Book Review: Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Book: Amy and Roger's Epic Detour
Author: Morgan Matson
Published: 2010
Source: Local Library

It was supposed to be a simple road trip. A cross-country trek for the purpose of getting the family car from California to Connecticut, carefully charted out by Amy's mother for maximum speed. Still numb from her father's recent death and the sudden changes in her life, Amy doesn't make a peep of protest, even when she's saddled with an unwelcome co-pilot in the person of her mom's friend's college-age son. Fine. Whatever. Someone else to do the driving.

Then Roger suggests a detour. Which turns into a bigger detour. Then they're off the map entirely, and journeying through all the dark places in their own hearts, with nothing to hold on to but each other.

So, this book was not what I was expecting. (I say that a lot in this blog. I like the books that surprise me.) I thought it would be a cute road-trip romp, with hijinks, and maybe wildlife, and definitely smooching. I didn't expect this quiet, reflective book, shimmering with pain, which gets worse before it gets better. (Okay, fine, there was smooching, too, and more. Just in case you were wondering.)

The road-trip-as-emotional-journey metaphor is a classic for a reason. You get out of your rut, you see new things, and of course, you change yourself, so that by the time you get back to your regular life you're able to see it more clearly. While the title references both Amy and Roger, this is really Amy's book. Roger has his own arc--a relationship that ended badly, some closure sorely needed--but Amy is front and center. We see her almost catatonic at the beginning, unable to muster up the energy to care about anything. As they trek on, encountering places and things that were special to her dad, we're treated to flashbacks that slowly assemble themselves into a picture of how Amy's dad died and why she's laboring under so much guilt. We also see her come back to life, learning to enjoy it again and also to accept what happened.

I couldn't decide whether I was disappointed or not by the source of Amy's guilt. On the one hand, she wasn't directly responsible for his death. A car ran a red light and slammed into the car she was driving, with her dad in the passenger seat. In some ways, it felt as if she was blowing it up far too big. On the other, that's precisely what she needed to realize. It was one of those horrible, awful things that happen sometimes. Living, really living, isn't a betrayal of the person you loved--it's a tribute.

I really, really wanted to go on a road trip after reading this book, and also download pretty much the entire soundtrack (chapters are punctuated by mixes assembled by the characters).

Book Review: Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg

Book: Prom and Prejudice
Author: Elizabeth Eulberg
Published: 2011
Source: Local Library

As a scholarship student, Lizzie Bennet hasn't had an easy time of it at Longbourn Academy. She's been notified that she's not welcome in ways large and small. But she's going to stick it out, because Longbourn might be a viper's nest of spoiled trust-fund babies, but it's also the only place she's going to get the musical training that she needs and deserves. Still, it's hardly a surprise when arrogant Will Darcy dismisses her after knowing her ten minutes. But it stings more than she expects, and she strikes back with snarky remarks and attitude.

Unfortunately, because their two best friends are dating, they keep getting pushed together. Then he starts turning up even when Charles and Jane aren't around. His behavior is so entirely puzzling that Lizzie starts to wonder . . . is it possible that Darcy might have feelings for her other than contempt? Or are the feelings that have changed just hers?

Pride and Prejudice is my all-time favorite book in the universe, so anytime I see a retelling, I'm compelled to pick it up. It's always fun to see how plot points and characters get morphed into a different setting. This one was enjoyable, if a little clunky in spots. Darcy's interference in Charles and Jane's relationship is completely dropped, for instance, and there are strange moments where dialogue seems to be lifted straight from the book. What works in the 1812 English countryside is a little harder to credit in 21st century Manhattan. But it was an entertaining way to spend an hour.

Book Review: Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill

Book Review: Meant to Be
Author: Lauren Morrill
Published: November 13, 2012
Source: Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

Julia Lichtenstein should be over the moon. After all, she's in London for a class trip. Home of Shakespeare, Big Ben, and culture of all kinds. Unfortunately, she's been paired with obnoxious Jason Lippencott as her buddy, and now instead of spending her time viewing the cultural sights, she has to keep the world's biggest three-year-old out of trouble.

Jason may be the kind of person who will wrestle on the floor of the Tate Modern and sneak out to a party the first night they're in town, but he's at least willing to help her solve the mystery of her secret-admirer texter. Julia's heart is pledged to Perfect Mark (who will notice her one day; really, he will). But that's no reason she can't have a little London fling. Together, they'll discover a whole new side of London, and maybe Julia will discover the one that's Meant to Be.

If I had to characterize this book in three words, it would be unlikely, predictable, and delicious.

