Review: Princess Academy: Palace of Stone

Wow, that's a bunch of colons in the title. Oops?

Change is returning to Mount Eskel in the second book of this trilogy as the girls of the princess academy pack their bags and head to Asland for Britta's upcoming wedding to Steffan. Going along with them is Peder, who's to be apprenticed to a stonecarver in the city in the hopes that he'll be able to bring those talents back to the mountain when his year is up.

Peder's not the only one with plans, though: Miri's going to attend the Queen's Castle university, thanks to some strings Britta pulled. She's hoping she'll be able to learn everything there is to know in just one year, but once she arrives, she realizes that there's more knowledge in the world than she could have ever imagined.

She gets to work, though, making friends with a merchant's son named Timon. Timon hangs out with a bunch of reformers who want to help the "shoeless" peasants of Danland by ending the monarchy. At first, Miri really enjoys the discussions she has with Timon and his friends - their points make sense, and she's afraid of what might happen to Mount Eskel if some of the king's harsher decrees get enacted. However, she's also fully loyal to Britta, and is slow to understand that the rebels don't just want her off the throne - they want Britta dead. The way they see it, she stole the opportunity to be the princess away from the "real" Eskelite girls.

As tensions rise and riots start, Miri has to figure out a way to support both the peasants and the princess. She uses the tools she knows best: lessons from the princess academy, manual labor, and quarryspeaking, which has its own equivalent in the royal family, eerily enough. (There's a reason only royals get to live inside the linder walled portion of the palace, apparently.) Will she be able to support Britta without abandoning the shoeless? And is Timon a better choice for her than Peder?

(Spoiler alert: no.)

I actually really enjoyed this book during this reread. I'd read it back when it came out, and I remember feeling a vague sense of disappointment for whatever reason. That feeling didn't come back to me this time around.

I think it helps that I'm a bit older: Miri's struggles in a new place feel very similar to going off to college in the real world, and it's easy to understand how hard it is for her to wrap her head around all these new viewpoints and opinions she's being exposed to. She also begins to question whether she feels more at home in Asland or on Mount Eskel, which is also relatable for any new college kid. Her final realization about which place is home is such a good realization for all of us.

I'm always gonna hate Timon, though. He's very cocky and doesn't seem to get that Miri's upbringing was not like his own, so of course she's not going to understand some of his opinions or decisions. He also can't seem to wrap his head around the fact that Miri and Britta are genuinely best friends, which spurs all the trouble in the last quarter or so of the novel. He really needs to realize that the way he sees the world isn't necessarily the right way to see the world.

Overall, Palace of Stone is a good read for anyone who's just gone off to college, even though they're not the "intended" audience. Miri's new challenges and experiences resonate well, and it's lovely to see all the Eskelite girls learn new skills they can bring back to the mountain when their year's up. Five stars.

Review: Ruin and Rising

I was expecting to be infuriated by this book, and instead I'm just kind of....meh? I didn't hate it, but this isn't the ending I would have picked.

However, since I'm also not the author, that doesn't really matter, does it?

So, the final book in the Grisha trilogy opens with Alina stuck underground at the White Chapel, the Apparat's home base. He wants to glorify her as a saint to the faithful pilgrim army he's amassed, but there's one problem: she can't summon anymore.

Or, well, she can probably summon, but she's too far underground to call sunlight to her, and the Apparat's totally unwilling to let someone as important as her go back aboveground. At least, until Mal and her other friends stage a mock-revolt and blow a hole in the one room in the chapel that has aboveground access, allowing her to call on her powers and pull the rug out from under the Apparat.

He begrudgingly agrees to let them go in search of the mysterious firebird, which will hopefully be the third and final amplifier Alina needs. They have to be careful, though - the Darkling has been destroying access tunnels left and right, and they don't want to walk out of a functional one into an ambush. They also need to figure out who has to go along with them to find the firebird, and who they might be able to send over to West Ravka into safety.

Tolya and Tamar inform the rest of them about a somewhat nearby smugglers' post Nikolai used to use once they're on the surface, and they decide to stop there first, hoping that Nikolai is still alive and might be able to help them. After almost getting caught by the First Army, Alina's band is rescued by the man himself and taken to his new base up in the mountains.

They all reconnoiter there for a while, making plans and getting more training, and everything seems to be going relatively smoothly. (There are a couple minor bumps in the road, but they work themselves out with minimal damage.) This, of course, means it's the perfect time for the Darkling to attack, which he does. He transforms Nikolai into some kind of monstrous bird-like creature and does some serious damage to the rest of the group, prompting yet another last second escape.

Now a little more bruised and worn, Alina's group finally makes it to the mountains where they suspect the firebird lives, and they begin the expedition to find it. When the firebird finally reveals itself, only Mal and Alina are actually present, and it leads her to a shocking revelation - the firebird's not the amplifier. Mal is.

Baghra told Alina her life story back at Nikolai's base, informing her that she, Baghra, is actually Ivan Morozova's elder daughter. (Yes, that Morozova, the man who infused the stag and the sea whip with their amplifying powers.) She had a younger sister that died, and Morozova resurrected her, infusing her and not the firebird with the power. Alina puts two and two together, and realizes that Mal's descended from the younger sister, which is why he's so spookily good at tracking. She automatically refuses to kill him, but he makes her swear that when the time's right, she'll do it anyways.

The time becomes right soon after, once the band makes its way back to the Fold. They've managed to get word to the Apparat to send his army, but only a few came - they had to sneak out, because he wasn't actually permitting anyone to go. The whole group is planning on sneaking up on the Darkling's skiff once it's in the middle of the Fold, but he's expecting them, and soon their plans go too awry to be saved. Mal comes running up to Alina, and she does what she has to do, stabbing him in the chest-

-and then another unexpected event occurs. Mal dies, but instead of his death amplifying Alina's power, it releases it instead. Now all of the non-Grisha fighters can summon minor amounts of sunlight, and they figure out how to work together and dismantle the Fold once and for all.

Alina's powerless now, but she's still capable of wielding a knife, and she kills the Darkling herself. She also makes her friends promise that they'll claim she died on the battlefield, leaving the newly untransformed Nikolai to lead Ravka. The epilogue informs us that she and Mal moved back to Keramzin and began their own orphanage, where they're visited periodically by some strange, grand guests.

