Book Reviews Part 2 : Teen

[kikotei]

As usual these are from my work blog, just plopped over here. Links to the original reviews are included.


The Book of Heroes by Miyuki Miyabe

Life for Yukiro Morisaki is about as normal as things get for an eleven-year-old. But that all changes one spring afternoon when Yukiro is suddenly pulled from class and taken home by one of her teachers. It seems Yukiro’s older brother Hiroki disappear after having a fight with two of his classmates, who were found stabbed shortly afterwards.

Yuriko and her parents struggle to find Hiroki, while trying desperately to find out what might have driven the usually friendly teen to kill another boy. Along the way, Yuriko finds a rather unusual clue in her brother’s room, a talking book, written in a language she’s never seen before. The book, Aju, directs Yukiro to the home of a distant uncle who recently passed away. Aju seems certain that whatever happened to Hiroki started there, in the very place that Aju came from.

In her uncle’s library, she discovers that Hiroki as been possessed by a spirit from the Book of Heroes, The King in Yellow, the very embodiment of the darkest corners of the human heart. From one of the elder books in the library, Yuriko travels to the Nameless Land where, with the assistance of its residents, the Nameless Devout, Yuriko is give the clues and tools she needs to find her brother. With the help of Aju, an exiled Nameless Devout newly renamed Sky, and a hunter known as The Man of Ash, Yuriko will travel through stories looking for a way to save her brother and seal The King in Yellow.

The Book of Heroes, like Miyabe’s previous release Brave Story, is a bit slow going at the beginning. Unlike Brave Story however, The Book of Heroes is far less intimidating in size. Yuriko’s quest to save her brother is an unhurried story; Miyabe really takes her time with the details, setting the stage for Yuriko’s growth from timid little child into a much stronger girl.

Original Review

 

Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken

The small frontier farming village of Cliffton there has been a draught for the last ten years. The king has done everything he can to correct this, even sending out wizards to see if they can set the weather back to normal. But the climate refuses to change, turning the fertile land dry and dusty. The villagers have found other means to get by, but life in Cliffton is especially difficult.

That is, until a rogue wizard shows up in the hills just outside the village. With the young man’s arrival, the decade long drought finally, miraculously ends. As payment for his efforts the wizard, who calls himself Wayland North, asks to be accompanied on the rest of his journey by Sydelle, the village chief’s daughter. It turns out the Sydelle is a skilled weaver, and even more important, she can repair North’s tattered cloaks (which double as magic talismans) without destroying the magics in them.

North is on his way to the capital with vital information. He has discovered that the people rumored to have poisoned and killed the king just a month ago are not the true culprit. And now it’s up to North and Sydelle to stop the Queen and the Sorceress Imperial before they go to war with the wrong country.

Brightly Woven was an absolutely delightful find and an impressive debut novel from Bracken. The plot moves at a respectable pace, making the more than 300 pages fly by. North’s and Sydelle’s half friendly, half vicious bickering and their relationship evolve realistically and is reminiscent of Sophie and Howl’s relationship in Diana Wynne Jones’ Castle series.

Original Review

 

Gamer Girl by Mari Mancusi

When sixteen year old Maddy’s parents divorce she and her younger sister Emily are uprooted by their mother from their cool urban Boston life to live with their grandmother in rural New Hampshire. And in a school ruled by Aberzombies and the Haters (the most popular kids at school who specialize in hating everyone who isn’t them), city-girl Maddy sticks out like a sore thumb, made even worse when her grandmother takes the socially awkward first day of high school to levels of mortal embarrassment and earns Maddy the nickname Freak Girl.

Singled out at school and missing her old life, Maddy retreats into her drawing and manga art. Redoing her day through her art, playing out how she would best the Haters and Aberzombies and get back to her beloved Boston. When Maddy gets the MMORPG game “Fields of Fantasy” as a birthday gift from her father life really begins to change for the displaced teen. Living out her fantasies as the beautiful elf Allora, Maddy even begins an online romance with a charming player named SirLeo.

At the urging of her newest crush (and unfortunately one of the Haters, even if he doesn’t participate in the name calling) Maddy decides to enter an original manga contest, one judged by her favorite artist. But online games, real life and Maddy’s manga are about to collide spectacularly, and with results even Maddy won’t expect.

