The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

Genre: YA horror
Pages: 267
Published: 2014

Synopsis:

You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night. 

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret - one that would just kill to get out. 

Review (previously posted on Goodreads):

If you have ever thought to yourself while watching a slightly clichéd but entertaining horror movie, "Wow, I wish I could *read* this slightly clichéd horror movie," then this is surely the book for you. It has many of the qualities of your average horror flick: the dialogue is pretty wooden, the characterization mostly shallow and only what is necessary to tell the story, and the plot is intriguing enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen (er, page) for a few hours.

I liked the character and backstory of Okiku, the titular avenging ghost girl from the well who is determined to punish all those who kill innocent children. But unfortunately the book is actually less about her and more about a couple of American teenagers who I just couldn't bring myself to care about very much. I also was distracted by said teenagers' very unusual names. The guy's name is Tarquin (you know, like the Roman emperor, obviously, 'cause that was one of the top baby names in 2002) and the young woman's name is Calliope Starr. There is a serial killer whose name is Quintilian Saetern, but that turns out to just be an alias... his real name is Quintilian Densmore. Good job with that alias.


There are some interesting scenes with creepy, possessed dolls and again Okiku is OK. I think she had the potential to be more than OK and a downright fascinating character if The Girl from the Well was actually about Okiku, the girl from the well. I also enjoyed learning a little about Japanese folklore. But overall, I kind of wish I'd just rewatched The Ring or The Grudge instead.

Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz

Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 288 (paperback)
Published: 2013 by Simon Pulse


Synopsis:
Be careful what you believe in...Rudy’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves to a remote island in a last attempt to save his sick younger brother. With nothing to do but worry, Rudy sinks deeper and deeper into loneliness and lies awake at night listening to the screams of the ocean beneath his family’s rickety house.

Then he meets Diana, who makes him wonder what he even knows about love, and Teeth, who makes him question what he knows about anything. Rudy can’t remember the last time he felt so connected to someone, but being friends with Teeth is more than a little bit complicated. He soon learns that Teeth has terrible secrets. Violent secrets. Secrets that will force Rudy to choose between his own happiness and his brother’s life.

Review:

Seeing as I had heard Teeth blurbed as both "another edgy teen contemp" and as a story about "gay magic fish", it's a surprise that I gave this book a try-- but in this case, taking a chance on a new author and an unknown story definitely payed off.  Hannah Moskowitz has a "bare bones" writing style which really captures a reader's attention and, in the case of Teeth, makes the story so much more raw and real.  This book defies genre trends, with a few elements of the ever-popular mermaid paranormal romance (ie boy meets girl; boy meets fish), a few from the "edgy" teen novel, some from the modern fairy tale novels like those by Holly Black, and some which are all its own.

Our MC Rudy was a typical enough teenage boy before his family moved to an island with a tiny population, an island whose local fish are rumored to make whoever eats them healthy, even to ward off terminal diseases like the one Rudy's little brother suffers from.  Rudy meets beautiful Diana, who is the only other teenager on the island: she grew up on the isolated island and learned most everything she knows from books.  And then he meets the boy who calls himself Teeth: a boy with a fish tail and a scaly upper body who lives near the island's docks.  Teeth insists he is more fish than human, but as Rudy discovers as he begins to get to know Teeth and his murky origins, Teeth is more human and more vulnerable than he would ever admit.

Teeth is a simply told story, part-contemporary and part-fairy tale, with simple, powerful themes.  However, its complex and beautifully realized characters mean that you will likely be thinking about this short novel long after you finish reading it.  What has stayed with me most strongly are the characters of Rudy and Teeth, the strength and uncertainty of their friendship, and the ending-- which was not, as I definitely feared it was going to be while reading the book, tragic.  I really loved this amazingly original novel and really recommend that anyone just try reading it with no expectations or prejudices, because Teeth defies both.

Rating:

Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst

Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 424 (hardcover)
Published: 2012 by Margaret K. McElderberry

Review:

Liyana has always held a unique position within the nomadic desert tribe which are her family and her world: she is a vessel, marked as special by the goddess of her tribe from birth.  As a vessel, Liyana knows and accepts that she is destined to die so that her goddess may inhabit her body and bring peace and all-important rain to her people.  But when the goddess Bayla fails to come during the long-awaited summoning ceremony, Liyana despairs that she must not be worthy-- and her tribe, despairing over the famine which will surely destroy them, abandons the would-be goddess girl in the desert to fend or die for herself.  

Joined by Korbyn, a powerful trickster god in the body of a handsome young vessel who promises to help Liyana save her tribe by sacrificing herself, Liyana sets off across the desert in search of those other vessels whose gods failed to show up.  But as she discovers her own strength, bravery, and a tentative romance with Korbyn, Liyana begins to have rebellious thoughts: she isn't so sure she wants to die so that her goddess can live, or that any desert teenager should have to make such a sacrifice.  

This is the first book I've read by Sarah Beth Durst, but I will definitely be interested to check out the (apparently numerous) other novels she has out there.  Vessel has a really unique premise and world setting-- the desert lands of Liyana's and the other tribes make for a harsh and forbidding lifestyle.  The tribes tell stories of gods and goddesses who are very human-- they fight and love and even inhabit the bodies of young humans called vessels.  Without the help of their gods, the clans would perish from drought and famine.  Meanwhile, the more "civilized" Crescent Empire is also in the midst of a great famine and their young emperor has a vision that the empire's salvation might be found in the unlikely locale of the barren desert.  Durst does a really excellent job introducing us to Liyana's life and world, where magic is as real as the deadly sand wolves which stalk tribal camps and family is everything.

Moving onto the characters... Liyana is that rare female YA protagonist who I didn't have any major peeves with.  She is sort of indoctrinated with the belief that her life is meant to be given to her goddess and that she is a failure when the goddess does not come to inhabit her body, but in the context it totally makes sense that she would have this kind of calm acceptance towards the sacrifice she must make.  Her family and clan are everything to her and vessels are so much a part of her culture that she knows her intended role very well.  As she meets Korbyn and they go off in search of the other vessels, it becomes clear that Liyana is more than the girl chosen for her "flawless" prettiness so that the goddess would be pleased with her.  Here we have a strong heroine who is not afraid to take action or reckless chances when she must-- oh, very good!

