Creature of the Night by Kate Thompson

Bobby knows exactly why his mother has moved his family from Dublin to Clare, and he's not happy about it. She wants him to straighten out, to stop running with the lads, to stop stealing and doing drugs and destroying cars. In other words, to stop doing everything that makes his hopeless life worth living.

Bobby doesn't plan on sticking around long--just long enough to steal a car and get himself back to Dublin. But there's something odd going on in their house. The previous tenant disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The family that used to live there left under an odd scandal of murder. The family down the road warned them to leave out milk and cake for "the fairies", and now Bobby's little brother can't stop talking about the little woman in the kitchen.

As Bobby finds himself getting more involved in Clare, and more frightened by the odd circumstances, he realizes that he may have to make a choice that will determine the course of his future--and the course of the rest of his life.

This book is an exercise in atmosphere, mood and tone. Every time I picked this up to continue reading, I sank seamlessly back into the gritty hopelessness of Bobby's Ireland. Bobby is a deliberately unlikeable character--he steals--from other people, from his mother, from people who are trying to help him--without a second thought, he is harsh to everyone in his life, and he is generally entirely selfish and self-centered. He's exactly the sort of character I usually have a lot of trouble caring about. And yet within a couple of chapters, I was in Bobby's head, I understood the painful place he was coming from, and I felt very strongly for him.

( Minor spoilers below the cut. )

Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund

Aerin is a fugitive, running from the memory of her father’s death and the last seven years of her life on a slave planet. Dane is a privileged rich boy who chafes against the boundaries of his family and his life. The only thing they have in common is that they are both students at Academy 7, the most prestigious school in the Alliance—and that they are both living with buried secrets, secrets that haunt them.

What starts as an academic rivalry soon turns to mutual admiration, and then friendship. As Aerin and Dane grow closer, they begin to let down some of their walls. But there are some secrets that are too deep to share with even the closest of friends—until they begin to realize that maybe, their respective secrets are larger than just themselves.

It’s the oldest story in the book—boy meets girl, rich kid falls for the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. It’s not original, but it works very well here—because Osterlund focused her energies on making these characters people who we care about. This book is an excellent study in character. Aerin and Dane are both multifaceted and compelling, and watching them grow and change with each other is a joy. Aerin especially is a great strong female protagonist—she’s tough and determined.

It’s also fairly rare to find real teen science fiction these days, amidst the popularity of fantasy and paranormal and vampires and whatnot. Not that I don't enjoy those, too--but it's very refreshing to find a book that's straight-up SF. This book doesn’t focus too much on the science fiction elements, but they are there, and they’re tantalizing. I enjoyed the glimpse I got of Osterlund’s Alliance and the universe beyond, and I hope she plans on taking us back there on day.

As You Wish by Jackson Pearce

Viola has been feeling terribly alone and out of place ever since her best friend and boyfriend told her he was gay, and broke up with her. She desperately wishes to understand the elusive formula to belonging, to feeling like part of the group--and that's when Jinn shows up. Viola has made a true wish, and now Jinn is bound to her until she makes three wishes.

At first, Jinn is desperate for Viola to make her wishes so he can return home to his perfect jinn world. But Viola, scared of wishing for the wrong thing, is hesitant to make any wish at all. As Jinn and Viola spend more time together, they begin to realize that maybe they have what they need without wishing, after all. But Jinn is still bound to grant wishes, and still bound to disappear from Viola's life forever once they're made...

This book is an interesting case study in packaging. I ordered this book from the library after it got nominated for the Cybils, but when it came, I frankly wasn't that interested in it. The cover wasn't appealing to me at all. But now that I've read it, suddenly, the cover works perfectly. It's simple, it's sassy, it's a little bit innocent--just like Viola. I wonder what that says about the cover? It would never have made me pick it up, but having read it, I love it.

As for the book itself, it's a quick, fun read. What I loved about is was the friendship relationships--the friendship of Viola and Jinn (which, if you've read just about any teen novel before, you can predict where that's going), Viola and Lawrence, and most of all, Lawrence and Jinn. What other girly teen novel can you think of with a strong, noncompetitive friendship between two guys? It's unusual, and very satisfying, and I kind of love it.

I also like that Viola isn't a total social reject--for all her complaints about being Invisible Girl, even before she wishes, she's still friendly with the (as she calls them) Royal Family of her high school. They know who she is. They're friendly to her. They talk to her. Viola isn't a nerd catapulted to popularity (though lord knows I've got nothing against nerds!) She's just somewhere in the middle, somewhere average, which makes her extremely relatable.

I would have liked for some of the peripheral characters to be developed better, like Aaron and Ollie, and some of the rest of the Royal Family, who sort of get shunted off to being totally superficial and fake. But that aside, this is a fun, fast romantic read.

