Two More Reading Challenges COMPLETED!

The Off the Shelf and Titanic 100th Anniversary Reading Challenges are both completed!  Woohoo!  How accomplished do I feel right now?  The only challenge I have left is my Goodreads goal that I set for myself: 100 books this year.  I'm eleven away from my mark.  I think I can manage that between now and the end of the year.

This was the year of reading challenges for me.  I actually completed them.  I most likely won't be competing in any next year because I'm simply just going to read the books I already have without having to worry about quotas so I'm happy to be ending this year on a good note.  Go me!

Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn

Published April 15, 2009.

Author website.

Four sisters and their mother make their way from a spiritualist town in New York to London, becoming acquainted with journalist W. T. Stead, scientist Nikola Tesla, and industrialist John Jacob Astor. When they all find themselves on the Titanic, one of Tesla's inventions dooms them...and one could save them.  (goodreads.com)

For the first half of DISTANT WAVES I was wondering what the hell this book had to do with the Titanic.  It was mentioned once or twice in off-hand remarks, and not by name, and a couple of the people that were on board made appearances within the story but other than that it was a story that centered around Spiritualism, a mother defrauding people with her mystic "skills" and her daughters' lives as a result of this woman's charade.  The story in and of itself wasn't bad.  I actually found it pretty interesting and I liked Jane but don't give me 'A Novel of the Titanic' and not have the ship make an appearance until halfway through the book.  That's going to make me cranky.  I don't like to be cranky when I read.

Once the Titanic did show up it played its role like it does in any other story about it; you're reading the melodrama occurring on it all the while just holding your breath to see how the main event is going to destroy everything nice that's seemingly going on.  I didn't like how the sisters got onto the boat.  It was just far too contrived for my tastes and I really don't think the people letting on passengers would have let stowaways slip by.  Considering the ship and all the hype it should have been something the White Star Line was prepared for.

The ending pretty much murdered what was otherwise and interesting story.  I'm okay with authors taking liberties with history but to take major events and alter their causes for the sake of the story is really bothersome.  To the point where I was audibly going 'what???"

All sense of immediacy was gone as the iceberg was approaching.  No one seemed to be all that worried about it from those watching it head right towards the ship.  Then Tesla tests his magical mystery machine and supposedly breaks the ship.  It didn't REALLY hit the iceberg.  Excuse me?  And as the ship sank?  Poof, gone.  The major cataclysmic event was literally blinked out of the plot.  Gone.  Ground zero happens, people start running around a little confused, poof Jane is being rescued by the Carpathia.  I'm not even talking about a sentence to say it sank.  An element happened that actually eliminated the sinking from the story and skipped right to the rescue.  Infuriated would be a good word to describe me.  How do you have 'a novel of the Titanic' and just skip the sinking?

The individual elements of DISTANT WAVES were good; I liked the Spiritualism aspect, how historical people were factored into the plot, all of the characters were likable on some level and it even got a hint steampunky.  But I think the Titanic itself ruins this story of the Titanic for me simply because it was so bastardized.  The author actually altered history to serve her plot.  No.  Me no likey.  If that kind of thing doesn't bother you then you might just like DISTANT WAVES.  Like I said it's a pretty good story.  But the Titanic is killer.  No pun intended.  Too much was changed in a story that was only supposed to be historical fiction, not alt history or the like.  It's unfortunate but that's the way it is, I guess.  Titanic in one book and the rest of the plot in another, yes.  Both would have been good.  But they just didn't mix well, like a recipe whose ingredients didn't quite mesh.

Ban Factor: Low - An historical fiction centered around the Titanic.  One can hardly pick a more prudish time in our history.  The Spiritualism might offend but that's assuming they know what the word means.  One mustn't overestimate the banners.

Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble

Published September 1, 2009.

Author website.

Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn't. Instead, two gnarled old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead. 

In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn't know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college--until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams...  (goodreads.com)

I got to just about under halfway before I put DREAMING ANASTASIA down.  I couldn't invest myself in it.  It's not that the writing was bad or it wasn't interesting.  I just felt it was a bit . . . ridiculous.

As if I haven't read absolutely ridiculous books in my day.  Or currently.  The majority of what I read is inherently ridiculous.  But I just wasn't feeling DREAMING ANASTASIA.  I don't think it's anything I can specifically put my finger on.  I don't believe my move had an influence because I was reading other books just fine.  So can't chalk it up to not being able to invest myself in the story.  I just felt all of the little pieces that knit the story together were one contrivance after another.  From Anne being a descendant of this brotherhood explaining her dreams and weird powers that randomly manifest when the shit hits the fan to the shit itself embedding itself in the fan blades I wasn't buying it from the beginning.  It felt more like a finely fit cluster of puzzle pieces than something organic that grew into its own story.  That every piece of the DREAMING ANASTASIA story was meticulously crafted and set in place, as if strategizing a chess game where the mover of the piece is the one in control as opposed to the piece itself.  I felt led along and each element in the story was displayed to me as if I were at a museum exhibit.

It's not inherently a bad thing.  Like I said, there was nothing wrong with the writing.  I liked the dialogue between all of the characters.  That in and of itself felt genuine.  It was absolutely action-packed right from the beginning and the Romanov history was definitely an interesting aspect of it all.  I just wasn't connecting with it.

Ban Factor: High - Fairy tales come to life and chicks with magic powers.  Someone's got some devil in 'em.

Funhouse by Diane Hoh

Published July 1, 1990.

Author website.

When the Devil's Elbow roller coaster goes off its track and several teenagers are hurt, everyone thinks it was just an accident. So no one listens when Tess says she saw someone tampering with the track. 

But one person knows it's true. That person is playing a deadly game - and is going to make sure Tess doesn't stand in the way. Tess soon finds she's being terrorized, with threatening notes, menacing phone calls, slashed tires, and nasty pranks. When another "accident" occurs in the Funhouse, Tess is sure that she was the intended victim. Who is committing all these horrifying acts? And why? 

Tess is just beginning to realize that the Funhouse can scare you ...to death.  (goodreads.com)

There are few things more awesome than cheese and FUNHOUSE certainly fit that mould nicely.  Not only that but I love reading un-updated works if for nothing more than the outdated styles of dress.  Boys in cutoff jeans?  Ha!  But I remember it.  Most of it would probably be pretty innocuous to the younger readers now simply because the descriptions aren't too detailed but every once in a while you'll get the little nugget of nostalgia that'll have you going 'yup.'  Love it.

FUNHOUSE combines two of my favorite things: horror and boardwalks.  Thanks Lost Boys.  You rear your mulleted head once again.  There just always seems to be something sinister underlying a carnival-like atmosphere.  I'm pretty sure it's the clowns.  Are the looking at the same cover I am?  So going in it had the proper ambiance for me to be nice and cozily happy.

The thing about a lot of these old school cheesy YA horror books is that there really isn't any supernatural involved; they're mostly thriller but the way they're written it could go either way.  This particular novel utilized pseudo-flashback pieces that involved a diary and insinuated at maybe a haunting.  Personally I think that's just enough to pull it all together.

