Book Review Catch-up Part 1

[kikotei]

These are all from the book review blog I run with a co-worker. So for the most part they are direct lifts from reviews I've already written, with just a few adjustments.
 

Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

 

As a young woman of Xia, it is Ai Ling’s responsibility to marry now that she is seventeen and of age. But Ai Ling as not interested in being married off to someone she doesn’t even like or know. She’d far prefer to be like her own parents and marry for love, and not be forced into a subservient role. But in the end Ai Ling has little choice when each attempted betrothal ends in rejection. She’s far too educated and free-spirited.

 

One day, Ai Ling’s father is summoned to the see the Emperor. He promises to be home within a month, but when one month become three, and then six, Ai Ling and her mother are put into a difficult position as they begin to run out of money. The two do their best to get by, but when a lecherous merchant in town appears with a claims debt and offers to marry Ai Ling as payment, the young woman decides that it’s time she set off for the Palace of Fragrant Dreams and bring her father home.

 

The long journey is treacherous for a woman traveling alone, and before long Ai Ling is attacked on the road. Not by a person, but by a monster. One straight out of the Book of the Dead Ai Ling used to sneak out of her father’s study. In the nick of time she is saved by another young traveler, a young man named Chen Yong. Chen Yong is on a quest of his own, but it seems the two have the same destination in mind and Ai Ling’s simple task of bringing her father home is quickly changing into something much bigger.

 

Set in a fictional country similar to ancient China, Silver Phoenix is a fairly satisfy debut novel. It's a good, solid book, but the action scenes obviously aren't the author's strongest thing and didn't quite hit what I think she was going for.

Teen

 

 

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

 

Disbelief becomes fear when a meteor strikes the moon, knocking it closer to the earth. And with that, life as we knew it is no more. With the moon in a new orbit the oceans begin to surge up in massive tidal waves and long dormant volcanoes around the world begin to erupt.

 

16 year old Miranda is a typical teen of the time, and she’s taken all of it for granted until now. School has been let out early for the summer as there’s no electricity to run the lights or food to serve at lunch, so Miranda and her two brothers stick close to home, trying to help their mother prepare for the worst. As the summer drags on with little contact from the outside world the worst that her mother prepared for comes to pass. Volcanic winter; and it comes early with a killing frost in August. The early winter begins to take its toll on the family as they must begin sealing off the house, holing up in the tiny sunroom with dwindling supplies, limited water and only a wood burning stove to provide warmth as the temperatures plummet.

 

Told through Miranda’s journal entries from May, just prior to the disaster, to the following March, you’re guaranteed to be sucked deep into this story. Miranda’s growth from bratty teen to responsible adult to felt in every entry as things around her begin to change; some for the better and some for the worse. Absolutely engrossing, I could not put this book down and really want to read the companion book soon.

Middle School/Young Teen

 

  

Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver

 

It’s been a few months since Torak was turned outcast and hunted, then his status as outcast overturned. But even back among his friends and family, Torak still feels the effects of having been outcast from the clans. Along with his cousin Bale, Torak journeys to an isolated part of the Seal clan’s island to search for clues about a fragment of the Fire Opal, the powerful stone that the Soul Eaters want so desperately. One night however the two young men argue, and Torak leaves. The next morning Torak returns to find his cousin dead.

 

Torak knows that Bale was murdered, as an expert tracker he can read the signs on his cousin’s body, and he swears to hunt down the killer. As Torak begins to track the killer’s movements he realizes that who knows who it is, he’s looking for Thiazzi the Oak Mage, one of the Soul Eaters. Together with Renn and Fin-Kedinn, they track the Oak Mage to the Deep Forest. A foreboding place as the best of times, the Deep Forest clans have been on edge since the plague, and outsiders from the open forest clans are not welcome.

 

When Fin-Kedinn is seriously injured in a trap laid by Thiazzi, tracking him through dangerous territory falls to the two young people, who have had little interaction with the reclusive clans of the Deep Forest. As the Oak Mage’s traps become more and more deadly Torak must decide if his revenge for the dead means more than the safety of the living.

 

A very satisfying fifth installment of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, Oath Breaker delivers all the action and heartrending twists that Paver has done so well since in the first book as Torak learns more about both his talents and the choices his parents made even before his birth and how those choices they led Torak to where he is now.

Middle School/Young Teen 

 

Discordia : The Eleventh Dimension by Dena K. Salmon

 

Lance is an avid player in the popular online fantasy game, Discordia. He’s still pretty new playing MMO games, but he’s learning quickly and getting his zombie sorcerer character leveled up just as quickly. But all the time he spends playing Discordia makes life in the real world seem dull and dreary in comparison.

 

When Lance and his online friend Adam, a.k.a. “MrsKeller”, are invited by a level 60 player called “TheGreatOne” to join a special guild for helping lower level players get better loot and armor sooner, the two think they have it made - that is until the two are pulled out of their world into the real Discordia! Now the two online friends must learn to survive in a world they know from playing a game, but this is no game and getting a rez out of the graveyard isn’t going to work.

 

Looking for a portal that could take them home, Lance and Adam meet a girl named Rayva who seems to be a local, but something about her seems out of place. Together the three head toward Alchemia’s fortress hoping that stopping the evil sorceress from the game will opening the portal home, but unlike the game the lines between good and evil are not black and white.

 

If you’ve ever played a game, and wondered what it would be like to be in the game for real, Discordia might be the series for you. Perfect for the gamer, the series is also accessible to the non-gamers out there since it includes a glossary of the basic terms that have become the language of the MMO world. A good younger alternative to Epic, especially if it looks a little too intimidating size-wise.

Middle School/Young Teen 

 
 

The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt

 

Kari and Lucas are two very different girls. Kari is an average girl and has grown up in a single parent home, she and her mother just managing to scrape by from day to day. Lucas is from a wealthy family and has a photographic memory. However the first time these two girls met at a summer art class, neither one ever thought they could possibly be friends. Not in a million years. But one silly incident over ice cream later, Kari and Lucas are the best of friends.

 

During one visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Art the two run in a rather foul-tempered man copying one of Rembrandt’s most famous pieces; the Lucretia. Normally one wouldn’t think anything of seeing someone copying a painting in a gallery, most art students do it on a regular basis, however the man’s attitude and secretive nature catches the attention of the two girls. And when they run into the same man in disguise while on a trip to London copying more Rembrandt painting, they just know he’s up to something suspicious. Now it’s up to two 14 year-old girls in an adventure across four countries and three museums to catch a master forger before he pulls of the crime of the century!

 

The Mystery of the Third Lucretia is a solid mystery; it’s especially good for those new to the mystery genre. It could be recommended easily for most middle schoolers as the violence is fairly minimal and rarely described in any detail. If you like this and want something similar, Blue Balliett’s Chasing Vermeer might be worth trying.
Juvenile/Middle School