The National Book Award finalists were announced yesterday. Of course, the category I care the most about is Young People's Literature. This year's list is interesting in aaaaaall sorts of different ways.

The finalists are:



Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborag Heiligman
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
Stitches by David Small
Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor
Jumped by Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
Rita Williams-Garcia

Interestingly, three out of the five books are nonfiction. One of them (Stiches by David Small</i>) is a graphic novel that was published by an adult imprint, which has jump-started a lot of fascinating discussion throughout the kidlitosphere about what it means to have an adult title on the kidlit finalist bracket.

And one of them is by my friend and fellow co-panelist from last year's Cybils, Laini Taylor.

Now, I would be thrilled for Laini even if I hadn't had a chance to read Lips Touch yet. But it just so happens that I just finished reading it this weekend, and I am in awe of it, and of Laini. It's one of the most beautiful books I've read all year--intricately written, full of lines and paragraphs and phrases that get you right in that place where you keep all the best fiction--the ones that feel true.

I seriously can't recommend it enough, and I am thrilled beyond words that this beautiful and unusual book has gotten this kind of attention. It absolutely deserves it.

Congratulations, Laini!

Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog

Morgan Sparks and Cameron Browne have been best friends and next door neighbors for as long as either of them can remember. They have also been totally in love with each other since before it was cool to have a boyfriend. They're the perfect couple. The forever couple.

Until Cam's strange relative Pip shows up, and informs Cam that he is actually a fairy prince, exchanged as a baby, and living the life that was meant for Pip. Now, his older brother is dead, and his father the fairy king wants Cam back to serve as his heir.

Morgan is determined to save her boyfriend from getting shunted off to the Otherworld, but as Cam changes more and more, Morgan needs to decide whether their forever love can survive so many changes--and whether they want it to.

What works in this book is Morgan. She's got a great snappy voice, and it makes this book a quick page-turner. It's fun spending time in her first-person narrative. What also works is the way Cam's parents are in on the fact that their son is apparently a changeling from the start. It always bothers me when the people closest to the person affected are kept in the dark, for some mysterious reason. Here, Cam's parents knew what was happening from the start. I also REALLY liked that aside from a short period of necessary disbelief, all the relevant parties accepted the reality of Cam's true identity fairly quickly, and moved on to dealing with it.

( Spoilers below the cut! )

Plotting flaws aside though, I really did enjoy this book. The voice is what really sells it--I breezed through it.

Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender

Alexis Warren is comfortable with her loner status. She's a pink-haired rebel more at home behind the camera than in the halls of high school, and she likes it that way. At home, she easily navigates her constantly-working mother and her distant father. But she and her doll-obsessed little sister Kasey are close, the only real constants in each other's life.

But something is wrong with Kasey. Her sweet, shy little sister has been acting weirder than usual. She's been saying things Kasey would never say, stealing classmate's genealogy projects from school. Dangerous accidents seem to happen around her, and perhaps most frightening of all, half the time Kasey's pale blue eyes have turned a frightening stranger green.

Alexis is the only one who realizes just how dangerous Kasey has become, and she's the only one who can stop her little sister before it's too late. But what if she can't stop the evil and save her family without stopping Kasey, too?

First and foremost, this book succeeds as a genuinely creepy, really scary ghost story. It's actually frightening, and I like that in a ghost book. Some of the plotting is overly simple and predictable--while one plot twist evaded me entirely, I predicted most of the others long before they happened. And the ending was a little too neat for my tastes.

But Alexis is chock-full of personality, the ghost story is scary, and the writing is compelling. I absolutely enjoyed, and stayed up to finish.

Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink

Lia Milthorpe is grieving for her father's mysterious and untimely death when she notices a strange mark that suddenly appears on her wrist. It is only the first of many strange occurances, because as Lia is soon to realize, she is the latest in a long line of twin sisters who play a part in an ancient prophecy. It is a prophecy that can bring about the end of days--the apocalypse--or prevent it. And the more Lia learns about it, the more she understands that the prophecy has pitted her against her twin sister, Alice.

Now, Lia and Alice race against each other to unlock the secrets of the prophecy.

The best part of this book is the lush writing and setting. Zink really knows how to write really atmospheric scenes that vividly evoke the 19th century setting. She does dark and brooding really well--throughout, I could totally envision everything she was depicting.

Unfortunately, while there was a lot of interesting potential in this book, most of it was wasted. My first major problem is with Alice. The setup of the book has Alice as the traditionally dominant sister, and suggests that Lia and Alice were at some point close. But we never see that. We only see Alice as distant and ominous. She's a chilling character from the beginning, but it's hard to understand what hold she has over Lia, because we never see them as friends or caring about each other at all.

