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Posts tagged books
Star Ratings
Characters: **** (4 stars)
Character Development: **** (4 stars)
Plot: **** (4 stars)
Writing : ***** (5 stars)
Overall: ****1/2 (4 1/2 stars)
Review by Morgan
I often wonder if I'm in danger of becoming a fairy-tale villain. I don't like little children. I'm greedy, I'm selfish, and I occasionally think about cursing people into small amphibians or enchanted sleeps. Like Boy, the main character in Helen Oyeyemi's new novel, I spend an awful lot of my time looking in mirrors. It was fascinating to watch Boy's progression from abused daughter to possibly evil stepmother, especially since it's easy to see how we might make follow the same path if we were in her place.
It's 1953 and Boy Novak has run away from her abusive father, the rat catcher, in New York City. She chooses to make her home in a Massachusetts town peopled by skilled craftsmen despite her lack of any artistic occupation. The magazine quizzes tell Boy that she might be frigid, and there are times when mirrors seem to enchant her while she sees truer reflections of herself walking across the street, invisible to everyone else. It takes Boy a little while to get her bearings, though she'd never admit this to the characters who try to befriend her, but eventually she puts a past love behind her and marries a teacher-turned-jeweler; a widower with a stunning little daughter whom Boy can never quite figure out. "[Snow] was poised and sympathetic, like a girl who'd just come from the future but didn't want to brag about it." (p 71) Just as Boy starts to grow comfortable in Flax Hill with Arturo's family the Whitmans (that's right: Snow Whitman and her stepmother…) she gives birth to a little girl of her own. Snow is the one to suggest the name Bird, and Bird grows into an inquisitive and lively young teenager who does the name justice. Bird also comes out brown skinned, which exposes the Whitmans as having Black ancestry in the not so distant genetic past. They might live in a fairly accepting Northern town, but this is still 1950s America, so everyone is pretty shocked when Boy chooses to send Snow away to stay with Arturo's estranged sister and her more obviously Black husband instead of Bird. Thus begins Boy's transformation into something of an evil stepmother, something of a protective mother despite the cultural obstacles, and something of a confused fairy tale heroine in her own right. As family secrets get tangled into legend or pulled out into the open, a realistic portrayal of self preservation versus difficult truths mixes with the stuff of bedtime stories to create a touching and clever novel which enthralled me completely.
It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of re-told fairy tales. I like stories which are fairly obvious in their parallels and I also like mostly-original novels which follow an understated pattern of fairy tale logic and contain hidden references along the way. Oyeyemi has borrowed the fairest-of-them-all conflict, the child-sent-away plot catalyst, and the magical qualities of names for her novel. She has sprinkled her tale of new beginnings and re-shaped families with references to "Snow White," most obviously, but also a whole library of other myths and legends.
That being said, Boy, Snow, Bird is not really a fantasy novel. I mean, there are no dwarves and no magic apples, but there's also no concrete suggestion that all this talk about curses or fate might be truly serious. Maybe the fact that all three title characters don't show up in mirrors, sometimes, should be read as pure metaphor. Maybe Boy Novak runs away from her vicious father with the grim profession to a secluded town just because the time is right, and not because she's following the well-trodden path of all those girls who struck out, cursed, for unknown lands in the storied traditions before her. Maybe Bird can't really talk to spiders. Maybe the mystical powers girls like Snow and Sidonie hold over boys – regardless of race in such a racially aware time – comes from something within them that isn't so much magical as genetic or psychological. Who knows? All I know is that Helen Oyeyemi did a marvelous job integrating some of my favorite themes and traditions into her writing. Every few pages, I have passages underlined in pencil or sticky notes pointing out of my copy of the book, marking my favorite references both obvious and minute. I bet there are plenty I've missed, too. There were connections with the German and English tales we're all quite used to, but also some references to the Black American legends of John the Conqueror and the more Romantic poem Goblin Market; mixed allusions are hidden all over the place and I wanted to high-five Oyeyemi from afar every time I noticed one of my favorite obscure little legends.
Aside from the layer of magical motifs which embellished Boy, Snow, Bird, there were several other aspects which rather enchanted me. Yes, the characters were memorable – though I thought that the male characters were distinctly less developed than the vivid female ones – and the setting made a nice stage for the volatile time period in which the story takes place. (It was pretty odd to read about a fictional New England town which was meant to be less than an hour away from mine. Every time the characters went to Worcester I couldn't help but picture the streets and restaurants I've personally encountered.) But it was the way that certain characters interacted with each other and learned to distrust their first, second, third impressions which really caught my attention. When Bird gets work as a coat check girl on a party cruise simply because she's got blonde hair – the 1950s were absurd – and strikes up a friendship with Mia, who masquerades as a blonde to write an article about the whole shindig, there's a bit of foreshadowing there for the bigger disguises which will reveal themselves in time. All clever plotting aside, it was entertaining to watch their friendship develop, and to see how Mia's doggedly inquisitive personality rubbed against Boy's challenging one. The bookshop owner who later employs Boy is an ornery old English lady who turns out to be full of little surprises, not the least of which being her patience and understanding to the three precocious young black children who spend their afternoons reading at the shop instead of going to school. Since Boy, Snow, Bird is a novel which focuses on race, I was glad to see these kids through the eyes of a lady who has absolutely no time for racist nonsense. Think Aunt Eleanor from Inkheart, dispensing thoughtful advice about theoretical curses rather than facing down real magical villains. The supporting cast of ladies, including those who had ugly pieces of their souls hidden away, were as carefully characterized as they were diverse. I didn't really mind the fact that Boy's husband and the other menfolk weren't so interesting. They just seemed more realistic, less complex, a little drab; and maybe that's part of what made the book seem to follow Anderson's and the Grimms' formulas. The honest woodcutters (or jeweler, in this case) and the kingly fathers rarely have any clue what's going on under their noble, hardworking noses. It's the women and children who notice the threats in nature and in their own reflections.
My favorite interaction to witness was probably the correspondence between the nearly grown up Snow and her half-sister Bird in the middle section of the book, which was told from Bird's perspective. We get such a romanticized picture of Snow from Boy's chapters – not always in a good way – that it's hard to see her as a real person for the first half of the narrative. But she finally gets to have a bit of her own voice in the letters she exchanges with Bird, who doesn't have any set opinion of this beautiful but incomprehensible girl just yet. "I don't think Mother Nature likes us much," Snow writes to her sister once they finally make contact. "If she did, she wouldn't make the things that are deadliest so beautiful." (p 230) It's observations like that one which turn Snow into more than just a beautiful concept against which other characters can hurl their dreams and prejudices and insecurities. For all that Boy finds herself at internal odds with her stepdaughter once her own daughter is born, this is an observation which sounds like it could have come straight out of Boy's head.
The conflicted stepmother and the fairest of them all aren't so different, and in the end I read every one of their own encounters with my breath held a little, waiting to see if there would be violence, or tears, or retribution, or forgiveness. This book isn't a fairy tale, it just shows us a picture of diverse life half a century ago through the window of the folklore we recognize, so no one falls asleep after eating a poisoned apple. The forgiveness and acceptance we seek while reading Boy, Snow, Bird does come to pass in the end, up to a point. But it's a fraught road to get there, and you can't be quite certain that things won't soon tumble back into the deceptive, treacherous world of hidden identities and quiet manipulations. I'm choosing to hope that there might be a happy ending for Boy, Snow, and Bird, though, because I grew attached to all three of them. Even if true happiness isn't an option, I closed the book wishing that they might survive whatever harrowing journey through the woods they three had embarked upon together.
Review by Morgan. Originally posted on my book review blog.
Star Ratings for Why We Broke Up
Characters: ***** (5 stars)
Character Development: ***** (5 stars)
Plot: **** (4 stars)
Writing: **** (4 stars)
Overall: ****1/2 (4 1/2 stars)
Age range recommendation: 13 and up
Daniel Handler, please be my Valentine. There's not a single damn thing you've written that I don't love. This includes the new picture book 29 Myths On The Swinster Pharmacy, which was authored by some suspicious bloke named Lemony Snicket. (Snicket writes an awful lot like Handler.) But today is Valentine's Day, so here is a love story which implodes spectacularly before Valentine's Day even comes around. Talk about good timing! But honestly, I don't like romantic stories very much, so this is the best I could do upon remembering the date. February 14th? So that explains the sudden, raging success of Junie B Jones And The Mushy Gushy Valentine at my shop. (If I had to give a more thematic recommendation, that would be the one. Can't go wrong with Junie B, but Daniel Handler is even better.)
