Angelfall is out in paperback

 Book Reviews, Books, Fantastic Authors, The Cybils  9 Responses »
Mar 202012
 

I’ve posted about Angelfall by Susan Ee here, here, and here. It was on the Cybils award short list for Science Fiction/Fantasy Teen category. Everyone was talking about it during the Vegas trip, and everyone I know who has read it has come away awe struck. It’s just that kind of book.

Angelfall is officially out in paperback! Oh my god, why haven’t you read this book yet?!?

My copy came this week and even though I’ve read the book several times over, I sat down and started reading it all over again as soon as I opened my Amazon package. God, it’s such a great book. I’ve never felt this strongly about championing a book before and I hope if you’ve got .99 cents to spare on an e-book or $12.99 on a paperback, you’ll give it a shot.

According to Susan’s blog, Angelfall hit #41 on the Kindle bestselling list and #1 in Fantasy and #2 in Science Fiction/Fantasy! CONGRATS SUSAN!

So if you’ve missed my descriptions of this book before, here’s the official synopsis:

via GoodReads – It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

And here are a few excerpts from my review of the book:

The reason it is young adult is because of the character Penryn, the trials she faces, the growth she undergoes, the themes surrounding her character, and the classic transition from teenager to adult that the book moves toward. In the beginning she might seem like she has it together, more so than any of the adults that surround her, but she’s still just a kid, confused and alone and needy. She might not know how to express this, but her journey alone with a predator – her enemy – makes her come to terms with her childish ways. Forces her to grow into a new woman. She might have survived in the beginning, but by the end she has the strength and knowledge and experience to thrive. In the beginning she still clings to mother and family, but by the end they fulfill her without being a crutch. These themes make this book absolutely young adult.

Unlike your typical paranormal stories, this one doesn’t have the big romance pay off most will be expecting from a young girl and a hot angel wandering the wilderness together. These two characters are enemies. He calls humans monkeys and she is willing to torture him for his help getting her sister back. These are not emotions that generally lead to long gazes across rooms and soft kisses in the moonlight. Their partnership is tenuous, based on need and survival and that makes the few moments of compassion and the threat of intimacy more genuine and valuable. There’s no romance in Angelfall. One doesn’t do romance while running for one’s life from monsters – both the human and paranormal kind. One doesn’t do romance when one is starving and exhausted and afraid.

Instead there is something like hunger and something like need. Something indescribable, thrilling. Frightening.

 

TOTALLY unrelated, but I just read a NYT article about The Hunger Games movie (is it appropriate for teens? Kids killing kids? WUT??) that called John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars a dystopian themed book. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

I would really really like this weird trend of calling everything a dystopian to stop now please. Do you even know what that word means, NYT?? The Fault in Our Stars is no more dystopian than a Janet Evanovich book. Who told you it was dystopian because you clearly didn’t read it.

The Night Circus

 Book Reviews  10 Responses »
Dec 162011
 

 

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

 

Reading this book was like disappearing into a dream, appropriately. The descriptions are lush, exquisite things that transported me from my jammies into a coat and red scarf, surrounded by the smell of hot, buttery caramel popcorn and sweet iced cinnamon cakes that sometimes I swore I could smell between the pages. The stories Morgenstern tells within The Night Circus are heartwarming, heartbreaking, unbelievable, and breathtaking. They are also mysterious and a little frightening. There’s a love story and a magic duel, midnight dinners and a great many secrets. There are so many layers of tulle and silk and incense to peel back you become helplessly lost to their immersion.

I would like to see The Night Circus under many Christmas trees this year because it stole my heart and my admiration and I think it will appeal to teenagers and adults, girls and boys, easily. It’s a little bit Hans Christian Anderson shipwrecked on the LOST island, swirled within Something Wicked This Way Comes, and dusted by Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Tempest. Morgenstern is exceptionally talented. This book is so complex it exhausts me even considering the amount of planning she had to have put into it before the writing could even begin. Some readers are going to hate the complexity, and some people will be absolutely besotted by it.

First of all, read the summary of the book if you like, but then put it out of your mind. I think it does a poor job preparing the readers for what they’ll discover within. This is not an action book, despite how they make it sound. It is not high fantasy. It is not Harry Potter and I wish reviewers would stop calling it that. While yes, the two main characters enter into a magic competition, the duel spans fifteen years and across countless continents and cities. There aren’t any blazing wands, curses, or evil wizards. The story is slower, it drags you into the dreamscape of its plot, treats you as a ticket holder, and immerses you in a place where extraordinary things are unfolding.  

Like anything made of dreamstuff, this is not a story that explodes but one that unravels.

The magic is hard to describe. It is fairy tale magic: charms and intent and illusion. It’s not stage magic but it’s not spells and potions and cauldrons either. It’s something closer to hedge magic, knots made from the hair of lovers, magic fueled by important, symbolic objects. It’s Willy Wonka magic. Several times we are told that anyone can learn to do the things the duelists can do, but most people cannot bring themselves to believe that anything can be possible. It is why only Charlie could inherit the chocolate factory from Mr. Wonka when the others couldn’t release their hold on the mundane world.

