Uprooted

It has been a few weeks (I know, that is now practically the byline of this blog), but I recently read Uprooted, by Naomi Novik, and enjoyed it very much. There seem to be conflicting ideas out there about whether it's young adult fiction or not, but though it shares similar elements with YA, like a 17-year-old heroine and a fantastical storyline, I think it's more in the realm of regular fantasy, which also often has younger protagonists.

In this tale of wizards and an evil Wood, Agnieszka has a penchant for tangling with nature. Leaves, dirt, and other messes all seem to gravitate to her, and she can find plants others can't. But in her corner of the world, nature is not something one wishes to tangle with. Agnieszka's village is near the Wood, where poisonous plants and evil creatures can taint and destroy you with your smallest intake of breath or the barest scratch. A wizard called the Dragon keeps the Wood at bay and protects the nearby villages at the price of one maiden every ten years, and it's time to pick again. He chooses girls with talent and beauty, so Agnieszka knows she is safe. He will not pick her.

The Dragon is old in years and temperament, but youthful in appearance. He is shallow and petty when it comes to beauty, but powerful in magic. Preferring solitude, he avoids the politics of the kingdom as much as possible until the prince seeks the Dragon's help to find his mother, whose loss to the Wood fueled a war. When Agnieszka is thrown into the midst of the kingdom's politics, between war and the Wood, she finds herself surrounded by danger on all sides, her only hope lying in the most dangerous path of all.

I enjoyed this detour from my normal reading, more detailed than young adult and less angsty. Agnieszka is a bit of an old soul, certainly mature for her age, and even more so by book's end. I don't really mind angsty teenage stories all that much (I do read a lot of them), but this one just has an edge to it that keeps it out of that category. Maybe it's the grown-up romance (which actually wasn't my favorite part of the book; more on that in a bit). Maybe it's that the world is not so narrowly focused on the heroine, not all about meeting her needs. Maybe the thought processes are more mature or the story is darker. (Though, have you read young adult lately? I'm doubting the latter.) In any case, it was interesting to read this kind of story without some of the young adult conventions I'm used to seeing.

Speaking of conventions, a big staple of YA fiction is romance. Uprooted does have an element of romance, but it is underplayed and untraditional. And maybe that's why I didn't like it. I think underplaying the romance is an interesting way to go, but making it untraditional, as well, may upset reader expectations too much. (SPOILERS follow!) Agnieszka falls in love with the Dragon, no surprise there. But it's far from a healthy relationship. He's rude and crotchety-mean and much, much older (though YA, too, messes around with age differences--Twilight, for instance). It might help if his mind retained youthfulness, but no, he's pretty much an old fogey who's conceited and vain about his looks. While you could say he warms up to Agnieszka, he never really gets nicer. There's something good to be said for loving someone despite their flaws, of course, but in this case, the relationship borders on abusive. And a bit unbelievable...this naive, innocent girl willingly pushes past all his defenses, literal and figurative, to sleep with him? Granted, the lead-up to it is rather realistic: a certain situation causes them to become more emotionally intimate, and that bridges the gap to the physical side of things. The book has one and a half sex scenes, which I am both impressed by and annoyed with: impressed by the restraint, annoyed because I'd rather not see any sex at all.

After going that far physically, a YA book would be all about the relationship for the rest of the story. Again, this one differs in that you'd almost think they had a one-night stand and went their separate ways. In fact, I believed that nearly to the end of the book. Then, strangely, when romance had been a subplot the whole time, it got the last say. I would have liked more romance (with a better emotional response from the characters) or none at all. What there was just didn't work for me, though it was not bad to try for that kind of originality.

Where the book's romance doesn't phase some, its darkness might--its dealings with magic and witches and evil. In the realm of fantasy, those things don't bother me so much. I make a distinction between witches in fantasy (where the word implies some sort of magic-wielder, neither good nor bad by default) and Halloween or Disney witches (meant to be scary and mean and evil by default). I don't like the latter at all, but this book falls more into the first category, where the witches actually fight evil.

The darkness of this book has more to do with evil creatures and beings who poison and corrupt the good, which is an apt illustration of how good and evil correlate in the real world. In a Christian worldview, we are born sinful. It's innate. Left to our own devices, lazy about our eternal well-being, evil thrives. Thinking more scientifically, the world tends toward entropy. Either way, left alone, the world is bad. Things fall into disorder. It takes work to make things good, to make things beautiful. Disney says that Belle tames the Beast; it's a lie. In real life, pardon me saying so, the Beast would eat her heart out. All this to say that the Wood in Uprooted acts like evil really acts. It's aggressive. If you aren't keeping it out, be sure it is trying to--and it will--get in. I appreciated the truthfulness of this story's take on evil. But be warned, it's dark and heavy stuff. People in the story are corrupted or die or both. It's not for impressionable minds.

Despite the romance and the darkness, I enjoyed the style of storytelling, the magic of the world, and the way the story broadened in scope as it went on, adding layers and depth, taking the reader to surprising places by its end. I enjoyed the friendship between Agnieszka and her best friend Kasia (she's awesome!), which has more substance than the romance. I give the book four out of five stars.

Uprooted is available mid-May.

The Jewel

It's been a couple weeks since I read The Jewel, a young adult novel by Amy Ewing (busy month for us!), so this review will mostly be overall impressions. What attracted me to the novel in the first place was a pretty cover and a fascinating premise: teenage girls sold to rich women as surrogates to birth their babies for them. In addition, these girls have magic powers (the why of this is never quite explained...maybe a topic to be covered in future books of the series?) that allow them to manipulate the color, shape, gender, and growth of the babies. All this takes place in a world separated into tiers of wealth, with the rich at the center of the city, a ring of merchants after that, an industrial ring, a farming ring, and finally a ring for the poorest of the poor, from which the magic surrogate girls come. It's a pretty nice set-up for a dystopian world.

(SPOILERS follow.) The thing is, some of the subject matter is a bit...adult. Teenage pregnancy is still kind of frowned upon in modern USA (though maybe less now than it used to be). Though it's been a part of other cultures for millennia, it's not something our kids are really prepared for. Violet, the main character, does manage to avoid pregnancy in this book despite her enslavement, but she does undergo doctor's appointments and tests that my younger, teenage self might have found a little freaky to read about. Fortunately, nothing is overly graphic, so I'd still consider it teen-appropriate material.