Min Green and Ed Slaterton aren't necessarily made for each other, but they fall in love and stumble around through a passionate high school romance until – quelle surprise! – they break up. The book begins at the end of their story: Min is returning a box of relics from their relationship, and what we read is her long letter to Ed that goes with it. Maira Kalman's illustrations of each object – items like a file which meant to be baked into a cake, a weird spiky seed-pod thing, and a meaningful box of matches – are simple and interesting and make the reading process rather a joy. Ed's the basketball team co-captain. His friends are jerks and he goes through life with the blinders of popular-senior-boy success blocking out a great deal of his surroundings. Min has long been part of those surroundings, obsessed with old movies and drinking fancy coffee with her artsy friends. But, she insists, she's not actually artsy. She's not good at art. She doesn't make good grades or like beer very much. Yet, somehow, she and Ed start talking at a party. They start to date, stalk a possible movie star, insult each other's friends, behave explicitly in parks, tell each other secrets, give each other weird gifts, and eventually break up. Min's bitter, tender, stream-of-consciousness letter is like one very long Tumblr quote, in the best of ways. Open up to any page and you'll come across something like this:
"And it wasn't just us. It wasn't just that we were high school, me a junior and you a senior, with our clothes all wrong for restaurants like this, too bright and too rumpled and too zippered and too stained and too slapdash and awkward and stretched and trendy and desperate and casual and unsure and baggy and sweaty and sporty and wrong."
or this
"There are so many movies like this, where you thought you were smarter than the screen but the director was smarter than you, of course he's the one, of course it was a dream, of course she's dead, of course, it's hidden right there, of course it's the truth and you in your seat have failed to notice in the dark."
It's a surprisingly heartfelt story, and I don't have much of a heart with which to feel.
Why We Broke Up is probably the most mainstream of Daniel Handler's books: it distills all the sublime dialogue and weird adolescent energy so prevalent in The Basic Eight into something more realistic. In The Basic Eight, the teenaged characters are extravagant, and their lives go totally nuts as the plot gets weirder and weirder. (Read my review of The Basic Eight here. It was my favorite book I read in 2013.) The opposite seems to be the case in Why We Broke Up. Stylistically, the books are similar. You'll recognize your favorite weird Handler/Snicket-isms sprinkled throughout. Big words. Pretentious drinks. Vintage pop culture. Interesting food. But Min, Ed, and the other characters just feel so vividly real, so tragically similar to the people you encounter on a daily basis – just with better one-liners. Even the minor characters are excellent, and perfectly evoke the awkward balance teenagers almost always fail to strike between love, family, and friends. And, since they're minor characters in Daniel Handler's capable hands, you know they'll be witty and judgmental and possess obscure talents. In this particular book, though, teenagers are distinctly teenagers even when they're making igloos out of cubed eggs for an aging film star's secret birthday party.
My favorite part of the book? They steal a sugar dispenser at one point, to make a cake which requires stolen sugar. That's just one of the Various Fictional Details which make Why We Broke Up an indespensable part of the Handler/Snicket universe I love so much. Adults in this book are almost entirely useless, and that never fails to make me happy. We've got kids navigating the treacherous world of romantic nonsense guided only by their disobedient hearts and terrible judgement. We've got nerdy references and sordid affairs. If you want more nerdy references and sordid affairs, check out the Why We Broke Up Project, in which many of my favorite writers and some hapless readers share their own tales of heartbreak, woe, and bad music. Isn't that what this holiday is all about? So happy Valentine's Day, readers. Don't screw it up.
Characters: *** (3 stars)
Character Development: *** (3 stars)
Plot: *** (3 stars)
Writing: **** (4 stars)
Overall: ***1/2 (3 1/2 stars)
Review by Morgan. Originally posted at my book review blog Bookshelf Pirate Reviews.
I read The Winter People a week ago, but was holding off on a review until I could let the story settle in my mind. In the meantime, I actually got to meet Jennifer McMahon at a cocktail party in Boston. This means I had a chance to berate her with questions about the book over crudités and macarons. Questions like "why the heck was that doll so sinister?" and "When do you think you'll allow your young daughter to read your super creepy books?". She was so much fun to speak with; warm, kind, funny, and not at all unnerving despite the general tone of her fiction. To be quite honest, I think The Winter People would only be getting 3 stars from me, had I sat down to write this review right after I closed the book. But, after meeting Jennifer, I have a new appreciation for some of the little details which vexed me. So bonus points for being delightful.
The Winter People is sort of a literary thriller, if I'm using that term correctly. I don't generally read much suspense fiction, preferring ancient-folklore-is-real-and-scary style horror to the find-them-before-its-too-late genre. The Winter People had a good mix of both, though, not to mention a healthy dose of oh-crap-don't-go-out-in-the-woods. The novel's events stem from the tragic story of Sarah Harrison Shea, after her daughter disappears in the woods one winter in 1908. Excerpts from Sarah's secret diaries and her husband's own experiences show how a mistake from the past can utterly ruin someone's chance for future happiness, especially when that mistake involves betraying a pissed-off medicine woman and failing to appropriately dispose of her mystical belongings. Oops. Sarah's friends and neighbors start to worry that she's sinking into madness after Gertie is found dead, but there is someone scratching at the closet door and something killing animals in the snow. Could it be that Sarah's Auntie really taught her how to summon life back into the bodies of the dead when she was a child? And how much misfortune must befall a devastated lady before we can forgive her for trying her hand at necromancy? It should not come as a shock to any fans of supernatural mysteries that the price for tampering with natural fate is almost always much worse than the original tragedy.
Sarah's dairy entries are revealed through a modern lens in The Winter People by way of two other personal encounters with whatever dreadful forces are at work in the woods of West Hall, Vermont. Nineteen-year-old Ruthie and her sister Fawn live in Sarah Harrison Shea's old farm house, and their mother has just gone missing. Nothing to worry about; it's not like they're totally isolated, living near a stone circle called "The Devil's Hand," without computers, but with Fawn's imaginary friends to keep them company! Oh wait – yes they are, and I got very nervous right away for the girls' wellbeing because I was immediately invested in their characters in a way which I couldn't quite care about Sarah Harrison Shea. Ruthie and Fawn are realistic and likable. The elder sister's valiant attempts to remain level-headed in times of crisis only made their eerie situation all the more urgent and uncanny, especially since things quickly escalated from the vaguely mysterious circumstances of their mother's disappearance to a desperate hunt for answers underground, at gunpoint.
The modern chapters of The Winter People are full of action and investigation, while Sarah's diary entries focus on a slow build of supernatural suspense and emotional disturbances. In nearly all of my reading experiences, I'm more receptive to the latter sort of story. Give me ancient curses and haunting visions, and I'll be in my reading chair for the rest of the afternoon. But I think that McMahon actually did a much better job bringing the characters and the story to life in Ruthie's chapters of the book. Naturally, the big concern was over Fawn's safety as things rapidly progressed beyond the sisters' control, but I also rather liked Ruthie's UFO-spotting redneck boyfriend and even her exacting, slightly paranoid mother. Maybe I knew that the Harrison Shea family was doomed from the start and gave up hope on a happy ending for them, but I was holding my breath for Fawn and Ruthie. Whenever the little girl mentioned a creepy little fact she supposedly heard from her doll, and every time they discovered a new claustrophobic secret passageway in the house, I wanted to jump into the pages and help them get out of there ASAP. There's one scene in which Ruthie and her boyfriend honestly pry some boards off of a closet door which has been obviously barricaded from the outside to keep something in. Ack!
The biggest flaw I found with The Winter People would have to lie in the minor characters who are meant to push the plot forward. I couldn't bring myself to care one way or another about the grieving artist who moved to Vermont and finds her fate intertwined with Ruthie's and Sarah's, despite the fact that I understood her importance to the mystery. This book is as much a study of grief as it is a scary story, and this woman had lost her husband after he got tangled up in the supernatural draw of West Hall. Her attempts to rediscover his last moments brought some important catalysts to the plot – and provided opportunities for exposition – but I just found her character to be a little too convenient. The same goes for the baffling woman who holds the answers to some of Ruthie's questions, a rich and possibly delusional lady who is also struggling with having a child taken away from her. (McMahon writes a lot about lost children – several of her other novels seem to follow a similar theme.) Sarah's niece, who could have been really interesting given her fascination with mediums and the spiritualism of the early 20th century, also fell a little short of my expectations. Of the three supernaturally-inclined ladies in the novel's historical chapters, Auntie was the most intriguing, but even she wasn't developed enough to be entirely believable as such an important character. The superstitions behind the "sleepers" wasn't explained in enough detail for my liking, but I tend to get overly enthusiastic about folklore and magical lore, and I don't think that the book suffered too much for the vagueness of those details. Maybe if Auntie had a bit more time in the spotlight, some of my questions would have been cleared up. But I doubt many other readers will be bothered by the occasional lack of clarity, there. It's really too bad that the minor characters fell flat, because the major characters were complex people with emotional depths which made their desperate – sometimes ill-advised – decisions stressful and compelling.