 

For the longest time, lifeless female protagonists who don't/won't act or think for themselves has been a major pet peeve of mine with fiction, on the list with the mandatory love triangle and constant recycling of the same descriptive words (typically words like "rippling" and "glimmering", also typically words found in paranormal romance).  But I really do think authors are getting much, much better at creating heroines who are somewhere between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, you know, Bella Swan-- believably likeable and inspiring fictional women.  (Recent female characters in books I've read have even somewhat helped me to forget the nightmare that was Aurorarama.)

The other vessels in the novel besides Liyana are all very different from one another, in how they react to their gods' not showing up: one girl dreams of running away to the empire, where she will not be forced to give up her life for her goddess's, while another peacefully accepts her fate.  Korbyn, the trickster god inhabiting a desert boy's body, is the stand-out character apart from Liyana.  He is not just a supernatural pretty boy thrown in as a love interest (yay, for divergent YA!), and is definitely not your conventional love interest.  I was very surprised, but basically happy, with the way the romantic sub-plot turned out in this book. But yeah, Korbyn was pretty awesome.

The pacing of Vessel was not so fast-- probably just quick enough to keep a reader's interest, but my growing love for the characters was enough to make me read on despite some occasional slooow moments.  All in all, my consensus is just that Sarah Beth Durst clearly has a spectacular imagination.  She has taken a completely unique story in an unconventional setting, created a whole huge mythology for this world, and then created lovable and strong characters to interact with a intriguing plot.  This is how one crafts a great YA fantasy novel-- 5 stars!

Rating:

  

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Genre: YA fantasy & romance
Pages: 292 (hardcover)
Published: 2012 by Harper Teen

Synopsis:
Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything--her family, her future--to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

My Review:

Tiger Lily is a story perhaps more bittersweet even than the original classic tale of Peter Pan.  As a reader with a meh opinion of the original Peter Pan, I found Jodi Lynn Anderson's clever and heartbreaking retelling to be much more readable.  It's always a nice surprise when fanfiction turns out to be wonderful, even "published fanfiction".  I love the fresh perspective of Tiger Lily, and the way Anderson delves deep into the background of both the previously silent main character and the whole multi-layered world of Neverland. 

The story is narrated not by Tiger Lily, but by Tinkerbell (as Peter comes to call the little faery who trails after him and Tiger Lily).  The sparkly, blond faery Tink with her jealous hissy fits who we're familiar with from the Disney adaptation is a far cry from the narrator of this book, though.  Readers will definitely come to appreciate Tink's better qualities: her headstrong personality, her loyalty (again, forget the Disney version where she sells Peter out to Captain Hook), and most of all, her engaging first person voice.  The novel reads as if it's narrated by a really close friend, one who sees all the happenings in Neverland and never withholds her opinions on them.

The world of Neverland is incredibly well-drawn and leads to such a good suspension-of-disbelief that I never once questioned mute faeries sleeping on windowsills, dinosaurs inhabiting a corner of the island, or man-eating mermaids.  By giving not-so-subtle hints that Neverland is actually the North American continent prior to the mass arrival of Europeans, the author gives Tiger Lily's tribe a sense of dignity and tradition-- which is sooo necessary after what sorta-racist '50s Disney did with "What Made the Red Man Red?"  

Tiger Lily herself is an outcast among her close-knit tribe, having been born in another and adopted by Tik Tok, the tribe's shaman and the closest thing they have to a leader.  She is a wild girl, different from the other young women in her village, quiet but fierce.  Her character is one who we come to care about, sympathizing with her for her outcast status and, as Tink does, her love for Peter Pan.  The Lost Boys do not immediately come into the novel, but Peter becomes a major player quite suddenly, when we least expect it.  

The Lost Boys of Tiger Lily are indeed somewhat lost: they have no family and have never known girls other than Peter's mermaid friends; some of them remember being shipwrecked from England.  In this novel, Peter Pan is an interesting character, though I was disappointed to see, one without a true back story.  He is truly a wild boy, and apparently has always been, moving silently through the jungle with his tribe of Lost Boys and, of course, evading the persistent Captain James Hook.  Hook appears pretty rarely in Tiger Lily, this being Tiger Lily's story, but he does have a intriguing backstory.  Surprisingly, the pirate who has the most shining moments is Smee, also known as Hook's big-bellied sidekick in the striped shirt.  I won't give away any spoilers as to how Anderson interprets the character of Smee, but it's pretty wild.   

Tiger Lily is a captivating read, with vividly re-interpreted characters.  The ending is not exactly a happy one, as the very first line of the novel proclaims, but there is a great deal of bitter-sweetness throughout the whole story.  I was surprised by how much I loved this book, and I think those who are on the fence about it should give Tiger Lily a read.



Book Rating:

Starters by Lissa Price

 Starters and Enders #1
Genre: YA dystopia
Pages: 352 (hardcover)
Published: 2012 by Delacorte Books

My Take:

Callie, once a middle-class teen before the Spore Wars which killed her parents, now squats with her brother Tyler and her semi-boyfriend friend Michael.  Starters like Callie aren't allowed to have jobs or identities, and the Marshals diligently hunt down any teens who aren't lucky enough to have grandparent Ender guardians.  Unlucky Starters are caught and taken to the dreaded institutions, where they must live until they come of age.  Desperate for money and a second chance to save her brother after she loses everything in a raid by Marshals, Callie signs up for a three rental contract at the mysterious Prime Destinations, a corporation which lets Enders re-live the days of their youth in the bodies of real youth, who are "put to sleep" with sci-fi technology while the Ender takes over control of their body to party, do extreme sports, and enjoy life in the body of a beautiful teen for a few days-- or a few months.  Little does Callie know, Prime Destinations is expanding: Enders are renting out bodies for longer periods and more and more teens are being targeted and used as 'merchandise' by the company.

During her third and last rental, Callie awakens suddenly in her own body weeks before schedule due to a malfunction, in a nightclub where moments before her renter was controlling her.  Helena Winterhill, her renter, seems at first glance to be a wealthy elderly woman grieving over the death of her own granddaughter.  But as Callie soon begins to discover, Helena has rented Callie's body with a purpose: this Ender has a gun in her sock drawer and a serious grudge against Prime Destinations.  Torn between disbelief and worry for the brother and friends she has left behind, Callie nevertheless strikes up a relationship with the dreamy and wealthy real-life teen Blake, whose family may be more involved in Helena's plot than Callie knows.  Caught up in a conspiracy of great and terrible proportions, Callie must decide whether to trust her renter and follow through with her plans to dismantle Prime Destinations.