I was more bothered, really, by the other morally degraded content of the book. Girls are not the only ones forced into certain lives. Teenage boys can sell themselves as companions who entertain rich females in every way except the actual sexual act. But since the mothers buy these boys to entertain their daughters, some of the mothers are a bit proprietary toward the companions and use them to meet their own sexual needs (again, not graphic; this is only spoken about and not depicted at all).

In The Jewel, Violet falls in love with Ash, who is one of these companions. Both of them find themselves slaves in the same household and reach out to each other. At least that's the way the book tries to sell it. I had a hard time buying Ash's "slavery" since he basically chooses to lead this kind of life. While the surrogates have no choice and little freedom in their new lives, the companions are paid and are even considered acceptable company in the upper echelons of this world. I had a hard time respecting Ash as the love interest (I had someone else in mind, actually) and rooting for the romance. I never like it when the teenage love interests of a book have sex, but when a character is basically a male prostitute, whatever the book is trying to say about the wrongness of that gets a little muddled when he has no problem having sex with a girl he gets to choose. I get the difference there, but I'd rather see more realistic repercussions to an enforced lifestyle of prostitution. I didn't want the sex to be there at all, but if it had to be, difficulty being vulnerable with Violet, difficulty giving her more than he might give a paying partner, would have been more realistic. I just didn't buy it.

One other minor moment in the book bothered me because it was cheap conflict. Violet is a slave, and she knows that Ash is essentially one, too. After they have an intimate moment together, she sees him with the girl he's been paid to be a companion to and she gets mad. It just annoyed me. She knows what he does, knows he doesn't have a choice (according to the book, at least). Her anger comes off as petty in this situation. If he doesn't have a choice, she doesn't really have a right to be mad at him. If anything, she should understand him and forgive him because they are both being forced to do things they don't want to do.

Without the companion parts, I would have liked this book more. It was different and intriguing. It offers a lot of interesting moral discussion without being too over-the-top. (For instance, the girls are impregnated in a lab by doctors and not by having to sleep with their owners' husbands or anything too heinous like that.) So, I give it three out of five stars.

The Ring & the Crown

The Ring & the Crown, a young adult novel by Melissa de la Cruz, mixes fantasy and Victorian genres. The idea of magic competing against a sort of scientific and industrial revolution (not steam but electric) is an idea I've not run across a lot. In fact, it was unique enough that a group of my writing friends (myself included) created a world with a similar idea at its starting point. Our plot differs drastically from anything Melissa de la Cruz would write and was conceived far before I picked up her book, but the idea that magic is a sort of science is the backdrop of both stories. (Ours changes even from that. If you want to know more, check out childrenofthewells.com.)

The Ring & the Crown has a large cast of characters. Most young adult books stick to one or two to narrate the story, but this book is a step removed from the immediacy of first-person narration with a third-person limited viewpoint which is interchanged among five different major characters. Though the characters are appropriate for young adult, the writing style bridges the gap between young adult and fantasy or even historical fiction.

I didn't like all the characters. There were really only two I was rooting for, though I wasn't entirely antagonistic to the others. The setting of the plot both intrigued me and contributed to why I didn't like some of the characters. By at least by the end, I was sympathetic to most of them.

The setting is this: a war has come to an end by the soon-to-be alliance of Prince Leopold and Princess Marie whose interests lie in different directions than each other. Meanwhile, Wolf, the younger brother of the engaged prince is trying to find his own direction, be it in girls or fistfights. Leopold's lover, Isabelle, must sign away her engagement to him so that the royal wedding may progress. The American girl, Ronan, must find herself a rich husband in London to save her family's financial situation. And the magician Aelwyn must choose between a life of independence or a life of service to her childhood friend Marie.

The magic history bears remarking on as it appears to be related to a version of the stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin, taking place perhaps near a thousand years after those events. Whether this book would claim that story to be the same one we know or whether it's all part of an alternate universe is not addressed but would be an interesting thing to ask the author.

I'm not sure if this book is part of a series, as most young adult books are, or if it is meant to stand alone. It feels like a standalone book, particularly at the end, which attempts to resolve all the characters' lives. The end is abrupt and unexpected. Looking back, I saw a few hints of foreshadowing, but there didn't seem to be quite enough time taken to set everything up. In fact, characters end up explaining the end to one another, an end that is interesting but that feels a bit like the cliff notes version. I certainly had mixed feelings. I generally liked how things were resolved overall, but I felt like not everyone's story was told adequately...and forget happily. I know stories don't have to end neatly and happily to be good (though I prefer happy, or a really good reason not), but when half your main characters fade into obscurity at the end of a book, it's not satisfying. Fortunately, they were the characters I didn't care about as much, but like I said, once my sympathy was aroused, I thought they deserved better. Maybe that's what a sequel could be for.

This book gets three stars from me. Morality plays a small factor in that rating. There was the sensuality I expected just from the nature of the book's content, but the details were mostly implied. There were places where it fit the story and other places where it didn't need to be there but was just added to give some wildness to a character, which could have been done in other ways. On the other hand, I appreciated the interweaving of story lines (until the end) and the way that the world felt like it had some history and depth, and I did enjoy the read despite the odd end and character complaints I have.

The Queen of the Tearling

I was not the first to get my hands on The Queen of the Tearling, a fantasy novel by Erika Johansen. My sister-in-law beat me to it, but both of us were pretty excited to read this advanced reader's copy. And now that we have, both of us love it. It's adult fiction, but this is the kind of story that attracted me to young adult fiction in the first place: a young, gutsy heroine (she's 19) and high-stakes danger. There are obviously elements that separate this story from young adult fiction. It's more detailed and longer than typical YA fare, and there are swear words (though sparse) and a few gruesome scenes (one character's vivid recounting of debauchery and rape, for instance) most YA fiction generally avoids. I hope that those adult elements, however, do not scare you off. They are very tactfully handled and not overused.

Kelsea is supposed to be the next queen of the Tearling when she reaches her nineteenth birthday. That day has come, and she must leave the little cottage that has been her entire world. But in the world she is to rule, there are many who would rather things remain as they are and are willing to pay big money for her head. There's the regent, her uncle, a despicable man with many vices. There's the evil Red Queen, who has the power to destroy the Tearling. And there are others hiding in the dark, waiting for an opportunity to profit in whatever way they may. Kelsea has a big job ahead of her, and it could kill her, if she doesn't die before she gets there. All alone, accompanied by a handful of old guards who are sworn to secrecy but know nothing about her, Kelsea must earn her place every step of the way.