Another common theme in the cheese is the novel having at least one character that you desperately wish would get hit by a bus.  They're just total shitbags that you can't help but wonder why they have friends at all.  Trudy was that person in FUNHOUSE.  She's just an all around nasty, negative human being that any normal person would probably drop like a bad habit.  But I guess because she's rich and all their daddies work together she's automatically lumped in with the rest.  Sucks for the rest of them.

Tess is the kind of heroine that I wish I saw more of in today's YA.  She has Sam (her perhaps/maybe-boyfriend) constantly trying to protect her but she's so adamant that she can take care of herself that I couldn't help but go yeah!  Granted she takes it to a point of it being a fault, especially when the events start getting drastic and her life appears to really be in danger but she wants to stand on her own two feet.  She don't need no man to protect her!  Yes!  Aside from that she is strong, wanting to solve the mystery behind all of these events even in the face of doubt and ridicule.  Everyone else things it's a string of unfortunate accidents (of course) but Tess knows better.  There are too many elements going on for any of it to be coincidental.

Hoh is one of the better old school YA horror writers.  She doesn't pander to her audience and just lets the story tell itself.  None of the dialogue feels contrived and the characters feel real to me.  Of course there's a bit of the melodrama going on and the entire plot centers around a bunch of rich kids but they're not obnoxious about it.  They don't flaunt their parents' wealth.  It's not a motivating factor in the story; they all just are and who their parents are just happen to be who their parents are.  It's not a card to play, which I liked.

FUNHOUSE is a great addition to my cheese library and one I'll probably re-read at some point in the future.  There's a classic feel to it, aside from the fact that the roller coaster is named The Devil's Elbow.  How . . . threatening?

Ban Factor: High - Teenagers are ruthlessly targeted by some unknown entity for deliverance of dire pain.  Oh no.  We just can't have that.  It's too much for them to take.

Sleepless by Thomas Fahy

Published August 11, 2009.

Author website.

SOMEONE ELSE WILL DIE SOON she tells herself. 

SOMEONE ELSE WILL DIE AND I WILL BE RESPONSIBLE. 

A few days after the first time you walk in your sleep, you kill someone. That's how the end begins. 

Emma Montgomery has been having gruesome nightmares. Even worse, when she wakes up, she isn't where she was when she fell asleep. And she's not the only one. One by one the students of Saint Opportuna High start having nightmares, and sleepwalking. And the next morning one of their classmates turns up dead. 

Something is making them kill in their sleep. Emma and her friends need to band together, to keep themselves awake until they can figure out what's behind the murders--before anyone else dies.  (goodreads.com)

There's a reason that NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, despite all of it's cheesiness, is, at its very core, frightening: because Freddie attacks people in their dreams, in their sleep, when they're at their most vulnerable.  SLEEPLESS also tapped into that inherent attack method and it's why I think, even despite my ultimate disconnect with the story, it's still scary.  Sleeping is something a person just can't not do.  You have to sleep but that's also where you're being attacked and there's nothing you can do to prevent it.  Anyone that doesn't think that's scary to at least some degree is lying.  Liars!

Don't get me wrong; I liked SLEEPLESS.  But there was something there keeping me from really connecting with the story, most likely the way it was told.  It was third person limited and flipped between Emma and Jake throughout the book but it wasn't necessarily the POV that did it.  I think it had more to do with the mechanical, almost dry execution of the story that kept me at bay.  It kept me interested but I've been interested in newspaper articles too.  It was more of a recounting of events with little effort at trying to make me scared.  For a horror novel that's a pretty big deal.  I WANT to be scared when I read horror.  That's why I read it.  Yeah, it's masochistic but quite frankly I liked being scared.  If horror doesn't scare me then it's failed it's most integral part.  I couldn't even feign frightened.  Yes, the things happening to the kids was scary but I didn't feel it.  I just read the story and carried on.

The New Orleans event laced throughout the book dragged on a bit too long without coming to its useful point.  I get the technique but I don't think it worked to the story's advantage here.  Of course it kept me reading but I was more annoyed with it toying with me than anything else.  I wanted to know HOW it was relevant and it kept teasing me for chapters.  I was irked.  It ultimately wove itself in but it didn't end up being what I thought it could be.  It slid down a more more cliched route that ended up being a bit contrived.  No vengeance or cover-ups or anything like that.  The ending was really ho-hum and a bit of a disappointment.

I liked Emma and Jake as characters.  They were both probably the best parts of the book.  They were just really well-fleshed out characters that I felt came alive on the page.  I believed their actions, their words and how they made everything unfold around them.  It worked.  I think SLEEPLESS could have been an amazing horror story if the rest of the elements around Jake and Emma were as finely tuned as they were, not to mention the story would have been better if it ended up being something BIGGER than what it was.  Again, disappointment, but Jake and Emma were good, with Emma taking the lead despite everything going against her.  She was the glue of the group, making things happen instead of waiting for them to happen.  If I knew I was about to kill someone in my sleep I'd like to think I'd take the same initiative and do something about it instead of just cowering in the corner.  No cowering for Emma.  Always a plus.

I think someone not as attuned to horror would find SLEEPLESS far scarier than I did but seeing how desensitized to it I am it fell kind of flat in the scare department.  I wish it were scarier for me because it would have been amazing!  I liked almost everything I was reading.  All that was missing was me being scared.  But it had just enough elements (like the execution of the voice) going against that amazingness to bring it down to something that was decent to read but didn't instill the horror like it should have.  It will make you think twice about sleeping, and watching slides, I'm sure but the ending didn't lend itself to anything greater than another teen horror cliche.  I liked it but that's about it.

Ban Factor: High - Kids are dropping dead all over this novel, not to mention there's some boob grabbing of the unmarried variety as well.  The banners would squeal.

Three Delays by Charlie Smith

Published May 18, 2010.

Author website.

Billy Brent and Alice Stephens are star-crossed like all great lovers. Their need for each other drives them from Istanbul to Miami, Venice to Mexico. After years of encounters and escapes, they lose themselves deep in a desert wilderness, searching for a way forward, only to learn that sometimes the trail simply forks.  (amazon.com)

I scratched this one very early on, like a couple dozen pages in early on.  Really, I'm okay with literary.  I can handle it.  But there comes a point in literary where it stops being good to read and starts being a showcase of the author's perceived awesomeness and that's where my eyelids start to sag.  If I wanted to gaze at a naval I'd pick at my own.  Thanks.

