Early Review of Hounded by Kevin Hearne

Genre: urban fantasy

Pages: 320 (paperback)

To Be Published: May 3rd, 2011 by Del Rey

My Take: 

When I first won Hounded from a Goodreads giveaway, I had no idea what a good thing I had coming in the mail.  It's not too unusual that I venture into adult urban fantasy or even literary fiction, though obviously I read more YA than anything, this being a YA blog.  But Hounded may very well be the best urban fantasy, if not one of the best books period that I've read all year.  It's a hidden, fast-paced and fun fantasy gem which will not be hidden for long, judging by the slew of enthusiastic reviews I've seen on Goodreads and a few other blogs.  The editor's note on the inside cover of the ARC copy mentions the 'Kevin Hearne Effect'-- and man, has the Kevin Hearne Effect worked its magic on me!  This book is like the perfect, Celtic lovechild of American Gods and the Percy Jackson series.  I recommend it a thousand times over.

Atticus O'Sullivan, Druid and indie book-seller, is 21 (centuries) and counting, though he maintains the appearance of a 21 year old Irishman who runs an occult bookstore in Arizona.  Atticus is an intellectual Druid as well as a warrior (you get to collect a lot of hobbies after you've lived a few millenniums), but he's no ancient, white-robed priest with a flowing beard.  His light-hearted sarcasm and casual use of twenty-first century slang are as hilarious as his other immortal counterparts' misuse of it.  Atticus has friends in high places, to put it mildly, since he's had loads of time to rack up bonus points with the immortal gods of every pantheon and various other supernatural beings.  Let's see...his lawyers are a vampire and a werewolf; his next-door neighbor is a kick-ass old Irish lady who likes her Sunday mornings mellow (you'll see what I'm talking about;); the bartender he's been crushing on is actually possessed by an ancient Indian witch; and, oh yeah, he's got the Morrigan, goddess of death, on his side.  Long ago Atticus made a pact with the Morrigan so that she will never take him, leaving him immortal and virtually invincible.  

But Atticus hasn't made all those friends without making a few enemies as well.  Most notable among them is the Celtic god of love, Aenghus Og.  He's been chasing Atticus through the centuries, determined to reclaim a sword the Druid took from him long ago.  God of love though he may be, Aenghus is far from a lovey-dovey Cupid type.  (Not that Cupid was that lovey-dovey, originally.)  Throw in a coven of Polish witches whom are real, er, witches, a wishy-washy goddess of the hunt, and an Irish wolfhound who can communicate with Atticus telepathically, and you have a heck of a lot of myths gone wild.  Well-researched myths, too.  As a mythology geek, I loved Hearne's take on the various gods and goddesses, throwing them into modern society in a way that reminded me of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.  But a reader wouldn't have to know zip about mythology in order to love Hounded-- Atticus explains everything in matter-of-fact terms.

I can't possibly review this without declaring how much I love Oberon the Irish Wolfhound!  He and Atticus's mental conversations (soo much more interesting than the dog-human convos in The Knife of Never Letting Go) were hilarious, and Oberon was just so endearing in every way.  Atticus himself captured my heart and allegiance immediately, as did most all of the other characters from his shop-assistant to the goddess Flidais.  And the ending-- hysterical!  Loved it.  The best part is that the next two books in the Iron Druid Chronicles, Hexed and Hammered are being released soon after the first book, a book every consecutive month.  I can't think of a better way to spend the summer than by the pool, deeply absorbed in the Iron Druid books!  Sorry this review's so long-- I couldn't resist writing a novella of a review for this one. :)

Cover: 5/5

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 5/5 

Plot: 5/5

Overall Rating: 5/5     

Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

Genre: YA dystopia/ fantasy/steampunk
Pages: 462 (hardcover)

Published: December 2010 by Dial
Recommended for: only those who've already read Incarceron; steampunk fans

Summary:
The only one who escaped . . . And the one who could destroy them all.
Incarceron, the living prison, has lost one of its inmates to the outside world: Finn’s escaped, only to find that Outside is not at all what he expected. Used to the technologically advanced, if violently harsh, conditions of the prison, Finn is now forced to obey the rules of Protocol, which require all people to live without technology. To Finn, Outside is just a prison of another kind, especially when Claudia, the daughter of the prison’s warden, declares Finn the lost heir to the throne. When another claimant emerges, both Finn’s and Claudia’s very lives hang on Finn convincing the Court of something that even he doesn’t fully believe.
Meanwhile, Finn’s oathbrother Keiro and his friend Attia are still trapped inside Incarceron. They are searching for a magical glove, which legend says Sapphique used to escape. To find it, they must battle the prison itself, because Incarceron wants the glove too.

