Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Genre: horror
Published: 1998
Pages: 736

Synopsis: Four years after the sudden death of his wife, forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write, and plagued by vivid nightmares set at the western Maine summerhouse he calls Sara Laughs, Mike reluctantly returns to the lakeside getaway. There, he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, whose vindictive purpose is to take his three-year-old granddaughter, Kyra, away from her widowed young mother, Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie and Kyra's struggle, as he falls in love with both of them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations and escalating terrors. What are the forces that have been unleashed here—and what do they want of Mike Noonan?

Review:

As an assistant at my high school's library, I came to know the titles and covers of Stephen King's books very well.  They were some of the few books at the school library that I had to constantly check in and out; Stephen King is very popular with teenagers, as well as with everybody else.  I myself checked out Carrie, which I didn't really like, and Firestarter, which I loved.  Other than that, I had not read any of Stephen King's oeuvre until I picked up Bag of Bones a few weeks ago, although I love horror and the film adaptations of King's novels like Misery and the Shining.

Unfortunately, Bag of Bones did not live up to the high expectations I had for Stephen King.  This book is an absolute brick, weighing in at more than 700 pages, and though it starts off with a bang (the death of Mike Noonan's wife Jo), I found the story to be surprisingly slow-paced after that.  King actually does an excellent job creating Joanna as a likable character, even though she dies in the first few pages.  He also sets up this mystery of what she might have been up to before she died (Noonan discovers she was secretly pregnant with a child that might not have been theirs together.)  But the reader has to slog through about a hundred pages of Noonan grieving for Jo and having the occasional creepy dream about their lake house before he actually decides to go to the lake house, called Sara Laughs, on Dark Score Lake.  

An old lakeside shack with a pretty but eerie name and a dark past!  I had a feeling the book was going to become a lot more interesting, and it did.  A little.  King's writing and the level of detail which he delves into is such that he makes the atmosphere and the characters feel incredibly real.  It is also such that I felt myself growing a bit bored on more than a few occasions.  I wanted to learn more about that old creep Max Devore, determined to steal the daughter of Mike's new friend Mattie, not read about Mike going to the Village Café for the third time.  The haunted happenings in the lake house Sara Laughs progress a bit stereotypically, for someone who freely admits to having watched every episode of Paranormal Witness.  Mike feels a cold breeze, the magnets rearrange themselves on his fridge, he hears a child crying, he dreams about corpses (a lot!)  The aspect of the novel I liked best was Mike's discovery of the tragic story of Sara Tidwell, the original "Sara Laughs," a Blues singer who lived and died near Dark Score Lake.  

And the aspect of the novel I liked least, other than the overly detailed writing and slow pace?  That would be the protagonist and first-person narrator, Mike Noonan.  It is easy to feel sorry for him since he has lost his wife, but for whatever reason, I did not find it so easy to like him.  Admittedly horror is not a genre known for its likable characters.  Protagonists in horror tend to have shadowy pasts and dark secrets, which is interesting, but Mike did not even have that.  His deceased wife Jo was the one with the unknown past and secrets, but the story is narrated by Mike, not Jo.  And Mike is a bit bland, as are a lot of the characters he meets around Dark Score Lake.  

Not so Pierce Brosnan or Anika Noni Rose, though!  After I finished reading Bag of Bones, I watched the 2011 mini-series.  It stars Pierce Brosnan as Mike Noonan and features Anika Noni Rose (The Princess and the Frog, Dreamgirls) as the Blues singer Sara Tidwell.  While I would by no means call Bag of Bones the greatest horror mini-series ever, it was well-acted, riddled with creepy jump scares, and tells basically the same story as the seven hundred page novel in a mere two hours.  Best of all, the mini-series can currently be watched for free on Youtube.

In short, this is one of very few cases in which I would recommend the movie instead of the book.  I really wanted to like Stephen King.  He is obviously a masterful writer, but honestly, the slow pacing of his books and their high page counts may mean that they are not for me.  However, if anyone knows perhaps a lesser-known Stephen King book that they really enjoyed, then I would love a recommendation.

