Before I Go To Sleep

This book has been out for a little while already. It's regular fiction, not a young adult novel, but the premise intrigued me as usually only young adult fiction does. In Before I Go To Sleep, by S. J. Watson, Christine forgets the last 20 years or more of her life every time she falls asleep. She remembers being young and wakes up to find herself in a differently proportioned body lying next to a stranger. As her day progresses, she discovers pieces of her world: the husband she married, the doctor she's seeing secretly (who has to call her and convince her he's who he says he is), the accident that caused her amnesia.

Her husband, Ben, says he loves her, but Christine doesn't know how to love him in return. She has no memories of him. When Dr. Nash asks her to keep a journal (and calls her daily to tell her of its existence and where to find it), she slowly begins to rebuild her world. And as she writes more and more, she begins to remember a little here and there. But details are off. Informed that she used to be paranoid in the early stages of her condition, she isn't sure what's real and what's fabricated. When her memories don't match up with what she's being told, she discovers that, indeed, her husband has been keeping the whole truth from her. It makes sense that he wouldn't daily reveal details that are greatly upsetting, but Christine wishes he would just be honest with her. As she grows to understand and love her husband more through her own written words, Christine knows that she will eventually have to trust him with her journal. But sometimes things don't feel right, and Christine can't figure out how much of that is cause for concern and how much is just the imaginings of a damaged mind. Everyone seems to be lying to her. And can she trust her own journal?

One day, she wakes up in bed with a stranger as always, gets a call from a Dr. Nash she's supposed to know but doesn't, and receives a journal already full of her words, including an addition at the front, which says, "Don't trust Ben." And she begins to read about the person she's become.

For the reader (and for Christine, really), the story starts there. As you can imagine, it gets a little repetitive. Every morning, Christine discovers that she's married, that she sees a doctor secretly, and that she has a secret journal. But considering the difficulty of presenting her story realistically without boring the reader, I think the author does a pretty decent job. The idea reminded me of the movie 50 First Dates, except that this story is not comedy or romance. It's more of a psychological thriller. As we read Christine's journal and crawl into her mind, we find ourselves at as much of a loss as she is. We wonder, along with her, if she's crazy. We wonder why things don't feel right but have no proof that anything's wrong. As more details come together, things start to make sense from a certain point of view. You want her to tell Ben about the journal. And when she doesn't, you wonder if Christine will sabotage herself with her doubts or if there is real reason for her to be careful. You'll be guessing until the end.

Because this is adult fiction, there is adult content, nothing terribly graphic, more factual than anything. The author could have left it more to the imagination, but I can see why she wanted to explore it. It is an interesting moral dilemma: if you're married, sex is totally okay, more than okay, but what if only one of two partners remembers the past 20 years? What if the other knows only today? For one, sex is almost mundane, part of being married to a person so long. For the other, sex is the furthest thing from the mind, coming right after catching up on 20 years of life. The idea wasn't a bad one to address, I suppose, and it makes sense in the context of the story. But it's a little crude at times. Just a warning. Enough said.

I don't want to influence what you think happens in this book in case you want to read it yourself, but I think I was influenced just by reading the book cover. It influences you even just to hear that it's a thriller. Honestly, most of the book doesn't feel like a thriller. There's some mystery, but just that of a woman trying to piece together her life, nothing remarkable: does she have kids, friends, accomplishments? The fact that it was said to be a thriller clued me in that there was more beneath the surface of this story. But whether it's paranoia or something else, I'll leave for you to discover.

I was mostly satisfied but not as surprised as I wanted to be by the end. I think the book was too built up by its own cover. It spoiled itself. Weird to say, but true, for me.

Three stars. Hard to put down sometimes, but might leave you asking, "Was it worth the time?"

The Map of Time

Felix J. Palma's novel, The Map of Time, is a deceptive little thing, and by "little," I mean gargantuan three-parter. It's an unusual (but not unheard of) read for me for two reasons: 1) it's written by a man, and 2) it's not young adult fiction. The Map of Time is not a lot of things. For instance, most of it is not about real time travel (and by "real," I mean that which is considered real in a fictional world); two of the three parts have to do with people pretending they have time machines. Additionally, the novel is not about one person. Each part focuses on a different main character or two, and though they are all woven together into the story as a whole, it's somewhat upsetting and wearying to swap main characters like that and, for the most part, be done with their stories while two-thirds or a third of the book remains.

So, what is this strange, not-so-little novel about? Set in Victorian England, The Map of Time is about the sensational stir the idea of time travel causes after the publication of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. Mr. Wells, in fact, makes appearances in all three parts of the book and stars in the third. In Part One, a man loses his lover to Jack the Ripper and wishes to go back in time to kill the man before the murder takes place. In Part Two, a woman falls in love with a Captain from the future but does not realize he is merely an actor, and he, unwilling to crush her spirit, concocts an elaborate hoax to keep her from finding out the truth. In Part Three, H.G. Wells attempts to help solve a murder case in which the assault weapon appears to be futuristic and the words of a novel he's barely finished and not yet shown to anyone are scrawled on the wall above the victim.

The plot may sound intriguing here, but it annoyed me to no end while reading it. The first of the three stories is about a man who falls in love with a prostitute. Okay, who am I to judge? I love the book Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers, which is all about a man falling in love with a prostitute. But is it love if the relationship is based wholly on sex and the man pays for every encounter? Call me crazy...but I think not. The second story is about a man who takes advantage of a woman falling in love with the person he is pretending to be and tricking her into getting into bed with him though they don't know each other. And might I reiterate, all this takes place in Victorian England. Though I'm well aware that there were prostitutes at that time, too, I'm not convinced that every wife was a cold, dead fish in bed and that every man was a hormonal sex machine like the book so ridiculously implies. Not one of the men in the book stays true to one woman all his life. Jane Austen is turning over in her grave.

It was kind of ironic to me that after the author seemed to have no scruples about writing about sex, he suddenly veered away from a bedroom scene he had been meticulously and detailedly leading up to. But the "Aha" moment came later when the scene was described in detail through a letter. The only defense I can offer up for such writing is that it is presented more or less factually and not too graphically. It's a little crude at parts, but it doesn't dwell or sensationalize. Still, I was rather stupefied as to why two-thirds of a novel that was supposedly about time was spent talking about fake time machines and relationships based entirely upon sex. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that modern "literature" takes on the face of modern people, even if it is set in other eras. But I'd rather be surprised by a novel that exudes talent and goodness. Do those exist anymore? I used to think young adult fiction (which, I remind you, this is not) was beginning to have more sex in it than adult fiction, but I think it's all the same. Both genres have it, and the only difference is how the author approaches the subject. I've been happy lately, however, to find slightly less of it in the young adult novels I've been reading. Maybe I'm just learning to pick my titles better.

The minor redeeming value of The Map of Time is the way it is written. It has a lyrical quality and reads beautifully, which is all the more remarkable since the book is translated from Spanish. The narration is quirky, too, as the narrator addresses the reader directly, frequently reminds the reader that he is omniscient in the story, and ends the book by having H.G. Wells suggest that in a parallel world somewhere someone might be writing about him, wink, wink.

You might wonder why I, self-proclaimed morality gateway to book and movie entertainment, would continue reading this book after the first part's dismaying plot line. I think the gist of it was curiosity (I was searching for that blasted real time machine!) and the compelling readability of the book. I kept thinking, this will get better just around the corner, and though it eventually did, it may have been too little too late. If you want to wade through the odd, morally ambiguous plot to get to the glimmers some people are calling "brilliant," it's your call. But if you trust me, take my word for it and read something a little less gutter-stuck and a bit more satisfactorily happy. I'll let you know if I find such a thing in reviews to come.

Tea with Hezbollah

This book is about a year or two old, but I have been wanting to read it since I heard about it. It's nonfiction, which I admit, I typically don't read, but it's a memoir/travelogue of sorts, written by Ted Dekker, who is my favorite fiction author. And with a title like Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies' Table, Our Journey Through the Middle East, I was definitely intrigued.

