Dreaming In Books

Title:  Stargazer

Author:  Claudia Gray

Publisher:  Harper Teen

Series:  Evernight #2

Other Reviews for This Author: Evernight

The first book in this four-book series was a surprisingly strong read for me.  It was on the dramatic side and I had expected something that was simply a rehash of every vampire story I've ever read, but what I was most shocked about was that this book was fun.  This series has the serious love and the heightened emotions that make up the most entertaining stories.  With how much I enjoyed Evernight, I came into Stargazer with the expectations of meeting the same level of enjoyment, and the second book holds its own in the series as a whole.  Gray has established herself with this and some strong short stories as a solid writer in my book.  Her second book doesn't disappoint and makes the reader eager for the third installment.

Teens Bianca and Lucas met at Evernight Academy.  Lucas was there for the first time, and Bianca's parents were establishing themselves as live-in professors like the rest of the educational staff.  Boarding school was not looking strong for either of them, but one thing they did come to like about Evernight Academy was their relationship with each other.  Bianca and Lucas fell in love the way starcrossed teenagers do, and it seemed like their relationship would be fairly normal until their reality started to unravel.  Bianca, as well as a majority of Evernight's population, was a vampire.  Lucas was a vampire hunter.  Things did not go according to plan.

Now, Bianca and Lucas are still in love, but they are no longer together at good-old Evernight Academy.  Lucas is stationed with the Black Cross, the most deadly and prominent of the vampire hunting groups, and is presumably far away from the goings on at Evernight Academy.  Balthazar seems ready to pick up the pieces and take over where Lucas left off, but Bianca can only think of the older vampire as a brother.  Balthazar has trouble accepting the fact that Bianca won't be his, but he can continue to hope as Lucas is out of the picture...or is he?

Evernight Academy has more in store for Bianca, Balthazar, and Lucas than they could have ever anticipated.  As tension between the school for vampires and the Black Cross heats up, so does the tension between Bianca and her love interests.  Bianca and Lucas find difficult ways to see each other, but the ultimate risk is worth it if it means being together.  The family Lucas knows at the Black Cross still doesn't realize that the mysterious Bianca isn't a trapped human student at Evernight, and a ghostly apparition that begins showing itself at the school also spells bad tidings.  Can Bianca and Lucas ever overcome the odds and be together, or is there more than just human/vampire tension that's keeping them apart? 

Claudia Gray does a great job of keeping Bianca interesting and relative in this sequel.  It had been about a year since I read Evernight, so my direct details of Bianca were fuzzy on the reading, but I easily slipped back into her narration as I started Stargazer.  Gray does a great job of establishing who Bianca was when the last book left off and then moves on.  Stargazer is a very important story in the series concerning separation between the protagonists.  It helps strengthen their relationship, but at the same time it helps quell the feelings of insta-love that Bianca seemed to give off in Evernight.  Bianca's a very likable character that is fun to read about because of the drama and stakes that she has going on in her life.  She's very sneaky and willing to go big in order to get what she wants.  It leads to her making some very teenage decisions.  However, I find her realistic as a teenager in regards to the rash decision making, and when things are important she's willing to fight for herself and for what she loves.  Bianca gets pulled in many directions because of the good people she sees in the Black Cross and the good vampires she sees at Evernight.  The moral conundrum that Bianca faces is what really makes her stand out for me in this book.  She faces this complex tug between the human and vampire sides, and the gray area that it actually is doesn't feel like an authorial tempt at a moral lesson for teenagers.  Everyone is the same, stop with the misunderstandings!  Bianca isn't afraid to question her beliefs, the people around her, and even Lucas and his beliefs.  Gray makes her a really great character in that regard.  Bianca is naturally suspicious and used to drama, and it allows her to show readers and herself that questioning is needed, even if it does make things more complex and difficult to deal with in the long run.

The characters that accompany Bianca in this volume really start to show themselves in terms of their complexity in the plot.  Some of them are merely there as villains and plot-needed people, but Gray manages to make them feel like real characters instead of just plot devices.  Balthazar is still just as rugged, sexy, and brooding as ever.  It may seem odd that he isn't the love interest at first, but I love that Gray is able to show his complex friendship with Bianca and hint at the darker parts of his past in Stargazer.  We as readers really get a stronger connection to what his character is supposed to have in terms of motivation.  Lucas was still quite heroic in this volume, but Bianca's questioning of his issues regarding vampires is very welcome, and I liked that their relationship wasn't shown as something that was without internal struggles.  Lucas is still on the "ridiculously perfect" side, but I have come to find him a good character despite the definition he seems to fit.  Bianca's parents, Lucas's family, and some of the vampire students (new and old characters) return with a sense of strong place as well.  Gray has a lot of side characters that I can remember (names non-withstanding - I'm bad at remembering names outside of the main characters) by personality and action, and I find that really great.  These characters don't all have a lot of complexity beyond their place in the plot, but they all work together very well and leave a good enough impression on me that I remember their personalities and interactions with Bianca, Balthazar, and Lucas.

Gray's writing is really the biggest reason why I've come to find this series positively amazing.  It's a style that incorporates a fair amount of description and word use without overusing either one, and it really encapsulates the drama and intrigue of the world.  As a reader, I can also tell that Gray had fun writing this series.  That is what makes it so fun to read.  Gray's style sucks you in and gets you invested in the characters and story.  Whenever she pulls out a new twist, the reader immediately gets a sense of heightened excitement.  Gray knows how to take a book that in all reasoning should have been slow and make it fast paced by the way her style and the plot flow.  She turned Bianca's drama and moral problems into something that could also be addressed with a plot and with actual events that go on.  The middle books of series tend to focus so much on the character that they lose the sense of plotting, but Gray avoids that.  Stargazer felt fast and well-paced despite the higher focus on Bianca's struggles compared to the previous book.  Ultimately, the style is just something that is infinitely entertaining with this story.  Gray's won me over with it, and I've since come to enjoy the various short stories I've read from her because of it.  (In case you were wondering, she writes a really solid short story as well.) 