My Take:


There's really not much that can be said about the plot of Sapphique without completely spoiling everything that happens in the first book, Incarceron.  Even the summary is jam-paced with spoilers. But I'll give reviewing it (mostly) spoiler-free a go.  This was another fantastical, amazingly-imagined novel by Catherine Fisher, set in the world of the living, sentient prison Incarceron-- a world I'd been dying to return to ever since I read the first book last year.  

Sapphique is fueled by an ever-thickening, suspense-driven plot which races along at the speed of light.  The story switches frequently between Finn and Claudia, who are in the outside Realm world and struggling to secure Finn's claim to the throne despite the conniving Queen Sia, and Finn's oathbrother Keiro and Attia, the former slave girl who has now joined up with a mysterious mad magician who claims to possess the lost glove of Sapphique.  The world of Incarceron is one rich in mythology and steeped with weird allusions and stories which have been twisted over time, just as our own is.  It's nothing short of mind-blowing that Catherine Fisher can write a futuristic world as complex and crazy-real-feeling ( there's another of my lovely hyphenated words ;) as Incarceron, or indeed any of the other fantasy worlds she has written about.  It takes a while for readers, especially those who haven't read the first book in a while, to get the hang of the prison jargon and the story of Sapphique.  The atmospheres of both Incarceron and the Realm are so believable, and once again I loved the steampunk feel of everything in Incarceron.

The characters were a hit-or-miss with me as always... I loved Keiro, who's charming even for all his arrogance and self-absorbed betrayals-- he's a character who it is really hard not to love.  A warning to romance fans: there was literally almost no romance in this second book, which disappointed me very much.  I was expecting a Keira/Attia thing to get going, or a Claudia/Jared thing, but neither of these really panned out beyond a few little hints. (Though I'm sure JK Rowling would call them 'anvil-sized hints', they still weren't enough for me ;).  All that aside, Sapphique was jam-packed with surprises and shocking twists, huge revelations.  I was unable to put this (very thick) book down for a moment!  Parting with it was literally painful.  A fantastic conclusion to this steampunkish dystopian dualogy.

Cover: 4/5

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 4/5

Plot: 5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury

Genre: YA historical fiction

Pages: 320 (hardcover)

To Be Published: May 24th, 2011 by Atheneum

Recommended for: fans of the Gemma Doyle trilogy, fans of adventure and historical fiction

Tagline: Get wrapped up in the adventure . . . but keep your wits about you, dear Agnes.

My Take: 

Wrapped is a quick read,  fast-paced and lighthearted and guaranteed to coax a smile or two out of most everyone.  I was immediately drawn in by that beautiful cover illustration, and have to say that it suits the book perfectly.  This is a historical YA novel (set in Regency England) with echoes of fantasy and myth, but then again it has a little bit of everything: mystery, intrigue, humor, and romance.  Not to mention a cool background in Egyptology and a mummy's curse.

Our heroine Agnes is the most endearing protagonist I've read about in a while, despite that awful name of hers. (Ugh.  Agnes.  I just hate it!)  Her well-meaning mother despairs that despite her good looks, Agnes isn't particularly concerned with her upcoming society debut-- the graduation of a Regency England girl from childhood into her social Season before marriage.  Agnes is too busy hitting the books, dreaming of faraway exotic places, and perfecting her skills in language (all ten of them that she speaks fluently, mind you) to care much about gowns and debutante parties, or even Lord Showalter-- the wealthy young gentleman with a passion for collecting rare artifacts who has begun to court her.  But when she attends a glamorous party Showalter is hosting, Agnes finds her interest piqued at last.  By a two thousand year old Egyptian mummy, no less.  What Agnes finds wrapped within those ancient bandages sends her on a quest to discover more about the secret she has accidentally unleashed-- along with a mummy's curse which seems to have befallen high society since the unwrapping.  