Tea with Hezbollah is the true tale of how Carl Medearis, a man with a great love for Arabs, and Ted Dekker went in 2009 to sit with Arabs in the Middle East and discuss the greatest teaching of Jesus: loving one's enemies. They got interviews with men no other group could reach, interviews that were often "up in the air" until the very day or hour. They spoke to men who write Islamic law and men who practice it. They drank tea with Hamas and Hezbollah. They met real Samaritans. They visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Beirut, Southern Lebanon, Syria, and Jerusalem, some of which were practically war zones, in the middle of cease-fires. And all the way, they asked, "What do you think of Jesus' teaching to love your enemy?" They recorded the answers, and Dekker relates these sessions in transcripts while also telling about his own emotions going into such dangerous territories. It's fascinating stuff, mainly because Westerners don't often get a chance to get into the heads of those from the Middle East. What do they think of us? Do they hate us? Could they love us? More to the point, could we love them?

It was particularly interesting to me to read this from Dekker's point of view, having met him and heard him speak. Believe me when I tell you that the book sounds just like him. I don't think he ever studied writing or English, but he has a brilliant mind and great communication skills, not to mention an awesome imagination. I say this to point out that the book isn't, perhaps, the best written piece of nonfiction. Dekker delves a little too much into history at some points. I think he finds a lot of things interesting and sees the connections in all of it, but for this particular book, I didn't find it always necessary. Nonetheless, the actual tale of his travels is delivered in a very informal way that makes you feel like Dekker is a normal guy with the same reactions his readers would have had in a similar situation. He draws you in and really makes you feel what he's feeling, makes people you wouldn't know how to relate to relatable.

My reaction coming away from this book was that I haven't been loving my enemies the way Jesus tells us to. Like many Americans, I group all the Arabs together and I fear them. I've read books about Arab women, and I feel compassion for them. But I haven't loved the Arab people as a whole. I've always been okay with our soldiers being over there fighting the War on Terror, and I'm still okay with liberating people from terror. But now I'm a little less enthusiastic about the measures we take because I see a little better how it affects our image in the eyes of Arab people. In the end, all the fighting in the world will never bring about peace. After all, that's what the Jews and Arabs have been fighting about all along. Each side wants peace ultimately, but when one side attacks, the other thinks they must retaliate, an eye for an eye at the very least. But how do you keep track of such things? One side, either way, will always feel like it's their turn to deal the damage.

Regardless of what you feel on this issue, this is a good book to read. It's not political. It's only about love. Whether you think it's right to be at war in the Middle East or not isn't the issue. The question is: do you love your enemies? Christians, especially, should be aware of the things this book has to say. You might feel a little less like calling yourself a Christian after reading this. But don't just take my viewpoint on this book. You really need to read it for yourself. I promise, it will make you think and rethink a lot of things.

MUNICH on DVD

On a similar topic but in another medium entirely, I recently watched Munich, the 2005 Steven Spielberg film about the Israeli athletes murdered during the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich and the Israeli Mossad agents sent to assassinate those who had a hand in the massacre. It's rated R for graphic violence, nudity, sex, and language in about that order, and I don't recommend it. However, it was interesting to watch, having just read Dekker's book. It's another look at the seemingly hopeless situation between the Jews and Arabs, from a non-Christian, Jewish point of view. It has a similar message in some ways, but it's much more depressing in its interpretation of the situation. The main similarity is that the movie explores the idea that each person has a story. Each Arab they kill has a family, and the conflicted man in charge of the Mossad assassination group has a wife and new baby of his own. Over the course of the movie, this Israeli agent (played very well by Eric Bana) grows from a naive, untested, sensitive soul into a killer who is more paranoid, more angry, and more unsure of himself by the day. It's really sad, and watching it, you are unsure who is right or even if the director meant to say one side is more right than the other. But the end gives no answer except to say we are all human, and each human has the potential to become an animal.

Tea with Hezbollah doesn't really give an answer to the whole Middle Eastern mess either, but it does suggest the individual's role much better than Munich, offering hope where there seems to be none.

Fables: Legends in Exile (comic)

I believe Fables: Legends in Exile is the first comic book collection I've ever reviewed. I'm counting it toward my 50 books this year even though Volume 1 is only one hundred and some pages, most of which are full of pictures. However, it does seem to have a lot more to read than the average comic book these days, at least that I've seen. And it has a great prose story, explaining some of the background, at the end of the volume. I would go so far as to say Fables is more of a graphic novel than a comic book. Volume 1 tells a complete story and isn't episodic.

The whole series, however, is sort of episodic. I believe each volume focuses on different characters, though they all live in the same place. The idea is all about fairy tale characters who fled a great evil in their worlds and ended up in the only world the Adversary wasn't interested in: ours.

Now, I was hesitant to even review this story because I really don't think it's for the audience I have here. It's kind of dark, though that doesn't bother me as much as the prolific swearing (constantly the F-word) and a bit of sex and sexual innuendo. In this first volume, at least, no nudity is shown. But this is not the typical thing I would read and like.

Having said that, I think there are great things about this story, too. I like the idea that these fairy tale characters are stuck in our world, eternally young, in hiding, waiting for the day they might be able to return home. After one thousand years of life, things change. The characters become a little like the people of the world they now inhabit. They become hardened. "True Love" fades. It's sad but sort of interesting, too. I think the series has potential.

It has minor similarities to TV's current Once Upon a Time, but overall, they are not at all the same. Once Upon a Time is far more innocent. In Fables, King Cole is mayor of Fabletown, a secret community in New York, and Snow White is his right hand. She does all the dirty work. In Volume 1, Snow's sister, Rose Red, appears to have been brutally murdered, and the Big Bad Wolf, as sheriff, must solve the crime. Among others, we meet the detestable Prince Charming, Snow's ex; Beauty and the Beast, whose thousand-year love waxes and wanes; Jack of beanstalk lore; the villainous Bluebeard; and Cinderella. The characters are supposed to live in harmony after the Amnesty, old sins forgiven no matter how heinous. The Big Bad Wolf as sheriff is proof that anyone can reform. But when there's a murder to solve, one-time villains are under the spotlight again.

My husband liked aspects of the comic but didn't particularly like the style of the short prose story at the end. I, however, really enjoyed the short story. It's an in-depth look at the Wolf's history, and it hints at romance to come in future volumes of Fables.

One other thing in the comic that was a bit of a slap in the face, as my husband put it, is that it has the Adversary killing the "Great Lion" of one world, which can only mean Aslan.

Fables is dark, gritty, a little trashy, and not remotely for children (or even some adults!), but it's an interesting idea. And as a writer, myself, I see some redeeming value in it. But not enough to recommend it. So, unless you are a huge comic book reader and are used to the trashy stuff, which pops up now and then in many comics, just know this is out there and spend your time on more worthwhile reading.

Three stars for what it is. One star for morality.

Touch of Power

I first found a Maria V. Snyder book in a box of advance reader's copies, and I have been hooked ever since. My favorite series of hers is the Poison Study series. She also has a Glass series that takes place in the same fantasy world. I was less fond of Inside Out, the first book of a science fiction series that seems to take place in an enclosed community in outer space. There is a second book in that series that I have on my shelf but have not read yet. Snyder shines brightest in her fantasy worlds, I think. I found Inside Out boring in comparison to her other books.

Touch of Power is her ninth book, unrelated to her previous fantasy novels but a new fantasy novel that appears to be the beginning of a new series. It looked good, but when I started reading it, I was initially bored. Perhaps that had something to do with being in labor at the time...ha, ha...because when I picked up the book to read this time, I realized I hadn't gotten more than a chapter in and I'd quit right before it all got interesting.

In Touch of Power (I'm less impressed with the title than the book), Avry is the last healer, a magician who can take a person's sickness or wounds onto herself and heal herself ten times faster than the average human. Sounds like she would be in high demand, doesn't it? But the healers are blamed for the plague that ruined the Fifteen Realms, so Avry is on the run for her life. If only she didn't have a soft spot for healing kids. When she's finally caught, her only options are execution or imprisonment at the hands of her mysterious "rescuers," who want her to heal a prince she hates. As she journeys with them, she causes a lot of trouble, learns how to defend herself properly, makes new enemies and friends, and even sort of falls in love. It's great adventure, intriguing magic, and memorable characters that make me love Snyder's fantasies.