The second problem is the pacing. The book moves veeeeeery slowly, and nothing much happens. One of my major quibbles with books in general is when the reader figures something out light years before the characters--and this was the case here. It was obvious almost instantly to me what the Keys were, and it annoyed me to no end that it took Lia and her friends so long to catch on as well.

Even the big confrontation and action at the end feels rushed. It's not a bad book. It's very atmospheric, and has potential. But more than feeling like it dragged, it felt like it wasn't going anywhere.

I am thrilled to announce that I am going to be participating in the Cybils again this year!



I'm on the YA SFF Round I panel along with a host of other awesome kidliterary people. My co-panelists are:

Steve Berman, Guys Lit Wire
Gwenda Bond, Shaken & Stirred
Tanita S. Davis, Finding Wonderland
Sheila Ruth Wands and Worlds
Angie Thompson, Angieville
Samantha Wheat, Twisted Quill

And a shout-out as well to our counterparts, the Middle Grade SFF panel:

Anamaria Anderson, bookstogether
Cindy Hannikman, Fantasy Book Critic
Brian Jung, Critique de Mr. Chompchomp
Eva Mitnick, Eva's Book Addiction
Charlotte Taylor, Charlotte's Library (The fabulous Charlotte was my co-panelist last year. MG SFF is lucky to have her!)

Nominations open tomorrow, and I can't wait. It's going to be a great year!

Soulstice by Simon Holt

Six months after the events of The Devouring, Reggie Halloway is still haunted by nightmares of Vours and fearscapes, but aside from the terrifying dreams, she hasn't seen anything of the Vours since she saved her little brother from possession.

But the memory of her awful encounter haunts her daily. Her little brother Henry is still suffering from nightmares and having violent episodes. Her best friend Aaron is worried about her. And the investigation into the disappearance of town golden boy Quinn Waters--who is currently drowned at the bottom of a lake after being possessed by a Vour--is getting closer to home every day.

And that's when the Vours begin to attack again. First it's terrifying visions. Then they move on Aaron.

That's when Quinn shows up. Turns out he survived being almost frozen and drowned, and now the Vours are after him, because he's so imperfect. He suggests a dangerous team-up to Reggie, and she has no choice but to accept.

As Reggie investigates deeper and deeper into the current resurgence of Vour activity, she learns some frightening things about the origins and true nature of the Vours. But will her newfound knowledge be enough to save her from a second Vour attack?

This book starts MUCH stronger than the previous. There is already a palpable sense of tension in the air from the first page, and Reggie is an exhausted but valiant warrior against horror. In some places, Reggie begins to remind me almost of a sort of Buffy character--only instead of being chosen, she's made her own choices.

There are plenty of twists and turns in this book, as well as actual new information. Too many times, a series feels drawn out and like you aren't really discovering anything new with each additional book. This may be the second book in a series, but it definitely feels meaty and weighty on its own. The details we learn about the Vours are fascinating and compelling, and raise this from a bloody, gory horror novel for the sake of being gory to something fascinating and compelling (with plenty of gross-out creepiness, don't worry.)

This is another strong, top-notch teen horror novel that's actually gross and scary enough to compel serious horror fans. And you've got to love the packaging! The jacket images for this and The Devouring are both so eye-grabbing. I gulped it down, and I'll continue to wait eagerly for the next installment.

How It Ends by Laura Wiess

Hanna knows what she wants, and what she wants is Seth. She's wanted him since she noticed him on the first day of sophomore year. So what if he sometimes acts like a jerk? So what if he seems to prefer vacuous girls who wear ankle bracelets? Hanna pursues Seth--and she gets him. But having Seth isn't quite as wonderful as she imagined it would be. Seth can be loving, warm and affectionate--but he can also be as jerky and mean to her as he was before--only now it hurts more, because he also tells her that he loves her.

Confused, Hanna seeks refuge with her elderly neighbor Helen, who has been her surrogate grandmother since she was very small. But Helen, who is slowly dying from a terminal disease, can't provide the same advice and comfort Hanna is used to. Instead, all she can offer is an audiobook, a memoir of a life. Hanna gets drawn into the story, but before long she begins to question what is fiction and what is history--and how it all connects to the present day and the people she loves.

Wiess's writing is strong, strong, strong. She's got the complex teenage girl down pat. Hanna is a fascinating, multifaceted character, with lots of different angles. I love the portrayal of a party girl who is also a good girl. Hanna goes out and drinks, but she also loves her parents and spends time with her elderly neighbors. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Some writers forget this, but not Laura Wiess.