My 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:

Review: Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat

Genre: steampunk/ historical fantasy
Pages: 409 (paperback)
Published: 2010 by Melville House-- originally published in French

The Synopsis:
1908: New Venice--"the pearl of the Arctic"--a place of ice palaces and pneumatic tubes, of beautifully ornate carriage-sleds and elegant victorian garb, of long nights and vistas of ice.

But as the city prepares for spring, it feels more like qaartsiluni, "the time when something is about to explode in the dark." Local "poletics" are wracked by tensions with the Eskimos circling the city, with suffragette riots led by an underground music star, with drug round-ups by the secret police force known as the Gentlemen of the Night. An ominous black airship hovers over the city, and the Gentlemen are hunting for the author of a radical pamphlet calling for revolt.  Their lead suspect is Brentford Orsini, one of the city's most prominent figures. But as the Gentlemen of the Night tighten the net around him, Orsini receives a mysterious message from a long-lost love that compels him to act.

What transpires is a literary adventure novel unlike anything you've ever read before. Brilliant in its conception, masterful in its prose, thrilling in its plot twists, and laced with humor, suspense, and intelligence, it marks the beginning of a great new series of books set in New Venice-and the launch of an astonishing new writer.

My Take: 

So as far as enticing book summaries go, that one was a tad bit confusing.  Overall, "confusing" is a very good adjective for Aurorarama.  This one had been on my radar for a long time, mainly because of: steampunk-esque Arctic setting, polar bears (!), the Gentlemen of the Night-- which sounds really cool--, and that beautiful cover.  After reading the summary, I thought "Well, of course the author will fill us in on all this alternative early 20th century stuff, the origins of this New Venice city in the northern Arctic, the mysterious airship, and all the other little details of his steampunk-esque world.  

But no.  The author of Aurorarama took the old writing cliche of "show, don't tell" a little too well, I think.  He almost expects that we know that one of his two protagonists is actually a duke and one is a quarter Scottish (and yes, that's actually relevant to the plot?)  The "long-lost love" mentioned in the synopsis is this woman, Helen, who at some point or another was in love with the protagonist Brentford and sacrificed herself for some reason, yet lived on in a goddess-like form for some reason.  There's this vast mythology, of which only the tip of the iceberg-- I went there-- is actually explained or explored.  There are mentions of popular New Venetian culture which-- while they help make this a more immersive read and the world-building realistic-- probably fall flat for most readers.  Like, there's this singer who appears out of nowhere and is apparently notorious for stirring up trouble-- oh, and she's also a suffragette for women's vote, but mostly she's an anarchist-- and yeah, a pop singer, and part of this conspiracy theory involving the "poletics" of the city.  

Which kinda brings me to the number one thing I disliked about Aurorarama.  The characterization of the few female characters in the novel is really, really horrible and occasionally, just kind of degrading.  Neither of the protagonists are, but there are three female characters in the book (not including half of a set of conjoined twins-- no, I'm not kidding).  One is Brentford's future wife, a young woman named Sybil who is a pop singer and minor star.  We never really learn why Brentford loves Sybil, if he does, or why they're going to get married at all; the scene with their wedding was the most unromantic-- no, totally emotionless-- wedding scene I've ever read.  Brentford's always thinking about how Sybil only how cares about her band and superficial things, and he feels duty-bound to marry her for some reason, and this just repeatedly got on my nerves.  Sybil also becomes the damsel-in-distress later in the novel, when a magician makes her disappear for real.  Brentford seems to hardly notice that his fiance is missing (he's too busy thinking about that long-lost love), so I'm really not sure what the point of including this subplot was, since Sybil just randomly reappears a few days later. The other woman is considered to be something of a bad-ass and a little mysterious, and is overall not as bad as Sybil.  In one scene, she leads a group of suffragettes in a revolutionary mob riot and the police can't get around to taking action against them properly, because the girls just look so darn arresting in their short skirts and suffragette banners.  So, not because they're armed and dangerous or anything. 