There are a few weaknesses in this one. I caught a turn of phrase that was reminiscent of the main character in the Glass series, and it was so exactly like what she would have said that it caught me off guard in this book. Otherwise, Avry is typical of Snyder's strong heroines but also a character all her own. Her traveling companions are all interesting except that Vinn and Quain, two less important characters, could be interchangeable. The villains are great. Snyder likes to vilify her heroines' love interests at first and then have the heroine get attached to them...a little Stockholm Syndrome going on there, but it works. Mainly it creates romantic tension. I thought the end was a little mushy. Not trying to give much away here, but you wouldn't be up for having sex if you were dying, would you? I mean, come on.

And now I come to Snyder's greatest flaw: character morality. I guess it's called Fantasy for a reason. So many fantasies kind of just throw certain aspects of morality out the door. After all, if you create a world where STD's don't exist, why not have characters sleeping together left and right? Snyder does it in all her fantasy books. She's isn't particularly graphic about it, which I appreciate, but she treats the subject like it's no big deal, which I guess it isn't to many people nowadays. We're talking sex outside of marriage here. When I read her first series, it was targeted toward teens. I assumed her Glass series was young adult as well but then noticed it wasn't advertising itself as such. Touch of Power also does not advertise itself as young adult. Though it's probably mostly okay for teens, I'd agree that it's not specifically for them. The Glass series, on the other hand, had some very mature themes in it, and after I'd read it, assuming it was young adult, I was kind of shocked until I realized I'd been assuming something that wasn't necessarily true. However, even the Poison Study series gets darker in the third book. Touch of Power is tamer than both.

So, maybe Maria V. Snyder is my guilty pleasure, but fast-paced fantasy that doesn't bog you down in details and stars independent, strong-willed, stubborn female characters seems like it's hard to come by. If I'm wrong about that, let me know! (And here my husband is telling me for the thousandth time to read Wheel of Time, but honey, I'd have to read all the boring male parts, too.)

Three and a half stars for a good (but not the best) Maria V. Snyder fantasy romance.

Legend

Well, it's been a month since my daughter was born and over a month since I last posted here. My site is in need of new pictures, I see too.

I've managed to watch a few movies, whose reviews will hopefully make their way onto my blog, but I managed to read only one book in all those weeks, so I thought that should take priority. If I leave it too much longer, I may forget what it was about, let alone my first impressions.

Legend, by Marie Lu, is not quite that forgettable, to be honest. It took me awhile to get started, but that was more about me having a baby and less about the book itself. Once I really started reading it, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This young adult novel tells the story of two teenagers, one born into privilege and one born to be a criminal in a dystopian society in an undeterminable point in America's future where the Republic rules half of what was once the United States and is at war with the Colonies of the other half.

The book alternates between the two narrative viewpoints of Day, the Republic's most wanted criminal, a boy of 15 years who failed his Trial at age 10, and June, the Republic's prodigy, the only person to ace her Trial, on the fast track through school and into the military. Day and June are on opposite sides of the spectrum, but when Day is accused of murdering June's brother Metias, June vows to find the boy that no one could ever find before, and if anyone could do it, she's the one. But along the way, June and Day discover that they are involved in conflicts far bigger than feuds and revenge. They are pawns in a war.

It takes a little time to get into the switching viewpoints. In fantasy, it's common to have many different viewpoints, but in young adult fiction, the story is usually very narrowly focused on one person, though that's not always the case. But the characters are intriguing enough that though there are two different stories slowly converging, the reader doesn't get lost switching from one story to another. Both are entertaining.

As far as dystopian novels go, the dystopian aspect of this one isn't a major focal point of the book until perhaps the end. In that, it's somewhat unusual, at least in comparison to what I've read. The book really focuses more on a story than on the world it's built in. I appreciated that, even though I also enjoy reading about dystopian worlds. The dystopian aspect of the book is almost taken for granted by the characters. They aren't trying to escape it or compare it to tales of something better. They don't know any different world. The difference only slowly becomes apparent with the revelation of fascinating critical details.

It's not a book that will attract a huge fan base or that you might put at the top of your favorites list. Still, it's worth the read for its great entertainment value. And it's a clean read, appropriate for teens. There's some militaristic violence and bloodshed, particularly near the end, so I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone younger than middle school and, even then, with caution for sensitivity to violence.

Three and a half stars for a surprisingly interesting story with great characters and detail.

Forbidden

This is the first time I've ever had the pleasure of reviewing a Ted Dekker book that wasn't yet released. I normally have to read my Ted Dekkers in hardcover because I can't wait, but this time, my sister-in-law brought back an advance reader's copy of a book I've been excited about for some time. It comes out in September and is co-written with Tosca Lee, author of Demon: A Memoir, reviewed here. I heard Dekker and Lee speak about a year ago. At that time, I had no idea who she was, but Dekker was excited to be working with her and praised her books highly. If you don't remember me mentioning this before, Ted Dekker is one of my favorite authors for the way in which he pushes the boundaries of faith in fiction. I hesitate to call his works Christian fiction, not because he isn't Christian but because they are so different than Christian fiction, so much more in-depth and real and meaningful...while also being excellent thrillers.

Forbidden is the first in The Books of Mortals Trilogy, one book being released each year, starting this September. It reveals a world 500 years in the future from ours, a world in which emotion has been eradicated, except for fear, allowing there to be Order and peace worldwide. No one feels anger, so there is no war and there are no weapons. Everyone lives in obedience for fear that they won't receive Bliss when they die. There is no passionate love, only a sense of duty and loyalty to family members.

But there is a vial of blood that has the power to return some of these emotions to whomever drinks it, five portions for five people. Rom is thrust unwillingly into a position to protect the vial, and curious about its importance, unknowing of its power, he drinks a portion and seems to wake from the dead. When it becomes clear that there is more to fear than losing Bliss, that there are guards who will kill people with weapons that aren't supposed to exist for even knowing about the vial of blood, Rom runs, but in order to convince his friends that he's not crazy, they must drink too. Thus, five people wake from the dead and become embroiled in a plot to keep the throne of the world from another man who's been woken by other means, a man who feels anger, passion, ambition...but no love.

As usual, Dekker hasn't written just another thriller. With Lee, he has explored in new ways one of the deep truths of Christianity: Love and what it would mean to the world to live without it. In this case, his interpretation is that we'd all be walking dead. Forbidden is a love story, a thriller, and a statement of faith without once using the names God or Jesus. I'm sure it would rub some Christians the wrong way, but I love that about Ted Dekker. No other author I know tries to shake up and wake up the Church like he does. His novels aren't always even written for the believers. They're meant to bring everyone to an understanding of who God is, stripped of all we call religion.

Faith aside, on a purely fictional level, this is not my favorite book of Dekker's. He's been known to give surprise endings and twists or to take his characters to the lowest places of depravity, creeping the reader out with grotesque images of sin. This book is still plenty dark, don't get me wrong. I'll just have to see what I feel about the series when it is over. It's certainly a worthy addition to his collection, and Tosca Lee seems to be a great partner. Best Dekker or not, I highly recommend it to all readers.

The Night Circus

A circus is supposed to be magical and is often a little bit scary (clowns, hello!). The Night Circus is unlike any other circus in the world, but magical it is, and if its performers knew the true nature of their stage, they would be scared, and with good reason. But as you read The Night Circus, a novel by Erin Morgenstern (adult fiction, for once!), it is nothing but pure magic, in both the literal and figurative senses. Sometimes you enter the circus as an outsider, enjoying the scents and miracles within, but most often, you get front row seats to the inner happenings, a backstage pass.

In The Night Circus, two old magicians with real magic each select a student to compete against the other in a challenge. It's not immediately clear what the rules are or how the winner will be determined. Hector chooses his daughter Celia, and Alexander chooses a random orphan named Marco. They train them in very different ways from childhood through their teens and then place them on their "stage," a unique circus especially designed for the challenge and with higher stakes than any challenge before as this one is public and involves a great number of outsiders.

The circus is a huge success from the beginning. Everything about it is designed to be intimate and spectacular. Only performers with unique shows and talents can participate, and the circus is open to audiences only from sundown to dawn, appearing out of nowhere, leaving without a trace. But the circus is truly magical because of the influences of Celia and Marco, each leaving their mark, creating more and more illusions as the years progress, neither quite understanding how to compete against the other, each beginning to love the other's work...and eventually each other. Gentle souls that they are, they keep the circus in balance, protecting it and the other performers.

