Book Review - Firelight - YA

Firelight by Sophie Jordan
Published by Harper Teen
323 pages




I had great hopes for this book as it was such a different premise as to what's currently out there.

Jacinda is a Draki, a dragon who manifests herself as human. Her mother leaves their tribe with Jacinda and her non-Draki twin sister, with the hope of letting the Draki within Jacinda die out so she will no longer be coveted by the pride since she is the only fire breather, and valued for breeding purposes.  The circumstances were Jacinda and a friend went out after hours and Jacinda was almost caught by the dragon hunters, and a boy named Will among them had found her hiding in a cave and let her go.

They move to a desert area so dry Jacinda is having a difficult manifesting to Draki, per her mother's hopes. There at school, she meets again Will, dragon hunter, who keeps her Draki alive within her for some reason.

Most of this book seems to take place in Jacinda's head. She decides to be with Will, then not. She'll see him, then not. Ad infinitum. Her mom and sister are incredibly unaware of what is happening with Jacinda, or seem to care that she is Draki, and very selfish, yet though Jacinda is staying there for her family, she is a bit selfish as well. I like Jacinda's spirit, but she was too indecisive.

The book dragged quite a bit, and not much happening.  She likes Will and should she be with him, but her reasons for the attraction are very nebulous.  The ending was left wide open for the second in the series to begin. This is a difficult book to review. I liked it and I didn't. I might come back later and rework some thoughts.

My reading list

If you haven't noticed, I mostly wind up reading Young Adult.  Years back, books usually fell into the category of children's or adult.  Now we have children's, middle grade, young adult, and adult.  There is discussion in the publishing world of starting a new category for college age.  There is a whole category of material that writers are trying to get published in the 18- to 25-year-old age range, that is either too young for adult or too old for YA.  These are the category of books I also find interesting.  Perhaps I stopped maturing at 22!

Anyhow, I don't like books with some of the harder adult themes and YA books are usually a bit tamer on that front.  Plus, firsts are interesting.  First love, first adventure, first job, and the list goes on.  So I read a bit of everything, but seem to gravitate back to YA.  I also dabble in writing a bit, and that's my preferred genre.

But, on my desk this week are:

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
Torment by Lauren Kate
The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson
Firelight by Sophie Jordan

Keep on reading!

Book Review - Blue Noon - YA

Blue Noon by Scott Westerfeld
Published by Eos
378 pages

This is the third and final book in a series, and it may seem strange to begin a review with this.  But to save you from reading the first two, if I review the third, you'll see where they're headed.

These are the Midnighters series, and the premise was very interesting which is what roped me into reading these.  Jessica, the new girl, moves into town, and finds that at midnight every night, everyone and thing freezes for an hour, except her and four other teens...and dark crawly things, who want Jessica dead.  There are 25 hours in each day, and the Midnighters, people born at precisely midnight in the town of Bixby, are the only ones who are aware of this.  They go through each book fighting off the dark creatures, and by the end of the third, not much of what they've done seems to have mattered.

The POV skips around from each of the teens, but I just didn't feel I knew the characters all that well.  Each teen has a talent, or skill, that helps them to navigate the "blue time."

I found this series to be incredibly depressing and dark and blah. After having read the first two books, I almost didn't even pick up the third, but wanting to know what happened to the quintet, I gave in. The ending didn't settle any of my questions, really. I had to skim through parts of it, I was so bored. And if I had to read the overused word "clever" one more time, I was going to throw the book across the room.

The third is another fight to save people from the darklings and a fissure that's occurring between what they call blue time and real time. 

I won't spoil the ending, but don't expect everyone to walk away rainbows and roses.  I suppose it could just be me, but I really don't enjoy investing hours of time into a book to be left with a nebulous ending and not much enjoyment in between.