And then we come to Stella, the lover of my least favorite of the protagonists, and a character who I really didn't like.  The protagonist Gabriel is just obsessed with Stella, because she's just so cute and has this astronomical tattoo on her back.  Stella's official occupation is a magician's assistant, so thus far we have a tally of two pop singers and one magician's assistant as far as women go.  She also turns out to be another revolutionary, who betrays Gabriel and seems to feel somewhat bad about it-- but not bad enough that the author actually made a later confrontation between them part of the plot.  This is an excerpt from page 359 about Stella, which I thought kinda emphasizes what the female characters in this novel are like:

"'Fine,' said Stella, who looked even smaller in her thick, black, fur-lined jacket.  She took off her crocheted hat and shook her corkscrew curls out in a moment of pure terrorist eroticism.  Gabriel closed his eyes."

"Pure terrorist eroticism" is probably the weirdest of many weird phrases used in this book.  What exactly does that mean?  Is that a phrase specifically coined to describe Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta?  My best guess is that it means: OK, so she may be a terrorist, but most importantly-- she's still erotic, since she is a woman and all and women can't be too much like terrorists, since terrorism is violent and therefore a man thing.  Another gem of an odd phrase:

"...His heart was banging in his chest like a madman begging to be released from his padded cell".  

My heart was banging...like a madman, of course, that's the natural simile one tends to think of.  I thought at first that the book was translated from French, since the author is French, but, no-- it was written in English.  Still, maybe English not being his native language is some justification for the mind-bogglingly strange phrases and similes. 

So, on the positive side... the world-building in Aurorarama is well-written and complex and the political system (if you're into that sort of thing) is interesting.  The chilling prologue is cool-- maybe it would be better to just read the prologue and call it a good short story with no conclusion? The Eskimos were interesting.  BUT, the superficial and objectified nature of the female characters, the detachment between reader and the protagonists and their world/problems, the appearance of a creepy set of conjoined twin children-- all of these are very good reasons not to read Aurorarama, if you think any of them might bother you in the least.  Worst of all: there were no polar bears, talking or otherwise.  Talking polar bears have been known to make the difference in ratings between two and three unicorns, but alas, I guess.  Overall, very much not my kind of book.

My Rating:

Review: Wildefire by Karsten Knight

Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 400 (hardcover)
Published: July 2011 by Simon & Schuster
Recommended for: don't really recommend it
Disclaimer: This is a review of an ARC, which I received from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis:
Every flame begins with a spark. 

Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She’s struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve’s violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California’s redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her. But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn’t go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school—being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger—Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood…and she’s one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced to haunt Ash, and she’s got some strange abilities of her own. With a war between the gods looming over campus, Ash must master the new fire smoldering within before she clashes with her sister one more time… And when warm and cold fronts collide, there’s guaranteed to be a storm.

My Take: 

*Sigh*.  The synopsis sounds so amazing and that cover is incredibly alluring.  Seriously, it's a gorgeous cover!  I had very high expectations for this one, so its failure to meet said expectations was semi-devastating.  I'm going to be an optimist here, and highlight what did work in Wildefire.  First off, I liked Eve.  Ash's sister was by far the roundest character (by that I mean complex and realistic, not portly ;) in the book.  She is a bad-ass, there's no denying it.  Even though she never really succeeded in coming across as the villain of the piece, I would've liked to learned more about her and what happened to her after she ran away from she and Ash's adoptive parents.  I also think that Karsten Knight is a great descriptive writer... maybe a little too much of a great descriptive writer at certain times.  The writing can get kind of flowery and paragraphs are spent describing the architecture of the boarding school and the surrounding redwoods, etc, etc.  I also liked how our teenage god and goddess incarnates aren't based on Grecian mythology, but rather on loads of different mythologies from around the world.


Now for the bad news.  While reading the story of Ash-- a somewhat belligerent, apparently amnesiac teenage girl who flees to a Californian boarding school and discovers she's a Polynesian volcano goddess-- I found myself kind of wishing we could skip all the compulsory teenage shenanigans and skip to the part where Ash comes into her own as a goddess incarnate and she and her friends kick ass.  There's a kind of prolonged prologue (by 'prolonged', I mean forty or fifty pages) which for the most part feels strangely unnecessary.  Almost like the editor should have advised against it.  I think the author might have been better off leaving Ash and Eve's scary-and-shocking-past to be revealed over the course of the book rather than implementing that gigantic and unwieldy prologue.  Ash's romance with Colt, park ranger and stalker extraordinaire, fell completely flat for me.  The climatic ending: ditto.  It's also pretty rare to read a book that is 400 pages long and yet finish it thinking that almost nothing happened.  Or maybe just nothing that a reader would care about, since none of the characters are very sympathetic or likable.    