But they are bound by magic, and in the end, there can be only one winner.

Magical, magical, magical to the very last page! How could you not love this book? It fascinates you with the best parts of the circus and draws you in with its mystery. In certain ways, it is very like a mystery as you discover more and more of the secrets of the circus and learn, together with the competing magicians, just what their challenge involves. The circus is also a complete mystery to its audience, which the reader is sometimes made to feel a part of even though we often have the inside scoop, and we can identify with audience characters, especially those who become attached to the circus in a deeper way than the average paying customer. It's a cleverly written book, making the reader feel as though opening its pages is entering through the gates of the circus itself. A normal circus is intriguing enough but often somewhat in-your-face and scary. Thankfully, there are no clowns in this book, and even the circus tents are set up intimately so that no performer is haggling anyone or persuading anyone to visit his tent. Visitors get to visit the tents they want at their own pace. The circus is inviting, enticing, and as a reader, you completely feel its pull and warmth.

The only other book I can think of to compare The Night Circus to is The Prestige (also a movie), though I couldn't say for sure, only ever having seen the movie and not having read the book. In The Prestige, however, the explanations are all scientific (though in the realm of science fiction). In The Night Circus, everything is real magic. For all of you who are more into movies than books, there is another similarity between the two. Summit Entertainment has purchased the film rights to this book, and I wouldn't be surprised to find the movie out within a couple years.

My short word of caution on this book involves, unsurprisingly, magic itself. In a book like this, no form of magic bothers me. Tarot card reading is mixed in with the ability to disappear or heal oneself. Obviously, in the real world, people can't disappear, but they do read tarot cards, and I would normally discourage a person from being involved with something like that. In this book, it's all on the same level, impossible magic next to real-world "magic," lending the real-world magic an air of fantasy, putting it all in the realm of fiction. In such a case, I don't have a problem with tarot cards, because they aren't meant to be believed any more than any other magic in the story. But if a conscience-abiding reader cannot, or does not want to, separate real-world magic from fiction like that, I would advise against reading this story. That's my only disclaimer.

I can't imagine the movie capturing even half the book, but I do look forward to visiting the circus again in that way one day. Probably by then, I will have forgotten enough of the book to be captured all over again by the magic. I can only hope!

Look for The Night Circus in hardcover in September of this year.

The Iron Queen

I'm typically loathe to know the end of a story before the story chooses to reveal it to me. In other words, I never look at the last page first. I never peek. If I have three books in a series, I try not to even look at the covers of the second two.

One time I disregarded this "rule" of mine and read the second book in the series. That ended up being Magic Study, by Maria V. Snyder, a book I loved. I then picked up the first and third books in that trilogy and loved them all. This is rare, both that I did such a thing and that I loved the book enough to go back and read the one before. Often these days, I read the first book in a series, and that's enough for me.

So, I wasn't sure about reading The Iron Queen, a young adult novel by Julie Kagawa. It had two strikes against it. One was that it was the third book in a series, and I hadn't read the first two. I came into possession of it through my favorite bookstore (Summer's Stories, of course). It was an advance reader's copy, as many of the books I read are. The second strike, weirdly enough for me, was that it was about fairies. I know, I know, normally I love all those strange creatures (as long as they aren't angels), but I haven't been impressed with what I've read about fairies. Maybe it's because they are often portrayed as evil pranksters without conscience or morality.

The Iron Queen was a mixture of old and new, and it worked for me. The faery rulers have such names as Queen Mab and Titania and Oberon. Sound familiar? These are names Shakespeare used, and perhaps he got them from older stories. And yes, they are somewhat capricious and evil. But they and the other faeries portrayed in The Iron Queen have more depth to them than the old stories suggest.

Perhaps what helped most is that the story is about a half-faery/half-human girl whose biological father is King Oberon. After her adventures in the first two books, including discovering her faery birthright, Megan is ready to return home. Exiled along with her love, the son of Queen Mab, her faery days seem to be over. But Faery isn't done with her. There are faeries who want her dead, and there are questions to be answered before Megan can go back to a normal life, if she ever can.

Thus begins a journey into a beautiful and twisted world of a dying faery land and the lava deserts and wired junk lands of the Iron Fey. It's imaginative and suspenseful, and the world Kagawa creates is one of the reasons I love this book. It reminded me, in some ways, of The Looking Glass Wars, by Frank Beddor, a re-imagination of Alice in Wonderland. It has that creepy, fascinatingly beautiful vibe to it. Also, The Iron Queen is far more than a romance, that being just one aspect of the novel. It's a tale about wars and kingdoms and discovering purpose and being the only one able to do something. It has a surprising amount of depth.

Having read this one, will I go back to the first two. I wouldn't need to. The Iron Queen reviewed enough of the story from the first two books to catch me up, but it left plenty to be discovered, too. I will have to think about it. Regardless, I am happy that I read this book, sequel that it was, and after I was done, I found myself perusing my shelf to see what else might trap my attention as well. Fortunately, I found a book that's fascinating in a completely different way, but that's another review for another day.

Four stars for beautiful setting and great characters in The Iron Queen.

Unearthly

Wow, was I ever surprised by this book, an angel book...that I actually enjoyed! And here, I think, is why I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Unearthly, by Cynthia Hand, tells the story of Clara, a quarter angel. But here's the difference between her and other angels I've read about in other novels. Clara isn't a reincarnation. She isn't a teen who's really thousands of years old. She isn't a supernatural being who has immediate access to God. Her family doesn't even go to church. She's basically a mostly regular teenage girl who, because she is part angel, has one purpose to fulfill on earth, and when she's done it, supposedly, she can go on with her mortal life. I liked this version of the angel. I can't buy the angel who's lived previous lives and is trying to figure out who she is. I can't identify with that even one bit.

I generally have a hard time with the concept of angels in fiction. For one, I believe angels are real beings, unlike vampires or werewolves. And because of their position with God in reality, I have a hard time reading fiction in which angels seem to have all these kick-butt powers but aren't really in tune with God. Unearthly is different because Clara is only partially descended from angels. Her mom is half angel. Her dad is human, making her a quarter angel. Eventually, if her descendants kept marrying humans, the angel line would practically die out. It seems more realistic in some ways. It seems doable. After all, the Bible does talk about the sons of God sleeping with women, which some translate to mean angels and humans interbreeding. Clara's world is based on a real concept but far enough removed from reality that I can buy Clara like I can buy a vampire. So, all that to say, Unearthly works.

As for the plot, I found it entertaining with lovable characters. Clara's purpose is revealed to her in partial visions. The visions seem to indicate she will save a boy from Wyoming, so her family moves from California. But the boy from the vision isn't all that interested in getting to know Clara, and another boy is. Clara is torn between her heart and her purpose, but for a little while, she is able to enjoy just being human. The humanity of Clara and her family helps this book a lot.

Because this is a secular book, albeit about angels, I wasn't too bothered by the lack of faith and belief in the story. God is mentioned, of course. Clara doesn't know what she believes about him, but her friends go to church. Clara is mostly human with superpowers, so I'm not bothered about her lack of communion with God anymore than I would be with a fully human character. If they were real, it would bother me. In secular fiction, I don't expect to find faith. This is another reason angel books tend to repel me, because the very concept of an angel begs the question of faith. But this book feels at least a degree removed from a full angel book, and that somehow made it easier to accept as fiction.

I genuinely liked Unearthly, and I am looking forward to reading its sequel whenever it may come out. Three stars for being an angel book, but four stars for being good anyway.

Prisoners in the Palace

Michaela MacColl's Prisoners in the Palace is a beautiful piece of young adult fiction and a perfect example of why young adult fiction is often superior to adult fiction. It takes place in the 1830's and gives a fine picture of the times and customs without overburdening the reader with detail as many adult novels would.

Prisoners in the Palace is based on the true story of the young princess Victoria before she became Queen Victoria of Great Britain and heralded in the Victorian age so often written about now. The main character of this novel is Liza, a fictional orphan who falls from her position when her parents die and leave her in debt, reducing her to accept work as a maid, though a maid for a princess. 

