Review: Silver Shadows

Because I should probably try to review new books around their actual release date instead of how they fit into my backlog, I suppose.

Also, I'll probably be even more spoilery than usual in this review because oh my God.

Silver Shadows starts three months after the insane climax of The Fiery Heart. Sydney's still in solitary at the re-education center, while Adrian has fallen into total and utter drunkenness as a coping mechanism for not being able to locate her. Their disconnect isn't his fault, though - the Alchemists drug their detainees whenever they want them to sleep, because it keeps the prisoners disoriented and at their mercy. Sydney realizes she needs to get out of solitary in order to find a way to circumvent the drug, so she finally "admits" that she's sinned and wants to atone.

Life outside of solitary isn't a whole lot better, though. While she's at least getting consistent food, drink, and human contact, the other inmates avoid Sydney like the plague for the first few days because of her "sin," and she's still getting drugged every night. She tries to ask her new ally Duncan how to turn the pipes that pump the drugs in off, but he refuses to help her. It's Sydney's roommate, Emma, who tells her how to circumvent the system. Emma seemed coldhearted at first, but she's just as desperate to get out as everyone else, and Sydney promised she'd be able to get a message out that night if they could just turn the gas off.

Except Adrian doesn't pull her into a spirit dream like Sydney was expecting. She gets ostracized by the others for a week until Adrian finally appears, freshly sober and able to use his powers after a ridiculous bender. With help from Marcus and his contacts, they figure out that Sydney's in a center in Death Valley and make plans to break her and the other inmates free. The plan seems to be going off without a hitch-

-until Sydney doesn't appear with the last group of evacuees. She's being held in a super secure part of the facility that locks down in emergencies, and the Alchemists are prepared to let the people down there die rather than free them. So Adrian and the others take matters into their own hands and get Sydney themselves before driving off to their safe house.

Sydney finagles the arrangements so she and Adrian are driving by themselves, though, and convinces him to break away from the group so they can hide on their own - it's easier to hide two than twenty, after all. But then the Alchemists track them down in Vegas, prompting the couple to take some drastic measures to ensure Sydney will have protection from the Alchemist leaders.

Adrian and Sydney manage to make it back to Court, but they're only given a moment of respite before they're given word that another catastrophe has occurred. What are they going to do about it? We'll find out in book six.

I inhaled this novel, you guys. I got it at like six thirty last night and was finished with it by ten this morning. It was just so compulsively readable, and the stakes never really seemed to lessen at any point. The consequences changed, sure, but there were only brief moments where the characters could truly relax.

I'm still a big fan of Sydney and Adrian and their relationship, too. They're a really well-written example of people who are better together but not totally useless when they're apart, in my opinion. (I mean, maybe minus the times Adrian's blackout drunk, but he does manage to pull himself together again every time.) Sydney and Adrian would move heaven and earth to ensure the other was safe, and they're good at figuring out ways to use their respective strengths to do so. I want to see more of this in everything, please.

Also something I want more of? The scathing hatred of rapists in this book. There are multiple instances where the characters explicitly say that rape is not okay, and they're all written very well. Even Adrian references it in one scene, and he doesn't try to sympathize with the rapist or get overly defensive about how not all guys are like that. After the ridiculousness that was #NotAllMen, I was really happy to see this in one of my favorite series.

My hopes for book six: things finally become okay oh my God I cannot handle this kind of stress again.

Overall, Silver Shadows was interesting and engrossing and awesome and other complimentary words. It definitely wasn't a let down. Five stars.

Review: Cinderella's Dress

I saw this book while randomly browsing and was like "Oh my God, this is probably going to be my jam." And I was right: this book was so totally my jam.

Kate Allen is trying hard to live her dream in New York City, but there are a couple inhibiting factors. For one, getting any kind of job as a girl in 1945 is challenging, and for two, her mom would much rather she became a model or an actress than a department store window designer. Even if her mother were okay with Kate's desire, the head designer, Mr. G, doesn't hire woman decorators, which is another wrench in the system. Kate's too determined to go down without a fight, though.

Luckily for Kate, she lands a couple of breaks. As the war progresses, more and more boys enlist in the Army, leaving an open position on the window decorating team. A couple of long-lost relatives from Poland also appear around this time, bringing old family secrets and traditions along with them.

Uncle Adalbert and Aunt Elsie were looking for Katja, Kate's grandmother, but she died about two years ago. All they have is one trunk, so Kate's mom lets them stay at the apartment for a while. Kate's sure something important must be in the trunk, but when Elsie opens it, it's empty.

Well, at first.

As Elsie and Adalbert spill more of the family history, Kate's caught between disbelief and wonder. They claim that Kate's family are the Keepers of Cinderella's dresses - the rag gown she wore as a servant, the ball gown she wore when she met the prince, and her wedding gown. What's more, the dresses are magical, because they amplify feelings and promote truth.

Of course, there's a catch: the families of the evil stepsisters are after the dresses - always have been, always will be. And they're likely to come after Kate, Adalbert, and Elsie if they're located, especially since Cinderella's descendants are back in Europe. Thus, the dresses must remain hidden and a secret to all outsiders.

So Kate puts them on display in the store window after suggesting they do a Cinderella theme for spring. (Really.) She doesn't plan on it at first, but none of the dresses the store has look good enough to be the central focus of the display, and she doesn't want to disappoint Mr. G, or make him regret hiring a girl.

What happens when the stepsisters' families come after the dresses? Will there be a fairy-tale ending? That's not my place to tell.

What is my place to tell is how much I enjoyed this novel. Cinderella's Dress fuses fairy-tale elements with something not entirely modern but still relatable, and both worlds feel realistic and well-crafted. I feel like it's even a more plausible story because of the setting. Sure, Kate is suspicious that Aunt Elsie might just be a little senile, but she's won over easily by their stories with not much proof behind them. Today we're so cynical thanks to Internet hoaxes and crazy conspiracy theories that a modern Kate may not ever have believed her family until it was too late, and wouldn't that be a boring story?