I know a lot of people really enjoyed this book, but I can't say I did.  My advice is that if you want to read a funny, fast-paced and inventive YA series about mythological adventures, skip this book and read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan.  If you want to read an awesome and epic novel about gods and goddesses living in the modern United States, skip Wildefire and read American Gods by Neil Gaiman instead.

Cover: 5/5
Premise: 4/5
Characters: 2/5 (for Eve)
Story: 2/5
Overall Rating:

Merciful by Casey Adolffson

Genre: fantasy-- mythological
Pages: 494 (paperback)
Published: March 2011
Recommended for: paranormal romance readers and those interested in Greek myth
*Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review*

Synopsis:
At 17 years old, Acacia Moirgetes is starting to feel like her boring, lonely existence is something of a tragedy. A Greek tragedy, that is. Acacia quickly learns that the life she thought she knew is a lie.  More disturbingly, it’s a lie she’s been telling herself to avoid the terrible truth.

Now she’s on a mission to corral the Greek gods of myth back to Mount Olympus before all Hades breaks loose. With the help of her guide, a curmudgeonly former goat named Amal, and her two Pyroskia— devastatingly handsome bodyguards, Blaise and Ash, whose devotion to Acacia runs deeper than either ever imagined—Acacia must follow the truth to its darkest ends. Along the way, she’ll have to recover her forgotten powers, come to terms with the woman she once was, and perhaps most importantly, discover why she left Olympus in the first place.

My Take: 

My grandmother sometimes says, "There is a horse for every kind of person in the world: skittish horses for skittish people, gentle horses for gentle people, and for people who don't like to ride, we have horses that don't like to be ridden."  It's the same way with books, of course-- sometimes readers are destined to ride off into the sunset with a book because it's exactly their kind of thing.  Other times, we encounter books that simply aren't up our alley, for whatever reason.  This was how I felt about Merciful-- the book and I never really clicked, but I'll try my best to write a review which does the book justice, as it is both well-written and well-told.


Acacia begins her story as a young librarian, one whom finds herself abruptly disappearing from her daily job of shelving and reappearing in a mysterious desert, clad in unfamiliar garb in an unfamiliar land, alarmingly often.  During one of these strange lapses in time, Acacia discovers that she isn't in fact seventeen years old, but seventeen thousand years old-- and she is the most powerful Moirae, one of the three mistresses of fate in Greek mythology.  So it isn't too much of a stretch that her father is also Zeus, and her extremely devoted, stunningly handsome bodyguards Ash and Blaise are her Pyroskia-- Pyros for short.  Their sole purpose in life is to protect Acacia from rivals and enemies, of which she has gained many over the course of the last seventeen thousand years, and to assist her in all things.  Acacia quickly falls in love with Blaise-- and begins to wonder if she hasn't already fallen in love with him before-- even as she slowly begins to regain her memories.  Meanwhile, her father Zeus has promised Acacia's hand in marriage to Ares, god of war... unless Acacia can gather back the gods and goddesses who, like her, left Olympus before time runs out.  

This book is something of a tome at nearly 500 pages, and in many cases I think things and events could definitely have been left out or shortened to a more readable length.  The writing is elegant and flawless-- I don't think I spotted one grammatical mistake or misspelling over the course of such a huge book.  Acacia is a protagonist with a unique voice, one whom a reader will get to know and understand well very quickly.  The take on Greek mythology is unique and unlike any other modern mythos-type story I've read.  

