Review: Raven Rise (Pendragon Book Nine)

Raven Rise by D.J. MacHale

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
In the ninth installment of Bobby Pendragon's quest to save Halla from the clutches of Saint Dane, things go from crummy to worse. Mark and Courtney don't know what to believe when Saint Dane tells them that Bobby has given up the fight, don't know what they've started when Mark loses his traveler ring, and don't know what to do when they return to a Second Earth where nothing is as it once was.

These books are really interesting to me on a craft level. On the one hand, the plotting is top notch; with most of this series, I think I see the final twist coming, I usually predict one right, and then WHAM! Something comes flying in out of left field that I never anticipated. But it doesn't feel like a cheat. It's just really excellent story telling.

On the other hand, I find myself pretty much constantly annoyed with some of the actual writing. D.J. MacHale is a perfect example of telling instead of showing. What he normally does is show us something and then tell us about it. Several times. For example:

"Welcome back," he said warmly, as if he actually meant it. "I was afraid you'd miss the festivities. Close your eyes; I'll put some lights on."

What a courteous guy! He didn't want me to be uncomfortable when he flicked on the lights. How thoughtful. I'd have thanked him if I hadn't wanted to hurt him.

MacHale is trying for the easy conversationalism and sarcasm of Bobby's internal monologue, but really, he just succeeds in telling us the same thing twice. And he does it over and over and over again throughout the book. The tome's 544 pages could probably have been trimmed by a third by an editor with a canny eye. As it is, I spend a lot of time skimming with these books.

Also, his tenses bother me. Everything Bobby writes in his journals is in the past tense. Everything. Even things that are still true. If he means, "I love Coke," as in, he still loves it even when he is writing the journal, he will nevertheless say "I loved Coke," as if the love had passed. I know, it's a grammarian thing, but it bugs the heck out of me and has for all nine books.

But that's the interesting part. I still love the story. I'm still coming back for more. And I'm still REALLY disappointed that the last book of the series isn't out yet so I can run out and read it.

Definitely good for guys, especially guys who like a series they can sink their teeth into. But girls will probably like it just as much. Hooray for female characters who kick ass!


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Review: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Aly Carter

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have to admit: I've really got a thing for spy books, especially spy schools, and the Gallagher Girls really hit me right where I live. So fun! So snarky!



Cammie, the main character, has such a wonderfully realized voice. These books work because Cammie is believable not only as a spy, but as a teenage girl.



While I tore through this one almost as fast as the first in the series (I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You), I wasn't quite as engaged. It seemed like we were covering similar ground even though the boy was at the school this time instead of outside of it. I really wished there was more at stake for Cammie, and I found myself disappointed that the big sting at the end was a manufactured test rather than a real emergency. I want Cammie to have more riding on her decisions than just whether or not she gets the guy.



I'll probably keep reading this series in the hopes that Aly Carter will up the ante for her Gallagher Girls. I feel like there's a lot I can learn from her voice and tone.



Great for any YA reader, especially girls with some spunk. 10+


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Review: The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love a book that takes an familiar trope and turns it on its ear. Forget what you know from other books about fairies; Charles de Lint's fairies aren't particularly beautiful, but they are a little bit wicked. I loved the way he mixed elements from fantasy, science fiction, even horror to create his world.

The characters are realistic and believable, and the issues they deal with are real as much as they are fantastic. Bullying, oppressive parents, parents who don't care enough, image and one's real self all come into play. Not to mention soul sucking shadow creatures, fairies, ghosts, angels and an imaginary friend named Pelly who is half boy, half hedgehog, half rabbit.

Great book, probably for slightly older YA audience. 14+ for good measure.

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Review: The City of Ember

[Reposted from 2005]

I have to admit, The City of Ember caught my eye because of its cover. The cover of the paperback is a slightly shiny metallic bronze color, with a single light bulb, the filament of which spells out the word "ember." It's very aesthetically pleasing.

Ember is classified as a young adult book, and while I did end up enjoying it, it commits itself to a fallacy that I think young adult literature needs to strive harder to overcome: it talks down to the reader.

One of the main reasons that the Harry Potter books are so insanely popular is that, while definitely aimed at a young audience, Rowling never dumbs down her story or her language to "accommodate" her younger readers. Quite frankly, they don't need it. Society does quite enough dumbing down for our kids, and personally, I think what they need more of is a challenge.

[/soapbox]

The City of Ember is the story of a city where it is dark all the time, but there is no moon, and no stars. The sky is black, and the city is lit entirely by electric lights, which have begun to fail. At one time the citizens of Ember had all they could want in the way of material goods like clothes and canned food, but now things have begun to run out. There is even a rumor going around that they are running out of light bulbs, and if the lights go out in Ember...

The story follows two twelve year old children, Lina and Doon. At the end of their school year when they are twelve, all children get assigned a job in the city. Lina wants to be a messenger, but she draws the dreaded job of pipesworker, fixing and maintaining the water pipes that run under the city. Doon draws messenger and offers to trade -- he wants to work in the pipeworks, because he wants to try to figure out how to fix the electricity.