(I'm not trying to say we need to be more trusting or that people back then never thought about being conned, btw. I just think that plot device works better in a more historical setting, in my opinion.)

I also like how the Cinderella story isn't the English one, but the Polish. It adds a little cultural flair to this book, and tells a slightly different version of a familiar fairy tale. The glass slippers, for example, are much less important than the dresses in this novel. (In fact, it's likely the slippers never existed at all for this "real" Cinderella, but I won't spoil beyond that.) There's just enough that's changed in this novel that it feels interesting and somewhat new to me.

The characters are great, too. I admit I wasn't crazy about Johnny, the love interest, at first, but even he grew on me as the story went on. (It helps that he wasn't as much of a jerk as he made himself out to be at the beginning.) Everyone seems to genuinely care about everyone else (minus the stepsisters' families, naturally), and I just wanted to hop into the book and become part of it myself.

Overall, Cinderella's Dress feels like a fairy tale about a fairy tale. It's full of love, fear, and tough decisions, and at the end of the day, the good guys win. We could always use a little more of that, don't you think? Five stars.

Review: Falling Into Place

Spoiler alert: this book was written by a high schooler. A high schooler. One time in high school I didn't realize I wasn't wearing a bra until lunchtime one day, and here this girl is with a published novel.

Just shoot me.

Also, I'm reviewing an ARC, so if you're interested, you'll have to hold out until September 9! (That's also my birthday, just sayin'.)

Liz Emerson is a popular, pretty, bright girl. She and her friends Kennie and Julia pretty much run their small town high school, and they take no prisoners when it comes to getting what they want.

Why, then, did Liz decide to run her car off the freeway one day?

Yes, it was definitely on purpose. Liz tried to stage it so it looked accidental, but it's stated explicitly that Liz was trying to kill herself. She'd considered doing it another way, but she thought if it looked accidental, it would at least give her loved ones some peace of mind. She's tired of being the cause of everyone's problems.

Thanks to an unconventional narrator, we learn that Liz has shouldered the blame for a lot of problems since she was a kid, and she's internalized some values that aren't really aiding her development. The parts of the novel that happen before she tries to commit suicide and falls into a coma are all told through either this mysterious narrator or Liz herself.

The parts that come after the event are from a myriad of sources. Mrs. Emerson, Kennie, Julia, and Liam (a boy who's got more of an outside perspective on Liz) all react differently to the news, and their narration is very introspective as they consider their own lives and how Liz affected them.

The ending of Falling Into Place is emotional and somewhat unexpected. It also leaves the reader with a little hope that things might get better for these people as their lives continue.

I enjoyed reading this novel, but I can't in good conscience give it a great review. First, the good parts: I liked figuring out who the narrator might be. I had a couple guesses, and as the story went on, I was able to refine them more until I was pretty close to right by the time it was revealed. It was a clever idea, and it fit well with the story as a whole without distracting from the main plotline.

I also liked how the characters were written (with one exception, but I'll get to that). Everyone was flawed, but no one was irredeemable. A lot of the mistakes and motivations were realistically teenage, due partly to the author's own age, I'm sure. Kennie's inner conflict was particularly moving, in my opinion, and I've never had the experiences she's had. That's a sign of compelling writing to me.

However, I really, really did not like the implied potential love story between Liz and Liam. It gave me some incredibly skeevy vibes, and I shudder to think about it playing out with real teenagers. Liz played some cruel pranks on Liam a couple years ago, yet he still harbors a crush on her because somehow he got one glimpse of her "yearn[ing] for beautiful things" a few months later and forgave her. While I appreciate Liam not being petty and vindictive, I would have preferred them having an actual conversation about the pranks, especially since they never actually talk to each other in this book. Instead, Liam hangs out at the hospital the whole time Liz is in a coma, even going into her room in the ICU at one point to visit her. Mrs. Emerson thinks he's Liz's boyfriend, for Pete's sake, and he doesn't bother to correct her. Seriously, this is not okay behavior, and I don't want it encouraging teenagers to creep on their crushes in a similar manner.

On a more personal preference-based note, I also didn't really get hooked by this story. I liked it, sure, and I kept reading to see if I was right about the narrator, but it was still only a mild interest. I think I'm just getting tired of Profound Books about Serious Teenage Issues, so I might be skewed, but I don't know if Falling Into Place is going to set the world on fire. It wasn't a waste of my time by any means, but I'm not eagerly awaiting a movie annoucement, either.

Overall, Falling Into Place is well-written and focuses on a lot of issues modern teenagers are dealing with. Liz, Kennie, and Julia all have their own struggles, and each of them were interesting to read about and had their relatable moments. However, the implied love interest thing isn't healthy, and I never managed to get totally ensnared by the story. Three and half stars for personal preference, four if I'm being a little more objective. 

Authors Who Need More Love: Trenton Lee Stewart

This might be shorter than usual, because I'm going out with friends in like forty-five minutes, sorry!

Photo cred here

Been looking for another good friendship-driven series now that Harry Potter's done? This is what you want.

Reynie Muldoon is an orphan from Stonetown. He's more interested in reading the paper than watching TV, so the other kids just kind of ostracize him. That quirk, though, is what leads him to his first ever friends.

He and his tutor, Miss Perumal, notice an advertisement aimed at brilliant kids one day, so they decide to have him go - what's the worst that could happen, a waste of a day? Before she can take him, though, Miss Perumal's mother falls ill, so Reynie has to go by himself to take the test.

Reynie passes the first test and every one subsequent, noticing that a lot of the tasks are actually riddles, not questions. Once he's done, he and three other kids - Sticky, Kate, and Constance - are left to meet Mr. Benedict, the man behind the tests. 