The little sensory details – like a girl-shaped figure in a blurry photograph or the sound of something scuttling around a dark room – amped up the tension in the book even when the plot itself threatened to fall into somewhat conventional patterns. I really liked the way Jennifer McMahon could focus on how one small thing out of place can change the atmosphere entirely, and she carried those details from the historical chapters all the way to the modern, exciting conclusion. As I reached the novel's end I started to get really stressed out that things might not get resolved before I ran out of pages, but the ending was fairly satisfying if not a little hard to believe. But, honestly, this is a book about grieving women raising the dead and terrified teenagers trying to put them back down again. Suspend your disbelief for a while, especially if you like smart thrillers and can handle some chilling descriptions. Curl up with The Winter People and a blanket next time a snowstorm keeps you cooped up inside.
Review by Morgan, originally posted at The Bookshelf Pirate.
Dear readers, it's a really big deal that I'll admit to enjoying this book. I don't usually like nonfiction. I find biographies awkward and survival stories a bit of a drag. Until a few days ago, I was quite adamant that I disliked Elizabeth Gilbert, because I think that Eat, Pray, Love is one of the most overrated books to ever grace the bestseller list. I gave up on that memoir and deemed it self-indulgent waffling. So it took a lot of persuasion, a free book, and a snowy day to convince me to sit down with The Last American Man.
Star Ratings for Nonfiction
Writing: **** (4 stars)
Narrative: **** (4 stars)
Interesting Subject: ***** (5 stars)
Objectivity and research: ***** (5 stars)
Overall: **** (4 stars)
Holy crapoli was I surprised. This is not the vague life story of a guy who tries to be extra-manly in everything he does. This isn't a collection of ramblings about freedom and liberty, or bald eagles, or a gun-nut holed up in a shack somewhere (though there are plenty of guns in Eustace Conway's life, a powerful sense of freedom, and a few eagles, too). The Last American Man is the biography of a man who, at seventeen years old, set off with little more than a teepee and a knife to escape from materialist society and a tense home life where his dad expected impossible perfection. He hiked the Appalachian trail, became almost entirely self-sufficient, lived with the wilderness, and decided that it was his calling to share this way of life with other people. Eustace Conway considers himself a "Man of Destiny," and Elizabeth Gilbert sets about chronicling his pursuit of that destiny. He started out giving talks about nature at schools, inspiring young people to consider their role as part of the earth. After countless adventures; some tragedies; and several meals consisting of porcupine, he has nearly become the sort of legendary figure Transcendentalists and gentleman explorers wanted to be, but didn't know how.
Elizabeth Gilbert's biography of Eustace Conway is very personal, examining one man's ideal of giving up on modern comforts to live in the wilderness, but also surprising. Halfway through the book, after I became nearly convinced that this guy had all the answers idea about mankind and nature (and the future, and life…) the narrative changed just subtly enough to show the other sides to Eustace's story. The girlfriends who saw him as some fantasized ideal were, in turn, berated and discouraged for failing to meet his impossible standards. Beautiful scenes of Eustace teaching kids at his camp to imagine themselves as the forest floor were juxtaposed with the demoralizing fact that not everyone can truly learn to live at one with nature, contrary to what he believed at the beginning of his journey. Chapters of freedom during a record-breaking horseback adventure across the country, an adventure which might impress Cormac McCarthy, were exhilarating. But soon enough Gilbert reminds us that the modern world is no longer so amenable to earnest, determined, natural souls.
I loved reading about how Turtle Island, the nature preserve and farm Eustace Conway worked so hard to protect, was supposed to endure as a peaceful haven against industrial greed. And then, when legal fine-print and human reality began to tear down that dream several chapters later, I shared in a tiny piece of that heartbreak. While there's no real plot to comment upon, this being a true story – and an unfinished one, at that – the book's pacing was carefully constructed. She builds up a reader's investment in parts of the narrative, and in the real subjects (who are so extraordinary they may as well be called "characters,") so that the victories and challenges Eustace faces in his pursuit of destiny might affect us keenly.
The author has interviewed so many people in connection with her subject, and has spent a great deal of time with Eustace: sawing wood at his camp, talking in the woods, getting drunk, arguing. There are whole passages included from his extremely personal diaries, and while I felt that this intimacy seemed almost invasive, we get as well-rounded a portrait of the man and his beliefs as we could hope for. Gilbert has interviewed countless family members, acquaintances, enemies, and admirers of Eustace's. It's a level of personal investigation I can't help but admire, especially because all that socialization with such strong personalities would have really stressed me out. (Clearly I should not become a biographer.) She also must have spent considerable time learning about frontiersmen from America's colonization onward, because there are plenty of anecdotes showing how Eustace Conway is carrying on a tradition. That tradition is both one of returning to mankind's roots and of pushing forward to some natural, pure horizon, and we're left to decide for ourselves if Eustace will make it. Can we look past the fact that our hero has pushed so far away from the pressures of his childhood, only to be compared to his overbearing father once again? Is it enough that he has tried to live as a symbol of natural respect and self sufficiency, or do we need him to have ultimately succeeded in becoming a "Man of Destiny"? Does Eustace Conway owe us anything at all – owe us his belief that we can live as he does – the way he once claimed? Is he really the last American man?
This is an optimistic story, if not always an uplifting one. Despite the peaks and valleys and broken horse legs, I closed the book feeling a little comforted in the knowledge that this man – with his possibly-crazy vision for the world – has saved a few lives and opened countless eyes to the importance of loving the Earth instead of just living off it. I'm glad I read The Last American Man, and I'm willing to admit that it was foolish to judge Elizabeth Gilbert on only one book. This biography was riveting, touching, and yes, inspiring.
Star Ratings:
Characters: *****(4 stars)
Character Development: **** (4 stars)
Plot: ***** (5 stars)
Writing: *** **(5 stars)
Overall: ***** (5 stars)
Review by Morgan
(It is hereby stated that I read the advanced reader's copy of The Mark of The Dragonfly and a few details might change before publication. The book is set to be released in March of 2014.)
How pleased am I to be giving this book five stars? So very, very pleased. It's been a rough month and The Mark Of The Dragonfly was a wonderful distraction, a breath of fresh air, and a damned fine adventure to boot. It's a new Middle Grade fantasy/adventure novel which will be hitting bookshelves this March, and I seriously recommend it.
We meet Piper in Scrap Town Number Sixteen – part of the Merrow Kingdom – on a night when meteors from another world are showering down. (As it happens, the artifacts which crash through the sky in a haze of poisonous dust come from our world; things like music boxes and copies of The Wizard of Oz. I thought that was pretty cool.) Piper is a scrapper, which means that she and the other poor folk in her struggling town go out to the fields after a storm to collect the strange objects and sell them to rich people from more prosperous industrial towns. After her father died in a factory working iron for a King who is obsessed with innovation and expansion, Piper has been living on her own in a somewhat hostile world. She has an unusual gift with machines and works as a mechanic to stay alive. Aside from her friend Micah, a little boy who wants to find something marvelous in the fields one day, she has few people she can trust and no one to take care of her.
All this changes when she finds a gravely injured girl in the wreckage of a caravan after a big meteor storm. The girl, Anna, has lost many of her memories and is being pursued by a mysterious and forceful man she only remembers as "the wolf." Piper rescues Anna and is shocked to discover that the young girl has a tattoo of a dragonfly on her arm. The mark of the dragonfly implies that a person is terribly important to King Aron, and our resourceful young heroine decides to escort the frightened girl to the capitol city where she might reunite her with a grieving family and, she hopes, collect a reward for herself. I liked that Piper's motivations weren't entirely golden hearted. She has sympathy for Anna and feels obliged to protect her, but knows that her world is harsh and wants to build a better life for herself in the capitol. Piper and Anna board a train as they escape from "the wolf," and find themselves treated with respect thanks to Anna's tattoo and Piper's ability to lie her way out of awkward situations. They meet a mysterious boy with a big – winged – secret and some rough-and-tumble train technicians with very kind hearts under all that soot.