I actually enjoyed Starters much more than Legends, another (more popular) 2012 YA dystopia I recently reviewed.  The premise of old Enders renting out the bodies of desperate teenagers, or Starters, is pretty fantastic and very disturbing!  Those creepy senior citizens with all their ideas about 'youth being wasted on the young', eh?  *Shivers*.  As a lot of other reviewers on Goodreads pointed out, the actual background of the Spore Wars which killed all adults between 20 and 60 (what they are, why they happened, who the heck they were against) is left really vague in this book.  As its the first in a series, I'm hoping that will be clarified a little.  But the world-building of the dystopian aftermath feels all too real and the story that Lissa Price tells is one I didn't want to stop reading for a second.

None of the characters are sketched out too well or are very complex, with the exception of Callie, but this is absolutely a plot-driven novel-- it didn't bother me in this case.  The concept of Starters reminded me a little of the movie Surrogates, and I think this book would make a great sci-fi thriller movie.  The stakes are very high and the villain (the enigmatic head of Prime Destinations, called the Old Man) is definitely bad and creepy enough for the silver screen.  The feeling that you never knew whether somebody was really their own age, or in their own body, gave an excellent air of sci-fi-esque suspense and the twisting plot kept me guessing.  I will absolutely be anticipating the next book in the Starters and Enders series and recommend it as a fantastic, edge-of-your-seat dystopia thriller.  Starters also breaks away from the post-Hunger Games dystopia mold, and that is something I would definitely like to see more of in the genre as a dystopia reader.   

This book qualifies for: The 2013 Dystopia Reading Challenge (hosted by Blog of Erised).

My Rating:
A very solid four unicorns

Sweetly by Jackson Pearce

Genre: YA fantasy/ fairy tale retelling
Pages: 310 (available in paperback)
Published: 2011 by Little, Brown

Synopsis: As a child, Gretchen's twin sister was taken by a witch in the woods. Ever since, Gretchen and her brother, Ansel, have felt the long branches of the witch's forest threatening to make them disappear, too.  Years later, when their stepmother casts Gretchen and Ansel out, they find themselves in sleepy Live Oak, South Carolina. They're invited to stay with Sophia Kelly, a beautiful candy maker who molds sugary magic: coveted treats that create confidence, bravery, and passion.

Life seems idyllic and Gretchen and Ansel gradually forget their haunted past -- until Gretchen meets handsome local outcast Samuel. He tells her the witch isn't gone -- it's lurking in the forest, preying on girls every year after Live Oak's infamous chocolate festival, and looking to make Gretchen its next victim. Gretchen is determined to stop running and start fighting back. Yet the further she investigates the mystery of what the witch is and how it chooses its victims, the more she wonders who the real monster is.  Gretchen is certain of only one thing: a monster is coming, and it will never go away hungry.

My Take:

Sweetly was one of those books which had been on my to-read radar for ages, after I read and basically liked Sisters Red, Jackson Pearce's first fairytale retelling.  Sweetly has more in common with Sisters Red than I expected, firstly in that it featured two siblings fleeing unusual life circumstances (Gretchen's twin sister disappeared, apparently taken by a witch in the forest, when Ansel and Gretchen were younger and thus scarred them for life).  I liked Sisters Red because it was so Buffy-esque-- I loved Scarlett's character, her sorrow and toughness and grit.  Our heroine and first person narrator Gretchen does get her a Slayer-on a little bit by the middle of Sweetly, but she and Ansel are no Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Nope, they aren't that kind of Hansel and Gretel.  Gretchen and Ansel are rather Mary and Gary Sue, though not unlikeable.  Sweetly does have a very intriguing character in the form of Sophia Kelly, the candy-maker who the siblings stay with after their stepmother kicks them out of the household.  Sophia's mysterious past kept me guessing and the complexity of her character was the most interesting thing about Sweetly.  Most of the small town of Live Oak blame Sophia for the disappearance of its young women, because girls run away after attending her annual party, but generous Sophia appears to be sweet and saintly as can be-- the patron saint of candy, as the locals say.  As the night of Sophia's candy gala draws closer, Gretchen rushes to uncover the dark secrets of Sophia's past in order to save the girls doomed to disappear this year.  

There is actually a heavy tie-in to Sisters Red which I didn't expect, and this is where I started to become meh about Sweetly.  Jackson Pearce's companion novels are more companion-y than the synopsis might lead you to believe, as the terrifying Fenris werewolves do play a role and a character linked to Pearce's first book, Samuel, becomes the love interest for Gretchen.  I wasn't sold on the romance between Samuel and Gretchen, or the romance between Sophia and Gretchen's brother Ansel.  The ending, though, and the truth about Sophia's past, made Sweetly worth a quick read.  Overall I'm not sure if I will be checking out Fathomless, Pearce's third book in this fairy tale retelling series, which is a spin on "The Little Mermaid".  Sweetly would have been an interesting take on "Hansel and Gretel", except I think that the "Hansel and Gretel" part got lost in the retelling a little.  Don't especially recommend this one unless you're very curious-- except to add that cool cover to your bookshelf! 



Rating:

Legend by Marie Lu

 (Book #1 in the Legend series)
Genre: YA dystopia
Pages: 305 (hardcover)
Published: 2011 by Putnam

Synopsis:
What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June’s brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias’s death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

My Take: 

I stumbled across Legend in my university's library, of all places.  I was, like, wait, ya'll don't have any fun books!  Who donated this fun book which I've seen all around the blogosphere to your collection of psychology textbooks and ancient Babylonian tablets?  Needless to say, I snatched what's probably the most entertaining book in my uni's library and took it back to my dorm.

Legend is definitely a YA dystopia, and a decent one at that.  It has all the elements I've come to know and love (maybe know a little too well).  The story alternates between the POVs of June and Day; their POVs are very similar in nature, despite their vastly different backgrounds-- June being a rich and brilliant military girl and Day a superb athlete and tactical genius from the slums and the Republic's most wanted criminal.  He's also a fifteen year old teenage boy-- must try to suspend disbelief.  Day and June have some Insta-love going on, and I wasn't all that captivated by their romance despite liking both characters fairly well.  (Day more so than June.)  
  
