GUYS DID YOU KNOW THERE WAS A NEW FLAVIA DE LUCE BOOK?
I try to keep up, but as I am not, like Corene, immersed in an environment when the publication dates of all and sundry new tween and YA novels come flying constantly at my face, I often miss them entirely, even when they are awesome amazing incredible clever murder mystery books about genius chemist girl detectives like the most excellent Flavia De Lucie in Alan Bradley's new Speaking from Among the Bones.
This time, I was unaware until some weeks ago when I saw a girl on the SeaBus reading it, and immediately rushed out to buy it.
And then all the bookstores were closed, so the next day I tried to get it out of the library, but all the copies were checked out and I am too impatient for waitlists about 60% of the time.
So I bought it at a tiny local shop on Vancouver Island while visiting my mother.
BUT THE POINT IS I have read it, it's amazing, and guys, this post could be full of so many spoilers, but I'm going to restrain myself because this book is slated to be Book of the Week in our next podcast. Cut for maybe, sort of, vaguely, potentially spoilers.
I am not an avid reader of contemporary/war/army/issues teen fiction. But Somebody Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis won the Schneider Family Book Award in the Young Adult category. And being the good little librarian that I am, I thought I should probably take a look.
And it was super short so I figured it couldn't be too bad.
This is the book laughing at my expectations
It's the last day of high school for Ben Bright. Charming, smart, well-liked Ben Bright who is destined for great things. He's staring in the school production of The West Wide Story with his best girl, Ariela, and his best friend, Niko. His whole life seems perfect. Then Ben drops a bombshell: Instead of going to college, he's going to boot camp. He's enlisted with the reservists.
And then the worst happens (because it is that sort of book). Ben is shipped out to Iraq and caught in insurgent explosion that results in brain damage. And everyone else has to pick of the pieces of their lives and figure out who they are with the new Ben.
I can appreciate that this book wasn't written for me. It takes a very pro-military stance to start. Ben's sacrifice is ultimately seen as noble although I was at no point convinced as to why he was making this choice. There is little to no real discussion or push back from the people in Ben's life. There's mention of "scripted-sounding antiwar screeds" but everyone seemingly accepts this remarkable choice with little fuss.
The other issue I took with Somebody Please Tell Me Who I Am was the roving third person POV. You didn't really spend enough time with any character to get to know them on anything but a superficial level. Character felt like a description in a dramatis personae instead of people. Ariela was the Tragic Girlfriend Fiance on the Home Front. Niko was the Supportive BFF. Chris was the Brother With Autism. And everyone behaved perfectly. No one found it too much to deal with - not to say that there wasn't angst. But everything on the page didn't accurately reflect the change that their lives went through because of Ben's brain injury.
The subject is well worth reading more about. What happens when the soldier comes home? And considering how young many of these returning soldiers may be, it is a topic for YA lit to grapple with for years to come. But perhaps in the hands of writers with more depth and skills.
Two down, three to go! This is the second in the Bookslingers' Extremely (One Could Say Foolishly) Optimistic Edgar Award Challenge. The book on the docket is Elizabeth George's (Yes, That Elizabeth George) The Edge of Nowhere.
On the last day of Hannah Armstrong's existence, things were normal for a while.
Hannah
doesn't know it but that afternoon when she comes home and sees her stepfather glower at her in the kitchen is the last that she'll ever know. Because in her mind, she hears the "whispers" of this thoughts say: "A break
in... surprise... Connor... if she hears that a gun... because dead
isn't always dead."
And when her step-father looks at her, he knows that she knows that he killed her shady business partner.
And so begins the life of Becca King.
On the run, her mother leaves her on Whidbey Island with a friend. But when Becca arrives off the ferry on the remote island full of secrets, the friend is dead. She is at the mercy of Seth, the aspiring musician and high school drop-out who can't get over his ex-girlfriend, Haley. There's Debbie, the hotel owner, who takes her in but harbours a pain so deep it hurts Becca to hear her thoughts. And then there's Diana, a woman who seemingly has no thoughts at all.
When Becca find the broken body of barely-alive Derrick, the handsome adopted son of the local sheriff, at the bottom of the cliff, her fragile new life crumbles. Because she saw something that day but can't tell anyone without putting her own life in danger.