Cleverness is what got Reynie through the tests, but that can't be said for the others. Sticky's a genius, Kate's a daredevil who used to be in the circus (no, really), and Constance is stubborn and contrary. Together, they're the perfect team for what Mr. Benedict needs them to do: infiltrate the Institute, a mysterious school located on an island near Stonetown.

Why are they infiltrating? The headmaster of the Institute, Mr. Curtain, has a machine called the Whisperer that's putting subliminal messages into the media - radio and TV broadcasts, to be specific. Soon, though, he's not going to need the middleman. He'll be able to broadcast messages directly into people's heads. Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance need to figure out where the Whisperer is and how to disable it before Mr. Curtain can get that far.

The kids' struggles with Mr. Curtain and his henchmen span the three main novels of this series, taking them around the world before ultimately landing them back in Stonetown. The fourth novel in this series focuses on Mr. Benedict as a child. (I haven't actually read it, so that's all I know.)

I legitimately adore this series. The kids are realistic - they're both precociously smart and childishly naive. The puzzles are also fun and challenging - I'm nearly a decade older than the characters, and sometimes I can't even figure out the riddles before they do. The story is also full of clever wordplay that brings a smile to my face - the Institute is located on "Nomansan Island," for example. Sound that out.

The only thing I have to say against these books is that sometimes they can be a little bit too sanitized, in my opinion. For example, the kids are taught not to kill any of Mr. Curtain's torture-loving henchmen, because they're better than that. I'm okay with not having tiny assassin children, don't get me wrong, but I think in situations like the kids get into, there's a decent chance that they'd have to try a kill shot if it really came down to an "us or them" decision.

(That sounds terribly callous of me, but I'm running out of time. I'll explain better later if you'd like.)

Overall, the three main MBS books get four stars from me. They're fun and captivating, and the kids remind me a lot of the Golden Trio from Harry Potter. Does it get much better than that?

Five Favorite Book Covers

I'm tired of just writing endless reviews, so I'm changing up the game a little bit today. I'm going to pick five book covers I adore - maybe not my top five ever, because I dunno if I could pick that - and list them here with a little description of why I like them, because why not?

So:

photo cred here, since someone took the time to stitch them together

What kind of list would this be if I didn't include the Harry Potter books? I'm specifically including the original US covers, because they're my covers. All of these new redesigns are just not acceptable. (Well, I do like how the spines make Hogwarts on the new ones. But I like the actual front cover images from the original covers best.)

I think I love these covers out of the nostalgia aspect more than anything else, but the artwork is still fabulous and there are elements of continuity that I like - same font, Harry doing something dangerous and stupid on most of them. Whoever realized that this series should not be recovered midway through is a genius and deserves a medal, by the way. I hate when series get redesigned midway through, keeping my covers from matching.

This cover of Les Mis also earns a spot on my list. Again, it's the cover of my edition, so there's some bias, but I like how it's got some color on it, and not the colors of the French flag. There's also no sad little Cosette from the musical's poster, so it's two for two on the creativity front.

I also like how the candlestick on the front can be representative of so much of the story. Valjean stealing the bishop's candlesticks, the fact that much of the story seems to take place in the dark, the smoke wafting that looks like it could also be the souls of the dead. Seriously, good work, cover designer.

Photo cred here

To the surprise of no one, I'm including the covers of Stephanie Perkins' novels here. I deliberately chose the recovers, too, because as you'll well know if you've read my reviews of Anna and Lola, I hated the originals with a burning passion. They looked cheap and childish, but these ones feel more dynamic and correct for the actual ages of the characters/intended audience.

I also love how each girl has a little symbol to go with her name - Anna and a heart, Lola and a star, and Isla and a rose. I understand how the symbols go with Anna and Lola, and I'm so excited to find out how Isla's works with her story and personality. Wasn't she or Josh mentioned doodling roses like that in Anna's book, too?

It's an ammo band made out of tubes of lipstick. How could I not like this cover, you guys?

I also like how this cover really fits the story. The characters are all pageant contestants, a lot of whom are blonde, but they have to figure out how to use their beauty-queen traits as weapons, making the ammo band (I know there's a real word for that) relevant as well. The cover girl even looks a little haggard, at least to me, which is also pretty true to form. Someone did a really good job creating this.

Photo credit ME! I saw no stitched ones online.

Rounding out the list with the TLOS covers, but I could easily add more. Maybe in the future?

Anyways, I legitimately love these covers, even without the Chris Colfer factor. They're all very similar in layout and font, which appeases my inner continuity freak, and they're gorgeously illustrated. All the little drawings on the sides and bottom show what the supporting characters look like (and give hints as to who's really important), and the middles have Alex and Conner doing their thing, which is the actual main plot of the novels. If I find out they're recovering these before the fourth one is published, I'm rounding up my pitchfork and torch, because these are already perfect covers.

What are your favorite covers, friends?

Review: Revenge of the Girl With the Great Personality

I'm gonna apologize right now if this is rough, because I read this over the Fourth of July weekend and now it's practically a month later. Oy.

(I picked this up because of the cover way back when. Not ashamed.)

Lexi Anderson attends a lot of beauty pageants. One would think this is because she's a contestant.

Wrong.

Her little sister is.

Mackenzie is only seven, but she's been on the mini beauty queen track practically since birth, meaning Lexi's been dragged along to a lot of these things, mostly so Mac can take full advantage of Lexi's sewing skills.

Lexi just wants to save up enough money to go to NYC for the summer and take some fashion courses, but her mother's near constant demands for more money to spend on Mackenzie is taking a toll on her. Lexi's also tired of coming in second to every boy in the school because they'd rather date someone with great looks over someone with a great personality.