But there's very little a twelve year old boy can do, when no one in all of Ember really understands the generator, or the electricity. When Lina finds part of an old message, however, she and Doon realize that there may be a way out of Ember and a better life for everyone.

The plot and the characters are engaging, but, as I said, unsophisticated. Lina and Doon don't think or speak or act the way I would expect a normal twelve-year-old person to act, and they certainly don't act as though they are adults, which is what the book would have you believe -- they get jobs when they are twelve and become productive members of society.

Honestly, I feel as though the author might have been missing a bet, trying to simplify her story for children. The message that Lina finds could have been an excellent plot device to engage the audience into trying to figure it out with her, but the author doesn't provide us with enough clues to figure it out for ourselves; so when Lina and Doon do begin to translate bits of the message, it's almost anticlimactic, because it seems to come too easily to them.

The one other thing that bothered me about this book is that it ends with a cliffhanger. It's a particular pet peeve of mine that books should not end with the characters hovering between life and death, and although Doon and Lina are not dangling from a cliff or watching an army ready for the attack, their situation at the end of the book is no less hazardous. The City of Ember is not a long book, which makes me wonder why the author chose to make it two (the second is called The People of Sparks) instead of simply continuing the story to its logical conclusion.

Overall: a tad disappointing, which, I suppose, teaches me that I should stop choosing my books by their covers, no matter how intriguing...

Review: Into the Wild

Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a GREAT idea! Wish I'd thought of it!

Julie lives in suburban Massachusetts with her mother, Rapunzel, and her adopted brother, Puss In Boots. Her mother, brother, and a host of their friends all escaped from The Wild hundreds of years ago, where they had been imprisoned, forced to relive their fairytale stories over and over and over again. The Wild is now imprisoned under Julie's bed.

Until it isn't.

I loved the way this story took every fairy tale convention and turned it on its head. Goldie(locks) is a self-centered woman only concerned with what SHE wants; Cindy wears ridiculous clothes and drives around in a bright orange suburban; and Snow's seven have very old-fashioned ideas about whether young ladies should be wearing jeans at the dinner table. So fun!

This was a quick, fun, energetic story, and the characters were so compelling, I can't wait to read the sequel.

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Review: Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you don't read the blog boingboing.net, you should. And if you like what you see, then you should definitely read Little Brother.

Written by Cory Doctorow, one of the editors of the delightfully subversive, fascinating and informative blog Boing Boing, Little Brother doesn't disappoint in any measure. It's a quick read, with lots of action, strong characters with good voices, and a quick-moving plot.

Like another of my recent reads, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, this book is a pseudo-issues book, tackling the issue of individual freedoms versus national safety.

In the near future, Marcus and some friends ditch school to participate in the scavenger hunt portion of an online game, and are therefore in the wrong place at the worst possible time when a terrorist attack blows up the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Arrested and held by the Department of Homeland Security, Marcus and his friends quickly learn what personal freedoms really mean, and when the DHS takes over the city, detaining, questioning, and wrongly imprisoning hundreds of innocent civilians in the pursuit of terrorists, the teens decide to fight back.

Part of the fascination of this book is its plausibility. Doctorow takes his plot to logical extremes, and all of the digital subversion the teens participate in is based in real technology and theory.

As with The Disreputable History, I was impressed with the way the author's argument was presented. While it's clear where Doctorow and his main characters stand on the issues, he presents the arguments of the other side and allows his characters to argue smartly, even eloquently for their side. We sometimes see the opposing characters as bumbling or moronic because they are seen through Marcus' eyes, but Doctorow doesn't take any shortcuts explaining his side of the argument.

It's also a great example of another trend I've been seeing in YA lately — authors giving their intended audience a great deal of credit. These books treat their teen audience as near-adults who think and decide for themselves, which is as it should be.

I've no doubt Little Brother will be challenged and banned widely — for a lot of reasons. So pin your "I read banned books" button proudly to your lapel and download it for free from the author's website if you can't get your hands on a copy anywhere else.


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Review: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am not a very good feminist. I always thought I was sort of fair to middling, but now I realize that I usually only see something through a feminist viewpoint if someone else points it out to me. It's something I'd like to change.

In fact, I wish I had had this book when I was a teenager (or, more specifically, I wish it has existed when I was a teenager) because it really made some great points about being a young woman in a male dominated society.

Frankie Landau-Banks attends a prestigious boarding school whose students go on to Ivy-League colleges, big business and politics. At first, she doesn't think much about the Old Boys network she is a part of until she decides she really wants to be a part of it — and can't. It might have to do with the fact that she's not rich enough, not well-connected enough, maybe even not Christian enough (at all) — or it might just be that she's not male enough.