So here is my summery.

Two children are trained to take part in a strange, almost otherworldly magical duel on behalf of their respective instructors. Both instructors are very different in the way they teach, with Ceila’s father being practical and harsh while Marco’s instructor is academic and distant. They are not given the rules of the game nor are they told when and how a winner will be chosen. This is not the first challenge nor will it be the last of its kind. The circus is chosen as the arena and the only thing the players are sure of is that they must outperform the other through imagination, strength, talent, and endurance. They do not count on falling in love, an inevitability when all their passion is put into performing for the pleasure of the other, and they do not count on falling in love with the circus, its inhabitants, and its visitors who are all unknowingly caught in the spiderweb of their duel.

The symbolic coloring of the circus – an elegant black and white backdrop – and the epic immortality of the challenge, all imply that this is a battle between good and evil, however it is never explicitly commented upon and telling who is which is impossible. This book loves to let you imagine the secrets for yourself.

Reading The Night Circus, I couldn’t help but feel like I was curled up beside a fire being told the story of the circus and the lovers, the fortune teller, the clockmaker, and the twins. I felt like my grandfather was telling me this story, as if he had been there, as if he’d walked the tents and seen the extraordinary attractions as a boy. I could almost believe it had once existed.

This familiarity, this intimate form of storytelling won me over. Some readers won’t care for the interwoven stories, their complexities, and the distance we are kept from the characters themselves. They won’t like feeling as a mere visitor to the tale. Most readers, however, will adore being swept away. I hope you are one of them. Enjoy.

Angelfall

 Book Reviews, Books  25 Responses »
Oct 122011
 

Disclosure: This is not Cybils related. This book isn’t eligible for a Cybils anyway. Update: Looks like I was wrong! Angelfall’s Cybils nomination was approved this morning. Whoo!

 From Amazon: It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

The Best Book of 2011

In my humble opinion, the best book of 2011- I have read it. I’ve read a lot of very good books this year, but the best, the one I have now read three times and half of it in pieces a fourth time because I can’t stop picking it up just to go back, to immerse myself in my favorite scenes.

The book is called Angelfall by Susan Ee and chances are if you spend any time on the blogosphere, you’ve heard someone mention it. Word of mouth is spreading this book like a rumor at an all girl’s high school.

I discovered it from Margo. She told me about it when she read it and I nodded, intended to check it out, and promptly forgot about it until she posted about it in more detail on Wicked & Tricksy and I was faced with its very cool cover, though I think it was Margo’s obvious respect for the author that did it for me. If you can win over Margo, I’m hopeless.

The Cover

Here’s what I find interesting about Angelfall’s cover – it doesn’t much look like a cover. It looks like art, something you might buy in poster form and put on your wall. It’s graphic, the contrast and color choices are beautifully paired, and it manages to pull a lot of conflicting emotions from me. I appreciate how complex this cover is, but it doesn’t look much like a cover. And I love that. It would have been too easy to put a sad, determined girl on the cover in a red dress standing beside a hunky, shirtless young man with an amazing white wing span before a landscape of ruined buildings. And it would have looked nice enough, but it would have looked like every other ever loving cover out there these days. Done and done, to death.

I love the dystopian, destroyed look of the running corrosion. Because the background encompasses the entire cover, it has the feel of going on and on forever passed the edges of the page, like a wall. Something one cannot hope to cross. A metaphor for the quest within the story. The layering of colors, light, and texture is lovely. Creepy, but lovely.

My favorite is the font choice for the title. Like the “wall” feeling of the background, the capital, serif, classical letters feel imposing, regimented, serious. There might be angels within this story, there might be a sad, determined girl and a hunky, feathered boy. But this isn’t a paranormal romance. This isn’t a soft plot or a typical dystopian. The title seems to say, There’s something serious going on inside, are you sure you have the guts to deal with it?

The Writing

It’s written in first person, present tense. Let’s just get that out of the way now since a lot of people don’t like that narrative style. Let’s be clear though – you probably don’t like it when it’s done poorly, but Angelfall is written in it because it has to be. The narrative style pulls you in close, closer, uncomfortably personal to the characters, their desires, their motivations, and their fear. It wouldn’t be nearly as powerful if you were allowed for a second to get some distance. If Penryn and Raffe can’t escape, neither should you.

Also, it’s so well written you’ll forget about the narrative style in a couple of pages, I promise. The language flows like butter. Scenes are tight, word choices do double duty, so it looks sparse but packs a powerful emotional punch. Background is also sparse, another ingenious writing trick for pulling us deep into the story, unable and unwilling to try to pull out. We know that angels have attacked the world, killed billions. We know these angels are of the Biblical variety, terrifying city destroyers. We know humans have gone savage in order to survive. We know there’s a seventeen year old girl in the middle of it trying to keep her family together and find some place they can eke out some kind of existence. We don’t know why all this has happened though, but we want to. It is one of the many layers that keep us going. Mysteries and secrets are doled out like M&Ms, bite sized and delicious but leaving you yearning for more.