I can't be happier with the progress in Claudia Gray's series.  I know it's completed now (at four books) with a spin-off novel coming out in 2012 based on Balthazar (heck yes), and I aim to finish reading it in time for the spin-off.  Gray's writing is fabulous, and I always find it satisfying without losing the entertainment value it holds.  Gray really captures the readers emotions and gives them a story high in drama, characterization, and pure romantic fun.  It's got its share of angst and love-interest-confusion, but Gray makes it stand out with her voice and the ability to twist cliches into things that benefit the overall plot and the characters within it.  For anyone that wants to read a solid paranormal series for the YA set, I have to turn them towards this series.  It has its faults - and its vampires, which are as much a deterrent as a selling point these days - but I love it and that love only gets stronger as I read through it.

Cover:  I really love these covers, although the similarities to the first book in terms of how the face is positioned and what-not make it dull.  I like that the style is uniform, though, and it's an appealing uniformity.

Rating:  4.5  Stars

Copy:  Bought (yay!) 

Title:  Hades

Author:  Alexandra Adornetto

Publisher:  Feiwel and Friends

Series:  Halo #2

Other Reviews for This Author:  Halo

My relationship with the first book in this series is extremely notorious.  I loved the feel of reading something addictive, but the actual book had so many problems and similarities to Twilight that it read like fanfiction.  I was divided on the overall concept, but Adornetto's writing has a voice to it that makes you keep soldiering on despite the slow parts and the problems.  It's that akin to Meyer, Fitzpatrick, Stiefvater - it hooks you into the story and seems beautiful despite the fact that it's overwritten in a completely unappealing sort of way.  Hades was my chance for Halo to be redeemed as a series.  It had the opportunity to make it for me.  Unfortunately, the end result was far worse than the opening novel, and I don't know if my morbid curiosity was worth the time it took to read this.

Bethany Church was sent down to Earth with a purpose - to do the work of God and help people live better lives by protecting them and bringing more kindness and good into the day-to-day activities.  The angels Gabriel and Ivy were sent down with her to live and work together.  They made a life as a pseudo-family and started working towards the greater good.  Bethany had to enroll in school, met and fell in love with a boy named Xavier, and also had to deal with a demonic being in the form of a hunky but evil boy named Jake.  Things have been quiet since Bethany and her friends won the battle with Jake, but as with many other wars, the first battle doesn't signify the end. 

Bethany doesn't have all of that on her mind now, however.  She and Xavier have been dating for months, and she's been more concerned with the good consequences that have come from telling him about who she really is.  Their love for each other has grown to exponential proportions.  People rarely see one without the other.  Some may call it obsessive, but Bethany and Xavier just see it as being devoted to one another.  And being in love.  Leaving each other for any huge stretch of time seems too impossible for words.  They even plan on going to the same college just to be near each other.

The young couple doesn't have a clue that darkness will intervene and enforce a separation that's more than just a few days long.  Bethany is roped into participating in a seance at a party.  She knows it isn't a good idea.  Calling up the forces of darkness through such means could only lead to trouble.  However, she can't seem to get out of participating.  What's called up is more than Bethany can handle - soon enough, she's taken away on Jake's motorcycle and driven into a place most people could never think of going:  Hell.  Jake's made it clear that the war between Heaven and Hell has not been completely forgotten, and that he intends to get what he came for in Halo - Bethany. 

Bethany managed to infuriate me in this book something fierce.  Halo showed off a very broad range of her naive nature, but I expected that Hades would cause her to grow as a character because of the change of location and the plot.  She'd have to be without Xavier and re-evaluate what her goals and ideas were.  At least, that's what one would expect from the novel.  Even without expectations, one would hope for the main character of a sequel to grow from the previous novel.  That did not happen here.  If anything, Bethany managed to get more irritating.  Her status as an angel would lead one to expect at least some idea of worldly views - or at least a better idea of the gray areas of the world - and other aspects that go into it.  However, Bethany seems quite intent on keeping a select, unchallenged blind faith.  As an angel, I can understand that in her character to some extent, but she keeps it no matter how much her character seems to want to question it.  It's just so unlikely.  In making Bethany an angel that is essentially a human teenager, Adornetto sends the message that she'll question, change her viewpoint, and grow.  Adornetto seems to want the best of both worlds with Bethany, though, and tries to keep her steady and pure despite the fact that it's so contradicted in the world building.  I could settle for it being one or the other if the world-building was plausible, but it's so messy and contradictory.  Bethany comes across as someone who doesn't think about her actions and is dull because she has no real interaction or fight to her at all. 

The secondary characters are somewhat redeemable compared to Bethany.  Somewhat.  It depends on which character is being observed.  Ivy and Gabriel have always been interesting figures.  Adornetto makes them extremely perfect, but their status as long-time angels makes that an understandable thing.  At least in regards to the perfection of Godly morals and the lack of emotional attachment to the human race beyond a simple sympathy for them as a collective.  They are not like Bethany, who is described as an extremely human angel.  However, we see so little of them and their dynamics as characters that they become very one sided.  Xavier is a sexy love interest, true, but he made me angry in Halo and has kept my disdain in Hades.  I expected his darker side to be given a voice.  He is very controlling and martyred, and I thought that this book would allow Bethany to contemplate on her boyfriend's less-wonderful qualities - which have to exist, right?  Wrong.  Bethany constantly thinks on Xavier and relies on him to save her from Hell/Hades.  She relies on him so much that it's almost sick.  Bethany's attachment problems were hinted at in the beginning of the story, but Adornetto made the relationship increasingly shallow by avoiding them and making them seem like something good.  Jake is the only character I like, and that's because he's a demon with heart that's still a demon.  He has so much potential as a character.  Hades was supposed to be his time to shine - to show me that, as a reader, I can have someone to champion.  Or at the very least show some depth that he lacked in Halo.  Adornetto skimps out on this.  Jake is hardly around despite being Bethany's kidnapper, and when he is Bethany never takes the time to observe him and show him as a deep character.  Her narration is so flippant that any opportunity for characterization is immediately steam-rolled over in favor of more description.