But, anyway, the dystopia cliches are everywhere.  This part of the former United States is called "The Republic of Panem".  There is a mysterious group of people from outside their borders, called District Thirteen the Colonies, who are considered terrorists trying to break the idealism and peace of the Republic.  (Yeah, right.)  The Republics are plagued by terrible strains of plagues which mysteriously seem to hit the slum districts with surprising accuracy.  On every child's tenth birthday, they are forced to undergo a government-mandated Trial to see if they are intelligent and strong enough to become a worthy member of the Republic, or fail and are sent to a "labor camp".  (Uh.  Huh.)  Needless to say, the-government-is-lying-- that's the biggest dystopia cliches there is, but it goes far beyond that.  The nature of the military, June's initial disbelief that her Republic could be hiding anything, the incredibly athletic and planning skills of the teenage protagonists, and the Insta-love despite June having a good reason to hate Day when she first meets him.  

In short, I don't feel like Legend is an original kind of dystopian story.  That's not to say I didn't enjoy it: this is a great quick read, perfect for, say, breaks between studying for finals week.  I think Marie Lu is a pretty skilled writer, even if a little cliched, and I liked the characters of Day and June and her brother Metias.  (The villain, or probable villain-- this is the first book in a series-- was one of the flattest I'd ever read about, though.  The "president" figurehead type is just about like President Snow.)  I thought it was cool how the Colonies seems to be the people in the Southeastern US (waves) and how the residents of the Republic don't realize they were once joined in the union of the United States, but see them as terrorists.  

The next book hints that we will see a lot more of these Colony spies and so-called terrorists-- I can't wait, because I have the feeling that, like District Thirteen, they have more than a few more tricks hidden up their sleeves than the Republic is willing to admit to its citizens or soldiers.  You know how the citizens of dystopian civilizations are: they know nothing.

If only these citizens/military personnel would read more dystopian YA, they might realize that their government is: poisoning people/ kidnapping them and experimenting on them in laboratories/ turning them into flawless soldiers or that those government-mandated pills are actually causing them to be devoid of emotion/follow all orders, then, well, I guess there wouldn't be a dystopian genre.  And that would be no fun.

Rating:

Rotters by Daniel Kraus

Genre: YA contemp/ horror
Published: 2011 by Delacorte Press
Pages: 448 (available in paperback-- check it out on Amazon)

Synopsis: Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.
    
Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey's father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey's life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.
    
Daniel Kraus's masterful plotting and unforgettable characters make Rotters a moving, terrifying, and unconventional epic about fathers and sons, complex family ties, taboos, and the ever-present specter of mortality.

Cover Thoughts:
Definitely like this cover better than the original hardcover, with all the gloomy tombstones!  It has the neat feel of a collage, like it could be scribblings on the inside of a young grave-robber's notebook.  Dark, yet whimsical, and downright intriguing. 


My Take:
Rotters is definitely not your typical YA book, or your typical book, period!  It's utterly unpredictable, extremely absorbing, and both thought-provoking and disturbing in ways that matter.  I totally wanted to read it because of that interesting cover and because I'd read reviews saying that it's a completely different kind of read-- having read it, I couldn't agree more.

Forced to move after his mother's sudden death, our protagonist Joey is shocked to find himself an instant outcast at his new high school.  His father is the local parish-- the Garbageman, everyone calls him, and Joey has inadvertently become the Garbageman's Son.  Living in his new home, a ramshackle house which indeed does smell of something strange and foul, and dealing with his bizarre, reclusive father, Joey finds himself unprepared for the incredible, sickening truth, even as he comes to suspect it: his father is a grave-digger, and worse, a grave-robber.  He is part of an ancient and dying order of men, nicknamed the Diggers, who make their unorthodox living by traveling the country and digging up the treasures buried with the newly-dead.  At first, Joey is repulsed... but also fascinated.  The Diggers are a strange and dying breed of men, and as he begins to understand their creed, he also begins to unravel the mystery of his father's dark past and the secret of his father's one-time best friend, a man known as Boggs, who is a parish even among the outcast order of the Diggers. 

Rotters is written in first-person, easy to read except in a very few slow parts in the middle of the book, and fairly fast-paced.  Despite this, it manages to be strangely philosophical-- kudos to Daniel Kraus for doing that while still keeping the book entertaining!  It's difficult to explain exactly what a "rotter" is-- and no, it's not simply a corpse-- without having read the book, but the revelations Joey makes constantly come as surprises-- there is nothing predictable about this mad-cap, ingenious plot.   
Rotters doesn't go on my shelf of favorites, simply because it isn't the kind of book I would re-read again (that's kind of top criteria for that mental bookshelf).  But it is the kind of book I will always remember very clearly: Rotters is a story both exhilarating and haunting, one that I think all but the most faint of stomach or heart readers will enjoy if they give this terrific book a chance.

Book Rating:

Extras:
--Rotters on Goodreads
--Daniel Kraus on Rotters and his other books & a book trailer

Similar Reads:
--The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey (male narrator, with a similar but more Victorian feel: scary monsters and Jack the Ripper)
--Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda (girl inherits a legacy as dark as grave-digging-- but there's more paranormal and more romance)

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

 Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 563 (hardcover)
Published: 2012 by Dial

Synopsis: Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck's reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle--disguised and alone--to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn't yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

Bitterblue is something of a sequel to both of Kristin Cashore's other Seven Kingdoms books, Graceling and Fire.  While it's billed as a companion novel, I think that many readers would be a little confused about the back-story behind certain characters, such as Katsa and Po and Leck, who appeared in the earlier books if they hadn't read the other books first.

Bitterblue is a queen who barely knows her own kingdom (queendom?).  Her well-meaning but baffling advisers keep her busy with mounds of royal paperwork within the walls of her castle, while outside the ordinary people of the city of Monsea are still suffering from the aftermath of the reign of Bitterblue's now deceased father, the sadistic King Leck-- Graced with telling lies which were always believed.  The haze which Leck's terrible Grace cast over Bitterblue and her friends, the horrors which he committed during his long reign, and the secrets behind the apparently pointless mad things he did, such as creating a fathomless maze around his personal chambers and commissioning bizarrely fantastical sculptures for the castle, still linger over the kingdom.  When Queen Bitterblue, sick of being protected from the truths of how the rest of her city lives, sneaks out one night, she chances to meet a Graced Lienid sailor and his friend, a printer.  Through the eyes of her new friends and with the help of Prince Po and the fearless Lady Katsa, Bitterblue begins not only to see her kingdom-- and herself-- as they truly are, but also to unravel the terrible secrets which Leck kept.