I loved the way the author wove in the feminist ideas without beating people over the head with them. Frankie's older sister is away in college at Berkley and has a lot of strong feminist ideas, not all of which Frankie is ready to accept. After Frankie's (rich, powerful, old boy) boyfriend gives her his favorite T-shirt, Frankie and Zada have the following conversation:

But when she told Zada about it, Zada said, "Ugh. Frankie, don't be so retro. I mean, Matthew's a good guy and all, but wearing his T-shirt is like wearing a sign that says 'Property of Matthew Livingston' on your breasts."

"Zada!"

"Well, it is."

"It is not."

"It's like he's marking you."

"On the contrary," Frankie snapped. "He gave me something he loves, something he usually wouldn't want to be without."

Throughout the book, Frankie needs to make up her own mind about how she sees the world. Unfortunately, she doesn't always like what she sees. But the author doesn't villify anyone, either. There are other young women in the book who are happy being trophy girlfriends, or enjoy being domestic and fitting traditional female roles, and neither Frankie nor the author judge them for their decisions. They leave that entirely up to the reader.

Even the boys, who are sometimes less than virtuous knights in shining armor, aren't truly the villains of this story. They are as much the heroes of their own stories as Frankie is of hers.

The story was fun and rambunctious even without getting into feminist theory, but I think the underlying message is a really great one for young women to think about — and make up their own minds about. I wish I'd had a big sister Zada, or an E. Lockheart to make me think about these things when I was a teen.


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Suite Scarlett

Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I had trouble getting into this book. I liked Scarlett as a character, and I liked her quirky family and odd guest at the hotel, but I felt like nothing ever really happened. It had a very episodic feel to me, as if I were reading the quirky adventures of Scarlett in her hotel. Tune in next week! There also never really seemed to be very much at stake for her or any of the other characters.



I wanted to love it! But ended up thinking it was just OK.


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Percy Jackson to the Rescue!

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a great book! Fun, fast-paced, great characters, great premise.



I loved the idea that Percy's ADD and dyslexia were linked to him being half god, and I especially loved the ways in which the mythical creatures insinuated themselves into modern society.



Percy's voice was clever and believable, and I'm sure I'll be picking up more of this series when I can!


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The Hound of Rowan

The Hound of Rowan by Henry H. Neff

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I realize that there have been stories about magical schools since long before Ms. Rowling picked up a pen, and that there will be similar stories long after, but as I was reading this particular addition to the pile, I couldn't help being stunned by the similarities. The details were all significantly different, but many of the tropes were exactly the same. Enter a magical school that likes to play tricks on its inhabitants (moving staircases?), unusual magical pets, a reformed ogre employed by the school with a soft spot for the protagonist, a big bad believed to be vanquished all these years, a magical sport the protagonist excels at… I could go on and on.



Another similarity to the first Harry Potter book is that the story didn't really get going until nearly two-thirds of the way into the book. Even then, however, I found myself having trouble really enjoying it. Every dozen pages or so, I would find myself so astounded by the audacity of the similarities to the Harry Potter books that I'd have to stop reading.



Sorry, Mr. Neff. I bet I would have loved this book a lot — if it had come out 11 years ago.


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Film Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Ah, nostalgia. That strange malfunction of hindsight that causes us to look back and think how much better things were before.

But there is no place for nostalgia in the land of film remakes. Remakes, you see, are the new vogue; you cannot help but notice it just looking at the summer movie lineup. Hungry film producers are eager to sanction a remake because they build on an already existing market. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a double whammy because it has two already established markets: fans of the book and fans of the first movie.

However, only one of those demographics is going to come away from this film pleased, I think.

In my own personal opinion, pairing Tim Burton and Roald Dahl was a stroke of pure, unadulterated genius. Both are edgy, sometimes dark, criminally funny, and distinctly... well, weird. Burton's personal style simply oozes out of this film in all its lush spindly, spiny, colorful glory, and is an excellent match for those strange stick figure drawings from Dahl's own books. Some of the trees in the chocolate room in particular called to mind Dahl's illustrations for me, as did some of the controls the Oompa Loompas were manipulating and some of the inventions in the inventing room. Burton's fondness for angular faces and deep shadow was also an excellent fit with the characters in my mind's eye from Dahl's novels.

But then, I fall into the first of the two established fan bases I mentioned: I am a fan of the book first and foremost.

Fans of the first film will quickly realize: this isn't Gene Wilder's chocolate factory. Johnny Depp is immediately off-putting as Willy Wonka, and deliberately so. Rather than the wide-eyed innocent lunacy of his predecessor, Depp hints at much darker neuroses and psychoses behind the quips and quirks of the chocolatier.

Depp's character, while fascinating in the same sort of way that a massive accident on the freeway is fascinating, is not loveable, nor endearing, nor, in fact, very believable. Depp's great genius as an actor comes from his ability to create entirely whole, unique, and realistic characters -- no matter how much of a hyperbole they might be, but the over-the-top characterization that worked so well for Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean somehow falls short for Willy Wonka. Where it was delightful to watch a swishy swashbuckler, it is unnerving and even at times uncomfortable to watch the creepy chocolatier.

