year-old Elisa has taken over ruling the country of Joya d’Arena. This is no easy task: attempts on her life are made, members of her Quorum (the ruling council) are plotting her overthrow behind her back, and the only person she can truly trust is Lord Hector, the commander of the Royal Guard.

Most of this book is taken up with Elisa trying to figure out how to be a ruler. She was never really given instruction on court politics, and she makes some (dangerous) missteps along the way. Even so, Carson manages to keep the action going (it helps that she comes up with an assassination attempt every 50 pages or so), and the court politics interesting. Also: for the detractors for the first book, there is a lovely, lovely romance in this one. *swoon*

It turns out that Elisa has more to do than just figure out how to rule a country on her own: being the bearer of the Godstone, she needs to figure out how to harness its power, and that involves a trip to the southern islands, to find the zafira: the source of all power.

Much like the first book, the thing I liked best was that Elisa was a strong character, and yet she’s incredibly vulnerable. She is human — she has weaknesses and makes bad decisions — and yet she is admirable: constantly finding depths in herself that she didn’t know existed, finding ways to handle situations she didn’t think she could. I loved the way Carson wove religion through the book, without making it seem hokey or preachy.

And, because it ends at a point where I was sitting on the edge of my seat, I can’t wait to read the final book in the trilogy.

Railsea

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by China Miéville
ages: 13+
First sentence: “This is the story of a bloodstained boy.”
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I first saw Railsea when it came into the store sometime in late April, early May. I checked our distributor to see where I should shelve it, and they said it was middle grade, ages 9-11. So, I stuck it there, and didn’t really think of it again. Then Cybils time came around, and it got nominated in the YA category. I thought that was a bit odd, so I figured I needed to read it. I put it on hold at the library, and when I got it, I noticed something weird: it was labeled as Adult sci-fi.

All of this is a roundabout way of me saying that I mostly picked up this one because I was fundamentally curious as to the target age group: where does it belong?

And after reading it, my answer would have to be… Yes. All of the above.

It is, briefly, a post-apocolyptic/dystopian retelling of Moby Dick with trains and mutant rodents instead of boats and whales. Our main character is a boy of indeterminate age, Sham Yes ap Soorap, who signs on to the moletrain — kind of like a whaling boat: it’s a train that rides the complex “sea” of rails, hunting the mutant moles for meat and skin to sell — as a doctor’s assistant. Their captain, Captain Naphi, has a “philosophy”: she lost an arm to a huge white mole rat, Mocker-Jack, and is determined to hunt it down. But, that’s not all: they find a wreck of a train, with an unusual picture on a digital camera: of a single rail line headed into the horizon. Sham heads on his own personal mission (or “philosophy”) to hunt down the owner of the camera, which turns out belongs to the children of a couple of adventurers. It turns out that the government, loosely speaking, is after these children because their parents discovered something they shouldn’t have: the path to Heaven.

Yes, this is all really convoluted. It’s not just you.

There is nothing in this book that a 9-year-old couldn’t read. I’m not sure they’d “get” it though. It’s very stylized (Miéville loves to use ampersands, even when they start sentences. & that’s very distracting.), and I came to realize through the course of the book that the more you know Moby Dick, the better this one is. It’s quite the faithful retelling, I think. (I’ve never read it, though I know enough about it to get the gist of what Miéville was trying to do). So, I’d give it to a teen or adult whose interested in dystopian who has also read Moby Dick. They’ll be better equipped to understand Railsea.

Was it good? I’m not sure. I was impressed with the feat Miéville was undertaking more than  I enjoyed the story. I respected this one, but I don’t think I liked it very much. So, take that for what it’s worth.

At any rate, I’ve read it now, so I can begin to figure out where it belongs.

Steampunk!

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An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant
ages: 13+
First sentence: “Orphans use the puppet of a dead man to take control of their lives.”
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I went into this knowing about this much about Steampunk: it’s a meld between the past and the future, giving new technologies to a time period that didn’t have them. The only steampunk I’ve read before this was Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series. And, even though M really really wants a steampunk costume, I really don’t have much invested in thknois fantasy sub-genre.

So I didn’t really know what to expect from this collection of short stories. However, while I enjoyed many of them, I kept wondering: what is steampunk, really? Because these stories were all over the map. Some, like Kelly Link’s “Summer People”, were just straight fantasy. Others, like Ysabeau S. Wilce’s “Hand in Glove” (a mystery) or “Steam Girl,” by Dylan Horrocks or “Seven Days Beset by Demons,” by Shawn Cheng, felt more straight fiction than fantasy/steampunk at all. Does the throwing in of some mechanical somehow make a story steampunk? Even when the mechanical element doesn’t play a role in the larger story?

Others, like Libba Bray’s “The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” and Cory Doctorow’s “Clockwork Fagin” and M. T. Anderson’s “The Oracle Engine,” felt more “authentically” steampunk to me, and as a result, those were my favorite stories. It could also be that I know Bray’s and Anderson’s writing (not so much with Doctorow, though I’ve met the man)  and love the way that they tell stories. But, I felt that they did what I expect steampunk to do: marry technology with a pre-tech state, and give me a good story where the technology is important to the outcome.