Unlikely: Boy, did these seventeen-year-olds get a long leash. One chaperone, and that one incredibly hapless and easy to fool? Hours and hours of rambling around in one of the biggest cities in the world? Okay. I get that some measure of independence was necessary to the plot. But as an adult reading, I was thinking, "Jesus, teacher-woman, you're so lucky none of these kids fell in the Thames or died of alcohol poisoning." We won't even get into the whole lack of jet-lag and the incredible hotel they got.

Predictable: Oh, come on, people. I knew who she'd end up with the moment I read the synopsis. I'm sure you did, too. Have all the romantic comedies ever taught us nothing? I also knew that Perfect Mark was going to be a prick in Prince Charming's clothing, and that Julia would be knocked off her rocker by both these revelations. Not to mention that, by the end, uber-uptight Julia would finally loosen up and learn that the rules don't have to be followed every second. Some details didn't work out exactly the way I thought they would at the end (the mystery texter, for example), but the shape of things was pretty much exactly the way I thought it'd be.

However, my last adjective? Delicious. Sometimes you need something that's pure sweet fluff, and Meant to Be fit that bill. I gulped it down in a couple of hours. Following Julia's roller-coaster ride to realization that the perfect boy is an impossible dream, but a flawed boy can be even better was just the kind of escapist fun I needed.

Also, Jason was a totally believable 17 year old. Sometimes the boys in these books are so perfect you want to hire a private investigator to find out their dark secrets. Jason is obnoxious, often thoughtless, and basically a teenage boy. There's a moment late in the book where I literally thought, "He's acting out."

If you're looking for something fun and sweet to while away the time and leave you with a smile on your face, Meant to Be is just the book for you.

Book Review: Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick

Book: Sorta Like a Rock Star
Author: Matthew Quick
Published: 2011
Source: Local Library

Amber Appleton is the self-proclaimed Princess of Hope. She considers it her God-given mission to spread joy and optimism to those that need it. From spending time with a haiku-writing Vietnam vet to teaching English to Korean immigrants using R-and-B lyrics to weekly debates with a nihilistic octogenarian for the entertainment of lonely nursing-home residents, Amber does her best to let her little light shine on everyone else's life.

What nobody knows is that her own life is hardly hopeful. She's living with her mom in a school bus, barely scraping by. Amber's determined not to let anybody know, either. She's doing just fine, after all. Then a horrifying event brings Amber's world crashing down around her. She can no longer spread her message of hope. She doesn't have enough for herself.

But she's forgotten something very basic about hope and joy: they're infectious. They spread. And when you catch it, you want to spread it back, even if the person who needs it most is the person who gave it to you in the first place.

In case you haven't figured it out from that first paragraph, Amber's one wobbly step away from being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Her first-person narration overflows with verbal gymnastics. Full of optimism, running over with energy, and somehow able to make everybody and I do mean everybody love her, she's almost more quirk than character. What saves her from this fate is the very real darkness and self-doubt that permeate her quieter moments. Even before her mother dies, you have a strong sense that she is putting up a good front, sparkling as hard as she can just so nobody guesses that the darkness and the doubt are there.

I have to also mention the role of faith in this novel.  Amber is openly Christian, but not in the evangelical sense. She talks about Jesus as if he's a personal friend. Not one who'll fix all her problems (so often my problem with evangelical Christianity), but someone who's on her side. Her faith doesn't pull her out of the dark, but it does hold her up for awhile as she goes through it.

Somewhere between Weetzie Bat and Pollyanna, this girl may not be terribly realistic, but she could spread a little hope into your heart too.

Book Review: Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

Book: Leverage
Author: Joshua C. Cohen
Published: 2011
Source: Local Library

At Oregrove High School, the football players are gods. It's the accepted social order. But Danny and the rest of the men's gymnastics team have decided they're not going to take it anymore. Pranks and bullying escalate until the three football co-captains viciously gang-rape a freshman gymnast, and their victim kills himself.

Besides the gymnastics captain, the only witnesses to the crime were Danny and Kurt, the incredibly talented new fullback that Danny has been building a tentative and unlikely friendship with. They know that they should speak out, but it seems as if the kings of the school hold all the power against them. Can they defeat their personal demons and show the world that everybody, even an athletic god, has to answer for their actions?

In many ways this was an incredibly disturbing book. Given the topic, I knew it would be, but I was unprepared for how intense it was. At one point, I had to set the book down and go do other things for awhile. Not during the rape, as you might think, but shortly afterward, when the football coach is spewing all manner of idiotic filth about the suicide of Ronnie Gunderson, painting him as a weakling who couldn't handle everyday life and his football players as the upstanding young men who will heal the community via football victory. You get a glimpse into how these narcissistic young men have come to believe that they can do whatever they want without consequences, because the adults in their life have taught them that athletic prowess equals moral superiority, which equals untouchability.