I mentioned in my review of Halo that my biggest problem was the world-building in the form of religion.  Hades is much the same.  I won't go over the same problems I had with the angelic portions of the religious world building, but I will say the same things happen again - drinking and other things that don't coincide with Bethany's religious morals, but seem to get a pass anyway.  Hades mainly introduces Hell - or Hades, as they oddly call it - and that's where I had my main issues with.  Hades comes from Greek mythology for starters, so I was surprised that the term was used to describe Hell.  I could get past it, but it felt like a poor choice for a series that seems to derive its religion and world-building chiefly from Christian mythos.  The actual landscape of Hell and its make-up is vague and more than a little ridiculous.  Hell is basically pictured as a seedy city populated with night clubs, a posh hotel, and back alleys.  There's also a bit of a wasteland element to its outside.  Would this set-up be okay in some instances?  Yes.  Adornetto's geography and set-up is just so vague that it's hard to make sense of what is what.  This image of Hell also represents my biggest problem with the book - it's juvenile and insulting.  The image of Hell and its inhabitants is basically that of anyone who goes to clubs and wears leather or outrageous clothes.  Some people that do this are sketchy, but it's such an overwhelming generalization that its insulting.  Plenty of people go clubbing and don't do negative things while doing it.  Plenty of good people also wear outrageous clothes and/or leather.  The image, to me, came across as so generically "bad seed" that it felt like a two-year-old came up with it.  Not to mention the moral implications that stem from the image and the stereotypes of people/demons that inhabit it.  If that doesn't suggest that it's a poor representation, then Lucifer's nickname of "Big Daddy" will.  When that chapter came up I couldn't help but want to bang my head on my desk at school.  It was just too much.  Hell could be so interesting.  It could be more accurate to mythology.  It could have had so much more development...but it was left vague and making stereotypes.

Adornetto's writing is really the only thing that attracts me to these books - and not even because it is competent.  Her plotting is slow and has huge sections of glacial movement.  Hades could have been 200 pages with what little plot development actually took place.  The descriptions use a lot of adverbs and adjectives.  There's no real sense or flow to it, and while it can be pretty, it doesn't have the story or the characterization to back up the prose.  However...I can't deny that I didn't feel a sense of excitement when I opened the book.  Something about it sucks you in at the beginning, and you feel like you're reading something similar to Twilight.  A similar type of candy or experience, if you will, that tastes almost the same.  The after-taste is what kills it.  That feeling is what grabs readers, and I can sense the essence of something.  That something is probably what compels other readers to love the story and its characters and the romance that Adornetto portrays.  I just find it all so overdone and shallow that I can't find much worth complementing.  Adornetto's prose can be pretty at times, but the novel overall makes it very difficult to find those few good parts.

Hades is just a big fat chunk of disappointment.  Every page got slower.  Every character got thinner.  The plot was nearly non-existent.  The first book had something about it, and whatever something that was got completely buried under this mess of a book.  Some people will love it.  People who don't really care about the sense behind the religion or the romance.  I know readers that have personally enjoyed these books with all of their hearts.  I am just not one of them.  I can't recommend this book - or the series as a whole - for the majority because of all of these faults.  It was just too bad.  Do yourself a favor and resist curiosity.  Don't bother with Hades - especially if you were on the fence with Halo. 

Cover:  I like the silhouette, but the image is kind of ridiculous and overdramatic.  I do like the font and the outside border, though.

Rating:  1.0  Stars

Copy:  Received from publicist/publisher for review  (Thank you, Tara and F&F!) 

Title:  Possess

Author:  Gretchen McNeil

Publisher:  Balzar & Bray

Series:  Possess #1

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

There is a particular joy that comes from reading a paranormal novel that is very based on the older ideas of a paranormal story.  As much as I love the romance and drama of Twilight, there is something about the older and scary supernatural stories that gives them a special zing.  Possess is a YA urban fantasy that promises its readers a spice of that older, horror-movie type feeling.  I was immediately taken in by the premise - that of a teenage exorcist - and soon found myself eagerly flipping through the book.  With some really chilling scenes of possession and exorcism, this is the perfect fun book that will keep its reader scared and flipping the pages.
Bridget Liu is ready to get on with her life and with the annoyances that have been going on in it.  The son of the police chief - the same police chief who is visiting her mother way too frequently for comfort - is taking an interest in her even though she's in no way popular the way he is.  She also finds him extremely annoying and persistent.  One of her best friends, Peter, has similar interests in Bridget, but they feel a lot more intense.  Not in a good way.  It's getting to the point of obsession, and Bridget is on her last nerve regarding Peter's crush on her.

Bridget's personal life isn't the only thing that's taken a hint since her father's died.  Boy trouble is nothing compared to the very real trouble that she's been experiencing.  This trouble goes far beyond normal teenage trouble.  Bridget discovers that she can help exorcise demons from the bodies of unsuspecting human victims.  Partnering with a priest from the Catholic school she goes to, Bridget starts learning more than the basics of religion class and other school subjects.  She learns how to repel the spawn of Satan from an innocent human being.

Monsignor Renault cannot protect Bridget from the full extent of her powers, however.  What she doesn't understand is that she's more than a simple exorcist.  Bridget's abilities are beyond the average exorcist, and for someone her age, the untapped potential is both a blessing and a curse.  She has to learn soon, or the risks of dealing with demonic activity will overcome her.  As Bridget continues to grow as an exorcist, she begins to uncover a scary connection between herself and the demons that are plaguing San Francisco.  The line between friend and enemy - good and evil itself - blurs.  Possess takes the reader on a wild ride that is full of action and just a bit of horror. 