Perhaps it was the incessant use of 'waked up' that made me want to murder puppies.  Yes, technically it's correct.  And technically it makes my ears bleed.  I don't know if this was the author trying to be quirky and use a little-used form of 'to wake' to make his writing stand out as OMG EDGE AND AWESOME.  Or if this was a means to showcase the inherent quirkiness of the MC, except it made Billy sound like a pretentious douche.  Either way I just couldn't take it.  After about five instances of the MC being 'waked up' I stopped. I don't care how awesomely quirky it makes anyone look.  I don't care if it's technically right.  It either makes one sound completely uneducated (who actually uses waked up for past tense? personally I'm on board the woke up train) or like a self-aggrandizing dick.  The former would be okay if the MC were actually uneducated.  He's not.  He's traveling Europe, getting high, existentially pondering life and spending SOMEONE'S money doing it.  Which files him into the latter category.  Gross.

Or maybe it was the meandering drug-induced hazed of a "plot" I kept trying to get involved in but it just seemed far too all over the place for me to keep track of.  Billy's trying to get back together with Alice despite the fact that she's married (what a stand-up guy) and his buddy contracted malaria or something and was hospitalized so the poor guy (the MC, not the sick friend) had to hop himself up on his own and there was a lot of drugs and stuff.  I didn't really see much of a point to it all and I certainly wasn't seeing any "star-crossed lovers" going on here.  Just Billy trying to harass some chick into leaving her husband for him.  The relationship looked pretty one-sided where I stood.

Nope, just wasn't into it.  The instances of 'waked up' were enough for me to DNF it but if that weren't a problem the spirograph plot would have kicked me out eventually.  I just didn't give a rat's ass about Billy and Alice was just a voice on the phone at the time I stopped.  Plus whatever plot there was seemed more focused on drugs and Billy dissecting his own thoughts than anything else.  Blah.  Not for me.

Ban Factor: High - Just for the drugs alone.  There are a lot of drugs.

After the Snow by SD Crockett

Published March 27, 2012.

Author website.

Fifteen-year-old Willo was out hunting when the trucks came and took his family away. Left alone in the snow, Willo becomes determined to find and rescue his family, and he knows just who to talk with to learn where they are. He plans to head across the mountains and make Farmer Geraint tell him where his family has gone. 

But on the way across the mountain, he finds Mary, a refugee from the city, whose father is lost and who is starving to death. The smart thing to do would be to leave her alone -- he doesn't have enough supplies for two or the time to take care of a girl -- but Willo just can't do it. However, with the world trapped in an ice age, the odds of them surviving on their own are not good. And even if he does manage to keep Mary safe, what about finding his family?  (goodreads.com)

There are very few stylistic things that'll keep me from reading a book.  One is stream of consciousness.  Holy crap, even though we may not thing COMMA our natural thought process still involves pauses and full stops.  Let's use some punctuation.  Another is phonetic voice.  And I'm not talking about a few lines of dialogue; I mean the whole damn book written phonetically.  Personally I think it lends to a very clunky, awkward reading experience that's slow and labored and ultimately has me focusing more on how to say the words I'm reading than the story itself.  This is the only reason why I won't read BLOOD RED ROAD.  I don't care how good it is.  I can't read phonetic voice.  This has been a personal preference for over a decade now and thankfully it's very rare when I come across it.

Imagine my surprise when I open the pages of my ARC for AFTER THE SNOW.  I had zero indication that this could have been phonetic.  Had I known I would have absolutely passed on reading it for review.  It's just not a style I can swallow.  And AFTER THE SNOW is in a very southern voice so after a couple of pages Cletus made his way into my head and wouldn't get out.  I couldn't get past the voice.  In the couple dozen pages I tried to read I can't even tell you what happened.  I don't rightly know.  But the language is so embedded in my brain that I can't get rid of it.

The best example of why I just can't read this -

But he's my dad, like I said, and you got to respect your dad I reckon. My mum got dead when I been a baby still scrieking in my ass rags. That happen a lot up in here when the snow been deep and your breath freeze in the air. But Magda live with Dad now, up in our end of the house. Magda's in charge of the little kids, and I don't envy her that job. If it been me, I'm gonna bash them all.  (ARC page 6)

No.  Just . . . no.  I'm sorry.  No.  Not only is it incredibly stereotypical but it's overwhelming.  I can't read an entire book written like this and be expected to focus on anything other than the pronunciation of the words themselves.

So it's a DNF for stylistic reasons.  It could be the greatest story in the world.  I can't get past the phonetic voice.  Based on how popular BLOOD RED ROAD is I'm guessing a lot of people can.  Have at it, I say.

Ban Factor: Unknown - I could barely get past the words as they were written let along figure out what the hell was going on in the plot.

Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany

Published September 28, 2010.

Author website.

Jane Austen 

Novelist . . . gentlewoman . . . Damned, Fanged, and Dangerous to know. 

Aspiring writer Jane Austen knows that respectable young ladies like herself are supposed to shun the Damned--the beautiful, fashionable, exquisitely seductive vampires who are all the rage in Georgian England in 1797. So when an innocent (she believes) flirtation results in her being turned--by an absolute cad of a bloodsucker--she acquiesces to her family's wishes and departs for Bath to take the waters, the only known cure. 

But what she encounters there is completely unexpected: perilous jealousies and further betrayals, a new friendship and a possible love. Yet all that must be put aside when the warring French invade unsuspecting Bath--and the streets run red with good English blood. Suddenly only the staunchly British Damned can defend the nation they love . . . with Jane Austen leading the charge at the battle's forefront.  (goodreads.com)

I was a little apprehensive to read JANE AND THE DAMNED after my failed attempt at EMMA AND THE VAMPIRES.  One, I hadn't read the blurb in a while so I was under the impression that it was a JANE EYRE remake and two, I haven't been thrilled with the writing style of books set in this era so it was setting itself up to fail for me.  It ultimately didn't and I enjoyed the plot but it had its faults and a lot of that hinged on the writing itself.

I didn't know why this story was about Jane Austen.  You'd think there'd be some kind of relevance to it but it rightly could have been some made-up character created strictly for the book and it wouldn't have made a bit of different.  So I was haunted by the question, "Why the hell is this Jane Austen?" throughout, making it a touch distracting.

That's not to say I didn't like Jane.  I did.  She was a very strong woman that, although reluctantly, embraced her vampirism and used it to fight the French when they invaded (a point to be dealt with in a moment).  She stood her own as a fighter and even as her fellow Damned looked down upon her as not only a fledgling but an orphaned one (her maker having abandoned her and she was adopted by another) she stood tall, pulling off feats that eventually made them proud.

The writing didn't really lend itself to telling the story well, though.  I felt the progression was jerky and I often found myself shoved out of the story due to a ragged transition from one scene to the next.  The language was trying a bit too hard and while I never found it stilted it lent to the crappy transitions that kept pulling me out of the story.

That's not to mention that as I was reading I had a niggling feeling that Napoleon's army invading Britain just didn't sound right.  Did it make for some good drama?  Of course.  Jane wouldn't have been able to become the fighter she did without someone to fight so steadfastly against.  But it didn't seem right.  Love the interwebs as it verified my unsettled thoughts: Napoleon was never actually able to get past the Royal Navy to fight on British land.  Talk about taking gross liberties with history to serve the plot.  It only puffs up the question as to why it had to be Jane Austen as the lead in this story.  I have a big problem with that.  Adding vampires to Jane Austen's life is one thing.  I was entertained by all of that.  But why bastardize history so much?  I don't get it.  Wait, I do get it: it served the plot.  And yes, this book is a work of fiction.  But holy crap Napoleon's army never invaded Bath nor took London.  It's a contrivance of epic proportions that I still just don't understand.  Too many questions and not enough answers.

