The Heir of Fire is the third book in the Throne of Glass series. Celaena Sardothien has been sent to Wendlyn to kill its entire royal family. Still reeling from the loss of her friend and the man she loved, Celaena can't decide what to do. When the fey prince, Rowan, shows up to bring her to the court of her aunt, the fey queen Maeve, she takes the opportunity. To get the information she needs, Maeve has requested that Celaena be trained by Rowan. Celaena has many difficulties with her training, mainly stemming from the fear she has for herself. As the king's plot unfurls, this book weaves a story that is impossible to put down. With a perfect amount of action, magic,
and romance, The Heir of Fire does the rest of the series justice. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has read this far in the series; I also recommend this series to anyone that likes books that are told from many different perspectives, full of action, and witty dialogue. Although this book starts a bit slow, if you get through the first few chapters, you will not be disappointed.
The Trap relates the story of an elderly native man named Albert Least-Weasel and his grandson, Johnny Least-Weasel. Albert is out in the Alaskan wilderness checking his traplines. When he doesn’t return on time and the temperature drops, Johnny and Albert’s wife begin to worry about the old man. Johnny believes he should go out and look for his grandfather, but others in the community advise him against this action, suggesting that his Grandfather is fine because he knows what he is doing. Johnny has mixed feelings between the advice of his elders in the community and his own instinct. The choice he makes will have a direct impact on the survival of his Grandfather.
However, The Trap is more than just a story about survival, it is also about the internal stories we tell ourselves as we face difficult situations and navigate challenges. The main characters reflect on their own story, memory and myth as they struggle through their individual conflicts. The author’s skillful use of learning tales and folklore deepens the experience of Albert and Johnny Least-Weasel while teaching the reader about being a part of the land and a culture that is defined by the world they live in. Alternating views between Johnny and his Grandfather allows the reader to experience the hardship of the Grandfather and feel the anxiety of Johnny. The Trap is a good read; I would recommend it to readers who enjoy survival and folklore.
This was just delightful.
My Lady Jane is a semi-historical semi-fantastical look at the life of Lady Jane Grey, cousin to King Edward VI, who was queen for 9 days and then swiftly deposed and subsequently beheaded by Mary I (aka Bloody Mary). The book looks at the events through the perspectives of Edward, Jane, and Jane's new husband, Gifford Dudley (call him G). The authors decided to rewrite history a bit to give some folks shapeshifting powers and to give our Lady Jane a happy ending. The result was a charming, whimsical read written in the sarcastic and snarky prose of today, and it was marvelous.
The book is even more impressive when you consider that it has three authors, but felt as though it could have been written by one person (I'm sure that each author wrote from a different character's perspective, but it was never jarring). The characters were well fleshed out, each perspective was funny and interesting, and I never felt myself racing through one character's chapter to get to a character I liked better (because I liked them all). I'm a big sucker for court intrigue, and there is obviously a lot of that here. The fantasy elements are pretty small, and honestly, the book could've sort of been done without them, but they do give the authors an out for some of the less historical aspects of the book (like Edward's survival, for example).
I gave the book four stars instead of five as, though I loved the tone for most of the book, by the end it was feeling a bit twee. The book was also a bit overlong. Overall though, this is a great read that I would recommend to people who like quirky, well-written books about strong women with a touch of fantasy. I hope these authors team up to write another alternate history, because I'd so be there. 4 stars.
A Teen Book. Seventeen-year-old Hendrix is left to care for his Gpa, who is losing his memory due to Alzheimer's, in a senior facility. All his grandfather wants is to go home to Ithaca, New York, to remember his deceased wife, before he forgets her completely. Corrina, also seventeen, was adopted from Guatemala. She's a musician, feeling crowded and suffocated by circumstances in LA. One night, they decide combine forces, steal a car and Gpa and head for New York. The adventure is one of friendship, but mainly one of learning to love. Language and mature situations.
Teen Fiction. It's 1976. The three Babcock sisters - Adrienne, Vanessa and Marie - make regular trips from San Diego to a clinic in Mexico, where their mother receives treatments for leukemia that are banned in the United States. Chapter one ends with their mother announcing that in spite of these treatments, she has been diagnosed as terminal. The remainder of the book describes how each of the sisters reacts to this diagnosis. Then their mother agrees to invite Barb and her son Caleb, who is also undergoing treatment, to stay with them in San Diego. Things start to go wrong when Barb questions the combination of medications that Mrs. Babcock is taking. She and Caleb move to a hotel after Mrs. B becomes hysterical when a new doctor at the clinic wants to perform his own blood tests. When the ultimate betrayal is revealed, you won't believe it!!