Although the large events of the story are true, including excerpts from Victoria's diary, MacColl imagines that Liza plays a crucial role in helping Victoria overcome the obstacles to becoming queen. Victoria's mother is under the influence of the scoundrel Sir John who plans to make Victoria seem weak so that he can rule through Victoria's mother as regent. Liza meets a dashing young reporter and passes along news to be printed in the papers to undermine Sir John's plans. Liza is recruited by both Victoria and Victoria's governess to act as spy, but it's dangerous work and Liza can only hope Victoria will learn to appreciate her so that she doesn't end up like Victoria's last maid, ruined and forced to prostitution on the streets.

This novel has intrigue, danger, romance, and historical interest. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it to any age. My sister-in-law Summer currently has the book in her bookstore's young adult section, so be sure to check it out if you're ever there.

Four and a half stars for this lovely read, and I assure you, I wasn't influenced by the fact that the book is signed by the author to me. But it is nice to have one signed that I absolutely love.

The Dark Divine

I don't know what to think of this young adult book. I was very surprised to find it in a secular market. I'm not sure if it was written by a Christian or a Mormon (she lives in Utah) or what, but the author, Bree Despain, has a fairly solid understanding of the typical pastoral family and what grace means in a sinful world. But from what I can tell, The Dark Divine was published by a secular market. I'm just surprised. Can that even be done? I mean, we're talking about Christianity here. It's like the forbidden religion. It's intolerant and all that...

But sarcasm aside, I kept wondering if I was reading a Christian book, and it threw me off a little. Okay, I have a confession to make. Though I am a Christian, for a long time now I've thought that some Christian fiction, especially Christian fantasy, is too preachy. I have some favorite Christian authors, but mostly, I avoid the genre. It's probably hugely unfair of me, and I suppose I could be called hypocritical for it, but the thing is, I like good stories. Stories can have messages in them, sure, but when you try to stuff a modern Christian worldview into a fictional created world, you lose something of the suspension of disbelief you are trying to create. That's why I don't often like Christian fantasy. Lewis and Tolkien manage it well, but hey, they're Lewis and Tolkien.

Okay, so I went off on a little soapbox of mine there. Getting back on track (but my above-stated views are relevant to this review), let me give you a summary of the main plot before I tell you what my final feelings are toward this book.

Grace Divine is the daughter of the local pastor. Lots of symbolism in her name. Perhaps too much. More than she feels she can live up to. She lives with lots of rules, including number one: never keep a secret. Grace doesn't break the rules. She can't. She's a pastor's daughter. But while life seems perfect for the Divines on the outside, there is one secret that haunts them and that they won't talk about. Grace just wants to know the truth. Why did her best friend Daniel, the boy her family cared for when his dad abused him, leave and never try to contact her again? Why won't her family talk about him? And why does her saintly brother hate him? She's about to get some answers because Daniel is back, and Grace can't stay away from him, even when everything about him screams danger and secrets and all that a pastor's daughter should not get herself into, especially when he turns out to be a werewolf.

Werewolves and theology. What will they think of next? (Oh, yeah...angels.)

So, what did I think of this interesting mix? I kept expecting to see blatant errors about Christianity, but all I saw was humanity. Humans make mistakes. Christians make mistakes. It's how they deal with the mistakes and challenges of life that's important. The Divines aren't perfect, and I don't know a pastor's family that is (speaking from experience). They try to look like they are, and that's true to life, too. In the end, though, I was impressed that they weren't completely broken apart by their faith, as often happens in secular portrayals of Christianity. Oh, they were certainly broken apart, but in the end, Grace, both the figurative and the literal, the message of Christianity and this book's heroine, won the day, and I was pleasantly surprised at the positive vibe I got about faith.

I was intrigued by the plot throughout the book, but I'm not certain I liked the heroine. In some ways, her life just happens to her. She seems like a goody-two-shoes, not daring to break the rules, and then she lets "dark and mysterious" sweep her off her feet. She doesn't feel like a strong character, and perhaps she wasn't meant to be. By the end, her strength comes to her, but in the beginning, she feels a little like the cardboard cut-outs Christian novels sometimes use.

I liked Daniel, and I liked Grace's dad, the pastor. I'm really happy that he came across as a good guy and not a fake. The werewolf plotline is vaguely entertaining but doesn't have much pay-off until the very end.

The Dark Divine is the first book of a series, and actually, I think the concept of the second book intrigues me more, though I haven't read it. You need The Dark Divine for set-up, I guess, but Grace seems to be a stronger character in a sequel that ups the stakes. The Lost Saint, book two, seems to take you a little further from the church and into the streets. It would be interesting to see that transition, but I'm not sure I will.

Still, I give The Dark Divine three stars for keeping my attention.

The Pirate Captain's Daughter

If you want a plain, old-fashioned pirate story with all of the "Arg," sweat, and grime, I suppose The Pirate Captain's Daughter, by Eve Bunting, is just that. There's nothing much special about it. Fifteen-year-old Catherine loses her mother and decides she wants to join her father's pirate crew, but no one can know that she's a girl. It's bad luck to have women aboard. So, she becomes Charlie and quickly realizes how unromantic a pirate life can be. There's no privacy for a girl, and the fighting is terrible. But to complicate matters, some of the pirates are after a piece of treasure her father possesses...as well as their own chance to be captain.

I'm going to include a bunch of SPOILERS here because I can't give you an accurate picture about how I feel toward the book without including the end. A cabin boy named William discovers Catherine's secret, and they begin to form a relationship of sorts. When the truth comes out, the captain dies trying to protect his daughter, and William and Catherine are marooned on a bare rock island. They fall in love as they are dying, but at the last moment, a ship comes to their rescue.

Like I said, there's not much to this story. It's a short, simple tale of a girl who discovers that being a pirate isn't actually all that great and barely escapes with her life. The romance is underplayed, so don't read this book for that aspect. The book ended kind of abruptly, at least on an emotional level. The physical ending is fine. They are about to be rescued, end of story. Why drag it out? But I wanted more emotional resolution, and perhaps that's what was lacking throughout the story. There's no emotional depth, and I had a hard time really identifying with the characters or caring where the story went.

But pirates aren't emotional, so if it's a good pirate yarn you're looking for, you might find The Pirate Captain's Daughter to be a fun ol' romp.

The Twisted Thread

I realize it has been a long time since I reviewed a book on this blog. For awhile, I had a new book review up every week, and then I started reading a book thats a bit outside my typical arena of interests. I still haven't finished that book (though I plan to and don't think it's a bad read), but I did read and review another in the interim. Now I have read one more since starting that book, and I suspect For the Win will have to wait a little longer while I squeeze some fast, light reading in over the next few weeks (hopefully!).

The book I just finished was not fast, light reading. Actually it is similar in one way to For the Win, that being that the point of view switches each chapter to another person, and there is nothing that slows down reading for me like that. Switching point of view offers a natural break, and you are more inclined to slip your bookmark in and leave it for another time or day. You lose the sense of urgency that keeping to one point of view gives you. Now, it can be done well, this switching, if each character is fascinating and adds valuable pieces to the puzzle.

But The Twisted Thread (out in June of 2011, no cover yet) wasn't an example of that. Charlotte Bacon's novel is adult mystery. (For once, I didn't read a young adult book, and as you'll see, it only confirmed for me why I prefer young adult.) Why adult fiction thinks it has to be so literary and verbose I don't know. By "literary," in this case, I mean the attempt to create depth and evoke color out of the most mundane aspects of life, usually by giving far too many completely boring details. Young adult fiction, on the other hand, knows it has to work hard to keep its audience, so it's more snappy, more to the point. Occasionally, the slower pace of adult fiction is pleasant, but in that case, there has to be a real spark in the author's writing to keep you hooked.

The Twisted Thread lacked spark, but what it mostly lacked was pay-off. I found the concept interesting enough to read and keep reading, despite the many breaks due to changes in point of view. The book begins with the discovery of a teenage girl's murder on an elite boarding school campus. An intern named Madeline, one of the book's points of view, sees the body and realizes the girl has just given birth, but no one knew she was pregnant and the baby is nowhere to be found. The school is used to solving its problems in-house, and everyone clams up when the police get involved. Everyone seems suspicious, and as Madeline discovers a secret girl club called the Reign of Terror, she realizes there are many things wrong with Armitage Academy, on many levels.