For me, one of the finest parts of the book lay in the believability of Danny and Kurt's friendship. After some initial wariness, they enjoy and respect each other for their differences and their similarities.

There's something almost cartoonish about the final showdown, which ends with the three rapists and the coaches who enabled their behavior being literally booed off the field by an entire field full of football fans, but I have yet to decide whether that's good or bad. On one hand, arrests all around might have better fit the serious and terrible nature of the act that was committed. On the other, the depth of that humiliation, in the place where they were so recently gods, might have been the strongest punishment that fate could dole out.

That quibble aside, this was an intense, unsettling, thought-provoking book.

Reading Roundup: October 2012

By the Numbers
Teen: 18
Tween: 7
Children: 7

Sources
Review Copies: 9

Purchased: 1
Library: 17

Standouts
Teen: TIE
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
She was supposed to give up her life for her goddess. But her goddess never showed. What now? The core of this book was its amazing main character: Liana's faith and yet her practicality, her strength in the face of the upending of everything she'd ever believed. This is a beautiful and unique book with a setting that I loved. I'll stop gushing now, because the only book that could have rivaled it this month was . . .
Hush by Eishes Chayil
Raise your hand if you haven't heard of this one. Yeah, that's what I thought. Powerful, fascinating for its nuanced portrayal of an insular religious community and its secrets, and what it truly means to be a Woman of Valor.
Tween: Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities by Mike Jung
A superhero fanboy discovers Captain Stupendous's secret identity: he's a twelve-year-old girl. Well, now he is, anyway. And there's a supervillain, and mayhem, plus the usual angst and trauma of being a twelve-year-old. There's just oodles of fun awaiting you in this book.
Children: Me and Momma and Big John by Mara Rockliff
A boy watches his mother work on New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and comes to realize that though her work may be small, the great cathedral couldn't rise without it. A very different look at art and artists, when the individual isn't recognized but their contribution is invaluable to a larger endeavor.

Because I Want To Awards
Consistently Excellent Series is Consistently Excellent: The Hive Detectives by Loree Griffith Burns
This whole series is strong on the science, but this one is particularly good about it, showing how scientists are using the scientific method to formulate and examine theories related to Colony Collapse Disorder, and what the process teaches them even if they don't get The Big Answer to Everything.
No Easy Answers: Fall for Anything by Courtney Sheinmel
Struggling to understand her father's suicide, Eddie falls into a strange relationship with his protege. I really appreciated that this didn't offer one simple thing that made everything better for Eddie, because it doesn't work like that.
Yipppeeee, Finally!: The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
I've been waiting to read this ever since I devoured The Girl of Fire and Thorns last year. This book is more complex as Elisa struggles with the mantle of ruling that she took on at the end of the last book. The end was a little ARGH but I did love this book.

Sorry Guys . . .

The reading roundup is postponed tomorrow, due to extreme tiredness. Hard to type when your face is flat on your desk.

Book Review: Flutter by Gina Linko

Book: Flutter
Author: Gina Linko
Published: October 23, 2012
Source: Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

Every so often, Emery enters what she calls a loop. Her mind travels to somewhere else. The future, the past, places she's never been in real life. She meets people both familiar and strange. The loops are beautiful, peaceful, and soothing.

Except that while her mind is journeying, her body is having seizures. And after a lifetime of these, Emery's body is starting to fall apart. She's in the hospital 24/7, being studied like a guinea pig by a team of doctors who examine her brain so closely that they can't see her heart. That team includes her own father, who thinks of her as an experiment first and a daughter second. Emery knows that she'll spend the rest of her life here, however long that might be, if she doesn't get herself out.

So she bolts, using a few thin clues to find the places in real life that she's visited in her loops. She finds herself in Esperanza Beach, Michigan, a little town in the Upper Peninsula, and there she meets Ash, a boy a couple of years older that feels awfully familiar somehow. What does he have to do with her loops? Why was she drawn here? Why is she having them? Can she hide from her father as he hunts her down?

Most importantly: can she learn to control her loops--or will they kill her first?

So, this book didn't go quite where I expected. To be honest, I didn't have a good idea where I expected it to go. Aliens? Vampires? Angels? Alien vampire angels? None of those, although I kind of want to read the alien vampire angels book now. (Libba Bray could totally pull that off. Or Sarah Rees Brennan. I'm not picky.) Nope, it's about something entirely different.

Emery is dying. She makes this much clear to us, and also makes it clear that she understands and accepts it. Her body is falling apart, and she feels as if she's wasting what little time she has left. After the escape from the hospital, a strong theme in the novel is Emery trying to live each day as it comes, with a sense of purpose and agency for the first time in her life. She is feeding herself, she's caring for herself, she's seeking out information on a situation that directly impacts her. You can see how this nourishes a soul that's been starved for years.

