The Peculiars

The Peculiars, by Maureen Doyle McQuerry, is a somewhat interesting gothic steampunk tale for young adults, though I don't think the book quite fits the target audience. The style matches young adult fiction, but the characters are a little old. Aside from that, I found the book to be a tad slow-paced and simplistic, but it's sort of pretty, too, in its own kind of dark way.

Lena's family thinks she is half goblin from her father's side, her father who abandoned them when she was a child but left her a short letter and a surprise gift upon her eighteenth birthday. Lena, herself, is afraid of what she might be. She has the physical characteristics of a goblin: long, tender feet and an extra knuckle in each finger on her hands. But goblins are also supposed to be evil, base creatures. Since Lena wants and enjoys things most girls her age don't, she is afraid her evil side is coming out, so with the money her father left her, she leaves home for the wilds of Scree where convicts, outlaws, and supposedly other Peculiars (if they even exist) live. She's determined to find her father and discover who he truly is and what that might mean for her.

But before Lena gets to Scree, she's waylaid in a border town where a mysterious marshal stirs her heart and asks for favors, where a young librarian seeks an escape from his family obligations and shows a genuine interest in Lena, and where an inventor hides a great secret Lena believes needs to be exposed to the world. Goblin or not, Lena can't help being thrilled at the prospect of an adventure, but she may be in more danger than she realizes.

It's a fun book, certainly not boring. There's mystery, adventure, romance, and danger. It's sort of a slightly post-Victorian paranormal romance with a bit of science fiction thrown in, but none of these genres fully encompasses or describes the book. I liked it well enough, but I thought there was just a little something missing. Higher stakes maybe. A more complex plot. A more satisfyingly romantic end. It was good, but not great. Still, it's not a bad story, and the idea is clever, if not fully fleshed out. Where the book's adventure really gets going is in the final third. Until then, there's a lot of internal conflict, some unnecessary, as Lena wonders whether Peculiars are even real and if she is one. Three stars.

This book is available in stores in May.

The Implosion of Aggie Winchester

I really disliked this book when I started reading it. What kept me going was that it was a nice hardcover I'd won for free from the authors of the Girls Taking Over the World tour at Summer's Stories. I thought I'd give it a chance.

Lara Zielin's The Implosion of Aggie Winchester is a young adult novel about a high school principal's daughter, Aggie, who is Goth, angry, afraid, in love with the wrong guy, and pretty much messed up. Within the first few pages, there is bad language, including the F-word, and innuendo. And it doesn't get better. The further I got into the book, the worse Aggie and her Goth friend, Sylvia, were. They were the opposite of everything I like in characters or want to read about.

But I also got a sense from the author that she wasn't condoning their behavior. She was telling the story of a girl who was going to have some dramatic stuff happen to her and, therefore, become a better character. I just wasn't sure if it was worth wading through all the garbage to get there. Still, I kept reading.

What really bugs me in some books (and it happened in Nocturne, too) is when a teenager and her parents completely miscommunicate and just get angrier and angrier with each other, resulting in the parents alienating their child and the child rebelling even further. I'm not saying it isn't realistic. It's too realistic, and I read books, in part, to escape that.

But aside from Aggie's flawed family relationships, Aggie herself drives me nuts. What kind of role model is she for a teenager reading this book? Characters in books can certainly have flaws. In fact, I think it's usually better for the story if they do. But, as my husband pointed out, Anna Karenina is a Russian classic all about an adulteress, and you never actually see her have sex. You never need to. I think some young adult books (adult books, too, for that matter) are more gritty than they need to be. I don't need to see the F-word every few pages to know that, yeah, Aggie's not a great person.

As I suspected, the book turns Aggie around, but not before she goes through a lot of pain. It's rough reading, watching characters' emotions spiral out of control when the answers are right there but no one will listen to each other. There's a scene I particularly like between Aggie and her mom, but it comes after a lot of awful stuff. Aggie also manages her boyfriend problems happily in the end, but I feel like I'm repeating myself here: it comes at a price. She never has sex, but she does practically everything else, almost negating the value of her abstinence.

The end somewhat makes up for all the story puts you through, as the reader, but I'm still not sure I would recommend it unless you know someone just like Aggie who could use a dose of reality to get her life straightened out. For me, however, it didn't cut it. It's just not happy reading. It's like reading about your local high school's gossip and scandal. However fascinating it may be, it's not uplifting or satisfying. It's rather horrifying, like a train wreck you can't stop watching.

But it's a good, solid, positive ending, so I'll dish out two and a half stars.