In the book, there are only four characters whose lives propel the story forward. Penryn – 17 years old, too grown up for her age but still flawed with all the mistakes of a 17 year old. Raffe, an angel whose wings have been cut, who has clearly had a falling out with others of his kind, who ends up traveling with Penryn.  Paige, Penryn’s younger sister who gets taken by one of Raffe’s attackers. She has only a couple of scenes in the book, but her presence is constant. Penryn’s very human drive to put her family back together is the reason she does what she does with Raffe – out of desperation and a need so powerful she’s willing to do the one thing she would not do otherwise. This is the hallmark of the very best storytelling.

The last character is Penryn and Paige’s mother. If you ever want to understand how to make fully formed, important, engaging minor characters, study the character of the Mother in this book. She only has a handful of scenes too, but who she is, the kind of person she is, has made Penryn who SHE is, and you can’t have one without the other. The mother character is brilliantly thought out and executed – she could easily have come across as hokey and unbelievable, but instead this character leaves my skin crawling.

Is Angelfall YA?

I’ve seen this topic come up before. Margo mentioned it. The question is, is Angelfall YA? The main character is 17, after all.

The answer is yes, it is young adult, but not because of the age of the main character. It’s also not young young adult.  It says it’s for 16 and older, and while some younger readers might enjoy it, I think 16 and up is a good age for this book.

The reason it is young adult is because of the character Penryn, the trials she faces, the growth she undergoes, the themes surrounding her character, and the classic transition from teenager to adult that the book moves toward. In the beginning she might seem like she has it together, more so than any of the adults that surround her, but she’s still just a kid, confused and alone and needy. She might not know how to express this, but her journey alone with a predator – her enemy – makes her come to terms with her childish ways. Forces her to grow into a new woman. She might have survived in the beginning, but by the end she has the strength and knowledge and experience to thrive. In the beginning she still clings to mother and family, but by the end they fulfill her without being a crutch. These themes make this book absolutely young adult.

But, and there is a big but here, this book has some graphic violence in it. Sort of. There’s very little violence on the page that we see and follow along with (thank god, its first person after all.) But the threat of violence from other humans, the violence that has already happened, the violence that could happen, are pretty traumatic even if we don’t read about them directly. Even Penryn is violent toward Raffe. There’s some pretty disturbing imagery toward the end too. Nothing a 16 year old has never seen or read or watched in a movie, but I think it is worth knowing this ahead of time. You should also know that the violence that does occur is not gratuitous. It makes sense to the story, there’s a reason for it, it’s not to shock and titillate you.

Romance

Unlike your typical paranormal stories, this one doesn’t have the big romance pay off most will be expecting from a young girl and a hot angel wandering the wilderness together. These two characters are enemies. He calls humans monkeys and she is willing to torture him for his help getting her sister back. These are not emotions that generally lead to long gazes across rooms and soft kisses in the moonlight. Their partnership is tenuous, based on need and survival and that makes the few moments of compassion and the threat of intimacy more genuine and valuable. There’s no romance in Angelfall. One doesn’t do romance while running for one’s life from monsters – both the human and paranormal kind. One doesn’t do romance when one is starving and exhausted and afraid.

Instead there is something like hunger and something like need. Something indescribable, thrilling. Frightening.

See why I said it was the best book of 2011? You think I’d kid you about something like that?

 

 

Susan Ee’s website (you can read 5 free chapters here)

Buy Angelfall

Update: Susan’s blog has been updated to add that the second book in the series is due out in the summer of 2012 and that there will eventually be a printed version of the book.

———————————————————————————————————————————-

You can still sign-up for MonsterFest 2011 here.

View Full Schedule

Today’s Monstrologists are Hunting…

Margo Lerwill: The Dullahan
Vernieda: Aswang (Filipino vampire)
Elizabeth Arroyo: Tokoloshe
S.B. Stewart-Laing: Bao-bhan sìdhe

 

 

 

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

 Art, Book Reviews, Book Trailers, Books, Horror, Young Adult  13 Responses »
Oct 102011
 

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

When the cover of this book was first released, I had a nightmare about it. I dreamed about an autumn corn field, barren and dry, and that I was running away from something trying to get to a house that kept receding the faster I ran. Anyone who has spent any time out in the country knows what this phenomenon feels like. Maybe it’s a physics thing – the curve of the earth creating some optical illusion, I don’t know, but there’s something about trying to cross a corn field that feels like eternity stretching before you. You walk and walk and walk and never seem to get closer to home.

That was what the dream was like. But nevermind. That’s only interesting in the context that the first time I saw the cover, it gave me nightmares.