 I assumed this story would have more romance (it was advertised on the back cover), but it really doesn't, at least not in this first installment of the series, and the main character is described as plain and mannish. The point is that this girl is different than her mother, the beautiful and shallow queen before her. Kelsea is a girl who's studied her entire life to be a good judge and moral ruler, and when faced with the chaos of her country, she tackles it head-on, despite feeling nothing like a queen. I liked that there wasn't the distraction of romance (though there are very tiny hints of what might come), and actually, Kelsea's plainness lends a certain gravity and strength to the story. We see right off the bat that she's a woman of depth, something the country desperately needs. We know she is the right person for the job, if she can manage to get it. Sometimes romance is all the entertainment value of the story, but this one doesn't need it to be interesting and keep things moving along. The mystery of Kelsea's ancestry and the secrets hidden from her, even though she's supposed to be queen, pull the reader into the story, and throughout, Kelsea and the reader must piece together the larger picture of what happened to this country's people and what she must do about it.

Now, I must talk a bit about the setting. It's highly unusual. At first glance, it appears somewhat medieval, like most fantasy worlds. Horses, no modern conveniences, castles, peasants, and magic--pretty straightforward fantasy, nothing unusual there. But actually, there are hints throughout the story about a world that existed before, a world that sounds a lot like our modern world. America is mentioned. Books exist from our time, like The Hobbit and The Bible. The details are extremely murky and pieced together, but from what I can tell, people left our world in an event called The Crossing. Whatever they brought with them was all they had to start over, completely new. There were some doctors, so some medical knowledge was saved. A few books came over, but not a way to print more. What I can't figure out is where this new world is. Is it a new part of Earth, or is it a parallel dimension? Did they cross the stars (though it seems they speak of crossing an ocean)? And what happened to the rest of Earth? And how did magic enter the equation? These questions don't need answered for the story to work, but they were always part of the backstory, just enough information given to make me curious about the rest. Essentially, the setting is medieval fantasy, taking place in a world that comes after our modern one.

One more thing bears remarking on. I'm not sure how I feel about how the book presents religion. Kelsea studies The Bible as part of her training to rule, just as one might study one book of many but also because the Arvath (a religious group with roots in Catholicism) is a corrupt power to be reckoned with. It's not presented as a true book, and though Kelsea reads it cover to cover, she doesn't believe in it. So, I thought the author had a negative inclination toward religion, but then she has a character who's devout, a priest who's not corrupt but truly believes in his faith. He's a sympathetic character, despite his beliefs. Granted, he's a great lover of books, like Kelsea is, so I think the emphasis is on the value of knowledge rather than faith. But I was pleased to see that religion wasn't thrown out as entirely evil. I don't have any hopes that it will progress beyond what it is, though.

Overall, I just loved this book for being a story about a girl going up against high odds with nothing in her favor but her strong mind and kind heart. I loved the mystery, and I grew to love numerous other multi-faceted characters along the way. That the main character is a queen and the setting is medieval doesn't hurt one bit either.

The Queen of the Tearling will be released in July of this year. Four stars.

SWATH in Theaters Now!

Based upon what I'd seen in the previews, I was pretty excited to see Snow White and the Huntsman (known as SWATH on the web). I knew it would be dark, so there were no surprises there. I expected amazing costumes and visually stunning cinematography. But there were a few other surprises, both good and bad.

SWATH actually follows the original story of Snow White (at least what I know from Disney) fairly closely. I guess I expected something that diverted a little more since the title, after all, wasn't Snow White and the Prince. Perhaps the biggest surprise, which isn't a surprise if you know the story well, is Snow White's affinity to animals, drawing them to herself, being able to calm them. I just wasn't expecting it in this story where the previews have focused on Charlize Theron's evil queen Ravenna. But the magic is somewhat balanced in this telling. On one side is the evil queen's black magic and poisonous control, which has killed the land. On the other side is a sanctuary of good magic where Snow White communes with the fairies and animals and the land is still verdant. This sanctuary reminded me strongly of The Chronicles of Narnia, with its "old magic" feel. It surprised me so much to see that aspect that I didn't like it much at first. It was beautiful, but I kept thinking it was a knockoff of Narnia, and a cheap one at that. It has grown on me since watching it.

Kristen Stewart (known for her role as Bella in the Twilight series) and Chris Hemsworth (known for his role as the comic book god Thor) star as Snow White and the Huntsman. The Huntsman is a drunk who gets tricked into hunting down Snow White in exchange for the return of his dead wife. Hemsworth does a fine job of portraying a giant of a man, lost in deep sorrow. Stewart plays a darker Snow White than Disney's, but it works in this tale of a girl imprisoned for many years in a tower of her own castle. Snow White is sad and serious and very dirty. It's almost funny that under all that dirt is the most beautiful woman in the land. Unfortunately, perhaps, for Stewart, her previous role as Bella colors viewers' opinions of her in SWATH. She plays a similar sort of character. But Twilight aside, Stewart fits the dark, sad princess she's meant to portray here.

I enjoyed this retelling of the story. I liked the visuals and the behind-the-scene ideas. I liked the way this portrayal fleshed out the original story. But thematically, SWATH falls short. The themes certainly aren't bad in and of themselves, but they lack cohesiveness. At the end, they need just a little something extra to tie them all together and wrap things up for the viewer, but instead, the end just leaves you feeling a little bereft and slightly confused.

(SPOILERS follow throughout the remainder of the review.)

Despite the suggestive title and movie poster images, SWATH is not a love story. The Huntsman is grieving over his dead wife. Snow White depends on his help, and he comes to admire her. He even says she reminds him of his wife. But despite a kiss, there's no sense that a romance is blossoming except what the viewer's preconceptions put there. The kiss awakens Snow White, but here's where the mythology of the story and the thematic elements get a little confusing. We don't actually know why the kiss awakens her. It doesn't seem to be true love. I don't think it's even meant to be, unless there's something in the subtext I missed.

