Love & Romance

The Wrath and the Dawn

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by Renee Ahdieh
First sentence: “It would not be a welcome dawn.”
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Review copy supplied by the publisher rep.
Content: There is some (implied) sex and there’s some violence, but it’s mostly appropriate for those who love grand, sweeping romances. I’d give it to an 8th grader and up, even though it’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

In this land, the king — 18-year-old Khalid — marries a new bride (chosen at random) every night, just to have her murdered the next dawn. It’s horrible for the people of the country who have come to look at him as a monster. But for Shahrzad, it’s personal: the most recent young woman sent to her death was Shazi’s best friend, Shiva. So (of course) Shahrzad volunteers for the job of bride.

And what follows is her attempt to stay alive.

If you know, even vaguely, the story of Arabian Nights, you pretty much know what’s going to happen. But, Ahdieh takes the story a step further: it’s not just the tales Shahrzad tells to keep alive. She gives motivation to Khalid (though in many ways it came too late for me to care very much) and she gives drive to Shahrzad. She’s there to exact revenge for her best friend, but discovers that there’s more to Khalid than murder.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know people are loving this book. Seriously loving it. But, I just didn’t. I wanted to; I wanted to enjoy the sweeping Persian-inspired grandeur of the story, the fiestiness of Shahrzad, the illusions to the old tale. But, mostly what I wanted to do was smack Khalid and wonder why Shahrzad fell in love with him. (Too much telling, not enough showing?) It’s not that it didn’t make sense; it’s more that I just felt it was Decreed that they Fall in Love and So Mote It Be. I didn’t feel their love story. Then again, I didn’t feel Shahrzad’s rage. Or her first love’s betrayal. It was all Grand and Distant and I really didn’t care.

But since it’s getting pretty much universal raves from everyone else, it’s probably just me.

The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak

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by Brian Katcher
First sentence: “Zak!”
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Content: There’s some swearing, and one (brief) naked scene (which was alluded to), as well as passing references to drug use and drinking. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

I can sum up this book in one sentence: Hermione and Michael Cera spend a crazy action-filled night at Seattle ComicCon and fall strongly in like.

It sounds simplistic, and like I didn’t care for the book, neither of which is true. The book may not be tackling the deepest subjects ever, but it’s not all fluff. And I found myself — in spite of the improbable situations that Ana and Zak found themselves in — thoroughly enjoying their adventure.

Ana is the daughter of super strict parents. Seriously: she believes that she makes one mistake — like her older sister, Nicole, did — and she’s kicked out of the house. So, she does everything right, from following her parents’ (insane) rules to letting them choose her college for her.

Zak’s father died a few years back and his mother recently remarried a guy Zak — uber geek extraordinaire — has nothing in common with. So, he spends his time being the slacker, failing health (by turning in a paper copied from Wikepedia, hyperlinks and everything. Who does that?), and having no desire to even go to college when he graduates in the spring.

They come together one fateful night, when the health teacher (who also happens to be the quiz bowl coach), um, encourages Zak to come to a tournament (by telling him she’ll waive his plagiarized paper and allow him to pass the class) instead of going to his favorite con, Washingcon, that happens to be in Seattle the same weekend as the tournament. Ana is loathe to have him on her team, especially since her first impression of him was terrible. Zak is loathe to be on the team, mostly because he finds Ana rigid and cold and because he’d much rather be AT the con rather than just near it. So, of course, they spend the entire night together at the con, looking for Ana’s younger brother who snuck out to attend.

The con itself was my favorite part (good thing it was most of the book); having never been to one before (shock! It’s on my bucket list, if only to people watch), I thoroughly enjoyed the con atmosphere Katcher painted. I don’t know if it was realistic; there were bullies and gay weddings and gaming tournaments and singing and Zak being some sort of geek god, but I ate it up. If that’s what a con is, then heck yeah, I want to go.

No, it wasn’t perfect: the ending took a turn for the weird when they ran into trouble with a drug runner, and the confrontation with Ana’s mom (when it came out that they were lying about where they were) was pretty unsatisfying (especially since I has just spent the whole book hating her). But, for the most part, it was a thoroughly enjoyable geeky adventure.

And you really can’t ask for much more than that.

Magonia

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by Maria Dahvana Headley
First sentence: “I breathe in.”
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Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s a bunch of swearing, including several f-bombs. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) but I wouldn’t be adverse to giving it to an 8th grader as long as they knew about the language going in.

Aza Ray has spent the nearly sixteen years of her life struggling to breathe. It’s a miracle she’s even lived this long, since she’s got a weird disease (named after her, unfortunately) that basically renders her allergic to air. She’s managed okay, with the help of her family, and her BFF, Jason. But, now, on the eve of her 16th birthday, things are getting weird. Jason maybe wants to be more than BFFs. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. And weirdest of all? She’s seeing ships in the sky.