A Monster Calls and Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan are two books with a strong argument for including art in novels. Using engravings to illustrate books used to be the norm, but at some point along the way adult readers and adult publishers made some conscious decision that illustrating books was for kids, drawing the dividing line between serious and not-worth-your-time novels. Many books are changing this perception, and I look forward to seeing more of it.

A Monster Calls might be a young adult book, but its illustrations are profoundly beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Like a vintage, gorgeous wool coat full of spiders.

The artist’s name is Jim Kay and I love how creepy and active his drawings are. I can feel the monster lumbering across the landscape, the hoom, hoom, drum of his steps. I can’t help it. I hear Yeats in my ear, whispering, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

Every page has something more than words, and I love how carefully this book was typeset. The messy India Ink drawings splash and smear and spread up and around the blocks of text, forcing the paragraphs out of their standard blockiness to fit into uneven, unnatural shapes. The white space feels contained and surrounded, and this proves an interesting effect on reading. It becomes far easier to lose your eyes inside the text, herded and corralled by the black drawings which drive out the real world like shadow. The diving into the narrative and getting trapped there is almost too easy. It provides a visual illusion of being drawn in too close to the text and characters, too close to the events, and my rational mind is tricked into feeling, for brief moments, like I am in immediate danger instead of the text boy, Conor.

While it looks like a horror, A Monster Calls isn’t traditional in any sense of the word. It’s scary, yes, but in a primal way – the same emotion that pressures you off a dark, empty street even when you don’t recognize an immediate threat. The story is sad and traumatic and haunted, but not in the way I was expecting. Like the art, the voice of the story does its own little illusion to really creep you out.

The story is written from a thirteen year old boy’s perspective and reads like a children’s book. There are simple perspectives, thirteen year old boy thoughts, but the events unfolding, the psychological hauntings, are the sort of things children are usually hidden from, their eyes covered, their curtains pulled. The juxtaposition is unsettling and visceral. Every time I put the book down I have to work to control my panic.

A gorgeous book masterfully written, language spun out of spider webs and falling leaves, characters who are neither easy to love or satisfying to hate, all culminating on a twist of storytelling that will leave you with indescribable emotions and a need to be alone for a while.

It’s only real failing is that it looks like a horror novel, a really great, traditional, experienced horror novel, and it’s not. Not in the least. The cover is very grown up, the silver metallic finish and simple, classic font choice feel too adult for the writing style found inside, and this is probably going to turn some readers away before they realize how rich the story actually is. This is a book where nothing is trustworthy – that even the cover is playing tricks on you.

 

 

 —————————————————————————————————————————–

You can still sign-up for MonsterFest 2011 here.

View Full Schedule

Saturday and Sunday’s Monstrologists Hunted…

Angeline Trevena: Bakeneko – the Japanese Monster Cat
 Megan Grimit: Vampire
 Kurt Hartwig: Ouroboros

Today’s Monstrologists are Hunting…

Jason Beineke: Ghoul

 

BBAW: Book Bloggers I Love

 Book Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 132011
 

On a totally unrelated note, YA author Ellen Hopkins is having lunch with some of my husband’s senior students today! I think this is so cool. I was honored to make the flyer for the contest, and he’s pretty proud of his two students for winning. I got to meet Ellen over the summer and she is a force of nature, I’m not kidding. She’s amazing. They are very, very lucky to have this opportunity. They are getting signed books too, and one of them will get a copy of Perfect. Ok yeah, I’m kind of jealous :-)

———————————————————————————————————————————-

Love YA Lit was my first book blog. I don’t remember how I found it, probably something incredibly random, and then Em and Nora became part of my blogging life, just like that. They don’t post as often as some of the book blogs out there, but there’s something about their posts that make the books they review an absolute necessity to read. You can really tell the love they have for stories and that love is contagious.

Thanks to Love YA Lit’s reviews, I’ve read and loved The Marbury Lens and because of their review of Don’t Stop Now I’ve been stalking it on Amazon until it came out on Kindle. It’s out now and it’s my next To Be Read item.

*Update: I actually finished Don’t Stop Now last night. It was everything I hoped it would be – SO GOOD. I’ll talk more about it later. Thank you Love YA Lit :-) I haven’t heard other people talking about this book yet so I probably would never have found it without you.

———————————————————————————————-

I actually discovered Sarah at GreenBeanTeenQueen through Love YA Lit. This is not only a gorgeous blog, but it has a ton of fun content, not just reviews. Sarah’s a librarian and you can totally tell.

You’ll get lots of great info from GreenBeanTeenQueen and Sarah’s got a great personality.

———————————————————————————————-

Stacked is a great review book blogger that has been nominated for a Book Blogger Appreciation Week awards in author interviews. I can totally see why. Well worth taking a look at!

———————————————————————————————-

 

 Don’t forget to check out the details on MonsterFest 2011! Come join us!

MonsterFest Update: I’m going to be updating the buttons in the next couple of days because I realized on my laptop they look fabulous, on my work monitor I can’t read the purple very well, so I’m going to lighten the purple up. I am also going to remove the white background so it will look seamless on any blog, regardless of background. Sorry about that – I sometimes forget not everyone has a white sidebar background like me.

