magic

Nothing Up My Sleeve

1 Comment

nothingupmysleeveby Diana López
First sentence: “Z could always find a reason to feel cursed.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It’s bigger font on small pages, so even though it looks thick it goes fast. It reads very much like a Wendy Mass story, with short chapters, alternating viewpoints, and a lot going on. There’s a slight not-quite-romance (a couple of the boy main characters “like” the girl, but it goes nowhere). It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Z, Dominic, and Loop have been friends for a long, long time. Which means their friendship is one part they like each other and one part competitive. And so when, one hot Texas summer, they discover a magic shop and enter a competition, it becomes somewhat of a tension-creator. They spend the summer working on their magic tricks, but what starts out as just fun becomes more tension-filled. Will their new hobby ruin their friendship?

The good things first: this is full of diversity. Yay for making Texan kids Latin@! And giving them real-world problems: Dominic’s parents are divorced, Z is the youngest of a big family and is always getting ignored, and Loop just found out the man he thought was his biological father isn’t. Plus the way López writes about magic is really neat. She explains the tricks, so you can get a sense of what’s going on, but she doesn’t give away any (well, not many, anyway) of the secrets of the trade.

My big problem was that I felt sorry for Z, who was pathetic, and I felt Dominic was a bit annoying, but Loop and Ariel (she’s the daughter of the magic shop owners) were so annoying I wanted to smack them. Maybe I should give López props for making me care enough to want to smack the kids, but I found them annoying. Which means I really didn’t care too much about how it all resolved. I finished it — it wasn’t really bad — but I didn’t love it. (It really wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t great either.)

Maybe I just wasn’t the right person for it.

Audio book: Six of Crows

3 Comments

sixofcrowsby Leigh Bardugo
Read by: Jay Snyder, Brandon Rubin, David LeDoux, Lauren Fortgang, Roger Clark, Elizabeth Evans, and Tristan Morris
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
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

3 Comments

ravenkingby Maggie Stiefvater
First sentence: “Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
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.

A Darker Shade of Magic

6 Comments

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

1 Comment

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

3 Comments

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.

Amulet: Firelight

3 Comments

firelightby Kazu Kibuishi
First sentence: “Okay, Emily. I think this is a good place to start.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper’s Curse, The Cloud Searchers, The Last Council, Prince of the Elves, Escape from Lucien
Content: There’s a lot going on, and sometimes the vocabulary is a bit challenging, it’s good for a strong 2nd or 3rd grade reader. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) graphic novel section of the bookstore.

Picking up where we left off in the last book…

The powers of the stone are getting more, well, powerful. Emily’s nightmares are beginning to become more intense, and her control over the stone is slipping. And yet, she and Trellis head to Algos Island to recover Trellis’s memories, so they can defeat his father, the evil Elf King. Navin meanwhile, needs to head back to the resistance and there’s a delightful side trip with a sassy robot chef (and an encounter with some elf bounty hunters) before he does. But everything (as it often happens with epic adventures) doesn’t go according to their plan.

I feel like a broken record with this series. I love it, I buy it, I read it, and I want the next one immediately. (I’m kind of beginning to think that I should have waited until all 9 were out… But then I might not have started.) I adore Kibuishi’s art. I can sense where the story is going, but I’m also wondering how it all fits together. (Mostly because I forget parts from one book to the next. I really should do a reread one of these days.) But, I’m not going to give up on Emily, Trellis and Navin. I most definitely want to see how their story ends.

Especially after this installment.

Audio book: The Buried Giant

Leave a comment

buriedgiantby Kazuo Ishiguro
Read by: David Horovitch
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s some violence and mild sexual elements. But, no worse than any Tolkein book. In fact, if you’ve made it through LOTR, you will probably really like this one.

Axl and Beatrice have had a long, good life. Or, at least as much as they can remember. They live in a cave dwelling in Britain, in the time after the Romans left and Arthur’s peace with the Saxons is waning. They’re not quite content, and so they determine that they need to head to a nearby village to see their son — whom they only can barely remember having — because he’s anxiously waiting for them.

They have no idea how their journey will go, or the people they will meet (an elder Sir Gawain among them, much to my delight), and how it will all change them.

I’m not sure how much more of the actual plot I want to divulge. Much like LOTR (which this strongly reminded me of), the plot is less important than the journey. Axl and Beatrice’s journey — though we never really got inside Beatrice’s head, which disappointed me — was a grand one, like Odysseus, or Frodo. The people the met, the friendships they made, the emotional journey they took as well as the physical one all had a mythological quality to it.

I’m sure you can find a lot of deeper meaning in the story as well. But for me, listening to it on my way to and from Dallas (the narrator was excellent, once I got used to his cadence), it was more a long oral narrative, a story to be heard by the firelight over several nights, a story to capture the imagination and to be swept up in.

Which means it’s being told by a master storyteller. And I loved every minute.

Nimona

1 Comment

nimonaby Noelle Stevenson
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s violence and some more mature content. I’d give it to a 5th grader if they asked, though. It’s in the teen graphic novel section of the bookstore.
I’ve been  meaning to get to this one for ages, and being shorlisted for the Graphic Novels Cybils kind of gave me the push. That, and Alyssa over at Everead told me I wouldn’t regret buying it.

She’s right: I don’t regret it at all. It really is that good. (Well, I do regret it a little, because now I have to wait for a copy to come back in so I can put it on my recommends shelf.)

It’s hard to write about this one, though. Mostly because not knowing a whole lot is part of the fun. Know this: it’s a unique fantasy world, both high- and low-tech at the same time. It’s about heroes and villains and what it means to be both. It’s about sidekicks and friendship and Being True to Yourself.

What it’s not: Trite.

Nimona is a fantastic character, fully her own person, beating her own drum, and all the other cliches. Except this feels like the furthest things from a cliche there is. She’s incredibly compelling (though not always likable) to read about. Sir Blackheart, the villain to whom Nimona is sidekick, is also incredibly fascinating. As is Ambrosious, Sir Blackheart’s nemesis. There’s so much going on here that it’s hard to do it justice.

So, just do yourself a favor an read it. You won’t regret it.

A Dragon’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans

Leave a comment

dragonsguideby Laurence Yep and Joanne Ryder
First sentence: ”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s short, there are lots of pictures, and the words aren’t terribly difficult. It’s a great bridge book between beginning chapter and middle reader, and good for ages 7 and up. It’s in the middle reader (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Miss Drake, a dragon who has been around a long time, is happy with her lifestyle. Sure her “pet”, a human she calls Fluffy, recently died and she is grieving that. But when another human, the 10-year-old great-niece of Fluffy (aka Great-Aunt Amelia), comes into her life, she is not at all happy with it.

And thus begins the relationship between Miss Drake and Winnie. Sure, there’s a little adventure with a magical sketchbook and a rabid magic-eating monster, but mostly it’s about overcoming grief of the death of a loved one (Winnie’s father has recently passed away as well) and making friends.

My favorite thing is that it’s written from the dragon’s point of view. Beginning each chapter is a word of “advice” to magical creatures about how to deal with their “pets”, but the narrative is from the point of view of a very old, somewhat cranky dragon. It’s a clever take. That, and it’s blissfully short. Yep and Ryder know their audience, get to the point, and don’t bother putting in a whole lot of backstory. There are clues here and there about Miss Drake’s former pets and Winnie’s family (I’d like to read more about them in other books!), but there are no long-winded passages, no extra words. It’s refreshing.

My  only complaint is that while there is a child character, the protagonist (and the one who propels the action, in the end) is the dragon. And that felt a little off. But other than that, it’s an enjoyable story.

(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.)