But.  (Yep, there's a but.)  The story really dragged for me, as I said.  And a disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of paranormal romance.  I really, really dislike heroes who hang over the heroine all the time, somehow managing to form a love triangle as they fuss over her and smother her and guard her life at any cost, etc, etc.  I have the same pet peeve with leading ladies who hover over heroes.  Blaise and Ash's feelings and behavior towards Acacia was explained and made perfect sense within the context of their existences as Pyroskia.  But there were many moments when I just wanted to slap all three of them.  I grew exhausted with Blaise's dogged love for Acacia in particular.  Acacia's interactions with her bodyguards are perhaps a quarter or more of the book, and that didn't make it easy for me to ignore.  However, I will freely admit I'm not much of a romance reader-- as those of you who've read my reviews before know, I tend to be cynical of relationships in books-- so I'm obviously not the intended audience here.  Read Merciful if you dig this sort of romance, and if you're searching for a rather epic and sprawling story which features colorful characters along with surprising twists of plot and of one very mysterious past.

Cover: 5/5 (like it!)

Premise: 4/5

Characters: 2/5

Plot: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney

Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 290 (paperback)
Published: February 2011 by Flux
Recommended for: paranormal romance people-- though I'd definitely recommend other books over this one!

Summary:
Freak. That's what her classmates call seventeen-year-old Donna Underwood. When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed her father and drove her mother mad. Donna's own nearly fatal injuries from the assault were fixed by magic—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. The child of alchemists, Donna feels cursed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. The only thing that keeps her sane and grounded is her relationship with her best friend, Navin Sharma.

When the darkest outcasts of Faerie—the vicious wood elves—abduct Navin, Donna finally has to accept her role in the centuries old war between the humans and the fey. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous half-fey dropout with secrets of his own, Donna races to save her friend—even if it means betraying everything her parents and the alchemist community fought to the death to protect. 

My Take: 


I always like to start with the pros of a book whenever I have to give a negative or not-so-rave review.  My favorite thing about The Iron Witch is its cover.  Seriously, it's beyond gorgeous, and if I was rating based on the cover alone, I'd have to give it a 6 out of 5.  Other pros: its somewhat-unique mixture of faerie and alchemical lore.  I'm a sucker for faerie stories-- though the wood elves in this book didn't really impress me-- and I've been unhealthily obsessed with alchemy both real and fictional for a long time. (Thanks a lot, Fullmetal Alchemist!)  And because I'm really digging deep to find positives here, I'd like to draw your attention to the really cool script on the title page and on the chapter titles (check out the front cover's title).  It should win an award... for Best Sinister-Yet-Fancy Script in a YA Book, or something.


But that's probably the only award I'd grant The Iron Witch.  The story is one of the most unoriginal I've read in a long time-- I think the author basically copied down the plot skeletons from about fifty different popular YA fantasy novels, switched their ideas around in the manuscript just a little bit and combined them all for a Frankenstein of a fantasy romance. Then she submitted the manuscript without using spell check to edit for grammatical sentence structure. (I found myself marking the pages up with my handy pencil a lot, once again...sigh, maybe I should be a copy-editor.)  The stereotypical plot really bugged me, especially after the ending provided no exciting/intriguing and unexpected plot twist whatsoever, as well as no resolution and no 'hook' to read the upcoming sequels.  It was a little skimpy for my taste, at 290 pages, but that itself has nothing to do with why I didn't enjoy the book.  Donna is a stereotypical teenage heroine with a bunch of stereotypical high school haters (including one blond, cheerlead-ing mean girl, what a surprise), one close, very stereotypical best friend, Navin, one new-and-exciting-and-mysterious-love-interest Xan, and one (also stereotypical) secret: her father, a powerful alchemist, was killed defending her from wood elves years ago, and her mother, now in a mental health ward, became practically comatose after the attack. Because no protagonist's mother has ever gone insane or comatose and been assigned to a psych ward following a traumatic attack (*see Harry Potter, Blue Bloods, The Iron Thorn, even the Mortal Instruments*).


The language was choppy and really sporadic-- one minute the characters were talking like teenagers, with lots of 'like' s and what-not, and the next they were using major vocabulary and sentence structure that wouldn't sound out of place in somebody's thesis paper.  Donna's super-strength was more of a random curiosity than a plot device or actually relevant to her character or the story in any way, as was her alchemical heritage.  We never get to see much of the alchemical 'Order of the Dragon', nor is much explained about its inner-workings and purpose. If the alchemy had been good, that would have been a big saving-grace for this book for me, but it was just another useless fantasy element thrown into the story.  Overall, The Iron Witch was a huge disappointment for me.  I will now sum it up in a haiku:

"This beautiful book
Was one big YA cliche
And a waste of cash."