There is actually a Prince of sorts in this story, though the title might lead you to think otherwise. In this telling, he's actually a Duke's son and Snow White's closest friend when they are children. He eventually joins her party and regrets that he did not know she was alive sooner, but there's no romance there either. This story is more about war than love, so that makes sense. But if you are looking for romance, you'll be disappointed. Snow White doesn't get her Huntsman or her Duke. Both kiss her, and I guess if you are pulling for one or the other, the Huntsman wins, but it's a rather anti-climactic love triangle. Absolutely nothing happens. Actually, it's kind of refreshing if you are sick of love triangles and forced, cheap romances. The problem is not in the lack of romance, but as I said before, it's in the lack of any solid, unifying themes. I'll try to explain.

Snow White is innocent and pure, which is why she can defeat the queen. The Huntsman tries to teach her to use a knife, and she says she could never do that to anyone, which is consistent with the whole innocent character thing. This Snow White may be a fighter, but that doesn't mean she needs to wield a sword. That's great. That's the idea I got at the beginning of the movie. Then Snow White eats the apple and dies, which by the way, isn't very smart of the queen. As explained in this movie, Ravenna needs Snow White's fresh beating heart in her hand in order to become immortal. So, why does she do all that pretending with the apple? Why not just carve the heart right out of the girl? Anyway, Snow White returns to life with a kiss (the meaning of which, as I explained above, isn't clear), and suddenly, she is a new person. She gives an impassioned speech and then leads her army against the queen. I think I could have believed it with just a tiny bit more explanation, something to tie the loose ends together. Because, sure, dying changes a person. That's believable. But the why of it should be clear. You're a bad person; you die; you come back to life: you realize you'd better get your act together. You're a good person; you die; you come back to life: you become a fighter? It's not the obvious sequitur. I would have more easily believed that Snow White's purity gave her greater powers when the queen killed her. Instead, it's like she all of a sudden "grew up." She was running from destiny before, and now she's ready to face it. I guess that works, too, but it's kind of lame for a movie with so much cool magic and mythology. Why not use the mythology to its fullest advantage?

Snow White ends up stabbing the queen. In the end, it isn't her purity that kills the queen. It's the Huntsman's advice that she initially turns down, presumably because she is too good to do something like that. I couldn't figure out if the movie was telling me that Snow White's innocence and purity were good or that Snow White was just naive at the beginning. It seemed like it was saying both, and that simply doesn't work.

Snow White's last words to the queen are, "You cannot have my heart." But she says it with tears on her cheeks and this compassion she seemed to have all along for the queen so that I kept waiting for the implied "but" in the sentence: "You can't have my heart, but...." A few more words there could have been the clincher. It could have been the explanation for why one magic was more powerful than the other. But actually, I don't think the movie makers were trying to say one magic was more powerful. The only reason I can see, according to the movie, that Snow White defeats the queen is that a prophecy says the queen can only be defeated by someone more beautiful than she. If that's the case, why show us the good magic or go on and on about how Snow White is "The One," as though it means something (more than beauty, that is)? Granted, it fits the story of Snow White, which is about one beauty winning out over another, but the way the story is played in the movie, it seems like they were trying to make it be about something more.

So, there is no thematic resolution and no romantic resolution to this movie, only a slapped-together emotional resolution that doesn't follow logic and seems to rest more on revenge. Again, that alone would work for some movies. This movie just had so many things it was trying to do that it couldn't pull them all off together.

The best part of this movie is definitely Ravenna, and more than anything, I think the producers were concerned about making a cool-looking movie. Her costumes are gorgeous, if you like skulls and that gothic look, and at one point, she turns herself into a flock of ravens, which when they return and form her body again is grotesque but visually stunning. This movie was made to jar the senses, and I knew that before I saw it, just from the trailers. It's rated PG-13 for graphic fantasy violence.

One scene perfectly illustrates the entire movie for me. Ravenna dips herself into something that looks like thick milk, and as she comes up, crown on but otherwise naked (nothing shows), the mud is dripping beautifully down her face and neck, making her look like a sculpture. The scene is fantastic, but you don't really know what's going on. Mud bath? With her crown on? She'd just eaten a bird's heart, so magic ritual...? An illustration of her evilness and the extent of her poison that she bathes in this while the people outside are desperate for the leftovers of her bath going down the drainage pipes?

This movie is beautiful (in a very dark kind of way), but it kind of leaves you wondering what exactly it's about. Three stars.

Tuesdays at the Castle

When I picked up Tuesdays at the Castle last year before its release date in October, I thought it looked vaguely entertaining. It was about a princess, after all. But it didn't make it into my immediate next list because it was middle school fiction. As I've said in previous reviews, I'm not so fond of middle school fiction because about half of what I read in that age group is, plainly, boring. Jessica Day George's novel, however, is not. Instead, it's the perfect example of good middle school fiction, focusing on adventure rather than romantic interests.

Castle Glower is magical. It picks its own kings, and so far, the castle favors Prince Rolf, as shown by the fact that it moved his quarters right next to the throne room. But it's his sister Princess Celie that the castle seems to have a special connection with. Celie likes to draw blueprints of the castle, a task made more difficult when the castle adds new rooms on a whim, often on Tuesdays. But perhaps because of her interest, the castle responds to her wishes in ways it will not with anyone else.

When the king and queen are ambushed and appear to be dead, Celie's idyllic days of mapping rooms for fun are cut short. The princess and her siblings find themselves fighting for their place in the kingdom when two rival princes show up on their doorstep, the castle remaining mysteriously quiet as to what to do with them. As a sinister plot unfolds around them, they must believe in the castle's goodness and do what they can to help the castle oust the intruders before the intruders figure out how to silence the castle and its royal children for good.

It might sound a little hokey, but the story was honestly a lot of fun. It had great sibling interaction, a fascinating magical element, real danger, and loveable, well-imagined minor characters. Above all, in a clear battle of good versus evil, good wins (I'm not going to pretend that's a spoiler, because isn't that what we all want and expect?). And there's no angst-y teenagers or steamy romance threatening to overtake the plot. Though I love my young adult books, it's refreshing to take a break from all that every once in a while.

Four stars for Tuesdays at the Castle. Give it to your middle schoolers to read. Read it yourself!

The Invisible Tower

This is the last of the middle school novels I had on my shelf that were coming out in January. The Invisible Tower, by Nils Johnson-Shelton, is the first of a new series, Otherworld Chronicles, and it's a decent book. There's still something about the writing style that is probably how middle school novels are supposed to be written but that strikes me as too direct and simple since I was reading much more complicated books at that age. But the story is engaging, and I enjoyed the direction it ultimately took.