A great majority of the book takes place on the train, but it isn't all talking about engines and watching the scenery go by. Chases, attempted robberies, social climbing, library re-arranging, and all sorts of mischief takes places on the sturdy but old-fashioned 401. It's a mildly steampunk setting, but Jaleigh Johnson never goes overboard with the technical descriptions. This isn't one of those otherworldly books in which everything has a few gears slapped on it in order to render it appealing. When there are mechanical interludes, they exist for a reason. And, as this is a story aimed at readers 10 and up, I was perfectly content to have the scientific and political aspects of the Merrow Kingdom described only on a need-to-know basis. This is an adventure focused on the characters and a train with the politics and geography as mere backdrop, so the weird discrepancies were easily forgiven. (An example of this would be the weird blend of our world and the fantasy one: orange trees and "pika" trees exist in harmony, and there's a statue of an elephant fighting a dravisht raptor, whatever that may be.) The Mark Of The Dragonfly is not a short book, though, and too much world-building would have been rather detrimental to the pace, so I suggest that readers just get cozy with the strange setting – one which is connected to ours through some space in the sky – and enjoy reading about Piper and Anna as they navigate the fraught world. They get to fly in the clutches of magical beasties, experience an awkward psychic encounter with a subterranean fantasy race, and fix gears and pipes which do way more than transport passengers. I was reminded of the TV show Firefly from so many years ago, both by the nature of the adventure and the vintage-sci-fi setting. Not to mention, the likable cast of characters to whom you can't help but get attached. A whole range of emotions plays out within the four hundred pages: from joy to despair, and back through witty banter and friendly rivalries all the way to surprise and – dare I admit it? – warm fuzzy feelings.
There were a few pieces of The Mark Of The Dragonfly which left me wanting a bit more detail. How, exactly, were odds and ends from Earth crashing through the sky in the Scrap Towns? The idea is fascinating and the descriptions of that bizarre meteorological phenomenon were really cool, but after the first few chapters the idea is abandoned all together and never properly revisited during the course of Piper's adventures. What were the villain's real motives, besides greed and expansionism? When he got a chance to explain his actions, they almost seemed like noble delusions. And on that note, we never really learn why he's called "the wolf." I did work out the big plot twist long before it was officially revealed, but it was still done well with enough clues to convince me without making it too obvious. Bear in mind that I've also read loads more of the genre than the intended audience. (A note on the genre: The Mark Of The Dragonfly was a little like a less-complicated Mortal Engines, and I think that anyone who enjoys this book should consider testing the waters of more detailed steampunk-y children's adventures. There's quite a lot to choose from, at the moment. But Philip Reeve is definitely a favorite. Older readers might also enjoy Amy Leigh Strickland's Rescue! Or, Royer Goldhawk's Remarkable Journal.) These little distractions weren't nearly annoying enough to make me dislike any moment I spent reading The Mark Of The Dragonfly, though, and I particularly think that young readers will be happy to immerse themselves in Johnson's world without getting bent out of shape over a few technical difficulties.
The writing was straightforward and fun, the characters were delightful but realistic with faults and mistakes aplenty, and I was anxious to learn what would happen. When I finally did reach the end, I nearly did a heel-click from glee upon learning that there was no dreadful cliffhanger conclusion waiting to spoil my afternoon! I am so tired of Middle Grade series which rely on inconclusive endings to build suspense. (This is especially hard when you're a bookseller and want to recommend an author, but the first of a series is sold out at your shop.) If Jaleigh Johnson decides to write another volume set in the Merrow Kingdom I will be thrilled to read it, but The Mark Of The Dragonfly can easily stand alone as a favorite book on the young readers shelf. I can't wait to recommend it to kids who loved Inkheart and adults who want something new for the inventive and strong-willed young scrappers in their lives.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Star Ratings
Characters: **** (4 Stars)
Character Development: ***** (5 Stars)
Plot: **** (4 Stars)
Writing: **** (4 Stars)
Overall: **** (4 Stars)
Age Range Recommendation: 15 and up
Review by Rosie
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell is the most compelling coming-of-age book I've read that didn't have dragons in it. It resonated with my own college experience, and reminded me of all the reasons I love fanfiction. Rowell obviously knows a lot about the world of fandom, and she deals with it in a thoughtful way that can be understood by anyone, whether they participate in it or not.
Cath and her twin sister Wren are eighteen, and leaving home for the first time to go to college. Wren is excited and ready for the new experience, but Cath is terrified. She and Wren have been inseparable for eighteen years, but now Wren wants to branch out, to the point where they won't even be living together.
Wren is an important part of the story and has her own character arc, but Rowell mostly focuses on Cath and her struggle to go to class, get along with her terrifying roommate (and her ever-present boyfriend), and find the time to finish her novel-length fanfiction, Carry On, Simon. This is where Rowell's writing begins to shine. Cath has a secret identity. To everyone she meets at college she is just Cath, socially awkward, prone to panic attacks, and obsessed with a series of books about Simon Snow, teenage magician. On the internet however, she is Magicath, the wildly popular author of numerous fanfictions featuring Simon and his maybe-evil roommate Baz.
Cath's struggle to make her way in college will be familiar to anyone who has ever fought to fit in. She is afraid of everything from walking home from the library at night to eating in the dining hall. Her extreme introversion lifts only in her Fiction Writing class, where she works with a boy named Nick to write stories their Professor loves.
In the meantime Cath's relationship with her roommate Reagan, and Reagan's boyfriend Levi is changing. Reagan takes Cath under her wing and forces her to leave the room now and then. Levi walks her home from the library, and brings her coffee from Starbucks. Eventually Cath becomes friends with them almost against her will. This comes in handy when her difficult family life starts to collapse just as finals start.
Cath has her belly of the whale moment over Winter Break. She has several beautifully written conversations with her father that make it clear that despite all of her insecurities she is actually the most responsible and functional member of her immediate family. We see another side of her that stays hidden when she's at college, a side that jokes and laughs with her dad while managing the household with minimal effort, and writing an astonishing amount of fanfic in her free time.
Cath is easy to relate to for many reasons. She deals with hard situations realistically, for one thing. She cries, panics, and retreats into fantasy. Then she gets up and does what needs to be done anyway. Even though she has trouble meeting people's eyes during conversation, or trusting her friends not to leave her she constantly challenges herself in her attempts to connect with others. She's also not afraid to stand up for herself when she feels it really matters.
One of the most poignant scenes occurs between Cath and her writing professor. Her professor accuses her of plagiarism because she hands in a piece of fanfiction for an assignment, and Cath, rather than backing down, defends herself eloquently. The conversation Rowell writes between the two will hit close to home both for those who condemn fanfiction and those who love it. Cath is forced to see a side of writing she has never considered, and accept the fact that if she wants to be a writer she will have to branch out. It's the kind of moment everyone in college should have at some point with a caring professor.
Fangirl covers Cath's first year of college, a year fraught with family disputes, new experiences, and her own conscious attempts to open herself up. Cath's search for an identity separate from her sister is quietly riveting. Rowell's story is one that celebrates sisterhood, friendship, and the responsibility of growing up.
I recommend Fangirl for everyone, but particularly teenagers nervous about going to college, or people who feel more comfortable connecting with people over the internet than in person. This is a book for self-labeled nerds, bookworms, and midnight writers. Read it under the covers with a flashlight while your roommate sleeps, or in between classes in the library instead of studying for finals. Read it and remember that friends who love the same books as you are the ones that will stick around forever.
Star Ratings:
Characters: ***** (5 stars)
Character Development: **** (4 stars)
Plot: *** (3 stars)
Writing: *** (3 stars)
Overall: *** (3 stars)
Review by Morgan
(Let it be hereby stated that I read an advanced reader's edition of The Quick, which may still be waiting on final edits.)
When a friend and colleague of mine at the bookshop insisted that I read The Quick the moment she finished it, I knew right away that I would have lots to say about this debut novel. It's one of my favorite kinds of story, in one of my favorite settings, but there are a few twists which caught us both off guard. The Quick is a complex novel with a Victorian setting, a Gothic atmosphere, and a sweeping narrative. It's also a monster story of sorts. I would have been utterly puzzled to realize – a hundred pages in – that there was some serious slaying to come, had my friend not mentioned her similar surprise. Neither the title nor the package revealed much about this book's nature from the start. Since I have the galley and not the finished product of the book, I can't help but wonder how heavily Random House intends to advertise the supernatural bent. On the back of my copy, it only says: "An astonishing debut novel of epic scope and suspense that conjures all the magic and menace of Victorian London". Well, there's menace aplenty and a grim sort of magic alongside what I can only call the "creature aspect" (to avoid spoiling too much). I was held in suspense once I finally got engrossed in the story, but it took me much longer than usual to immerse myself in Owen's writing. As for the "epic scope," I suppose that the many intertwining narratives and the multiple main characters prove that statement to be true.