Statistics

As someone who lives and breathes books and writing, I am always shocked to hear of people who just hate reading.  As in they never read anything unless absolutely required.  I must read or I feel like my oxygen is cut off.  I read shampoo labels in the shower, cereal boxes at the table, shopping receipts while waiting in the car.  Here are some statistics on this:

• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school
• 42% of college graduates never read another book
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years
• 57% of new books are not read to completion.
• Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased. *

Though, if I really need to follow my own logic, my next-door neighbor is an avid fisherman.  He is gone every weekend, spring, summer and fall, to go boating and fishing.  He lives and breathes fishing.  Since he thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread does not mean that everyone is the world must think the same.  I, most certainly, do not. 

It holds true with anyone interested in anything: save the whales, save the trees, walk to end world hunger, PTA, Toastmasters, and Red Hat Society.  We all have our own variety and scale of interests, and not everyone can like the same thing.

But, I will add, reading is a requirement in learning, so if you are interested in any subject, a good book will set you off in the right direction.

*http://dailysalty.blogspot.com/2007/10/book-reading-statistics-in-usa.html

Book Review - Downsiders - YA

Downsiders by Neal Shusterman
Published by Simon Pulse
272 pages




There are Topsiders and Downsiders, and never shall the two mix.  Well, at least according to Downsiders.  They live under New York City, in abandoned tunnels and forgotten cavities that once housed subways or theaters that have collapsed.  They feel superior to Topsiders. 

Enter Talon.  He's a young Downsider, curious of Topsider ways.  He meets Lindsay, a Topsider, recently moved to NYC to live with her dad, and everything he has believed about life is shaken.

This book was confusing for the fact the author wrote in third person, and changed the viewpoint so frequently, sometimes I forgot whose POV I was in.  A time or two he changed POVs from one paragraph to the next.  Very disconcerting while reading.  Many times I felt the author went off on a tangent, and I was snapped from the story by that.

I also tire of the teen who never tells an adult things.  All youth seem to keep important secrets from all authority figures.  Sometimes that makes sense, but others, it's just a plot device, and drives me mad.

I read this book about halfway, and then started skimming.  I am a happy-kind-of-ending girl, and this just didn't set well with me.  Others might really enjoy this book, but I had a hard time really feeling for the characters.

Book Review - Deception - YA

Deception by Lee Nichols
Published by Bloomsbury
310 pages




I very much enjoyed this book. Emma Vaile is your average high schooler in San Francisco, worried about friends and boys, until her parents disappear on a business trip and don't return. She is betrayed to the police to be living alone by Natalie, whom she thought was a friend, and sent to live with a legal guardian, who mysteriously shows up, to Boston. There she finds out more about herself and how she got there.  She is a ghostkeeper.

This is a mystery with many twists and turns, and no sure individual to trust. I thought Emma was real and likable. She is just traipsing through life, innocent and forlorn. She has no one except her 20-year-old guardian, Bennett, and he is not what he seems at first to be.

This was a true page turner for me, and I was pleased to find out this is going to be a series. The author crafted this quite nicely. You weren't quite hanging at the ending, but there was more story to be told for certain. Can't wait for the next installment

Nonsensical

We all know that children will mimic good behavior as well as the bad.  Reading to your children is a wonderful family time memory that they will have for years.  When you read, your children will tend to mimic that also.  My three-year-old will hold a book (upside down, of course), and read to her dolls.  Children who are readers have higher IQs, and young adults do better on ACTs and SATs than non-readers.  The vocabulary used becomes second-nature.

Why, just today my three-year-old was acting out, giving all of us a hard time.  I looked her in the eye and said, "Honey, you're being nonsensical."   And she said, "Sorry, momma."  Kids can learn anything you throw at them.  READ!

Book Review - Jane and the Damned

Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany
Published by HarperCollins Canada
320 pages



Jane Austen is a 21-year-old gentlewoman living with her father, mother and sister, and she has just had her first manuscript rejected.  She decides to go to a dance with her sister Cassandra to put her book out of her mind and meets a Mr. Smith, who promptly turns her.  Into a vampire, that is.  Her father takes the family from their country house to Bath where Jane may partake in the waters, the only thing that will cure her illness into damnation.  While they are there, the French are invading England, and her cure is not as simple as she and her father had hoped.

So many books that try to write in the Jane Austen style fail.  The words sound stiff and unnatural, but Janet Mullany has done a wonderful job with the 1797 era dialogue.  Of course Jane loses some bit of her genteel voice after her change, and things loosen up a bit.

I enjoyed this as the fantasy I believe it was meant to be, not as a documentary that others might feel failed to meet with a biographical standard.  It was fun, light-hearted, and written well enough to not pull me out of the story.  A favorite part was some dialogue between Jane and Margaret that true Austen fans will not miss as showing up in one of Jane's later published novels.  Very funny.

I won this book on the First Reads giveaway at Goodreads.com, pleased to have read it and enjoyed it well enough.  I give it a 3 out of 5.

What I'm reading

I start and stop many books that just don't cut the mustard.  That sounds harsh.  I used to think that whatever I picked up I had to finish (something about high school and being force-fed literary material that I never would have choosen otherwise), but I've come to realize if I pick it up and can't choke past the first chapter, there's nothing wrong with putting it down. 

And it's not that there's anything wrong with any book that I put down, it's just that that genre/subject matter/characters didn't suit my tastes.

So, having skipped around a bit this week, this is what I have on  my nightstand.

Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany
Deception by Lee Nichols
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Downsiders by Neal Shusterman
Blue Noon by Scott Westerfield

How does it make you feel not to finish a book?

Book Review - What-the-Dickens - Children's/Middle Grade

What-the-Dickens by Gregory Maguire
Published by Candlewick Press
295 pages



What-the-Dickens is a story within a story.  The story within was a fairy tale, and very nicely crafted.  What-the-Dickens is a Skibberee, otherwise known as a tooth fairy.  He is an orphan and hasn't learned his purpose in life until he meets Pepper, who brings him to her colony and shows him the ways of the Skibberren.

The fairy tale was original, quirky, and had some nice dialogue.  What-the-Dickens was a lovable character.

On the other hand, the story that started the fairy tale I didn't care for at all.  It was very vague and unsatisfying.  Three children, Zeke, Dinah, and Rebecca Ruth, are abandoned in their home with an older cousin, perhaps during a hurricane?  You never quite know what's going on, I think on purpose.  While the power is out and they have no food in the house (how is that possible to run out of food for just a few days of hurricane?  Most people have a few things in the cupboard), their cousin Gage tells the story of What-the-Dickens.  The young girl, Dinah, didn't sound like any ten-year-old I've ever known, homeschooled or not.

I also found it degrading that the children were homeschoolers whose fanatical parents have isolated from town, no TV, and nothing but severe Christian books for reading material.  It put into focus what many people's concern is about homeschooling, that they're all isolationists, when it's usually the exact opposite.  It portrays homeschoolers in a bad light.

Overall, I gave the book a 2.  The main storyline really brought it down, though the fairy tale itself I might have given a 3.5.

Book Review - Paranormalcy - YA

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
Published by HarperTeen
352 pages





Orphaned sixteen-year-old Evie has been working for an international governmental paranormal agency since she was eight and they "rescued" her out of foster care.  Her job is to tag paranormals, vamps, hags, werewolves, mermaids and the like.  Her skill lies in seeing past the glamour the paranormals project to see what they really are. She lives in Central, the underground headquarters of the IPCA.  Evie meets Lend, a paranormal, for whom she finds she has feelings, while also finding out that something out there is killing paranormals.

Evie is a fun, light-hearted character, but very lonely, and a fairy takes advantage of that to use for his own purposes.  She also touches on racism, though not in so many words.  She's finding out the world she thought she knew is so much more, and what she thought she was doing for humankind's own good might not have been right.

The book had a nice pace to it, a few slow parts in the middle.  The ending was a bit anticlimactic, perhaps leaving room to make this a series?  There were many characters that I would have liked to know more about.

I would have given this a 3.5, but Evie was just so likeable.  It's a pretty clean book, no swearing or gore, a few sweet kissing scenes.  A good read.