If that sounds as interesting to you as it did to me, let me save you a lot of wasted time. I'll even tell you the end, I'm that confident you don't want to read this book. So, obviously, SPOILERS. The Reign of Terror ends up having almost nothing to do with the end. The murdered girl was their leader, and they had disagreements. But they didn't kill her. It turns out the girl, Claire, was just a spoiled rich kid who found out the head of her academy once loved her mother. Angry at the life she felt she'd missed out on (despite being rich already), she slept with the head's son as a kind of payback. But then she got pregnant and realized she could use that to ruin Armitage and the head's family. So, she carried the baby secretly, and when it was born, she got her boyfriend (not the boy she'd slept with) to hide the baby. The baby's father, the head's son and a senior at Armitage, accidentally kills Claire in a fit of rage.

What I couldn't understand when I finally read this disappointing revelation was why everyone who knew anything kept it secret. It just didn't seem...well, big enough. I mean, it was tragic, and I can understand why the head would be reluctant to turn in his son. In fact, he tries to tell the police he did it instead of his son by the end, but the whole book basically convinces you that the head's a decent guy. At the end, you still feel like he's a good man, and so you're just left wondering why he tried to cover things up. And you wonder why the people taking care of the baby or the boyfriend who hid the baby don't come forward. They all have their reasons, but none of them seem good enough. It might have been logical, and it might have been how something like that would really go down. But it didn't make for a good story pay-off. Am I saying I wanted more scandal at the end? For this book, yes. The book seemed to be leading up to it, and then it wasn't nearly as bad as you'd been led to believe. Strangely enough, morality conscious that I am, I wanted something a little more edgy at the end. But rather than edgy, I got a different kind of immorality.

Morally, the book wasn't too bad until the end. The F-word was used a few times, but in adult fiction, I'm not too bothered by it. What really disgusted me was that at the end, Madeline, who has been attracted to two men the entire book, sleeps with one and has a summer relationship with him and then decides his life is going in another direction and begins a relationship with the other one. Okay. So, that, sadly, happens in real life. It's more messy in real life, but it's there. The thing is...this is a book! This is a story that should be bigger than life! I don't want my heroine to sleep with one guy and then agree to have dinner with another one at the end. What's romantic or happy about that? What's satisfying about that? Yuck.

So, I didn't like this book at all. The only reason I even give it as much as two stars is that it grabbed me enough to want to know the outcome. I shouldn't have expected the outcome to be any more interesting than the rest of the book.

I'm looking forward to reading some good young adult fiction again next.

I Am Number Four (book and movie)

If you read my last blog, you know that I am on a brief kick of books turned into movies, or in the case of Red Riding Hood, screenplays turned into books. I read I Am Number Four as an advance reader's copy (not even the published hardcover) just last year. I'm amazed at how quickly they can do that. Advance copy one year. Movie the next.

You'd think, then, that the movie wouldn't be all that great for being made so quickly, even before the populace had time to spread the hype on this book. You might be surprised. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar helped write the screenplay. They are also the creators of Smallville; the content is similar.

Here's the basic plot without too many spoilers. Number Four is one of nine alien children from the planet Lorien sent to Earth to avoid a bloodbath by evil Mogadorians, aliens who took over and destroyed their planet. The problem is that those evil aliens have come to Earth to do the same, and all that stands in their way are these nine kids. But the number is down to six because three have been destroyed, and Number Four knows he's next due to a convenient safety measure that only lets the Mogadorians kill the nine in order. Every time one dies, a new tatoo appears on the others' legs.

So, the nine have always been on the run, never staying too long, never making close friends, always forging new identities, with the help of a Protector for each one. When Number Four and Henri, his Protector and father-figure, discover Number Three's death, they erase their lives in Florida and start anew in Ohio. But Number Four, now called John Smith, isn't willing to hide in the shadows forever. He wants to live life and find love and be as normal as he can be, so he goes to the local high school, where he begins to make both friends and enemies and stir up unwanted notice. Even an innocently taken photograph can lead the Mogadorians to his doorstep, and he's running out of time.

I loved the movie. Perhaps it's because I couldn't remember many details from the book, having read it a year ago. But the details began to come back to me as I watched, so I know the movie was following the big picture of the book, at least.

As with all movies made from books, a lot of simplifying has to go on. The story has to fit into two hours, and it has to make sense without a lot of exposition. I thought the movie handled the basics really well without feeling like it was trying to cram all of the book in. It felt like a movie, not a book turned into a movie.

There are differences, of course, that the diehard fans will hate. Personally, I don't think the movie had the budget to pull off the book's crazy, complex, layered last battle, but the simplified movie version is good enough for the movie watchers. It might disappoint book fans as so much is left out. But it would have taken too much explanation and time to fit it all in. The movie stayed simple, and that's why I think it works. However, if you do see the movie before the book, read the book, too, so you can get all the cool stuff from the end.

Remembering more of the book now that I've seen the movie, I'll add a few words on that. Sadly, but perhaps tellingly, I didn't review I Am Number Four when I read it, even though I was reviewing a lot of other books at the time. I think what happened is that I was reading a lot and I'd just had a baby, so I reviewed only what I considered the best. I don't think I Am Number Four was so bad. It just wasn't the one that stuck out in my mind at the time. I thought the idea was unique, I do remember, and the only negative thing I can concretely remember thinking was that the main character, Four, seemed younger than he was supposed to be. He's made to be older than I remember in the movie, though. I think he felt a little like he was in middle school in the book when he's actually in high school. But the movie makes him look like a senior, at least. Could be the choice of actor; he just looks older.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed that they kept well from book to movie was the role played by the Chimera (though still cooler in the book), but I can't say anymore; too spoilerish.

Although the movie is rated PG13 for scary aliens and alien-related violence, including a scene where a small ball with razors revolving on it is placed in a guy's mouth (but no blood or gore is shown), I was pleased with the morality of both the book and movie. No clothes coming off. Nothing more than kissing. And the icing on the cake, aliens from Lorien fall in love with a person for life...so no cheating!

Overall, the acting was good, the special effects were decent, the storyline was clear, and the movie was just fun. Even if you've never heard of I Am Number Four, which I doubt by now, since they've been advertising it like crazy on TV, I think you will enjoy it. No need to read the book first. Save it for after, and you won't be disappointed. You'll feel like you're getting more story by reading the book second, and you'll want that because I Am Number Four is just the beginning of a series and the sequel, The Power of Six, isn't available until September.

Red Riding Hood (the book based on a screenplay)

I will be writing a couple of posts here about movies based on books or, more rare and intriguing, the opposite, as is the case with Red Riding Hood. More on that in a minute.

I am excited to see I Am Number Four, released in theaters tomorrow, because I read the advance reader's copy last year. Last year. Wow. They made that one into a movie fast! It's interesting how excited I am to see this movie when I wasn't particularly thrilled with the book. It was a good enough book, don't get me wrong, but it must not have made a big impact on me because in looking through old reviews, which I wrote before I started this blog, I Am Number Four, by Pittacus Lore, didn't have one. Sad. Now I will have to see the movie in the hopes that it triggers memories of how I felt about the book. But I am excited to see the movie partly because my memory is foggy and I have hopes that I have forgotten enough of the book to make any adaptations and changes less agonizing and partly because the previews are looking fantastic. I love previews. But enough on that movie/book for now because I will be coming back to it, and on to the book Red Riding Hood, by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright.

Red Riding Hood is a movie, set to release on March 11. Speaking of previews, when I first saw the preview for this one, I was fascinated. It had the feel of M. Night's The Village and the atmosphere and beauty of a Catherine Hardwicke film. (Whatever you think of Twilight, book or movie, Hardwicke made it a lush, beautiful work of cinematography.) In addition to its look, the movie intrigued me for its story; I love fairytale adaptations. So, I marked my calendar with the release date (yes, I do that) and mostly forgot about it.

Until...

Until I found the book at Barnes & Noble (where I browsed and then called Summer to have her order the book from her own store for me). I was surprised to see the book there and then sort of disappointed and excited at the same time. Disappointed that, seemingly, yet another movie adaptation of a book was being created. Can't people come up with original screenplays anymore? Excited that now I would be able to delve more fully into the world I'd caught only mysterious, intriguing glimpses of. I didn't look much at the cover or inside. I was getting the book, no matter what. That's how deep a preview can get its hook into me.