Ash and Emery's relationship isn't insta-lurve, though they're clearly attracted to each other and just as clearly trying to fight that attraction, for different reasons. Their relationship builds quietly, its pieces set in place as they cautiously open up to each other.

I do have one major quibble, and that's this: Emery's dad is painted as this terrible and ruthless parent who has godlike powers (including heavy pull with national agencies that go by acronyms) and could find her at any time. Really? I had a hard time believing that a teenager's seizures would be a matter of national security, no matter how medically unusual. I found myself believing the much more likely scenario that he was a single father, very worried about his terminally ill daughter, perhaps unable to communicate that worry, and just trying to find her.

That wasn't a huge part of the story, however, and I was able to dive into the rest of it without letting that bug me so much. Was it perfect? No, partly for the dad thing, and partly because the ending seemed a little too perfect and preordained. However, with its themes of life and death and its sweet and understated love story, this book does stand out from the current crop of YA, and for that reason, you should give it a try.

Book Review: The Hidden Gallery by Maryrose Wood

Book: The Hidden Gallery
Author: Maryrose Wood
Published: 2011
Source: Local Library

After some initial rough patches, plucky governess Penelope Lumley has finally gotten her young charges in hand. They've stopped chewing their own shoes, they generally refrain from biting (unless furry hats are involved), and their Latin is progressing quite well indeed. Now they're onto a new adventure: a family trip to London! Penelope is looking forward to cultural experiences galore. Of course, she should know by now that nothing ever goes as planned.

No matter. Along with highly amiable new friend Simon Harley-Dickinson, a singularly useless guidebook, and her own powerful stock of pluck and mettle, Penelope will take on London and the continuing mystery of the children's origins. Maybe along the way, she can even solve a little of her own mysterious past.

I read the first book for the 48HBC a couple of years ago, and enjoyed it immensely. In this one, Wood retains the madcap feel of the first book, and adds a few sparse crumbs to the great mystery of the Incorrigible children. Things are starting to come together slowly, but not so slowly that it's frustrating. I particularly enjoyed Simon, who shares Penelope's most endearing trait of taking the children exactly as they come, without judgement and with a great deal of enjoyment in their company.

Luckily, there is a third book and probably more on the way. They may be raised by wolves, but the Incorrigible children are also irresistible.

Book Review: Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George

Book: Princess of Glass
Author: Jessica Day George
Published: 2010
Source: Local Library

After a childhood spent dancing every night away with her eleven sisters as part of a wicked enchantment, Princess Poppy never wants to so much as curtsey to a partner ever again. It makes life a little challenging when she pays a visit to neighboring kingdom of Breton, but she finds ways to entertain herself at balls and parties, especially when she gets to spend time with friendly and fun Prince Christian of Danelaw.

Then comes the night of the royal ball. Christian, along with most of the men in the room, is strangely ensnared by the mysterious Lady Ella. Only Poppy seems to recognize housemaid and disgraced gentlewoman Eleanora. Only she seems to understand that there's something very wicked going on, and Eleanora may be as much of a victim as the prince. In order to defeat the real foe, and rescue both Christian and Eleanora, Poppy's going to have to face her deepest fears, both on the dance floor and off.

This is a book that so easily could have had the wrong heroine. I spent a great deal of it going, "Oh for Crissakes, Eleanora, grow up." Though she is the Cinderella in this story, she's also whiny, self-pitying, and tends to depend on others to rescue her. It's our good luck that our heroine is Poppy, who is practical, capable, and brave. Having come through one evil plot, she's adept at recognizing the signs and knows that it's going to take more than a pure heart to win the day.

Though marriage and courtship feature largely in the story, I'd characterize this as a tween/young teen title, especially since the relationship between Poppy and Christian isn't so much passionate as cute and sweet. While it's not the best I've ever read, it's an entertaining, fast-paced example of the retold fairy tale trope that I particularly enjoy, with an intrepid heroine.

Book Review: The Quick Fix by Jack Ferraiolo

Book: The Quick Fix
Author: Jack Ferraiolo
Published: October 1, 2012
Source: Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

After the last time, you'd think middle-school private detective Matt Stevens would know better than to do any jobs for juvenile crimelord Vinny Biggs again. And he's not, really. Sure, he's looking into the case of a missing "decorative piece of wood," but only because beautiful cheerleader Melissa Scott asked him first. And the Thompson twins, infamous purveyors of addictive Pixy Stix, are after it too. Vinny was merely the last in a long line.