Sweet and fun, Gamer Girl is an excellent choice for girls who kick just as much gaming behind as boys. While a number of elements are stereotypical or predictable (most readers will have SirLeo figured out before the book is even half over) the book still makes for a fun, if quick, read.

Original Review

 

Intertwined by Gena Showalter

16 year old Haden ‘Aden’ Stone is not like most other boys his age. Since his early childhood he’s been bounced from foster homes to psychiatric wards and been on every medication for schizophrenia on the market. But the voices Aden hears are different. They aren’t the product of schizophrenia, they’re real human souls with powers and abilities, and they manage to get him in more trouble than any teen should get into.

Eve; the lone female; can time travel, able to dump Aden into younger versions of himself. But with that comes the possibly that Aden could (and has on a few occasions) completely change this ‘future’. Julian can raise the dead, all Aden has to do is be in close proximity to a body. Elijah can predict the future, mostly how people around Aden will die. And Caleb can possess the bodies of other people.

Everything is about to change for Aden when he is allowed to move to halfway house/working ranch and attend public school for the first time in years. There he meets Mary Anne Gray and somehow she managed to negate the souls, her presence giving Aden the silence he’s been longing for, no matter that it only works with her nearby. But that’s not the last change on the horizon for Aden when his powers start acting like a beacon to others. Others that mean Aden only harm.

Other to the ever growing pile of supernatural romance out there, Intertwined was surprisingly better than I thought. There are elements that don’t work as well as intended, but the pacing of the story, the strong characters, and the believable interactions between the teens; both romantic and platonic; will keep you reading.

Original Review

Living Hell by Catherine Jinks

Seventeen-year-old Cheney has never known life outside of the generation ship Plexus. Cheney is part of the second generation of children born on-board, often referred to as Second Shifters. Life aboard the Plexus is easy, every need the more than 1,000 residents could have is provided for them on their journey to find a new, habitable planet. The Plexus itself is a unique ship, designed almost like an organic life form, with every system in perfect working balance, just like a human being.

But the almost leisurely life Cheney and the others have is about to change when the crew discovers they are directly in the path of radiation wave of unknown type and origin. Unable to avoid the radiation, the adults chose to maneuver the ship to the edge of the wave, hoping that this will lessen what ever impact the radiation will have on the Plexus and its occupants.

The radiation has an unexpected effect when the ship that has nurtured them for so long suddenly changes into an actual organic organism. Now Cheney and the others foreign matter, viruses to be purged. Separated from the adults and with the population of Plexus rapidly dwindling, Cheney must organize a small group of teens and children in a fight for survival.

A great new example of science fiction/survival horror storytelling. With a definite nod to movies like Alien and Predator, Jinks has put together an excellent and logically crafted story. Just gruesome and scary enough, readers will be sad to set the book down when they get to the last page.

Original Review

 

Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim Harrison

Launching from her short story “Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper” from the collection Prom Nights from Hell, Harrison (best known for her Rachel Morgan series) takes a stab at the afterlife.

Madison Avery really doesn’t fit in much of anywhere, especially now that she’s dead. Madison, best known for her punk/bright goth style and her photography habit, being offed on prom night hasn’t made her rocky social life any easier. It seems the charming stranger she met at the dance was really a dark timekeeper, in charge of the dark reapers who specialize in fate and ‘reaping’ people ahead of schedule. But just before Kairos could destroy her soul too, Madison managed to steal his amulet, the focus for his power.

Now with the amulet shoring up Madison’s soul and giving her a mostly functional false body, Madison is trapped in a very unusual existence. With the help of a light reaper named Barbabas, a first sphere cherub, and Josh, her only friend at school, Madison must find out what made Kairos target her specifically. And maybe, just maybe, Madison can get her body back too.

Looking for a summer, beach type read, this might just be for you. While the first part of the book was at times confusing, especially if you are unfamiliar with the traditional hierarchy of angels (unless of course you have a vicious Wikipedia habit like this reviewer), the last half of the book was well worth the wait. It’s a quick read, and I for one am rather curious to see were the rest of the series will go from here.

Original Review



Prom Nights From Hell by Meg Cabot, Kim Harrison, Michele Jaffe, Stephanie Meyer, and Lauren Myracle

In this collection of five stories about proms, five authors cover everything superheroes to the supernatural and you can expect the unexpected.