What doesn't work as well is the pacing. The first half of this book alternates from Hanna's POV to Helen's, but mostly Hanna's, mostly the pursuit of Seth which is so frustrating because Hanna seems to be the only person who does see that Seth is a jerk and won't stop being a jerk ever.

And then you have the second half of the book, which alternates between Helen's audiobook, and Hanna listening to it (and thinking about Seth)--but mostly the audiobook story. It's a fascinating, horrific, compelling story, and you just want to hear it through to the end--and it doesn't disappoint. But it feels only loosely connected to the first half of the book. Hanna's own tribulations just don't feel like enough to connect them.

As Hanna complains to her mother, before she realizes the full import of the audiobook, it was hard for me to know what kind of story this was. A love story? An abusive boyfriend story? A family story? A horror story? It felt like all of them, but not in the beautiful inclusive way--more in the patchwork way.

I think the ending was supposed to be shocking, but to me it just felt--expected, almost, and the only possible proper ending to one of the story threads.

There's one thing I can say about Laura Wiess, and that is that she always makes me think. I like that in a book. I just wish this one was a little surer of what kind of book it wanted to be.

Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell

Iris Rhame and her best friend Collette are hunkering down for a long summer of more of the same--hot, sweaty days, ducking out on chores at the diner where Collette's mother works, and spending time in the cemetary, playing at being psychic and summoning the dead. They aren't expecting any surprises, because nothing ever happens in their small town of Ondine, Louisiana.

But this summer, things are different. This summer, Iris and Collette are fourteen, which shouldn't mean anything's changing, but somehow, things are. Collette is suddenly very interested in boys, and has started bringing her new boyfriend Ben into her and Iris's private games of make-believe. But even more unsettling is the fact that make-believe has suddenly gotten very real. Because Iris has contacted a ghost. A real ghost.

It seems to be the ghost of Elijah Landry, who disappeared years earlier. At first, Iris is thrilled by the adventure, but she soon decides that ghost-hunting, when it's real, is a lot scarier and a lot less exciting than she had always thought it would be. But it's too late to back out, because now she has Elijah's attention--and she won't be able to rest until Elijah can, too.

From the flap copy and the awful cover, I assumed this would be a supernatural gothic like the Betty Ren Wright books I read when I was younger, and it certainly started out that way. Two kids, a quiet town, a lazy summer, nothing much to do, and then a haunting.

But it became much more than that. A ghost story became the backdrop for a coming of age story that feels so honest and real it's heartbreaking. Watching your best friend grow into boys when you're still comfortable with everything staying the same. The thrill of make-believe, and the embarassment of having your games shared with an outsider, even if he's someone you've known your entire life. And the moment where you realize that everything can't stay the same, that you're growing up and that's as it should be, and that sometimes that means leaving parts of yourself in the past.

The plot of this book is a ghost story, but the heart is a moving story about the pangs of growing up and struggling to understand your way from childhood to teenagerhood.

And I have to say--the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of Elijah Landry is resolved in a way I never would have guessed or expected. It's a quiet thing, but it shows how far the world of junior supernatural gothics has come--or maybe just that this one is a standout.

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

Dashti has only just started her service as Lady Saren's lady's maid when Lady Saren is condemned to seven years bricked up in a tower for her refusal to marry a man she despises. Seven years shut in away from the sky and fresh air, seven years of rationing food and fighting off rats and cold and loneliness, is more than Dashti signed up for. But she is determined to keep her oath and remain at her lady's side.

But life in the tower soon turns from miserable to life-threatening, and it is up to Dashti to make the choices that will save or damn her and Lady Saren both. And before she knows it, it seems her choices will not only determine the fate of herself and Lady Saren, but that of everyone in her country as well.

I really loved this book, and it's all because of Dashti. She is just one of those characters you want to hold onto tight and tell her that things will be okay, even when there is no logical reason that they will. She is brave in the face of odds. She is determined and loyal and clever very human and so very brave and I adore her.

The bits in the tower are okay, but it really gets good in the second half of the book. This is one of those rare books where the romance really really works for me and makes sense, and every time a niggling objection arose in my head, it was dealt with and answered in a really satisfying way.

Also, the ending made me cry. In a good way.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

Samara Taylor is the daughter of popular, charismatic Pastor Charlie. Everyone loves Pastor Charlie, who always knows the right thing to say and always has time for everyone. Everyone except his family. Everyone except Sam, who is alone after her mother's quiet drinking problem resulted in a DUI which landed her in rehab. Sam, who is not even sure if she believes in the God she always took for granted anymore.

And that's when tragedy strikes. A girl goes missing from their small town, and suddenly, nothing is the same. Things that Sam took for granted as safe suddenly seem threatening. And her father--and her faith--feel more distant than ever.