It has been a year since Magnus Chase discovered he was a demigod, checked into the Hotel Valhalla, and entered the treacherous world of Norse Mythology. But, his quest has just begun. Thor's hammer has gone missing, Magnus's best friends Hearthstone and Blitzen are nowhere to be found, and a new child of Loki is wreaking havoc at Hotel Valhalla. Not to mention, there's a mysterious assassin that has warned Magnus of the dangers of retrieving Thor's hammer...
This is the sequel to the Sword of Summer - and I had very high expectations.
The Hammer of Thor met all of them. It is a fun, adventurous thrill ride with lots of unexpected twists and turns. We get to learn more about the mysterious pasts of our favorite characters and see their relationships develop. This book was amazing!
Reviewer Grade: 10
This book was surprising good! It was very well written and told from a fascinating narrative viewpoint. The book is written as a series of letters which serves the story line well. It wasn't overly adolescent so it appeals to both teens and adults. Charlie is optimistic and sees beauty in the world. I also liked that he listens to great music and reads great literature, which allows the reader to check out the titles he mentions. Great book!
I'm not going to try to describe this book, because there is a lot going on and I wouldn't really know where to start. Here's what you need to know:
It's a companion novel to American Gods, but you do not need to read American Gods first. In fact, I found this book to be vastly superior to American Gods, though the internet does not necessarily agree with me on that one.
Do you like Loki? Or like, the idea of Loki? Or just trickster gods in general? Anansi is the African trickster god, and this book is a TRICKSTER god of a novel: its clever, tricky and pure fun.
I listened to this book, and the narration was stellar. Lenny Henry nails the Caribbean accents, the humor, the eeriness, and well, all of it. I'd strongly recommend consuming this in audiobook format.
Oh, and while the characters never felt super fleshed out to me, it didn't matter, because this book was all about stories. And Anansi's stories are the best stories.
The villain was absotively the worst in the best kind of way.
Anyway, if you are looking for a funny, fast, excellently crafted mythological type of read, look no further. 5 stars.
WOW. This was awesome. Spoilers ahead for Six of Crows.
Crooked Kingdom picks up right where Six of Crows left off. Kaz and crew have just been pulled off the heist of a lifetime and then were subsequently stiffed 30 million kruge. Van Eck, the double crosser, stole not only their money, but their comrade/crew member Inej as well. Needless to say, the crew is mad and ready for revenge. The question is...just how far are they willing to go to bring down Van Eck and his cronies?
The answer: pretty far. And it is fantastic.
Bardugo hits all of the right beats in this novel. The heisty stuff is twisty and surprising. The intensity level is insanely high for the duration of the novel. The emotional beats are EMOTIONAL. Like in Six of Crows, each chapter is told from a different character's perspective, and Bardugo uses this technique to develop a rich backstory for each character. I found myself vacillating between loving the characters for who they are and wanting to adopt them off the mean streets of Ketterdam to fix them and give them a loving, safe home. They've all been through a lot, and it informs their lives and choices in a believable way. The villains are semi-developed as the book progresses, and Van Eck at one point does something so terrible that I just sat there and thought WHAT? NO. for like 10 minutes. Bardugo also does a really great job of introducing the very real horrors of human trafficking into a fantasy novel. I hope the book raises some awareness about this very real, terrible issue.
Oh, and a fun bonus: If you've read Bardugo's other series, there are a couple of exciting cameos in store.
Anyway, for me, this was a practically perfect fantasy novel. It made me laugh, cry, and will be something that I'll come back to and re-read every few years. If I could give it more than 5 stars, I would.
What’s Left of Me, a dystopian novel by Kat Zhang, follows the life of Addie and Eva, two souls living in one body while trying to hide their secret from the totalitarian government. In their society, everyone is born with two souls. Eventually, they are supposed to settle by a young age, meaning that the weaker soul would fade away and die. In their world, every hybrid was arrested, never seen again. They (Addie and Eva) never settled, but the government didn’t know. Everyone thought that they had settled at the age of twelve, even their own parents. Eva just lost control of their body. She was still able to communicate with Addie through thoughts. Then, a girl from school told her that she knew their secret and offered to bring Eva back.
Riskily, they agreed. Will they succeed or get caught in the act?
