Published on February 7, 2010
by Megan Crewe
Cass has spent much more time in the last few years in the company of ghosts than she has in the company of living beings. After a horrible encounter with her supposed best friend that left her ostracized by the entire school and then the untimely death of her older sister, Cass has had a lot to deal with. When her sister shows up as a ghost, Cass is the only one who sees her and now Cass still has her big sister around for help and advice, even if she isn’t technically alive. Cass has also made good friends with a few ghosts that hang around her high school. For Cass, ghosts are the ideal friends because they can’t hurt her the way people have, and that makes them extremely appealing. Cass’ world is about to change again when Tim, student council VP and card carrying member of the popular crowd, asks for her help. Tim lost his mother just months before and wants Cass to help him contact his mom’s ghost. Cass is skeptical and reluctant to trust a living person, but when she realizes that Tim needs her for much more than just talking to his mom, how can she refuse?
Reaction: This one surprised me, in a good way. I really thought it was just going to be a cutesy ghost story with a fluffy romance and some “issues” thrown in but not developed, and I was ok with that because I do enjoy that kind of book, but Give Up the Ghost was much more than that. Cass has some serious issues with trust. Not only did her friends completely betray her but ever since her sister died, her mother has thrown herself into her career as a travel writer and is barely if ever home and when she is home she seems to criticize Cass to no end. I didn’t always like Cass necessarily, though I understood where she was coming from. I didn’t agree with the choices she was making when it came to learning other students’ secrets and then using the secrets against them. I know in her head she was doing a service, trying to stop the high school evils from happening, but her actions often didn’t make her any better than those she was trying to school.
Then there is Tim, who is a complete wreck. Just when I thought Cass was the one who really needed help, along comes Tim. Tim, who seemingly has it all, at least to Cass, is hurting and no one has noticed. The death of his mother and the betrayal of his father when Tim needed him the most has left Tim a shell of his former self. His friends don’t know how to talk to him so they don’t and he has practically no support system except for an aunt who lives in another town. Tim is left to wallow in his grief with no clear way out. I was proud of Cass for trying with Tim. She didn’t make it easy on him and she certainly didn’t make all the write choices but she could have continued to shut him out but she was able to see beyond her own problems and issues to help Tim in the best way she knew how.
Give Up the Ghost is a great book for people who are dealing with grief, for people who have dealt with bullying, and for anyone who’s felt like they are on the outside. Both Cass and Tim show that no matter how bad things get they aren’t always going to be that way. I think Cass especially really matured and grew to learn that shutting people out is no way live.
Published on January 26, 2010
by Simon Holt
A year ago, Reggie’s mother walked out on her family. Since then, Reggie’s father has buried himself in work and Reggie has taken on the role off cook, cleaner, and mother to her younger brother Henry. Reggie’s one escape from her new life is her job at a local bookstore that specializes in horror novels. Reggie loves horror stories. When unpacking a shipment at work, Reggie comes across a journal of a crazy woman. The woman tells a tale a frightening tale of entities called Vours. Vours are attracted by light but feed on fears. They can enter a body using a person’s fears and take over that body. They retain the person’s memories and can live as the person they take over but they are not the same. Reggie thinks she has found a wonderful story but it turns out to be more real than she could ever imagine. When Reggie’s brother is taken over by a Vour, she is determined to find out how to conquer the Vour and save her brother.
Reaction: What a pleasantly creepy surprise! A true teen horror a la R. L. Stine or Christopher Pike. I loved the pacing. The story flowed well and I thought Reggie’s realization that Vours are real was realistic and accurate. The creepy parts were REALLY creepy, at least for me, specifically the scenes where Reggie and gang enters the old house in the woods and then when she goes back, BY HER SELF! It obviously made an impression on me. If I have a complaint it is that sometimes the voice shifted to Henry or to Reggie’s friend Aaron and I found it a bit awkward. Overall, a really awesome horror story. This is the book that broke my several month reading slump.
Next: The Soulstice (The Devouring #2)
Published on January 24, 2010
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!
So many books, so little reading. The story of my life for the past three months or so, though now there are even more books it seems! Anyway, here’s what I’ve been checking out but not reading. :)
I’m currently reading Cybil’s Graphic Novel finalists and have 53 items checked out and 11 items on hold.
Published on January 13, 2010
The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, and June
by Robin Benway
(via Alea)
I hugged my sisters and they fit against my sides like two jigsaw pieces that would never fit anywhere else. I couldn’t imagine ever letting them go again, like releasing them would be to surrender the best parts of myself.
Three sisters share a magical, unshakeable bond in this witty high-concept novel from the critically acclaimed author of Audrey, Wait! Around the time of their parents’ divorce, sisters April, May, and June recover special powers from childhood—powers that come in handy navigating the hell that is high school. Powers that help them cope with the hardest year of their lives. But could they have a greater purpose?