Yet while the visuals are stunning and the weird-factor strangely captivating, the dark side of the movie feels disjointed with the morals the film tries to teach, and the message becomes trite, over played, and entirely un-subtle rather than blending with the other elements of the film as smoothly as the river of chocolate. The Gene Wilder version of the film worked with the syrupy sweet morals about good children and bad children in part because it had taken off the edge and given Charlie a clear cut reason for winning Wonka's ultimate prize. Burton's version tries to stay closer to the morals of the book -- Charlie wins Wonka's prize not because he is better than the other children, but simply because he is less bad -- but the final product falls short of the delicate balance of bitter and sweet that Dahl achieved so perfectly in the book.

Film Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Walking out of the movie theater after seeing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I felt a little like I had walking out of seeing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time: astounded by parts, enthralled by others, but overall, a little disappointed at the choices the filmmakers had made.

Parts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had me in stitches. Seeing the Vogons, Magrathea, the Heart of Gold, Zaphod's heads, Marvin -- it was all like a beautiful dream come true. Watching it, I could tell that the directors really felt a synergy with the source material and wanted to bring those visions to life. The decision to use puppets in many places instead of CGI was BRILLIANT (we'll leave my "Why Yoda Should NEVER Have Been Animated" rant for another day), the sets were stunning, and the casting was a stroke of genius.

Martin Freeman is Arthur Dent, in all his glory. I worried about Zaphod, Ford, and Trillian all being Americans, but they pulled it off brilliantly. I believed every single one of them in their roles.

Too bad they had rather a crap script to work with.

It occurred to me in thinking about this film to wonder why it had spent so many years in development hell before finally being made. Was it because film executives were afraid of the inherent strangeness of the story? Were they worried that it wouldn't appeal to a vast enough audience and end up as one large inside joke?

Probably. But the thing that really struck me after having seen the film, read the interviews, and judged the end product for myself , is that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is what I've heard referred to as a linear story. It doesn't follow a three act structure. Even when taken with the other four books, the plot wanders and meanders the way real life does. Since it was originally conceived as a radio programme, the episodic nature of the storytelling bleeds over into the novels.

It is not, in short, a story that is readily adaptable for the screen.

After Douglas Adams' death, the screenplay was handed over to Karey Kirkpatrick for a final rewrite. Not having any familiarity with the work himself, he could see why Douglas' screenplay didn't work; it didn't have an overarching plotline or theme to tie the whole thing back together. By his own admission, he created one out of thin air in the hopes that it would sell the film to a more traditional (and therefore wider) audience.

The "exploration" (and I use that term VERY loosely) of the romance between Arthur and Trillian and the theme of Arthur's reluctance to venture out of his comfort zone provide the three act structure that the studio executives at Disney so desperately craved. Unfortunately, it was a poor choice, forcing all of the rest of the story, the parts the fans love and crave, into secondary roles as subplots. Indeed, the destruction of the Earth, the search for Magrathea, and all the resulting hilarity becomes secondary to the entirely fabricated love story between Arthur and Trillian.

In addition, because the rest of the story is what most of the fans are going to go to the movie theater to see, many people will be highly disappointed when they are spoon fed a weak and horribly clichéd plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights for girl, boy wins girl back. The only good parts are the details that get thrown in between the commas.

By superimposing the Hollywood status quo onto a story which is, at its soul, anything but, the screenwriter effectively succeeded in alienating a large portion of the film's core constituency: Hitchhiker fans. The ones who can quote the novels chapter and verse, the ones who have all of the BBC TV show on tape, the ones who arrived to the theater with their towels slung enthusiastically around their necks (true story). When the quirky events they know and love get relegated to the back seat of the film, they are going to be understandably disappointed.

Unfortunately, the wider audience Disney was so worried about garnering will also come away disappointed. While the in jokes that abound throughout the movie redeem it in some small way to fans familiar with the material, I fear that much of it will fly at light speed over the heads of the uninitiated. Because the episodes have been crammed into a much shorter time, competing with new material and the dubious main plot, the actual funny bits zoom past at breakneck speed. In addition, many of the jokes are so literary -- literally excerpts from the Guide -- they cannot be quickly digested by someone who isn't reciting the words along with the film in her head. Someone who hasn't read the books would probably have to see the film more than once to appreciate many of the jokes -- and since the main plot is so terribly trite, they'll be lucky if they make it through the first sitting.

My biggest question, I suppose, was why they couldn't have come up with a better A plot. The source material is THICK with plots: Zaphod's search for Magrathea, Ford's research for the guide, Arthur's experiences being thrown out into the universe and searching for a home. Any and all of these would have made a better three act structure than the contrived romance which actually made the cut. I understand the filmmakers' need to define a rising plot line, I understand their hesitancy to make the film as a linear story, I even understand the pull of a classic love triangle. What I don't understand is how they could subvert the source material so blatantly and expect the fanatical fan base to understand.