Artie Kingfisher is a quiet, nerdy boy who's just discovered how to beat a difficult dragon on a video game called Otherworld. But when a message addressed directly to him appears as an easter egg in the game, his true destiny is revealed. Young Artie is really King Arthur of Avalon, reborn, and the wizard Merlin needs him to retrieve a key in the real Otherworld, a magical sister world to Earth. Artie teams up with his sister (in his adoptive family) and a few new friends to pull the sword from the stone and Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. But many trials and real dangers await Arthur and his new knights on their way to releasing Merlin from his long imprisonment, the most terrifying of which is the sorceress Morgaine. She wants Excalibur, and Merlin wants his freedom. But what does Artie want?

This idea is a very clever way of bringing Arthur back to life. It's very fantastical and quite a bit over the top. It's not particularly close to the original stories of King Arthur, but it's not meant to be either. Different fictional worlds are thrown together; it appears the author really enjoys Alice's Adventures in Wonderland since he borrows heavily from that. Hardcore Arthurian legend fans probably won't like this rendition, but imagination and creativity are certainly not lacking in Johnson-Shelton's Otherworld.

The pure imagination of it is what kept me reading. There are little things I could nitpick at in the story. I'm annoyed by the fact that the kids' dad is initially put under a spell so that the kids can do whatever they want around him and get away with it. But they eventually feel bad about using him, and he's finally brought into the loop.

I don't think it's accidental that Merlin is introduced in the prologue the way he is. For most of the book, he seems like a great guy looking out for Artie, but right off the bat, we're told that his priority is finding a way to escape. And the end leaves you wondering about Merlin, whether he's good or bad or somewhere between the two. It's a great cliffhanger for the rest of the series. I think I was particularly struck by Merlin's possible duality because the rest of the book is so forthright, telling things as they are. I admit, I was a bit caught off guard to learn at the end that Merlin's actions might be self-serving, yet I think it was at the back of my mind for the whole book, due to that nice bit of prologue workmanship.

Despite the book's flaws, I think story trumps craft, so I give this one a thumb's up.

Winterling

Well, I didn't have high hopes for this book after noting on the cover of the last book I read a quote from this author, Sarah Prineas, saying that The Cabinet of Earths was the best thing she'd read in a long time. If you read my last book review, you know my thoughts on that book were far different. But, happily, Winterling exceeded my expectations. It is also a middle school novel, aimed at grades five and up, available this month. It's much more of a fantasy than The Cabinet of Earths, which is based more in the modern world and has only small fantastical elements in it, and maybe that's part of why I like Winterling better.

Fer (short for Jennifer) has never fit into her world, though she didn't know her world was even optional until the night she accidentally opened the Way into another. Now, armed with the herbal healing magic of her grandmother, she's on a quest to discover the truth about her parents' deaths. The beautiful Lady of the land wants her loyalty, and Fer is on the edge of giving it when she realizes that something doesn't feel right in this new world. There's a stain on it, and Fer is determined to find out why and what it has to do with her family. But her closest ally is a shape-shifting Puck with a powerful thrice-sworn oath to the Lady...the Lady whose secrets might be at the heart of the winter that's only overturned with a blood sacrifice. True spring may already be lost forever. And Fer is just a young girl, seemingly without power.

Although I really like romance, the nice thing about middle school fiction is that it often doesn't have any and, therefore, can focus on the story (not that it always does very well; see my last book review). Winterling is great storytelling. Interesting. Creative. Narrowly focused. An adventure with a heroine who grows up in some ways but is still a kid. It's age appropriate but not boring for older readers. I suppose the thought processes that guide this heroine are still a bit more simplistic than in young adult fiction; I don't particularly see a need to do that, but since the rest of the story is strong, I can call it "being focused" and let it go.

There are, perhaps, minor plot holes here and there. For instance, the biggest one I can think of is that Fer's grandmother, who seems to be fully of this world (unlike Fer herself, as we find out), teaches Fer healing magic, and you don't ever know where the grandmother herself got it from. It's just something you're supposed to accept.

I've already said the book is clean by virtue of completely eliminating any romantic storyline. For younger readers, just be aware that the evil Lady (or Mor, as she is called) is sort of witch-like, though she isn't ever called that, and she kills creatures that aren't fully beasts. The book is also obviously magical, and Fer does healing "spells." These magical elements seem harmless to me, but I know some people are conscientious about the use of magic in books. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I'm not talking to you here.

Anyway, Winterling is a hitch in my theories about middle school fiction, and I'm glad for it. If you are looking for a simple, good adventure without all the romance to potentially muck it up, this is a decent one.

The Cabinet of Earths

In my quest to clean up my bookshelves, I found a couple middle school novels coming out this month. One is The Cabinet of Earths, by Anne Nesbet, for grades five and up.

Maya and her five-year-old brother, James, have been uprooted from their American friends and home to spend a year in Paris because of their dad's job and because it's their mom's dream...their mom who has cancer. James makes friends wherever he goes, but thirteen-year-old Maya misses home, worries about her mom, and is used to being a background fixture. She's unprepared for the mysteries that find her in Paris: an intricately carved door with a salamander handle that moves, though no one else can see it; a beautiful-looking man who lives behind that door and shows far too much interest in Maya and her brother; a distant cousin who's literally hard to see; and an old man, also a relation, who keeps a cabinet of earths with a magnetic pull on Maya. Maya doesn't want to acknowledge that she might be needed to play a critical part in her magical ancestors' secrets, but when it's her family members' lives on the line, she'll do whatever it takes to protect them.

I don't typically read middle school fiction, and this book is a good example of why. They read fast, so that's a plus. But maybe they read so fast because not enough happens in them. I know that they are for younger readers, but I have a hard time believing that at the middle school level, kids can't read more complex books. I read The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas, when I was in middle school. The Cabinet of Earths is just too simplistic. It might be fine for an even younger audience, though its length might not then be appropriate, but it's not a spell-binding, edge-of-your-seat read. And for this type of book, a magical mystery of sorts, that's what I wanted. Daniel Handler, in his Lemony Snicket books, knows how to write good middle school fiction. This was dull in comparison. 