That said, all this is only my personal opinion and is in no way intended to offend anyone.  I usually hate writing negative reviews, but this one was just so disappointing.

Cover: 5/5 

Premise: 3/5 

Characters: 2/5 

Plot: 1/5

Overall Rating: 2/5

Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann

Genre: YA horror/ contemp
Pages: 240 (hardcover)
To Be Published: February 8th, 2011 by Simon Pulse
*Book provided by Simon & Schuster Galley Grab in exchange for honest review-- thanks!*
Synopsis:

The community of Cryer’s Cross, Montana (population 212) is distraught when high school freshman Tiffany disappears without a trace. Already off-balance due to her OCD, 16-year-old Kendall is freaked out seeing Tiffany’s empty desk in the one-room school house, but somehow life goes on... until Kendall's boyfriend Nico also disappears, and also without a trace. Now the town is in a panic. Alone in her depression and with her OCD at an all-time high, Kendall notices something that connects Nico and Tiffany: they both sat at the same desk. She knows it's crazy, but Kendall finds herself drawn to the desk, dreaming of Nico and wondering if maybe she, too, will disappear...and whether that would be so bad. Then she begins receiving graffiti messages on the desk from someone who can only be Nico. Can he possibly be alive somewhere? Where is he? And how can Kendall help him? 

The only person who believes her is Jacian, the new guy she finds irritating...and attractive. As Kendall and Jacian grow closer, Kendall digs deeper into Nico's mysterious disappearance only to stumble upon some ugly—and deadly—local history. Kendall is about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried.
  
My Take:


Cryer's Cross has the set-up, great writing and characters of a fantastic novel.  I've heard a lot about Lisa McMann and her books, particularly Wake.  That said, I wasn't overly impressed with the execution of that gigantic plot twist of Cryer's Cross, nor with the eerie supernatural cause behind all these creepy small-town disappearances.  This is going to be a hard book to review without giving away any spoilers, but I'll just say I'm glad I don't have to break the big mystery to anybody, because I would feel like I'm kind of letting them down.  This plotline has so much potential... but the driving force behind the horror would barely make a weak episode of Buffy during one of the weaker seasons.  I apologize for the vagueness and will plough ahead with the review.  


Okay, there's definitely a positive side to this book: we have several likable characters, including the protagonist Kendall who has lived all her life in Cryer's Cross harvesting potatoes, but dreams of attending a top-notch university and acting on the stage.  She also has a pretty severe case of OCD.  (I was like, 'HALLELUJAH! Me, too.')  I like how Kendall's OCD comes to fixate on the disappearance of her classmate Tiffany Quinn and how it takes over her mind sometimes.  Our OCDs are completely different as far as how they manifest, but I really sympathized with her over this and was glad to see a protagonist with OCD.  I liked Nico, Kendall's best friend/ boyfriend and the new guys who moves to town, Jacian.  I love it when guys in books aren't cliches or just there to serve as love interests, but actually have a personality and dreams of their own.  

The story is told in an unusual POV: third person, present tense.  I can't even remember the last time I read a book written in that point of view, but here it worked out pretty well.  The novel is fast-paced and really hard to put down once you start reading-- there were a couple of times when I was just going to read for five minutes and ended up reading a hundred pages. (Oops.)  And the cover of this book... it's an aerial view of a student desk. (OH! I see it now!)  I swear I drove myself crazy squinting at the little icon for the e-book, trying to figure it out, when it first appeared in my library. (I'm visually challenged or something.)  The cover is oddly appropriate, and oddly enough much more of a spoiler than I've given in this entire review.  So in summary, Cryer's Cross is a well-written, fairly addictive novel with a cool protagonist and unusual small-town setting, and the lamest horror movie twist I've come across in a long time.  The book is short enough that I still recommend it... but only if you can check it out from the library or snag it from the Simon & Schuster Galley Grab, which is awesome.

Cover: 4/5 

Premise: 3/5 

Characters: 4/5 

Plot: 2/5 

Overall Rating: 3/5