To murder an old bit of verse, "When it was good, it was very very good, but when it was bad it was AWFUL." Trying too hard once again, Disney, and it has resulted in a bastardization of what could have been a great film. I think the thing that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy teaches us is that when you seek something as vast, as wonderful, and as mysterious as the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and -- well -- everything, it's quite probable that the answer will be more than a little disappointing.

Reviews: Trickster's Queen and In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce

I have a bad habit of starting to read some series right smack dab in the middle. And then, of course, once I realize that it's a series, I have to go back to the beginning and read everything I can get my grubby little paws on as quickly as possible. I love to read series. I love having my favorite characters grow and change and -- best of all -- keep growing and changing for as long as possible. Frankly, I never want them to end.

In reading Trickster's Choice I was unwittingly doing just that. I thought it was the beginning of a series -- which it is -- but it is also the next generation of an already well-developed and well-loved fantasy universe with at least eight (probably more) books preceding it. Intrigued, I picked up one of its predecessors, In the Hand of the Goddess, at a used bookstore and read it in one sitting on my flights from Albquerque to Orange County this weekend. Trickster's Queen, the sequel to Trickster's Choice, was one of my freebie selections for joining audible.com, so I listened to it on my iPod.

First, a little background information: In the Hand of the Goddess is the second book in the first cycle of books based in the Tortall universe, and centers around Alanna, a young woman who has switched places with her twin brother in order to become a knight. By this second book, she has made it past her years as a page and has been made personal squire to Jonathan, the prince of Tortall, who is one of the only people who knows her secret. The Trickster's books are about Aly -- Alanna's daughter -- and set some twenty-to-thirty odd years later.

The most interesting thing for me to note reading these two books in such quick succession is how much the author has grown. In the Hand of the Goddess is often trite, clichéd, jumpy, and a much simpler story than Trickster's Queen. (I got quickly sick of the beautiful and spunky Alanna turning down the advances of the handsome prince and the clever king of thieves because she claimed she would never love a man. I got equally tired of their persistent fawning over her as well.) Where the one is predictable and ultimately unsatisfying, the other is engrossing, intricate, and unique.

It's a very interesting contrast to compare the two books from different points in the author's personal history and realize how much she has grown as a writer. Trickster's Queen is probably twice as long and infinitely more complex than In the Hand of the Goddess, yet one can see the burgeoning talent of the author peeking through even in this earlier work. I was fascinated.

Also, as an aside, in Trickster's Queen, Aly finally gets it on with the hottie crow-man Nawat. Thank GOD. I was going crazy on her behalf. ;c)

Review: Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce

Yesterday, it was POURING down rain -- again. (Seriously people, if anyone has an extra ark they could lend me, I think we're going to need it.) And yet, undeterred by said downpour, at 3:30 yesterday afternoon, I went downstairs, out to my car, in the pouring rain, wearing a suit and dress shoes, so that I could spend my 15 minute break reading and finishing Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce.

Trickster's Choice revolves around a girl named Aly who is, as far as I can tell, a second generation heroine in this series, which is to say, there are quite a few books which come before which seem to have to do with her parents and godparents and their generation. Aly is the only daughter of The Lioness, the first woman knight of the realm and champion to the king, and a common thief turned master spy. Her godsparents include the king and queen of her country, a mage and his demigoddess shape-shifting wife, and probably others. Aly wants to be a spy for her father, but he refuses, saying that the life is too hard and too dangerous for his only daughter. In a fit of impetuous independence, Aly takes her boat out with the intention of visiting friends up the coast, but is instead captured by pirates and sold into slavery. Luck -- and a lot of uncommon good sense -- are on Aly's side, and she is sold to a kind family. She is about to be sold again when the Kyprioth, the Trickster God, appears to her and makes her a wager: if she can keep the children of her Master's family alive through the summer, he will send her home and help her maker her father see reason and let her be a spy.

Of course, one should never make a wager with a god, especially not a Trickster.

This is the first real high fantasy novel I've read in I can't tell you HOW many years, and I had forgotten why I used to love fantasy novels so much. This book has everything a fantasy lover could want: rich details, complex political and social histories, and intriguing lands, peoples, magic, creatures, etc. etc. etc.. Aly's world is distinct, unique, and interesting, and it doesn't fall back too much on clichéd fantasy stereotypes. The characters are realistically drawn, and even though it is a cast of dozens (there's a glossary of people and places at the back to help you keep track) each character is unique and compelling. These kinds of books suck you straight into their world and clamp down, holding onto your attention with an iron grip.