But as usual with Matt's cases, things go south in a hurry. Melissa is publicly humiliated and sent to the Outs, a social Dante's Inferno. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. She's unexpectedly followed by the chief hall monitor, and then Matt knows somebody's deadly serious. Combined with blackmail, Pixy Stix, a lot of money, and more questions than one seventh-grader can reasonably answer, it seems like business as usual for Matt.

Then he discovers the "piece of wood" is really a box, and what it contains could mean nothing to anyone but himself. Right?

I reviewed the first Matt Stevens book last year, The Big Splash, and enjoyed it enough to request this book when it popped up on NetGalley. The middle-school experience painted with a wash of tweaked noir conventions wouldn't have been enough for a second go-round, but I really liked Matt and I was curious about the larger mysteries that had been set up.

In general, I enjoyed myself again. Matt is as snarky, thoughtful, and clever as he was the first time. The series-level mystery of his dad's disappearance advances apace. The book-level mystery was somewhat thinner this time, often lost in all the winks at mystery types. And that brings me to the main reason I'm writing this review, which is to work out my own ambivalence toward the hyper reality of this setting.

In my first review, I mentioned: "The Big Splash can't really decide whether it wants to be funny or serious about its own tone." Is it meant to be totally tongue-in-cheek? Perfectly serious? A tongue-in-cheek lens for the always-gruesome middle-school experience? I honestly couldn't say, and I still can't.

The same thing came up for me again, particularly in the substitution of Pixy Stix as an addictive substance. I think it's because I work on a daily basis with kids whose lives are affected by the real thing that this analogue doesn't quite sit right. Imagining their reactions to the notions of mere sugar being as destructive a force as what they see in their neighborhoods and homes rattled my willing suspension of disbelief, and this is a book that really requires a lot of that.

So . . . what's the verdict here? I'm still not sure. Was it well-written? Yes. Matt is a fully fleshed character, as are most of his compatriots, though it often seemed to me that characters' reactions are much more adult in nature than a typical middle-schooler's. Will kids like it and relate to it? I really don't know. I think they'll like Matt, and read on for the mystery and the relationships. But as to how realistic the details of the setting will feel to kids not familiar with the conventions of adult mystery novels and noir storytelling, I have my doubts. If you've read it and think otherwise, please share.

Kidlitcon 2012: The Bloggers Take Manhattan

This past weekend was one of my favorite weekends of the whole year. It was KidlitCon, in which bloggers gather to talk about books, blogging, and the intersection of the two. There's also many hijinx and some drinking of alcoholic beverages.

Every year, a different city is selected and different bloggers organize it, making each KidlitCon a unique experience. This year, it was New York City, and it was put together by Betsy Bird of A Fuse #8 Production and Monica Edinger of Educating Alice.

On Friday, we were treated to publisher previews, which were apparently Monica's brainchild, as well as her blood, sweat, and tears. No word on the proportion of tears to blood and sweat. I attended the Simon and Schuster preview in the morning, and the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt one in the afternoon. I heard about a lot of exciting books coming up, and got a few advanced reader copies to take home. More valuable than that, however, was meeting publisher peeps and talking with them.

At Simon and Schuster, we got the chance to see the research and art that goes into one of Megan McCarthy's appealing nonfiction picture books. She shared with us some of the things she had to do in order to get the pictures and info she needed for her next opus, coming out Summer of 2013. (Hint: illicit photography was involved.)

At the Houghton Mifflin, we discussed Common Core and how books can be used in the classroom. For those of you not in the know, Common Core is the newest thing in education circles. Basically, it's an upgraded set of standards for teachers to plan their lessons by. Of particular interest is that it emphasizes nonfiction reading in language arts, which means librarians get to haul out all the incredibly awesome nonfiction on our shelves. We also briefly chatted about e-galleys vs print ARCs. I was interested to hear that they limit their e-galley distribution just as they do their print galleys, and they were interested to hear that I actually prefer e-galleys.

By the bye, I've since heard from others that they prefer print, so now I'm interested in the topic. How many of you like e-galleys better, print ARCs better, or don't really care as long as you get to read a good book? I may actually do a blog post. Craziness, I know.

On Friday night, the bloggers en masse descended on a midtown restaurant, decimated their sushi bar (Actual quote from a blogger who would prefer to remain anonymous [me]: "Oh, I'll try this one, it's pink!"), and heard Grace Lin speak about her journey from art school to children's-book-illustration. I hear tell that she came into the city with a very small baby and a very large Sasquatch (also in attendance) just to talk to us, and I can't help but feel flattered. We also got the chance to purchase Starry River of the Sky a few days before it was officially on the shelves. If you think we were all over that, you would be right.

Next time: How All The Bloggers astonished Maureen Johnson, and this particular one creeped her out a little bit.