Bitterblue is like the other two Seven Kingdoms books, and at the same time, unique.  It has a somewhat slower pace than the other books, particularly Graceling (still my favorite of the series).  Bitterblue as a protagonist is sympathetic and strong-willed in her own way, but I did miss the supernaturally strong Katniss and Fire as main characters.  Bitterblue may know how to use knives to defend herself against assassins, but well, Katniss could do more with her bare hands.  I missed that very kick-ass element, though I also loved how Bitterblue came to realize her power and strength as a queen and also her great responsibility.  (Because with great responsibility, comes great power.  I had to go there.)

I really enjoyed so many of the characters from Graceling appearing in this third novel.  Katsa and Po (of course) are brilliant, and really I could never get enough of Po.  Without revealing any major spoilers, I'll also say that the plot and characters from Fire have a part in Bitterblue, as well.  The love interest in Bitterblue, Saf aka Sapphire, is sad to say my least favorite of the Seven Kingdoms boys.  He isn't un-likable, he just seems sub-par compared to Po and the prince from Fire (what was his name?)  My other favorite "new" character is Death (pronounced to rhyme with "teeth"), Bitterblue's Royal Librarian, who is Graced with the ability to read super-quickly and remember perfectly everything he reads.  I would pick this Grace over even being Graced with survival like Katsa.  Kristin Cashore's beautiful and vibrant writing style really shines in Bitterblue and this book is a must-read for fans of Graceling and Fire, or fantasy in general.

My Rating:

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

 Tiffany Aching series #1
Genre: YA/MG fantasy
Pages: 375 (paperback)
Published: 2004 by HarperTrophy

Synopsis: Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home. Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnapped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk's local Nac Mac Feegle - aka the Wee Free Men - a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny. Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds - black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors - before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone....

My Take:

The Wee Free Men is THE book I would give a young or pre-teen girl to read, after she read the classic musts like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, of course.  And, though I'm a little older than the target audience, I also really enjoyed the first book in the Tiffany Aching series.

Nine-year old Tiffany Aching is far from the usual heroine of YA (and MG) fantasy and paranormal books: she's a farmer's daughter, well-trained in the timeless arts of cheese-making and caring for sheep.  When a decidedly un-Glinda-the-Good-Witch-like Queen of Faerie kidnaps her sticky and obnoxious younger brother, Tiffany sets off on a quest to Faerieland (along with the Nac Mac Feegle-- a fearless band of Celtic warriors who happen to be very small and blue--, and an intelligent talking toad) to rescue her brother.  I loved Tiffany as a character.  She is told by the fully-grown and powerful witch Miss Tick that she has the potential to be a witch, which in Pratchett's world is basically a smart person who's always one step ahead of the masses, has a lot of knowledge of folklore and common sense, and can likely perform a spell or two.  She uses her powers of "first sight and second thoughts" to accomplish things most nine-year olds definitely couldn't dream of.  

I was also definitely loving the "girl power", in that Tiffany couldn't be less interested in boys, love triangles, or the social drama of high school.  I love how generally different the setting of this series is compared to other YA and MG fantasies which take place in the "real world" as well as a fantastical universe.  Rural or suburban high school seems to have become the default setting for the protagonist's pre-magical conflicts and problems, but Wee Free Men completely turns this tiring cliche (along with many others) on its head.  The Wee Free Men (or Nac Mac Feegle, as they call themselves) are an interesting cross on Celtic brownie myths and, well, Terry Pratchett's amazing imagination.  They're funny and violent and have incredibly long and complicated names because Mac Feegle tend to have only five or six common first names and many, many clan members. 

The book has the feel of the few other Terry Pratchett books I have read (Hogfather and Small Gods being the ones I remember most) in that it isn't a long book to begin with, but when you read it you probably will get sucked in by the fast-paced story and quickly lose track of time.  It only took me a few days to finish Wee Free Men, and that was with me exerting some self-control to do things like homework and eating meals.  In short, this one is definitely recommended.  I have the next book in the series, A Hat Full of Sky, on my shelf right now and hope to read it sometime in the near-future!

My Rating:

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 368 (paperback)
Published: 2007 by Washington Square Press
Recommended for: readers who like "old-school" YA fantasy or retold fairy tales

My Take:

I liked the look of The Book of Lost Things immediately, mostly because it reminded me of the kind of books I read almost exclusively when I was a pre-teen: fantasy stories where seemingly ordinary kids venture into fairy-tale worlds and must save the day/become king or queen.  Narnia is, of course, pretty much the magical birthplace of those sub-genre, but there used to be so many books like that in the YA and MG genres.  Anyway, I wasn't at all disappointed in this compulsively readable, imaginative, and creepier-than-it-looks book.

The main character David is a 12 year old English boy around the time of World War II, living with his code-breaker father, his new wife-- the stepmother David loathes--, and George, the new baby brother he resents.  David's mother, who loved fairy tales and always got David to read them to her by her bedside, died of a slow and painful disease less than a year before the true start of the novel's "action".  He misses her so badly that he even begins to hear her calling to him, beckoning to him in his bedroom in the attic and in the eerie garden by the house.  Worse is the creepy "Crooked Man", a dark figure who David begins to see hanging around his room-- like a villain from one of the fairy tales which so remind him of his mother.  When a German bomber crashes into his family's house, David takes the only escape route he knows through a strange and unexplained hole in the garden wall.  He emerges from the trunk of a tree, surrounded by wolves who stand on two legs yet are more bestial than human, forced to face a world where his mother's fairy tales have become real-- only twisted and darker, sometimes funnier, than the original tales.

This book kind of has the feel of a fairy tale as you read it: the narration is nearly always omniscient third-person, and there is that distance from the characters which you get when you read old fairy tales.  David, for example, isn't a bad protagonist (he's occasionally a little annoying with his hatred of his undeserving step-mother), but not one I could really connect with.  The characters are mostly like fairy-tale archetypes (ie Old King, Woodcutter, Evil Powerful Villain), so don't read this one if you're looking for a really insightful read where you get to sympathize with the characters a lot.