My favorite character -- besides Aly -- was the crow sent to help her, Nawat. The crows are servants of the Trickster God, and Nawat chooses to take on human form to help Aly. He's very quick, very strong, and very smart, but naive to the ways of humans, of course. He brings Aly shiny things that he thinks will please her, and catches arrows with his bare hands, and teaches Aly to understand the language of the crows. And he eats bugs. But he's delicious and sweet and if Aly doesn't want him, I'll take him. Some of the bits with Nawat made me giggle right out loud like a sixteen-year-old fangirl myself. =)

The best part of this book is that the author knew she had an epic story to tell, so she doesn't try to tell it all at once. The story never feels rushed, but at the same time, when the book ends, you don't feel as though you're left hanging -- you just want to dash out an buy the next book as soon as possible! (Which I shall probably do on my lunch break today!)

I'm such a sucker for a series. If the first book is halfway decent, as long as it has compelling characters, I am there. I'll be loyal to a series and read it 'til it's through. (The only series I've ever dropped part way through was Piers Anthony's Xanth books, but I think I can be forgiven for that, as there're about 50 of them now, and the last 25 or so are all complete and utter crap.) So I'm entirely excited about having a new series to follow, and desperately eager to go out in the rain -- again -- today, and buy the next in the series, Trickster's Queen.

Review: Whale Talk by Chris Cutcher

If I had to choose one word to describe this book, it would be harsh. And I mean that in a good way.

Whale Talk was one of the books on the recommended reading list for my upcoming Children's Author's Bootcamp conference, which is why I went out and bought it. I probably would not have been drawn to it or purchased it otherwise, because the cover and the summary make it seem like it is a book about sports.

It is, in fact, so much more.

The main character is a boy named T.J. Jones (the J is redundant). He is part black, part white, and part Japanese, living in a small town in Washington state. He is adopted. He is exceptionally athletic, but has anger management issues, so avoids organized sports. Because of this, he is ostracized by his highly sport-centric high school. (Think "Friday Night Lights.")

T.J.'s favorite teacher is told by the administration that he has to take on coaching duties because they are short on male teachers, and they suggest he be the assistant wrestling coach. The teacher doesn't want to, and instead proposes that he form a swim team with T.J. -- an accomplished amateur swimmer -- as its core.

T.J. is skeptical. He wants nothing to do with organized sports, so at first declines. However, on his way home from school, he sees one of the football gods of the school hassling a mentally challenged boy who wears his dead brother's letter jacket. T.J. stands up for the other boy, and the football jock declares that no one should be allowed to wear a letter jacket unless he earns it, which sets T.J. to thinking.

Agreeing to join the swim team, T.J. goes out of his way to recruit every outcast, misfit, and weird-o the school has to offer, including the mentally challenged boy. His plan is to get them all into letter jackets by the end of the year.

Their struggle for recognition and acceptance is the underlying plot of Whale Talk, but it has more subplots than "General Hospital" and "Days of Our Lives" combined. Each character has a story; each story will break your heart. Whale Talk does not sugar coat the teenage experience. In fact, one might go so far as to say that the circumstances given to the main characters of this book are all rather extreme, yet that is part of what makes this book so powerful. T.J. tells the story honestly from his own point of view, and he realizes that, while he most definitely has his share of problems, they are frequently dwarfed by the everyday challenges some of his peers are met with.

Although this is classified as a Young Adult novel, it is not for the faint of heart. In just a few hundred pages, T.J. encounters racism, mental illness, poverty, homelessness, child abuse, manslaughter, murder, sexual abuse, date rape, cruelty to animals, bigotry, elitism, mob mentality, and small town politics -- just to name a few off the top of my head. Parts of this book had me practically in tears from the sheer horror of what was going on. More than once I actually had my hand pressed over my mouth in shock, even as my eyes were glued to the page.

And the novel never fails to keep you on your toes. I was still being surprised and knocked off my feet by the plot twists to the very last page. You will NEVER see the ending coming.

The characters, while laden with more emotional baggage than your average group of high schoolers should rightfully have, are nevertheless all starkly and accurately drawn. We have all known these kids, or some iteration thereof, and T.J.'s ragamuffin swim team gives them a credible excuse to all be in the same place at the same time. The boys are all lovable in their own unique ways, some because you feel so sorry for them, others because they are ennobled through their thoughts and actions, others because they are simply and purely lovable. The bad guys, while the quintessential extremes of small town evil, are also given enough background to make them seem credible and understandable. Again, most of us will (sadly) recognize these boys, these men, from experiences in our own lives.

T.J.'s voice is the glue that holds these many interwoven plots together, and it is a strong voice. You know this kid from the moment he starts to speak; he is frank and frustrated, honest to a fault, angry with good reason, and trying desperately to be the good person he knows he is deep inside. He is fascinating, charismatic, and enthralling, and his story is brutal, painful, and true.

To say that this book is a page turner is putting it very lightly. It is short, and a lightening fast read, but it will have you wanting to finish it in a single sitting. Several times I found myself reading passages out loud to my husband because they were just so taughtly written and so perfectly worded. It is, as a whole, and exercise in decadent minimalism, telling you only what you need to know, but in such a way that each detail is as sharp as a razor, and as clear as the most perfect diamond.

