Smoke

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smokeby Dan Vyleta
First sentence: “‘Thomas, Thomas!’ Wake up!'”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at my place of employment.
Content: There’s a bit of violence and some swearing, but aside from it’s length (it’s huge) there’s nothing I wouldn’t expect a high schooler to be able to handle. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

Imagine a world where everyone’s bad thoughts, awful actions, impure intentions come out of the body as smoke. The more wicked the action, the darker the smoke. And it doesn’t just come out of you, it stains you, eats away at your heart. Grim, no?

Thomas is a latecomer to the posh boarding school for the upperclass where they teach you how to control your smoke. It’s not really working for him; he’s convinced that because his father murdered someone, he’s destined to be black at heart. He makes friends with Charlie, a son of a prominent Lord. Everything is going as well as can be until Thomas and Charlie make some discoveries, and their lives change forever.

It’s a weird conceit: a Dickens-era London with this smoke (is it magic? It it destiny?). It’s getting at class issues (the more upper class, the less likely you are to smoke for various reasons), and issues of pre-destiny. It’s interesting. It’s an interesting bit of story weaving; there’s some dark characters, and a bit of twisty action. Even so, I found myself impatient with the book. It’s really long. Like REALLY long. I get impatient with really long books. But, I persevered. And, while this won’t be my favorite book this year, it was interesting. And I’m definitely intrigued with the ending.

So, maybe it was worthwhile.

A Gathering of Shadows

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gatheringofshadowsby V. E. Schwab
First sentence: “Delilah Bard had a way of finding trouble.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series:  A Darker Shade of Magic
Content: There’s violence, some mild swearing, and a couple of f-bombs. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore, but would be good for high schoolers as well.

It’s been four months since the end of Darker Shade and Lila has moved on. She secured a position on a ship (well, secured makes it sound like she wasn’t underhand in the dealings…) of a privateer. She’s enjoyed her time at sea, developing an intriguing relationship with the captain, Alucard Emery. Among other things, he’s taught her magic. And with the Essen Tasch — magic games between three countries — coming up, she’s intrigued. So much so, that she finds a way to get into the games.

Kell, on the other hand, has felt his life constrict. He is not trusted by the king, who has increased the guards around the king. He and Rhy are not prisoners, but close. So, when Rhy comes to Kell with an idea — compete in the Essen Tasch — Kell is intrigued. And, eventually, convinced.

A quick side note — much more than the action-packed first novel, this one felt like it was full of exposition. We learn about Lila learning magic. We read about Kell’s restlessness. But nothing much happens. And, I have to admit that I lost patience with that.

That said, I did finish it, and the ending was, well, a lot more exciting than the rest of the book. And I’ll probably read the next book.

The BFG

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thebfgby Roald Dahl
First sentence: “Sophie couldn’t sleep.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a small bit of violence, but for the most part, it’s easy enough for the youngest of the grades 3-5 set. It’s in the Middle Grade section of the bookstore.

Sophie is up late one night in her orphanage when she sees something coming down the street. That something turns out to be a giant, who plucks her out of the orphanage and takes her back to his land. He says it’s because he needs to keep her safe,  because there are other, bigger, badder giants around. And he’s not wrong: the giants back at the stomping ground ARE bigger, badder and meaner.

(And that’s where Dahl’s overall themes come in: the BFG is the “runt” of the pack and is constantly being picked on. He’s also more evolved, and smarter, and just better than those bullies.)

Sophie experiences life with the BFG, and together they decide that the other giants need to be stopped (mostly because they eat children; though the BFG’s argument for it was pretty persuasive…). So they go to the Queen (really, my favorite part), convince her of the existence of the giants, and get her help in stopping them.

Perhaps it’s just the order I’ve read these, but this one is now my favorite. I loved the Seuss-like wordplay that went on with the way the BFG talked. I liked the friendship between Sophie and the BFG, and I thought their solution to the problem was pretty ingenious. It’s a delightful book, much less dark than Matilda or as mean as Charlie. So far, this one is the best.