Like I said before, I don't know if this is the ending I would have wanted for this series, but it's the ending I got. Even though Alina's loss of power was much less voluntary than I'd heard, I still don't particularly like it. I get that she didn't like all the changes she had to make in her life thanks to the discovery of her power, but sometimes you can't just magically get rid of your problems and go back to your old ways. I'd rather she finally learned to deal with her new circumstances and accept that she can't just be the old Alina anymore rather than get this deus ex machina of an ending.

I at least learned to like Mal again in book three. He was kind of a brat in Siege and Storm, but he admitted to that in Ruin and Rising and tried to amend his ways, as did Alina. I'm still not a diehard Mal/Alina shipper, but I'm not so turned off by it anymore, either.

(Let's be real, though, Tamar/Nadia and Genya/David are the real masterpiece ships of this series. Canon lesbians! In a fantasy series! That don't just have angst all the time! Be still my heart!)

Overall, Ruin and Rising is really good to its side characters and only okay to its two biggest protagonists. They have each other now, yes, but I'm a little skeptical that they'll be totally satisfied with that for the rest of their lives. Four stars, because the writing was still A+.

Review: Princess Academy

Guys, I'll tell it to you straight: I want this to be required reading for like 5th or 6th graders everywhere. I just love it so much.

Miri Larendaughter feels useless. The only industry there is on Mount Eskel is quarrywork, but her father has never let her set foot in the mines, making her the only person (besides the very old and the very young) who doesn't help out with the linder. (Linder is fairly similar to marble, fyi.) The best she hopes to do is make good deals with the lowlander traders who come with food and supplies every season.

And then the bombshell drops: Mount Eskel has been divined as the home of the future princess of Danland, in accordance with the ancient tradition. Now every girl between twelve and seventeen will be forced to attend a year-long academy to teach them how to read, how to write, and how to behave, among other subjects.

None of the girls are pleased with this annoucement - how are their families supposed to mine enough linder to feed themselves if much of the workforce is gone? They comply with the decree begrudingly, though, and soon over a dozen girls are off to the old minister's house where the academy will be housed.

Their teacher is Tutor Olana, a snobby woman who's used to the finery of Asland, the capital city. She's very strict, too, and kind of a terrible teacher - she punishes a girl for speaking out of turn, and then again for not understanding the lesson she missed while in punishment. Miri studies hard, though, eventually learning more than just book lessons.

You see, the quarriers use what they call "quarry-speech" to communicate over the din of the mines. It's similar to mind-reading, and it's only ever worked in the quarry before - at least, until Miri unwittingly uses it one day in the academy. She figures out through much trial and error that it works via the linder itself, not the mines, and that the reason orphaned lowlander Britta couldn't hear it in the mines is because she doesn't have the lifelong proximity to the stone that the others do.

The tables turn on Olana once the girls put their newfound knowledge to use, and even the traders are forced to reckon with the girls when Miri realizes that linder is worth much more than the traders were giving them. Everything's going smoothly for once as the academy ball approaches, where the girls will meet the prince for the first time.

And then he leaves without choosing any of them to be his bride, leaving them stuck at the school until spring thaw.

Even worse? Bandits attack the girls a few days later, believing that one of them is the future princess and is just trying to keep it a secret. Will Miri be able to summon help from the village to save their lives? And who's the prince going to pick, anyway?

Like I said, I love this book, you guys. Miri is so relatable - she just wants to feel useful, maybe even important, and I think a lot of young teens (and maybe even twenty-somethings) can understand that. Also, everyone's sympathetic after a while. Olana's not an Umbridge-esque irredeemable villain, and Katar, one of the meaner girls, is shown to be dealing with problems of her own. I really love how Princess Academy humanizes everyone without treating the villains like special misunderstood snowflakes.

I'm also a huge fan of the writing style. The language is lyrical and reminiscent of old fairy tales without being hard to follow or overly purple. The chapters also open with snippets of lyrics from songs the characters know, which is a cute way of introducing what's going to happen, in my opinion. The one problem I have with more grown-up fantasy is that the language can get overly complex and fussy, so I love finding good children's books that tell mature stories with simpler language.

Another choice I love from this book is that - spoiler alert - Miri doesn't become the princess. The academy helps her figure out what she really does want from life, and it feels good - a nice blend of her pre-academy and post-academy lives. I appreciate that she didn't have to become royal to be happy.

Overall, Princess Academy is an amazing fairy tale. No monsters, sure, but there are plenty of "real world" problems that will keep you entertained throughout the book. Five stars.

(also, who do I need to call about making this a movie and getting cast as the lead? We are the same body type, you guys.) 

Seven Deadly Sins Tag

Saruuh tagged me in the Seven Deadly Sins tag, woo!

1. Greed - what is your most inexpensive book?

I got a bunch of books for free in high school thanks to my book club. We held these massive used book sales, and our advisor would let us take a few home for free if we worked them. I always had a bag full at least.

2. Wrath - what author do you have a love/hate relationship with?

Oooh, this is hard. The most recent issue I've had is probably with Ann Brashares, because the first four Sisterhood books are great, but the fifth one was super disappointing for me.

I guess I tend to really like the authors I read, because I'm blanking here right now, guys.

3. Gluttony - what book have you devoured over and over with no shame?

I'm pretty sure I've reread Princess Academy by Shannon Hale like every year since I got it back in middle school. And the Harry Potter books, of course. I usually don't purchase a book unless I like it enough that I would read it multiple times.

4. Sloth - what book have you neglected reading due to laziness?

When I was working on Les Mis, I definitely had to force myself to keep reading through some parts. Same for the LotR trilogy. I finished them both eventually, though!

5. Pride - what book do you most talk about in order to sound like an intellectual reader?

Probably either Les Mis or some of the Shakespeare I've read? I try to read classics every so often so I sound like a good English major who doesn't just reread Anna and the French Kiss every month.