The Pacific Northwest: Beautiful but deadly. But mostly deadly.
Usually before writing a review, I like to sit on it for a few days. Percolate, if you will. Let my thoughts and feeling sort themselves out into something coherant. But I have to get this off my chest: NO ONE SAID THAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE A SERIES. FIRST IN FOUR BOOKS? FOUR? I DID NOT EXPECT THIS.
Oh wait. It was on the inside flap. But who reads those things anyways?
This is George's first valiance into YA (which is apparently The Thing To Do These Days, according to James Patterson and Kathy Reichs) and I will admit to some decidedly mixed feelings. The Edge of Nowhere is heavy on atmosphere and introspection - not things that hook teen readers. It felt a lot more like an adult book written in the POV of teenagers. I am curious to hear what actual teens made of it.
The "whispers" gimmick was surprisingly effective. Becca doesn't hear narrative: "So I am thinking that I am going to eat a cheeseburger and then push this guy off a cliff. Because of my motive." Instead she hears snippets, hints about what is skimming on the top of other people's minds. This is effective in building suspense as (with most
people) what they are thinking and what they are saying are two very
different things.
Cliffs: So abundant, so push-off-able
Becca/Hannah is a frustrating character as the narrative necessitates her making some baffling decisions. So much so, that sometimes it is tough to get a handle on her. She is constantly shifting who she is, that by the end of the book, I hadn't a clue who she really was. Except that she was *~*magically thin ~*~.
The mystery at the heart of the novel - what happened that day at the cliff that left Derrick in a coma - is satisfying enough to carry the book despite some of the more didactic elements (ie. Seth learns to become a man from his grandfather/wizard figure). Overall, an intriguing start to a series but I would be surprised to see an Edgar sticker on it.
(Wait, do they have stickers? Is it just sad Poe face? Or a raven stabbing someone with a quill?)
So, first things first. That is a niiiiice cover. That is a cover that you take to a fancy dinner in a restaurant with more than one type of fork.
So fancy
Now to the insides of The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke: Ananna, the only daughter of a powerful pirate family, is about to be engaged to the most handsome man she's ever seen.
Unfortunately, Ananna has no intention of sailing under a banner that doesn't have ANANNA in a large bold font. Also, her future finance has the seriously suicidal intention to drive his new fleet of shiny ships into the Isles of the Sky. Where people are turned into frogs.
So, no thanks. Ananna camels it out of there with with a soundtrack of her ex-fiance screaming that his family will hire an assassin to hunt her down. But those are just stories, aren't they? So she thinks up to the moment when an assassin tries to slice her into pieces in the marketplace. When a mysterious marketplace woman (TM) offers her a way to avoid almost certain death, she takes it. For how is she supposed to know that it will bind her to a young assassin and start her on an impossible adventure?
Google "Mysterious Marketplace Lady" and this is what you get. Not a perfect search engine.
If you're looking for something to read after Arabian Nights, this is a book for you. It's a dashing adventures with lots of derring-do, swashbuckling, market chases, narrow escapes and pirate ships. Ananna is a spunky heroine with a unique voice which makes this book well worth checking out.
The developing romance angle didn't quite work for me but your mileage may vary with the "Zounds! Handcuffed Together With My Total Opposite And Yet The More Time Where Are Force to Spend Together, The More Smouldering This Sexual Tension Becomes!" It's a proud and noble trope to be sure, but not a trope that I would not want to sail to sea with.
The Assassin's Curse is an intriguing startto a series and I look forward to see what mysterious isles it travels to next in The Pirate's Wish (available in June 4, 2013).
So, for a while now people whose opinion I occasionally respect have been telling me to read Don Calame's Swim the Fly.
In case you have rose-tinted Children's Librarian glasses like myself, those are boobs in the goggles. Took me a week to notice.
"It's so funny! It's hilarious! It's like a Judd Apatow movie but without sex and the ladies aren't all shrews!"
"But it's about three teenage boys who made a summer goal to see a naked lady."
"Yes but it also features a lovesick grandpa and adventures with makeup and hijinks and true teenage love. And swimming. Lots of accurate facts about how butterfly is the dumbest stroke invented."
"But poo."
"Weeeeeeell, yeah. There is some poo. And a lot of masturbation jokes but it is a surprising sweet book about realistic teenage boys."
"But poo."