In the British Museum, she meets Caedmon-- a handsome and slightly nerdy young curator whose passion for Egypt and discovering the meaning of the mummy's curse rivals Agness' own.  But there's no time for Agnes to dwell on nerd love (Aww.  I love it!).  The fate of Great Britain itself may well be at stake, as the mummy conspiracy all seems to link back to one person: Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor who has been hostile to Britain for years.  Swathed within the bandages of this one mummy, stolen from faraway Egypt, Napoleon may have hidden his secret weapon-- it lies to Agnes and Caedmon to decode and destroy it for the sake of all England.

This book was tons of fun to read, and the characters of Agnes and Caedmon were very endearing-- they're lovable nerds, and their interactions were just too funny.  There's a twist at the end which I kind of guessed, but nothing is painfully predictable.  The storyline reminded me of that immortal, cult-classic movie: The Mummy in several respects, but it was original enough.  I really hope Jennifer Bradbury writes a sequel to Wrapped-- another adventure for Agnes and Caedmon together, where maybe they get to go on one of the archeological excursions they both dream of and discover some other mythical curse or ancient mystery or whatever.  This would make a fantastic start to a YA series.

Cover: 5/5 

Premise: 4/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4/5        

*Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy*

Gemini Bites by Patrick Ryan

Genre: YA contemporary/ romance/ LGBT

Pages: 240 (hardcover)

Published: March 2011 by Scholastic

Recommended for: anyone who thinks a funny coming-of-age-type romance (of both straight and gay varieties) sounds like their thing

Summary:

One of the strangest (and funniest) love triangles ever to hit YA fiction, when a pair of twins (one boy, one girl) both fall for the boy who moves in with them…who may or may not be a vampire.
Judy and Kyle Renneker are sixteen-year-old fraternal twins in a rambling family of nine. They have a prickly history with each other and are, at least from Judy's perspective, constantly in fierce competition. Kyle has recently come out of the closet to his family and feels he might never know what it's like to date a guy. Judy, who has a history of pretending to be something she isn't in order to get what she wants, is pretending to be born-again in order to land a boyfriend who heads his own bible study.

When their parents announce that the family is going to be taking in a fellow student for a month so that he can finish the school year before moving away, both Kyle and Judy can't help but sit up and take notice. Garret Johnson, who is taking temporary residence in the newly finished attic, is a young man who moved into town less than a year ago and who is a mysterious, goth loner . . . and claims to be a vampire. He's not an easy person to get to know by any means, but the twins find him (to varying degrees) both strange and alluring.

My Take:

DISCLAIMER: Gemini Bites is NOT a paranormal romance.  The token description seems to be: a teenage vampire moves in with a set of dysfunctional twins and a love triangle ensues.  In actuality, readers will find admittedly few sparkling vampires within these pages.  But the book more than makes up for its somewhat misleading synopsis with a slew of hilarious one-liners and lovable characters.  The love triangle (er, love quadrilateral) is as funny as it is somewhat bizarre, and the sheer randomness of the goings-on in Gemini Bites kept me hooked from the first page to the last.    

Garret Johnson, the alleged vampire who moves into twins Kyle and Judys' attic, is a very interesting enigmatic stranger, as we can gather immediately from his initial introduction of himself: 'The name's Garret.  As opposed to garrote, the device one might use to strangle a person.'  Yeah.  And he just gets delightfully weirder from then on out.  Though Kyle initially worries that Garret might want to suck his blood some night and Judy is very preoccupied with snagging her newest crush by pretending to be a devout Christian (it's kind of a long story), both of the twins begin to develop romantic interest in Garret, who is as charming as he is maddeningly evasive about his own past.  We're purposely left in the dark about whether Garret's gay or straight, and the twins-- who are constantly in competition-- battle it out, each vying for the attention of their eccentric new house-mate. 

The novel switches points of view every chapter, letting us into both Judy and Kyle's heads.  I have to say I liked Kyle's chapters much better, mainly because Judy is incredibly conniving and often cruel, always lying to get her way, even though she's justified in her own mind.  Kyle is the opposite: self-demeaning and hilarious and obsessed with the music of Bob Dylan. (Go figure.)  Judy's best friend Sasha, a lovable 'dumb brunette' was by far the best secondary character, but it was also impossible for me not to snort with laughter when reading about Coover, Kyle's classmate who started the rumors of Garret's vampiric nature in the first place and decides to make a step toward ridding the world of evil, Mr. Pointy-style.  (Five points to your house if you got the Buffy reference.)