This is a very interesting book. I think I enjoyed the beginning of the novel most, where it talks about what it means to be a hybrid in their society. It really made me think about what it would be like to have another soul in my body, to share everything with her. It made me so curious, I googled if everyone is born with two souls. However, I would not be compelled to pick up the sequel for the book. I did not enjoy it as much as I have other dystopian novels. While amazing and thought provoking at the beginning, it just had a downfall at the end, becoming more confusing and dull as the book went on. The romantic subplot didn’t make very much sense, because that would be very awkward for the other twos would who would have to be dragged into it. Also, it needs to be more descriptive. The setting and protagonist were barely described, leaving the reader with a fuzzy image. The negatives aside, this was a wonderful book. What’s Left of Me is a great book for teenagers, even though it is officially labeled as a young adult novel.
Review Grade: 8
Meghan Chase has never been normal. She lives on a pig farm. Her father disappeared when she was just six. She is forgotten by everyone, even her stepfather. But as she nears her sixteenth birthday, extremely strange things begin to happen to her. First, she sees a mysterious stranger watching her, and her best friend, Robin, becomes strangely protective. Then, her half brother, Ethan tells her about the monsters that are always watching him.
Megan is soon drawn into a world that she never could've imagined. A world of magic, faeries that would kill you in an instant, and unbreakable pacts: The Nevernever. It is there that she realizes that her whole life has been a lie.
This book is a fantastic novel with tons of action, humor, and romance. The characters are well developed, and fun to read about. Many of the characters are from other stories such as Puck, King Oberon, the Big Bad Wolf, ext. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who likes books with fantasy, humor, and supernatural themes. It is the first book of an originally four book series (the author has added additional books with different characters as the focus of the story). There is, I believe, some slightly questionable language and topics, not to mention romance, so if that bothers you this might not be the book for you. Overall, this book is amazing, and very character driven, and I recommend it to lovers of The Mortal Instruments, and Julia Kagawa's other books.
Review Grade: 9
Lily is a hopeful songwriter who is struggling in chemistry. After her teacher bans her from having her notebook in class, she writes on the desk instead. This sparks an ongoing conversation through notes with an unknown pen pal. As the letters continue, more and more personal information is shared, and more feelings surface inspiring Lily to write lyrics. With a typical cast of characters – the best friend, the mean girls and boys, the crush(es) – P.S. I Like You isn’t anything too different from many of the other cute, light romances, but it’s still a quick, enjoyable read.
In the city of Ketterdam (imagine an alternate Amsterdam), Kaz is the first lieutenant of one of Ketterdam's most notorious and successful gangs. He's is approached by a city government official with an impossible task - rescue a scientist from the world's most well protected prison. And the prize? 30 million kruge. Kaz, of course, accepts. And he assembles a team of six to pull off what amounts to the world's most ambitious heist.
The story alternates between the POV of five of the six team members, and each character's story is gripping. All characters are developed throughout the course of the books, and each has their own distinct, fascinating voice and story. There's a sharpshooter, a magician, a traitorous solider, a demolitions expert, a wraith (read and find out!) and of course, the fearless leader, Kaz. And, to make things even better, they are a diverse group of people hailing from all over the world.
This book was really fun, and I've never really read anything quite like it. I will be booktalking this one and forcefully shoving it into the hands of anyone who comes into the teen center (I kid. I'll lovingly hand it to them while gushing effusively.). 5 stars
Serafina is the Chief Rat Catcher at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC in 1899. She and her Pa secretly live in the basement, where he is basically the electrical engineer of the place. Serafina's presence in the house is a secret so she mostly traverses the estate through tunnels and doesn't go outside. One night, she witnesses a man in a black coat magically abducting a child, which changes everything.
I listened to this book, and the narrator didn't really do it any favors. Her Southern accent was pretty terrible, but thankfully, she kept forgetting to use it. Narration aside though, this book had some problems. The author took a cool premise and an even cooler setting and then wrote a really boring book. There were kind of two main things going on that should have been really interesting, but weren't. The first thing was the identity of the man in the black coat, which was painfully obvious from the start. Had Beatty done a kiddo type version of an Agatha Christie novel (these are the people at the Biltmore estate...and one of them is guilty of MURDER MOST FOUL), I'd probably be typing a really different review right now. Alternatively, he could've played up Serafina's secret a bit more, and that might have made things more interesting. As it was, even though there was a lot going on, nothing of importance ever seemed to really happen.