The Quick starts out in Aiskew Hall, one of those large and drafty mansions in the English countryside which set the scene for so many sprawling novels. James and Charlotte are very young children when we first meet them, orphaned after their father's death, and subject to uncertain futures. The scenes about the children's games and fears were picturesque and I was charmed by their environment. I guess Lauren Owen grew up in an old Yorkshire boarding school, and her descriptions are excellent. From the secret passages indoors to the gardens outside, Aiskew Hall is a wonderful location. It's too bad we don't get to read more about it, as soon enough the setting switches to London.
Oh, Victorian London. So many distinctive tales have tramped up and down your streets – Dickens spin-offs have strolled alongside grisly horror stories. Sassy steampunk heroines now follow the same footsteps as eccentric detectives. There's no real shortage of Gothic mysteries or supernatural horror crammed into that city's ever-expanding boundaries of fiction, and I'm not sure if The Quick added anything too terribly new to the landscape. But there's such an extensive literary heritage to late 19th century London that I do understand the appeal in borrowing the city's peculiar brand of storytelling magic. While she doesn't really break any new ground by setting her debut novel around a mysterious gentleman's club in the darker parts of London, Owen does have a talent for creating atmosphere. I read the book over a couple of dreary late-November evenings and I was surprised every time I stepped outside to see neither hansom cabs nor top hats. I'm still keeping an eye out for ragamuffin pickpocket children (often my favorite characters in these sorts of books). When James and Charlotte experience the bustling hubbub of city life for the first time, their confusion and awe made the disorienting metropolis seem immediate and real.
After graduation, James moves to London and gets rooms with an eccentric friend-of-a-friend. He tries his hand at writing poetry, then moves on to plays after they see a production by some bloke named Wilde. Christopher Paige is lively and dashing while James is more of a reserved, respectful sort of fellow. Their personalities clash nicely and as their friendship deepens we get an entertaining glance at life in London for gentlemen with money enough to make society's expectations the most pressing of their problems. It took a while, but eventually I found myself absorbed into the details of domestic issues and witty banter.
Right as their story started to get really interesting, though, Part II of The Quick introduces an entirely new point of view and style. I felt marooned and disoriented to be suddenly presented with The Notebooks of Augustus Mould in Chapter Six, and not only because the heading reminded me a little of The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend (a very different sort of book indeed, though equally British). At this point, Owen started to take a Dracula-esque approach to her narrative. By treating the excerpts from Mould's notebooks as an active component of the story, and by using shifts in perspective to take the plot in an entirely different direction, the novel introduces four or five new plot lines and main characters.
A threatening presence causes gossip in London, haughty idealists take charge of a secret society, a little girl learns why some streets are off-limits, and a shared tragedy brings two unlikely friends together to face an evil which is damned difficult to kill. As the story progresses we do come to understand how everyone will eventually interact to create a high-stakes confrontation, but I spent half the book trying to find connections rather than giving my full attention to the plot. Much in Stoker's style, Owen uses her structure to show how menace can unite people and affect a great many lives. I do wish she had brought the different groups of characters together earlier on, though, especially since the men and women themselves were distinctive and their interactions were downright fun to witness. The pacing was stilted at times, which detracted from the strong descriptions and appealing aesthetic. In the second half of the book, I found some redemption when the many different threads eventually did come together to propel us towards an exciting conclusion. The focus was just a little off – too many influences from the genre's long history were vying for attention – and I felt that the novel couldn't quite contain its own scope.
The author has borrowed an awful lot from her literary predecessors: The Quick contains distinctive elements of Dickens, Stoker, Shelley, Poe, Anne Rice, and Robert Louis Stevenson. The editor's note which came with the galley mentioned that Lauren Owen started out writing fan fiction of Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a teenager. Push through the slow start and clunky narrative shifts to where the action begins, and you'll see how Joss Whedon has made his mark. Even though I had a hard time getting comfortable with the balance between the book's Victorian style and its eventual supernatural standoffs, I had a great time with each of those aspects in their own way. Some characters seemed straight out of Great Expectations, what with their moral qualms and social hardships. Others were gunslingin' badasses with tragic pasts. I was happy to read about violent little kids and a mysterious occult library, though there were times when I wondered if I should be reading two different books instead of this one.
Now that I've finished reading The Quick, I'm intrigued to see what sort of reaction it will get once it's released into the wild. I think there's some strong writing and great characters, and while the premise isn't particularly original it was interesting and fun. The target demographic of readers is difficult to define, though. You'll need to have an appreciation for Victorian sensibilities in order to get through the first half of the book, but you can't be too picky about style or easily annoyed by clunky narrative structures. On the other hand, it might appeal to readers of dark and violent Gothic adventures like The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray – tense stories which don't rely too heavily on historical realism – but the language might make the pace drag on for fans of that genre. I happen to be right in the middle of that spectrum and did enjoy The Quick. Anyone picking up the book will find it necessary to suspend their judgement and expectations along with their disbelief. If you can do that, then the interesting descriptions; absorbing atmosphere; and memorable characters will keep you reading right through to the book's mysterious ending.
If you liked that show "Ripper Street," I think you'll feel right at home in The Quick. If you were enchanted by Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night Circus (Rosie and I reviewed it here) you will probably enjoy it, too. The Quick is less stunningly magical than The Night Circus was, but I think the characters were more believable and the personal relationships were handled better. I read books for the atmosphere more than anything else, and I'm happy I stuck with The Quick. You can definitely tell that it's a first novel, and I hope that Lauren Owen will develop a style which is more distinctly her own as her writing progresses. I will absolutely be keeping an eye out for any of her future work, and I hope she continues to write darkly aesthetic stories which transport us to a more mysterious time and place.
Star Ratings:
Characters: ***** (5 stars)
Character Development: **** (4 stars)
Plot: **** (4 stars)
Writing: ***** (5 stars)
Overall: ****1/2 (4 1/2stars)
Age rage recommendation: 14+ (Or, you know, only people who are ok with lots of bloody violence. It's a vampire book, after all!)
I was delighted by Holly Black's new YA novel, The Coldest Girl In Coldtown, in more ways than one! It's a disgustingly entertaining book, and I had the wonderful fortune to attend her reading and talk in Cambridge this week, where I got to hear about the writing process and what experiences go into the fantastic stories she tells. I read an ARC of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown a few days before it was released, and here are some of my thoughts.
First of all, it's inspired by one of my favorite of her short stories, of the same title, in which vampirism is a disease which causes its victims to go "cold" for eighty eight days. If someone who's survived being bitten by a vampire can withstand their all-consuming hunger for blood, they remain human. Vampires and the infected are quarantined in Cold Towns, and anyone who goes cold must surrender themselves or be considered a danger to society for obvious reasons. The thing about Cold Towns is, anyone can sign themselves into one, but you can never leave again unless you have a very special marker and aren't Cold or a Vampire. Of course, this being the age of reality TV and live blogs, feeds come out of the Cold Towns glamorizing the constant bloodletting parties and the dramatic lives of the real vampires who live there. Misunderstood goth kids will do anything to become a vampire – though bitings are growing rare since vampires don't want to create competition for the blood supply – and events like The Eternal Ball and Lucien Moreau's highly-televised parties draw thousands of viewers from outside the heavily guarded walls. You should check out Holly Black's short story in her collection The Poison Eaters, because it's a great introduction to the dark and gritty atmosphere of the novel. (Please buy it from an independent bookshop, or ask your local bookseller to order it for you! Amazon is evil.)
So the background to the novel was awesome to begin with, but how about the book's specific plot? Also awesome. Tana wakes up the morning after a drunken party to find that all of the other party goers – most of them her high school classmates and friends – have been brutally murdered. With her infected and infuriating ex-boyfriend in tow and a suspiciously helpful vampire boy in the trunk of her car, Tana heads to Coldtown hoping to get Aidan through three months of cold hell and somehow make it back to her father and sister. They encounter a pair of vampire obsessed siblings with connections in the nearby Coldtown, and things soon spiral even further out of Tana's control when everyone around her becomes desperate enough to put their own desires – blood, immortality, escape from a mysterious past – above the struggle to stay mentally and physically human.
I liked Tana as a protagonist because her motives were simple and real. She wants to survive Coldtown, get back to her family, and convince her little sister that turning into a bloodthirsty monster isn't all it's cracked up to be. She wants to figure out what horrifying force is pursuing the cute but terrifyingly-insane vampire who owes her his life; not because the two of them are destined to save the world (such an exhausted plot twist in YA these days) but just because she likes him. She wants to help her friends and keep them from biting her. She's horrified but determined, and it's easy to invest in her troubles because she experiences a conflict between the instincts of self preservation and loyalty in a completely realistic fashion throughout the whole book. The supporting characters have lots of depth and great backgrounds, too. Tana's ex boyfriend is charming but frustrating, the famous vampires were terrifying but so completely fascinating, and the human inhabitants of Cold Town had really interesting lives. Plus, there was an awesome Trans* chick who kicked ass without functioning as a mere one-dimensional attempt at diversity! Woohoo!