This book is laugh-out-loud hilarious and I loved how it handled LGBT: Kyle's family is so okay with his being gay (with nine in the family, they could barely give his coming out the time of day), and he certainly isn't the stereotypical sassy-gay-friend who we sometimes see in YA books.  All the characters and the storylines (weird as they sound in summary) are very believable, and the happy ending ties up every possible end of this darn good yarn.  My one complaint is that hardcover Gemini Bites costs about 18 US dollars in chain stores and $14 on Amazon.  On Amazon?!  This is a skinny, 240 page book and I read it in one sitting.  Considering you can buy books three times that size for a few dollars less online, I think that is nothing short of ridiculous.  But I'm no expert on pricing (though I am an expert on book-buying ;).  What do you guys think?

Cover: 3/5

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4/5 
*Thanks to Good Golly Miss Holly ARC Tours for the review copy* 

April 5th... A Great Day in History for Book Releases

April 5th is circled multiple times in bold red marker on my calender.  The morning started off pretty poorly, for a pre-prophesied Day of Awesomeness, with lightning storms and tornadoes raging through North Carolina and everyone losing their power.  But I'm confident things can only improve from there, what with the release of four much-anticipated sequels which I (along with the rest of the world's YA readers in the case of the first release), have been desperate to get my hands on... 

 City of Fallen Angels... it's here(!), it's shiny(!), and it's chock-full of Isabelle, Jace, Clary, Magnus, and Church and all those other people I've missed so much(!)

Plague-- the fourth book in the Gone series and the subject of my very first Waiting on Wednesday post.  Those cliffhanger endings have made for two very painful years, and I'm sure Plague will not disappoint.

Huntress is a sort of companion novel to Malinda Lo's Ash, one of my all-time favorite fantasies and a beautiful book. Early reviews of Huntress (you lucky people with your ARCs!) sound very promising.

Red Glove is the much-acclaimed sequel to White Cat, the first book in Holly Black's Curse Workers series.  I did have the chance to read this one early on, and was definitely not disappointed!  

Happy Release-Day to all of these books and their amazing authors.

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

Genre: YA contemporary 

Pages: 309 (hardcover)

Published: December 2010 by Egmont USA 

Frances, a Chinese-American student at an academically competitive school in San Francisco, has always had it drilled into her to be obedient to her mother and to be a straight-A student so that she can go to Med school. But is being a doctor what she wants? It has never even occurred to Frances to question her own feelings and desires until she accidentally winds up in speech class and finds herself with a hidden talent. Does she dare to challenge the mother who has sacrificed everything for her?

My Take: 

I'd call this book contemporary fiction, even though it technically takes place in the 80s.  Only occasionally was I reminded of the time period, and really Frances's situation-- being the daughter of a hard-working, yet brutally harsh, immigrant mother-- is far from unique to the 80s.  Bitter Melon is very well-written and Frances's voice was honest and pure in a way which leaves a precise impression of her-- she's not a protagonist I'll soon be forgetting.  The demeaning hardships she endures under her mother's watchful eyes and biting tongue were sometimes difficult to read, but teens' straining to meet parents' expectations, as well as the expectations of those coveted Ivy schools is a huge aspect of our lives which is underrepresented in contemp lit.  

Bitter Melon introduces readers to a lot of Chinese-American culture through Frances's eyes.  Her mother is a "Tiger Mom" twenty years before the phrase ever became popular-- she consistently pushes Frances to succeed in school, but her idea of greatness is limited at best.  When Frances has a scheduling error and ends up in speech class instead of Calculus, she discovers a knack for public speaking and writing.  Her mother has always pushed her to become a doctor-- so that she can become wealthy and one day take care of her mother, who is sick and has spent her entire life working long hours so that Frances can attend a private school.  When Frances meets Derek, a (non-Chinese) boy at a Princeton Review class, she breaks another of her mother's most confining rules when she begins to secretly date him.  As Frances's senior year winds down, she is faced with a huge dilemma: should she continue to obey her conniving and often abusive mother's wishes, or leave her mother to pursue her new-found dream and the boy she loves?  That big question is the one author Cara Chow asks us readers as well, through Frances's well-crafted speeches and questioning of her mother's strict Confucian values which she has always respected in the past. 