I did finish JANE AND THE DAMNED, much to my surprise.  I enjoyed it and I ultimately came to like Jane and Luke together but Jane is a little too bi-polar for me.  She changed her mind about accepting her vampirism as often as she changed dresses and it was rough going trying to keep track of where her brain was in terms of not only her vampirism but her love of Luke.  It wavered too much for my liking.  She turned out to be a really strong heroine in terms of fighting capabilities and standing on her own but she ultimately had too much negative about her that, for the most part, cancelled it out.

I was entertained so the book served its purpose in that regard but it's incredibly historically inaccurate, I still have no idea why Jane Austen was the focusing character and the writing leaves a bit to be desired.  If you're looking for a light, entertaining read reminiscent of Austenian works with a bit more fangs and blood and don't have much else to read JANE AND THE DAMNED will probably whet your appetite.  Just don't expect it to do much else.

Ban Factor: High - Vampires and they're shown as hedonistically as possible to make it all the worse.  But our dear Jane has arguments with conscience that might appease the banners, however slightly.

The Humming Room by Ellen Potter

Published February 28, 2012.

Author website.

Hiding is Roo Fanshaw's special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment's notice. When her parents are murdered, it's her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life. 


As it turns out, Roo, much to her surprise, has a wealthy if eccentric uncle, who has agreed to take her into his home on Cough Rock Island. Once a tuberculosis sanitarium for children of the rich, the strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets. Roo doesn't believe in ghosts or fairy stories, but what are those eerie noises she keeps hearing? And who is that strange wild boy who lives on the river? People are lying to her, and Roo becomes determined to find the truth. 


Despite the best efforts of her uncle's assistants, Roo discovers the house's hidden room--a garden with a tragic secret.  (goodreads.com)

To start off with fairness this is an MG read, not my forte but if the story sounds intriguing enough I'll snag it.  THE HUMMING ROOM fit this profile.  I keep a special place in my cockle area for things related to THE SECRET GARDEN so when I saw that this book was influenced by it I accepted it for review.  It was definitely a riveting story but the ending was abrupt, a blink and you miss it kind of thing that derailed the rest of the work for me perhaps a little more than what it should have.

Roo is an unfortunate case born to the wrong parents and as a result ends up in the care of her uncle who's more absent than present and keeps his kid locked up in his room for his sake, apparently.  It's a cyclical thing.  Phillip got depressed when his mother died and became bedridden but his father didn't really know what to do with himself and became more withdrawn, making them both more reclusive and fostering an environment of neglect and anti-social behavior.  Crappy situation.

Roo's a spunky little thing and doesn't put up with the crap that's been allowed to foster in this house and, as can probably be predicted, her presence riles things up, disrupts the otherwise fragile order of things.  THE HUMMING ROOM sticks pretty closely to THE SECRET GARDEN storyline so if you know the latter you'll know the steps Phillip takes and ends up with a reintroduction to his father and all of that.

Really it's a compelling story with the scene set magnificently.  The house, which is really an old children's hospital, is given this incredibly creepy air that'll give you the chills just reading it.  I mean how horrifying would it be to live in an old hospital where more children died than lived?  Seriously?  It may be Stephen King's wet dream but I sincerely doubt it's a child's first choice at a play place.  But I think that was the best part of THE HUMMING ROOM, Potter's ability to make Roo's surrounding shine.  Or cake them in cobwebs, as it were.  The setting itself was it's own character, from the personification of the river to the garden, everything was alive.

I felt Jack, the river boy, was ultimately irrelevant to the plot as a whole since the story really centered around Roo, Phillip and Roo's uncle.  He was a means to draw Roo out of her shell which precipitated the events that moved the story forward but he didn't have much else of a function.  Remove Jack from the story and I think it would have worked out just fine.

As for the end, like I said above, it was really abrupt and I felt it was resolved too easily, glossing over what could have been a really good healing period to see between Phillip and his father for a flash forward moment.  It plays into the nice resolution that I think a lot of MG novels have but as an outsider looking in it left me a bit unsatisfied.  I would have liked to have seen more.

Ultimately it's a read with a lot of ambiance that follows pretty closely to THE SECRET GARDEN premise.  It's a good story and you'll end up feeling a lot for Roo, I think, since she really is an unfortunate character and the adults are a little less than understanding towards her (you can start a drinking game for how many times they threaten to send her back to foster care as a means of discipline, effing terrible).  But she's a BIG character that, once she's out of her own shell, will pull others out of theirs as well.  She's goal-oriented and has an uncanny knack for hearing the earth thrive.  Kind of weird but it has it's part in the story.  A good story at that.

Ban Factor: Medium - The banners would actually have to read it but there's a lot of bucking adult instruction going on.  We wouldn't want to give children any ideas that they shouldn't always listen to adults, now would we?

YAckers Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Published September 27, 2011.

Author website.

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.


When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?  (goodreads.com)

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE ended up being a mixed bag for us YAcks.  I personally went into it thinking I'd love it so hard I'd slather the book in drool.  I was mistaken.  For many the appearance of Akiva was a total buzzkill and Madrigal is something most of us could have done without.  While the consensus was that the writing was pretty and filled with WORDS there was a bit of distance, to one degree or another, but it was supplemented by lovely world-building and some intriguing characters that require more face time in the sequel.  Lucky for Angie she wasn't the lone downer of this book, as she was totally expecting to be.

Steph (one of Sya's minions) was Keeper of the Book this month but seeing as how the YAcks have spawned their own website, we're all congregating over there now.  LOOK!  And just for visiting you get a bonus YAcked book, inadvertently slaughtered by us.  Sorry, THRONE OF GLASS.  You lose.

Ban Factor: High - Anything that bastardizes Christianity is an automatic fire starter.

Vanishing and Other Stories by Deborah Willis

Published August 17, 2010.

Author website.

In Vanishing and Other Stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents, and children.  With wisdom and dexterity, moments of dark humor, and a remarkable economy of words, Deborah Willis captures an incredible array of characters that linger in the imagination and prove that nothing is ever truly forgotten.  (book back blurb)

Every once in a while I'll come across a book with such stunning writing that when I get to the end of it I can't help but heave a great big sigh of relief.  There is hope.  There is talent.  There are WORDS.

I like reading anthologies but they're usually a compendium of stories from different writers so each work is, by default, going to be different.  Different styles, different prose, different methods.  Personally I find it a lot harder for an author to write a single anthology composed entirely of their own stories and have each story differentiate itself from the last.  My experience in that is pretty even keel; one working out not so well and the other I ended up loving.  VANISHING?  Yeah, I pretty much loved it.