McNeil starts off her book with an excellent protagonist that fits the teenage voice quite well.  Bridget is a character that matches up with a lot of common teen ideals without feeling like a cliche or an empty rehash of traits.  I loved her spunk and her adversity - yes, that is right - adversity to getting into a direct romantic relationship with the hot popular dude.  Bridget is the kind of girl that I admire and identify with as a teenager.  She has expectations, and going against the grain for so long has caused her to be wary of the popular crowd.  I also like that it's not that big of a deal to her.  On some level it is, but her entire relationship with Matt is more than just wrestling with his popularity and hotness.  The level of issue she has with the relationship between his father and her mother is legitimate, and she addresses these things pretty frequently.  Bridget is the kind of character that is observational, snarky, and witty in her teenagerdom.  She doesn't read like an overly-humored adult in a teen's body, and that's what makes her so identifiable.  McNeil nails it right down to Bridget's speech patterns.  What I like so much about her is that she's easy to slip into reading as a reader.  There's not much muss or fuss, and Bridget's the kind of character that dominates with a level of personality throughout the story, and you will flip the pages to read about her situation and thoughts because of the pull of her personality.  I also loved her background.  Half-Irish and half-Chinese, I believe.  It's such a great background that is important to the character without becoming the focal point.  Bridget is never defined by her race, and I think that's where her character really succeeds in being an unusual but strong addition to the YA canon.

The other characters are equally just as interesting and full of heart.  McNeil feels very attuned to the teen experience with her teen characters, and I have to say I enjoyed them all quite well.  Peter is the guy friend with the slightly unhealthy crush, and I actually haven't seen that character type used very frequently.  I liked that Bridget didn't encourage his advances and that he had a spark to him despite the obsession - which got really creepy.  Bridget's best friend, Hector, was one of my favorites.  Oh, in some ways he is the classic gay best friend, but I never felt like he was created just to be the snarky light to Bridget's snarky dark.  Hector is a character that I identify with quite well.  He is funny, self-depreciating, and overweight as well as being gay.  No one ever pictures the gay characters as being overweight or large in any sense - they're usually thin or uber hot, and while I like both images well enough, the image gets so unrealistic in its portrayal that a character like Hector is a breath of fresh air.  I also love that McNeil hints at him having a slight romance in the next installment (please tell me there will be a next installment) to the series.  Possibly, at least.  Matt Quinn was also a surprisingly enjoyable male protagonist.  He needs another book or two to show his full personality, but he goes beyond the dark, brooding cliche and does a good job of making a quick impression on the reader.  I did feel that Father Santos got annoying with how obvious his timid nature was.  He was the one secondary character I didn't take to until close to the end of the novel.

McNeil's writing and plotting are solid as well.  Her writing is actually in third person past tense, and I find that it's a refreshing change in the crowded YA market.  Her story itself skews more towards urban fantasy than paranormal romance by a long shot, and the overall effect of the writing and the story type works.  The pacing and cadence of the writing is fast and goes along with plot developments quite well.  McNeil focuses a lot on the plot and manages to balance it with her characters quite well.  The resulting story is actually longer than I expected, but the overall balance and fleshing out of the story and its characters works.  McNeil also writes a very scary possession scene that reminds me of classic horror movies.  Those parts of the novel especially come alive.  The one place I felt that, as a reader, I was skimped out on was the romance.  While I understand that this is the first of a series, I felt like Matt and Bridget's relationship progressed with little problems or emotional growth from either of the characters.  It was quite fast, and it seemed unusual given Bridget's initial troubles and the relationship going on between their parents.

For those looking for something purely horrifying, Possess may fall short given its urban fantasy nature, but for those who want a well-plotted story that involves exorcism and a bit of the angelic, it is a great book to pick up.  The characters feel realistic and come off the page despite a lack of first person narration, and the overall pacing and speed of the story is great considering the fleshing out that its given.  Some characters fall flat, and at times the simpler writing can inhibit the flow the story has, but I was very pleased with the end result.  I'll be looking forward to reading more from the author and from these characters. 

Cover:  It's fairly generic.  I enjoy the blue and the way the trees silhouette against the model's face, but the face itself doesn't pop off of the bookshelf.

Rating:  4.5  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thanks, Heather and Harper Teen!) 

Title:  The Kissing Game

Author:  Aiden Chambers

Publisher:  Amulet Books

Series:  None

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

Sometimes you just have to go with a short story.  Not every moment is available for a long novel.  There's also the fact that a book of short stories can potentially move much faster than a singular novel.  When I won a copy of The Kissing Game by Aiden Chambers, I was actually really excited to have this type of reading experience.  Chambers has won some awards and been considered a very literary novelist in the YA field, and I have one of his novels in my TBR.  The Kissing Game is much, much shorter than This Is All (by like 600 pages), so I figured it would be a good taste of his writing ability and the flexibility thereof.  While not a stand-out short story collection, it's something that we don't see often in YA, and is thus a nice little change of pace for YA readers.

Since this is a collection of short stories (and I'm talking short stories - some of them are specifically written as intended flash fiction) and they are all by the same author, I'm going to give a general overview instead of the usual description and small review of each story.  That is not only time consuming (and a way that I just have to review short story collections by various authors), but it is in part just so people can separate the individual stories and authorial works.  A collection by one single author is a completely different beast, and considering that some of the stories themselves are probably shorter than this review would be in that format (or without the format, even) I think it would be tedious. 

Most of Chambers' stories are ones that invoke a really good sense of the twist.  A common short story writing tactic involves a twist at the end that leaves the story itself being a memorable experience.  Some of the best stories in this collection utilized this tactic effectively.  The Scientific Approach, for instance, is a story about a boy observing his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.  What starts out as what we think is a simple character observation of another character turns into something else quite surprising and amusing at the end.  It's probably one of my favorites because of the theme it takes in that regard, and the way Chambers uses the story to express theme.  He's quite good at it.  The story that the collection is entitled by, The Kissing Game, also uses this ending to really pack a huge punch to the story.  The Kissing Game revolves around a character romancing another character with letters and such.  It's a rather cute story that ends with a bang, and it really is one of the more shocking stories in the collection.  I didn't find it as appealing as The Scientific Approach, but it's certainly a strong story - just one that takes on a bit too many attempts at character depth within the short space. 

