Love & Romance

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.

Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between

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hellogoodbyeby Jennifer E. Smith
First sentence: “When Aidan  opens the door, Clare rises onto her tiptoes to kiss him, and for a moment, it feels like any other night.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC piles at work.
Content: There’s some illusions to teenage drinking and sex, but it’s all tasteful and way off screen. If there is swearing (and now that I think about it, I’m not sure there is…), it’s all mild. It’s in the YA (grades 6-8) section of the bookstore.

Clare and Aidan have been a couple for the past two years of high school. They’ve been super happy and content in their relationship. But, it’s the night before they leave for college and they aren’t going the same place. Clare is headed to Dartmouth and Aidan for the opposite coast and UCLA. So, they’re going out this last night with one goal in mind (at least Clare’s mind): to break up. It’s a logical decision: they need to go away and be able to experience college fully, to not be constantly wondering if the other is being “faithful”. It makes sense.

Clare’s plan is to recreate memorable moments from their relationship, from where they first met through their first kiss and beyond. Except the evening doesn’t go as planned, and perhaps through the twists and turns that the evening throws at them, they can figure out exactly what to do with their relationship.

I love Smith’s romances. They’re generally sweet and simple, kind of like Baby Bear’s porridge: just right.  This one was a bit more angsty than the others I’ve read, but understandably so. I appreciated that Clare was the “logical” one and that Aidan was the more emotional center in the book; it’s a nice twist to have the girl pushing to break up and the boy wanting to stay together. And the adventures over the course of the night were fun as well. It was an interesting take on relationships as well: usually, books either deal with the falling in love part, or the ending part but I don’t know if I’ve read one where there was a “conscious uncoupling” and Gwyneth Paltrow so eloquently put it. I found that difference to be a nice change.

But while it was all nice and comfy and sweet, that’s really all it was. While it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t anything I totally fell in love with. (Ha!) Still: a good book.

Audiobook: School for Brides

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schoolforbridesby Patrice Kindl
Read by Bianca Amato
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Keeping the Castle
Content: Nothing objectionable, but a working knowledge of Regeny manners is helpful. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Set a year after Keeping the Castle (but you don’t need to read that one first), the Winthrop Hopkins Female Academy has one purpose: to educate young ladies to make smashing matches. The problem, however, is that in Lesser Hoo, Yorkshire, there is exactly one bachelor, who isn’t exactly everyone’s idea of eligible. How are eight young women supposed to find their matches if there isn’t any eligible young men around?

Thus begins the very charming A School for Brides (which was a delight to listen to). Things begin to look up when a young man breaks his leg while in the country and is put up at the school to heal. His friends come calling, and suddenly everything is looking a lot more complicated. Several of the girls are simply delightful (plus the instructor, Miss Quince; I adored her), being that excellent cross between feminist and historical, saucy and authentic. There were so many delightful characters (though sometimes I wished I was reading it so I could keep track of who was who) doing so many delightful things. There were also ones to loathe, so it wasn’t a perfect froth.

As I was reading, I realized it’s a homage to Jane Austen’s work, but it’s also a parody. That feeling kind of increased when I did some looking at how to spell the names and discovered that Miss Foll-ee-ut (which is how the reader was pronouncing it) is spelled Pffolliott. Definitely a send up to the silliness that goes on in historical England. (Leave it to Psmith, anyone?)

Amato was also delightful, capturing the spirit of the book in her narration as well as the essence of each character, which is a trick since there’s so many. It’s definitely a fun read.

To Catch a Cheat

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by Varian Johnson
First sentence: “Jackson Greene placed his pen on his desk, loosened his red tie, then flipped the page on his American History exam.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by publisher.
Release date: January 26, 2016
Others in the series: The Great Greene Heist
Content: There’s a slight romance. It’ll be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Jackson Greene’s in retirement. Again. For real this time. No more cons. No more heists. He’s focusing on getting Gaby de la Cruz to be his girlfriend and on passing American History. Then he gets called into the office: someone flooded the bathrooms and ruined the carpets over the weekend, and the principal is convinced it’s Jackson and his crew.

Except it’s not: every single member of the crew has an alibi for the time frame, albeit ones they’re reluctant to give. And then Jackson is texted a video — obviously faked — of him and his crew performing the prank. It’s blackmail: steal the answers to the huge American History test or the principal gets the video and Jackson gets suspended.

There’s more to the plot than that, of course, including a brilliant long con with lots of twists and turns. Sure, it’s implausible, but it’s a lot of fun as well. The diverse cast is back as well, which is also incredibly gratifying. It’s very nice to have a fun book with diverse characters and have it be (mostly) issue-free. (I’m not sure how well the Asian kids came out of this; the character development of the minor characters seemed a little weak, but maybe Johnson was relying on what he did in the first book?)