VANISHING has stories told of life.  They're not all that action-packed.  In many not much really happens outside of a character's internal monologues.  But the way they're all written Willis just sinks her claws into each and every one of her characters and forces them off the page so that you can't help but see them as their own individuals.  And that's exactly what they are.  From the grieving scientist in ESCAPE to the lonely teacher in THE FIANCEE to the boy-turned-man in AND THE LIVING IS EASY, each are individuals, each are wholly separate and each are as vivid in my mind as if they were all given their own books.

VANISHING is one of those books that one SHOULD read because it's that kind of book.  These are the stories that would get taught in literature classes, dissected for meaning, subtext, intent.  To some that's a bad thing but I loved reading good short stories when I was in school.  It was how I was introduced to the likes of Flannery O'Connor.  And she's pretty awesome.  But just because people SHOULD read it doesn't make it bad or dull.  They're all engaging stories, each and every one of them, with a range of protagonists, a range of ages and a good mix of both sexes.  There is literally something for everyone in VANISHING and the writing is so good all the rest would just suck you in anyway.

All of the stories are inherently real, spun golden by words that would make any writer envious (including this one).  But it's not a high falutin, overtly showy type of writing.  It's glorious, simple enough to hook the resistant but intricate enough to ensnare the more well-read, those with noses held higher than others.  When literary does it right, it REALLY does it right.  Willis's writing is effortless.  She doesn't come across as trying to impress or show off her writing prowess.  Her words are for the stories and the stories are for you.  It's that simple.  And they're wonderful.

There may not be anything supernatural in VANISHING but that doesn't make it any less engaging.  It still hooks, it still drags you in and then spits you out, leaving you reeling in your book hangover because the writing . . . THE WRITING.  It stuns.  It really does.

Ban Factor: Low - It's pretty innocuous.  There might be a couple of salacious pieces in there but that would require the banners to read and that's just downright silly to expect.

The False Princess by Eilis O'Neal

Published January 25th, 2011.

Author website.

Princess and heir to the throne of Thorvaldor, Nalia's led a privileged life at court. But everything changes when it's revealed, just after her sixteenth birthday, that she is a false princess, a stand-in for the real Nalia, who has been hidden away for her protection. Cast out with little more than the clothes on her back, the girl now called Sinda must leave behind the city of Vivaskari, her best friend, Keirnan, and the only life she's ever known.


Sinda is sent to live with her only surviving relative, an aunt who is a dyer in a distant village. She is a cold, scornful woman with little patience for her newfound niece, and Sinda proves inept at even the simplest tasks. But when Sinda discovers that magic runs through her veins - long-suppressed, dangerous magic that she must learn to control - she realizes that she can never learn to be a simple village girl.


Returning to Vivaskari for answers, Sinda finds her purpose as a wizard scribe, rediscovers the boy who saw her all along, and uncovers a secret that could change the course of Thorvaldor's history, forever.  (goodreads.com)

I really liked THE FALSE PRINCESS.  I wasn't blown over by it but it was good.  YA needs more good books like this.  I'm not asking for much; not all books need to have me squealing with joy.  But if I came across more genuinely good books like THE FALSE PRINCESS I'd be a hell of a lot happier reader.

One, it's a stand-alone fantasy.  Let me say that again: STAND-ALONE FANTASY.  These things are about as common as unicorns at bus stops.

Two, the story is great.  Nalia/Sinda gets ousted as the false princess right from the get-go and even while I hardly knew the character I was just as thrown by the whole event as she was.  And I knew it was coming!  But it was the reaction of the king and queen, these two people that raised this false child, effectively casting her out with nothing so they can bring in their own kid.  Nalia/Sinda who was functioning as prophecy bait, a peasant sacrifice JUST IN CASE the prophecy came true to be discarded after she was no longer useful.  It's heart-wrenching.  And it's that single event, right in the first chapter, that pulled me into Sinda's character and kept me hooked on her plight.

Three, Sinda's pretty awesome.  The fact that she fared as well as she did once she was booted out of the castle was amazing.  But even despite her strength she was still naive, at times pig-headed and rash, especially when holes started unraveling and smoke started to lift from the world.  At her irrational moments she had her irrationality thrown back in her face only to make more irrational decisions as a result.  But everything she did, despite what her loved ones said, she did because of a higher order.  This thing was far more important than the saving grace of some peasant girl: her.  Although the disposable notion stuck in her head was likely a result of being thrown out like kitchen trash by people she thought were her parents but it fueled the story.  Hey, I can handle some conveniences if they make sense.

Four, Kiernan is the type of love interest all other YA love interests should aspire to.  He has no desire to see harm come to Sinda but he doesn't do things for her because "it's for her own good."  When things get too insane for him he actually says so and steps away.  He knew better than to try and hold Sinda back.  As if he even could.  Plus he was a life-long friend first and foremost.  No insta-love here!  And no love triangle.  Hooray!

Five, have I mentioned it's a stand-alone?  The ending was a bit of a shock; I certainly didn't see it coming (although I've admitted it before and I'll admit it again, I'm pretty dense when it comes to seeing this stuff in books) but the majority of the loose ends tied themselves up nicely by the end of it all.  It was almost a touch too saccharine but I was okay with it.  Of course there were a couple of threads hanging.  There's so much more of Sinda's magic that could be explored.  Someone could take advantage of the court discord, prompting a new quest for her and Kiernan.  But there was such a high satisfaction level to the ending that I find so incredibly rare in YA that I found myself wholly fulfilled.

The fantasy is a bit low with the use of magic and perhaps the oracles being the extent of it and the world is your standard medieval-type fantasy land but it's a good story with pretty awesome characters. I'm sad that there isn't more to THE FALSE PRINCESS but in the same vein it's so nice to have a stand-alone, let alone a fantasy stand-alone, that I will be incredibly happy with what I get.  It's just plain good.

I'm adding THE FALSE PRINCESS to my Summer Blast Giveaway!  If you want your chance to win it be sure to enter!

Faking Faith by Josie Bloss

November 8, 2011.

Author website.

Dylan Mahoney is living one big unholy lie.


Thanks to a humiliating and painfully public sexting incident, Dylan has become the social pariah at her suburban Chicago high school. She's ignored by everyone--when she's not being taunted--and estranged from her two best friends. So when Dylan discovers the blogs of homeschooled fundamentalist Christian girls, she's immediately drawn into their fascinating world of hope chests, chaperoned courtships, and wifely submission.