Some other stories in the collection use a more traditional story-telling style - that is, one that doesn't rely on ending the story as one of deception, but simply as a story in its own right.  Chambers does these types of tales pretty well, too, and together with the tales mentioned above, they make up the majority of the length of the book.  Cindy's Day Out, the story that opens the collection, is a pretty straightforward example of an interesting short story.  It's a retelling of Cinderella and, while occasionally slipping into an adult voice, was very memorable for me as being something that managed a level of humor and thought that is quite fulfilling to the piece as a short story.  It's nothing super original, but it is accessible enough to get you invested in the collection.  Kangaroo, another of the earlier stories, is of this same type.  It's more on the humor side of things and has a stronger emotional resonance because of the idea involved.  I found it to be one of the best stories of the collection based on the memorability and the concept.  Sanctuary, one of the last stories to be presented, is also intriguing, but falls short.  It tries to address religion, but the idea of it is far-fetched and doesn't feel as grounded as the other stories.  The whole tone was off, and while I appreciated the attempt, I didn't think it was a strong way to go about the themes that Chambers wanted to pull off.  The Tower is much the same.  Great concept and blend of fantasy in with reality, but falls just short of really awing me. 

The rest of the stories are in two main categories:  flash fiction and letter fiction.  I myself have used the letter concept in a short story recently, and I enjoy the idea  quite a bit.  I don't necessarily think that these stories pack much punch for me - Expulsion and Thrown Out are both good ideas, but came off as pretty neutral for me in terms of the storytelling.  The flash fiction makes up a good portion of this book.  I'm not sure how many of the stories I'll mention are actually flash fiction, but I'd say they come very close to the label if not falling at the 1,000 words or under marking.  Most of Chambers' flash fiction left me with the same feelings as the letter fiction he used.  Up For It, The God Debate, Weather Forecast, Like Life, You Can Be Anything, and Joska were all very quick stories that were well-written but didn't leave me emotionally satisfied one way or the other.  Chambers does some interesting dialogue pieces, but his writing ability didn't really leave me with a connection to any of these stories.  Some others really did impress me, though.  A Handful of Wheat - which is based on his own life - and Something to Tell You really got something out of me.  I loved the emotion and the humor in them, and I feel like they utilized the format better. 

The Kissing Game has a lot of merit to it as a collection and testament to Chambers' work in its experimentation and its quality, but as a short story collection I don't feel like it has enough going for it to be a stand-out recommendation.  Some of the longer pieces and the flash fiction pieces resonated with me, while a good portion of the flash fiction and a few of the large pieces fell flat/neutral in my reading.  I'd say it's a good track record for an author that I'd never read before, and Chambers is in fine form with the style and the structure that he works with throughout the collection.  Readers who appreciate a more literary perspective to YA will certainly find a lot to like in this collection, and ones who want a short story collection of unique contemporary work will also enjoy it.  It was a good read at the time, and one that I think is worth a read at some point - hardback, paperback, or library.  It isn't something that will work for every reader, but the end result is something different that I enjoyed to a fair degree.

Cover:  I really love the cover for this collection.  It invokes a sort of diluted carnival-esque style in the lettering, and the vines are gorgeous as well.

Rating:  3.5  Stars 

Copy:  Won from

Title:  Silver Phoenix

Author:  Cindy Pon

Publisher:  Greenwillow Books

Series:  Silver Phoenix #1

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

Okay.  Let's review my history with this book.  I heard about it a year ago.  I thought the concept was better than mint chocolate chip ice cream (because mint AND chocolate with a dairy-flavored base is genius, and we all know this) and the hardcover version made the Asian Fanboy in my scream.  Then, of course, it took me nearly eight months to find it in a bookstore (with the unfortunate downside of the not-as-amazing paperback cover.)  Then another several months to read and review it.  The only upside to this long period of wanting to read this book?  It totally didn't disappoint me.

Ai Ling is daughter to a fairly well-off set of parents in an alternative, mystical China.  Ai Ling has lived with her parents since she was a babe, but the time has been coming upon her to get married.  Marriage, after all, is a very important event for a young girl to go through.  Everyone known to Ai Ling says that marriage is something to be done out of necessity - not out of love.  Ai Ling has grown up with two parents who married out of love, and she's too certain of love's importance in a marriage to just get with anybody.  Her independence and spunk make her a rather unusual choice for a bride.  Getting married, while difficult, is something she has to go through.


Thoughts of marriage and betrothal are put on hold when Ai Ling's father journeys to the capital city and never returns.  She waits with her mother as time passes.  With no sign of her father coming home soon, Ai Ling and her mother start to get worried.  A man in town also proclaims that Ai Ling's father has an outstanding promise for Ai Ling's hand in marriage - which is completely false.  Ai Ling gets it into her head to escape this and attempt to find out what happened to her father.  For a girl to go on such a journey is a risky task, but Ai Ling refuses to let him fade from her memory.


China is not what Ai Ling believes it to be.  Her journey leads to more than a self-awakening, but to an awakening of paranormal proportions.  The beasts straight out of myth appear before her and attempt to ensnare her as soon as her journey sets out.  What's stranger still is that Ai Ling has never heard of such a thing going on outside of the fairy tales.  Why now would these creatures show their faces - and around her?  The only possible connection she can think of involves a slight talent of hers to read into the minds of others.  As she travels across China and other distant lands, Ai Ling meets with up with fabulous creatures, a boy named Chen Yong, and discovers that there is more behind her father's disappearance than she ever expected.

Cindy Pon really made me love Ai Ling.  I know that in the YA canon she's not an unusual figure.  YA fantasy is home to the headstrong female character, and Ai Ling fits the bill pretty well.  What she has that will attract a lot of readers (self included) is a very strong sense of who she is as a character.  I feel like Ai Ling isn't someone that readers are going to find wishy-washy.  Her decisions are consistent and realistic, and what's nice is that she's human.  She has room for romance and emotional conundrums, but it never overtakes the actual journey she has to go on throughout the story.  The plot focus makes her character growth a secondary, but Pon adequately introduces and resolves it within the span of the episodes.  The episodic format of the story actually lends to her character well and makes it a lot easier to enjoy what Ai Ling brings to the story because of the unique traits and experience she brings to each episode.  I also appreciated that she didn't make a big deal about her special-ness in the story and just simply used it to find her father.  Ai Ling isn't a character that is emotionally draining, so the balance between her and what's going on in the rest of the story is really strong and good for her on a characterization level.