To say that I liked this book is a revelation for me, because I can honestly say it's one of the first books of its kind that I ever enjoyed. Books of teenage angst didn't hold much interest for me as a teenager, let alone as an adult. Yet T.J. attacks his problems with such honesty and aplomb that you can't help but feel an affinity for him. For him, there is no angst, no wallowing in his ill luck. He simply lives his life and moves on, because if he pauses long enough to dwell on it, it will swallow him whole.

Review: Good Omens

This is a book about the apocalypse, the ultimate battle between good and evil, the antichrist, the four horsemen, hell hounds, angels, and devils.

It is also a comedy.

It's very much a Hitchhiker's Guide meets Monty Python British take on the events of the end of the world in which the angel with the flaming sword and the snake from the Garden of Eden become friends whilst on Earth doing their respective jobs, and decide, when the time comes, that they're actually quite fond of the planet and of humanity in general, and that things will be, on the whole, terribly uninteresting if the world were to end. So they decide to thwart it.

Fortunately, it doesn't need a whole lot of thwarting. Things start to go wrong when the Antichrist is switched at birth and given to the wrong set of parents so that, when he should have been raised by a couple of satanists, he is, in fact, raised by a painfully normal couple in a nice little village.

The best parts of this book are the two main characters, Aziraphale the angel and his friend Crowley the demon. Their discussions about the nature of good and evil, the ineffability of the divine plan, and the fact that really, their jobs aren't too difficult, because humans get up to more evil, and greater good, than either of them could ever come up with.

And just when you'd think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved. It was this free-will thing, of course. It was a bugger.

Aziraphale had tried to explain it to him once. The whole point he'd said -- this was somewhere around 1020, when they'd first reached their little Arrangement -- the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be. Whereas people like Crowley and, of course, himself, were set in their ways right from the start. People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.

Crowley had though about this for some time and, around 1023, had said, Hang on, that only works, right, if you start everyone off equal, okay? You can't start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born in a castle.

Ah, Aziraphale had said, that's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have,.

Crowley had said, That's lunatic.

No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

I really quite enjoyed the humor, and, in fact, most of the psychological theological discussion. Some of the characters wandered dangerously close to idiotic and ridiculous, while others were just plain boring. The four horsemen, for example, could have been genious, but ended up merely as plot points, which was rather disappointing.

The ending was... a tad anticlimactic. Which is saying a lot for a book about the end of the world. But in the end, I'm not sure there was much other way for them to end it. It was certainly no Left Behind in terms of vast religious doom, but it was entertaining, and a very fun read.

Film Review: Lost in Translation

Sophia Coppola is a quiet filmmaker. She doesn't rely on explosions, vulgar comedy, blatant sex, or other shock-value techniques to make her films, and this makes her films both intriguing and confusing, engaging, and slightly off-putting. But somehow they work. They move quietly along, whispering in our minds, leaving ideas and images that don't immediately resonate, but that begin to ring true with time. Her films tend to shake us from within, like a deep bell tone, or the lowest note played on a pipe organ: quiet, almost beyond hearing, yet deeply felt.

The average movie goer-might not immediately connect with Coppola or her work, for she isn't producing films for mass consumption to fit every palate. Her films have a slightly foreign quality to them, as if perhaps, something was lost in the translation. And yet, I find, if one pays close enough attention, her films are fulfilling in their very lack of fulfillment.

This may sound as though I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not. A painting fulfills expectations by showing us a scene; a good painting exceeds expectations by causing our imagination to travel beyond the frame to question the story behind the scene. The painting does not tell the whole story, because it does not have to; it is the wonder that makes it great.

I feel this way about Copola's films, especially her recent award winner, Lost in Translation. While the film is very spare, using only the absolute minimum required dialog and back story to propel it along, it is somehow more powerful for leaving us to question it than it would have been had all our questions been answered. Few filmmakers could execute this successfully, but Coppola does so with inherent grace.

I would venture to say that this kind of quiet filmmaking is an almost impossibly delicate balance between the director's personal vision, which might not reach anyone but herself, and a vision suitable for the masses, which everyone can understand, but everyone has seen before. Coppola finds this balance expertly through, interestingly enough, her film's lack of concrete details. We do not know everything about Bob and Charlotte, but then, neither do they. As in life off the screen, it is enough that their creator knows them.

And therein lies the universality of Lost in Translation; it is an undeniable part of the human condition to be a seeker, to search for meaning, and to find oneself lost. There is a scene in the film when Bill Murray's character is sitting in a tub, talking to his wife on the phone, and he begins to rant about the ways in which he wants to change his life: taking better care of himself, eating better food, in short, a lifestyle overhaul. In that moment, he becomes an archetype -- not a hero, or an anti-hero, but a human being, experiencing a moment of epiphany, of wanting something more for himself, for his life and being sure of the path to take.