Blogging as Faith, her devout and wholesome alter ego, Dylan befriends Abigail, the online group's queen bee. After staying with Abigail and her family for a few days, Dylan begins to grow closer to Abigail (and her intriguingly complicated older brother). Soon, Dylan is forced to choose: keep living a lie . . . or come clean and face the consequences.  (goodreads.com)

ALBATROSS set the bar pretty high when it came to Josie Bloss books so when I had the opportunity to review FAKING FAITH I jumped at it.  While it definitely didn't disappoint it didn't have the same impact for me as ALBATROSS did.  The latter had excellent timing (I'd just read TWILIGHT and it's anti really spoke to me) plus I connected with it on a deeply personal level.  FAKING FAITH was good; it was eye-opening but it took a pretty big suspension of disbelief to really get into the plot.  A teen faking her way into a fundamentalist Christian home?  I'm pretty sure they would have been able to sniff her out almost immediately.

Dylan screwed up royally, against the advice of her friends and her little inner Jiminy Cricket screaming at her that her uber-hot douche boyfriend was all wrong.  She ends up being a social pariah in a way I thought was a bit forced: in a drunken stupor she blows off her friends for this boy.  Instead of recognizing the act as just that, a drunken idiocy, her friends take it to heart and things escalate from there.  Blowing off happens, shunning occurs and then Dylan's relationship blows up in her face and she's all alone.

For some insane reason she retreats to the world of fundamentalist Christian girl bloggers and their seemingly far simpler way of living.  I can half understand something like that.  They live such an isolated life, free of cell phones and high school and all the other machinations of the modern age.  What Dylan doesn't really comprehend until she takes on the persona of Faith and visits her online friend's farm is that that kind of living comes at a price and she effectively shatters pieces of a family with her ignorance of their world and her insistence of hers.

It's very Lifetime movie-esque and your standard friend make-ups happen at the end.  Dylan realizes her life isn't terrible and sometimes simpler isn't better.  But what kind of bothered me, and I'm going to play devil's advocate here, is how the fundamentalist life is portrayed as ultimately wrong.  Yes, Abigail's father was a controlling dick that reveled in being the master of his domain.  Beau, Abigail's intended, is a creeper that needs to have his junk cut off and the women are 100% subservient to the men, subject to doing only womanly duties and being married to someone her father chooses only.  Yeah, those things suck.  But this is a belief system.  In this world we live in now we view it as wrong.  Women are strong, independent beings that can make our own choices in life.  I mean the Crusades were fought because one set of people felt another set believed the wrong thing.  Bam!  War.  What happens if this kind of structure is what's holding these people together?  What if releasing them into the greater world is what unravels them?  Is their belief system still wrong?  Yes, Abigail was clearly not looking forward to her life with Beau but she stood by her convictions.  This was what was right FOR HER.  Dylan didn't understand that.  Hell, I don't understand it.  But it's HER choice.  She is actively making it even with Dylan sitting there offering her help on a silver platter.

The book painted really good juxtapositions between Dylan's and Abigail's family.  Yes, the fundamentalist Christians are extremes (arranged marriage?  really?  NOW?) but they are a cohesive family unit.  The children were far better behaved than many "normal" children, they ate meals together, the survived together.  They functioned as a unit.  Dylan's family had every freedom of the modern world but they barely knew each other.  Family time?  Right.  Sure they sat at the same table to eat cereal but there were always laptops and smartphones involved.  Dylan even points these polarities out and it's something she came to really love about Abigail's family despite their faults.  As a result Bloss really begs the question: which is the correct life?  Or is it something in between?

FAKING FAITH is a novel that will definitely make you think.  It paints the extremes as very extreme but neither are without their pros or cons.  You see the happiness of both and you see the pitfalls of both.  There is a slant, of course, but I'd think it'd be hard to write something like this without swaying at least a little.  It's a good contemporary with it's crux centering around the pervasive notion of the internet and how is can ruin people.  How running and hiding from your problems only manifests all new ones.  How the only way to fix things is to confront them head on.

Like I said, very Lifetime but still a good story if you can tuck back the notion that Dylan can lie her way into someone's home like that to begin with.  Another extreme but I don't think it was handled too absurdly.  Her obsession with the online culture was portrayed far better, I think, but the plot needed Dylan to immerse herself in it wholly. And she did.  At least it worked out in the end.

Ban Factor: High - This book basically destroys the ideal life of the religious right, read: banners.  No likey.

I'm adding FAKING FAITH to my Summer Blast Giveaway so if you want a chance to win it be sure to enter!

What We Keep is Not Always What Will Stay by Amanda Cockrell

Published June 8, 2011.

Author website.

Fifteen-year-old Angie never used to think much about God--until things started getting weird. Then Angie falls for Jesse Francis, a disabled war veteran who's a lot deeper than most high school guys. But Jesse is battling major demons. As his rages grows more frequent and unpredictable, Angie finds herself losing control of the situation.  (goodreads.com)

Well, Soldier Boy has completely invalidated this entire book.  Look, it's not 1941 and you have sixteen-year-olds bluffing their way into the military so they can go fight the good fight.  The reality is no one without a high school degree or its equivalent is getting deployed.  It just doesn't happen that way.  So considering the entire basis of this story centers around Jessie going back to high school at nineteen to get his degree AFTER a deployment, it's pretty much screwed.  Now this was either one of two things on the part of the author: laziness a la SMeyer in not doing the research or willful omission to serve the plot.  Neither, in my eyes, are good.  Yes, you can enlist while still in high school.  You can even go to boot camp between your junior and senior year.  But once you graduate . . . let me say that again: ONCE YOU GRADUATE, your ass isn't going anywhere until you get the required training and THEN you get deployed.  See, the military is a regular job.  If it were listed in the classifieds it'd require a high school diploma or equivalent.  They're not going to get anyone without some kind of degree into any kind of potential leadership position.  I'd like to think they wouldn't let them around such heavy artillery either.

On top of that I'm not a fan of how PTSD was portrayed either.  Just a little of my background, I'm the daughter of a Special Forces Vietnam veteran, the girlfriend of a twice deployed Army officer Afghanistan veteran and I have a slew of friends and family that fall into the category of Veterans of Foreign Wars.  And I can assure you I have never once, ever, witnessed someone drop under a table because of a loud noise or flip the fuck out on someone because THEY JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.  You see, people have a tendency of canonizing soldiers because of what they do.  The thing is, soldiers are culled from regular people.  What's mixed in with regular people?  Douchebags.  Thusly there are also douchebags in the military.  The uniform or what war they fought in doesn't exonerate their douchiness.

So we have Jessie that's the Hollywood textbook example of PTSD (*shakes fist at Hollywood*) (when in reality PTSD is mostly more subtle but things like insomnia just don't drive enough drama) when it comes to flashbacks but he also spouts off random shit at Angie when she gives opinions on more political things.  But he's been through a lot.  He's a bit bi-polar too and towards the end of the book hints are dropped that he may have some kind of head trauma but it's never fully realized.  And he's a bit of a would-be rapist as he tried to rip Angie's pants off of her while she fought him off.  But she can't possibly call the cops because HE'S BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH ALREADY.  *headdesk*

Jessie is a douche.  Dick.  Jerk.  Fuckface.  But every single character in this book excuses his actions because he's a vet and HE'S BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH.  Even Angie as she had to kung pow her way away from a future rape kit in an emergency room excuses his actions because HE'S BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH.  And this line of thinking is never remedied.  The moral of the book is basically vets can get away with anything because THEY'VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH.  Want to become a rapist?  Then join the military and people will excuse you for it.  NO.  NO NO NO NO NO.  Jessie is a dickbag.  Period.  I don't give a flying monkey's fart what he's been through.  It doesn't give him the right to be a total dick to people.  It doesn't give him the right to force himself on women.  Oh . . . but . . . he might have had brain damage . . . MIGHT.  Never realized.  Never proven.