6. Lust - what attributes do you find attractive in male or female characters?

Guys, ever since I read Harry Potter way back when, my type has literally been Harry Potter. Dark messy hair, maybe not super tall, sarcastic, loyal, heroic, etc.

Cross-reference this with my celebrity/fictional crushes: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Daniel Radcliffe, Darren Criss, Nick Jonas, and Logan Lerman. We could probably chuck Robb Stark in there, too.

I have a problem, friends.

7. Envy - what book would you most like to receive as a gift?

Right now, maybe Percy Jackson's Greek Gods or e. lockhart's We Were Liars. I don't really have anything on my need-to-read list but things that haven't been released yet, so I'm in a bit of a lull currently.

Seeing as I know no other people who blog about books, I leave this open to anyone who may stumble across this post and want to do it too!

Review: Heroes of Olympus series

Warning: I'm probably going to get really emotional about this series once I hit the "personal thoughts" section of this post.

(photo cred here)

In this spin-off from Percy Jackson & the Olympians, we get a few unexpected revelations. One, Percy's missing during the first book - like literally missing. Annabeth's been on the hunt for him for months, but she has no idea where he is. This leads her to Jason, who ultimately provides us with unexpected revelation number two: demigods aren't only Greek. They've also got Roman counterparts.

Jason doesn't tell us this right away, though. You see, he's had his memory wiped by Hera/Juno, leaving him to wake up one day surrounded by a bunch of kids he's never met, two of whom claim to be his best friend and his girlfriend - Leo Valdez and Piper McLean, to be specific. After getting attacked by storm spirits, Leo, Piper, and Jason get sent to Camp Half-Blood, where they all learn that they're the children of gods.

Leo and Piper have their problems, but they do feel like Camp Half-Blood is ultimately the place where they belong. Jason's not so sure, especially since he keeps defaulting to the Latin names for creatures instead of the Greek.  That's not the biggest issue he's facing though: he, Leo, and Piper are subjected to a prophecy saying they need to go fight a giant to keep Gaea from rising and killing them all.

As they work their way west, Jason's memory slowly becomes clearer, and he drops this bombshell at the end of book one: he's actually a Roman demigod, and he's pretty sure that Percy's been sent to Camp Jupiter in his place.

Jason's entirely correct: book two is all about Percy's own journey through amnesia at Camp Jupiter, where he befriends Hazel Levesque and Frank Zhang, two Roman campers with massive secrets about their lives. The three of them get sent on a quest to Alaska, where they also defeat a giant, and end the book by helping to save New Rome from Gaea's army.

Book three is where everyone finally meets each other, but things also get a little crazy. Percy, Hazel, Frank, Jason, Piper, Leo, and Annabeth know they're the seven demigods from the Prophecy of Seven that closed the original series, and they've got to get to old Rome quick or Gaea will successfully rise. However, Leo accidentally fires on New Rome, provoking the Roman demigods into declaring war on the Greeks. Now they've still got to get to the ancient lands - a place that's technically forbidden - and they can't rely on help from either camp.

They do make it eventually, though, but they're forced to split up. Annabeth's been given a harrowing solo quest from her mother; Jason, Piper, and Percy end up taking on more giants; and Frank, Hazel, and Leo make an exciting discovery in some of the underground catacombs. They manage to rescue Nico di Angelo, who had been imprisoned by the giants as bait, but then Percy and Annabeth are lost after falling into the pit to Tartarus.

Oops.

Book four switches perspective between all seven demigods of the prophecy as all parties make their way to the Doors of Death. If Percy and Annabeth can close them from Tartarus and the others can get to them in Epirus back in the real world, then the monsters they kill will finally stop coming back immediately. It's not particularly safe or easy for either group to get to the doors, though, and sacrifices are made all around to get Percy and Annabeth back aboveground.

So, let's talk about my feelings: I love this series so much. So much of it is about the power of teamwork and friendship, and that warms my heart down to its cockles. Sure, each of the demigods is exceptionally powerful on their own, but it takes at least two of them working together at any given moment to actually defeat their strongest enemies.

I also feel like I learn a little when I read these books. Riordan uses real Greek and Roman mythology to construct all his characters, so it's kind of like getting a little Classics lesson every time another new character appears. It's probably not entirely appropriate for academic use - the kids can get really snarky about the gods/creatures/etc - but the basics are all there.

Now, for the two things that make me ridiculously emotional: Nico di Angelo and the Percy/Annabeth relationship.

Ever since Nico lost his older sister Bianca, he's been moody and withdrawn, and he's made some questionable choices. He also never really hangs out at camp - either camp, seeing as we find him at Camp Jupiter when Percy arrives. A lot of the characters think it's because he's got a crush on Annabeth and he can't stand to see her and Percy together, including Annabeth herself.

Wrong.

He's got a crush on Percy.

There has been fandom speculation/daydreaming for years that Nico had feelings for Percy, and Riordan went and made it canon. He did it pretty respectfully, too - Jason's the only one who knows in canon, and he doesn't really change how he acts around Nico because of it. He treats Nico with a little more understanding, maybe, but it's not overwhelming or patronizing. I'm really hopeful that this development will get expanded on more in Blood of Olympus, book five.

And now for Percabeth. I'm gonna try to keep this as short as possible, because otherwise I'll be writing this all day: Percy and Annabeth have one of my top two favorite fictional relationships of all time. Literally the only thing Percy remembers when his memories are gone is the name Annabeth, pardon me while I cry forever. Percy and Annabeth are good for each other in a way that I don't really see a lot in middle-grade/YA lit. They're supportive of each other, they've got a good dynamic between them, and they protect each other without becoming smothering. When they get into yet another life-or-death situation, their emotions feel realistic to me (not that I'd know), but they're still able to function as individuals when it comes down to it. If I ended up in a relationship like theirs (minus all the potential for dying), I wouldn't complain.

Overall, the Heroes of Olympus series brings both the action and the romance without letting either overshadow the other, and I'm counting down the days til the last book comes out. Five stars and a box of tissues.

Review: Siege and Storm

Yep, it's official, I'm still all about this series.

Alina and Mal are across the True Sea after escaping the Darkling, disguising themselves and taking whatever work they can find so they can save up some cash and continue to travel. Alina doesn't particularly like it, but it's better than the alternative.