The other characters in Silver Phoenix are on the lighter side.  Silver Phoenix is a plot-focused novel, and while Ai Ling could be worked into the plot development, the other characters don't get the chance to show all of the depth that they could.  Despite this, Pon makes a cast of enjoyable people to journey with for the various little adventures.  Chen Yong is the most prominent of the secondary characters, and is the most fleshed out of them as well.  He's a strong male companion who develops into a romantic lead, and he treats Ai Ling with a ton of respect throughout the book.  I like it when the guy is the one who's impressed with the girl as she continues to show off her stuff.  Chen Yong's also a genuinely strong character, and he really adds well to the overall experience of the book.  Li Rong, Chen's brother, also features in a good portion of the book and is a delightfully smarmier version of Chen with more playboy tendencies.  Li's another character that puts a smile to your face as you read about his place in Ai Ling's journey.  The villain of Ai Ling's tale is also rather interesting, and I very much wanted to know more about his motivations and intentions.  Pon also introduces a lot of interesting groups of people and gods that I would have liked to see more of.  She brings in creatures and characters that you really enjoy getting to know for the time they are around, and that is a very good thing indeed.

Pon's writing style is really what makes Silver Phoenix unique.  It is written in third person, and I honestly think it makes the novel so much more interesting.  I love fantasy that utilizes a good third person perspective, and while I love the YA PNR in first person that I read so often, I feel like third can really make the world seem bright and large.  Pon does this best when she's talking about the unique cultural aspects of her world in Silver Phoenix.  There are so many detailed and pleasant scenes to read about that involve the religion, the unique magical ideas, and the food.  Pon has garnered a well-founded reputation for describing awesome food, and you will find yourself very hungry for Chinese food while reading Silver Phoenix.  As great as the culture, dialogue, and fun levels are, I did find the plot structure problematic.  Pon creates wonderful scenes and action, but the book reads so episodically that it's like watching an entire season of a specific television show.  It's fulfilling as a whole product, but the individual pieces are easy to separate and could deal with fleshing out within the book.  I wanted a little more from each thing I read, and I felt like it just needed that little more - a thicker thread of connection per se - between the particular segments for it to really come together as a story with a hardened endpoint.  That being said, I really would like to see an anime adaptation of this.  I think it would be awesome, and the structure really is perfect for a set number of episodes that could be expanded on.  I love Pon's writing itself; the plotting just got in the way.

The reading wait for Silver Phoenix really was worth it.  There was a sense of thinness to some of the characters/plot because of the episodic nature, but this is such a perfect-for-me type of book.  If I graded purely on enjoyment, it would be tops.  It has a lot of Asian influence, it's fantasy, and it has an awesome female character that does awesome things.  Cindy Pon created a book that I will keep and definitely re-read someday when I'm in the mood for this type of fantasy.  It's the perfect kind of book if you want something that reads like an anime (similar, in fact, to Julie Kagawa, who also gets that comment from me often.)  You'll love Ai Ling, Chen Yong, their quiet little romance, and like me, you'll be begging for a chance to read the sequel when you're finished.

Cover:  Eeeeeeh.  I really really dislike this cover.  Pon does awesome brush work and writing work.  She has good blurbs from bestselling authors.  The hardcover was gorgeous.  The paperback is very blurry on the front and the back and is completely indistinguishable until you open the pages and see the gorgeous brushstrokes on the chapter numbers.  Really, as much as I love Harper Collins, this is not their best work.

Rating:  4.0  Stars 

Copy:  Bought  (Yes, I managed to find it at Barnes and Noble....That was a good day.)

Along with my review of Rebecca Coleman's The Kingdom of Childhood, I have some information and an excerpt to go along with the scavenger hunt that is going on for the release of the book.  Here's the excerpt:

I shot him a furtive glance. He sat with his knee against the dashboard, chewing the side


of his thumbnail. "What?"


"I won't last. It'll be over in ten seconds. There's nothing in it for you anyway."


"Zach." I laughed. "Is that the real reason? Is that why you're so uptight about covering


up? Because, I swear, you're like Linus and his blanket with those things."

Title:  The Kingdom of Childhood

Author:  Rebecca Coleman

Publisher:  MIRA Books

Series:  None

Other Reviews for This Author:  None

The side of me that reads literary fiction was really impressed with this book.  I am very picky about literary fiction on the whole.  The prose has to fit, the book has to have that snick with me - that perfect little click of two puzzle pieces fitting together according to Laini Taylor.  Literary fiction just isn't something that I read on a regular basis because of the requirements that I have.  As it goes, even the best literary fiction still has me being picky, and The Kingdom of Childhood isn't one of the lucky few that went off without a hitch.  However, the overall product is so well constructed and thoughtful that I have to recommend it for people who love this genre.

The unexpected things always come back to haunt you at some point.  Whether it's past, present, or future.  Things that have been left to rot are brought back to light.  Others surface for the first time in the strangest ways possible.  For Judy, it's about where she's been and where she's at in her life.  A portion of her childhood in Germany during the sixties when America led to where she is today: teaching at a Waldorf school and working with kindergarteners on a daily basis.  Judy is happy where she is in her life.  A middle-aged mother.  Married.  Happy.

That is to say, she thinks she's happy.  The ingredients for happiness in her life don't execute the way she wishes they would.  Her daughter is going to college and becoming someone so different from the girl they raised.  No longer going with the family ideal, but something skewing more conservative than they ever expected.  Her teenage son is just being a boy, but doing so in one of the most stressful ways possible.  And her husband growing farther and farther away at every given moment.  Family detachment and questioning has led Judy to a place of uncertainty.  Where is her life anymore?  Where is her happiness?

Judy doesn't know, but she feels like she finds it in Zach Patterson.  There's something about him that she can't put her finger on.  The distasteful Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski jokes.  The way he can make complicated projects with his hands.  There is a connection with Zach that Judy seems to lack in her life when everything else is pulling away from her.  Judy and Zach aren't connected in a common way, however.  Zach is only sixteen and a half.  Judy may feel like she loves him.  Zach may love the physical relationship with her.  Their relationship isn't healthy, and it isn't long before it begins to crumble.