The idea was actually intriguing: a cabinet that stores people's mortality in the form of earth so that they can live like immortals. The book is a clean read, which it should be at the middle school level. (Maya is referred to as a witch, but it's in the sense that she has magical powers, not that she's evil.) And it's not even a terrible read, really. One thing I liked about it was that it dealt with some heavy emotional material, primarily Maya's feelings about her mother's cancer. In that, at least, the book had depth. The book was well-written, as well. It was just the story that disappointed me. It could have been so much more. I'll generously give it three stars.

Wisdom's Kiss

Wisdom's Kiss is a very different sort of young adult novel, just out in September. It takes place in the world Catherine Gilbert Murdock created in Princess Ben, which I also read and enjoyed, some decades after the events of that book.

In Wisdom's Kiss, Princess Wisdom has selected a husband-to-be based purely on her wish to see the world. Trudy is an orphan maid at a small-town tavern, her only friend a boy named Tips who's gone off to be a soldier, so his letters say. Wilhemina is an ambitious duchess with plans to see her son wed a queen and, therefore, have a chance at eventually ascending to the throne of the whole empire. And Ben is back, the queen mother of Montagne, grandmother to a queen and a princess about to be married. Add to this colorful cast of characters a cat who seems almost human and a few royals who have vowed never to use magic again, and you have an intriguing, adventuresome tale.

But the book is unique for another reason. Most books you read are pure prose, separated into chapters, telling a story from a certain point of view or several, but all in one format. Wisdom's Kiss combines diaries, plays, encyclopedia entries, letters, and memoirs to piece together one whole humorous tale. If you are having trouble picturing what that would look like, I'll try to explain. Each chapter is a piece of the puzzle, but each chapter takes the form of one of the above. One chapter might be like a Shakespearean play. The next is a very serious encyclopedia entry of pure facts with an obvious disdain for anything fictional. The next is Princess Wisdom's own diary entry, full of the emotional angst of a young woman on the verge of marriage. And these entries keep coming up every few chapters so that when you look at the whole book, you have a full picture of what's going on. It could be confusing, but it works, for the most part.

I have to say "for the most part" because, personally, I don't love the style. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to stories. I like to be drawn in from the start so that I hardly even realize I'm reading a story and not part of it, but the very nature of a book like Wisdom's Kiss keeps the reader somewhat at a distance. You feel like an outsider piecing together history. I imagine it was a fun exercise for the author to write the story this way. But from experience, I know that what an author enjoys writing and what people enjoy reading can be two different things. Still, the more I got into the book, the less the various storytelling styles bothered me because the story is really a good one.

Three stars for Wisdom's Kiss, a very creative fairytale, to say the least.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns

I want to say I was not impressed by the cover of this book, but I was. The title was interesting on its own: The Girl of Fire and Thorns, but oddly, by the time I finished the book, I really had to think about where they got those images, Fire and Thorns, and I didn't find them very apropos to the heroine. The book itself had the most non-telling picture of a beautiful girl on the front (so many young adult books do these days), and the back cover copy contained the most vague description that I've read in a long time. When I started, I had no idea what sort of book I was about to read, other than that the heroine was a princess on the path to fulfill her destiny. The cover copy gushed about the contents with unrevealing keywords specifically used to draw an audience in, and it compared the book to Kristin Cashore's Graceling, which I enjoyed awhile back. The letter from the editor, accompanying this advance reader's copy, was just as vague and gushed just as much as the book cover. I can't say I think it's a good cover, but it worked on me. And...I'm glad it did. Fortunately, the cover I have does not match the one pictured here. It looks like someone else knew the cover needed a make-over, too.

This book is Rae Carson's debut novel and the first in a trilogy that, I will tell you right now, I plan to buy if the other books don't show up in the advance reader's copies. I will be a better promoter of this book, however, than the cover I have was for me and tell you exactly what it's about (without giving away any spoilers, of course).

Right away within the first few pages, you discover that Elisa is a 16-year-old princess from a religious, almost Hispanic (if it weren't fantasy) kingdom, who eats too much; bears a unique, God-given jewel in her navel as a symbol that she's been chosen for an important destiny; and is about to marry the desert king of a similar culture on the verge of war. Her only appeal, besides the stone in her belly, is her quick,  learned mind. She knows all about war, in her head at least, which is good because she is quickly tested.

The story really picks up from the beginning and moves. I would compare Rae Carson to Maria V. Snyder in that Carson is always moving the story somewhere across the desert, keeping the pace strong and the plot exciting. (I happen to love Snyder's Poison Study and Glass series for their intense action and plot movement.) Carson perhaps doesn't take her story quite as far, or push the plot quite as quickly with as many competing elements, as Snyder might, but it was one of those books that I hardly wanted to put down. When I found Snyder, I was hooked, and Carson has the potential to do that to me, too.

In addition to its forward momentum, The Girl of Fire and Thorns is lovely to read, no awkward sentences, just enough elegant description. It has a very Hispanic flair, though it takes place in a fantasy world of magic. The fantasy element is very light and appears mostly in discussions of plants and in the powers the evil animagi use in battle. It's implied that the Godstone, as Elisa's jewel is called, is magical, but that doesn't come into play for most of the book.

It should be noted that this is not Christian fiction. I have no idea what the author's religious beliefs are. The religion is only partly similar to Christianity and Catholicism. There is a ceremony not entirely unlike Communion, where participants are pricked by the thorns of a rose (hence, the title, I guess), and the perfect number is five, instead of seven.

I enjoyed Elisa. She's not very attractive a character at first, eating just to console herself sometimes. She's certainly an unlikely heroine for a young adult novel, an overweight teenager who feels herself unworthy of everything. But because of the time lapse of the book, she undergoes realistic change and growth. I loved her by the end.

Another intriguing facet of the book is that Elisa ends up getting married at its beginning. She's not just promised. The author actually goes through with it, which I think most authors wouldn't do. I like it. It adds another layer of complexity, marriage to a stranger at a young age. I don't want to spoil too much here, but let me just say they don't consummate the marriage then and there, and I'll leave it at that. There is a bit of romance later in the novel, but I'm being vague on purpose here. Don't assume anything. The book is not crafted to be a romance, and if you hang your hopes on romance, they will be dashed. Still, the romance that is there is beautiful and, for the most part, satisfying. There is something I can't reveal about the end here that may make readers feel like they were cheated a bit. But that would definitely be a spoiler, and I hate to give spoilers on books I think people might actually read.