There are spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned. Because, for better or for worse, this is about to get REALLY trippy.

See: Aza Ray is seeing ships in the sky because there’s a country of bird people up there, called Magonia. And Aza is one of them. (Which is, duh, why she’s having trouble breathing regular earth air.) She was kidnapped as a baby and placed in a human home; whether it’s to punish her mother (according to her mother) or to save her (according to the bird-person who kidnapped her) remains to be seen. It’s really because Aza has this super-singing power that will either save Magonia or destroy the world. Or both. The problem is that she just can’t give up her human life (even though she DIED), and she just can’t quite kill off the humans.

I didn’t really know what to expect going into this, except that there’s a bit quote from Neil Gaiman on the cover and that everyone (at least on Edelweiss) is loving it. I completely — pun intended — missed the boat on this one. Seriously. I thought the premise was at best a drug-induced fantasy and at worst stupid. I thought the conversation was trying to hard to be John Green-esque and it sounded forced. I thought the plot was lame, even though it wrapped up nicely, and that the romance between Jason and Aza was forced. And even though I love fantasy, this just was NOT my thing.

But, as I said: it’s getting tons of love, so that may just be me not getting it.

Bone Gap

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by Laura Ruby
First sentence: “The people of Bone Gap called Finn a lot of things, but none of them was his name.”
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Content: There’s some intense situations, some creepiness, and some on-screen, tasteful sex. It’s also pretty mature in its themes. For those reasons, it’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

Bone Gap is one of those places that everyone knows everyone else’s business and opinions once formed aren’t so easily changed. So, everyone knows that the Rudes are hopeless and mean. That Charlie Valentine is just plain weird. And that Priscilaa — who insists upon being called Petey — is homely. And that Sam and Finn are okay without their mom, who ran off, but they could be better. And that the strange newcomer, Roza, is the most beautiful girl ever.

They also know that Finn’s not the most reliable person; he’s kind of spacey, like his mom, and so when he says some guy in a black SUV took Roza, no one believes him. They chalk it up to “women are always leaving those boys”. They assume that Roza wants to go. But Finn? Finn knows different. So, he sets about trying to find Roza, not because he loves her but because his brother does and his brother can’t quite bring himself to find her. Little does Finn know that looking for Roza will change everything.

I have been sitting here, staring at the screen, trying to figure out what to say about this book. It’s not that I didn’t like it; I did. But I didn’t love it like I felt I should.

My favorite part?  The women. I loved them. I loved Roza and her desire to be Seen for herself and not for her beauty. I loved Petey and her fierceness. I wished there were more women to love, because Ruby knows how to write them whole and complex, people rather than stereotypes.  I liked that they saved themselves, even though the men weren’t worthless louts or even helpless. It was something that was just Done, that they rose up and just did that. They were my kind of women. I also loved the idea that what we assume about other isn’t always the Truth. That there’s more to people than what we see.

But aside from that, I didn’t really love it. Maybe it was the whole magical realism thing; that genre and I have never really quite gotten along. I think I prefer my magic overt: if there’s going to be something strange going on, then give me magic with Rules. I didn’t understand what was going on until the book was nearly done, and that left me feeling, well, stupid.

So, I didn’t enjoy it as much as others on the interwebs, but I still think it’s a novel worth reading.

The Darkest Part of the Forest

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by Holly Black
First sentence: “Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin.”
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Content: There’s a few f-bombs and some teen drinking at the beginning. And some intense kissing, not to mention violence. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Siblings Hazel and Benjamin have grown up in Fairfold, where they know that faeries are in the forest. They know not to mess with the fairies, but since Ben was blessed (cursed) to make gorgeous music as a child and Hazel has always been drawn to the forest, they really didn’t listen. They made up stories about the prince that was in the glass coffin, they fought some bad faeries, and Hazel even made a bargain with the Alderking to help with Ben getting some musical training.

But all that was in the past. Hazel, now 16, is reckless with boys’ hearts and Ben stopped making music years ago.

And now the prince in the coffin is awake and Hazel’s life is falling apart. The question is whether or not Hazel can figure things out before her life is completely destroyed.

I love Black’s storytelling. Wholly and completely. She pulls you into the world she creates, and makes you believe everything she writes. I loved Hazel in her brokenness, and her relationship with Ben. I loved that there were faerie characters and human characters in all shades of the rainbow (both in terms of skin color and morality). I loved the myth she spun around the town and these characters, and the way she worked with the whole idea of the fey.

I just loved the book. Period.

The Viscount Who Loved Me

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by Julia Quinn
First sentence: “Anthony Bridgerton had always know he would die young.”
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Content: Um… yeah…. it’s definitely an Adult book. *blush*

I’ve always said that I prefer plot and character development with my sex (in books). So, I went into this one (a YAckers read, of course) with hopes that it would be, at the very least, entertaining.