There is a large love/hate relationship that goes on with Judy's viewpoint in the story.  Coleman separates her narrative into three basic types of set-ups that are interwoven.  Judy's first person point of view in the present time of the story - which is around the same time that the Starr Report was going on (Bill Clinton scandal, if you aren't familiar with it) - is where we get to know the protagonist the most.  Her present form of life is obviously shown to be at a point that a lot of women fear to be at.  The middle-aged funk where everything "perfect" is impossible to ignore.  The present storyline is where the reader gets the feel for why Judy emotionally feels the need to branch out into untoward territory.  The actual forbidden relationship is slowly explained and expanded upon via flashback, where Judy as a child of ten observes the various sexual liasons of the adults around her and an older boy kissing her in a more-than-friendly way.  Combining the emotional neediness and the childhood sexualization is how the author got me as a reader to understand Judy enough to go along with the ride.  Some readers will be completely unable to accept that fact that she so blatantly accepts the fact that she is attracted to Zach, and others will.  It makes her more of a person in retrospect.  She has regrets about the consequences, but she knows enough about herself and about Zach to determine that the relationship isn't as simple as her taking advantage of a teenage boy.  The psychology behind Judy is enough to keep you thinking, and her character is a really great look at the more complex relationship between a woman and a younger man (or in this case, a teenager) and why it could occur beyond a simple need of pedophilia.

By contrast, there is Zach.  Zach's story is told via third person, and is coupled with Judy's first person and her third person flashbacks.  Of the three stories, Zach's is probably the most unusual and the reason why Judy is redemptive on a level as a character.  Zach comes from a household that practices life the way Judy does - hence the reason why he goes to the Waldorf school, which is a school that specifically practices a lifestyle that originated from a German man named Steiner.  He's been constricted by his life style for so long that he finds himself deviating from it as he experiences puberty.  He no longer is a vegetarian, and he finds himself being attracted to the idea of sex.  With or without Judy.  What we see in Zach is someone other than a victim. He initiates the physical contact with Judy, and he often shows signs of being an abuser.  With Judy and other girls, he often gets extremely rough.  Bruises and hair pulling rough.  The rebellion in Zach is so extreme that his sexual desires take on a quality of animalistic dominance.  The painting of Zach as more than a victim makes The Kingdom of Childhood unique.  Zach and Judy start up a sexual relationship that involves each person using the other for something.  Zach using her for a way to dominate sexually and feel powerful, and Judy using him for stability and passion.

Coleman ties these characters together with rather brilliant writing.  At times the purple prose could be much, and the beginning of the story has a slower pace than necessary, but she knows how to make her characters and story make sense.  This isn't a sad attempt at literary fiction, but a detailed and complex work in the canon.  She uses the ideas of Steiner's philosophy, Judy's disturbed childhood, and Zach's nature as a sexual abuser to rebel in order to take a twisted idea and make it real.  The way the threads all connect back to how these characters attempt to grow and live their lives is fascinating.  There's no blame put on one character's decisions, but merely on the way their lives panned out for them.  Coleman also uses the scandal behind the Starr Report and the questions it raised in America about the pro's and con's of sexual acceptance to further complicate her story.  She doesn't paint the relationship as anything good.  Judy becomes more and more controlling over Zach, and Zach becomes increasingly more and more sadistic.  It gets to the point where Coleman has them both being rapists, which is something that most people would not imagine if this were to come to light in the media.  What will stop some readers is the beginning pace, the writing style, and the subject matter.  They are all preferential, but it's worth noting that this book isn't for the faint of heart.

The Kingdom of Childhood is a piece of literary fiction that is extremely dark and complex.  It takes a simple relationship and expands upon the reasons behind its troubled connotations.  The characters can be dark and unlikable, yet sympathetic when you consider their lot in life.  The writing paints a vivid portrait of the events that conspire, and it connects so many seemingly unrelated topics throughout the narrative that become a really detailed storyline.  The pacing and the way the prose flowed got in the way at times, but the construction is just so well executed in this story.  Definitely one I'd recommend to those who read literary fiction or who enjoy a book that puts a simple "fact" of society's under a detailed microscope.

Cover:  I love this cover.  The font and image really stick in your head.

Rating:  4.5  Stars

Copy:  Received from publicist/publisher for review  (Thank you, MIRA and Sarah!) 

School means less blog posting.  Which means I have to try to curry your favor with giveaways.

Kidding!

However, I did get contacted by Zeitghost Media and FSG regarding Jessica Brody's latest book My Life Undecided.  I love a good contemporary YA with romance, and My Life Undecided combines that with a premise that involves blogging.  How cool does that sound?  They sent me some information and allowed me to do a giveaway on the blog for a copy of the book.

Not sure if you want to enter the giveaway?  Here's the My Life Undecided book trailer:



A summary of the book provided by the publisher and publicist:

"...Brooklyn Pierce, a fifteen year-old girl notorious for making bad decisions, enlists the help of the online blog reading population to vote on how she should live her life. But some things in life simply aren't a choice...like who you fall in love with."

There's also the Author Website, a website inspired by the book, and the author's tour schedule to look at.

So?  Made your decision?

Title:  The Guardian of the Gate

Author:  Michelle Zink

Publisher:  Little, Brown

Series:  Prophecy of the Sisters #2

Other Reviews for This Author:  The Prophecy of the Sisters

Michelle Zink's debut YA novel, The Prophecy of the Sisters, was a historical fiction/paranormal/slightly dark novel that really worked for me.  It has a similar set up to one of my favorite series of all time - Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle trilogy - but manages to deviate from it with Zink's flowery prose and the way she ties in the mystical and other key traits of mythology and religion.  I took far too long to read The Guardian of the Gate, but it managed to keep a decent pace despite falling into the dreaded second-book-slump that we see a lot of series go through.  It's still worthwhile for fans of the series, and leaves the reader with some enticing questions that just have to be answered in the concluding book, The Circle of Fire.