And then the alternative happens. The Darkling is waiting for them in their boardinghouse one afternoon, and he's got a new power: he can create shadow monsters, vaguely person-shaped and corporeal. One of them bites Alina, causing her to black out.

When she awakens, Alina's on board a ship heading back across the True Sea in search of the mythical sea whip, another creature that might be able to amplify her powers. Having more than one amplifier is supposed to end poorly for anyone who attempts it, but the Darkling believes that the storied history of the sea whip means it will be an exception.

The captain of this ship is Sturmhond, a notorious pirate. While Alina knows she can't trust him, she can't help but like him, especially when he promises he'll help her and Mal escape once they land. Sure, he was paid to get them back to Ravka - but he made no promises about delivering them safely to his patron.

The sea whip is found soon enough once Mal's forced to track it, and Sturmhond loads himself, his most trusted crew, Mal, and Alina on board a smaller boat to get her close enough to kill it for herself - she's not making the same mistake after the stag. Once Alina's killed the whip and taken its scales for herself, though, things take a bit of an unexpected turn.

Sturmhond fires on his ship and gets their little boat of the range of the Darkling's powers, leaving him to his fate and getting Alina and Company back to land. Another surprise? Sturmhond's boat can fly, thanks to some modifications he's made and the two wind-summoning Grisha he's got on his crew. After an eventful trip across the Fold, they run into a group of soldiers, which doesn't seem like it will end well.

And then Sturmhond reveals he's actually Grand Duke Nikolai Lantsov, younger son of the king.

When Alina heard he was off learning about ships at college, this wasn't really what she had pictured.

Nikolai takes the group back to the capital, staging productions about Alina's magnificent return as the Sun Summoner as they go and even proposing marriage. Naturally, neither Mal nor Alina is super thrilled about that offer, but he takes it in stride. He's much more politically savvy than he'd appear, and he knows they wouldn't be a love match.

Once they arrive back at Os Alta, Alina takes over as head Grisha and commander of the Second Army in the Darkling's place. She forces the different types of Grisha to work together to figure out ways they can defend themselves from the Darkling's inevitable attack, which actually seems to work out. She also tirelessly researches the third legendary Ravkan creature: the firebird. If she can manage to hunt down and kill it, she'll finally have more power than the Darkling.

Unfortunately, some things don't work out quite as well. Mal gets testy and restless, for one. He's now the captain of Alina's personal guard, but he's not cut out for court life and starts to resent much of what he's made to do. For two, Nikolai's spoiled older brother Vasily gets suspicious of Nikolai, thinking he's plotting to take the throne - which, to be fair, Nikolai is. When Vasily announces that he's made a treaty with Fjerda, Ravka's biggest enemy, he accidentally unleashes a battle royale on the palace, allowing the Darkling to basically massacre everyone around.

Alina and the Darkling have yet another showdown, and things aren't looking great for either of them by its climax. Will Alina become a martyr for the cause after all?

First things first: Nikolai/Sturmhond is possibly my favorite character in this entire series. He's funny, he's very adept at court life, and he genuinely does mean well, even if he's also looking to take over the throne. I'm really hoping that his fate being unknown at the end of Siege and Storm means he's not dead, because I might throw my copy of book three against a wall if I find out otherwise.

(Also, Alina/Nikolai might be taking over as my favorite potential couple of the series. Oops.)

Plot-wise, this book held up what Shadow and Bone put in place quite well, in my opinion. I loved seeing Alina develop as a smart leader, and I also liked Alina seeing that her actions have consequences, too. She's got so much power literally at her fingertips now that she's got a second amplifier, and she needs some reality checks every so often to make sure she doesn't go down the same corrupted road as the Darkling.

However, I'm liking Mal less as time goes on. He only seems happy when he's got more status/power than Alina, which is not at all a good sign. I can understand not liking court life, and it's fair to say that Alina didn't make a great decision in making him come with her to the Little Palace when she knew he wouldn't enjoy it. That doesn't excuse him being insufferable about Alina using her powers. We get it, Mal, you miss the days when you were the Big Man On Campus and Alina was your best buddy. Now grow a pair and get over it.

I think my only wish for book three is Alina finding an actually decent friend for once. Genya was being manipulated by the Darkling, Mal doesn't like her Grisha powers, and Nikolai and her other guards all have their own interests and beliefs, too. If Alina could find a trustworthy person at some point, that would be splendid.

Overall, Siege and Storm was a thrill from start to finish, with plenty more whiplash-causing plot twists and honestly funny sarcastic humor. I honestly feel like I'm in a bit of a rut now - I don't have Ruin and Rising yet, so what am I supposed to read? Five stars.

Review: Shadow and Bone

Not gonna lie, I'm not super disappointed I found this so late in the game, because at least now I won't have to wait for any of this trilogy to be released.

#winning

Alina Starkov is an orphan serving time in the First Army of Ravka, as all young citizens must do. Her profession is cartography, while her lifelong best friend and secret crush Mal uses his keen abilities as a tracker for the good of Ravka. Their unit is traveling west to the other side of the Fold, a dangerous, dark place full of people-eating monsters, aka the volcra. It's not incredibly likely that either one of them won't make the journey alive, but accidents happen, so they're both feeling wary.

Their unit is midway through the Fold when the unthinkable happens and Mal gets attacked. Already on edge from losing another friend to the volcra, Alina fights her way over to Mal in a seemingly futile attempt to save him.

Seemingly futile, at least, until she utilizes a dormant power she didn't even know she had and calls light down into the Fold, scaring away the volcra. Alina is immediately taken to the Darkling, the head of all the Grisha in Ravka.

What are the Grisha, you may ask? The Grisha are practitioners of the Small Science, capable of things like healing, manipulating the elements, or creating potent chemical compounds. The Darkling is their leader, a human amplifier also capable of calling down darkness as a weapon. They live in the Little Palace back in Ravka's capital once they're found as children, because all children in Ravka get tested for Grisha powers. So how did Alina escape?