I found this novel to be completely appropriate for its target age group, with some war-related violence, but the themes are not too adult. The heroine grows past her age group, perhaps, out of necessity, but I don't think that's bad for a young adult novel.

I wasn't sure, at first, how I would feel about the Hispanic aspect of this book. I'm not trying to be racist, but typically, young adult heroines, especially in fantasy, are white and might as well have British accents. Okay, now I am stereotyping. But the borderline Hispanic language (readable if you know Spanish) and the coloring of the people offered a unique touch to the atmosphere of this book, I thought. It made me wonder if Rae Carson is Hispanic, which, again, is stereotyping. It's just so unusual of a setting twist, particularly for fantasy. (Maybe I just don't read the right books.) In fact, one evil animagus encountered in the book has white hair and blue eyes that make Elisa question how he can even see, which I found humorous.

Aside from the cover, which simply did the book no justice (but the picture of which has been changed, at least), The Girl of Fire and Thorns is a rare find, and I'm sad only that I'll have to wait so long to read the next two books of the trilogy.

This book is available in September.

Auralia's Colors

A friend of mine suggested this series, beginning with Auralia's Colors, by Jeffrey Overstreet, to me and lent me the book. It's Christian fiction, which I almost never read anymore since I get so many secular advance reader's copies and since I often have issues with the way Christianity is presented in such books, particularly in Christian fantasy. Auralia's Colors does happen to be Christian fantasy, but it's one of the good ones. It doesn't hit you over the head with a message, and if you aren't looking for it, you might not even see it: perfect.

It's the story of a world of four cities, called "Houses," but particularly House Abascar, where a queen once made it illegal to wear or own anything colorful unless you were granted the privilege. The queen disappeared, but the king keeps his subjects under her burdensome Proclamation. Those who disobey are sent to be Gatherers and live outside the house until they are pardoned, if ever. Orphans live with them, and one of these orphans is a young woman named Auralia. She has a special and dangerous talent, the ability to see all the colors of the wild and craft them into woven, seemingly magical gifts. Her masterpiece is a cloak of all the colors of the Expanse. But everything she does is forbidden, so Auralia must work in secret. Still, she believes the colors are for everyone, and she may risk everything to show House Abascar the truth.

Overstreet crafts a detailed world, perhaps more detailed than I sometimes have the patience for, but I know most fantasy is more detailed than what I read. Auralia is certainly a main character of the story, but she is not the only one. Many of the people around her have vital roles in the story and are as carefully and uniquely created and written as she is.

This is not a romance and should not be read in the hopes of finding one. I mistakenly thought there might be some romance and was disappointed in that, though the story holds its own without it.

Auralia's Colors intrigued me for its characters, its unique world, and its clean and subtle message. If you read Christian fantasy, this is not one to miss. Had it not been lent to me, I think I would have picked it up still. But the story does not end. Be prepared to read the series.

The Girl in the Steel Corset

I haven't read very much steampunk, but I was intrigued by the title and attracted by the cover of The Girl in the Steel Corset, a young adult novel by Kady Cross, the first in her Steampunk Chronicles. My sister-in-law got a signed hardcover copy for me when she went to the book expo in New York City.

The story takes place in Victorian England, though a slightly different England than we are accustomed to, with machines and magic and the regular steampunk contraptions that are similar to modern technology but powered differently. Finley is a ladies maid, a 16-year-old girl with an extremely dangerous dark side, literally. When she is angry or threatened, it comes out as a completely different personality with supernatural strength and senses. She's the female Jekyll and Hyde.

Then there are Griffin, Sam, and Emily, a group of friends with their own extraordinary abilities, trying to discover the identity of The Machinist, a criminal who is creating machines that might have the potential to think for themselves. Sam's already been in the way of one of these machines, and now he's not fully human himself since Emily had to fuse him back together with metal. When Finley comes into their lives, the group isn't sure what to do with her. But one thing's for sure: sooner or later, someone's going to get hurt.

I enjoyed the setting and the characters of this novel, though at times I wished the narrator would stop switching viewpoints and let me stay in one character's head. That's just personal preference. It's very common to jump heads in fantasy and science fiction; it's less common in young adult but still happens. I think it was harder, then, for me to identify with the heroine since half the story didn't immediately revolve around her. However, I did like her, particularly as her character changed and evolved.

There wasn't as much romance as I had hoped for, though there are several love triangles, which are interesting. I think the author must be saving Finley's romance for later books in the Chronicles. The set-up is in this book, but not much comes of it.

Although there was nothing inappropriate in the story, I didn't really feel like I was reading young adult fiction. All the characters felt older. Maybe that's due to the setting in the late 1900's. I thought of the characters as older than teenagers the entire time I read the book. But other than that, this is a great young adult book, sure to be enjoyed particularly by the female steampunk audience.

Three stars for an enjoyable read.

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.

Entwined

This book surprised me. As I stepped into its pages, I felt like I was stepping into an old fairytale. I searched the book's extra content to see if it was, perhaps, based on a fairytale, as many of the books I like are these days, but I didn't see any references to outside stories. So, to my knowledge, Entwined is a new fairytale for young adults, one with all the weight and substance of the beloved classic tales.

Azalea is the oldest of 12 sisters. They live in a castle that was once enchanted but which now has only vestiges of magic left over from the days of an evil king. Their favorite pastime is dancing, and Azalea is the best dancer of all. She is also the Princess Royale and must marry whomever parliament and her father choose. But when the princesses' mother dies, their household is thrust into a year of mourning, and the girls will do anything to be able to dance again, even if it means keeping a dangerous secret from their father and escaping through a magic passageway to an enchanted silver forest where the mysterious Keeper lets them dance the nights away.

This book is simply beautiful and much more than the typical princess romance. In fact, the story is about 12 princesses who learn what it means to be a family and how to care for each other in their misery. Interestingly, the royal family is poor. Though they are royalty, they have less to eat than the marriage-seekers who visit Azalea during their year of mourning. They even have to mend their own dancing slippers, which they wear out every night (though this is mostly because they are dancing in secret).