Reading The Coldest Girl In Coldtown, I noted with interest which parts of the Vampire Literature tradition Holly Black had adopted into her own mythology, and which conventions she decided to ignore or subvert. It's impossible to write a vampire book without involving some of the patterns and themes from a genre which has been so popular for centuries, and Black does a great job of acknowledging this while still letting her own creativity take center stage. There were obvious influences from Anne Rice's vampire books – the attention loving villain reminded me an awful lot of Lestat – and some of the action scenes took on a Buffy-eque, cinematic style. It's a bloody story, and the narrative never shies away from gore in favor of Romantic death metaphors. In fact, the violent descriptions are an integral part of the story's dichotomy: the quest for a beautiful immortality appeals to the vainer side of human nature at the cost of our self restraint, but the reality of becoming a monster is hideous and painful.
I imagine that any reader will be able to spot hints of their own favorite vampire legends and series when they read the book. At her talk at the Cambridge Library, Holly Black mentioned a whole ton of books and movies which had built up her image of vampires and asked us which vampires we remembered igniting our interest as young readers. The list included: Dracula, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Carmilla, Sunshine, and even TV and movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that 80s film The Lost Boys, among many others. Aside from the obvious lineage behind Coldtown, I also thought of some embarrassing obsessions from my teenage years which actually fit quite well with the tone and themes of the book. The sarcastic heroine reminded me a little of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' short and bloody YA books, while the themes of loyalty; desperation; and gritty violence actually brought me right back to the years when My Chemical Romance was the soundtrack to my life. Their early albums I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love and Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge go surprisingly well with the pace and structure of The Coldest Girl In Coldtown, though it was uncomfortable to hear the sounds of my fourteen year old weirdness eight years later…
There were a few aspects of the book which I thought could be improved upon slightly, but for the most part I really enjoyed it. The big, dramatic parts of the story actually belonged to the vampire characters and not to Tana herself, so there's quite a lot of exposition and other characters talking about a history which the protagonist never experienced. However, I was glad to read a book about a teenage girl who isn't the center of some powerful machination and who isn't destined to save the world armed with nothing but underdeveloped special powers, so I didn't mind that structure too much. Some of the interesting minor characters didn't get enough page-time to satisfy me, but the book was a good length in the end so I suppose their moments had to be pared down to only the most essential contributions. I'm not sure if Holly Black intends to write a sequel to The Coldest Girl In Coldtown, but I was so very happy that it didn't end on a dangling cliffhanger. If she releases another novel set in Coldtown –either about Tana and her friends or just in the same fictional timeline – I will be excited to read it, even though I'll be grossed out and nervous for the next few days, like I was this week. The book is great on its own. If you're after a gross and gripping tale about complex vampires, with a few clever twists, I think that The Coldest Girl in Coldtown will satisfy the morbid side of anyone looking for a disturbing and addictive book to read this Fall.
Star Ratings
Characters: ***** (5 stars)
Character Development: ***** (5 stars)
Plot: **** (4 stars)
Writing: ***** (5 stars)
Overall: ***** (5 stars)
Age recommendation: 15+ (Plenty o' drugs and violence, but not much sex.)
Remember when Morgan was pleasantly surprised by the fact that The Raven Boys was much more exciting and mysterious than the dreadful cover-blurbs made it out to be? Remember when she wanted to give Maggie Stiefvatar a resonating high-five after it turned out that a confusing bit of that novel turned into one of the best plot twists in recent YA history? Remember when she was very curious about what would happen next? Well, readers, hold on to your proverbial and literal hats, because The Dream Thieves is even better than The Raven Boys. Morgan and Rosie can't freakin' shut up about it. Buckle up in your magically souped-up cars, because this is one sequel which took our expectations by the throat and hurled them into a parallel universe where everything is nightmarishly awesome, witty, legendary, hilarious, and other adjectives as well. Here's what Morgan thought:
I can't describe the plot of The Dream Thieves in much detail without spoiling the events of its predecessor, and I want everyone to enjoy The Raven Boys at least as much as I did, so spoilers begone! Therefore, in the vaguest terms possible, here's what you can expect from The Dream Thieves: Four prep school boys, plus the only non-psychic girl in a family of clairvoyant women, continue their quest to find the sleeping Welsh king Glendower and tap into the magical energy which flows under the town of Henrietta, Virginia. But now, more dangerous obstacles lie in their path, and the mysteries around them are only getting weirder. The traumatic events which concluded the first installment of their story have failed to deter them from their magical investigations for long, and each character is forced to grow and adapt to the increasingly dire consequences of every decision they have made.
Gansey struggles to balance his wealthy family's political aspirations and his own obsession with the Glendower legend, while his privileged background continues to create tension between himself and his less-fortunate friends. Adam is clawing his way up in the world with exhausting hard work and some ancient magical energy which he can neither control nor understand, following a decision he made with questionable logic at the end of The Raven Boys. Blue tries to reconcile her own place in a family of psychics, and work out how she fits into the boys' close-knit circle, all while she has trouble dealing with the knowledge that she might soon be responsible for the death of someone she loves. Noah keeps disappearing at inopportune moments and he can't go on ignoring the tragedy of his unusual past forever. Most interestingly, in this episode of their ongoing saga, Ronan throws himself into his dreams and his family's violent history, getting into trouble along the way and testing his loyalty to his friends against his desire to channel all his anger into something dangerous. With external influences coming at the group from all sides, including a mysterious hit man; some hilarious but wise psychics; and one volatile Russian teenaged mobster jerk, the characters we grew to love in The Raven Boys must keep on their toes and continually face the darkness within themselves, even when that darkness threatens to take over completely.
The quest for Glendower and the legendary adventures in which our intrepid team of weirdos found themselves entangledfades to the background of The Dream Thieves a little bit. Have no fear; Gansey's interests remain (mostly) intent upon his scholarly magic treasure hunt, but the narrative itself shifts focus from Gansey, Blue, and Adam to the angry and complex Ronan in this book. It's still an ensemble-driven storyline – and I must say that this ensemble of Virginian teenagers is one of the best groups of characters I've read about in a long time – but while Ronan was a complete enigma of bitterness and fierce loyalty in The Raven Boys, we finally get some insight into his own role in the supernatural drama. Ronan's nightmares are terrifying and his life is messed up, and I must admit it's a pleasure to read about the darkness within him.
The scope of The Dream Thieves is both wider and more narrow, somehow, than its predecessor. History plays a less impressive role here, but the really cool bits of the story happen in the magic which lies within objects and people who seem perfectly ordinary but are, in fact, completely mind-bending. The magic is different, too. Gone are the formal rituals of sacrifice and divining, and there aren't many magic words. This magic is organic and deeply personal to whomever is wielding power at any given moment. We get to witness more minor characters from the first book revealing their own gifts and histories, including the ladies of Blue's psychic family, who had intrigued me in the first book and are much more developed in the second. These new developments aren't necessarily preferable to The Raven Boys, but its nice to see that Stiefvater can branch out and still keep the story tight and her characters compelling.
The action really picked up in The Dream Thieves, too. I will be recommending this novel to teenagers who like drag racing, dangerous drugs, and mercenaries, as well as to those readers who look for interesting characters and mysterious plots. Some villains are detestable bastards, some are emotionally complex, and every new addition to the cast adds more tension to an already stressful storyline. Some of Stiefvater's earlier books couldn't quite sustain the necessary relationship between character and plot, but in The Raven Cycle she has found the perfect balance between fast-paced narrative and characters who seem so real you forget they aren't your personal friends. In fact, the main characters are so well developed that it's impossible to use them as one-dimensional vessels for the types of people you encounter in your own life. "You're being so Gansey-esque," is not a sentence one could say with authority, and neither is, "Stop being such a Ronan!" Each individual has such intricate motives and detailed history that they are entirely unique to this story. I hope that other YA writers will learn from Maggie's excellent example and write characters who are people rather than mere representatives of "types". She can write hilariously witty banter and serious ideas about loyalty and belief with equal precision, too. Even if you haven't liked the writing style of some of her earlier books, try this series. I think it will surprise you in the best of ways.