And so for quite a while, I resisted reading Swim the Fly. But this week after finished the grim, grim, grim Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone, I needed something a little bit more upbeat and less "you'll never feel hope again"-ish. So I picked it up.
And for the record:
Everyone was totally right and I was utterly wrong and it is hilarious.
I am always tempted to write the title of this book with an exclamation point. Ingo! I have no idea why.
I picked up this book, along with two of its sequels, a year or two ago on one of my carefully-regulated-because-I-also-need-to-buy-food (and-even-more-strictly-regulated-since-I-started-buying-comics-again) expeditions to Kidsbooks. I think it was around the time that the Next Big Thing in YA was going to be mermaids (they changed their minds again recently; apparently it is now going to be zombies). I did not, however, pick up this book because of its potential Next-Big-Thing-ness. I picked it up because I have a curious weakness to books set in places in the British Isles that are not London and environs; probably some residual effects of my brief undergraduate foray into Celtic Studies. One day I will have read excellent YA genre-fiction books set in all five Celtic Countries (So far I am missing the Isle of Man and Breton. I do not ever expect to swing Breton. If you know of books that will prove me wrong, please let me know!).
This particular book is set in Cornwall. One of my other favourite books, The Little Country by Charles De Lint (a book I seem to have tragically misplaced), is also set in Cornwall! (Fun fact: Cornwall in Cornish is kernow. Isn't that cool? Careful; if you stand still long enough I can still quote the names of all five Celtic Countries in their native tongues.) Also, mermaids. Mermaids are cool. This looked earthy and mysterious. "Okay," I said. "I'm in." And bought the first three.
Anyway the point was... mermaids. For some reason I'm always a little skeptical about mermaids. Maybe because I prefer my magical fantasy a little more grounded, no pun intended. But that's exactly what this was! Ingo is the story of Sapphire and her brother Conor, who live in a village in Cornwall, in a cottage by the sea. It's as idyllic as you might imagine, at least on the surface, but Sapphire and Conor's lives are plagued by Dark Family Secrets of my very favourite kind; I call it Secret Legacy. In this case...
Chris, the boy who made Nora's transition to the snotty private school across the tracks and sweet-talked her into joining the excruciating private study of the Voynich manuscript with a nutty professor is dead.
Chris has been murdered in his home and the only witness, his girlfriend, is catatonic.
And the top suspect for the horrific crime? Nora's boyfriend, Max.
What follows is a labyrinth of ancient secrets, midnight meetings with Kepler, mysterious societies, murder, betrayal and a myth that with tear apart Nora's world.
Less smexy American/Canadian cover. But I appreciate her lip gloss.
The Good: The beginning of The Book of Blood and Shadow reminded me of my favourite book of all time, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. Cute boys in sweaters quoting poetry? Count me in. I will read three copies.
Nora was an easy narrator to like. Her special power is translating Latin. She has a Tragic Family Backstory but it doesn't overwhelm her life. She makes a couple of questionable boy-shaped decisions but you can understand where she's coming from.
Also? The Voynich manuscript is straight-up weird. If you are not familiar with it, check it out. Bizarre 15th century volume of detailed flora and fauna that don't exist? Written in a code that not even WWII codebreakers could figure out? Pages mysteriously missing? This is the stuff that awesome fiction is made of.
Cracking the code and following the mystery's end all the way to deliciously dark Prague was a rush. Finding Chris's murderer and deciding who are allies and who are villains is engaging and there are plenty of twists and turns and evil ninja priests to keep the 400 + story clipping along.
The Wibbling: Sometimes The Book of Blood and Shadow was as mind-confusing as the Voynich manuscript.
Seriously, dudes. What the heck?
What starts as an academic mystery turns into slasher Da Vinci Code with the Lost Arc from Indiana Jones. No wait, not Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code's wackier on-drugs cousin: Angels & Demons. There's a lot of plot shoved into the second half of the book (and someone melts) with a lot of different players on the board and Wasserman doesn't quite take you all the way there. The slower descriptions and ruminations bogged down the plot making it a lot longer (488 pages!) than it needed to be. The BIG REVEAL (TM) and SUDDENLY SUPERNATURAL! was a little bit more eyebrow raising than satisfying. That being said, totally looking forward to Robin Wasserman's next book.