Twelve sisters seem like a lot of characters to keep track of, but Heather Dixon does a fine job of giving them each their own quirks, and by the end, readers will be familiar with them all. The king is another interesting character. Readers will not know what to make of him at the beginning, and they will find that the princesses do not know their father very well. At the risk of spoiling a plot line here for some, I will say that the king begins the story as the antagonist, but surprises wait along the way. This story is as much about the girls' relationship with their father as it is about their sisterly affection or about the romances of the older sisters. Every character is vivid and entertaining, and as the danger increases, the characters become more and more intriguing.

This is also a book of morality and chivalry, celebrating an older time when even a girl's ankles could make a man blush and when overstepping boundaries with a woman deserved a punch to the face, if not a duel.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Entwined, but you will have to wait until its publication in April 2011.

Spy Glass

First of all, the Glass series is not young adult fiction, like I'd originally thought. It doesn't even claim to be, but Maria V. Snyder's Study series is. As this takes place in the same world, I assumed it would be young adult too. But the main character is a little older than Yelena from the Study series was, and the content is a little older as well.

The rest of this review contains SPOILERS.

Spy Glass is the third in the Glass trilogy. I've reviewed Storm Glass and Sea Glass. This third book is, perhaps, the most adult of all of them. Though in Snyder's world, consummation of a relationship outside of marriage is no biggy, she is not graphic, which I appreciate. Yet, in this book, Opal Cowan is torn between two men (one different from the two men she liked in the first book) and sleeping with both. Way to confuse the issue! And one of them happens to be someone who tortured her in the past. Though I buy the relationship, and not just as typical Stockholm Syndrome, I know many readers will not like that. I understand why the author did it, to an extent, and it even works for me, but if this were real life, I would be totally against it. But it's fantasy, and while it remains firmly in the world of fantasy, I can enjoy it. Still, this was probably not the wisest end to a trilogy, and I know some readers will be upset.

Maria V. Snyder's world of magic is sensational. Her characters are always getting into deep trouble, and it's just fun to read because something new is always around the corner. With this book, you'll definitely enjoy the ride, even if the book itself leaves you dissatisfied. Readers are forewarned.

Another element that may be disturbing to readers involves a cult. Opal is forced to do things, including removing clothing (happens a couple times outside of the cult, as well, come to think of it), but the author rescues her character before the worst can happen.

My last beef with the novel involves the title and the back cover copy of my advanced reader edition. Since the finalized novel may have a better back cover copy, I won't complain too much. But if it implies Opal spies through glass with magic, that's completely untrue. Most of the spying on others' lives is figurative in the book. Opal does learn how to be a spy, but it does not involve magic or glass.

Valek, the magic-immune assassin from the Study series, comes back to play a major part in this novel, which was fun. The change in Opal from the first book is also fun, though at times, the change is not always for the better. I enjoyed Opal's training and independence in this book, and I wouldn't throw it completely out for its flaws. Another big change in this book from the two previous is that Opal is without her magic and immune to magic, just like Valek. It doesn't hinder the enjoyment of Opal's character at all. Rather, it enhances it. Valek and Opal's interesting working relationship (completely platonic, since Valek is the lover of Yelena from the Study series), is one big positive for this book.

Five stars for captivating sensationalism. Three stars for plot. Two stars for morality.

Sea Glass

This is the sequel to Storm Glass, which I reviewed a couple blog posts ago. I will try to be semi-vague about the plot so that I don't spoil too much for those who, like me, want to read a story from beginning to end and can't stand to even look at the cover of the next book or open to the last page. (I know some of you do that, however. To each his own, I guess!)

This book was, in some ways, far more intriguing than Storm Glass. Perhaps it was because there is a lot of set-up in the first book, and the second just jumps into things. In Sea Glass, the danger was upped, the magic was cooler, the heroine, Opal, was bolder and more fascinating. I do have to say that the amount of times she almost dies or gets captured and tortured begins to approach the ridiculous. But it also makes the book fun and exciting, and I'm not complaining.

Sea Glass is definitely more sensationalized than the first book. There's more girl-power and more sex. I like Maria V. Snyder, and her sex scenes aren't graphic and are mostly implied, but I do have a problem with her targeting young adults with her books and then being so nonchalant about intimacy between two romantically involved characters. She did the same in the Poison Study series. In her world (and, unfortunately, she's probably just imitating our world), lovers are practically expected to sleep together. Marriage isn't even talked about. Like I said, it isn't graphic, but it's what it says to young adults and the example it sets that I don't appreciate.

I can give this book five stars for entertainment value and four for plot (it was way interesting but just not entirely believable, even for a fantasy world), but I give it only two stars for morality.

Readers of the Poison Study series should enjoy this addition to the Glass series just as much. I'll be reading the next installment, Spy Glass, soon.

Star Crossed

I love it when I find a new book (particularly advance reader's copies) from an author I've read and enjoyed. That's what happened when I found Elizabeth C. Bunces's new young adult novel Star Crossed. I'd read A Curse Dark as Gold, an adaptation of the fairytale Rumplestiltskin, which was rich in its re-imagination and full of fascinating characters and vivid description.

Star Crossed is not a fairytale but a new fantasy world of the author's own, and I was slightly disappointed at first because Bunce had done so well reinventing a fairytale the first time and I was looking forward to more of the same. They are definitely not the same, but that's not to say her newest novel is an unworthy addition to her name.

I admit, I had a hard time getting sucked into the story. It unfolded a world of religion versus magic, of seven moons and the seven gods and goddesses built upon them. The author had to introduce me to her main character, a thief for hire named Digger (but she's a girl), as well as create a sense of the world she lived in, and I was getting bogged down in history and weird fantasy names. I've found that most young adult fantasy isn't hardcore fantasy with all the detailed world-building, and even this story probably wouldn't be classified as hardcore fantasy, but it was somewhere in between and almost losing me...at first. But the characters were enjoyable, and once Digger changed her role and name and became a lady in waiting named Celyn, uncovering forbidden magical mysteries for a blackmailing aristocrat, then I was hooked.

Surprisingly, this is not a romance. The romantic interest supposedly dies at the beginning of the story. I kept expecting something else to develop (actually, I'm a sucker for that stuff, and I was hoping), but nothing did and, honestly, it didn't matter. Now, if the author ends her series without even one hint of romance, I might be kind of sad. Yes, it's a series. Star Crossed is the first book, newly released, so fans will have to wait awhile to read Liar's Moon.

Three and a half stars out of five for a story of adventure and intrigue that ended up being interesting after all. I, for one, am looking forward to the sequel.