Sara Zarr is a master at the quiet novel that grips your heart. Even in this book, where the plot revolves around a sensational story of a missing girl, the heart of the book is still Sam's very personal and very real struggle with her faith, her family and herself.

The realistic portrait of a small town marred by tragedy--the way it changes everything, makes you mistrust things you once took for granted--it comes alive in this book. More importantly, while the central mystery never loses its hold on the reader, it also never overshadows the more interesting story--Samara's crisis of faith. It takes a very skilled writer to weave a novel that has room for both plotlines and lets the much quieter story be the more significant one.

I devoured this book in a few hours. It's a very quick, compulsive read, and Sam's honest voice pulls you in and doesn't let go. This is one of the more honest teen novels I've read in a long time--I can't recall another novel that dealt so frankly with a genuine crisis of faith. I think this is going to be a book teens come back to.

Deadly Little Secret by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Camelia (sounds like Chameleon) almost died three months ago, when she bent down to pick up her earring in the parking lot and nearly got hit by a car. Before she knew what was happening, a mysterious hot guy had shoved her out of the way, saving her life, before running off when she tried to thank him.

She is, of course, determined to find out more about Ben, the mystery guy. But when she confronts him in the hall and tries to thank him, he pretends he doesn't know what she's talking about.

Camelia's chemistry teacher has an annoying practise of decreeing that whoever you're sitting next to on your first day will be your lab partner for the rest of the year. As luck would have it, the last empty seat in the room is next to Camelia--and then Ben walks in. At first, he acts like he can barely sit next to her. But then he starts to warm to her--even though he warns her that she shouldn't be friends with him, it's too dangerous.

Sound familiar?

Yeah. The plot diverges after this little bit of prettied-up plagiarism, and turns into a Mysterious Stalker novel (Camelia has a stalker. Ben wants to help her) but still--did it seriously have to rip off the most famous crappy YA novel of our time?

Camelia and Ben's relationship is hot, I'll give you that much, but seems to be based on nothing more than his looks (she describes him looking yummy and delicious and hot hot hot as often as Bella described Edward as a marble statue of a Greek god) and her fascination with his bad boy reputation (he reportedly killed his girlfriend back at his old school.)

The writing is not amazing--I get the sense that we're supposed to care about and like Camelia's neglected best friends (she ignores them in her fascination with Ben) but they're really not that interesting--they're actually kind of annoying. And Camelia's family drama is contrived.

This book would be a mild "pass" for me if it didn't rip off Twilight in an unbelievably derivative way. That elevates it to a "can you believe this book?"

Sigh. I feel like I've been disappointed by every book I've read recently. I'd really like to read a good book again.

A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama by Laura Amy Schlitz

At the Barbary Asylum, every child was strictly classified: a girl was pretty or plain, clever or stupid, good or bad. Maud knew quite well that she was plain, clever and bad.

Maud Flynn, growing up in the Barbary Asylum, knows exactly how much she's worth: not much. She's willful and plain, and gets into too much trouble to be ever considered for adoption. So when Hyacinth and Judith Hawthorne waltz into Barbary Asylum looking for a child and insist on leaving with Maud, it's hard to tell who is more surprised--the headmistress or Maud herself.

At first, life with the Hawthorne sisters is a dream come true. They buy her new clothes and books, and feed her delicious food. But after the novelty of life outside the Asylum wears off, Maud begins to question the strangeness of her situation--because she is a secret child. The Hawthornes keep her confined to the third floor, and don't let anyone know that they had adopted a child.

Soon, Maud discovers the truth. The Hawthornes are mediums, and they need a child in order to bilk a wealthy woman out of her money as she tries to contact her dead daughter. Maud is willing to do anything to keep her new home and make the Hawthornes love her--but how far is too far?

There is a great idea for a story here, but the thing that really makes this book is Maud. She is just so genuine--she leaps off the page and feels like a real little girl. She's tough and proud and fiesty, but also broken inside. She rarely lets it show, but there are moments when I just wanted to wrap her in my arms and hold her. Maud broke my heart into teeny tiny pieces.

This book also has a chillingly deceptive villain, and what's so impressive is that you only see her through Maud's adoring eyes. Maud is not stupid, but she is desperate for love and desperate to be wanted, so the picture we see of the Hawthornes is colored by what she wants so badly--and yet we still have a very complete, well-rounded picture of the Hawthornes.

That's another thing I love about this book. No one--including Maud's enemies in the Barbary Asylum--is one dimensional. They are all so well-rounded and three dimensional--the villainous characters have their good moments, and the good characters sometimes have a temper and make hasty unfortunate decisions. Everyone is real.

This is the second time I'm reading this book, and the second time it has made me tear up at the end. It's a quiet book, but it's the kind of book that burrows into your heart and finds a permanent home there.