And the thing is as the reader you have NO IDEA what Jessie was like pre-war.  No clue.  He could have been a total nut job.  His pre-war life is never discussed in detail except when Angie's mother mentions how nice of a guy he was.  Yeah.  People said the same thing about Ted Bundy.  Next?

So even before Soldier Boy invalidated the entire premise, I wanted to light the book on fire for it's message.  What's even worse, at the end Angie keeps a memento of Jessie to remember him by.  DID YOU FORGET HE TRIED TO RAPE YOU?  But he's been through so much . . . ^%%^(&$(^@@!

Bad message.  Bad, bad, bad.  People can have severe PTSD.  Soldiers have come home and murdered their spoused because they found out they were being cheated on while they were deployed.  That's why adultery is a felony in the military.  It's a trigger for total shit lost.  So yeah, some people can have pretty bad PTSD but thanks to Hollywood, this kind of dickbaggery is looked at as normal.  It's not.  Jessie is just a dick hiding behind PTSD as an excuse to act how he pleases.  That's pretty much it.  And people let him do it.  Because he's been through so much.

Look, I don't care what uniform a person wears.  If they're a dick, they're a dick.  A uniform isn't going to absolve them of that.  A soldier doesn't deserve to be canonized simply because they're a soldier.  Because then you start canonizing douchebags like Jessie and it just gets ugly.  Soldier Boy HATES people like this simply because they're usually faking it to mooch off the government.  In his experience.

As for the rest of the book, I felt like I was reading a twelve-year-old's diary.  It proved for a quick read but the language was scant, leaving nothing to the imagination.  Angie kept wandering off into little tidbits of random information like the Jerry Maguire kid.  I kept expecting her to spout off about the weight of a human head at some point.  Most of her inane ramblings were irrelevant to the plot and more about her day to day life, hence the diary.  It was pretty real in that it was as boring as a teenager's day-to-day life probably normally is but that doesn't really prove for good reading.  A lot of the time she was a whiny brat nagging about getting her mom and step-dad back together or being schizophrenic about Jessie and her feelings for him.  But I will give her credit: when he starts railing on her in public she does stand up to him.  She tells him he's embarrassing her and won't speak to him because of his actions.  But ultimately she gets suckered back in because he NEEDS someone and she's just that person to mend his broken self.  Even after he tries to rape her.

Saint Felix, or the homeless guy that plays him, is somewhat the voice of reason in the whole story, dropping tidbits of advice throughout.  He integrates himself in with Angie's family rather easily and personally I'd be a bit creeped out by it but okay.  There are a few things that don't make sense here so what's one more?  But even when Jessie goes completely bonkers he maintains his placid stoned hippie motif and just spits out veiled comments that merely allude to Jessie's overall troubles, like he's broken.  No shit.

WHAT WE KEEP is an easy read but I found it more infuriating than not.  I hated the message it portrayed and considering none of it could have actually happened my suspension of disbelief is blown.  It's a contemporary.  I'm supposed to be able to believe the major elements of the plot.  If you want to make stuff up write a fantasy.  Otherwise keep it real.  Really.

Ban Factor: Medium - Banners tend towards the far right.  Those people like the military.  So the fact that this book canonized military personnel might be in its favor.  But the insinuation at underage sex, even if it's forceful, might be too pornographic for them.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer + Giveaway!

Published January 3, 2012.

Author website.

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, the ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .


Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.  (goodreads.com)

I really, really liked CINDER.  I haven't read too many retold fairy tales but CINDER is something written so uniquely that you really have to dig around for any kind of fairy tale resemblance.  Sure it's there but you need to work to see it.  In reality though it's a story that stands on its own legs, a light sci-fi that, even for someone like me, ropes you into this vaguely familiar world with characters that you can get infuriated about and for and watch them plow through the plot of their own accord.

Cinder herself definitely got some swirling emotions going on in me, mainly how she was treated by her adoptive mother and elder of two adoptive sisters.  Granted you can't have Cinderella without some kind of wicked pseudo-family going on but I liked the deviation with Peony.  It gave Cinder an ally for a short time, something that made coming home for her a little more bearable.  And then there was Adri, Cinder's pure robot sidekick that gave her another crutch in a world where she was all alone.  Neither of these lifelines last very long and when they're taken away you kind of hate the world a little more.  Here you have a girl that's a victim of her own life that really doesn't hold it against anyone and she just keeps getting shit on and shit on and shit on.  I think Meyer toed the line of what could have been too much FML plot device but I don't think she ever overdid it.  If there was much more it would have been an "oh come on!" moment but I think there was just enough to get the point across without it being ridiculous.

I really liked Prince Kai if for nothing else than he had the reactions I expected him to have.  He set himself up as a certain type of character and he played into it well.  He's your average cool guy except he's a prince.  I liked that.  And I liked him at the end.  I'm sure some people would be like "OMFG how could he just drop her???" but it worked.  Cinder built up the world from the beginning, how droids aren't even looked upon as human and as Kai is built up, and based on other YA boys' reactions in similar situations, you'd have expect cuddly froo froos at the end with the big reveal.  BAM!  Expectations thwarted.  Maybe I'm demented.  Maybe his was a reaction to her lies more than her bot body.  Either way he didn't deviate him his character or the expectations of his character built throughout the story.  Kudos to that.

The world itself, as a total world slut, I loved.  And I'm not a sci-fi fan.  Which is probably why I liked it.  As I said above it's pretty light sci-fi, there's still a lot of our world prevalent in this new one that can anchor it in something more realistic and there aren't any weird alien things milling about.  It's still Earth, and a very recognizable Earth, with some homicidal moon people.  I liked the homicidal moon people.  In fact I really liked Queen Levana.  She played a good villain; a bit over the top but it seemed to fit for me.  I believed it.  The insane vanity, the mind manipulation, the mutated super soldiers.  Yes, I could buy into that.

There was one thing that really bothered me about the whole book though: the ending.  Holy mother of god I wanted to murder the book at the end.  This quite possibly could have been an editorial decision but the ending basically chops off right when the real plot is just starting, making the whole of CINDER one big expository dump.  Don't get me wrong, I LIKED the backstory dump.  It was a good story.  But it wasn't the real story.  It was character-building for Cinder, a peek into her life before the fecal matter hit the fan.  Why isn't CINDER the real story?  Because the story arc isn't closed.  Closing the story arc means that there is an actual story there to close.  The end of CINDER is WIDE OPEN.  Nothing has been resolved.  Not a thing.  A BIG REVEAL has been made but even I could see that one coming from the 1/3 point.  There is no resolution to anything.  Read the next book to find out more.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

It's a shameless way to hook people into the next book.  Will I read it?  Damn right.  But I would have read it anyway, I liked the story that much.  No need to pull a "Find out what's killing your children, tonight at 11" moment on me.  The book stood on it's own, cliffhanger need not apply.