Alina puts that question aside and tries to focus on learning how to channel her powers. Even though she's the only Sun Summoner the kingdom has, she can't seem to make her power come when she wants it. Once she figures out the key, though, she's releasing more power than anyone could expect - and the Darkling only wants to make it stronger.

The Darkling is suave and handsome, and he wants Alina, both for her powers and as a girlfriend. He claims that if they can find a mythical stag, its antlers will amplify her power so much that they'll finally be able to destroy the Fold and re-unite Ravka. Awesome, right?

So of course this is the moment when it's revealed that the Darkling is actually a power-hungry villain who wants to control Alina's powers so he can eventually take over the world. He'll use her gift to pick off all the volcra, then use his own powers to expand the Fold as a threat to Ravka and her neighbors. Alina manages to escape the palace, though, and meets up with Mal to find the stag herself and claim its antlers before the Darkling can claim them for her.

And then everything falls to crap again. The end of the book is looking pretty hopeless for Alina, but she finds a couple more tricks up her sleeves, pulling off one last daring escape as the first book in the Grisha trilogy comes to a close.

I adore this series, you guys. Alina reminds me a lot of Percy Jackson with her dry, uncontrollable sarcasm, and watching her banter with someone is a true gift. The characters are also fairly complex, acting for/as both the "good" guys and the "bad" guys out of pure self-interest. While we know that Alina's working for the ultimate good, we have to figure out alongside of her which of her friends are trying to do the same and which just want to work solely for themselves.

The Russian themes of this book are also fantastic, in my opinion. I've always loved reading about Russian culture and the Romanov dynasty, so having a whole fantasy series use Russian mythology as its basis is like Christmas Day for me.

I even don't really mind the love triangle aspect. Alina has always liked Mal, but the Darkling is attractive and captivating, and she believes Mal has given up on her. She feels a real, well-developed pull to each of them, and for a while it's unclear who the "winner" is going to be. (I mean, until the Darkling's true character is revealed, but even then it could still fall in his favor.) The relationship drama is definitely present throughout the novel, but it never feels like Alina's biggest struggle, which pleases me - she's got some real issues to deal with!

If you like rich fantasy universes and sarcastic heroines, then you definitely need to go read Shadow and Bone right now. Five stars.

Review: Isla and the Happily Ever After

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's really the only way I can express how I feel about this book, with maybe a couple <3s thrown in for good measure. I want to live in this series.

For three years now, Isla Martin has been seriously crushing on Josh Wasserstein, one of her classmates at SOAP. He's been dating another girl, though, and she's painfully quiet, so she hasn't been able to do anything about it.

Until now.

Isla strikes up a conversation with Josh while high on painkillers (legally, she got her wisdom teeth out) in NYC, which leads them into a tentative friendship once they get back to school. Isla even gets assigned to Josh's old dorm room, a coincidence her romantic soul really enjoys.

Josh seems to be acting a little tentative around her, though, and she finally discovers why: he thinks she's dating her best friend, Kurt, since they spend so much time with each other. She quickly sets him right, and they begin a whirlwind relationship, exploring Paris and Barcelona with each other on some seriously impressive dates.

So of course it all goes downhill when Josh gets expelled for finally breaking too many rules at SOAP. Sneaking out to other countries is totally against school rules, and combined with his three previous years of exploiting his Jewish heritage and skipping out on his homework, the school can't give him any more chances. He's sent back to NYC to go on the campaign trail with his politician father, while Isla's left in Paris.

Isla's afraid Josh only likes an image of her he's created in his head and that they only started dating because they were both single at the same time, and her doubts aren't helped any by the new distance between them and the autobiographical comic book he gives her, where his ex is plastered all over the book but Isla's only in eight pages at the end. Over Christmas break she picks a fight with Josh and breaks up with him, thinking it'll be better for them both in the long run.

Except it's not. Now Isla's still miserable but even more alone, thanks to how she's been treating Kurt and Hattie. Since Isla devoted so much of her time to Josh, Kurt found new friends who share some of his other interests, and an ex-friend of hers tells her that she's been treating Hattie more like a child than a sibling ever since they got back to school. Isla slowly makes amends, though, repairing both of her relationships and realizing that her inner self isn't always right about other people.

At the end of the novel, Isla gets a phone call from Josh, saying he and some friends of his (aka Anna, St. Clair, Lola, Cricket, and Meredith) are all in Paris for a bit before going off to the Winter Olympics, and that they'd all love to see her. Will the promised happily ever after finally occur?

(Yes. Duh. Sorry, that was a terrible question.)

Anyways, I loooooooved Isla. I think it's actually my favorite of the three. Isla's personality really matches up with my own, so seeing her learn and grow was fascinating (and potentially helpful) to me. I also adored the Anna/St. Clair moment at the end - not gonna spoil it, but I definitely had to hold in a squeal of glee.

Another thing I appreciated about this book: Kurt. I knew before it was explicitly stated that he was autistic, and I thought it was so fantastic that he was included. He's not tokenized in any way, nor does Isla see herself as some kind of saint for being best friends with The Autistic Kid. He's just Kurt, the boy she's known since childhood, and they're pretty much each other's only friends for a large portion of the book. There are even references to Kurt having a type when it comes to girls, subtly refuting the "people on the autism spectrum are too different to feel romantic attraction" idea that goes around. I'm not trying to say Kurt's the best example of diversity to ever be written ever, but he was definitely written well.

Finally, I'm so happy that the basic scheme of this novel was different from both Anna and Lola. Both of those novels kind of followed the same pattern where the girl and the boy meet, but circumstances prevent them from getting together until the end of the story. While Anna and Lola's stories diverged enough that I didn't feel like I was reading the same idea with the names changed, I was still glad to see that Josh and Isla got together pretty early in the story, and then had to deal with the troubles that come when you'd like to sustain a relationship. It was a nice change of pace.

Overall, Isla and the Happily Ever After is superb. The characters are wonderful, the plotline's a bit different than Perkins' other books, and the appearances by her previous protagonists wrap up their stories in the best possble way. I know this is the last book she plans to write in this series, but that doesn't stop me from wanting more. Five stars.

Review: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series

Side note before I start the actual review: what are the odds of me finding my original copy of the first book now that I've gone out and gotten a replacement? I'm sure the next time I look, it'll just be there taunting me.