Reading Roundup: September 2012

By the Numbers
Teen: 17
Tween: 7
Children: 4

Sources
Review Copies: 8
Swapped: 1
Purchased: 1
Library: 14

Standouts
Teen: The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
Like Tender Morsels, this is a complex story of flawed human beings in a supernatural situation, though this book is somewhat more accessible than that one. I loved it but it's not for everybody. Check out the review (linked in title) for more blathering on my part.
Tween: The Encyclopedia of Me by Karen Rivers
This should have felt overstuffed with Issues: biracial character, autism in the family, deceptive friends, identity, etc. Not to mention the quirky structure: written as an encyclopedia, with all the text filed under different entries, this book should have been massively confusing. The fact that it wasn't overstuffed or confusing, and that's it's a breezy, fun, funny read shows how well it's put together.
Children: Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies by Andrea Beaty, illustrations by Dan Santat
Equal parts hilarious and weird, you need this on hand for when your quirkiest young patrons come in.

Because I Want To Awards
Most Eagerly Anticipated: Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan
This send-up of the vampire craze has been on my radar for a loooong time. In general, it was worth the wait.
Most Awesome This-Meets-That: Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel
Steampunk meets zombie. True, there were huge issues with the execution, and I may expound on them in a review in the future, but by golly it was a fun mashup.
Most Applicable to Everyday Life: How to Grow Up and Rule the World by Vordak the Incomprehensible (aka Scott Seegert)
Hysterically funny guidebook to becoming a supervillain. Foisted it on a young man of my acquaintance and his mom reports that he adores it. Live in fear, people of Earth. Live in fear.

Book Review: Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

Book: The Brides of Rollrock Island
Author: Margo Lanagan
Published: 2012
Source: Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

On Rollrock Island, there are no girls, and the women are beautiful, eerie, sad creatures.There's a good reason for that, as they're not women at all, but selkies, stolen from the sea to be the wives of the Rollrock men.

It wasn't always like this. Once there were human women, and human girls too, on Rollrock. Then the witch Misskaella conjured the first sea-wife from a seal-skin, and gradually all the human women left in protest as their men took passive, mysterious selkie wives instead. But the selkie women are not happy on land, even though they submit to their human husbands and take joy in their half-human sons. Will anybody ever have the courage to break the chains that bind them?

This book furnishes a lot to think about. Clearly it's saying a lot to a feminist viewpoint. The men pick a seal almost at random, the witch produces a girl from it, and they give her a name, put clothes on her, and take her home. There's no element of choice, and very little acknowledgement that this might be an undesirable situation for anybody. Yet the men know their wives have no real ties to their land-life, because they lock away the seal-skins that would allow the selkies to return to the sea that is their real home. It's easy to demonize them.

On the other hand, they're ensnared by the promise of easy love and the illusion of owning something mysterious and otherworldly. A selkie imprints on the man who takes her from the sea, totally trusting and dependent. As hideous as this is for the women, you can see how beguiling it is for the  men. Human relationships are tricky, thorny things. How many of us would really (now be honest) turn down the promise of a spouse who loves and pledges to you at first sight?

Not to mention, this is a situation that feeds on itself like a snake eating its own tail. Girls born of the sea-wives can't survive on land, so they're given back to the sea (to be seals, not to drown, lest this be an even darker book). With the human women leaving in disgust and protest, this means that there is no option for a wife and family unless you turn to the witch and ask her for one. Within a generation, this becomes the way things are, and that's much harder to change than an individual outrage.


This is a book that doesn't really have one central character. You could rightly argue that the main character is the community of Potshead itself. It produced the scorned and spiteful Misskaella, who knows what she is doing to the community and keeps doing it anyway because it is her power and her revenge. Yet it also produces Daniel Mallett, the half-selkie boy who becomes aware of the monstrosity of the island tradition and vows to do something about it.

Like Lanagan's previous book, Tender Morsels, this book is full of complexities and terrible human emotions, and no easy answers anywhere. It won't be for everyone, but those who do pick it up and stick with it will find much to think about.

Book Review: Captain Nobody by Dean Pitchford

Book: Captain Nobody
Author: Dean Pitchford
Published: 2009
Source: Local Library

Newton Newman (yes, really) is used to being overlooked. He’s got that nerdy name, after all, and it’s really hard to shine in the shadow of somebody like his older brother, football star Chris Newman. It’s okay; Newt’s used to it.

But then Chris gets knocked into a coma during the Big Game, and all of a sudden, Newt feels more helpless than ever before. A Halloween costume comes to his rescue. Captain Nobody isn’t helpless. Captain Nobody is brave. He does stuff, like foiling robberies, stopping traffic, and preventing suicides. But can even Captain Nobody help an idolized big brother in a coma?