If you are looking for some light feel-good weekend reading to perk you up, throw Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield in your closet immediately.
This is not a fuzzy kittens book. Only in the way that you will need several hours of fuzzy kitten therapy to scrub the grime from your soul.
Becca has everything figured out. She has a hot, disposable boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks, a golden ticket to any university of her choosing and a plan to get out of her suffocating hometown. She is better than the sad, small-town losers who are were born and live and stay in Bridgeport.
But everything comes off the rails for Becca when a mystery girl, whose life is very much like her own, is found brutally murdered on the side of a country road.
This is a book about how one murder affects everything and everyone it touches. It exposes the evil simmering just below the surface of small towns, of small people and of Becca herself.
Here's a picture of Pekoe in a deerstalker to keep your spirits up
Dudes, this book was gritty. A little too gritty for this innocent Children's Librarian.
This is a book about human nastiness and cruelty. So everyone (especially Becca) is nasty and cruel to each other. There's a lot of sex and violence and hopelessness (and somewhere in the middle of this review I turned into Helen Lovejoy). Nancy Drew, this ain't.
Not to say that this isn't a great book. It has gotten a lot of buzz for a reason. The writing is terse, descriptive and lyrical. I could not put it down until I found out what had happened to Amelia Anne. It is a gripping mystery in the style of Ian Rankin or Minette Walters: The events and people are so awful, you can't look away.
This book... went places. Unexpected places. Unpleasant places.
It was like your parents told you that you were driving to Disneyland and you immediately jumped in with your emergency backpack of stuff (who didn't have one of these? I had about three emergency bags in case of flood, fire, and dirigible explosion over Northern Alberta).
And you're driving down the highway and you see the turn off for Disneyland.
"There's the turn off! Put on your blinker! Shoulder check! Merge politely into the turning lane. Wait. Why aren't you indicating? Why aren't we turned?"
And then your parents turning around but they aren't really your parents. They are your lizard parents and they hiss through their sharp triangular teeth: "We are going to THE SHOE STORE."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Except, in book form. With more opium.
It's an extremely dark fairy tale about crushing innocence and hope with a mortal and pestle. Beautiful prose because it's Maryrose Wood but a bit Grimm (heh. See what I did there?) for my tastes.
Welp, The Boy on Cinnamon Street by Phoebe Stone is officially my first tearjerker of 2013. And we are ... 3 days into the year.
Start strong, wibble on.
I want her shoes so much - ever if they are covered in tears
When Thumbelina (formerly Louise) Terrace orders from Palomeeno's Pizza after selling her balance beam, she gets more than cheesy deliciousness. Stuck underneath the door there's a letter from a secret admirer:
I am your biggest fan.
With her friend Remi cheering on and her bookish brother Henderson offering analysis when not writing his sci-fi robot romance, Louise navigates the possibility of her first love (who may or many not be the Kerouac-reading pizza delivery boy). But the deeper mystery is why one year ago Louise quit gymnastics and can't remember anything about the night of her mother's death. Or anything about her mother at all.
Exquisite heartbreak that's perfect for fans of Linda Urban via E.L Konigsburg holding hands with Stephanie Perkins.
Also flippin' delightful
If you need me, I will be wiping the tears from my glasses.
Did you know that one of wee spogs of Jennifer Gardner and Ben Affleck is named Seraphina? She's so adorable that I forgive her for making my attempts to find this book cover on the Google Image Search just that much more difficult.
No relation to Ben Affleck
Seraphina is the debut YA novel by Rachel Hartman (who lives in Vancouver - start stalking now, Miss Maiar. Let's arrange some sort of Misery thing so that we can get the sequel out faster). It is a wonderful book about music and belonging and Byzantine political intrigue and dragons.
So many amazing dragons. They can take human form and live among them as diplomats, scholars and teachers but they must wear a silver bell on their shoulder (what a wonderful image! So tinkly!).
Seraphina lives in a world that balances on a knife-edge of war with dragons. On the eve of the anniversary of the precarious peace treaty, the heir apparent to the kingdom is murdered. His body is found showing the tell-tale signs of a dragon attack.