Why we need it – New Dystopian for Dystopian Fatigue

 Book Reviews, Books, Dystopian  14 Responses »
Aug 312011
 

New Dystopian

Don’t worry, you’ve never heard of this term before because I just made it up about 10 seconds ago, but I think this is a glimpse of the future of dystopian/apocalyptic sub-genres. Just remember you heard it here on Tell Great Stories first. Someone write it down so one day I’ll be listed as the coiner of the term on the Wikipedia page.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Anyway, for about the past year, the YA-verse has been suffering from dystopia fatigue (not entirely unlike vampire fatigue, paranormal romance fatigue, trilogy fatigue, and love triangle fatigue.)

Contrary to popular opinion, the fatigue is NOT because the books being published in these sub-genres are bad. It’s because they aren’t unique. Sure, they might take place in different countries, in different cities, with a different twist, but it always plays out more or less the same.

The Story We All Know

Protagonist is oppressed by something bigger than themselves (a corporation, a government, water shortage, oil shortage, disease, zombies, poverty, hunger, whatever.)

The protag is given an extraordinary opportunity that allows them to catch a glimpse of who they really are or could be and a world that needs someone to fight. The Extraordinary Opportunity is better known by writers as The First Plot Point and is often thrust upon the protag unwillingly. Once the protag’s eyes are opened, of course, there’s no going back.

Through is the only direction, and so the protag spends the next 50,000 words fighting against themselves and against the oppressor in order to come out triumphant (or nearly so) at the end with a hot love interest by their side. Ta-da.

Which means, of course, there are no surprises.

And as readers, we are just a little bit tired of reading the same thing. We love these settings, these scenarios, these terrible events, but we yearn to be taken by surprise, to feel like the characters are in mortal danger, to believe there are serious stakes and regardless of our passion, we may not triumph.

Why We Need It

New Dystopian is a term I cooked up because I needed a new piece of language to describe a book I recently read that is dystopian but does not, in any way, look like the dystopian we’ve seen in the last five years

It feels different.

 

It disturbs.

 

It takes us by surprise.

 

There are stakes so high that success is doubtful.

 

And we’re not sure there will be a happy ending.

 

In fact, if I hadn’t told you this book was a dystopian, you wouldn’t have known until more than halfway through the book. Because it doesn’t flash its “Dystopian” tramp stamp at everyone. It’s subtle, more like, a way of life and not a defining characteristic.

And I have a feeling that the fatigue we’ve been feeling lately is going to lead to these sorts of books that are dystopian but aren’t so in your face about it. There won’t be cities burning or roving gangs of thugs in the wastelands. Government control won’t be so in-your-face. Dystopian conspiracy theorists will hang out at coffee shops with alien conspiracy theorists.

Never Let Me Go

The book I’ve been slowly building up to was also made into a movie, so if you’ve seen the movie but not read the book, I beg you not to give anything away in comments, as there are some key differences.

The book? Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

And the thing is, I can’t really tell you much about the book because in giving anything away I’d ruin the unfolding and trust me when I tell you, you don’t want me to do that. So I’m going to have to be a little backward about describing the book to you.

Ok, so, the book is told through the recounting of a girl named Kathy H. who grew up at a boarding school called Hailsham somewhere in England. When the book begins she’s a little older, around 31, and we know there is an important reason she’s about to tell us her story, but we’re not sure what the important reason is until like, 75% of the way through the book. And that’s ok. That’s part of the beauty of this book. It’s all in the unfolding.

So Kathy starts out when she was  middle school aged, but she often jumps around, going much younger and much older in her stories. There’s a certain rhythm of memory that you can’t fake here – I feel honest-to-god like we’re sitting at the knees of a new friend telling us her life story and one memory reminds her of something else that happened ten years later or in telling a remembered moment she suddenly understands it so much differently than she did back then. The unfolding story is as much a revelation to her as it is to us.

Kathy’s world is intersected by two friends – Tommy, the boy she loves, and Ruth, her bossy daydreaming best friend. They are interesting in their own right, but let me say this: Pay Very Close Attention to Tommy. I believe that a deeper understanding of the story can be seen through Tommy’s character. He is maybe the only character who’s mind is filled with screams against what is being done to him.

The students of Hailsham are special. How are they special? Well. That would be telling.

But here’s the thing- it doesn’t matter why they are special. Their specialness does not stop them from having normal childhoods full of drama and heartache and manipulation. Their childhoods are not all that different from the one I wrote about in my glittery unicorn diaries. It’s about favorite teachers and sports, doing well, acceptance and bullies. There’s this story Kathy tells about how her friend Ruth, when they were very young, told a small group of them that there was a conspiracy to kidnap their favorite teacher and that Ruth had been charged with protecting this teacher. She tells them she’s forming a private guard and they are to silently, without this teacher ever knowing, protect her and root out the conspirators. These little girls take on this duty with the perseverance and dedication that only little girls can muster.

Do you know you’re in a dystopian story when you’re living it?

Let me ask you this – If we were living in a dystopian society right now, where the government controlled us entirely and we were housed in gated communities were unapproved books were burned and people imprisoned for the smallest of infractions, would you walk around thinking to yourself, “Man this is one hell of a dystopian society.”

Probably not.  You’d probably think, “Man, this life is hell.”

You probably wouldn’t spend most of your time dissecting the goings on of the government. You’d be too busy keeping your head down and food in your mouth. Most of the dystopian books coming out lately can’t stop pointing out their genre to you, but not Never Let Me Go (which, granted, came out in 2005, so it’s not new new.) This is what I mean by New Dystopian. It’s not a genre for this book, it’s just the way life is.

Which is why the ending, though you can kind of see it coming, slams into you like a freight train.

I can’t recommend this book enough, though for all that is holy in this world please do not go watch the trailer for the movie. Don’t go anywhere near the movie until you’ve read the book. The movie is lovely and captures the heart of the story sure, but it also lacks the subtle  nuances of the book that make it such an intense and life changing read. The trailer alone will give away the twist (ARGH! HULK SMASH) and flashes HI I’M AN OPPRESSIVE DYSTOPIAN all over the screen.

So just avoid it until you’ve read the book first.

If you’ve read the book or if you don’t mind spoilers, author Margaret Atwood digs into the heart of this creepy tale in this book review.

This book is for anyone who has ever loved the following books but the idea of reading yet another dystopian book/trilogy fills you with a sort of exhaustion that makes you think, “I can’t be bothered.”

  • Delirium
  • XVI
  • The Hunger Games
  • Wither
  • Divergent
  • The Water Wars
  • Matched
  • Restoring Harmony

 Where do you want to see Dystopian fiction go next?

Books I’ve Loved (and should have reviewed)

 Book Reviews, Books  13 Responses »
Aug 232011
 

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

August 23: Top Ten Books You Loved But Never Wrote A Review For (either books you loved and couldn’t bring yourself to write a review for or books that you read long before blogging…time to give them a shoutout!)

 

 

1. The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman – I read this long before I had a blog to review it on, but I always wanted to review some of my favorite graphic novels and this would be at the very top. Not only is the writing gorgeous, but the storyline is quite complicated right from the beginning. I can’t pick a favorite storyline, but I love A Midsummer Nights Dream retelling and the storyline with John Constantine. OH! And every time Cain and Abel and the House of Mystery shows up. Love!

 

2. Blankets by Craig Thompson – Whenever someone says to me that they’ve never read graphic novels and they just don’t think they’d be interested in them and aren’t they kind of for kids? I pull out Blankets, which is sort of the everyman’s graphic novel. It’s a beautifully drawn, emotionally complex, harrowing story that is universally the doorway by which non-graphic novel readers can fall in love with this medium of storytelling. The art is easy on the eyes and not too complicated, which helps those not used to visual storytelling, and the themes and plot are quickly accessible, heartbreaking, heartwarming, and believable. Once a person has read Blankets, the whole world of graphic novels is opened up and storytelling is never the same.

3. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood – Not as famous as Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, I’d be so bold as to say it is better at dealing with the same themes. Oryx and Crake is disturbing and devastating and really hard to read but in that way that you can’t put down. I’ve tried before to write a review about it, but every time I try I end up giving too much away or when I give away too little I just sound like a crazy person because it’s that sort of book – so crazy and also believable and that makes the whole thing terrifying to read.

 

4. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson – Forget the review, can I just ship this book to everyone I know?

 

 

 

5. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor – This poor series has like, the biggest identity crisis. I’ve seen it shelved in Middle Grade, in YA, and in Fantasy at various stores. Frank Beddor came and spoke at a junior high near my house a couple of years ago. I love this series a lot – it’s a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland and a really spectacular one at that. It pays homage to the original while creating a whole new story and setting unique to itself. The 3 books are supported by a graphic novel series called Hatter M that’s ridiculous in how cool it is and covers a span of time in the first book when the Mad Hatter is part of our world looking for Alice.

6. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson – One of the first (maybe THE first) YA sci-fi I stumbled across a couple of years ago. The idea is uncomfortable and while I think the world building was a little light, I didn’t really get some of it, but Jenna? Her issues? God, it was so good. I would love to do an in depth analysis about what this book means to things happening in our world right now.

 

 

7. Ash by Melinda Lo – A book that flew seriously under the radar, Ash is a retelling of Cinderella and it is striking in familiarity but also unlike anything I’ve ever read. The prose is mesmerizing, and grief stricken and in search of a fairy tale of her own to save her from the cruelty of her step mother, Ash has the opportunity to be saved by her Prince, or learn to save herself from a huntress named Kaisa. I love the friendship and romance that develops between Ash and Kaisa, a dramatic turn from the whole knight in shining whatever we’ve all grown up with in these fairy stories. I love the bond and I love the power given to Ash. I think every little girl should have to read Ash and know that her dreams can look like anything under the sun.

8. The DUFF by Kody Keplinger – The issues involved in this book, body image, body size, self worth, self esteem, and the use of promiscuity as a way to gauge acceptance and worth – these are all topics that hit a little too close to home but are very important to me. I think that is why it has been so hard for me to write about this book.

 

 

9. The Unidentified by Rae Mariz – Much like The Adoration of Jenna Fox, The Unidentified puts issues we’re dealing with right now in a somewhat unbelievable situation, but it allows us perspective and insight we couldn’t have seen otherwise. And it is a scary insight.

 

 

10. The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta – A companion novel to Saving Francesca, it is one of the few books that transcend YA standards in order to deal with topics that cannot otherwise be tackled. While Saving Francesca was written through Francesca’s point of view during high school, The Piper’s Son is written from one of the boys Francesca befriends in the first book. The kids are all older and in college, but they are still dealing with the growing pains of transitioning from young adult to adult, and so despite their ages, it still fits firmly in YA. It is also one of the few books written for boys that is honest and brave and doesn’t condescend to stereotypes in order to sell to reluctant readers. I would say The Piper’s Son is a contemporary little brother to books like The Chocolate War.

 

Review of “Dis” by Margo Lerwill

 Book Reviews  3 Responses »
Jun 212011
 
Review of Dis by Margo Lerwill

I realize that it might seem impossible for me to write an unbiased review of Margo’s short story “Dis” when she is a very dear friend and my Secret Sister (we’re not really sisters but we might as well be for all that we have in common.) Truth is, I am very bad at saying what people want to hear instead of what is actually in my head. I am a horrible liar. I can’t do it. This trait actually makes my husband crazy because he thinks they forgot to include the lever marked “Tact” when they made me at the human factory. Oops.

So if I didn’t like “Dis” I’d probably just never be able to say anything and avoid eye-contact anytime Margo talked to me. Or we’d have an unfortunate conversation that went something like, “So, um, have you ever tried accounting? I hear it can be a profitable and fulfilling career choice.”

You’re just going to have to believe me when I say I wouldn’t say any of this if I didn’t mean it.

-Disclaimer [End]

 

Description via Goodreads: Colbie Moss has bigger concerns than being one of the dísir, the undead avatars of the Norse spirits of fate known as Norns. She has lost a mythic blade entrusted to her by her uptight yuppie mentor, no less than a Norse god of old. Now the blade is in the middle of a gang war that has left a beloved friend on the brink of death. Colbie will have to decide how far she is willing to go to recover the blade, save her friend’s soul, and keep gods and Norns alike from getting wind of the collateral damage.

“Dis” is an Urban Midgard short story, approximately 8,900 words (or roughly 30 pages) of urban fantasy with a noir sensibility that will appeal to fans of Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, and Laurell K. Hamilton

Notice: This review has been posted on Amazon and GoodReads.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

With mythology as popular as it is in fiction these days, there are a surprisingly few people taking advantage of the rich and scandalous mythological history of the Norse which is just one way Margo Lerwill stands out from the crowd of storytellers.

Where Lerwill braids the supernatural unknown with the scary urban landscape of gang warfare and honor delivered at gun point is where this short story really shines. You wouldn’t think that these two very different sets of characters, ideals, and history could mesh so well, but “Dis” steps out as a whole new sort of myth storytelling that is gritty and wounded and believable in a way that Norns and Undead avatars and Old Gods shouldn’t be and yet their inclusion in this modern world is seamless. And it is here that Colbie Moss manages to find humor in a very troubling situation where she must commune with spirits, make deals, and hunt a stolen mythological weapon in gangland.

Colbie is likeable, sympathetic, empowering, but flawed, and Zaj is infuriating, treacherous, and lost beyond the hope that Colbie so desperately wants to see in him. I love it when characters are more (and sometimes less) than what they appear on the surface, and Lerwill has given us the best and worst of both of these characters. Even those characters who never appear “on screen” feel real. As Colbie’s dear friend is dying in a hospital far away from the dark streets of gang territory, we feel her loss with each passing second, though we only know her name and the weight of their friendship.

The writing itself has a unique voice and style that is dark and murderous one moment and subtle and cheeky the next. I love Lerwill’s play on language and the sweeping descriptions that take us right to the heart of this one dark night in the worst part of town without ever feeling like the language is bogging down the quick pace of the narrative. Some of the Asian names might be a little tough for some readers to try and pronounce, but they add to the overall fabric of the story and don’t distract like many hard-to-pronounce names can.

My only gripe is that it is too short and there is too little to read. It feels like a perfect piece of a story plucked from a greater narrative and I really want to get my hands on the whole thing. I want to spend more time in Colbie’s world. I want to know what else these Gods and their mythological objects have done to twist our world. I want to see how Colbie fixes her mistakes and what happens to her when she gets caught up in the schemes of Gods and Fates. I hope Lerwill considers the success of “Dis” to be a jumping off point to give us more of her dark and magical urban fantasy world.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

You can purchase Dis for .99 at the following vendors of good books:

(Note: It is nearly impossible to be guarenteed a good time for .99 these days, so what are you waiting for?)

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

Has anyone posted reviews of their own of “Dis” ? Tell me in the comments and I’ll link you here!

 

 

May Reviews and June Releases

 Book Reviews, Books  5 Responses »
Jun 022011
 

This was a light month for reading – also very random. Enjoy!

 

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Best dystopian novel of the year! I am calling it now, everyone else will just have to settle for second place.

 

The Sweetest Thing by Christina Madelski

I bought it on a whim – I was feeling like a light, contemporary YA romance. I sort of got that, but it wasn’t light. It was all sorts of complex and upsetting.

 

 

Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake by Sarah Maclean

Ok, don’t make fun of the title. Be nice. Because despite it being completely out of my area of usual interest, it was a fantastic novel. Sure there were several graphic but typical English sex scenes, but there were also dynamic and intense characters and serious themes of individuality, femininity, and beauty. The main character, a young woman no one wants to marry, would be the historical version of the DUFF. The male lead has his own crosses to bear and must deal with his poor choices when life comes calling. The attraction is seriously hot though. HOT. Bring your fan and prepare for a lot of scenes where breathing is optional. (This author also wrote a great historical YA called The Season. 9 Rules to Break, however, is definitely NOT intended for teens.)

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

I had a little trouble warming up to Elder for a long time. I think it was the name. He has no individual name, just a title, and it was hard to think of him as a person with individuality (which if you read the book you’ll understand how brilliant Beth’s decisions were.) Once I got past the difficulty connecting with the characters, I was floored. This is an intense YA sci-fi on level with Ender’s Game. I walked away from the book with this empty feeling in my stomach – it’s not a happy ending book. The ending is the best it could be, considering the circumstances, but it’s not a neatly-tied-up-with-a-bow ending at all. I lovedlovedloved it and would recommend it to anyone. I am already anticipating rereading it.

Also I have been singing the song on and off for days because of this book. GOOD THING IT IS A GOOD SONG. My favorite is Fiona Apple’s version.

 

Little Wars by H.G. Wells

You already read what I thought of this FANTASTICLY AWESOME book. You can read it again here if you want though.

 

——————————————————————————————————————————

JUNE RELEASES

He’s So Not Worth It (He’s So/She’s So Trilogy) by Kieran Scott

Ally Ryan, come on down to the Jersey Shore and forget your troubles!

Have you recently been humiliated in front of your friends and family at your former best friend’s birthday party? Was your almost boyfriend partly responsible for that humiliation by withholding some vital information about where your estranged father is? Did you come home to find said estranged father sitting on your stoop?

If so, then it sounds like you could use a vacation! The Jersey Shore is the place to be. Your mother may be living with her boyfriend of only a few months, but at least the stunt Shannen pulled has put some of your friends back in your court. Even so, you’re still angry and what better way to get over Jake than to blow off some steam with local guy, Cooper? People will hardly recognize your new attitude, but the old one wasn’t getting you anywhere, so who cares!

Jake Graydon, an exciting opportunity is waiting for you in the service industry!

Are your grades so low your parents have grounded you for the summer? Did you the girl you really like unceremoniously leave you behind? Would you rather eat dirt than see your friends again? Then a job at the local coffee shop is just the ticket! Surprisingly, Ally’s father is the new manager so you get to be reminded of her nearly every day. Maybe it’s time to start flirting with your best friend’s ex or even taking school a bit more seriously. Especially when you finally see Ally and she’s hanging around with some loser and it’s couldn’t be more clear that she is over you.

Have a great summer!

The Map of Time: A Novel by Felix J. Palma

Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time is a page-turner that boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H.G. Wells is called upon to investigage purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence. What happens if we change history?

 

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Chloe’s older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can’t be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby’s friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby.

But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

With palpable drama and delicious craft, Nova Ren Suma bursts onto the YA scene with the story that everyone will be talking about.

Hourglass by Myra McEntire

For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn’t there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents’ death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She’s tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.

So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson’s willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may change her past.

Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he’s around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should have happened?

Full of atmosphere, mystery, and romance, Hourglass merges the very best of the paranormal and science-fiction genres in a seductive, remarkable young adult debut.

Displacement by Thalia Chaltas

Home is supposed to be a place you belong. It’s supposed to be parents who are there and siblings who bug you and a life that feels comfortable. It’s not supposed to be an absentee mother or a drowned sister. But that’s Vera’s reality, and she can’t stand it anymore. So she runs. She ends up in an old mining town in the middle of the California desert. It’s hot, it’s dusty, and it’s as isolated as Vera feels. As she goes about setting up her life, she also unwittingly starts the process of healing and–eventually– figuring out what home might really mean for her.

 

 

 Older Entries