When I finally had my own copy in my hand, I noticed again how the author's name wasn't even on the front cover, just on the binding. Actually, the front cover contained Catherine Hardwicke's name in a little blurb saying she'd written an introduction to the book. I'd found it odd at the time but hadn't given it much thought. Come to find out...this novel is based on the screenplay by David Leslie Johnson, an original screenplay! Well, original enough, since it's a complete re-imagining of the classic fairytale. So, this original screenplay popped up on Hardwicke's desk, and she loved it and decided to give it to a recently graduated, up-and-coming writer friend of hers to transform and flesh out into a more complex story than two hours in the theater can give. So, this is not just a novel copy of the movie, reliving each movie scene, but a separate entity, a story of its own, a rare thing: a book based on a screenplay.

I was torn about whether I should read it before I saw the movie because, really, the movie is the original. If you should read an original book before seeing its movie adaptation, shouldn't you do the opposite if the situation is reversed? But I couldn't wait, so I dove in, and here's my overarching view on this phenomenon: I hope the movie is better. The book was okay, more interesting toward the latter half, but in some ways, it was slow. Movies aren't meant to be slow, and I have high expectations that the movie will move at a better pace because, after all, the movie script was written first, and the author of that didn't have to try to squeeze in a novel's full details. In the end, I might have to say, watch the movie first, and if you are still intrigued, read the book to flesh out the characters. I'm excited to see this movie because I have no fears that it will disappoint. It was created to stand alone, which makes a big difference from book-to-movie adaptations.

Now, if the movie disappoints, it will be because of a lack in the original story itself, and on that, I'm not sure what to expect. I would hate to give away spoilers on this movie, which will be suspenseful and mysterious. Spoilers would ruin the movie-watching experience. But I have to review the book.

So, I will make a concession and review the book as much as possible without spoilers and then revisit the book review in March after I've seen the movie.

Red Riding Hood, as a book, is the story of Valerie, a woodcutter's daughter who lives in a village of fear. It's a small village full of old tradition and law, where women and men's lives intermingle little, where a girl can be promised to a man by her parents, where the Church holds the law, and where an animal sacrifice is made monthly to appease the Werewolf. The people live in stilted homes where they lift the ladders at night and never feel quite safe during the day.

Valerie feels like a stranger in her village of Daggorhorn, even though she's lived there all her life. Her father is the town drunk, but there's more to her feelings of unbelonging. She longs to see the world outside, to live a life without fear, to climb the tallest trees, to be someone special. In short, she feels what many a teenager has felt, stifled, needing to stretch and become someone. But no other teenager in her village seems to feel the way she does. And then Peter returns.

Peter was her childhood friend, until the town ran him and his father off after the death of Henry's mom. And Henry is Valerie's arranged future husband. Henry is sweet and attentive, rich, a prize catch for any girl in the town. But Peter is passionate, and the outsider in him calls to the outsider in Valerie. Typical teenage angst here. 

Honestly, the beginning of the book had me a little bored, not bored enough to quit reading, but disappointed. The writing was a little stilted. Certain phrasing by itself was poetic but was not always put together in a lyrical way. Sometimes it was wordy. Sometimes it wasn't subtle enough, not trusting the reader's ability to put the puzzle pieces together.

But it really picked up toward the middle of the book, which I finished in just two days (and that was only during my son's naps and after he went to bed). You can really begin to see how this story was made to be a movie when you get to the point of nonstop action. I'm thrilled to see these scenes translate to the screen. It definitely has that feeling of M. Night's The Village, and I suspect it will be edge-of-your-seat suspenseful as the murders pile up and the identity of the Wolf is revealed to be a villager, but whom, nobody knows. The end of the book has a very Gothic feel. It's deliciously dark and creepy, mysterious to the final words.

But the very last pages of the book disappointed me again. I have a feeling I know what the author was trying to do, but I hope the movie conveys the idea better. We'll have to see, and I can't say much more without spoiling it for you. Just this, a moral issue, because that's what I deal with primarily on this blog: I was unhappy with the moral ambiguity. I think it adds a haunting feeling to the story, and I can appreciate that. But I thought Valerie's actions and thoughts in the final pages of the book were inconsistent. Expect to hear more on this when I've seen the movie. That review will definitely have spoilers!

In the meantime, enjoy my upcoming review of I Am Number Four as I try to remember the book and compare tellings. I should be seeing it within the next week.

Nightshade

Where do I even start on this book? Guilty pleasure? Emphasis on the "guilty."

Nightshade is supposedly for young adults. It's right in line with everything else currently being published for this age group. Werewolves, ancient magic, sexy males, butt-kicking females. Right in line doesn't make it right.

Quick synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Calla is Alpha female of her pack, but that will soon be changing when she is joined in the sacred, mysterious union ceremony to her future mate Ren, Alpha male of his pack. Then Calla does the forbidden and not only rescues and reveals her shape-shifting abilities to a human but also begins to fall for his charms. Calla knows her Masters must never find out what she has done, but she is losing control of her own feelings and making mistakes which could lead to punishment by the feared wraiths or, worse, death.

To give credit where credit is due, Andrea Cremer had me hooked. I liked her characters, and I have a thing for shape-shifters. It's just cool. I wrote a novella about a girl who could change into a wolf and was captured by a hot prince, and that was before Jacob and Edward ever came on the scene. I get it.

But Andrea goes further than I ever would have dared with scenes that can only be described as lustful; she goes too far. She pulls her punches, which is a good thing in this case, and doesn't give you an eyeful, keeping her characters pure in the literal sense of didn't-have-sex. And I'm not doubting that teenagers do everything in this book and more, sadly. But I made it through high school and college without any of that, so I can personally testify that it's not necessary. And I wouldn't want a daughter of mine to read some of this stuff.

Readers should also beware of witchcraft, creatures from hell or pretty close to it, and homosexuality. Why is our society so consumed with sex? It's like we identify people by it, as though a person's sex life is who he is: "He's homosexual. She's a virgin."

Male chauvinism and slavery are interesting themes this book deals with, and at least in this case, the book shows them for what they are.

So, there's good and bad in this novel, the bad unfortunately weighing against my ability to recommend it. I wasn't surprised but I was disappointed that the novel didn't end...again. It's a rule: young adult novels have to be able to have sequels. I learned that in my writing classes in college. But these days, you're lucky to find a young adult novel that can even stand alone on its own two feet without needing a second or third to actually bring closure to the story. I hate that. I mean, it keeps me reading, but now I have to decide whether it's worth it to wade through all the crap again just to get the end of the better part of the story. I have to leave that decision for another day, anyway, because Nightshade was only recently released in October 2010.

If you do read this book, don't recommend it to teenagers unless you have read it first and know they are mature enough for the themes and content. Above all, keep a guarded mind and don't be swept away by mere sensationalism.

The Water Wars

I had high hopes for Cameron Stracher's The Water Wars, but I was so disappointed. Books, especially advance reader's copies like this one, love to advertise ridiculous quotes from other authors or editors to get you to read them. They'll say things like, "Brilliant!" "Best book since such-and-such!" "A work of genius!" "Book of the decade! (or at least of the hour; ask me what I think when I've read the next hottest book on the market)." I'll admit, when I see a quote from a favorite author of mine or when a particular book I loved is referenced in the quote, I'm intrigued. But most of the sensationalism over a book is just that. Perhaps 20 people sent in reviews, and they picked the most outlandish hyperbolic sentiment to bait readers like me. (By the way, look at the back of any movie case, and you'll see the same: "Epic and amazing!")

So, now you're wondering what The Water Wars' cover said that got my hopes up so high. I'm not supposed to quote the book itself without checking a final copy, but I don't think that applies to quotes from other people about the book. Justin Cronin, author of The Passage (never heard of either of those two), said The Water Wars was "A rousing adventure story in the tradition of The Hunger Games." My husband says a lot of fantasy novels compare themselves to Lord of the Rings in some way. Wow. Really? You can genuinely say that Lord of the Rings is "epic and amazing." No one will question that. But unless a book is, say, book 3 of Harry Potter and the evidence of popularity is overwhelming, don't claim such things on an advance reader's copy that maybe 50 people have read!