No one does dragons like Alan Lee
Apprentice to the court composer, Serphania has secrets to hide. Despite her prodigious musical talent, her father has kept her locked away from the outside world. She can understand dragon speech and can hear voices in her mind. Her only friend is her dragon teacher, Orma, who guides her on how to control some of her emerging powers. On top of her court duties in instructing the princess, there's also Prince Lucian who wants to use her vast knowledge of dragon lore to track down his cousin's murderer.
This is a brilliant, delicious book full of court intrigue, wonderful writing, heartbreak and DRAGONS! DRAGONS! DRAGONS!
Every reader in their reading career must choose their side in the epic, timeless battle of Which Austen Hottie is the Hottest of All The Tight-Pants Hunks.
My dog has exactly the same expression when I bathe her
Mr. Darcy has a special place in my heart. He was the first exposure (heh) that I had to Jane Austen's work and Colin Firth is perfection in a frilly shirt. But as I read more Austen, I decided to pick up the banner of another.
Mr. Darcy is swoony. And he has a huuuuuuge tract of land. But he is also rude. Frightfully, insultingly rude. What would your dinner conversations be like?
MR DARCY: ....
LADY CORENE: So, do anything interesting today, honey?
MR DARCY: .... No.
LADY CORENE: Any plans for the weekend. Shall we attend a ball?
MR DARCY: I hate balls.
LADY CORENE: Heh. No kidding! Am I right? Cause you're a hetero... Nah, nah, nah, nah. Sexual. Nah, nah, nah, nah. Hetero, sexual MAAAAAN! HAHAHAH. Balls....
MR DARCY: ...
LADY CORENE: ... I am gonna go see if Mr. Bingley's up for some polygamy.
Mr. Knightley is too fatherly and too good. Henry Tilney is delightfully well-informed about muslin but the in-laws are a deal breaker. Edmund Bertram is the wettest blanket in the ocean where an transport blanket ship has sunk to the bottom of the ocean and spilled its cargo in the watery depths.
But let's talk about Captain Wentworth.
I'm just gonna leave this right here for you. Take your time
Persuasion is my favourite Austen novel (So melancholy! So heartbreaking!) and Captain Wentworth is the hottest hottie to wear a Batman-like-neck-constricting cravat. Sure, he's kind of an intolerable dick for 80% of the novel but he is still the most intriguing. And why? BECAUSE HE HAS A JOB.
So I was pretty excited to read Diana Peterfreud's For Darkness Shows the Stars: a YA sci-fi, post-apocalyptic retelling of Persuasion.
Poor dear forgot to take her opaque pills this morning
The story takes place in a land devastated by the Reduction. When genetic experimentation and dangerous technology threatened, the Luddites went underground into caves. When they emerged, the world they knew was gone. All that was left of the world were two small islands filled with people suffering the aftereffects of bombing and genetic manipulations gone wrong.
The Luddites set themselves up as the masters of this new world. At the bottom of this society are the "Reduced" who suffer from infirmities - but not so much that they cannot be the slaves of the Luddites. But there are new children born from the Reduced which do not suffer their afflictions - and Kai is one of them. He is Elliot's secret friend throughout her life. He challenges her and forces her to realize the truth behind the seemingly benevolent rule of the Luddites. But when he asks her to runaway with her, she stays.
Four years later, Elliot is trying to keep her family farm together. Her father and sister are doing their best to destroy crops and drive away their workforce. So when the mysterious Cloud Fleet, explorers who have discovered extraordinary inventions and creatures on far-away islands, asks to rent her grandfather's shipyard, Elliot jumps at the chance.
But one of the Cloud Fleet engineers is very familiar to Elliot. Kai has returned with a new name and a new future. But they both have secrets that could destroy both of them. Can she take a chance on an old love? Will he ever forgive her?
This is not a book for everyone. It is quieter, slower and gentler than what many modern readers might be used to. I think that Peterfreud captures the melancholy of Persuasion. It is a difficult book to transition into a YA novel. Persuasion is about the folly and mistakes of youth. Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth loved each other as teenagers, almost children. But now they are adults and have lived their separate lives. The novel asks whether this love can endure. I know that when you're a teenager, every day seems like yeeeears but the fundamental question of the novel changes when the characters are de-aged.
For Darkness Show the Stars is more focused on whether two people from different backgrounds, different worlds can ever find a place to love each other. If relationship that are build on unequal footing, relationships where the power is unbalanced (Elliot's family owns Kai and his father) can ever be true.