So she and her best friend Benny make a deal. Every time she actually dresses up for school and/or flirts with a guy, he has to make another move on the guy he likes in return. At first, it all seems to work out: Lexi gains some confidence from looking good, she gets asked out by one of the cutest boys in school, and she's even getting noticed by the boy she actually likes. And then it starts falling to pieces.

Mom steals money from Lexi's bank account to fund Mackenzie's next pageant. Mac starts saying that she wants to stop doing pageants, though their mother doesn't listen. And Lexi's dad, who is usually the most honest with her, drops the bombshell that he's engaged and living with another woman.

What's a girl to do? Show her mother that it's about time she listened to her daughters, that's what.

I won't lie, this book is basically the novel version of a rom-com. (Though Lexi does end up single, so it's maybe not 100% similar.) It's short, it's easy to plow through, and it's not chock-full of life-changing, inspiring affirmations. But that doesn't mean it's not good.

Lexi actually grows a lot as a character in this book, learning what it really means to be a good friend, a good sister, and a good person. She's also very genuine - when she starts understanding how to really be herself and take responsibility for her actions, it doesn't feel tired or like Eulberg is pushing some kind of moral standard. She's a teenage character who reminds me of actual teenagers today, not what the author thinks teenagers are or the teenagers the author knew when they were young.

I also love Benny's inclusion in this novel. He's a closeted gay kid in the middle of Texas whose parents are pretty religious, but he's still willing to go out and catch the guy he really likes, and I like that kind of bravery in a person. What I like more, though, is that Eulberg doesn't make him a standard Gay Best Friend character. Yes, he likes seeing Lexi get all dolled up, but he also likes wearing t-shirts with 80s references screenprinted on them and playing around in his game room. He's a person, not a plot device, and I want to see more characters like him.

I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the pageants, so here goes: I really like how they're handled. Even though Lexi hates them, she really only hates them for the younger kids and for how her family specifically isn't actually being helped by them. She admits that they can help other families come together and that they do give girls some poise (and maybe some scholarship money), so they're not all bad. They're also not written in a satirical way that invites the reader to laugh at them - I mean, outside of using technical terms like "butt glue." That's naturally funny, man. I don't watch Toddlers and Tiaras or any other show like that, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that RotGwtGP handles pageants more respectfully than they do.

Overall, Revenge is a classic breezy summer read. It's pretty fast-paced, it's not arrogant, and it's enjoyable more than anything else. It's also genuinely well-written and believable, so it doesn't feel like a waste of time, either. Four stars.

Review: Extraordinary

This is one of those books that I hadn't reread in so long that I'd forgotten just how genuinely great it is, both as entertainment and as an art form.

Hashtag book owner problems.

Phoebe Rothschild is on the cusp of true popularity in middle school, mostly because yes, she's one of those Rothschilds. And then Mallory Tolliver arrives.

Mallory is poorly dressed and totally clueless about how life in general works, which isn't really a winning combination at any time, but especially does her no favors in middle school. Phoebe thinks it's because of Mallory's mother, who appears to be desperately mentally ill and incapable of raising Mallory.

It's actually because Mallory's a faerie.

As we learn through little chapters called "Conversations with the Faerie Queen," the realm of Faerie is losing energy every time someone uses magic, and they don't have a lot left to work with. Mallory has been sent to coerce Phoebe into fulfilling a bargain her great-great-etc-grandfather made with the queen almost two hundred years ago, when the Rothschild family began to make a name for itself.

However, Mallory actually develops genuine affection for Phoebe, Phoebe's parents, and even her "mother," who's being glamoured to believe Mallory's her long-dead daughter. So the Faerie Queen pulls out the big guns: Ryland, Mallory's brother is about to take over the operation, and he's nowhere near as nice as her.

Ryland's plan? Make Phoebe fall in love with him, have her agree to keep it a secret, and then rip her support system out from underneath her by having Mallory "find out" and accuse Phoebe of being a terrible person. When it doesn't look like Mallory's going to cooperate, Ryland has Phoebe's mother put into a coma for extra stress.

Eventually Phoebe discovers the truth about her family and what her so-called friends plan to do with her, and she intends to go along willingly if they promise to heal her mother in return. Phoebe's cooperation isn't quite enough to end the curse, though - so what's going to happen to Mallory and the rest of Faerie?

Something extraordinary.

Like I said, Extraordinary is so genuinely well-written, you guys. The villains are sympathetic but still not making the greatest choices, and the heroine is just as fallible as everyone else. It's also such a rich story, with lots of real-world history intertwined with the fantastic elements to add an edge of actual possibility.

At its heart, this book is also about female power and relationships both familial and friendly, which I looooove. Phoebe tries to draw strength and learn from her mother at every opportunity, but she's also got the classic worry about being a disappointment. Mallory's caught between her homeland and her adopted family, and there really is no right answer for her. The Faerie Queen is clever and stubborn, but when her options run out, she makes the biggest sacrifice of them all. If you want a book full of interesting women, it's right here.

As I've mentioned before, I also really love the combination of the real world and the magical in literature, and this book is one of the most realistic mixtures of the two that I've ever read. Werlin clearly did her research on both faerie lore and the Rothschild family, and it paid off. The magic in this book also doesn't turn the Rothschilds or the faeries themselves into caricatures of strength and power - there are real consequences for both parties involved, as I believe there always should be when magic of this scope is performed.

Overall, Extraordinary is just that. It feels both modern and timeless, which is no easy feat in a novel. (Just think about all those novels where the protagonists are using technology that's cutting edge for them and hopelessly outdated for us.) If you're looking for a fairy tale with a bit of a twist, it's right here. Five stars.

Review: Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes

Anecdote: a high school friend of mine told me once that this was the only book she's ever reread - it's just that good.

(Also, how is this book almost ten years old? Doesn't that make me old?)

Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes is the story of Ginny Blackstone and the thirteen scavenger hunt-y clues and tasks her recently-deceased aunt left her. She starts the trip at her aunt's old apartment in NYC, but the clues ultimately lead her overseas, saying she needs to really begin her trip in England.