I loved The Hunger Games. The Water Wars is dystopian, and that's where the similarity ends completely. The writing is not as good. The stakes are not as high. The target audience shouldn't even be the same. The Water Wars felt like middle school reading to me. The characters didn't seem as old as they were supposed to be.

Here's a quick rundown of the plot: the world is suffering from a lack of water, we destroyed our environment, the ice has all melted, much of the fresh water has been poisoned, groups control all that's left of the drinkable water, even stealing it from the clouds. (Are you getting the picture? This is heavy environmentalism, and while I'm in favor of taking care of the environment, I don't believe *gasp* that evidence supports global warming.) Vera and her brother Will set out to rescue a newfound friend named Kai, who knows where to find all the water he needs. They run into pirates, environmentalists who don't actually care about environment, slavers, and ultimately, the Big Boys who control the majority of the drinkable water. The climax is unbelievable, literally, and pretty boring. The book is way too preachy, like a cautionary tale rather than the fun make-believe that fiction is supposed to be.

The book is fairly short, fortunately. I was never sucked into it. I kept reading, hoping it was going to pick up. It was always almost there, interesting enough to try again but not intriguing enough to keep me reading long.

So, save yourself a little time and don't bother with The Water Wars. If you haven't read The Hunger Games, try that instead. The hype is well-earned on that one.

The Book of Tomorrow

Interesting to review a book that's about trying to change tomorrow as we approach the cusp of a new year. Just saying. I'm not about to go all Old-Year's-Good-Byes-and-New-Year's-Resolutions on you.

Cecelia Ahern's newest novel, The Book of Tomorrow, will appeal to her established audience, but unlike her other books, this one is targeted toward young adults. It has a magical quality to it, as other Cecelia Ahern books do. Sixteen-year-old Tamara discovers a book that writes itself, in her handwriting like a diary, telling her what will happen tomorrow. Each day when she opens the diary, tomorrow's entry is there for her to read...and try to change, or not. Add to this centerpiece a catatonic mother, a secret-keeping aunt and uncle, mysterious neighbors, a wise and loveable nun, a little teenage love, and a partially burned-down castle, and you have the makings of a sumptuous reading buffet for a cozy afternoon.

I have read two other books by Ahern, one of which I loved and one of which hit too close to home for me to wholeheartedly enjoy it, but which was nevertheless real and honest. This newest definitely matches her style and is a worthy addition to her collection. It's emotional, mysterious and, of course, set in beautiful Ireland. The only grievance I had with it, actually, was its targeted audience. I found the F-word pretty early on, though it was used less than a handful of times throughout. Also, Tamara talks about wanting to have sex for the first time with someone she would not be married to later. That kind of threw me off, and I imagined how a 16-year-old me would have been shocked by this content, which is, in comparison to many teenage novels nowadays, tame. But by the time I actually got to a sex scene, surprisingly, I was finding less and less wrong with this novel. Let me explain.

Tamara is the narrator of her story, and she makes no bones about the kind of girl she is...or was before her father killed himself and she and her mother lost their fortune. She was often careless or downright cruel in her treatment of people different from herself or even her family. Throughout the book she becomes less this way, and it's obvious that her new circumstances are affecting her, changing her for the better. So, her cursing and talking about sex at the beginning of the book makes more sense in this light. When she actually has sex, she's just found out something terrible and she runs away and does it as a form of escapism. There's no joy, no reward, no happily-ever-after romance. The author isn't condoning it. And it feels very real, a mistake that some people would actually make. I happen to know the author isn't that prudish because I've read her other books, but in this book, I was pleased with the statement she was making.

I told my husband I wouldn't let a teenage daughter of mine read this, but I've since thought about it more and changed my mind. It's a good book with depth and intrigue, better than some of the other young adult stuff I've read. If I did let my daughter read it, and I probably would, I would read it at the same time, or before, and be sure to discuss it with her after.

I must say, I particularly enjoyed Sister Ignatius, and I'm sure you will too. It was refreshing to have a godly figure also be the voice of reason without additionally being a killjoy in a secular book. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Ahern is religious, though perhaps not Christian. A few might find her nun to be sacreligious, but I think she's perfect, a character to love and listen to when Tamara is making her mistakes.

I love to travel to Ireland with Cecelia Ahern, and I think this is a trip you'll enjoy too. Four stars for The Book of Tomorrow, available February 2011.

Angelfire

So, I finally bit the bullet and read an angel novel, attempting to see what the current supernatural teen obsession is about. And it's about what I expected, thus far. I probably didn't get the best example out there, but regardless, I have a problem with novels starring angels since I believe angels exist, though in a far different form than these books portray. Perhaps that's the problem: these teen novels are trying to make angels into these hot superpowers who can fall in love and make out; we know so little about the actual angels God created, but I know they aren't that, and I just don't want to go there. Nevertheless, I did read Harry Potter even though I believe witches are real, and I was able to see the value in that (though I don't ignore the dangers). So, I'll give angel romances the benefit of the doubt for now and stick to this novel's review for the remainder of the post.

Angelfire, the first in a trilogy and Courtney Allison Moulton's debut novel, is about a 17 year old girl whose powers to defeat demonic monsters are just awakening...or, more accurately, reawakening, because she's just discovered that she's the Preliator, a mysterious being who has reincarnated over thousands of years to try to make a difference in the ultimate battle between Good and Evil. But she's also just a 17 year old girl, trying not to fail in school, wanting to hang out with her friends. As her Guardian, a mysterious being 500 years old, who looks like he's 20 and hot, teaches her to access her power and remember who she is, she begins to see visions of her past lives. What she sees terrifies her and causes her to fear whom she really might be.

I don't know if any of this sounds familiar to you, but I felt like I was reading someone's fantasy of how they thought Buffy the Vampire Slayer should have gone. Teen girl reincarnates, kicks butt, kills monsters, has a nickname whose reputation precedes her, even has a mysterious being watching out for her. I wanted Moulton to change things up, do something Buffy wouldn't have done. I was disappointed.

I expected Ellie, the Preliator, to at least have some good fight scenes, but mostly, she just kept getting the tar kicked out of her by the same bad guys. I believe Moulton thought her fights were actually going much faster than they came out on paper. Once, toward the end of the book, I got an inkling of this when she wrote that it happened almost faster than Ellie could see. This was too little insight too late. I kept seeing opportunities for Ellie to chop off a monster's head, and she just wouldn't do it. She'd stab him in the chest, and he'd heal. Or her Guardian would be fighting, and I'd be wondering why Ellie didn't help. It was like only one person could fight the monster at a time. It was frustrating. I know why Moulton did it. She wanted to portray a character who was relearning skills but also just 17. The problem is, I didn't buy it. The chasm between the two sides of Ellie's character was too great. I didn't get a sense that Ellie ever felt like she was that thousands-of-years-old character, but she was no fragile 17 year old girl. I wanted to see more of both.

The ending was also disappointing. The book kept hinting at who Ellie really was, building it up almost further than it could deliver. I was just disappointed and skeptical when the truth was revealed. It didn't work for me. I found it kind of silly, actually.

But I expect Angelfire will get a lot of reads. It has an awesome cover (the heroine has red hair, which many do nowadays and I particularly like since I'm a redhead myself). It has a different sort of plot (if you've never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which most teenage girls have not). It has romance and teenage angst. If it's not popular, it'll be because the market's already inundated with books of its type.

There's nothing horribly inappropriate in this first novel of the trilogy, but that's not because of the author's moral compass. I wouldn't be surprised to find it in the sequels. There is a lot of lying, and a hot guy always comes in Ellie's window (Edward the Vampire did that too), which is never a good idea in real life.

The only cool thing about this book, for me, besides the pretty cover, is that my copy is signed to me by the author. My sister-in-laws brought it for me from a Book Expo. It's always cool to collect author signatures, even if you don't think their work was the best. Still, she's published, and I'm just writing a blog about her. Easier to be a critic than to create, so kudos to her.

Three out of five stars for potential popularity and entertainment value. Two stars for it's-been-done-before. Angelfire comes out in March 2011.