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Not if I See You First

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by Eric Lindstrom
First sentence: “My alarm buzzes and I slap it off and tap the speech button at the same time.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: December 1, 2015
Content: There’s a lot of swearing — not overly so, but enough that I wouldn’t recommend it to sensitive souls. It’ll be in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Parker Grant hasn’t had an easy life. She lost her sight at age 7 when her mother crashed the car (and was killed), but she and her dad have made do. Parker found a close cohort of friends that have stuck with her through the years. With the exception of Scott, who she thought was her friend until a betrayal in 8th grade. Now, just before the start her junior year, Parker’s life just got messy again: her father accidentally overdosed on prescription meds, and she’s alone again. (Well, not really: her aunt and uncle and their family have moved in with her. Which helps, but isn’t really something she is happy about.)

(Before I go much further, I know: dead parents. I understand getting them out of the way for the purposes of the story, but wow. Merciless.)

Now, Parker has to figure out what she’s going to do. She’s coping, but not well. And when Scott shows back up at her high school (they went their separate ways in 9th grade), she has to deal with those resurfacing emotions as well.

Lest that make it sound like a love story, it isn’t really. Yeah, there’s some kissing, and some talk about love and boyfriends and such, but the ending isn’t a perfect, happily-ever-after.

I did, however, fall in love with Parker. Seriously. From the opening pages where she goes for an early morning run, and the mechanics of that, I knew I was hanging out with someone worth getting to know. And the great thing is that she was a complicated person. She was angry, she was holding her emotions about her dad, about Scott, about everything in. She was a bad friend sometimes. But she also learned and grew and changed. And there were pretty great people (who were also normal) surrounding her.

I don’t know how accurate Lindstrom’s depiction of a blind girl was, or how well it’ll resonate with people who have experience with blindness. But, I liked that he didn’t limit Parker by her “disability”. She was capable, she was smart, and yes she needed help, but she was independent in so many ways. I also liked that no one was limited by color, size, sexuality (though that wasn’t really explored), or ability. There were POCs in the book, but it was only mentioned in passing. It wasn’t dwelt upon; these were just kids hanging out, making decisions, trying to get through each day.

The Scorpion Rules

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 scorpionrulesby Erin Bow
First sentence: “Once Upon a Time, at the End of the World.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are exactly two f-bombs, some mild swearing, and one illusion to sex. It’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore, but I’d give it to a 7th grader, if they had no objections to the content.

At this point in my life, I’m very much been-there, done-that when it comes to dystopian/post-apocalyptic books. I feel like I’ve read/seen them all, and there’s really nothing new to explore there.  So, my first thought was that this was just going to be more of the same-old, same-old, and I passed on the ARC. Then it came in, and on the back were quotes from authors I respect, so I thought (somewhat begrudgingly), that I would give this one a try.

(I know, I know: I’m not “supposed” to start these with “I’m not a fan of x”. But bear with me.)

It didn’t take me too long to realize that I was utterly wrong. First of all, the premise is something I haven’t encountered in a long while: humans have destroyed the world through climate change and war, and somewhere along the way, invented artificial intelligence. One of the AIs decided that enough was enough, and took over — by blowing up a number of huge cities — ruling the world. And the way Talis, the AI, decided to keep the peace? By keeping the children of the world’s rulers hostage. If they enter into war, their children would be killed.

Brilliant, no?

Greta is the Crown Princess of the PanPolar Confederacy, a major North American power formed out of what we know as Canada. She’s also a hostage of Talis, living in the prairies of Saskatchewan at the Precepture with her compatriots, fellow hostages. Then one day, war breaks out, one of her friends dies, and a new boy, Elian, shows up. He’s the grandson of the leader of a new alliance, and he’s not at all willing to take his role as a Dutiful and Humble hostage. He fights every step of the way. And somehow, this awakens Greta (and the rest, including her best friend La Da-Xia) to the horrible reality that is her life.

There is so much more to it than that, but I don’t want to give it all away. I adored the combination of high-tech (there are flying battleships and smart pads and cameras and, of course, the AI) and low-tech (the children at the Precepture are basically farmers, thinking about raising goats and bees and harvesting vegetables. There’s a monastery-like feel, as well: they call the AI in charge “Father”. But I also loved the diversity: Bow rightly depicted people from all over the world — African, Asian, Native American, Hispanic — but it felt natural and organic rather than some sort of forced diversity.

But what I really loved was the fluidity of the romance. There’s a love triangle of sorts, but not your typical one; Greta is bisexual and there’s no angst or heartache about this. She’s in love with both a male and a female, and it’s just the way she is. And even Talis, when he shows up, was more gender fluid in his depiction (as benefiting and AI, no?). It was all very different, and very, very refreshing.

It’s the start of a series, and I’ll definitely be picking up the next one to see where Bow takes Greta’s story.

The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen

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by Katherine Howe
First sentence: “The cafe in the basement of Tisch, the art and film school at New York University, was redecorated this year.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy snagged from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There’s talk of teenage drinking (and some actual), plus drug use. There’s also one almost-sex scene. It’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section at the bookstore.

There is no way to write this, I think, without spoiling the premise. If you choose to go into this without knowing what it is, then you should probably stop reading now.