England is where Ginny meets Richard, Aunt Peg's ex-roommate. He lets Ginny stay with him as she works through the next few envelopes, involving such tasks as "ask Richard what he sold to the Queen" and "donate five hundred pounds to a deserving artist."

Ginny has no idea how to find an artist she likes in a foreign country, but after some trial and error, she meets and benefacts Keith, a theater student currently running a production of Starbucks: The Musical. Ginny and Keith strike up a weird, tentative friendship and end up running off to Edinburgh together to complete Ginny's next envelope-mandated mission: meeting Aunt Peg's favorite artist.

Edinburgh is pretty fun - until Keith reveals that he stole a trinket from the artist's house as a memento for Ginny. She gets upset and leaves him once they get back to London, running off to the next destination by herself.

The next destination? Paris, where Aunt Peg painted the walls of a cafe. Ginny also visits Rome, Amsterdam, and Denmark, meeting people that get wilder and wilder in every new place. (The Knapps are my personal favorite of the bunch, but I digress.) Ginny's final stop is in Greece, where the last envelope gets stolen from her before she can even read it. Will she be able to get back home? More importantly, will she figure out what Aunt Peg really bequeathed her?

I really love Maureen Johnson's writing style. Her characters tend to be capable without being unrealistically strong, but also still susceptible to teenage ignorance and vulnerability. She's also just a lively writer - the main characters all get fleshed out, and even the one-trick-pony side characters don't feel cartoonish or cheap. I don't know if I like Ginny better than Rory Deveaux (from her Shades of London series), but I do know I'd hang out with either of them if they were real.

I also enjoy the concept of this novel. Mysterious trip around Europe solely to have adventures and fulfill my favorite relative's whims? I'm so in. Aunt Peg's rules for the trip also make it more fun: no electronics, no guidebooks. Ginny can't overprepare or rely on others to make her decisions like it's implied she normally would, and it gives her a lot of moments of genuine connection to the places she's in. Sure, it's not necessarily the safest way to travel, but Aunt Peg does provide a few handy tips for each place Ginny goes.

Going back to my point about characterization: no one in this novel can be described as solely bad or solely good, and I think that's my favorite thing about it. (Okay, maybe the people who steal Ginny's stuff are just bad, but we never actually meet them, so they don't count.) Aunt Peg is practically a deity to Ginny, but Keith points out that leaving all these seemingly arbitrary tasks for Ginny is kind of evasive. The people Ginny meets on her travels do both helpful and harmful things to her. Ginny herself blames Keith for stealing the toy from Mari, but then breaks Aunt Peg's rule of "no electronic communication" a few days later. Everyone is human, not Heroic Good Guys and Evil Bad Guys, and I think that's a good thing to read.

Overall, Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes is an adventure in and of itself, and has withstood the nearly ten years it's been around well - possibly because Ginny can't have technology. "Oooh, a Sidekick!!" would be really dated by now, no? Five stars.

Review: Last Days of Summer

I'm reviewing a non-YA/non-children's novel? Gasp!

(Adult books? What are those? Who even reads those? Adults? Naaaaah.)

Last Days of Summer is the story of Joey Margolis, a twelve year old Jew in Brooklyn during WWII. It's told in letters, telegrams, newspaper articles, and psych evals, mostly centering around his determination to become friends with Charlie Banks, third baseman for the New York Giants.

Joey and Charlie don't get off to a good start: Joey tries to con Charlie into believing he's got all sorts of illnesses in the hopes that Charlie will dedicate a home run to him. If Charlie does this, we learn, the bullies on his block who beat him up for being a Jew (and his best friend Craig for being Japanese) will stop.

Charlie's no idiot, though, and he tells Joey to piss off. So Joey tries the same scam on Charlie's girlfriend, up-and-coming singer Hazel MacKay.

Works like a charm - at least until Hazel and Joey meet face-to-face.

Though they have a rough start, Joey and Charlie slowly develop a pen-pal relationship once they realize that they're under each other's skin for good. Charlie ends up taking Joey on a ballgame road trip and essentially being a surrogate father to Joey, since his bio dad wants nothing to do with him. He even stands in for Joey's father at Joey's bar mitzvah.

WWII puts a wrench in all of Joey and Charlie's fun, however, once Charlie and his buddy Stuke decide to enlist in the Marines and Craig gets sent to Manzanar. I'm sure you can guess how this ends.

I'm pretty sure I've reread Last Days of Summer at least once a year since I found it in a secondhand book store. It's moving and hilarious in turns, and the format is really engrossing, in my opinion. We don't just see Joey and Charlie's letters, but letters between Hazel and Charlie, Charlie and Joey's family, and Joey and Craig, which fleshes out the story nicely.

I also love seeing all the timely references that get made in this book. FDR plays a sizable role in the novel, as do Ethel Merman, Charles Lindbergh, and World War II itself, of course, and I like seeing the characters' opinions on these people and events. (Hazel's not a huge fan of Ethel, understandably.)

Last Days of Summer might not be a totally life-altering read, but it's good for summer, since that's baseball season and all. It also develops these fictional characters so well that I forget they're not just as real as their setting, which is always a selling point in my mind. Five stars.

Review: Forest Born

And with this I'll finally move on from the Books of Bayern!

...Only to still have like six books in my backlog. Oy. Let's worry about that later, though.

So in the final Book of Bayern, our protagonist is Rin, Razo's beloved little sister. She's lived in the Forest with Ma and the rest of her huge family all her life, but recently, she's been feeling like she doesn't belong, like the very trees want to shun her.

No, seriously: Rin's always felt some communion with trees, but now they just fill her with a sick, shameful feeling whenever she tries to connect with them. She claims she's not sure why that is, but her veneer gets more and more cracked as the novel goes on.