The Exterminator’s Daughter by Meg Cabot follows Mary, the daughter of an infamous vampire exterminator. With her mother gone, and her father locked in his lab 24/7, it falls to Mary to take up her mother’s ‘job’. When her best friend Lila dumps her boyfriend for a mysterious stranger, Mary knows that there’s something not quite right about the strikingly handsome teen, that Sebastian is probably a vampire. It’s up to Mary to figure it all out, take out the vampire, save her best friend, and hopefully not ruin her prom dress.

The Corsage by Lauren Myracle is a modern day ‘Monkey’s Paw’ story, with a prom twist. When Frankie visits a local psychic, she leave the reading with a bespelled corsage that supposedly will grant the owner three wishes. But when Frankie wishes that the guy she has a crush on will ask her to the prom the unthinkable happens. But will Frankie use her remaining wishes wisely?

Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper by Kim Harrison, which has been expanded into its own series, follows Madison to the school prom as the new girl in school forced to go with her pity date Josh. But at the dance Madison meets the charming Seth and before she knows it, she’s leaving the prom with him. But something is not right about Seth, and Madison’s heading straight for trouble.

In Kiss and Tell by Michele Jaffe, Miranda has always been different. She’s always been physically stronger and her senses are bordering on superhuman. Struggling not to stand out, Miranda finds herself in an unusual situation that will call on every single skill she has to save the life of a really weird teen girl named Sibby.

The final story, Hell on Earth by Stephanie Meyer, has a minor demon come head to head against the angelic over prom night. Will the dance go down as the worst disaster ever, or will peace and love reign for the night?

Original Review

 

The Returners by Gemma Malley

A few years ago Will Hodges’ mother drowned in the nearby river. Everyone believes it was suicide and Will has no reason to doubt otherwise, he knows something had made his mother unbearably sad at the time, but he can’t remember what. Since his mother’s death, Will’s already strained relationship with his father has declined sharply and his father’s drinking problem has gotten far worse.

Now in high school, Will begins to notice people following him, staring at him with such sad eyes. Wondering why these “freaks” are following him, Will also begins to notice just how far his father has fallen since his mother’s death. His already vocal anti-immigration views have become that much more obvious and violent.

When Will finally decides to confront the “freaks” he finds that they are a small group who call themselves “Returners”, souls that come back again and again to experience, absorb, and record humanity’s worst human atrocities. And they think Will is one of them. It’s up to will to discover the truth about his father, his mother’s apparent suicide, and whether or not he really is one of these “Returners”.

A deep and startling look into humanity’s inhumanity, The Returners manages to convey a great deal in so few pages and with a narrator who is quite unreliable at times. An excellent and topical read for teens looking for understanding about society and what it means to truly have free will.

Original Review

White Cat by Holly Black 

 

Cassel Sharpe comes from a family of conmen and curse workers. Curse workers are people who, with a simple touch, can change something about you. Changing your luck, your emotions or memories, some curse workers can even kill. And over the years curse work has become illegal, forcing everyone (curse worker or not) to always wear gloves. Even shaking hands in greeting has become something of a social taboo. With curse working illegal, most workers have gone underground, opting to work for mobsters and crime families for the protection they can offer.

In a family of cons and thieves Cassel is an outsider, completely normal, except for one small detail. Three years ago he killed his best friend Lila, the only daughter of the very mobster the Sharpe family works for. But Cassel can’t remember why he killed Lila; he only remembers standing over her body with a knife in his hand and covered in blood.

Now Cassel has been sleepwalking, even waking up perched on the roof of his dorm. Is it guilt over what happened to Lila, or something else entirely? And with the sleepwalking comes oddly terrifying dreams of a white cat. A white cat that strangely enough reminds him of Lila. Cassel must discover the truth about what happened that night three years ago, but the answers may destroy his family for good this time.

White Cat is a well paced, quick read. However I did not find this to be one of Holly Black’s better books, her Modern Faery’s Tale series being some of her best work. Also, most of the secondary characters are not nearly as well developed as the would have been. But despite all that, White Cat makes for an excellent summer beach read. And the rest of the series has considerable potential.

Original Review