(Wow, Amazon actually had a composite for that. Thanks, Google Image Search!)

I'm sure everyone and their brother has read this series/knows what it's about by now, so I'm going to try to do a very TL;DR summary of the books. Ready? Okay!

Carmen, Lena, Tibby, and Bridget are lifelong best friends about to spend their first summer apart. As they're packing, they unearth a pair of jeans Carmen got secondhand a few months back, and each of them end up trying the pants on. Somehow, mysteriously, the pants fit all of them, though they have different heights and builds. They decide to mail the Pants (now worthy of a capital P) to each other throughout the summer in order to feel more connected and allow the Pants to experience all their adventures, even if they can't all be together to do it themselves.

The basic summary of the girls' exploits in book one: Lena meets a boy, but pushes him too far away. Bridget meets a boy and lets him in too much. Tibby meets a girl who teaches her more about life than she'd thought was possible, and Carmen meets her father's new family, to her surprise and dismay. Each girl learns a little more about herself and those around her thanks to the exploits they have in the Pants.

The next three books continue on in similar veins. Lena has to learn how to live her life without centering it around the whims of a man who can't always be around her. Bridget loses herself for a bit, but eventually learns to balance taking care of herself and letting others take care of her without depending on them too much. Tibby continually learns that she has to face her demons head-on if she wants them to really go away, and Carmen eventually realizes that change is a good thing, especially for her family. She also comes to terms with a toxic friendship.

The last book ends with the sisters back together for the first time in months after a minor tragedy happens. It rocks their world for a while, but they soon realize that it was exactly what they needed.

We don't talk about book five.

It had been years since I'd reread this series, and I'd kind of forgotten how good they are. I love the little quotes Brashares intersperses between the chapters, and it's fun seeing how the messages of those quotes play out in the actual story. While the references are a bit dated (CosmoGirl? I'd almost forgotten that even existed), the basic lessons and contents of the story feel timeless.

My only beef is that sometimes it feels like the girls never really grow from their experiences. Tibby and Carmen are my two prime examples: Tibby has to re-learn that sealing herself off from her emotions every novel isn't healthy, while Carmen always gets angry or bitter about any new people entering her family, at least in the first three novels. I've got next to no experience with psychology, so maybe it really does take people that long to change, but over four years - especially when the girls go off to college - I'd think that they wouldn't get so easily stuck in their bad habits. At some point, I feel like they'd kick themselves in their rears and realize that their old behaviors aren't going to help them.

Still, the books are immensely enjoyable, and every girl has her moments of relatability, even if you don't identify closely with one of them in particular. Four and a half stars.

Review: Curtsies & Conspiracies

Wow, it's been a while. Sorry about that, I've just been busy! (And also a little lazy. Sue me.)

Anyways, I'll try to get back on more of a normal blogging schedule this week. Starting with:

Curtsies & Conspiracies, the second novel in the Finishing School series. Sophronia's back for another rousing adventure at Mademoiselle Geraldine's, this time with a couple new intrigues. The curious prototype from the last novel is still causing a stir for Sophronia and her friends, but there's another source of uproar, too.

Boys.

A few young men from Bunsen's, their brother school, are spending the term on board the girls' dirigible, along with one of their professors, Algonquin Shrimpdittle. Sophronia knows that some of the boys are being trained to take over for their fathers in their anti-supernatural clubs, but that doesn't stop her from flirting with Felix, a young lord who's definitely interested in her.

Of course, multiple problems arise over the course of the book. Vieve's gotten permission to disguise herself as a boy and attend Bunsen's, but Shrimpdittle knows she's a girl. Sophronia agrees to sabotage him in exchange for Vieve's gadgetry, but that deal ends up affecting one of the people around her in an unfortunate way. On top of that, Sophronia thinks her friend Soap the sootie is crushing on her, but she doesn't know how she feels about him, especially when she factors in Felix's attention. Worst of all, Dimity and her brother get kidnapped by the Westminster vampire hive, but no one seems willing to help her break them free.

This is really not what Sophronia was expecting when she learned she was going to finishing school.

First of all, I apologize for the short summary! It's been a couple weeks since I read this, so my memory's lost all the details.

I can recall that I loved this book, though. Common YA tropes - especially the Sophronia/Felix/Soap love set-up - are twisted enough to make them interesting and applicable to such a different setting, and I think it's great. I'm super glad that what could be a boring "does she love person A or B?" love triangle isn't reduced to that at all. Sophronia knows she has bigger problems that figuring out which boy to date, for one, and for two, she's genuinely in a pickle. She knows she's not really into Felix, but she's not above flirting with him and trying to be his friend, and she's concerned about ruining her best-buddies relationship with Soap if their feelings get more intense. While it's definitely a plot point, the romance doesn't overshadow the action - if anything, it fuels it, driving the story onwards. It's very well-crafted, in my opinion.

Also, Lord Akeldama's back in this book! He's one of my favorite side characters from Alexia's books, so even though he's not in Curtsies & Conspiracies a lot, it's still nice to see him. I get the feeling he'll come into more prominence in the next two books, too, which is exciting.

Overall, Curtsies & Conspiracies is a fun showcase for Sophronia's budding talents as a spy, and it never gets bogged down in unnecessary romance or action. It zips right along, and I didn't want it to ever finish. Five stars.

Review: Etiquette & Espionage

Remember how I said I was going to talk about Gail Carriger's other series, the Finishing School books, later?

It's later.

After a surprise visit from the headmistress, Sophronia Angelina Temminnick's mother is shipping her off to Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. Sophronia's always been more interested in sneaking around the house to eavesdrop than becoming a proper young lady, so she's not super interested in this prospect, understandably.

At least until the flywaymen attack.

It's revealed that the "headmistress" was actually a disguised student named Monique, and the robbers are demanding she hand over the prototype, whatever that is. When they wrestle her out of the carriage, it's up to Sophronia, another recruit named Dimity, and Dimity's brother Pillover to rescue Monique and get back on course to their respective schools.