Yep, this is a pretty implausible setup. What helped was that Captain Nobody’s bravery largely stems from Newton innocently wandering or tripping into situations that he doesn’t fully understand, but handles nonetheless. He’s one of those good, decent kids who find themselves in over their heads but gamely start swimming. I remain annoyed with the parents for not only keeping him away from the hospital, but largely ignoring him during the entire ordeal, even though he has questions and fears. I guess I can forgive them because if they had been even mildly attentive, most of the book wouldn’t have been possible.

2012 Cybils News!

I have been doing a secret happy dance for a week. Why, you ask?

Do you need a reason to do a happy dance?

Well, in this case, I actually had a reason, and that reason is because I got asked to be a Round 2 Judge for the YA category! I'm awfully excited about this. Can you tell?

I'll be judging with these other magnificent bloggers:

Maureen Eichner
By Singing Light
@elvenjaneite
Adrianne Russell
The Writer's Republic
@writersrepublic
Michelle Castleman
The Hungry Readers
@ShelTheProf
Jessica Silverstein
Reading on the F Train
@SilversteinELA

Congrats to all the other judges and the other panels. It's always a fun time, working on the Cybils. 

Nomination period opens up, as always, on October 1 and run to the 15th of that month. Follow the Cybils blog for the latest!

Book Review: The City's Son by Tom Pollock

Book: The City's Son
Author: Tom Pollock
Published: September 8, 2012
Source: Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

Beth Bradley loves London. She runs the streets of her city at night, spreading her artwork with her faithful best friend Pen. But there's another London underneath the one she knows, one where the statues and lightbulbs and the very rubbish of the streets are alive, and powerful.

One night after a terrible betrayal, Beth runs headlong into the magic of her city, in the form of a boy. Not just any boy, mind you. This is Filius Viae, the Son of the Streets, whose mother is the incarnation of the city itself. But the Goddess is lost and gone, and her mortal enemy, Reach, is gaining power.

Beth gets sucked into a power struggle between Filius and Reach. In the process, she discovers the beauty, and the danger, of the city she's always loved.

A lot of books claim to be urban fantasy, and really just mean "chick in leather fighting vampires." This is truly urban fantasy, where the city itself is as wild and weird a landscape as any that George R.R. Martin ever dreamed up. Is there anybody who's ever lived in a city and not believed that it was alive? Not just because of the people in it, but the city itself. Pollock has harnessed that instinctive fantasy, brought it to life, and thrown it into political turmoil as pitched and white-hot as any human war.

The reason I kept picking up my e-reader to finish this book was the atmosphere. Sure, there's a pulse-pounding plot, and yes, Beth is pretty awesome, and true, there's a compelling subplot about her best friend. But truly, it was Pollock's imagination at work, sucking me in. There's something downright magical in his descriptions of sentient lightbulb spirits made of glass, coldly efficient chemical beings, and statues that house living, unwillingly immortal souls.

Not only is every detail of the city imbued with its own animus, there are complex politics at work, making every character or group of creatures a wild card in Filius and Beth's struggle against Reach. For my part, I can't wait to see how everything plays out in the rest of this proposed trilogy.

Book Review:Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan

Book: Unspoken
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan
Published: September 11, 2012
Source: Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

Kami has an imaginary friend. Which is okay when you're four, a little weird when you're seven, and utterly crazeballs when you're sixteen. Unfortunately, Kami is sixteen. She's learned to keep her conversations with Jared on the inside of her head, but despite all sorts of good reasons, she's never been willing to banish him completely.

Then the Lynburn family returns to their brooding mansion on the hill, and the town of Sorry-in-the-Vale gives out a chorus of "DOOOOOOOOOOOM!" The Lynburns were once the feudal lords of the manor, and still have more money and land than any of you, and don't you forget it. But more than land or money, they seem to have some dark power over the town, one that nobody will explain to Kami. Then she meets the ne'er-do-well, juvenile-delinquent Lynburn, who may have killed his own father . . . whose name happens to be Jared.

Kami's imaginary friend is suddenly not so imaginary . . . and maybe not so much her friend.

So you know how when there's an author that you totally fangirl for their first series, and when they start a second one with all-new world and all-new characters and everything, you're a little, "Erp!" because you truly don't know whether it was the premise or the author you were fangirling? Lay down your fears, people, because it's official: I'm fangirling the author in this case.

And I'm fangirling the author for almost the exact same reason: her characters. Kami, of course, the fast-talking, whip-smart girl reporter, and Jared, the brooding, sarcastic, possibly-evil-maybe-not black sheep. Then there's Kami's dad (I particularly liked his deeply affectionate insults), her bone-lazy best friend Angela, her new sexpot gal pal Holly, all people that you'd willingly spend a lot of time with, just to hear the repartee. The "good cousin," Ash, the villains and the daaaark mystery were all pretty stock, but that's not really what I was there for.