Perhaps the whole idea of this anthology was to stretch the definition of steampunk, and allow for it to encompass more genres. But I’m not sure that worked for me. Steampunk really is at its best when it limits itself to its stated definition. And when you find an author that can do that, it’s fascinating to see the outcome.

Vessel

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by Sarah Beth Durst
ages: 14+
First sentence: “On the day she was to die, Liyana walked out of her family’s tent to see the dawn.”
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Liyana is one of the Turtle People, the people of the desert. Every hundred years, the gods and goddesses they worship come back from the  Dreaming, entering a Vessel that has been prepared in order to walk among their people, helping them with magic live for another hundred years in the desert.

Liyana is the vessel for the goddess Bayla, and even though she doesn’t want to die, she does want to do her duty. But then, something goes wrong: Bayla doesn’t come. Liyana’s clan leaves her to die, but shortly there after the trickster go Korbyn shows up with some bad news: someone has trapped the gods and goddesses and if they don’t save them, then the entire Turtle People will die. (The stakes are even higher than Korbyn realizes: the emperor of the Crescent Empire is planning to invade in search of a lake, in order to ease the Great Drought that has affected his people.) His plan: find the vessels for the rest of the gods/goddesses captured and then find the gods/goddesses and rescue them.

So far, so good: Durst makes interesting use of the idea of freedom, worship and sacrifice for the greater good. Liyana is a strong, likeable girl, someone who was willing to make the sacrifice of her life to help her clan, but in the face of another decision and path, would willingly look at the other options. (There was another vessel who wasn’t as open to other ideas, and she irritated me to no end.) And an extra bonus to her for writing a great fantasy character of color.

The place where it broke down for me — though not enough to give up on the book — was when the group finally confronted the emperor and found the gods. I wasn’t able to suspend my disbelief: for even though Liyana was capable and strong, I’m not sure she’d have made such a connection with an emperor (yes, he was young and handsome), so quickly. Her relationship with Korbyn, forbidden though it was, was a whole lot more believable. Maybe it’s just because I’m down on instalove.

But, the end? That I believed and enjoyed. And I love that Durst can write a compelling fantasy story in. one. book. and doesn’t need a whole trilogy to work out her storyline. For that alone (though the story really is compelling and intriguing, even if it is a bit slow in parts), this one is worth reading.

Unspoken

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by Sarah Rees Brennan
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Every town in England has a story.”
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Kami has an imaginary friend.  She has had him in her head, talking to her, keeping her company for as long as she can remember. She’s learned not to talk about him, because people in her small English Village, Sorry-in-the-Vale, tend to think she’s a bit crazy, but he’s there and she’s learned to live with it.

Not for one moment did she ever think that 1) he was really real and 2) he’d show up in her village.

Kami is also an aspiring investigative reporter, something which won me over immediately. I loved her spunk and her gumption, and her Nancy Drew/Veronica Mars/His Girl Friday determination to get to the bottom of the story. Because in Sorry-in-the-Vale there are a LOT of secrets that no one is willing to tell.

To be honest, that kind of bugged me for a lot of the book: the fact that Brennan hinted at secrets, and hinted at secrets, and hinted at secrets, but the reader was as CLUELESS to understanding them as Kami was. I wanted more information, but it wasn’t enough of an annoyance to make me throw the book across the room. No, what kept me reading was the witty writing — the balance between humor, romance, and suspense — and the characters. I adored the girls: Kami, of course, but also her friends Holly and Angela. And the guys weren’t that bad either.

And when the secrets were finally revealed, I understood why Brennan approached it the way she did. She has a way of keeping me engaged, turning pages, until her satisfying-yet-frustratingly-open conclusion.

I can’t wait for the next one!

The Last Dragonslayer

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by Jasper Fforde
ages: 12+
First sentence: “It looked set to become even hotter by the afternoon, just when the job was becoming more fiddly and needed extra concentration.”
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Review copy provided by my place of employment.

Jennifer Strange, 15, is just an indentured servant running the Kazam Mystical Arts Management in the wake of owner Mr. Zambini’s disappearance. No, it’s not easy managing a group of magicians whose magic is slowly fading, but she’s managing.

Then one of her magicians has a vision: Maltcassion, the last dragon, is going to be killed at noon on Sunday. By the last dragonslayer. Which happens to be Jennifer.

On the one hand, this little book is classic Fforde (granted, I’ve only read one other of his books): witty, slightly odd, with a tendency for clever names. The story is… intriguing… and interesting alternative history (The Ununited Kingdoms, for example, where Jennifer lives in the Kingdom of Hereford, under King Snood). But, while it’s whimsical, it’s also… odd. I’m not sure quite why I feel that way, just that while I thought the oddness worked in The Eyre Affair, I don’t think kids will get the oddness. Now, to be fair, I may be underestimating the 12-year-old British magic fans out there, but it just felt like a grown-up novel slightly whitewashed in order to make it suitable for kids books.

And while the story is passable and somewhat entertaining, I’m not sure that’s enough to offset the oddness of the book.