Monthy Round-up: June 2016

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I meant to put this up a couple days ago, but like many things these days, it slipped my mind. Better late than never, I suppose. My favorite for the month was this one:

msbixby

Ms. Bixby’s Last Day

Such a good middle grade novel. One of my favorites this year.

As for the rest:

YA:

 

museumofheartbreak summerdays knifeofnever outrunthemoon ifiwasyourgirl

The Museum of Heartbreak
Summer Days and Summer Nights
Outrun the Moon
If I Was Your Girl
The Knife of Never Letting Go

Middle Grade:

charlieandthechocolatefactory whenfriendship matilda

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
When Friendship Followed Me Home
Matilda

Graphic Novel

unicornvgoblins

Unicorns vs. Goblins

Adult Fiction:

hundredthousandlastoriginalwife

The Last Original Wife (audio book)
A Hundred Thousand Worlds

What were some of your favorites this month?

The Knife of Never Letting Go

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knifeofneverby Patrick Ness
First sentence: “The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s the anxiety factor plus a lot of violence plus the f-bomb a couple of times (though the main character says “eff” a lot). It’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

Todd is the last boy in Prentisstown in the New World. He’s waiting for his thirteenth birthday, which will come soon, and then he will become a man and join the other men in the town (and there’s only men). It’s an interesting place, this New World — there’s a virus that makes men’s thoughts (and only men, not women) audible, so not only is there no secrets, it’s chaotic hearing everyone else’s thoughts. But, as Todd is out gathering apples in the swamp, he encounters something he’s never experienced before: silence. Quiet. A gap in the Noise which turns out to be a girl.

Viola is part of a new wave of settlers to the New World, on the initial scouting ship. Her parents died in a crash, and when she finds Todd, she’s on the run from Aaron, who is Prentisstown’s fanatic religious leader. Then Todd is sent into exile and he and Viola are on the run, one step ahead of not only the insane Aaron, but the controlling mayor of Prentisstown and his army of fanatics.

There’s way too much to unpack in this novel in a blog post. Seriously. I’m glad I’m reading this as part of a book group, because I don’t think I could even begin to process it on my own. It’s a weird sort of mix between old-timey (the book is in a sort of dialect) Western and science fiction-y futuristic. It’s a survival story with a hint of dystopian. It’s weird and wild and gave me anxiety over and over again (!) and I practically read the whole 480 page book in two sittings. It’s engrossing and there’s so much to discuss. And even though it was written eight years ago, it’s still so very relevant.

My only complaint? The cliffhanger ending. ARGH. I’m just glad I can pick the next book up and read it right away, and I don’t have to wait for it to come out.

A Hundred Thousand Worlds

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hundredthousandby Bob Proehl
First sentence: “Alex Torrey, nine but small for his age, writes the names of the places on the exit signs in his notebook.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: June 28, 2016
Review copy put in my box at work by the purchasing manager.
Content:  There’s a bunch — a couple dozen — of f-bombs, plus other swearing, and some sexytimes, though nothing graphic. It’ll be in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

By all accounts, I should love this book. A single mother, the former star of a beloved canceled sci-fi show, travels across the country attending ComicCons (some big, some small), meeting all sorts of cosplayers and comic writers and artists as she comes to terms with letting her nine-year-old son live permanently (at least temporarily) with her ex-husband, his father.

Except, I didn’t like it. At all. (In fact, I thought upon finishing it: “This is why I don’t read that many adult books anymore!”) It wasn’t bad enough to bail on; in fact, I kept hoping that it’d get better.  But I just didn’t like it. I wanted to like the inside peek behind the scenes of a con, of the ups and downs of being a cosplayer, or even one of the main talent. I’m not too terribly interested in the politics of comics (that’s more Hubby’s ballgame), and there was a lot of  time devoted to the politics of characters, the dynamics between artists and writers, and the politics of creating a storyline, none of which I was interested in.  (And that’s not even mentioning the precocious nine-year-old who was simultaneously too young and too old to be real.)