To avoid the sickening tree feeling, Razo and Dasha take Rin back to the capital with them and secure her a position as one of Isi's ladies in waiting. Rin instantly falls in love with Tusken, Isi and Geric's two year old son, and protects him from untrustworthy servants like a fierce mama bear. Everything's going fairly well-

-until Geric and his company get attacked by fire speakers on their way back to the capital. Isi, Enna, and Dasha immediately pack up their things, partly to make sure their partners are okay, but mostly to use their own gifts to smoke out whoever tried to harm Geric. They decide to take Tusken along, too, once Rin and Isi learn that the untrustworthy servant, Celie, can't be found anywhere, and that means Rin is also going to travel as Tusken's nanny.

The girls meet up with the boys easily and the three "Fire Sisters," as Rin calls them, decide to continue on towards Kel, the source of all the fire speaking rumors. They try to go off alone, but Rin sneaks along after them desperately - being around the three of them, Isi especially, has finally relieved some of Rin's stress, and she doesn't want to let that go.

As they travel, Rin discovers that she's pretty good at getting people to respond to her desires - maybe even unnaturally good. Isi and Enna's talk about people speaking and how terrible it is plants a new fear in her mind, especially once the four girls meet the Queen of Kel and learn that she's kidnapped Tusken and Razo in order to extort Isi.

Who is the Queen of Kel? Can Rin break the Fire Sisters out of the dungeon? Most importantly, will Rin finally accept the truth about herself and her abilities? I'm not going to spoil that for any of you.

Forest Born is pretty cool, in my opinion, because it's just slightly different from the first three Books of Bayern. In the first three, Isi, Enna, and Razo all have the words and knowledge to give names to their powers - Isi knows she can speak with wind, Enna can read her fire knowledge, and Razo has seen both of these powers in action. Rin, however, doesn't understand that her quirks are actually powers like those of the Fire Sisters. She just thinks she's different and wrong, which is a really interesting take on the whole "person discovers their quirks are actually magic" genre.

(However, after three novels where the protagonists are all well aware of magic, Rin's total lack of functional descriptive language can make the book a little slower to read at times. I admit that that could just be my personal shortcoming, though.)

I also love how Forest Born brings the series full circle. Again, not spoiling the ending, but the explanations given for how this story is possible fit together easily, and also make sense of one of the catalysts from Enna Burning, too. I realize we should expect novels to have good continuity, but some plot twists just work better than others, and this is one of the truly well-written ones.

The last thing I want to say about Forest Born is that it doesn't include a romance, unlike the other three, and I love that. Rin's biggest struggle in this book is figuring who she is and what she can do - she's not in the right place to fall in love. Her self-discovery comes from inner strength and loving familial and platonic relationships, which we just don't see enough in literature. While I don't mind romantic relationships that help the protagonist learn more about themselves, people need to see that those aren't the only kind of relationships that are worthwhile and important.

Overall, Forest Born is a great conclusion to a fantastic series that tells of one girl's journey to self-esteem but also wraps up a larger, overarching plot in a clean, engaging way. Four stars.

Review: The Land of Stories 3

I have been waiting for this book for ages and it didn't disappoint.

However, it did infuriate, which is why I kept my copy in time out all last night after finishing. It needed to think about what it had done to me.

And stay there.

So in this installment, we catch up with Alex and Conner, now fourteen, and their respective lives. Conner's in our world, about to take a trip to Germany for the revealing of three new stories from the Brothers Grimm. The stories had been locked in a time capsule with explicit instructions for them not to be read until two hundred years had passed.

Alex is still in Fairy Godmother training and facing all sorts of unintended consequences that come from overeager magic use. She did meet a cute boy out of all of this, at least - Rook Robins, son of an Eastern Kingdom farmer. Still, Alex soldiers on with her training, celebrating her Fairy Inaugural Ball after a year's worth of lessons. She's now officially the next Fairy Godmother.

It didn't happen a moment too soon.

See, at the story reading, Conner heard two stories that were very familiar to him - The Curvy Tree and the Walking Fish. He knows the Brothers Grimm knew about the Land of Stories. The third story, however, is the dangerous one. It tells of an army that was sent through a portal to a magical land in the hopes of conquering it for themselves. The portal was designed to capture them for two hundred years, though, so hopefully something could be done about them before they even arrived - and something had: the Fairy Godmother closed all the portals last year after Alex and Conner defeated Ezmia.

But the portal has been re-opened.

The Fairy Godmother is dying now that she has an heir, and her magic is dying along with her. The portals are now re-opening, and no one in the Land of Stories knows about the army. (Well, Mother Goose does, but she's got her own reasons for wanting that to be a secret.) Conner knows he has to warn Alex and his friends there, but Alex isn't answering her magic mirror. He and his friend/crush Bree embark on a journey throughout Europe to get them to the portal, arriving right after the army does.

Alex and Conner quickly collect their familiar friends and enact a battle plan, making unlikely alliances, training the most improbable of soldiers, and hoping beyond hope that their grandmother will wake up one last time and help them defeat their most pressing foe: a dragon.

The Masked Man controlling the dragon is also a concern for the twins. Who is he? What does he want? Most importantly, why does he look so familiar?

If you're anything like me, you'll want to chuck this novel across your house once you reach the ending of The Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning.

Minus my all-consuming rage, though, this was a spectacular novel. Conner is as funny as ever, Red's strange combination of self-absorption and genuine care is at an all time high, and the new characters are just as fun to read about as the old. I especially like Bree and Emmerich, Conner's new buddies from our world.

I'm not feeling Alex's crush, Rook, however. He starts off just fine, but his decisions near the end of the novel are a dealbreaker for both me and Alex herself, and I really like that she absolutely refuses to take him back after what he's done. (His actions are understandable, but not particularly forgiveable, and Alex realizes that, too.) He makes the typical claim to win her back somehow, but that'll be a matter for book four. Personally, I hope he doesn't, at least not the way he is right now. He's not good enough for her.