One of the most interesting little side threads, and one I hope continues throughout the series, is the maybe-maybe-not sexual tension between Kami and Jared. Kami has firmly friend-zoned Jared, while he seems to have a passionate crush on her, and both of these feelings stem from the same source: their close mental link. They've shared everything with each other, since birth, until lines between them have blurred. How can you trust your feelings for somebody who's in your head? Brennan wraps this up with a devastating but weirdly satisfying choice at the end, and ensures that I'm slavering for the next book in the proposed trilogy.

Bouncing merrily between a BBC village soap, a Gothic psychodrama, a Nancy Drew mystery on steroids, and a Cary Grant flick (because Kami at her best was straight out of Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday), Unspoken was exactly what I was hoping for from the next Sarah Rees Brennan book.

Book Review: Every Day by David Levithan

Book: Every Day
Author: David Levithan
Published: August 28, 2012
Review copy from publisher via NetGalley

Have you ever wished you could step into somebody else’s life? This is what A does, every day. Every morning, a new body, a new family, a new life. He could be a boy or a girl, tall or short, fat or thin, beautiful or ugly, black or white, popular or ignored. But none of these lives truly belong to him. He’s just passing through.

With no body or family of his own, he’s made an art form of not affecting other people’s lives. He tries to live the day he spends in their bodies as they would have lived them. He doesn’t take anything for himself, because he knows the life and relationships aren’t really his--just on loan.

Then he meets Rhiannon and falls in love. For the first time, A is willing to upend his hosts’ lives, just to be with her for a few hours. Then it’s not enough, and A wants to be with Rhiannon for longer. But is it even possible to build a relationship when one lover is a permanent guest?

This has been getting a lot of love, partly because it’s David Levithan, much beloved of the blogosphere. But it’s also because it’s a genuinely good book, a unique premise executed well. As he tells A's story, Levithan takes the chance to reflect on different topics of empathy, gender, and how your outside affects how the world reacts to you, and how you react to the world

A is in a unique position. Because he has been so many different things, carving out his own identity is largely a matter of his moral choices. He has no inborn characteristics that shape his personality. What makes him A is largely his determination to tread lightly on the world and on his hosts' lives. Unfortunately, this also means that all his actions and choices are dependent on what other people think or do--a feeling that many teens, attempting to fit a mold, will empathize with.

His relationship with Rhiannon is an interesting one. After hiding in someone else his whole life, he finally meets someone who seems to see the real A, and he doesn't want to let go of that. (Whether she really does is something you could argue about for awhile.) It comes in conflict with his first rule, but isn't that what everybody wants? For someone to see you? And of course, the first time he breaks his own rule, he puts himself in ongoing danger of discovery, as a host becomes aware that somebody else was controlling him for a day and starts to hunt him down.

Sweet and thought-provoking, this is a book that will linger in your mind. You'll look around at other people and wonder: What does it feel like from the inside?

Reading Roundup: August 2012

By the Numbers
Teen: 18
Tween: 9
Children: 5

Sources
Review Copies: 11

Purchased: 2
Library: 14

Standouts
Teen: Every Day by David Levithan
I'm hardly the only person to fall in love with this story. Review coming soon.
Tween: Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze by Alan Silberberg
The comic illustrations may catch the eye of Wimpy Kid fans, but this story about a boy struggling to deal with his mother's death from a brain tumor offers more depth. Best part? How Milo's believable middle-school angst is woven through the grief. Life goes on.
Children: Bones: skeletons and how they work by Steve Jenkins
Okay, this was just plain neat. Jenkins' distinctive art style illustrates this first look at the framework of our bodies. My favorite part was the animal bones he adds, especially the chameleon's.

Because I Want To Awards
Goriest: Shadows by Ilsa J. Bick
I was awfully excited for this book, the sequel to Ashes. I still gobbled it up--fast-paced, dark, and with multiple tangled storylines as we watch the world fall apart--but with a slightly queasy stomach, because holy crap, the gore. Blood spattering everywhere. You're warned.
Would So Have Gotten a Slapped Face in Real Life: Beat the Band by Don Calame
The main character is a 15-year-old boy. He's horny, stupid, and impetuous, and darned if I didn't like him and his horny, stupid, impetuous best friends in spite of all that. Calame is awfully good at toeing that line.
Yippee Sequel!: Super by Matthew Cody
Back when I read the first book, I knew this MG superhero novel was begging for a sequel. Cody spins out the threads that were left dangling from Powerless, and again leaves it in a spot that seems to promise bigger and better things for our pubescent heroes.