I wanted to like it. I hoped to like it. But, in the end, it just fell flat.

ABA #Kidstute Round-Up

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So, I got to co to Children’s Institute this past week in Orlando. It was a spectacularly fun time. (I think I still like KidlitCon better, but I think that’s because I’ve been going for a very long time and I know everyone there.)

  1. The keynote speakers: They were fantastic. Kate DiCamillo was delightful, Dave Barry hilarious, and Julia Alvarez amazing. 
    ci4_1
  2. IMG_7129The panels: Mostly, they were good. I sat on one about summer reading camps, and there was one about non-author parties where I got ideas for our midnight release party at the store. And the data analytics were fascinating as well. There were some duds, and I was exhausted by the end of the day on Thursday, but mostly, I learned.
  3. IMG_7133The authors: I “met” (well, interacted with) Mo Willems (and got some dirt on him), and had dinner with Trenton Lee Stewart (delightful) and Wade Albert White (hilarious and fun) and the Hachette team (who are some of the bestest people) and chatted with Laurie Halse Anderson, Jay Asher, and Justine Larbalestier (which means I also stopped and chatted with Scott Westerfeld!), as well as a handful of other authors. I didn’t fangirl too badly, and I don’t think I made too much of a fool of myself. At least I hope I made a positive impression on people. It’s hard to tell.
  4. The company: I went with another co-worker, and she and I had a good time. We visited CliffordIMG_7106
    and were silly in the photo booth at the Backlist Swap party
    IMG_7119and as a bonus, I ran into a really old blogging friend, Susan at Wizards Wireless
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  5. And then, because I was within spitting distance, I took a day afterward and  I went to the beach! I picked New Smyrna because I didn’t want something TOO touristy (well, it was; I don’t think you can get away from it). I was hoping for something more quaint, which it was. And swimming in the ocean was heavenly. I did feel a bit weird, being there by myself, but I don’t think I cared too much. It was heavenly and glorious. beach
    And now, back to real life!

If I Was Your Girl

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ifiwasyourgirlby Meredith Russo
First sentence: “The bus smelled of mildew, machine oil, and sweat.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered off the ARC shelves at my place of employment.
Content: There’s some almost sexytimes, teen pot smoking and drinking, and a few instances of the f-bomb. It’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

I’m going to get this out of the way, first. Whether or not this book is Good, it’s Important. It’s a book about a trans teenage girl written by a trans woman, and that perspective is invaluable. Period.

It’s an interesting plot, though, focusing not on the act of transitioning, or the reasons of transitioning (those come through flashbacks throughout the story), but the after-effects of the transition. Andrew grew up knowing he was a girl, and that he was just in the wrong body. And after a suicide attempt, his mother approved his transitioning — not just in name, Amanda now, but fully, with hormones and surgery. So, when she’s beaten up by a man for using the “wrong” restroom (because she was known in the their town; also, how very timely…) she heads to rural Tennessee to live with her father, who bailed on the family when Andrew began his transition to Amanda.

The goal is to pass: she is beautiful, and no one really can “tell” she wasn’t always biologically a young woman. And, at first, it all goes well. Sure, she’s hiding her past, but she’s living as her truest self, so it all seems like it will be okay. She has friends for the first time in a long time. She has a boyfriend. The problem is that even though she’s living as her truest self, keeping her past a secret isn’t always a comfortable thing.

(I hope I’m writing about this right.)

What this gave me, as a cisgender straight woman, was perspective. I did enjoy the romance; Amanda and Grant were super cute together and Russo does know how to write some good almost sexytimes. But what I found I enjoyed more was the understanding, the humanizing of Amanda. I’ve said that books are an excellent way to gain empathy for those who are different from you, and this was no exception. I feel like, through Amanda, I got to know one trans person’s story. And while that’s not to be taken as Everyperson’s story — as Russo points out in the note at the beginning of the book  — it’s a start. It made Amanda’s hopes, dreams, and feelings real to me, and that’s important.