My favorite thing about this book was the tying together of real world events and magical explanations. The reasoning behind Neuschwanstein Castle made me smile with glee (no pun intended) and the enchanted South Bank Lion was so adorably perfect. Any novel that combines the mundane with the magical always entrances me, but it's apparent that some real care went into the choices behind TLOS3's magic, and I love it.

Now, who wants to yell about that ending with me? I need TLOS4, like, yesterday.

Five stars.

Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Oh my God, I am so behind on reviewing things. At least I've read this book enough that I'll remember most of the details, right?

As you may have guessed, this book follows the stories of two teenage boys named Will Grayson, both residents of the Chicago suburbs. Capital letters using-Will narrates the first chapter, and then he and lowercase will switch off.

Will essentially drops us right into the middle of his life, telling us about about his friend Tiny Cooper and their misadventurous night out at what was supposed to be a Neutral Milk Hotel concert.The brightest part of the night? Meeting Jane, a new friend of Tiny's who may or may not be into Will.

will's life, however, isn't quite as typical suburban teenager-y. He's on antidepressants and has only one real life friend, a relatively annoying girl named Maura. Mostly what he lives for is talking online with his crush, Isaac.

Will and will meet when Will's fake ID isn't quite fake enough to get him into a 21+ concert with Tiny and Jane, and will learns that there never was an Isaac for him to meet. Isaac was actually Maura catfishing him. Will and will chat for a moment before Will hands will over to Tiny, who is flamboyant, fabulous, and a sucker for boys like will.

Their stories both collide and diverge as the novel goes on. Will falls for Jane, but she has a boyfriend, of course - why else would he be interested? will starts to date Tiny, but the difference in their lifestyles slowly drives will away. Tiny Cooper affects both Wills for the better, though, and they decide to show their appreciation for him at the opening night of Hold Me Closer, Tiny's autobiographical, self-directed, self-led musical.

(Wow, that may have been my most succinct summary ever. Good job, me!)

I realize this book is about the Wills Grayson, but let's be real, the actual star of this novel is Tiny Cooper, the world's largest, gayest man. He is loving and hilarious and surprisingly deep, and I want him to be my best friend forever and ever. I also want Hold Me Closer to debut on Broadway, like, immediately. (Levithan already wrote one of the songs! It could happen!)

I also love the amount of character growth in this novel. Both Wills realize that instead of hoping Tiny becomes what they want him to be, they should learn to accept Tiny for who he is and maybe not care so much about what the imaginary audience of their lives should think, and it is beautiful. Will goes from a rigid, arbitrary rule-loving kid to someone who understands that you have to put yourself out there for love and will learns that being an angry loner isn't the only option available to him, and it feels good.

My favorite Will Grayson is probably capital-W Will. I found myself getting frustrated with will's constant anger, although it made me question whether he was doing it consciously or if his depression made it uncontrollable at times. I still enjoyed will's portions, but I liked Will's narration (and especially Tiny and Jane's appearances) better, probably because I liked his friends.

Overall, Will Grayson, Will Grayson is emotional and funny in turns, and it delves into both hetero- and homosexual relationships without making one seem better or more normal than the other. It also gives equal time to the friendships that comprise a lot of the story, which you don't always see in YA fiction. Four and a half stars.

Review: River Secrets

And now, back to our previously scheduled Shannon Hale blogging. Only one book left after this!

(And then like seven non-SH books that I have backlogged. Oops.)

River Secrets focuses on Razo, Enna and Isi's friend from the previous novels. (It's also the only Book of Bayern to have a male protagonist, on a somewhat related note.) It's set only a few months after the end of the war from Enna Burning, after Geric and Isi meet with the Tiran rulers and decide there should be an exchange of ambassadors (I tried to type "am-badass-adors", thanks, Glee) to foster goodwill among the citizens of both Tira and Bayern. Geric's cousin Lady Megina will be Bayern's ambassador, and Finn, Enna, and Razo are chosen to go along as part of her guard.

It's easy to see why Finn gets to go: he's the best swordsman in Bayern's Own, the king's personal group of soldiers. Enna, too, is fairly obvious: she wields fire, and she'd like to atone for all her destruction from the war. Razo, though?

Razo's not so sure why he's included. The only thing he's good at is slinging, but that's not really a weapon, is it?

Razo gamely packs up his things and goes anyway, hoping for the best. The trip is going pretty smoothly, too - until he discovers a burned body along the edges of their campsite after they've crossed the Tiran border. He goes to Talone, their captain, after stumbling across the corpse, and they bury it together, trying to figure who might have done it.

Enna is their first guess, naturally, though Razo hopes it's not her. The evidence begins to pile up, though, especially once they reach Ingridan, the Tiran capital, and Enna can't be the one committing these crimes. So who is it, then?

Talone puts Razo on the case, admitting that he brought Razo along because he has all the makings of a natural spy. Razo is floored to hear this, but it doesn't disappoint him in the least. He starts poking around even more, making friends with the kitchen girls, the prince of Tira, and Dasha, the Tiran ambassador's daughter.

Dasha is a mystery to Razo - she's funny and sweet, but she's also a Tiran, and Razo's not sure which Tirans he can trust right now. She hangs around the rivers a lot, too, and since that's where Talone and Razo have had to dump some of the bodies, that makes her pretty suspicious.

The truth comes out eventually: Dasha has water speaking - just add her to the list of girls with magical powers that Razo knows. She also doesn't know a language to balance it, so she's just like Enna and Isi in their overburdened stages. Dasha's figured out Enna is the "fire witch," and she's hoping Enna will teach her fire to help her live. Enna doesn't trust any Tirans, though, especially when they've got their own fire witches running around now.