*Note - Following review will have spoilers for book one*

The prophecy is slowly being fulfilled, and it's up to Lia Winthrope to stop it from happening.  The generations of women that have passed through her family with the same goal in mind have not been able to do anything about it but wait - wait for the day that Lia and her twin sister, Alice, would be born.  Alice and Lia were destined to be the Guardian and the Gate.  Two opposing forces representing the sides of good and evil.  One with the ability to unleash havoc.  The other with the ability to stop it.  Lia and Alice.  Good and evil.  The lines are fuzzy and the prophecy is gearing up in preparation for a large climax as these two twins begin to learn more about who they represent and why.

Lia just has to escape Alice before any harm comes to her.  The slightly melancholy but good sister Alice once was to her has disappeared, leaving only the hardened girl who is working towards releasing a greater evil.  Lia travels across the sea to England with her friend Sonia to meet up with her aunt and her other good friend Luisa.  England is more than just a place to escape Alice, though.  It's a place that holds many secrets and information that Lia couldn't find anywhere else.  The hub of the Sisters and Brothers behind the prophecy is located in England, and Lia has to work with her friends and other guides to discover it.

The journey isn't an easy one.  Lia knows that coming to England is both a danger and a sacrifice.  As surely as there are people that want her to succeed in ending the prophecy for good, there are people that would rather see her dead.  Lia not only has to travel through dangerous forests and other terrain in order to find the order, but she has to be on the lookout for riders and hounds that are working for the darker forces that are on her tail.  Losing her life is all too much of a possibility for Lia.  To make matters worse, she has to leave her love behind in America...and may have it tested when dealing with a member of the order in England.  The Guardian of the Gate is a sequel that furthers the intrigue and the detail behind the prophecy, and leaves the reader begging to know how it will be fulfilled.

Character-wise, I really like reading about Lia Winthrope.  Something about Zink's poetic writing and the way she connects to this character's voice just works.  She's observant and very thoughtful about her surroundings, and her emotions are slower.  They rise and ebb like waves as opposed to peaking and dipping like mountains and valleys.  Teenagers of today (and I would assume of times past) do have high running emotions, but I think the historical context and the way Zink writes Lia make her sing as a character that has more patience and decisiveness to her actions than most do.  However, I do have to say that Lia's slow growth throughout the novel was less than satisfactory after reading the first book.  I felt like there was so much room for Lia to look upon her actions and life while she was on her journey, and she didn't change as much as I expected her to.  Her thoughts are taken up with so much worrying about her current situation which, while understandable to some degree, is unlikely when you think about how long her journey is and how much time she is spending on it.  The Guardian of the Gate is more about Lia questioning more than answering, and I would have liked to know more about her and the depth behind her character and the feelings she was gaining for Dmitri in the process of trying to stop Alice.  Lia is still a character I enjoy, but the pacing of the novel made her growth slow as well, and I didn't find the dynamic to be as strong as it could have been because of that.

As with my enjoyment of the main character, I found the side characters to be as entertaining the first time around as the second time around.  Zink likes to play with character intrigue and deception, so character motives and mystery is a high point in all of them.  The friendship between Sonia, Lia, and Luisa is an interesting one that is so similar yet different to the Libba Bray series that it compares to.  While I find Libba Bray's to be more dynamic and character-focused, I have to say that I really like what Zink does with her characters.  She doesn't focus on the friendship so much as what the characters mean in the bigger picture.  Sonia and Luisa play a big part in the overall series as tools that assist in the prophecy itself and as a support system for Lia.  She uniquely takes in the two girls as makeshift sisters because of the difficulty her connection to Alice brings her.  The two are strong personalities that provide their own dramas and competitiveness into the mix.  Dmitri is the other most prominent secondary character and is the more focused on of the male love interests in this installment.  He's very commanding as a Brother of the prophecy, and his ability to keep Lia safe and secure is what makes him attractive as a character.  I still prefer her other love interest, but Dmitri is by no means a throwaway character or someone added in just for the sake of romantic intensity.  Zink actually chooses not to focus too much on the romance between them until later on in the novel, and while I would have liked to see Lia grapple more between the two boys and why she is attracted to both of them, I appreciated that what was said was more on the subtle side and not brought into the realm of melodrama. 

What really makes this series a win and unique in its voice is Michelle Zink's writing.  While it can get a little on the heavy/purple prose side of things, I find myself easily immersed in the world she creates with her words.  There's something about her prose that just works.  It feels very natural in the descriptiveness.  The downside is that Zink's prose does make her books slower.  The Prophecy of the Sisters uses the slower pace to its advantage, though, and creates a very wonderful atmosphere and world.  The Guardian of the Gate expands on the world and uses the slow pace to some good effect, but ultimately the second book syndrome of the plot makes it difficult.  Zink doesn't use the page time for too much emotional exploration, and there isn't much of a plot for the middle portion of the novel.  It is mostly just a journey from one place to another, with the bordering events being more thrilling than the ones going on in the middle.  I would have been able to deal with it more had the emotional conflict going on in the story felt sufficient, but a lot of time is spent without much actually happening.  It's an important book for the progression of the series, but it didn't need the length it had with the pacing and storyline that was actually present.  The last hundred pages that involve more of the politics of the prophecy and the ending are better suited to the trilogy, however, and it sets it up for some potentially explosive things that could occur in the third book.

Despite the fact that The Guardian of the Gate was not as strong of a story as its prequel, Michelle Zink has a lot of talent and interest woven into this trilogy.  Not only has she kept it a trilogy (because the third and final book has already been published), but it feels cohesive and has a storyline that reminds you of old books but injects something new and fresh into the mix.  Her prose and atmosphere remain just as excellent as the first book, and the characters and plot remain worthy of your attention despite the lagging pace.  I didn't care for the read as much, but I have to say it has gotten me very excited to see the conclusion in The Circle of Fire. 

Cover:  I love the large font, but the covers of this series don't do too much for me.  I do love the design work on the pages, however. 

Rating:  4.0  Stars

Copy:  Received from publisher/publicist for review  (Thank you, Little/Brown!)