Wes is at NYU for the summer film workshop for a reason: he wants to transfer from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to NYU because Madison is, well, small. Constricting. The Same. He needs something different, and he Knows he can find it in New York City. (Well, can’t we all?) He’s out helping one of his friends, Tyler, film an art film at a seance when his life really changes: he meets Annie and Maddie. They’re edgy, they’re different, they are most definitely not from Wisconsin. And as Annie pulls Wes into her story (and he gets more tangled up with Maddie), he discovers that maybe the life-changing event he thought New York would offer him isn’t going to be in film school.

I’m going to say it, even though Howe danced around it: this is a ghost story. And, as such, it’s quite good. I liked not knowing that Annie was a ghost for a while — it took the whole first section for me to figure it out, though there’s a pretty big clue at the end of the prologue. I liked Wes’s discovering of her story, and how Annie flitted back and forth in time. I liked Howe’s historical detail; it’s most definitely something she excels at. And I thought the love triangle-ish thing between Wes, Annie, and Maddie was unique as well.

The only thing that really bothered me was that Howe refused to call a spade a spade. She never, once, admitted, in words, that Annie was a Ghost. She was a Rip Van Winkle. Every time it came up, they dodged the bullet. It got old. Just say she’s a ghost, please.

But, other than that, it was an intriguing weaving between past and present, and a unique way to look at ghost stories.

Honor Girl

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by Maggie Thrash
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Content: There’s about a half-dozen f-bombs scattered throughout the book. It’s in the teen graphic novel section of the bookstore.

It’s the summer of 2000, and Maggie is 15. She’s been going to the same summer camp in Kentucky — Camp Bellflower — since she was little, the same camp her mother and grandmother both went to. There was a lot of tradition in the camp, including that of Honor Girl: the one senior camper that was supposed to embody all the Tradition of the camp.

There are very few books, I think, that truly capture what a 15-year-old girl is really like, in all her angst and insecurity. And Thrash’s graphic memoir hits the nail on the head. It’s spot-on. From the drama between her and another girl over who will get their shooting D.E. (a mark of excellence) first to the rumors that fly around the camp about anyone and everyone. But, for Maggie, her summer is wrapped up in a crush she has on one of the counselors, Erin. Does she like Maggie back? Is Maggie even supposed to like one of the counselors? What does it all mean?

The answer is, ultimately and honestly, that she doesn’t know. There is no grand Coming Out moment. There are some moments when I wanted to smack those running the camp, when they discriminated against Maggie for exploring who she is. But, mostly, it was just one slice of a moment in time, when a girl fell in love and didn’t really know what to do about that. And that was something I found I could relate to.

I’m glad Thrash decided that her story needed to be told.

Room With a View

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by E. M. Forester
First sentence: “‘The Signora had no business to do it,’ said Miss Barttlet, ‘no business at all.'”
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Content:  There’s some mild swearing, but not much at all. It’s dated, and English, but not too difficult to understand. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

I don’t know when I first read this one; probably sometime soon after the Merchant Ivory movie (which I own still on videotape!) came out in the 1980. I don’t know when I got the copy I own, either. (A duo with Howard’s End). I do know that it’s loved enough that it’s falling apart.

And it’s well worth it.

I love Lucy’s innocence and Charlotte’s fussbudget-ness and George’s impulsiveness and Mr. Emerson’s progressiveness and Cecil’s snobbishness. I love Forester’s commentary on the Victorian English upperclass. I love it all. (And yes, I do firmly have the movie in mind when I read.)

I don’t have much more to say; this has been one of my comfort reads in the past, and it was absolutely delightful revisiting it again after being away for so long.

Everything Everything

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by Nicola Yoon
First sentence: “
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: September 1, 2015
Review copy picked up at CI3 and signed by the author.
Content: There is a few mild swear words, and one sort-of on-screen, sort-of-off-screen sex scene. The publisher has it listed for grades 7 and up, which puts it in the YA section, but I might move it to the Teen (grades 9+).

Madeline has spent her entire life inside. White furniture, white walls, filtered air, the whole deal. It’s because she has Severe Combined Immunodefiency (SCID), which basically means she’s allergic to the world. Any little disease, any little microorganism will kill her. So, she stays inside, reading, doing her online school.

And then Olly moves in next door.

Okay: yes, the plot is predictable. Boy moves in next door, they meet and have instalike, and suddenly the girl is questioning her Life Choices and Taking Risks.

But I ate this up. I don’t know if it was the short chapters, snippets of Madeline’s thoughts and observations, interspersed by some charming line drawings. Or the parallel worlds between her being trapped inside her house because she’s sick and Olly being trapped because of his abusive father. Or just the chemistry between Madeline and Olly, which was fantastic. Or the fact that Madeline was Afro-Asian, and yet it wasn’t really an issue. She just was. Her mother is suffenciently controlling (for good reason), and I adored Carla the Latina nurse, who was really more of a mother figure to Madeline.

And all of this added up to overcome the predictable plot and make me fall for this book. Another absolutely amazing debut.