April, the oldest and a bit of a worrier, can see the future. Middle-child May can literally disappear. And baby June reads minds—everyone’s but her own. When April gets a vision of disaster, the girls come together to save the day and reconcile their strained family. They realize that no matter what happens, powers or no powers, they’ll always have each other.
Because there’s one thing stronger than magic: sisterhood.
Audrey, Wait is an all-time favorite of mine and I have been just dying for another book by Benway. And I’ll still be waiting until August 3, 2010…
Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill from Breaking the Spine. What are you waiting for?
Published on January 12, 2010
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!
New books have been trickling in and I have been checking them out. These few are just the beginning of what I can sense will be a crazy checkout spree that will find me setting a new record for the number of books I have checked out on my card.
I’m currently reading The Lonely Hearts Club and have 44 items checked out with 12 (!) more on hold.
Published on January 3, 2010
by Gabrielle Lord
Cal Ormund is still recovering from his father’s mysterious death when a crazy man approaches Cal on the street yelling that someone killed Cal’s father and that they are going to kill Cal as well. The man tells Cal he must lay low and try stay alive until December 31 of the next year, which is when something called the Ormund Singularity runs out. Cal doesn’t know what to make of this warning. The man is clearly out of his mind and Cal has never heard of the Ormund Singularity but Cal has always thought there was something suspicious about his father’s death and Cal can’t shake the feeling there was something important his father wanted to tell Cal but was unable to before he died. Cal sets aside the man’s warning until January 1 when Cal and his uncle are in a horrible boat accident that turns out to be more than an accident but a possible sabotage. The boat accident is just the beginning of a string of bad luck that begins plaguing Cal and his family. It’s not long before trouble completely catches up to Cal and he finds himself on the run from both creepy bad guys and the law. Cal’s now desperate to solve the mystery locked in the minimal clues his father left behind and find out about the Ormund Singularity. This is just the beginning of Cal’s long journey and struggle to stay alive.
Reaction: Fun, action-packed adventure but not without flaws. First, though not necessarily a bad thing, the main character is 15 but the reading and interest level will be for a much younger audience. The format, written in short snippets of time, plus the reading level will make this one a great pick for reluctant readers. I was drawn into the intriguing plot from the start. I want to know: What really happened to Cal’s dad? What do the pictures his father left mean? What is the Ormund Singularity? Who’s after Cal and why? And what is up with Cal’s creepy uncle? Is he friend or foe? Despite my intrigue, a few things jarred me out of the story. I found a few plot holes. The most memorable one, for me at least, was when it was found that, before he died, Cal’s father had drained the bank account from which the mortgage was automatically withdrawn and now they had no money to pay for the house. I found this odd because by the time they found this out Cal’s dad had been dead for six months and sick for awhile before that so how have they been paying for the mortgage during that time? Though, I have to say, I’m sure tweens won’t pick up on this tidbit the way I did since they aren’t responsible for paying for a mortgage. :) I do also wish that there had been more development in the last quarter of the novel, during the beginning of Cal’s time on the run. All that being said, the ending is the ultimate cliffhanger and the mysteries are in no way wrapped up so I’m interested to see what is going to happen next.
January is just the first of 12 books to be released in the Conspiracy 365 series, one for each month. This is a new and interesting concept, though I hope the author can keep up the quality with so many books in the series.
Review copy provided by publisher.
Published on December 21, 2009
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!
I have a bunch of books to read for ROYAL and some that came for review so I haven’t been checking out as much and a lot of what I have checked out are repeats, too many to mention. Here are the few new items I checked out so far this month:
Published on December 8, 2009
by Laura Resau
Every year Zeeta and her mother, Layla, move to a different country. Zeeta gets settled in, makes new friends, and Layla gets the itch. This year Layla has chosen Ecuador. Besides her one year itch, another of Layla’s other many flaws, according to Zeeta, is her taste in men. Layla goes for clowns, more specifically wayward philosophers who are balloon-making clowns by day — highly unreliable and highly inappropriate for someone Layla’s age. Zeeta longs for Layla to put down some roots. She wants Layla to find a steady man with a steady job and a retirement plan. She wants Layla to stay in one place for more than a year. She wants a home in the suburbs not a hut by the beach or a tiny apartment with questionable bathroom facilities. In Ecuador, Zeeta meets a boy named Wendell who comes from a family that has all that she is longing for but it’s not enough for him. Wendell is American and only speaks English but he was adopted from Ecuador and looks like the indigenous people from the area of Ecuador where Zeeta is staying. Wendell loves his adopted parents but longs to find the birth parents who gave him up. Zeeta agrees to help him as translator and savvy traveler tour guide. While Zeeta is helping Wendell, Layla has made some changes, including finding a man who fits all of Zeeta’s criteria. Both Zeeta and Wendell are longing and searching something — the ideal life, the ideal family — but will either of them be happy with what they find?