I really enjoyed the way Connolly twisted the familiar fairy tales and folk legends into completely different stories.  His version of Snow White and her seven dwarven companions, for example, is just too funny: Snow is more than a little crabby and the dwarfs are obsessed with a Communist revolution which will help the little people.  There are wolves in the woods and monsters and evil sorceresses galore, and there is also the Crooked Man-- a really, really creepy antagonist the likes of which you don't usually see in books geared towards younger readers (I kind of hesitate to call this specifically MG or YA, because I'm not really sure).  Let's just say I'll never think of Rumpelstiltskin the same way again.  *Inserts random plug for another good book which will change your perspective on the fairy tale: The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde*.

The Book of Lost Things admittedly has little on the Chronicles of Narnia or my old favorite, Inkheart, when it comes to the kids-travelling-to-magical-and-possibly-imaginary-worlds type of books.  But I enjoyed this book as a quick and enthralling read-- it was better than I expected, and I had a hunch it would be pretty good.  Definitely a recommended one...

My Rating:

 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Genre: YA fantasy/ paranormal romance
Pages: 417 (hardcover)
Published: 2011 by Little, Brown & Co

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

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.  And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.  When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Daughter of Smoke and Bone has officially redeemed YA paranormal romance and fantasy for me, just when I was beginning to lose hope in the genres.  The story of Karou, a strange blue-haired girl living in the city of Prague who was raised by partly-human monsters called chimaera, and Akiva, the deadly angelic soldier with a strikingly perfect face and a poisoned past who finds himself bizarrely drawn to this not-quite-human girl he has never met, is utterly unique and utterly thrilling.  No mere "angel romance story", this book is practically devoid of fantasy cliches-- Lani Taylor has created a fantastical world and fantastical creatures all her own from her own twisted brand of angel and demon and alchemical mythology.

The characters-- I really can't remember the last time I got so fond of nearly all the characters in a book.  Karou is my kind of heroine: she collects magical wishes on a necklace and has a half-dozen or more tattoos-- the ones on her wrists read "True Story", which I thought was too funny. She goes to art school, dodges her stalker-ish ex-boyfriend, Kaz, and has her own little flat in Prague.  Yet she is desperately curious to know that truth about the otherworldly activities of Brimstone, her chimera guardian and a sorcerer, who sends her on errands around the world to bring back teeth-- animal teeth, human teeth, teeth collected in unorthodox and probably illegal ways-- so that he can work his mysterious brand of magic.  Karou's best friend Zusana, a fiery marionette-maker who is hardly bigger than a marionette doll herself, is two or three cuts above the token "quirky best-friend/confidante" YA character-- her snark was much appreciated.

The romance between Karou and Akiva was-- as those of you readers who know how I feel about romance in most books can probably guess-- not my favorite part of the novel.  But, there is tragedy involved in their relationship and tragic love *sighs* is so much more romantic, in my opinion, than regular ol' love.  I'm hoping that the next book in the series develops Karou and Akiva's relationship in the present day to a greater extent, as YA desperately needs some more well-developed romance.

Karou's origins are a deep mystery, more to her than her secretive chimaera guardians, who stubbornly guard the truth about how she came to be raised by them in Brimstone's shop.  She and the angel Akiva, who runs across her on one of her teeth-smuggling errands and is instantly entranced by her, sense that Karou is far more than human.  The way the truth of Karou's background unfolds is unpredictable and shocking, and we are left with a cliffhanger-- the book ends before Karou's reaction to discovering who she truly is is ever fully revealed.  I'm actually glad I was late to this book's party, because I won't have to wait long for the sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight, to be released in November.  I definitely hope that fantasy and paranormal readers tired of the same old cliches will take a chance on this book; I'm really glad that I finally did.

Quotes: --"Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”
--“It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him.”
--“Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?”
--“The streets of Prague were a fantasia scarcely touched by the twenty-first century—or the twentieth or nineteenth, for that matter. It was a city of alchemists and dreamers, its medieval cobbles once trod by golems, mystics, invading armies. The wind carried the memory of magic, revolution, violins, and the cobbled lanes meandered like creeks. Thugs wore Motzart wigs and pushed chamber music on street corners, and marionettes hung in windows, making the whole city seem like a theater with unseen puppeteers crouched behind velvet.”

My Rating:

 

The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Genre: YA contemporary
Pages: 224 (paperback)
Published: 1999

Synopsis:  This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

In a li'l bit of words: Sweetly poignant and told by an endearing and wonderful teenage narrator in a series of letters to a mysterious "friend", Wallflower is the best contemporary YA book I've read in a long time.

In a lotta words:  I confess that I always skipped over the skinny spine of The Perks of Being a Wallflower in my high school library.  I had some vague notion that it was considered an "edgy" book and had been on a lot of banned books lists, but honestly at the time I was more interested in reading about teenage wizards and dragon riders than mostly ordinary teenagers going to high school-- a setting which I mistakenly thought I'd had more than enough of in real life.  But the thing is, Charlie's life isn't ordinary at all-- it's "both happy and sad", filled with beautifully-realized and sometimes painfully-flawed characters who come to life on the pages of Charlie's letters.

Charlie as a narrator was what made this book special to me-- yes, I think I may have joined the legions of readers and re-readers who sing Wallflower's praises.  Charlie is an incredibly sweet, thoughtful, and intelligent 15-year old, and really just an altogether excellent human being.  He can be incredibly emotional: sad one moment and feeling free and "infinite" a few pages later.  Charlie relates the story of his life, and the lives of his friends and family who he's a confidante to, with a mixture of understanding insight and naive acceptance.  The way he signs all his letters with "Love always, Charlie" was so endearing.  I liked all the other characters-- Sam and Patrick, Charlie's sister, and even Mary Elizabeth (a bossy girl Charlie somehow ends up dating)--, but Charlie was the one I could have read another couple of books about.  His dilemma between knowing that he should probably try to "participate" in high school and in life and his instinctual urge to listen and sit back and observe rang really true with me, as I'm sure it does with a lot of introverts.