I don't know that For Darkness Shows the Stars really answers it but the question did stick with me for weeks after reading.
One of the main appeals of the story for me was the world building. Peterfreud has transformed the deeply stratified world of Regency England into a grim post-apocalyptic society that was reminiscent of the Antebellum South. Elliot's world is all about power, about the disparate world of the oppressed and the oppressors. It reminded me of a sci-fi J. Anderson Coats' The Wicked and the Just (great read).
Half the fun as a Persuasion fan was seeing how Peterfreud translated the events and characters into her world. Elliot North was just as sympathetic and kind as Anne Elliot. The Baron was even more terrifying (though not as terrifying as when he was played by Anthony Stewart Head).
They have just finished reading "A Modest Proposal" and are sizing up their options at the Baby Auction
The romance is very swoony and there is a LETTER. The few gripes I have (the ending being a touch rushed) are well put away with how enjoyable this book was. It may lack Austen's satirical touch (the world is very, very grim) but it is a perfect read for Austen fans.
Chime is the story of Briony, who thinks she's going to burn in Hell. Briony lives in a town where witches are hanged, and she's also spent the past several years believing herself not only a witch, but responsible for all the ills of her family.
Enter the Hot Guy, AKA: the Lion Boy, AKA: Eldric.
Eldric is clever, and kind, and interesting - all the things that Briony Does Not Need, considering how busy she is denying herself anything that makes her happy.
Soulless: The Manga - Gail Carriger (words) & Rem (pretty, pretty pictures)
That was a lot of cleavage.
Mind you, it was some of the nicest and best adapted cleavage I've seen.
Soulless: The Manga is the first adaptation of the clever mystery/Jane Austen does vampires/bodice-ripper in the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger. Alexi Tarabotti suffers from many afflictions: Her vapid mother, her tediously fashionable sisters, her friend Ivy Hisslepenny's taste in hats, almost certain spinsterhood, bothersome werewolf Lord Maccon and an unfashionable lack of soul. With a ton dominated by stylish vampires, Alexia's soul deficiency and ability to nullify the supernatural powers of anyone she touches puts her at a distinct disadvantages in polite Victorian society.
But being Alexia, she will manage splendidly. Or if not splendidly, cleavage-rifically.
What an adaptation this is.
Rem's light touch and stylistic brilliance are perfectly suited to the flippant comedy of manners. She even managers to make the *ahem* intimate scenes more palatable.
Soulless is a book with the least sexy sex of all the sex (Blogbots: This is not the blog that you are looking for). Scouts honour (though Scouts should really not be thinking of these matters yet), I had to read a certain section over before I realized that certain characters were engaged in exercising conjugal relations in a carriage. Twice. No making that mistake in the manga.
Witty, pretty and well, Lord Akeldama, the book and manga are both highly recommended. Especially for those who love a good cup of tea and joke at the expense of the Scottish.
I am issuing an immediate moratorium on the Twelve Dancing Princesses.
And no sneaking it in under other titles such as "The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes" or "The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces" or "The Princesses Who Needed to Find Themselves a New Cobbler."
Do not Google Image search this book title to find a picture for your blog. I've seen things. Things I cannot unsee. But it did remind me to wipe my browser history.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Or "The Shoe Fetishist's Nightmare") is a tricky fairy tale to rewrite because of the fundamental problem at the story's core.
The problem is not Jason Chan's cover.If he decided to illustrate the History of Terrible People Doing Terrible Things in Graphic Detail, I would read it.
Lady Quiz Time:
If a mysterious portal opens up in your bedroom in the middle of the night leading down to a creepy and yet symbolic underworld that looks like some Dior minimalist Christmas where twigs are made of gold, silver and there is a host of coin-operated princes who boogie all night long, what do you an your eleven sisters do?
You can thank Moffat for making this fairy tale just a little more frightening
a) Propping the portal open with a door to make sure it doesn't close suddenly and trap your in the sinister underworld, take a peek into the mysterious wonderland to make sure you haven't stumbled into an episode of Doctor Who and/or survey the area for Mr. Tumnus (and we are talking only James MacAvoy's Mr. Tumnus)
Accept no substitutes
B) Leaving one sister to hold the door, pop down with a wheelbarrow and some servants and haul back as many gold, silver and diamond branches as you can snap off. There are twelve of you. You could clean up enough to install a proper security system and team of exorcists in the next castle you buy.