As an academic-achiever who often finds herself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices for the future, not to mention the ongoing crises and assignments of high school, I identified with Frances completely.  The way she goes on to find her own voice is inspiring and her personal transition is really just fantastic.  I loved her sorta prim best friend and cousin, Theresa, as well, but found her mother very hard to sympathize with.  The woman is bordering on tyrannical!  She may have given up everything for her daughter's future, but that doesn't give her the right to beat Frances over the head with a trophy she won!   

Bitter Melon is a unique and beautiful read, as enjoyable as it is thought-provoking.     

Cover: 5/5 (the model fits Frances's description picture-perfectly)
Premise: 5/5 
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5 
Overall Rating: 4.5/5

In My Mailbox (13)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren and inspired by Alea of Pop Culture Junkie. The idea behind IMM is not only to put new books on our radars but also to encourage blogger interaction. IMM explores the weekly contents of our mailboxes: books bought, received, won, and borrowed, along with other goodies and swag.

Not too many books this week, and I usually only post my mailbox every other week, but those books I did get I'm so psyched about!  So I absolutely had to share...

What I Got:

For Review:

 

Bought:

-- The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross 

-- Gemini Bites by Patrick Ryan

-- Hounded by Kevin Hearne

-- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Thanks to: 

-- Good Golly Miss Holly ARC Tours

-- DelRey Books

-- NetGalley and Harlequin

I just have to blurt it out: Hounded is fantastic so far!  My review's coming soon for the hilarious Gemini Bites as well, so keep an eye out.  

Anyways, what's in your mailbox this week?

Picture Perfect: An Expired Reality Novella by David N Alderman

Novella prologue to the upcoming Expired Reality series
Genre: science fiction
Length: novella-- ebook
Published: February 2011 by David N Alderman
(Buy the Kindle editon on Amazon here)
 (Visit the author's website)

Summary: 
Jonathan Huxley, a homeless boy living on the streets of Mecca, meets a wealthy gentleman who offers to take him in as an adopted son - if he'll wed the daughter of a family friend. But all is not as it seems in the world of wealth and power, as Jonathan is soon forced to make a decision between a secure future or forbidden love. While he fights to keep hold of what little is left of his innocence, the events surrounding him are shaping him into the notorious mercenary he will soon become.

My Take:

Picture Perfect is a sort of prologue in the form of a novella to David Alderman's upcoming Expired Reality series.  The novella is set in Anaisha, a world most similar to ours in many respects, and apparently very different in several others.  I've never read any of the author's earlier books set in this world, but Picture Perfect has me most intrigued.

Jonathan is an orphan whose biggest concerns usually reside in scavenging enough food to survive on, but one night a bizarre encounter with Reginald Arthur, a mysterious and wealthy stranger, alters the course of his life forever.  Reginald gives Jonathan an unusual opportunity: he can become an honorary member of the enigmatic Arthur family and spend the rest of his life in wealth and luxury, if only he agrees to marry Christina Harbrook, an equally wealthy-- and vindictive-- family friend.  Jonathan agrees to the arranged marriage, never foreseeing that he will soon meet-- and be forced to fight for-- the true love of his life.

Jonathan's transformation from a homeless orphan to a young mercenary is well-transitioned, especially considering the short length of the novella.  As a (long-winded to a fault) aspiring writer myself, I bow to David Alderman's ability to tell such a complex story so artfully and over the course of so few pages!  It is easy to get a feel for all of the characters, even the more minor ones, and the mystery shrouding the mysterious crimelord 'The Shadow' made me wish there was more.  Jonathan's would-be bride Christina is quite the femme fatale, and I'd love to see more of her as well.  There's a huge twist near the end of the story (no, I'm not going to reveal anything!) that totally threw me off as well.  The novella leaves the reader wondering how Jonathan will appear in his guise as a 'notorious mercenary' in the upcoming Expired Reality series (which takes place long after Picture Perfect, as far as I can tell).  All in all, I give this one a firm four and a half stars, for near-perfect execution and an intriguing story. 

Cover: 3/5 (meh, it's alright)

Premise: 5/5

Characters: 5/5 

Plot: 4/5 

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

*Copy was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review, and this in no way affected the contents of my review*