And that's not even the biggest reveal of the day: for one, Mademoiselle Geraldine's isn't a building - it's a floating dirigible. For two, it's not just a normal finishing school. It's a school for intelligencers, and Sophronia's their newest covert recruit, one of the few students who doesn't have a family history of attendance.

Sophronia's got natural talent for spying, though, and she starts to put it to some unsanctioned uses: namely, figuring out what exactly the prototype is, and why Monique would go so far to take it for herself. After all, Monique ended up sabotaging her entire academic career for it, since she's now back in the debut classes with Sophronia and her friends.

With some assistance from a mechanimal, the sooties, and an ingenuitive little girl named Vieve, Sophronia figures out that things should come to a head the night of her older sister's coming out ball. Will she and Dimity be able to rescue the prototype without revealing too much of what they're actually learning at finishing school? (Since there's a book two, signs point to yes.)

Etiquette & Espionage is a combination of some of my favorite tropes: girls attending secret spy schools, historical AUs, and femininity as its own kind of power. It's also got the bubbly, quirky writing style of the Parasol Protectorate series, so it feels fun to read, especially when characters from Carriger's original series make appearances in this YA spinoff. Seeing the familiar universe in a different context is one of my favorite parts of this series.

Carriger's talent for writing unique, fun characters is still going in the Finishing School series, too. The teachers especially are all wildly different, and they kind of feel like Hogwarts professors mixed with particularly flamboyant stage performers. Since I really love side characters with big personalities, I'm consistently enamored with Carriger's books.

Overall, Etiquette & Espionage is a supremely entertaining novel that doesn't really depend on prior knowledge of Carriger's other books to be enjoyable. If its description strikes your fancy more than Alexia's books do, feel free to jump right in. Five stars.

Authors Who Need More Love: Gail Carriger

I will go on about every book she's written until I am blue in the face because everyone should read these books they should have read them yesterday.

(Also, I'm only going to talk about the Parasol Protectorate books - I reread the Finishing School books more recently, so they'll get a separate review. Not sure if I'm going to do them individually or together yet, though.)

Photo cred: here

Do you like vampires, werewolves, Victorian romances, and alternate historical timelines? Then everything about this series is for you.

The protagonist is Alexia Tarabotti, a preternatural. Preternaturals are basically the opposite of supernaturals like vampires and werewolves - they have no soul, while supernaturals have an excess. (The excess of soul is what allows people to become supernatural in the first place.) Alexia can turn a vampire or werewolf human if they make skin-to-skin contact, though no one really understands how or why that occurs. Since she's a woman of decent social standing, the Bureau of Unnatural Registry mostly just wants to keep her out of the way of their day-to-day operations.

Which is all well and good until they remember that Alexia is awesome at not following instructions.

Alexia is also naturally curious and very well-read on current scientific theories, making her an almighty pest to Lord Conall Maccon, the head of BUR. (Can you tell where this is going?) They fight, banter, and bicker like an old married couple, yet somehow manage to have some spectacular miscommunications about their true feelings for each other. It also doesn't help that Lord Maccon's an Alpha werewolf, and thus has different protocols for courtship than Alexia is used to.

On top of all the romantic turmoil, Alexia's being followed around London by strange automatons that no one can seem to trace back to their owners. BUR can't send their usual agents to watch over her on the night of the full moon, naturally, so she goes to visit her vampire friend Lord Akeldama then. He's one of the oldest vampires around, so she figures it'll be a pretty safe visit.

Until the automatons strike, kidnapping both of them. When Alexia awakens, she's in an unfamiliar house full of mad scientists who'd like to use her preternatural abilities to terminate supernatural beings for good, starting with Lord Akeldama. Oh, and they've also kidnapped Conall and the rest of his pack, too. Alexia's options are limited, but with a little ingenuity, she manages to get to Conall and work together to save their loved ones.

And that's just book one.

Books two through five take Alexia all over the world as she discovers new facets and limitations of her abilities, such as her reaction to the mysterious God-Breaker Plague and what exactly happens when a supernatural man and a preternatural woman have unprotected sex. Even when she'd like them too, the adventures just never really stop for Alexia and her friends.

So there's the rundown of the plot. Still need convincing?

How about this: basically none of Alexia's friends are heterosexual. Lord Akeldama's gay and keeps a coven full of handsome dandies, as is Professor Lyall, Conall's Beta. Alexia's own father had affairs with both men and women, though she never actually knew the man, and Alexia's close friend Genevieve Lefoux is a lesbian who is not subtle about her attraction to Alexia. (Heck, Alexia even experiences a little attraction of her own to Genevieve, but she quashes it down because she's married.) There's also a love story that develops between Lord Akeldama, his favorite coven member Biffy, and Professor Lyall, though not until a little later in the series.

What's best, though, is that none of the tension is caused by someone realizing they're gay and then spiraling into a shame crisis because of the era. While I wouldn't say any of the homosexual characters are announcing their sexualities from the rooftops, they're also not using each other as beards to keep up any charades. More of the problems are caused by vampire-werewolf relations than anything else, and I love that.

All of the characters are genuinely entertaining, too. Alexia's best friend Ivy speaks in malapropisms constantly, Lord Akeldama uses the most ridiculous endearments, and Alexia's mother and stepsisters can be almost caricatureish in their adherence to proper standards of behavior sometimes. The mishmash of characters and settings is set aloft by Carriger's writing, too, which is reminiscent of actual Victorian novels but with a decidedly modern sense of humor.

The final thing I want to mention about these novels is how cool I find the concept. Instead of keeping the supernatural in hiding like in every other vampire/werewolf novel, Carriger puts them at the forefront of society. Vampires dictate what's trendy. Werewolves are the premier military leaders. Ghosts can be used to investigate crimes. There's also some pushback from more conservative groups like the mad scientists I mentioned earlier or the Knights Templar, who fear the supernatural and want to send them back into hiding/eradicate them as is God's will. It's really interesting to me to see how Carriger reinterprets actual history to include supernatural creatures and how that would change things, and I'm hoping her upcoming Custard Protocol series expands more on that.

Overall, the Parasol Protectorate novels are a flurry of fun, adventure, and romance, and I want them to become movies already. Five stars.