The Season by Sarah MacLean


Alexandra Stafford and her best friends, Vivi and Ella, are seventeen, beautiful, and experiencing their first Season in Regency London. They are also willful and independent and have absolutely no interest in being on the marriage mart. They have no patience for men who think women should be seen and not heard, and Alex takes great pleasure at shocking men with her entirely unladylike opinions on politics (much to her mother’s dismay.)

When the Earl of Blackmoor dies in a mysterious accident, Alex finds herself helping his son, the handsome Gavin, in investigating his death. Alex has known Gavin for years, and he has always been like another brother to her. But as the plot thickens, so does their relationship—until Alex can hardly be sure what she wants. But there is more at stake than the danger to Alex’s reputation. Someone has murdered the Earl of Blackmoor to protect deadly secrets—and he is willing to kill again.

I was totally on board with this book from the description. It reminded me of a less magical Sorcery and Cecilia or Maerlon the Magician, and I was excited. Fiesty heroines who have no patience for fancy dresses, and who have minds of their own? Sign me up!

Unfortunately, Alex and her friends are independent-minded only in the author’s imagination. Though the narrative describes them as independent thinkers with “personalities,” we never actually see them exhibit any of those traits. Aside from the fact that Alex is the protagonist, all three of them could be completely interchangeable.

Alex claims to be an independent woman who has no interest in being married off, who is looking for depth and a relationship, but that lasts exactly as long as it takes her to get to her first ball and see Gavin looking all spiffy in his formalwear, and suddenly she realizes new feelings for him she never knew she had. They fight a little, and just like that, bam! they're in love. Gavin claims that no other woman can measure up to Alex, and her humor and beauty and spunk and etc etc etc make Alex such a delicate and special flower. But the second she says something he disagrees with, or does something he doesn’t like, he completely shuts her out and treats her like a child.

And guess what Alex does? She flounces off to sulk. Like a child. And then throws herself at him again a few pages later.

The mystery is entirely predictable—from the first time we meet the murderer, it’s quite obvious that it’s him—but it’s not that the writer meant for it to be obvious. It just is.

I almost put this book down and didn’t finish it, but then I decided to give it another try to see if it improved.

It didn’t.

------------------------------



The Angel of Death by Alane Ferguson

Cameryn Mahoney has an unusual side job--she's assistant to the county coroner--who happens to be her father. But she didn't get the job through nepotism--Cammie is good at death.

But this time, the case may be too gruesome for even Cammie to handle. When her teacher is found dead in his bed, discovered by Kyle O'Neil, one of his Eagle Scouts, Cammie is horrified to discover that his eyes are burned out--indeed, Mr. Oaks has been cooked from the inside out.

The case is mysterious, and the trail is full of dead ends. It deserves her full attention, but Cammie is distracted--by the secret she's keeping about her estranged mother, and by a budding relationship with the ultrapopular Kyle. She may be too distracted to pick up on the clues to the identity of the killer before it's too late.

I didn't like the first book featuring Cammie, The Christopher Killer at all, so I'm not really sure why I read this one. I don't think the writing was strong at all. Cammie is not a compelling, interesting or likeable character in the least. She is a classic Mary-Sue--and the fact that Ferguson needs to keep reminding us that Cammie's best friend Lyric is both fat and weird is very off-putting.

If all that weren't enough, I knew who the killer was from reading the cover copy--and if I hadn't figured it out then, I would have picked it up the first time we met him. From the way the book was written, it was somewhat clear why Cammie et al didn't pick up on it--but that's still sloppy writing. If the reader knows whodunit light years before the crack girl detective forensic pathologist, it makes for an utterly boring read.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

Rose is the oldest of the twelve princesses of Westfalin. She and her eleven younger sisters and the beloveds of their father and kingdom, but they don’t live a charmed life. Instead, they are cursed to spend their nights dancing at the Midnight Ball of the evil King Under Stone. Galen is a young soldier-turned-gardener, returned from the front after a long war to live with the only family he has—and to work as a gardener in the king’s garden. It is there that he meets Rose and her sisters—and there that he begins to see the dark cloud hanging over the princesses. And while the king and his court try in vain to discover why the princesses’ dancing shoes are worn out night after night, and why the girls are always so exhausted, Galen may be the only one who can learn their secret—and the only one who can save them.

This is a really engaging retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” fairy tale. The burning question in that story is always, why? Why do the princesses dance? It always bothered me that the soldier revealed and stole away their secret paradise, and in exchange got to marry one of the girls. How dare he!

So I liked the curse twist in this retelling. Here, the princesses are trapped in a truly horrific curse. Early in the book, when Rose has to go dance when she’s sick, I really felt sick to my stomach for them—I felt the awfulness of their curse in my bones. So Galen’s finding their secret is a good thing—a very good thing.

Things I didn’t like: it always bothers me a little bit when an author co-opts real geography and gives in a slightly different-sounding name. Espana for Spain. Breton for Britain. Etc. And Westfalin was clearly Germany, or at the very least Germanic. If you’re going for a fantasy world, make up your own country names and geography and religion. If you’re placing your fairy tale retelling in a real time and place, then use the real names. I don’t like the wishy-washy, can’t make up her mind version of places.

Also, I know it’s a fairy tale, but the ending felt a little too happily-ever-after for me. Really? Galen the solder/gardener gets to be the king? I would even be okay with Galen getting to marry one of the princesses, but not getting the throne, but politically—he gets to be king? Really? How does that even make sense?

Maybe I am too much of a realist. Don’t get me wrong, I like happy endings just fine—but I think this ties in to my previous complaint. If you are going to model your kingdom on real places and cultures from our history, then follow through. I can’t imagine any king willingly handing over his thrown to a commoner, no matter how grateful he was. It just feels too tidy and Disney.

I think it’s very interesting to compare this retelling with another I recently read, Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Mariller. In that story, the dancing was a wonderful thing, something to look forward to, and the danger came not from the fae but from fellow men.

Wildwood avoids the major pitfall of Princess--it is solidly based in time and place, in a Transylvania that feels real and right. The gender politics in that book made me bristle, but for the characters, not against the illogic of it. There, control over the business is wrested from Jena by her domineering cousin who thinks girls are not capable of a business mind. Here, Rose and her sisters are treated like full-fledged people by their father, the king.

Overall, I think Wildwood Dancing is the better book. The details hold together better—it feels more researched, more nuanced, more anchored in place and time—-more real. And the lush writing is gorgeous and captivating. That said, I enjoyed reading Princess of the Midnight Ball a little bit more—-probably entirely because Rose and Galen both were more likeable characters, and I didn’t want to shake either of them.

Fall of Light by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Opal LaZelle is a makeup artist, specializing in monsters and the grotesque. She’s excellent at what she does—partially because she applies more than makeup to her creations. Because Opal comes from a magical family, where every member has magical gifts and abilities—and Opal can change someone’s face with a touch and a thought.

On the set of the horror movie Forest of the Night, Opal is in charge of Corvus Weather, the Dark God of the movie. But it soon becomes apparent that Corvus is sinking too deeply into the role, and Opal realizes that something is possessing him. There is an ancient power in this town, a power that wants to rise again and is using Corvus—and the movie—as its vehicle. And while Opal may be the only person on the set who realizes the enormity of the danger, she may not be strong enough to stop it.

A Fistful of Sky is my favorite Nina Kiriki Hoffman book, and one of my favorite books in general, so I had high hopes for Fall of Light. Unfortunately, I really didn’t like it very much at all. I think it was missing a lot of what I loved about the LaZelles in Fistful—the introspect of the way their family magic works, and the interplay of the family and magical people and magic being common and accepted. It DID have the other trademark of Nina Hoffman’s work that I love so much—the way normal, nonmagical people accept magical events pretty easily.

I know it’s not fair to expect it to be the same book as Fistful, especially because Hoffman, maybe more than any other writer, never writes the same book twice. But I felt like it was missing some of the elements that made me love Fistful so much.

( Cut for spoilers... )

I don’t need every question answered in my fiction—sometimes you just don’t get to know the answer, and I like that. Not every loose end is tied up—that feels honest and real, even when it’s frustrating. It’s just when NONE of the loose ends are tied up that I’m left feeling out of sorts.

I will definitely keep eagerly devouring Nina Hoffman’s new books as quickly as she can write them, but I think she really missed the mark with this one. Hopefully there will be more books with the LaZelle family to make up for it. Dare I hope for a book featuring Flint?

You still have a few more days to comment to win a signed copy of The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, National Book Award finalist and Newbery Honor book!

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Girl of the Moment by Lizabeth Zindel

Lily Miles thinks her life is over when her prestigious internship at MOMA falls through. She was banking on the internship to help her stand out on her Brown application. Then, Lily is offered the chance of a lifetime—an internship with Sabrina Snow, hottest starlet in Hollywood.

But life among stars isn’t as amazing as Lily had hoped. Sabrina is selfish and spoiled, full of outrageous demands and totally fickle. Lily has her hands full walking Sabrina’s pampered dog, finagling tickets to a sold-out Yankees game, and trying not to fall for Sabrina’s gorgeous boyfriend—who seems to be falling for her, too.

Can Lily juggle the pressures of Sabrina’s life and her own? Or will she let star fever lead her into disaster?

The first two thirds of this book are great. Lily is a fun character, and there’s something undeniably appealing and having a front row seat into the life of a Hollywood starlet. There’s a hugely entertaining sense of voyeurism and getting the inner track. And I like that Lily doesn’t have it too easy—she screws up, she makes dumb mistakes, and she struggles.

But in the last third, the plot gets a little clichéd. Lily’s fight with her father is straight out of cliché city—and there’s no real buildup to it. It just kind of erupts, as if Zindel figured, “okay, now’s the time to insert some external conflict.” And the plotline about Lily’s mom’s pie business, which is given so much attention and is dragged in to Lily’s fight with her father, is never resolved. Is the business successful? Does it fail? Does it eat all the money in Lily’s college fund, or does it replenish it? It’s a minor plot point, but it seems to me that if you’re going to introduce it, you should resolve it.

Finally, Sabrina never really gelled for me. Her actions in the end of the book made her seem much more like a caricature than a real person.

And the prologue page at the beginning made me think that Lily had done something awful to Sabrina—had violated her privacy, or something. I was waiting the whole book for Lily’s awful crime to be revealed, and then…nothing.

I read Zindel’s other book, The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies, and she seems to be following the same pattern: great concept, great start, and then it all falls apart towards the end. She has these great concepts and ideas, but doesn’t seem capable of seeing them through to an equally satisfying conclusion.

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Shift by Charlotte Agell

Adrian Havoc is tired of toeing the line. He is sick of following the rules, sick of being indoctrinated with Rapture propaganda, sick of not knowing what happened to his father who went to the moon and stopped writing to him. When his mother, a prominent scientist, goes off on a mysterious government mission, Adrian is tired of sitting around. One thing leads to another, and he finds himself on a mission to rescue an aged penguin, along with a very attractive zookeeper and his somewhat psychic little sister.

But what they find in the North is far more dangerous and shocking than any of them were expecting. Before he knows what's happening, Adrian finds himself involved in a dangerous mission that might be the key to saving his family and the world--or destroying it.

What a strange little book. I'm not sure what it was attempting to do, but I certainly don't think it accomplished it. Was this a post-apocalyptic novel about a world ravage by nuclear accident? A dystopian novel about a society ruled by a strict Christian government? An buddy novel about three kids and a penguin traveling across and nuclear wasteland to find a better life? An action-adventure story full of disguises and heart-pounding moments? It was all those things in part, but none of them really successfully. It seemed to changed tones every thirty pages or so.

The Red Queen's Daughter by Jacqueline Kolosov

Mary Seymour, daughter of Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, is determined never to be bound by love and marriage. With the example of her mother—a woman who was queen, who then was brought low when she fell in love with Thomas Seymour, who was executed a traitor—Mary is determined to keep herself free of love’s dangerous influences.

So when her new guardian, the mysterious Lady Strange, tells Mary of her destiny—to serve as a white magician in Queen Elizabeth’s court—Mary is determined that it is the right course for her. But although she spends her formative years training in the art of magic with Lady Strange, nothing could prepare her for the intrigues and dangers of Elizabeth’s court—or for the temptations of the heart. Despite Mary’s ideals and her vow to serve and protect Elizabeth, she can’t deny the way she feels around one Edmund Seymour. Edmund is Mary’s cousin, but he is also her opposite—he is a black magician who stands to use magic for his own gain and against the Queen. It will take all of Mary’s determination to find her way through the intrigues of court and the temptations of the heart.

The writing in this book is just lovely. Mary’s an engaging protagonist—one who so clearly belongs and lives in this tumultuous Elizabethan time period, but who has slightly modern feminist ideals. But unlike some feminist novels that take place during this time period, they feel rooted in reality and history.

I love the historical detail, the way Elizabeth’s court really comes alive around Mary. Reading this book felt like stowing away in a time machine—I felt completely immersed in the past.

I was so immersed in the details of Elizabeth’s court and Mary’s training as a white magician that I barely realized that it takes nearly three quarters of the book for the plot to get moving, and once it does, it barely feels complete. I am wondering if there is going to be a sequel, and that’s why things are left so up in the air. Almost nothing is concluded with any amount of satisfaction. And Mary, despite all her protestations against love, seems to topple to it without any resistance or reason at all.

Despite these flaws, the writing is so good that I really did enjoy reading it. It’s only when I think about it objectively that I realize that the conclusion didn’t really conclude, the enemies set up in the book still feel like a threat, and the budding romance that seemed on the verge of coming to a head still feels—unfinished.

I really hope that there’s more in store for us from Jacqueline Kolosov and Mary Seymour. I want to know what happens next.