Razo thinks Enna will help Dasha if Dasha proves she's trustworthy by helping Razo find the Tiran fire workers, so they go off on one last slapdash adventure together to finally learn who's causing all this trouble in Ingridan. Will they be able to alert the others in time? That's up to you to learn.

After all the angst and seriousness of Enna Burning, it's really nice to be able to turn to Razo's mind in River Secrets. While the stakes are still high, Razo's cheerful, joke-happy personality makes the read feel lighter, even when he's near death in a strange land with the girl he likes. I also like that Razo was the protagonist of this novel, rather than trying to read in Dasha's voice or something similar. It's fun seeing the powers of wind speech and fire speech from an outsider's perspective instead of the up close and personal look of the last two novels.

Having Razo really acclimate to Tira was also a good narrative choice, in my opinion. Isi and Enna both have strong ties to Bayern, and Razo's more willing to see the good and the bad of his host country, allowing him to make some interesting blends of both cultures. Having Razo learn that the Bad Guys aren't just two-dimensional enemies helps teach a subtle, important lesson to the readers.

I think River Secrets is probably my second favorite Book of Bayern, after The Goose Girl. Razo's story is thrilling and amusing, and really helps him develop from the funny bit character to a person in his own right - or maybe a tree rat in his own right? Five stars.

Review: H2O

Guys, sometimes I wonder if I'm too nice on this blog. I've never given anything less than three stars, and even if I personally hated a novel, I'll still try to be objective and say nice things about part of it so that way the review is relatively balanced.

And then I read H2O.

Lord forgive me for what I might say in response to this book.

First things first, H2O won't be released until October - I got an ARC from my mom after she found it at work. Maybe my disdain will die down by then and I'll remind you guys about the release date. (Doubtful.)

Anyway, to summarize: this is the diary of Ruby Morris, comprising the events of the last two weeks or so. She was at a party with her friends and her almost-boyfriend when the world as she knew it got blown to smithereens thanks to a thunderstorm.

A thunderstorm? In England? Shocking, I know, but this storm had a teeny tiny extremophilic bacteria in it that makes water unsafe to the touch, even after boiling or freezing. No one's really sure how much of it needs to get in or on you before it kills you, but even running through the rain to grab your cell phone out of the nearby barn is unsafe, as Ruby's almost-boyfriend discovers.

Ruby gets back to her house safely from that party, but everything goes downhill from there: her mom and stepdad lock her in a separate room for the night just in case she's contaminated, and when she finally gets out, she learns her mom accidentally touched the rain, killing her and Ruby's baby half-brother. All Ruby has left is Simon, her annoying stepfather, and maybe her bio dad, but he's in London.

Ruby and Simon make it through a few days together, scavenging through grocery stores and other people's houses to find food and drinks, but then Simon gets tricked into drinking unsafe water. Now Ruby's all alone and across the country from where her only living relative is. She decides she'll drive to London, picking up stray dogs, hamsters, and humans along the way.

The two stray people she meets are Darius, a nerdy kid from her school, and a mute girl they call Princess, who looks about nine. Darius and Princess have nowhere better to go, really, so they end up tagging along, saving Ruby's life a couple of times in the process. (She saves theirs in return, so it all balances out, really.)

Ruby loses the animals, Darius, and Princess once they come along an army base - she's not willing to go without her dad. She makes it to London alive, only to discover that her dad isn't in his apartment after all. She turns herself into the base there, which turns out to be one of the biggest errors she's made so far. Will she and her dad ever cross paths? That will be for you to find out, potential reader, if my personal opinions of this book don't turn you off.

What are those personal opinions, you ask?

First of all, I have never wanted to strangle a protagonist more in my life than I have when I was reading Ruby's story. She should not have lived through this novel, because she is an idiot. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt - after all, I probably wouldn't live through a disaster of this kind, either - but she's just so lacking in common sense that I'm amazed she's lived to be fifteen. Looting makeup supplies and nice outfits isn't a priority, Ruby! I understand wanting some clothing, but you focus way too much on that and not nearly enough on survival needs!

On top of that, Ruby spends a lot of this book talking about the way things were, even when she says she's not going to. Again, I'm trying to attribute this to shock and stress, but it's really grating to hear about how no one can ever know that she kissed the nerd when no one is alive to care. It feels more like blindly hoping that tomorrow will make everything go back to How It Should Be than a teenager's coping mechanism.

Thirdly, Ruby's writing style is juuuuust quirky enough that I never really settled into it, but that's definitely more of a personal preference than a stylistic fault, in my opinion. She uses little butterfly emoticons in place of swears out of respect to her mother's memory, but I spent more time attempting to figure out which cussword fit best in the blank than actually processing the story whenever I saw one. Her turns of phrase - "brother brat beloved" - and egregious overuse of caps lock also make me wonder if Virginia Bergin, the author, has talked to a teenager within the last decade. (Seriously. I cannot abide overuse of caps lock, especially when it's used in conjunction with italics. You get one.)

My last complaint is that the summary of this novel is incredibly misleading. The description sounds like the whole novel is a thriller based on Ruby's journey to her father, when the journey doesn't even begin until approximately page 180. The whole book is only 327 pages long - half the novel is left out of the summary entirely! There's also a statistic included, 0.27 percent, that we find out in the text isn't even accurate, which annoys the fact-loving college student in me.

I will say that at least the science behind the poisonous water is compelling. There was apparently an asteroid attack heading for Earth that got diverted, but the fallout introduced the extremophiles to the water system, spurring a global meltdown. It felt believable and well-researched, which was about the only thing I could really appreciate out of this novel.

Overall, H2O probably isn't worth your time, unless you suffer fools better than I do. Ruby is a twit, and her somewhat willful ignorance of the facts in front of her bothers me greatly. The novel as a whole is also much slower-paced than I was lead to believe, so I spent a lot of it waiting for something to happen. Two stars.