Reaction: Laura Resau is an amazing writer and really deserves way more recognition than she gets. I don’t read a ton of realistic fiction and I’m really bad about reading books that take place outside of the Western world but Resau writes both together and I will always read what she has written. What to say specifically about the book? It’s great! Read it!
Ok, more detail…Zeeta is a fairly compelling character. While she leads a life of which many would be envious, she longs for some normalcy and routine. Zeeta has had to be the “adult” in the relationship — making sure her mom’s paperwork is filed in each country, dealing with household bills, helping the food stretch when there isn’t any money to buy more — so it isn’t any wonder that she would long for an environment where she can just be a teenager and not have to worry about such things. I would have to say my major criticisms of the book would be that Zeeta too quickly realizes that normal is not for her and that Layla’s transformation was just a bit too dramatic. The story kind of shifted focus to Wendell and didn’t leave time to truly develop the “maturing” Layla and Zeeta reactions to her mother’s changes.
On to Wendell. Trusting Wendell. Wendell wants his birth parents to be good, kind, caring people so badly that he is willing to overlook almost anything to have it be so. I loved reading Wendell’s letters to his birth parents that he wrote while growing up. They show his changing feelings regarding his birth parents as he matured. He began with not really wanting to have anything to do with them, wanting to be completely American, but as he grew he also grew more curious about his ancestry. His curiosity grew even stronger when he developed a strange, inherited (he believes) ability that he doesn’t feel he can discuss with anyone. Zeeta helps support Wendell as he searches for a family that may or may not exist, or may not exist in the way Wendell wants it to exist, but there are some things, some mistakes Wendell needs to make on his own.
Much more than a story about two teenagers, it is a story about the country, its people, traditions, and flaws. Many secondary characters help add wonderful flavor to the story and to the surroundings. I am definitely interested to see where Zeeta, Wendell, and Layla will end up next.
Published on December 7, 2009
by Kristin Cashore
Fire lives in a land where monsters roam. They are as deadly as they are beautiful, luring their prey with their looks then happily devouring them. Fire, herself, is a monster, more beautiful than any could imagine with hair the color of flames. She is the last of her kind, the only remaining human monster. Fire’s father was also a monster and he was evil, enjoying the pain he could inflict and the power he reaped from his ability to compel others. Fire is afraid of becoming like her father and chooses to hide away in the country side, far away from the capital city where memories of her father’s viciousness still linger. After the treacherous reign of the past king, whose close adviser was Fire’s father, Fire’s country is unstable. As civil war threatens, the new rulers of the country need Fire’s help if they are ever going to be able to bring peace to the kingdom, but is Fire willing to allow herself to use her monster powers, even for good, if she risks becoming a true monster like her father?
Reaction: I LOVED Fire. I will go as far as to say that I liked it more than Graceling. With Graceling, I had read so much hype about the book it couldn’t possibly live up. This time, I refused to read any reviews of Fire until I read it myself, which turned out to be a good move. No one else’s opinion colored my reading and I fell into the story, completely hooked. I loved Fire as a character. I found that I could really empathize with what she was feeling. She is so beautiful that it is hard for to make friends — some hate her for her beauty and others love her too much because of it — and so she keeps herself closed off from others. Her small world in the northern part of the country keeps her safe but also extremely sheltered. Fire also fears herself and her own abilities. It is almost as if every time she uses her ability to enter someone’s mind and compel them, even if it is for a good cause such as keeping a person from harming her or others, she fears she will become her father. As the story progresses and Fire’s world begins to open, it is great to see how new friends and an ever broadening view of the world help reshape how Fire sees herself and her abilities. I loved many of the supporting characters, like Brigan, Archer, and Nash among others, and their different reactions to Fire. I also really enjoyed how good and evil was not black and white. Fire’s father was evil but he loved her and she couldn’t help but love him, so did that make him not completely evil? In war, good people are forced to do horrible things, like kill other humans, does that make them not entirely good? Good people make bad choices; bad people do good things. I was impressed with how completely Cashore covered this point.
The one part of the book that I did not enjoy was the sections involving Lech, the evil graceling that causes so much trouble in the first book. Fire begins with a prologue about Lech’s beginnings, his father and how he came to be in a different world from the one of Graceling. The prologue lead me to believe that Lech was going to play a major part in the book’s main conflict. Not so. Lech makes an appearance but it has nothing to do with the civil war and is really just one more, I would say unnecessary, obstacle for Fire to go through. Fire’s dealings with Lech seem tangential and could easily have been removed.
One final thought: sex. It happens. A lot. Freely and casually and between many different characters. It was never explicit, only implied, and it worked for me in the fabric of the story but be careful to whom you recommend this book.
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Top Picks of 2009
Published on January 5, 2010
Well, I’m a bit behind but that seems to be the story of my life for the past couple of months. Better late than never, so here they are.
Below is the list of my favorite reads of 2009. Not all were new to 2009 and some won’t be out until 2010 but I read them this year and they made an impression. In no particular order, here they are:
Honorable Mentions:
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