Contemporary YA novels often seem to have tired plots and character stereotypes-- ie the jock, the stoner, the goth girl.  There are a few of such types in Wallflower, but I'm not sure how much this reflects genre conventions and how much it reflects real life.  (Being an older, popular book, Wallflower might actually have inspired a lot of YA conventions.)  This was a book both comfortably (and sometimes sadly, as the teenagers go through really hard things like the suicide of a friend, an unwanted pregnancy, and emotional problems) familiar and refreshingly unique.  Charlie's way of storytelling through letters and his voice make Wallflower a compulsively readable and inevitably thought-provoking book.


My Rating:

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

 Genre: YA fantasy/paranormal romance
Pages: 282 (hardcover)
Published: 2011 by Hyperion Books

My Take:

Teenage Lexi lives with her sister and mother in the tiny, close-knit town of Near, where the wind on the moor seems sometimes to whisper and where the stories of the ancient Near Witch have faded to children's rhymes in the years since her legendary banishment.  When a stranger, a dark-haired boy who comes and goes as quickly as the whisper of the moor wind, arrives in Near the very same night that a small boy disappears without a trace, Lexi's uncle-- the village Protector-- and others are convinced that this stranger who only seems to come out a night is responsible.

As more and more of the village children began to disappear from their beds at night, Lexi determinedly investigates for answers despite the disapproval of the community and her belligerent uncle.  Surprisingly, her greatest supporter in her desperate search to recover the lost children-- and to stop the disappearances before her sister is the next to vanish into the night-- becomes the stranger, the enticing yet morose boy she calls "Cole".  As Lexi and Cole attempt to unravel the dark roots of the legend of the Near Witch, they discover that the truth is far from what they've heard in nursery rhymes, and that the little town of Near may be harboring more than its fair share of terrible secrets.

The Near Witch was a book which exceeded my expectations in several ways.  The story seemed like an almost traditional one, with a sort of fairy tale feel: a mysterious and possibly long-dead witch lures children away from their homes in an isolated community.  Yet, this book was no mere "Hansel and Gretel".  Victoria Schwab's writing is gloriously descriptive, eerie in the scenes where Lexi is out on the moor at night, and just plain creepy during the last few, pulse-pounding scenes of the novel.  I liked her use of the present tense and the first-person POV of Lexi, the protagonist-- these devices kept the pace of this book very quick, charging along at an almost break-neck pace (keep in mind, this is an observation from someone who tends to read much longer/slower-paced books, but that was how it seemed to me).  I felt this suspenseful yet rapid pace worked for the book, despite the resulting lack of truly in-depth characterization and setting development, etc.  I felt like I got the setting of Near while I was reading, and most of its inhabitants as well.

The book is about one-part creepy-esque fairy tale, one-part paranormal romance, and one-part horror or dark legend.  I found the Near Witch story (the simplified version of the children's rhyme and the truth which Lexi and Cole later discover) very satisfying and disturbing, though it did remind me of a book I read a couple of ties when I was younger: Witch Hill, by Marcus Sedgewick.  That book, by the way, has a slightly similar plot featuring a witch but is nowhere near as good as The Near Witch.  I guess the thing about reading just such a huge number of books over the years is that, after a while, you start to see similar plots and characters and go "oh yeah, but where have I read that before?"  It's what my lit professor would call "intertextuality"-- big word for the same syndrome.  I don't really mind at all, though.

The romance between Lexi and Cole wasn't my favorite part of the book (big surprise, 'cause ya'll know I'm usually just soo into romance ;)  I thought the romance was really sweet in its subtlety and the way it developed-- suddenly and at exactly the right moment.  Cole was a great character as far as his backstory and how he seemed to have real emotional depth, rather than just being the "mysterious, paranormal stranger" which you sometimes see in YA-- and adult-- books.  My one complaint on the romance factor was that the author seemed to feel the need to throw in an almost superfluous second love interest-- a local guy called Tyler who has a crush on Lexi--, I guess in order to complete the love triangle which seems to be becoming almost mandatory these days.  Overall, though, I was pretty impressed with Schwab's characterization due to the short length of the book and how plot-driven it was.  The Near Witch is a suspenseful, intriguing, and creepy read with a little bit of romance thrown in, and one with a lot of fairy tale-type inspiration working behind the scenes.  I really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend.  Therefore I award thee four very pixel-y unicorns, book.

My Rating:

Review: Forever by Maggie Stiefvater

 (Wolves of Mercy Falls #3)
Genre: YA paranormal romance
Pages: 390 (hardcover)
Published: July 2011 by Scholastic
Recommended for: anyone who enjoyed the previous books, or anyone who thought Shiver was just okay and wondered whether the series was worth finishing
Thanks to: Liz for letting me borrow her copy  :)
Warning: very mild spoilers follow

My Take:

Forever picks up soon after Linger left off: Grace has finally become a wolf and is now running through Boundary Woods along with the rest of the pack, most of whom will never again get to spend their summers as humans.  Meanwhile Sam longs for the days when his Summer Girl will get to stay with him.  As the weather warms up and Grace occasionally changes back to her human form, he finds that losing her so soon and suddenly is perhaps as painful as never having had her at all.  Cole St Clair, jaded-with-the-world young rockstar, is experiencing the sudden changes from wolf to human, too.  But for once he finds himself struggling to remain himself.  He sets out to control the scientific circumstances which force the change from human to wolf, using himself as a test subject.  The standoffish and lovably haughty Isabel Culpeper is still uncertain about her feelings for Cole-- and indeed everything else.  But as her father, who loathes the Boundary Woods wolves for causing the death of her brother Jack, gears the small town of Mercy Falls up for one last extermination of the pack, Isabel knows one thing for certain-- she must stop him at any cost.

Forever is a fantastic conclusion to the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy.  Since Shiver, the characters have grown so much, and yet they are at heart the same people we fell in love with.  Isabel is still the smart-ass; Cole is still eccentric and jaded; Sam is still the slightly melancholy, ultimately lovable teenage boy.  Of all the characters, Grace has changed the most, having defied her negligent parents and given up all aspects of her old life.  Yet, for me, it was Cole and Isabel who stole the show.  I'm not personally a fan of love-at-first-sight sorts of stories, though Sam and Grace's relationship is more real than that.  But Cole and Isabel's is a very different, darker brand of love-- a practically unrealized love, at that.