And, thankfully, I was rewarded. (Yay!)

The basic plot is was this: Anthony Bridgerton is a rake of the worst sort. It’s 1814, in the height of the Jane Austen era, when chaperones were needed and etiquette was severely structured, and Lord Bridgerton is running around making love to all sorts of women. (Unsavory women, too!) So, of course Kate Sheffield was not going to let him any where near her sister Edwina (seriously: WHAT KIND OF NAME IS EDWINA?), even though she’s the catch of the season and Bridgerton has got it into his head to marry. And everyone knows he gets what he wants.

Except, what he wants turns out to be Kate. *wink wink* *nudge nudge*

And that’s about all the plot there is. There’s a lot (a LOT) of sassy banter between Kate and Anthony and a lot (a LOT) of innuendo and under-the-surface desire before he’s caught with his mouth on her breast, sucking the “venom” out of a bee sting (at which point I was howling with laughter), and they were forced to marry. And then the real fireworks started. Two whole chapters of a sex scene (why was there a chapter break in between?) in which Anthony desires his wife and she lets him have his way with her. (I am SURE there’s a feminist objection here, but honestly, I couldn’t see it for the blatant disregard for the time period.) It was bad. It was so horrible and awful and blush-worthy, I couldn’t stop reading. It was just so bad it turned the corner into good. (Or at least deliciously mock-worthy.) Everyone murmured.   Or had husky voices. It was just too, too delightful.

There were some honestly good bits along the way. I really enjoyed the Bridgerton dynamic as a family: there’s a croquet game that was honestly a lot of fun to read. And Quinn made them a close-knit, loving family which is not something you often see. And there was a bit of depth in both Kate and Anthony; Quinn did manage to give them some fears and insecurities, so they weren’t completely one-dimensional.

Not usually my type of book, but it ended up being a great diversion.

The Kiss of Deception

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by Mary E Pearson
First sentence: “Today was the day a thousand dreams would die and a single dream would be born.”
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Content: There’s some illusions to sex, but nothing explicit. And there’s some violence, but nothing graphic. This one has been languishing in our Teen (grades 9+) section, but I think I’ll move it to YA (grades 6-8) with all the other pretty-dress-covered fantasy.

Lia is a princess of the land of Morrigan, a First Daughter. Which means that her life, as much as she hates it, is not her own. Per custom and religious tradition, First Daughters have arranged marriages, for political gain. And so, Lia is being married off to the prince of a neighboring kingdom, Dalbreck. Whom she has never met. And whom, because he’s just doing what his father wants, she will never have any respect for.

So she runs away, the morning of her wedding. Escapes to a small, coastal town with her maid, and disguises herself as a barmaid. She figures she’ll happily live out her life there. But, there are people on her trail: an assassin from another neighboring “barbarian” country, and the prince himself, who (of course) is nothing like Lia thinks he’ll be.

There are a lot of “of courses” here: yes, there’s a love triangle (but it’s handled well). Yes, she gets caught out. Yes, there’s a smattering of magic and religiousy folklore;  Pearson has developed a whole religion and a prophecy, though I have to admit that I skipped a bunch of that. But, in Pearson’s hands, none of that seemed trite. I really liked Lia as a character, from the get-go: she knew what she wanted and she wasn’t afraid to take it. She was independent — there was none of that stuck-up royal stuff you often get in these sorts of stories — and thoroughly confident in her decisions.

And so when the story takes a left turn — the assassin ends up kidnapping Lia and dragging her back to his country — I was giddy with delight. The book is good, but the last third, after Lia is kidnapped, is great.  No, the story didn’t wrap up; the sequel is coming out in July. But, this is a series definitely worth reading.

An Ember in the Ashes

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by Sabaa Tahir
First sentence: “My big brother reaches home in the dark hours before daown, when even ghosts take their rest.”
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Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It’s dark and it’s brutal. Seriously. More so than Hunger Games. And because of that, it’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Laia has grown up in a world where her people, the Scholars, are a captive people. Their great enemy, the Martials, conquered them and have shown no mercy. They imprison the Scholars, they rape the women, they torture and kill those that they catch. Laia’s parents were part of the resistance, and they were betrayed and killed, along with her older sister. She and her brother Darin lived with their grandparents, trying to fly under the radar of the Martials. Until one day, when they don’t. And the Masks come for them, kill her grandparents, take Darin. Laia barely gets away.

Elias has grown up at Blackcliff, the military school that trains the Martial Masks. An unwanted bastard son of Blackcliff’s Commander, he spent the years before he turned six with the Tribal people in the desert. Then the Augurs — the mystic, magical, immortal Martial prophets — came for him and thrust him into a kill-or-be-killed world. The only way he survived was because of Helene, his fellow student and best friend. Now, just as he was graduating and dreaming of freedom, the Augurs decide that it’s time for a new emperor, and pit Elias and Helene against each other and two other students in a bid to be emperor (or die).