So, even if this book wasn’t any Good (and it was very well written; Russo does know her South!), it’s Important. And that counts for a lot.

Outrun the Moon

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outrunthemoonby Stacy Lee
First sentence: “In my fifteen years, I have stuck my arm in a vat of slithering eels, climbed all the major hills of San Francisco, and tiptoed over the graves of a hundred souls.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s some violence (done my Mother Nature) and some horrible people saying horrible things. Also, an illusion to sex (by minor adult characters). It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Mercy Wong has Aspirations and Goals. She wants out of Chinatown, where the whole of San Francisco in 1906 wants to keep her and her family. She wants more than marriage (though she does like Tom, the son of a respected apothecary). She wants to Be Somebody. And, she’s decided that St. Clair’s School for Girls is the way to get it. She bargains her way in, and discovers that things aren’t always as simple as they seem. Then the earthquake hits, and when everything comes crashing down around Mercy, she discovers that perhaps the best things in life are friends and a bit of determination.

This really was a nice combination of historical — the dresses and rules of etiquette and restrictions on women — and modern, with Mercy’s progressive ideas and determination to do things without the permission of authority figures. Lee did a great job balancing the two, so it never felt too modern, nor too old-fashioned. I appreciated seeing San Francisco through a Chinese girl’s point of view, and Mercy really is one of those characters you just want to root for. I liked that while there was a romance, it didn’t dominate the story, and that Mercy was enough of her own person to make the romance believable rather than sappy.

I should go back and read Lee’s first book; I’ve heard good things about it. And if it’s anything like this one, it’s sure to be good.

Matilda

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matildaby Roald Dahl
First sentence: “It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s a bit longer than Charlie, and a bit more complex. But, that said, I’d give it to a confident 8-year-old reader. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

So, I’ve read this one before, but it’s been years and years and years and even though I’ve watched the movie a bunch (it’s one of my girls’ favorites), I wasn’t quite prepared for how DARK Matilda is.

I mean, all the usual Dahl themes are there: a powerless, nice child (not poor, though that comes with Ms. Honey) is bullied (by her parents and other adults) and discovers something grand within herself in order to overcome. But, the adults are beyond awful. They’re abusive. The Wormwoods (who are hilarious in the film) are corrupt and neglectful. But, it was Miss Trunchbull, who I always condered just an annoyance, who really got me this time. She’s not annoying: she’s an abuser. And perhaps it’s where I am in my life, but that didn’t sit well with me. I’m not entirely sure why; Matilda and Ms. Honey have a happy ending, after all, and Miss Trunchbull (not to mention Mr. Wormwood) get their comeuppance. But, it kind of rang hollow for me.

That said, it’s also not as funny (or at least clever) as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  It was sweet — both Matilda and Ms. Honey are sweet characters amid all the lame, awful people — but it wasn’t clever. (Dark undertones!) I did enjoy it, but I’m not sure it’s my favorite. (Then again, I still have four more books to read this summer.)

The book group discussion, however, was fantastic! I had 20 kids ranging in age from 5 to 12, and they all had amazing things to say. One boy said he had read it eight times, and had some smart thoughts on it. As did many others. We talked about favorite characters and whether the Wormwoods were funny (yes) and whether Mr. Wormwood deserved the pranks (yes!). Ms. Trunchbull was deemed to be too mean to be funny, though one girl insisted that her parents would have believed her if she had told them what Ms. Trunchbull was doing. We talked a lot about the chocolate cake, and many pointed out that an 18-inch cake really isn’t that big. One girl said it was “just right”. And my favorite comments were when we were talking how Dahl makes ugly=mean and beautiful=good. One girl pointed out that ugly people can’t help being ugly and that they could be nice and beautiful people can be mean. And another girl said that maybe Dahl was just trying to make the character’s inward ugliness show outward. Both excellent.

So, maybe not my favorite, but it was a great discussion.