After Rosie finished reading my already-battered Advanced Reader's Copy, our loud and energetic freak-out session bounced between us shouting about how we couldn't get over what events we had read about, on the one hand, to how we just wanted to read about these characters all day long, every day, with occasional breaks for snacks. I suppose that's a sign that The Dream Thieves had everything one could ask for in a YA sequel: a compelling plot and fascinating characters. Also, Psychics! Hit men! Russian assholes! Rednecks! Politicians! Psychopaths! Brotherly affection! Brotherly loathing! Not-so-brotherly-affection! Ravens! Ghosts! Talking Trees! Tarot References! Need I go on? Maggie Stiefvater somehow made me care about cars and engines, and I don't even like cars! But now I find myself gunning it at stoplights and pretending I'm Ronan whenever the engine gets loud. This series will infect your life, your dreams, and your driving habits. Just buy and read the book the moment it comes out in September. And read The Raven Boys right this very second, if you haven't already, to prepare yourself for the awesome adventure which is headed your way.
(Review cross posted to my book review blog at The Bookshelf Pirate.
Review by Morgan.
Star Ratings
Characters: ***** (5 stars)
Character Development: ***** (5 stars)
Plot: **** (4 stars)
Writing: **** (4 stars)
Overall: ****1/2 (4 1/2 stars)
Age recommendation: 10+
(This review was also posted to Morgan's own book blog: Navigating The Stormy Shelves.)
In all his years as an apprentice historian, Tom Natsworthy has never doubted the moral supremacy of Municipal Darwinism; that is, mobilized cities and towns hunting each other down and consuming weaker suburbs for resources all over the ravaged carcass of Earth. London, his beloved city, is on the move and he's sure it's the best city-on-wheels in the whole world. After all, his hero Thaddeus Valentine – the dashing airship explorer and collector of Old-Tech like mysterious compact discs and other artifacts from before the Sixty Minute war – is a Londoner, and Tom wants to be just like Valentine someday, despite his own lowly status as an orphan apprentice at the museum. When he rescues his hero from a revenge-bent young assassin girl, though, Tom finds himself stranded on solid ground while London thunders on in search of better hunting grounds, and he must come to terms with the numerous secrets which suggest that London is not as ideal as its townsfolk (and passengers) assume. The adventures which await our young hero star a cast of unforgettable characters including a deformed girl with a painful past, some museum curators with more gumption than meets the eye, a charming but mysterious rebel pilot, treacherous villains with impeccable manners, and a roving town operated by greedy pirates. The more Tom learns about the world London travels over, the more he begins to realize that someone needs to take action before history repeats itself. And, as Valentine's daughter Katherine is simultaneously realizing from aboard London – where some seriously scientific tension has been building – the world might need to be saved sooner rather than later.
It took a little while for me to decide that I loved Mortal Engines. It started out as a decently interesting Young Adult adventure, with good elements of futuristic world-building as well as steampunk-ish atmosphere and an interesting premise, but the cool idea of cities eating each other wasn't enough to draw me in. Luckily for me, a friend had mentioned that the story picked up after the first few chapters, and I'm incredibly glad that I kept reading. Once Reeve introduces some devastating betrayal to the plot, and Tom Natsworthy gets a chance to prove himself as a morally complex character, the intrigue of Mortal Engines picks up steam and demands your attention until the very end. The last hundred pages or so were so exciting, so unexpected, and so well written that I stopped trying to savor the book and just read as furiously as possible. The ending especially…well, let me just say that Mr. Reeve breaks the conventions of children's fiction with great skill. I know that there are books which follow Mortal Engines, but even on its own it was an unexpected and inventive book; one which I have already recommended to several young readers on the hunt for some thrilling adventures.
The characters Tom meets on his adventures were truly unique, and while I might be slightly biased since so many of them are pirate-types, I can promise that they are written very well even beneath their swashbuckling surfaces. Philip Reeve does an excellent job of showing how difficult it can be to reconcile one's actions with what one believes is right. The book's young heroes must sometimes let other people get hurt in order to preserve themselves and their missions. The villains aren't necessarily soulless monsters (although those exist in the story, too). Bad guys love their families, good guys can be selfish, and most of the people living in this messed-up world just want to get through their lives without having to experience their town getting eaten by a bigger one. I tend to prefer YA adventure and speculative fiction to have more young characters than adult protagonists, but in Mortal Engines the grown-ups and children alike are vividly drawn and memorable. With extremely high stakes driving the action, it was nice to read a book in which individuals were defined by their skills, courage, and choices rather than their ages or, indeed, their races and political beliefs. Heavy ideas like the politics of imperialism and scientific exploitation contribute to the story's drama, but the mix of historical atmosphere and inventive future setting of Mortal Engines remains a consistently well-balanced stage for Tom's story.
I would recommend Mortal Engines to young readers who want more adventure than romance in their books, and who don't expect everything to turn out just fine as they read about harrowing journeys. The book is appropriate for anyone aged eleven up, and would appeal to fans of steampunk; pirate stories; and both historical and science fiction. Think the age group at which series like Artemis Fowl and The Chronicles of Chrestomanci are aimed. The writing style is traditional and old fashioned without being annoyingly so, and there is a fairly equal balance of genders and races to keep more than just pretty-but-awkward teenage white girls feeling represented. Even adults should read this book, especially anyone who has enjoyed Stephen Hunt's The Court Of The Air or Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. It's a great story, one which has been captivating readers for over a decade, and I hope people will be talking about it for many years to come.


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For Huong Van, a Vice President at First Virginia Community Bank, her real estate graduate study has opened doors to new knowledge, new clients and expanding opportunities. Here are some excerpts from a recent interview with Huong, who will graduate from the Mason MRED program this Spring. What were you hoping to gain when you […]
Tag Archives: NAIOP
Goals met; expectations exceeded
February 6, 2014
Success happens
October 17, 2013
Meet Masters in Real Estate Development Student Parks Underdown As a Regional Operations Manager for AvalonBay Communities, Mason real estate development student Parks Underdown supports approximately 20 multifamily communities across the Mid-Atlantic region. His work entails analyzing and monitoring operations systems, training onsite teams, and implementing new corporate technology initiatives, as well as supporting the investments, finance and property […]
Mason to Compete in NAIOP Capital Challenge 2013
March 7, 2013
The NAIOP National Capital Challenge is an intercollegiate real estate case study competition organized once a year by the Maryland/DC Chapter of NAIOP (Commercial Real Estate Development Association). Each year, this prestigious competition is sponsored by a developer, who provides a parcel of real estate the company is in the process of developing. The teams […]

subset: commoncrawl


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Garnier Greece
Great news for our hair! Even better news for those of us who aare on a budget! There is a 30% sale on all Fructis products. More specifically the offer is valid in the following Super/Hyper Markets:
ΑΒ – until 11/8
Sklavenitis – until 14/8
Carrefour Marinopoulos – until 18/8
Veropoulos – until 18/8
Masoutis – until 22/8
Sephora Greece
35% off of Sephora's exclusive brands. These include: Sephora, Benefit, Too Faced, Make Up For Ever etc…The offer is valid until 11/8.
Hondos Center
Sales are coming to an end..hurry up and grab all you can from Hondos Center. Up to 60% off on clothing, bags, swimsuits and accessories
Sigma Brushes
More like a complimentary gift than an offer, valid for the month of August. Sigma will be providing the E05 eye liner brush as the complimentary gift for any purchase over $30. This brush is great to use with gel or liquid eye liner to achieve a flawless and precise look. It is a smaller version of their E05 eye liner brush and comes in a cute hot pink hue.


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Minneapolis, MinnesotaCompleted 1900
Claim to Fame: When completed, the Peavey-Haglin Concrete Grain Elevator was the first circular concrete grain elevator constructed in North America and the prototype of those ubiquitous structures that hold the country's wheat harvest.
"The magnificent first fruits of the new age." - Le Courbusier No image dominates the Midwestern landscape like the monolithic grain elevator, whose present shape and construction owe much to grain company operator Frank Peavy and architect-builder Charles Haglin. Wanting to improve on the flammability and cost of traditional wood-cribbed construction, Peavy speculated that reinforced concrete, in its infancy at the turn of the century, would outperform other materials. But critics feared that the elevator would collapse due to the vacuum created when grain was emptied from the air-tight structure. To prove them wrong, Haglin built the elevator to a height of 68 feet, filled it and emptied it. It was rock solid. The elevator was then raised to 125 feet and became the prototype for many others across the Midwest. Facts 1. The Peavy-Haglin grain elevator is 125 feet high and has an inside diameter of 20 feet. The walls are 12 inches thick at the base, tapering to 8 inches at the top. It can hold 30,000 bushels. 2. Not only was the elevator's construction material unusual but also its shape. The most advanced elevators in the major grain producing countries of Europe were typically square or hexagonal. 3. Many materials were being experimented with at the time; iron sheeting, steel, tile, brick, granite and concrete block. Peavy and Haglin's experiment soon laid all of them to rest. 4. Haglin used wooden forms braced with steel hoops to form the concrete, removing and reusing the forms in the same way that concrete is poured today. 5. Ironically, the elevator was never used for commercial grain storage. Today it is owned by Northland Aluminum Products, Inc. 6. Charles Haglin was to gain fame as a builder for many other projects in the Minneapolis area, such as The Grain Exchange, the Pillsbury Building and the Radisson Hotel. Resources Lisa Mahar-Keplinger. Grain Elevators, Princeton Architectural Press, Inc., 1993.