Every human being has experienced moments like these, and it is these universal moments of quiet revelation that characterize us; it is not explosions or unbelievable adventures or life and death situations, but simple, quiet, universal moments that define our lives and our existence as human. By tapping into these experiences, Coppola's Lost in Translation transcends traditional moviemaking, where the aim is simply to entertain, and enlightens it with the intention of quietly touching us, and making us think.

Film Review: Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban

Before I begin this review, I have to give you a brief disclaimer: as I write this, there is a Harry Potter coffee mug with the cold dregs of my morning tea sitting at my left hand. I own all 5 books in the Harry Potter series in hardcover (because I couldn't possibly wait for them to come out in paperback) and I have read all of them a minimum of two times, some as many as six times. Seriously. On top of the same bookshelf on which these books reside sits a Harry Potter trivia game (in the vein of Trivial Pursuit) and a Harry Potter chess set (from the first film). If you were to look at my DVD collection (which, for a film major like myself is surprisingly small), you would find both of the first two Harry Potter films. My point is, I am not your average adult Harry Potter fan; I have chronic Potter-mania at a level bordering on that of an 11 year old child. I will admit to you that I waited in a bookstore until midnight to be one of the first to get the fifth book when it came out. I was number 472 at my store. I know that because I kept the ticket. Such is the level of my mania.

That being said, (in far more words than was strictly necessary), I did not really love the first two Harry Potter movies. I went to both on they day they opened. I bought both of the DVDs as soon as they came out (the first before I even owned my own DVD player). Yes, it can safely be said that I like the first two movies quite a lot.

But I don't really love them.

Until Friday June 4th, I couldn't really have told you why. True, they weren't entirely faithful to the books, which I passionately love. True, some of the characters weren't entirely as I pictured them. True, some of the scenes that were cut left me asking why, as did some that were left in. But all of this is to be expected when a beloved book is made into a film. I'm a film student, for God's sake! I know better than anyone that it is impossible to fit a 200 page book into a few hours of screen time, especially a book as impossibly detailed as one of the Harry Potters. Cuts must be taken, sacrifices made. This is why they're called "adaptations."

But knowing all this didn't make that uneasy feeling go away. Something was wrong. Something was missing. What, I couldn't say.

Then, at 8:30 on Friday night, as that delightfully catchy John Williams theme began playing and the entire theater around me erupted into spontaneous excited applause, I began to find out.

I don't know who made the decision at Warner Brothers to hand the reigns of the Harry Potter franchise over to a new director. I suspect, from what I've read, that Chris Columbus wisely thought that the series would get stale if not reinvented periodically. Who actually decided to take that leap of faith and hire a new director, we may never know, but he should be awarded an honorary Oscar for saving the Harry Potter film franchise.

Cuaron is, in every way, the best thing that ever happened to the franchise, and I will tell you why. Cuaron envisions the world of Harry Potter and his friends and enemies as a real world. An existing world; not a figment of the imagination. Harry's muggle family no longer seem to live in a cast-off section of EuroDisney entitled "Suburbia," but in the real, and infinitely more frightening and depressing world of cookie-cutter suburbs and urban decay. The castle is no longer a pretty CGI fabrication of a pastoral, run down building, but a truly ancient, magical place with a sense of time and history to it. The children are no longer puppets moving through a technicolor set of brilliant backdrops, but real adolescents with real problems that just happen to also include magic. The difference between Cuaron's vision and Columbus' is that Columbus envisioned his films as fantasy; Cuaron envisioned his as drama.

Although one can tell from the opening frame that this version is going to be different, the true magic doesn't happen until the second hour of the film, when I finally, finally found myself reliving some of the page-turning anticipation and involvement that had kept me so glued to the books. Finally the pace, action, and acting all have come together to produce that tightly knit and masterfully woven exhilaration that Potter is famous for. Finally, I fell in love.

The most convincing evidence I can give you for this, is that my complaints about the original two films still hold true: I am still disappointed by some of the things that were left on the cutting room floor, or indeed, never even made it before the cameras. I am disgruntled that the crew didn't take a little more care in keeping continuity with the first two films (Professor Flitwick anyone??), as this film, no matter how different, is still intended to be a part of a whole. And I do challenge a few plot holes that would have left an uneducated viewer (ie: one who has not read all the books multiple times) scratching his head. The real difference is that this time, I don't care! None of these little shortcomings overshadows the overall success of the film. THAT is the thing that truly sets this film apart from its predecessors.

I could go on and on about all the little things that I loved. I could praise the art direction and cinematography for days on end. I could extol the much more judiciously used effects until I am hoarse. I could talk about the delightful changes in all the young actors, their growing into their trade, and the impossibly wonderful cast of brilliant adult actors who nurture them into their roles. And I may do all that and more, at another time.

For now, I will finish with this simple statement of fact: I have already dusted off a space on my shelf for the third film in my DVD collection, and I am already trying to determine what would be a reasonable amount of time to wait before going to see the film in theaters a second time.

I love this film.