C) Wander past the priceless fancy trees, take a boat to a castle that is built entirely around a lake that is somehow underneath your own castle and then dance the night away with princes who, so far as I can tell, are robots. Dance so hard that your shoes are in tatters and then walk home past the fancy trees into your beds. Don't tell anyone about this but instead play a risky game of "discover my secret nighttime activities" with a grizzled old dude who you will be forced to marry because you are in a fairy tale.
D) Move. Pack up your things and move.
This is not a difficult quiz
Each of these authors tries to make the less-obvious choice of C seem a little less crazy. Some succeed (The Thirteenth Princess they are under a spell, The Princess Curse they have kind of put their immortal souls in danger due to having not read enough fairy tales) and some don't (In Entwined they are angry at their dad: I know what will show him! Making him pay out more money for shoes!).
None of these really thwacked it out of the park for me. I will give The Princess Curse a slight edge as it veered off somewhere unexpected and new halfway through the book (Did anyone else think that Entwined would have been a stronger middle school book? For a 480 page book, it didn't have enough complexity to be YA).
Let's put the dancing princesses to rest. They've had a long night.
Every year, Vancouver treasure Kidsbooks has a 20% sale. Usually this is a dangerous time for bibliophiles: 20% off is a perfect excuse to extravagantly overspend on our book budget. One protects oneself from this by taking allies (in this case my friend Jen); people who don't think it's at all strange to want to spend an hour in a bookstore. Unfortunately anybody who wants to go shopping with you at a bookstore dedicated to children's and YA literature is probably similarly vulnerable to temptation.
But I escaped with only a reasonable number of books this year. (And then I went and spent too much money at the yarn shop, but that's neither here nor there.)
Two were replacements, or already-reads that I'd been meaning to actually own for a while. the first was Enchanted Glass, by Diana Wynne Jones. You've probably read this (if you haven't, you should), but if you haven't, I'll just tell you that this is a lovely, comfortable little book, pleasant and well-rounded and rich, and that the reason I didn't already own it is because the Canadian edition took a while to come out in paperback, and also the American edition had one of the worst covers I have ever seen. This is the Canadian cover. Isn't it nice? Enchanted Glass is about Andrew Hope, who inherits his grandfather's house. Surprise: his grandfather was probably a wizard. Full of fairy tales and folk tales and family secrets and friendly monsters and walks in the woods. Delightful.
The second already-read was one of my favourite books of all time: From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, in which Claudia and her brother Jamie run away from home and move into The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. There they stumble upon a mystery/conspiracy about a priceless work of art. I cannot emphasize this enough: this book is amazing, and everyone should read it. Twice. Or so many times that you lose count, and the spine cracks, and the pages fall out, as probably happened with my copy (before my cousin, who was obsessed with this book at the same time that I was, probably stole it). And I'm not just saying that because running away from home to live in a museum was something that eight-year-old me seriously considered on multiple occasions, totally independent of the influence of this awesome, awesome book.
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. I picked this one up mainly because our good friend and fellow reviewer Pippa liked it so much, despite Miss Corene's lukewarm feelings about it. It's about an American teenager who goes to boarding school in London, and apparently there's a mystery. I am told that the cover is misleading and that there is in fact no Victorian murder mystery, as it takes place in present day? So far it's... good? I think? Apparently we're going to be talking about it on next week's podcast, so we'll see.
The Grimm Legacy, by Polly Shulman, which Jen made me buy. Okay, she didn't exactly twist my arm: apparently this book is about library pages going on adventures and fighting evil. Basically. More details when I've read it, but with an endorsement like that, come on. What choice did I have? After all, Jen was the one who made me buy Graceling, so I think we can all agree that her judgment is pretty sound in these matters.
I, Coriander by Sally Gardner. All I know for certain about this book is that it takes place in 17th-century London, that the main character's name is Coriander, that there are magic shoes involved somewhere, and that at some point she gets locked in a trunk and left to die.
Also she's ginger. I think. Often that's enough for me, so maybe let's wait until I've actually read the book.
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GUYS DID YOU KNOW THERE WAS A NEW FLAVIA DE LUCE BOOK?