text: Has NOTHING happened in the past year? Only 5 things on the Grand Court agenda!! There are 4 choices that I see: Everyone think hard and send My herald missives on your friends screw-ups. A VERY short Court. The Grand Hoo Haa is left to think things up on her own!! The Grand Hoo Haa takes this year off. Grand Hoo Haa


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And now we're going to hear a piece of music that tells a very definite story. It's a very old story, one that goes back almost 2,000 years, a legend about a sorcerer who had an apprentice. He was a bright young lad, very anxious to learn the business. As a matter of fact, he was a little bit too bright, because he started practicing some of the boss's best magic tricks before learning how to control them.
When Igor Stravinsky wrote his ballet 'The Rite of Spring', his purpose was, in his own words, 'to express primitive life.' So Walt Disney and his fellow artists have taken him at his word. Instead of presenting the ballet in its original form, as a simple series of tribal dances, they have visualized it as a pageant, as the story of the growth of life on Earth. It's a coldly accurate reproduction of what science thinks went on during the first few billion years of this planet's existence. So now, imagine yourselves out in space, billions and billions of years ago, looking down on this lonely, tormented little planet, spinning through an empty sea of nothingness.
Share your thoughts on Fantasia's quotes with the community:
Use the citation below to add this movie page to your bibliography:
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When Daphne Oz was a sophomore at Dwight-Englewood School in northern New Jersey, a cute guy walked up to her in the cafeteria and said, "I hear your parents have sex four times a day." Not only was the moment absolutely mortifying—she calls it "probably the worst day of my existence"— but it was also when she realized that her father had gone from being Dr. Mehmet Oz, cardiothoracic surgeon, to the Dr. Oz, the Oprah-endorsed wellness expert worshiped by women all over the country.
Read more from our interview with the second-time author here.
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Find a Local Event
Click a purple state below to find a local PurpleStride event. If your local event does not yet include a registration link, be sure to check back soon for more information! You can also view PDF of events by date.
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Jan. 30, 2009
FDA Committee Vote Confirms Darvon's Risks Outweigh Benefits, Drug Should Be Banned
Statement of Sidney Wolfe, M.D., Director, Health Research Group at Public Citizen
Today's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee vote confirms that the risks of propoxyphene (Darvon) outweigh its benefits. The FDA must, therefore, remove it from the market.
Most advisory committee members did not think there was evidence that the drug has significant benefits. Without benefit, serious risk of death – which this drug carries – should not be tolerated. In Florida alone, medical examiners determined that propoxyphene caused the deaths of 85 people in 2007. For 25 of those people, it was the only drug that caused their deaths. These latest data come atop years of other data showing that the drug's risks outweigh its benefits.
How much more evidence does the agency need? We again urge the FDA to do the right thing and ban this drug.
Read Wolfe's testimony to the committee.
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HOME College Arizona State Sun Devils Gear Arizona State Sun Devils Gameday & Tailgate Arizona State Sun Devils Gameday & Tailgate Keychains (33 items) Product ID: 446129
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Ladies, let your Sun Devils spirit shine wherever you go when you attach your keys to this Round Crystal keychain featuring an acrylic team logo inlay surrounded by fashionable rhinestone accents!
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Manufacturer direct items are shipped directly from the manufacturer. These items are not available for international or expedited shipping.
Customized items can be personalized with options such as your name, your favorite number, and/or designs. Some options may be limited by league rules.


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One thing my editor pointed out after doing the copy-edit on Red Threads was that whilst my characters are generally interesting and well-defined, they weren't as well fleshed-out as they should be. They were a little one dimensional, they didn't feel like they had much substance to them. She suggested I make character sheets to really get to know what makes my characters tick.
This was very good advice, except I had to make a little confession to her at this point.
I already had character sheets for all my characters.
(I used this amazing one on Jody Hedlund's blog for my main characters. Then I looked around Google to get some ideas of what people generally put on a minor character sheet, so as to make my own.)
So what went wrong?
The problem was, that in my naivety (and boy, have I learnt A LOT over these past few months), I had skipped out some of the sections.
I was like one of those people on Masterchef who are told that their massive chunk of venison won't cook in 8 minutes like they think it will. But they carry on and try it anyway, then look surprised when the 8 minutes are up and the meat is still raw when they slice it.
Yes, I'd decided to take a character sheet used by a bestselling author and skip out the sections that I felt were irrelevant (because it's not like she has way more experience than me, or anything… *hangs head in shame*). Why would I need to know what makes my character angry? Who cares what their bad habits are?
Basically, I had stapled together 6 sheets of paper for my main characters, and only used the first page. But hey, at least I knew what they looked like, right?
So, when my editor gave me a list of questions to think about for each character, I realised that the majority of them were already on the character sheets. But they were obviously blank. I can practically imagine John Torode shaking his head at me right now. (Whoops, I'm not actually on Masterchef, am I?)
I went back and filled in all the blanks, making my characters like actual real people, and when I had finished I could see them in my head so much more clearly. Even filling in the stuff about their personalities somehow made the overall picture clearer. Before the character sheets, it was like looking at my characters through privacy glass. Afterwards, it's like they're in the room with me.
So I suppose the point of this story — apart from me making myself look like a complete idiot — is that character sheets are worth their weight in gold, and time spent on that little bit of extra planning is worth it in the long run. Of course, from now on, every character I write about will have a character sheet, and it will be filled out in great detail. This is especially important now I'm drafting book 2 of the series, as a few of the same characters crop up there again.
So now I'd like to know from you: do you make character sheets? If not, how do you work out your characters?


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Chris Christie
Updated: December 13, 2013 6:11AM
It only seemed like Chris Christie mentioned the number 61 nearly 61 times as he made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows. The Republican governor of New Jersey was hammering home the point that he had won big — with 61 percent of the vote — in his re-election in a deep blue state. The message was clear: He has the strategy for the GOP to take the White House in 2016.
Christie threw out some other numbers: 51, the percentage of the Hispanic vote he got; 21 percent, more than double the black vote he got four years ago; 31 percent, his support from Democrats, and 57 percent, the share of the women's vote he got against a female opponent.
Now, Christie was careful to avoid declaring that he would run for president. Still, he was clearly laying down a marker for judging him against other potential GOP candidates.
His emphasis on electoral tactics contrasts with the sharp focus most of the rest of the likely 2016 contenders place on conservative policies. Christie already is running a general election strategy while most of the other Republicans are zeroing in on the primaries and caucuses.
That opens up Christie to criticism that he is putting the cart before the horse. Indeed, other likely candidates such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry question whether Christie has the conservative bona fides to win over ideologically zealous GOP voters, especially in early primary and caucus states like South Carolina and Iowa where the Tea Party and evangelical Christians can decide races.
Another complaint is Christie is peddling the same electability argument that Mitt Romney and John McCain did, and we know how their presidential bids turned out. But McCain was handicapped by the 2008 financial collapse, and Romney was vulnerable to charges Romneycare in Massachusetts fathered Obamacare.
If the knock on Christie is that he's not conservative enough, his likely rivals also have drawbacks.
Perry will have to find a way to get over the poor first impression he made in the 2012 race when, during a debate, he couldn't remember a Cabinet office he wanted to eliminate.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, once the brightest light in the constellation of young Republicans, disappointed Tea Party conservatives by helping write an immigration reform bill (from which he later retreated).
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz picked an unwinnable fight in foolishly gambling a government shutdown could get Democrats to stop funding Obamacare. He not only lost, but the debacle likely cost Republicans the gubernatorial race in Virginia.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is struggling with embarrassing evidence of plagiarism in a few of his speeches.
While these figures and other potential candidates court the party's right-wing base, Christie tries to avoid the moderate-conservative argument and advertise his record of getting things done like tax reform and spending cuts by working with New Jersey's Democratic legislature.
Christie's big bet is that by 2016, he will be the candidate who can satisfy Republicans fed up with eight years of Obama's hard liberal policies, and win over independents and Democrats hungry for a president who can, in Christie's words, "get the job done" by working across party lines.


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Feb 19 2013
2013 Aquarius Love Horoscope
2013 Aquarius Love Horoscope
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