I think the most logical comparison read for this book is Game of Thrones. This is brutal, unflinching, dark, violent, harsh… there’s magic, but it takes a back seat to the exploration of Martial culture. And yet, underneath all of that dark is a hope, a light. Elias, for all the terrible things he’s done (and that have been done to him), turned out to be a decent human being. Laia, even though she thinks of herself as weak, has a quiet strength and bravery to her that isn’t readily seen or valued. It’s a very human book, as well: the characters are complex and messy, there’s depth even to the most hateful of characters (Marcus and the Commander, I’m looking at you), that makes them understandable, even if they aren’t likable.

In fact, the only thing I didn’t like about this book was that there are many unresolved issues, and many unanswered questions at the end. Then again, if this is the quality of writing that Tahir gives us with her first book, I only have high hopes for where this story is going to go.

Miss Mayhem

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by Rachel Hawkins
First sentence: “This is going to be a total disaster.”
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Review copy snagged off the ARC shelves at my place of employment
Others in the series: Rebel Belle
Content: There’s some violence and a bit of swearing — not as much as Rebel Belle in either case. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Spoilers for Rebel Belle. Just so you know.

It’s been a few months since Harper became a butt-kicking Paladin, sworn to protect her now-boyfriend David Stark, who’s the super-mystical Oracle. She’s working with her ex, Ryan (who’s now a Mage) to protect David, and for Harper — who is super controlly by any standard — that means limiting David’s visions to helping out Harper’s friends and family.

Unfortunately, that backfires: the Ephors find them, and while they give back Harper’s best friend Bee, who was kidnapped, they decide that Harper needs to go through a super-intense test to prove that she’s worthy to be the Oracle’s Paladin.

Of course, things aren’t as simple as that: David’s questioning his abilities, and things are on the rocks between him and Harper. Ryan’s having his own problems with girls, and Bee is finding re-entering society after being gone for several months isn’t as easy as they hoped. And then there’s the question of the spooky Ephor guy.What does he really want?

I really enjoyed Rebel Belle, and I was hoping for the same level of sillyness and fluff and fun from this one. But, alas, it’s the middle book in a trilogy, which means I got angst and unease and things unraveling to the point where it just wasn’t fun. It wasn’t bad — Hawkins knows how to write action, and Harper’s definitely grown on me even with all her Southernisms that drive me batty. But, it just wasn’t AS fun as Rebel Belle. Which made me a little sad. Then again, I can always hope for the next book to go back to being fun… at least by the end.

It’s a good series, overall, though.

Red Queen

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by Victoria Aveyard
First sentence: “I hate First Friday.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy brought back from the ABA Winter Institute for me by a co-worker.
Content: There’s a lot — a LOT — of violence, some of it gruesome. It’s in the teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore, and I’m going to leave it there, but I wouldn’t be adverse to giving it to a kid who could stomach Maze Runner or The Hunger Games.

This one is getting All the Buzz (at least in the bookselling circles). It’s got a great cover (seriously), and it’s another one of those vaguely apocalyptic books and so I think publishers are expecting it to do Great Things. I don’t know if that raised my expectations — it is a debut novel, so I don’t know how high they could have been — but this fell flat for me.

Mare Barrow is a Red. Which means, in this world (it was never clear if it’s Earth or a different world entirely), that she’s considered low. Base. A slave. Because her blood bleeds red. See, in this world, the people who have all the power are the ones whose blood is Silver (perhaps because they were aliens that invaded the planet hundreds of years ago? It was never clear.) and because they have powers that give them an advantage over those low Reds. Mare figures she’s going to spend her short life stealing to get by until she gets conscripted into the war that’s been going on for a hundred years, in which she will die.

And then her life changes: she meets Cal, a Silver, who gets her a job in the palace, and then during the Queenstrial (in which Silvers from the noble houses compete to become the prince’s bride), she discovers (quite by accident) that she has powers, like a Silver.

All this sets in motion political intrigue, betrayal, and a lot of fighting that will ultimately be Mare’s downfall. Maybe.

The plot doesn’t sound half bad: there’s a bit of a forced love triangle, and a twist at the end that wasn’t entirely unexpected. But the thing that kept pulling me out of the book was two simple words: smirk and sneer. EVERYONE smirked. EVERYONE sneered. And after the first 15 times, I noticed every time someone did. Then after the next 30, I lost patience with the book and skipped to the end. I did go back and fill in the middle, just to see how we got to the end, but I ended up loathing the book for two simple words. I couldn’t get past it. That’s just lazy writing and lazy editing (and the book would have been 20 pages shorter if they were all deleted). Sure, there were some interesting ideas about class and race and bias, but I couldn’t rise above the writing level to appreciate them.

Definitely for someone less picky than me.