The lyrical prose and slower pacing of the last two books is familiar here, yet the pace is slightly faster, since the most immediate major plotline of the series-- that of the wolves being hunted by the town and Isabel's father-- is finally coming to a shattering realization.  Yep, it's finally happening.  I would like to take this opportunity to say, while my random brain is replaying the awesomeness that was that final climax scene, that I hate Shelby.  So, so much.  Anyway, I would say that if, like me, you enjoyed Shiver but didn't love it enough to read the next book, that it's a fair bet you will end up loving the rest of the trilogy.  Shiver is good; Linger is great; Forever is even better. 

Cover: 5/5
Premise: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Overall Rating:

Series Review: The Icemark Chronicles by Stuart Hill

Book #1: The Cry of the Icemark
Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 512 (paperback)
Published: 2005 by Chicken House

My Take:

Today I'd like to share a trilogy of books which I've loved and been impressed by for a long time.  I read The Cry of the Icemark in seventh grade, and the third book, Last Battle of the Icemark, only last week.  The series is aimed at MG and YA readers, but the books really do have something for everyone: magic, romance, war, and most importantly, hilarious and endearing characters.

Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield is the thirteen year old princess of the Icemark, a tiny snowbound country surrounded on all sides by enemies and harsh mountain wilderness.  When the powerful Polypontian Empire, led by the conniving General Scipio, turn their enormous eye on the unprotected Icemark at last and her warrior king father falls in battle, Thirrin must search for allies among the most unlikely of the Icemark's former foes.  She meets an unexpected ally in Oskan Witchson, a young warlock whose power and empathy perfectly complement Thirrin's impulsiveness.  Together, the princess  and her new adviser risk their lives as envoys to the mysterious Wolf People who roam the mountains, a tribe of Amazon-like warriors, a nation of mythical  snow leopards as big as horses and with twice as many teeth.  Thirrin even ventures to the infamous Land-of-the-Ghosts and attempts to forge an alliance with Their Vampiric Majesties-- a pair of sangfroid immortals who have lorded over their fellow vampires for untold centuries.  But as the Icemark and their new-found mythical allies prepare to face the scientifically-based Polypontian Empire in an epic battle for the Icemark's capital, it occurs to Thirrin that the time of freedom and coexistence among creatures in the north may have already ebbed and waned.

Author Stuart Hill writes battle scenes fantastically-- the only writer I can think of who captures the intensity and chaos so perfectly and captivatingly is JRR Tolkien.  The first book remains my favorite of the Icemark Chronicles.  There are a lot of proper nouns and names at first, but readers will quickly grow to love these unusual (to say the least) characters and their funny quirks.  Flame-haired Thirrin is a true warrior-at-heart and I loved her chemistry with Oskan despite their vast differences and conflicting backgrounds.  My favorite of Thirrin's allies are her most reluctant ones: Their Vampiric Majesties.  Their biting sarcasm and adherence to the laws of actual vampires (no sparkling or feeding upon mountain lions) is entertaining and refreshing.
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Book #2: Blade of Fire
Pages: 640 (paperback)
Published: 2007 by Chicken House

This sequel to Cry of the Icemark could well be called Icemark: NG-- Icemark: The Next Generation.  I was skeptical at first when I saw that this book skipped ahead twenty years and picked up just as a new battle with the Polypontian Empire and the vicious General Scipio Bellorum was about to be waged for the Icemark.  Bellorum is accompanied by his teenage sons, Sulla and Octavius (Ring a bell, much?  Yep, the Polypontian Empire are more or less the Romans.),  tactical geniuses like himself who are equally bloodthirsty.  Queen Thirrin and her beloved Oskan have children, too: three sons and two daughters.

As war approaches, Thirrin sends her son Sharley, crippled long ago by polio, to the Southern Continent as a diplomat.  Sharley, angry at being sent away like a child, takes the reins of his own destiny and travels to befriend new allies in the form of the Desert People and their Crown Prince.  As Bellorum attacks the outskirts of the Icemark with a new fleet of terrifying airships and defeat for the allies seems inevitable, the teenage princess Medea broods alone in her tower rooms.  Alone of Thirrin's children, Medea has inherited her father's magical power.  But unlike Oskan, Medea is intrigued and enthralled by the Dark.  As her warrior brothers and sisters prepare to make their last stand, Medea prepares for the betrayal which she hopes will set her above her hated family forever.

Blade of Fire very nearly improved upon the first book.  The story is one which makes it impossible to put down and the new glimpses we get of this world's magic are beyond cool.  Thirrin and Oskan are still very much major characters despite their children taking the stage.  As in the first book, there are quite a few devastating deaths among major characters.  One death scene in particular I will always remember-- it was beyond sad.
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Book #3: Last Battle of the Icemark
Pages: 480 (paperback)
Published: 2008 by Chicken House

In this final book in the Icemark trilogy, Thirrin and her myriad of allies face what may be the greatest challenge to their nation yet: a brutal warrior Queen whom commands a legion of hoards into the realms of the Icemark and the Polypontian Empire.  (Think the Mongols invading Europe.)  Meanwhile Medea is caught in the limbo realm of the Darkness and plotting her revenge against her family and her father Oskan, whom she has come to loathe as much as she adores.  She joins forces with Cronus, embodiment of evil and... her grandfather.

Fewer new characters and nations are introduced than in previous books, though the cast list still grows several names longer.  The Icemark and the Polypontian Empire joining forces against Erinor (the warrior Queen) was very much unexpected-- yet everything which occurred made for the perfect conclusion to this fantastic trilogy.  The beginning of this third book, unlike the other two, was just a little bit slow, but things picked up fairly quickly after that.  Seeing as I read this book years after the others, it was a lot like being reunited with old friends.  I love it when you discover a sequel to an old book or series which you'd half-forgotten about.  Medea becomes a major player and a major force of evil, and I loved seeing more of her sister Cressida as well.  Her awkward relationship with Leonidas, the son of a Polypontian General, was hilarious (largely due to everyone trying to set them up together), and just meant to be.  I HATED the invading queen, even more than I hated General Bellorum, so as a villain she was perfectly written.  The subplot with their Vampiric Majesties, without giving anything away, was amazing and more than any fan could have hoped for.  Once again, a major beloved character dies, one I didn't expect to die... but the ending does a lot to soften the blow.  Loved this book as much as the previous ones.

Overall Series Rating: