Patrick Ness has a FREE short story up on Amazon for the Kindle. The New World describes the events leading up to Viola’s arrival from her point of view and it’s incredibly moving.
(I may have started getting a little teary-eyed while reading it in a parking lot waiting for friends. Whatever.)
I love that this was the very first thing I downloaded for the Kindle app on my iPod.
The Secret Hour (Midnighters #01) by Scott Westerfield 
Three out of Five Stars
Book Source: Library
When Jessica Day moves from big city Chicago to small town Bixby, Oklahoma, she doesn’t have the first idea what she’s getting into. Here, the hour of midnight turns the world to a strange place where everyone and everything else are frozen in time—everyone, that is, except Jessica and the other Midnighters she meets, and everything except the terrifying creatures called darklings and slithers that populate this world and seem hell bent on destroying Jess.
The idea of The Secret Hour is cool, and the details totally original (the darklings are scared of MATH, how cool is that?), it didn’t feel as fully realized as the world of Feed or Uglies. But it did hook me in and keep me reading, and I’m intrigued enough that I would probably get the next one.
I felt myself rolling my eyes a little at the common tropes that Jessica doesn’t know how pretty she is, etc. Her parents felt pretty broadly drawn, but I did like her snarky little sister. The other Midnighters were cool, except Jonathan, who I’m pretty sure I was supposed to like best. What can I say? I liked Dess best, and then Rex. And Melissa scares the crap out of me, so points there.
Two out of Five Stars
Book Source: Gift
I wish I could give this book more than two stars. I really enjoyed the first one—couldn’t put it down, had to find out what happened next kind of enjoyment—I couldn’t wait for the sequel.
Unfortunately, this one felt sort of like an interlude. It felt too long and drawn out to me; not enough actual action and way too much angst. I found myself rolling my eyes and feeling like the whole thing was a big soap opera with faeries near the middle.
And then, just when things started to get interesting again, it was over.
Which is to say, I will almost certainly be picking up the next one, just to see how it ends.
It certainly wasn’t all bad. There were parts I truly enjoyed and found fascinating. **SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!** Sorcha and her world, as well as her transformation were really interesting to me, as well as Donia growing a backbone and fighting back a little.
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
Five out of Five Stars
Book Source: gift
Man, this series. THIS SERIES just gets me in the chestal area! As much as I hate that this book, too, ends on a MONSTROUS cliffhanger, I’m still going to recommend it because it is just that awesome.
Picking up where “The Knife of Never Letting Go” so callously left off, on the first monstrous cliffhanger, Todd and Viola are separated, but they can’t imagine just how separated they have become until they realize they are on opposite sides of a war.
Man. THIS BOOK. I just have to keep saying that because I’m not even sure where to start. Should I start with the creepy awesome villains, who are so creepy, and so awesome, and so REAL, that I at least spent most of the book going, “Don’t trust him/her! Wait! Maybe he/she is ok! NO WAY, DON’T TRUST HIM/HER!”
This book inspires a lot of capslocks from me.
Or maybe I should talk about the fact that there is just SO MUCH going on under the surface of this book. You want to talk about feminism and anti-feminism and chauvinism and racism and xenophobia and torture and “the greater good?” Cause they’re all in there.
But this big theme of this one is trust. Who to trust, and when, and how. Even though Viola can hear everything Todd is thinking, all the time, they still find they start having trouble trusting one another, and that, I think, is a huge coup for the author.
And that’s other huge thing I liked about this book: Todd and Viola’s relationship. Because it could be corny, you know? It could be all, “We’re meant to be together.” It could be sappy and love story and “I’m 14 but I know that you and I are soul mates,” and it’s absolutely not. There’s a friendship element to them, and an element of needing each other and counting on each other for reasons that go way beyond romantic love, and it just felt real and right, and I was totally drawn in by it.
Like “The Knife,” this book is gritty, it’s real, it’s hard to read at parts, it doesn’t pull any punches. There’s blood and death and pain and fighting and betrayal, and not a whole lot of good things in between. It’s tense and taught and hard to put down. And it’s just a hell of a good story.
If you liked this book, you might also enjoy:
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
P.S. I am no longer an Amazon Associate. Because of a change in the tax laws in the state of Colorado, Amazon has dropped all associates in Colorado. So, I no longer receive any money if you click a previous link and buy a book from Amazon. But, I never actually earned any money from that anyway, so it’s no huge loss. From now on, I will be linking books to Goodreads.com where you can find more information on them.
In accordance with the FCC rules, I will still be letting you know where I got the books I review (whether a free ARC, a library book, or one I purchased). Look for this info in the header from now on.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Avery is a 15-year-old superman, with super strength and the ability to fly, but all he wants is to be normal, dull, and not have to worry about sending his parents to the poor house with all the stuff he breaks or about hurting someone unintentionally.
But after trying to flex his powers for the forces of good, Avery finds out he’s not the only person in the world with super powers — and that not all of them are so interested in fighting for the forces of good.
Avery and his buddies were what sold this book for me. Avery’s voice is incredibly sarcastic, funny and authentic busy worrying about girls at the same time he’s worrying about figuring out his super powers. Darla, his mad genius friend, is hilarious and geeky without falling back on geeky stereotypes, and his other friends Nicholas, Catherine and Sophie have interesting and unusual super powers and stay well out of the realm of cliche.
The overarching plot seemed a little thin to me, with the threat from the mysterious Cherchette a little too mysterious for too much of the book. The questions of whether or not she had the kids’ best interests at heart, as well as Avery’s struggle to decide whether to leave his parents or not, almost felt marginalized to the scene-by-scene hijinks going on with the super friends.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed this one and will be looking out for a sequel!
If you liked Dull Boy, you might like:
Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy
Little Brother
The Blue Girl
My good friend Cate is a professor of American history, and so I was thrilled that she would let me re-post her review of “The True Meaning of Smekday” for this blog. Enjoy!
The True Meaning of Smekday
by Adam Rex
review by Cate
I love this book!
Here’s the deal: the Boov invade earth. The tell humans that they all have to move to certain parts of Earth so that the Boov can have the rest (Americans get to move to Florida) and they sign treaties to show they’re …more I love this book!
Here’s the deal: the Boov invade earth. The tell humans that they all have to move to certain parts of Earth so that the Boov can have the rest (Americans get to move to Florida) and they sign treaties to show they’re serious about their promises. Only they end up liking Florida, so all the Americans have to move to Arizona. The Boov reckon humans can have that forever. Maybe.
(A children’s book with an allegory for the colonization of Native lands? Be still my heart!)
Amid all this chaos is eleven-year-old Gratuity Tucci, who has to try and get to Florida on her own when her mother’s abducted by the Boov. Her cat, called Pig, comes along for the ride, and somewhere in Pennsylvania they adopt a Boov (in a way). He goes by the name of J. Lo.
(A children’s book with a kickass female protagonist who – in a beautiful moment on pages 280-281 observes, “Mark Twain said the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug and people think he was good right? Didn’t write any decent girl characters, as far as I can tell, but otherwise, fine.”? Oh, SNAP.)
Just when you think you have the Boov figured out, along come the Gorp. The Gorp communicate mostly by hitting each other. And they smell pretty bad.
As Gratuity – ‘Tip’ to her friends – tries to work out how to save the world from the aliens, we’re treated to a sharp, witty meta-analysis of American history and culture. The people who try to help Tip look for her mother send out an APB for a black woman, since Tip herself is black – they’re very confused to realize Tip’s mom is white. Chief Shouting Bear (real name, Frank) gleefully yells “YOU STOLE MY LAND” at white liberals living in Roswell, corrects the names that Tip uses for various local Native communities, and calls her Stupidlegs on account of wanting to be fair to the fact that she’s half-white. There’s an illustrated history of Boov evolution in the middle of the book that makes some striking points about the power of the church, the oppressive tendencies of government, and the problem of global warming. And then, over and above all else, there’s language – Boov words scattered throughout the text that will encourage anyone who reads this book to start calling people poomps and kacknackers, but perhaps more beautifully, J. Lo’s English shifts and changes and reflects what he’s learned in books, in school, and finally by talking to humans. It makes for some moments of prime comedy, but there’s an incredible thoughtfulness about words and communication beneath.
All this in a book aimed at 9-12 year olds. I would love a book aimed at 37-50 year olds that was this freaking sophisticated.
The True Meaning of Smekday is 100% poomp free. Buy yours now.
Elliot (13) is my other cousin who has graciously agreed to review for me some books he read. Thanks, Elliot, and good job; sometimes, a bad review is the hardest to write.
**SPOILERS** This review contains spoilers for “Heroes of the Valley”
Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud
Submitted by Elliot
This is such a bad book I don’t even want to write about it, so you’ll just have to deal with my opinion of how this book should be rewritten. First off is the title, it should not be Heroes of The Valley, because it’s not about the Heroes whose graves monsters fear. It’s about some smart-alecky kid. Mr. Smart-aleck’s name is Halli Sveinsson of the House of Svein, who likes to play tricks on everyone, so he has no friends and spends a lot of time on his own being punished.
When his inebriated, murdering uncle gets murdered by Ragnar of the Hakonsson House, Halli follows his uncle’s footsteps in vengeance yet kills Ragnar by complete accident when a burning tapestry falls on him. (This kid is so not brave.) This starts a blood feud. Ragnar’s dad comes in with the Calvary, planning to lay waste to The Sveinsson House, but did not expect Halli to finally have a growth spurt in maturity and set up defenses.
In the final battle Halli and his girlfriend Aud leave the valley, which is a big no no, leading Hord and his men out of the protected area and into the waste land controlled by Trows, mindless creatures that fancy meat and pop out of the ground like gofers. This is the only well written part of the book, which is extremely creepy because these creatures get inside Halli’s uncles moldy body and try to eat him. But the sun comes up and Halli walks into the sunrise with his girlfriend.
This is a terrible ending because, in a part of the book I did not talk about, Halli and Aud find a path out of the valley which they believe is the path the first settlers took when they first came to the valley. I think that the author should have written about them following this path and finding other civilizations.
Oy. I’m behind on my reading—and my reviewing!—but I’ve made a new committment to reading a little bit every night, so hopefully I’ll get caught up again soon. But I wanted to do a little mini reviewing for ya to catch up on some of the things I’ve read lately!
Absolutely Maybe by Lisa Yee
rating: 3 of 5 stars
The best thing about Lisa Yee’s books are the stunning characters. These kids come alive off the page and leap into your memory so fully realized you’d swear you met Maybe rinsing Kool-Aid out of her hair in your dorm bathroom and that you bumped into Ted walking down Hollywood Boulevard in his platform shoes. I found the plot a little far-fetched and contrived at times, but overall, loved the characters enough to stick with them through to the end.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Neil Gaiman is the king of the creepy kid’s book, but this one is less creepy than “Coraline.” I believe I read in an interview (or perhaps on his blog) that he thought adults were much more creeped out by his works than kids are, and I think that’s true. Kids will accept that Bod lives with dead people as quickly and easily as Bod does.
I loved the story of Bod and the Graveyard folk and the Jacks, but the story left me wanting more. I wanted to know MORE about the Jacks in particular, more about Silas—who he really was and why he was really there—and more about what he and Miss Lepscue were doing while they were away. I also wanted to know more about how Bod would get by in the regular world. I suppose, however, that’s a mark of a good book, when it leaves you wanting for more.
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was kind of an odd book, but I did enjoy it. It really gave me a sense of who Marcelo was and how it was to live like him. But, as a reader, I could never truly sink into his persona and see the world through his eyes. I was extremely uncomfortable in certain scenes when Marcelo was being exploited, or when he misunderstood social interactions, and those moments were perhaps the most powerful for me in the book.
Flygirl
In life, there is often a frustrating lack of big, singular moments that define a person’s struggle. Real life often meanders and flows without providing those ultimate scenes that define a person’s journey It’s one reason I think memoir and autobiography are two of the hardest genres to write, because a story needs those big moments on which to turn. Were Flygirl a memoir, I might be able to forgive the lack of a convincing climax; for a work of fiction, it’s a lot harder to ignore.
I have to admit, when I picked up an ARC of Flygirl and read the back, I thought the marketing people had made an egregious call, casting a model for the cover who looked nearly white for a book about a black pilot. It wasn’t until I read a guest blog by author Sherri Smith that I realized it was part of the plot. Flygirlis about passing, about a light-skinned black girl pretending to be white. According to the same blog, “Once upon a time in the days of slavery, African American slaves who traveled away from their owners were required show passes to anyone who asked for them, to assure that they were on legitimate business. People who were not questioned, who were light enough, due to the blending of their genetics with those of the master’s family, were said to be able to ‘pass.’”
It’s not an easy topic to tackle, and I was a lot more interested in reading the book when I realized that was what it was about. The story follows Ida Mae Jones, a young black woman in Louisiana at the cusp of World War II. Ida Mae learned to fly her father’s crop duster when she was younger, but a combination of her gender, her race, and the gasoline rationing for the war has grounded her. When the U.S. enters the war, the army forms the Women Airforce Service Pilots — the WASPs. Ida Mae sees her chance to help her country and do what she loves, but it will not only require her to survive as a woman in a man’s army, it will require her to pretend to be something she’s not: white. Her light skin makes it possible, but is it the right thing to do?
Although the book raises those kinds of important questions, it never answers them, not for Ida Mae personally or in any broader sense. I think the biggest problem I had with the book was that Ida Mae only wanders vaguely towards a conclusion, even for herself. In fact, her character arc flattens out so disappointingly, I found myself incredulous as I realized I was reading the last page of the book.
There was no climax for Ida Mae as a character. She makes what feels like a split second decision about whether or not she will continue passing on the very last page of the book, and it feels anticlimactic.
And for me, that made the story fall flat. In real life, things sometimes work that way. Sometimes people don’t come to life-changing conclusions or learn lessons that change them in a fundamental way, but it’s one of the key tenants of a strong story. Ida Mae doesn’t change from the beginning of the story — for better or for worse. She starts in one place and ends up in much the same place she started, despite her experiences. Additionally, she faces no consequences of any weight for her decision. I’m not making any personal judgments about whether or not she should have faced consequences from a moral standpoint, but from a story standpoint, I think it would have made a much stronger book. The story itself never seems to reach a climax, rather just petering out, as though it just ran out of gas. As dangerous a proposition for a story as for a pilot in her plane.
If you like Flygirl
- Whale Talk by Chris Cutcher
- Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
Todd Hewitt won’t be a man for 30 more days, the only boy left in a world full of men. Noisy men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise, every man and boy can hear the thoughts of every other man and boy, whether they want to or not. But there’s something secret about the way boys become men in this place, and before he knows it, Todd is running for his life from these men with his talking dog because of something impossible: silence.
The Knife of Never Letting Go
In Todd’s first encounter with the preacher, Aaron, he describes the man’s face: “He smiles down at me, thru that beard of his, smiles down at me in the grass. A smiling fist.” And later, “I can smell the breath that comes outta his mouth, smell the weight of it, like fingers grabbing for me.”
Every word of this book feels carefully chosen and executed, from the ones illiterate Todd misspells to the words of the Noise, picked out in different fonts to convey the intrusion of another person’s thoughts on your own.
And each action feels carefully chosen as well. Everything in this book is a larger symbol for any of a multitude of different topics, covering everything from modern issues like gender equality, violence against women, xenophobia, the hypocrisies of organized religion, and information overload to archetypes as universal as The Fall.
The major symbol of Todd’s journey is his knife, given to him by one of his adopted fathers when he is forced to run from his town. Todd wrestles with it and its purpose from the very beginning foreshadowing its significance in the final act.
“But a knife ain’t just a thing, is it?” he ponders as he is presented his first real opportunity to use it. “It’s a choice, it’s a thing you do. A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don’t. A knife takes a decision our of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again.”
The knife is the symbol of Todd’s arduous, violent journey toward manhood. It physically represents the choice he has to make about what kind of man he will be: the kind his adopted father, Ben, wants him to be, or the kind Aaron and the rest of the men of the town want him to be. Once Todd knows the true nature of the choice, it seems like it would be cut and dried, and in a fairy tale land where the only ending is happily ever after, it would be. But Todd’s life is anything but a fairy tale, and the fact that his choice is an impossible one, even with the blatant forces of good and evil staring him in the face, raises this book to the level of literature instead of merely adventure.
The knife is alive.
As long as I hold it, as long as I use it, the knife lives, lives in order to take life, but it has to be commanded, it has to have me tell it to kill, and it wants to, it wants to plunge and thrust and cut and stab and gouge, but I have to want it as well, my will has to join with its will.
I’m the one who allows it and I’m the one responsible.
But the knife wanting it makes it easier.
But the knife barely scratches the surface of the deeper meaning woven into this book. I’d be extremely interested to read a feminist interpretation of the book, as the roles of women and their relationships to men play out across the warped stage of this planet cursed with men who can hear one another’s thoughts. As it is, this book has stayed with me since I picked it up, and after I put it down. I’m still thinking about it, worrying it around in my brain, trying to glean more meaning out of it.
Marked for ages 14 and up, this isn’t a book for young readers, no matter how precocious, but mature readers who can handle the literary tone will devour it and — word of warning — be extremely anxious for the next in the series when they reach the entirely unsatisfying cliff-hanger ending.
If you liked this book, you might also enjoy:
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