If you're into fantasy and may want to try a little sci-fi I think CINDER is a good place to start.  It worked for me.  It's definitely a great retelling of a classic fairy tale in a new, gritty and disheartening world where happy endings don't really exist.  My kind of book.  I'm demented.  I know.

Ban Factor: High - No Christianity and moon people.  There can't POSSIBLY be anyone else in the universe except for Earth people.  It's God's way.

Listen to an audio excerpt of chapter one here!

Giveaway Time!!!

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Love Drugged by James Klise + Giveaway!

Published September 8, 2010.

Author website.


Fifteen-year-old Jamie Bates has a simple strategy for surviving high school: fit in, keep a low profile, and above all, protect his biggest secret--he's gay. But when a classmate discovers the truth, a terrified Jamie does all he can to change who he is. At first, it's easy. Everyone notices when he starts hanging out with Celia Gamez, the richest and most beautiful girl in school. And when he steals an experimental new drug that's supposed to "cure" his attraction to guys, Jamie thinks he's finally going to have a "normal" life.


But as the drug's side effects worsen and his relationship with Celia heats up, Jamie begins to realize that lying and using could shatter the fragile world of deception that he's created-and hurt the people closest to him.  (goodreads.com)

LOVE DRUGGED was kind of a sad book to read.  Not that it actually made me sad but it was sad to see a boy so uncomfortable with himself that he'd be willing to pop unknown pills and suffer through some horrifying side effects just to be "normal."  But I guess it's true, isn't it?  Even the author admitted in his blurb at the end, that if given the chance when he was Jamie's age he would have taken Dr. Gamez's wonder pills and see if they helped.  The fictional character and the real one can't be the only ones.  In a world where being gay is okay only depending on where you live and who's around you, I can see it being double hard for a teenager, who's just trying to fit in, to want to do everything he can to blend in with the crowd.  It just hurts to read that Jamie took such drastic measures to do it.

Jamie is a compelling character and I was definitely right there, sitting on his shoulder, begging him to not get involved with those pills.  They were ultimately far more hurtful than just having some scary physical effects.  Honestly I'm not surprised the story went where it did.  When you have people that believe that treating homosexuality is akin to getting rid of allergies, it puts their moral stance firmly into perspective.  So when the poo smacked against the rotating device I can't say I was surprised.  I'm kind of shocked that Jamie didn't see it coming but really, he was a bit involved in convincing himself that the pills were working.

What I didn't really understand was why Jamie's parents were the way they were; idea people that got good starts and then fell flat on their faces, ending up being, for the most part, fiscal screw-ups that just couldn't get their shit together.  I wouldn't be so hung up about it if it weren't such a prominent part of the story.  And I'm still unsure as to why.  Them being that way ultimately didn't serve a purpose, it didn't hurt or hinder them as characters.  But Klise was insistent that they were less than stellar financially and they ended up in this position because they couldn't get it together.  Maybe it was a round about way of focusing blame?  If they hadn't moved there Jamie would have never come across those drugs?  Or maybe it was a means of helping him, that final step.  Maybe if they were more stable, Jamie would have felt even greater pressure to be "a man" and wouldn't have found himself.  I don't know.  I'm still trying to sort it out.

I liked LOVE DRUGGED.  It was a strong read that pulled me from one cover to the other.  I was always afraid that Jamie would get found out or he'd get outed outside of his control or the situation would just get away from him entirely.  The plot was always right there in teetering on the edge of everything collapsing.  It did that for most of the story, actually.  And as a result it was only a matter of time before it came crumbling down.  It's a story about a teenager finding himself, and doing some really drastic things to do it.  Sure, it can be just like so many other stories out there.  But it's not.  It's so much more drastic than that.

Ban Factor: High - A book that deals with homosexuality and acceptance.  Whoa!  That's way too damaging for such young eyes!

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Emma and the Vampires by Jane Austen and Wayne Josephson

Published August 1, 2010.

Author website.

What better place than pale England to hide a secret society of gentlemen vampires?

In this hilarious retelling of Jane Austen's "Emma," screenwriter Wayne Josephson casts Mr. Knightley as one of the most handsome and noble of the gentlemen village vampires. Blithely unaware of their presence, Emma, who imagines she has a special gift for matchmaking, attempts to arrange the affairs of her social circle with delightfully disastrous results. But when her dear friend Harriet Smith declares her love for Mr. Knightley, Emma realizes she's the one who wants to stay up all night with him. Fortunately, Mr. Knightley has been hiding a secret deep within his unbeating heart-his (literal) undying love for her...  (goodreads.com)

My stopping my reading of EMMA AND THE VAMPIRES didn't really have much to do with Josephson's add-in of the vampires to EMMA.  It was Emma herself.  I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and assume that the EMMA text really wasn't touched all that much; only where needed to amend for the vampire insertion (well doesn't that sound pornographic).  I thought it blended nicely enough except for the fact that it appeared people only had problems with certain kinds of vampires and were conveniently oblivious to them when it suited them.  For instance some people whom they knew were vampires but were far more civilized were noted as having a curious aversion to the sunlight and hung black-out curtains and never ate.  It was weird and kind of off-putting.  I really didn't understand the ignorance for some but not for them all.  Why was it odd that a guy didn't like the sun if you already knew he was a vampire?  It seemed really disjointed and I couldn't get my head around it for what I read.

Really my distaste was for Emma.  What a freaking snatch she was.  Her nose was so far in the air I'm surprised she couldn't smell bird farts.  She thought exceptionally highly of herself and just couldn't imagine associating with people she felt were lesser than her.  Oh the horror.  Her open disdain for "lower" people made me want to smack her.  And I certainly don't understand why this is appealing to read.  Is it satirical?  Does she get her mouth smacked and get knocked down a peg at the end of the book?  Because she needs a serious dose of reality.  I just couldn't stand her.  I didn't find her outlook on life appealing.  I didn't find her pretentious setting-up of rich snobs quirky.  I wanted to hit her with a bus.

So I'm pegging this DNF down to Austen herself.  While the vampire insertion (*enter porn music here*) wasn't all that bad the bi-polar behavior of the characters was at times confusing and irritating.  But Emma?  The creation of Austen?  That's one baby that needed to be aborted.  Drech.  Now I have a bonafide reason to avoid Austen novels because if they're all in that style I may end up lighting them on fire.

Ban Factor: Medium - Only because the vampire aspect would get banner attention.  But upon reading (doubt it), they would find Emma the proper lady fastening her stake to her leg with pretty little ribbons.  Yak.