Review: The Jewel

A sci-fi YA novel that I actually enjoyed reading? Am I hallucinating? Is it Christmas? 

(Also, it's an ARC, so keep your eyes peeled on September 2nd!)

Violet Lasting is about to become no more.

She's one of two hundred girls capable of being a surrogate for the upper class women in her society, and as such, she no longer gets to have a name. She's Lot 197, one of the most desirable bodies in the bunch, because she's exceptionally talented at using the Auguries, the mutations that allow her to be a surrogate.

At first, she thinks she'll go to the Electress, the leader of the Lone City, but then the Duchess of the Lake makes a surprise bid and wins her just as the time on her auction runs out. This has consequences both good and bad for Violet.

The good: she lives in an opulent palace where all of her wants and needs are taken care of at the snap of a finger. She also meets Ash there, a boy who's in a predicament similar to hers, and they end up falling hard for each other.

The bad: If she puts a toe out of line, the Duchess punishes her tenfold for it. And she and Ash are technically not supposed to have any contact, as they are both property of the Duchess to be used for different tasks.

Violet soon learns of a way out of the Jewel, the city center where she now lives. It'll be dangerous for her to get out and get to safety, but it's just as dangerous for her to stay - implantation has a lot of negative side effects on the surrogates, and the Duchess wants her to manipulate the Auguries in ways that might actually kill her. A choice has to be made - will she protect herself and get out of the Jewel, or will she protect her friends and stay with Ash until the end? The last few pages are full of surprises.

I plowed my way through this book in a day. It's really easy to read, and the concept's pretty interesting. The blurb calls it a cross between The Selection and The Handmaid's Tale, and I'd say that's pretty accurate, though the Auguries have to be taken into account, too. Getting blindsided by magic nearly turned me off to this book.

I really, really loved the worldbuilding in this novel. It's not a dystopian possible future thing like The Hunger Games or The Handmaid's Tale. It's set in its own world: the Lone City, shaped like a concentric circle with five sections. There's the Marsh, the Farm, the Smoke, the Bank, and the Jewel, all pretty self-explanatory. Surrogates can only come from the Marsh, and only the people in the Jewel need them to reproduce - everyone else is still capable of doing it naturally. There's a blood test to determine which girls are surrogates, and they get sent to special training facilities once they're old enough so they can learn how to use their Auguries. It all makes sense, and I didn't notice any gaping plot holes at any point in the novel.

Surprisingly, I also didn't mind the love interest. Ash is a nice guy, and he doesn't have any of those "brooding abuser" characteristics that tend to happen in YA romances. He and Violet aren't one of my favorite couples of all time, but I liked their story well enough. It added another layer of complication to an already dense web of choices, probably even the most important complication - if Violet wasn't in love, she would have less compelling reasons to stay in the Jewel.

I can tell The Jewel is going to have a sequel - the ending was definitely not final. Hopefully it comes out pretty quickly, because I'm definitely hooked enough to want to see what happens next, even if I'm not totally in love. Four stars.

Review: Impossible

I'm slowly catching up on my "to be reviewed" list, you guys!

Except then I'll have nothing to blog about...oops.

You all know the song "Scarborough Fair," right? Oldie, ballad, kind of creepy when you actually listen to all of the lyrics?

Well, what if that song were true? That's the premise behind Impossible.

Lucy Scarborough doesn't want to be like her mother, Miranda. Not super unusual in teenage girls, but it's more serious in Lucy's case: Miranda's a crazy homeless woman who had Lucy at eighteen and now floats around the area, dropping out of the radar for years at a time before coming back and making life hard for Lucy and her foster parents, Soledad and Leo.

It seems like Lucy's doing pretty well at not being Miranda, too. She's got good grades, she's on the track team, and she's even got a nice date to prom. Her life's turning out pretty well.

At least until prom night, when Lucy's date lures her away after the dance and rapes her for no apparent reason. Lucy knew he was sober all night, because they were planning on driving to an afterparty, but when he's found dead after a car wreck hours later, his BAC is off the charts. Lucy also swears he was different when he was raping her - like someone took over his body for a moment.

She moves on as best she can, taking the morning after pill to ward off a pregnancy and relying on her childhood best friend Zach for comfort. Again, things are looking up.

And then Lucy learns she's pregnant. She immediately rejects the idea of abortion - for some reason it just feels wrong, though she's not sure why. So she starts looking into her family history, and discovers that the Scarborough girls have always gotten pregnant at 18 and gone mad shortly after, and have always delivered girls. They also have their own version of "Scarborough Fair" that's been handed down from mother to child for years.

Slowly, Lucy learns that it's not just a song - it's what they need to do to break the curse on their line. Ever since their ancestress rejected the original Elfin Knight, he's enacted revenge by taking her descendants, and it's almost Lucy's turn. Together, Lucy, Zach, and her parents figure out how to accomplish all three tasks detailed in the song. When Lucy goes into labor before finishing the third one, it's a race against the clock for her to save herself and her daughter from the vengeful Knight.

I realize that this whole concept sounds insane, but the writing is genuinely amazing. The story is a great blending of magic and normalcy, and neither really overtakes the other and ruins the balance. Sure, Lucy's dealing with an ancient curse - but she can use Google to figure out valid options for completing the tasks. It's the best of both worlds.

Also, don't let the rape put you off from reading Impossible. (I mean, unless you truly cannot handle it, which is totally okay! Mental health first.) It's not gone into in detail, and it's treated with all the seriousness the act deserves. I can't say it's pleasant by anyone's standards, but I feel like it's handled well and isn't just some plot device to give Lucy an angsty backstory or anything like that.

The love story between Zach and Lucy is written well, too. It's very much a slow burn, but it feels realistic - both of them have to come to terms with realizing that they like the other person in a non-platonic manner, and that takes time. Zach and Lucy are also super considerate of each other's needs when they're making decisions, and I really like that. It makes them feel much older than they actually are, but in the kind of situations they're going through, I think they kind of need to be more mature than a typical teenager.

Overall, Impossible is a great choice for someone who likes music incorporated into their books. It's a fairy tale with a solid grounding in reality, and the stakes feel incredibly high because of it. Have fun not wanting to put it down, kids. Five stars.