I also found myself getting annoyed by a fictional Vanderbilt named Braedan (weird name for a kid of Dutch origins in 1899, dontcha think?) who is a bit of a love interest. Every part featuring him was pretty painful as Serafina basically becomes a useless quivering mess when he's around. Blegh. Oh, and at one point, a character says something along the lines of "you don't call girls heroes, you call them heroines" which, just, are you trying to say that girls can't be heroes? Because if so, gross. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what I took away from the statement.
But on the other hand... look at that cover! Gorgeous.
If 1.5 stars was an option, that's what we'd be doing here. I liked the beginning, the premise and the setting, but wish the author had done more with the latter two elements.
Popular mythology author Rick Riordan strikes again! He has series delving into Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and now NORSE mythology. This series follows Magnus Chase, son of a Norse god. Which god, you ask? Read the book and find out!
Riordan’s writing style is very distinct, playing to his youthful audience. The chapter titles were humorous and made no sense until I reached those parts of the book. (I read through them initially and thought, “What the…?!”)
Magnus Chase was vaguely--well, maybe more like strongly--reminiscent of Percy Jackson for me. Although Magnus has had a much rougher life so far, his voice is very similar to that of Percy. Magnus Chase is barely 16 years old, but he has been living on the streets for the past 2 years since his mother’s death. After an...interesting encounter with a fire giant, he finds himself gracing the halls of Valhalla with other Norse warriors killed in battle. Along with his valkyrie, a dwarf, and an elf, he goes on a quest to retrieve the Sword of Summer and stop the wolf Fenrir from escaping his bindings.
A interesting read for those die-hard Riordan fans or anyone who loves mythology interpretations. I was very entertained by the story, as I always am with Riordan’s mythologies, but despite the gods changing, the stories are starting to run together. The overlap of stories definitely doesn’t help the blurring of the lines. (Oh, hi Annabeth!) Crossing over from the Percy Jackson series, Annabeth, last name Chase--I guess we could have seen this one coming--has a couple nice little cameos in this book, foreshadowing a larger role later in the series. I’ll be interested to see where this goes.
Mana is going along in her perfectly normal life as a high school teenager with two best friends, one of whom is a boy and crush interest. All of a sudden a guy (codename China) taking out an alien, who happens to be hiding out as a cute boy at her school, interrupts a basketball game, and Mana’s world drastically changes. She finds out her mom is also an alien hunter and has disappeared, presumably kidnapped by aliens because of a chip with information she has. To top it off, Mana starts having some weird abilities, like being able to jump really high and do crazy gymnastic stunts. The rest of the book has Mana, her friends, and China on a mission to find Mana’s mom and save the world.
I really liked Carrie Jones’s series, Need. This was definitely a different kind of book. It was lighthearted and, at times, a bit silly, but overall, still a nice, light, fun read.
America Singer has been forced to enter in a competition to win Prince Maxon's heart. There's only one problem: she's in love with someone else. Marked by a brutal social class system, America either has the option to marry within her class or above it. She cannot marry her boyfriend Aspen Ledger, who is a class below her. So, she must enter "The Selection" to compete with a number of other girls for Prince Maxon's hand. Although the characters and plot were complex, I felt this book was lacking something - perhaps the conflict wasn't quite strong enough? I still recommend it for its excellent world-building and characters. (I'd rate this PG-13 for minor language and some romance)
Reviewer Grade: 9
Marked by P.C and Kristin Cast is genius. The story follows a young girl named Zoe whose life is turned around. After dumping her alcoholic boyfriend and living with her loser step dad, Zoe is turned into a vampire who must attend The House of Night, a school for students like her. She soon finds that being a vampire isn’t so bad. This story is a 4/5, and I recommend it to anyone willing to read, however it does include some mature things so if you are not able to handle swearing, or any other such things the book is not for you.
Reviewer Grade: 7
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is a perfect 5/5. 16 year old Hazel Grace wants to be normal when she meets Augustus Waters, someone who is anything but normal. The book drew me in with its beautiful love story. Not only that but it also with its realistic views on the world. The author is surprisingly good at getting into a teenage girl’s young mind. Everyone should read this book, you will never get bored when reading it.
Reviewer Grade: 7
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater is about a girl named Grace and a boy that is half human, half wolf named Sam. This story is about their adventure together, as they try to find a way to make Sam a full human. I would rate this book a 4 because I loved how surprising the ending was, but it was a little slow in the middle of the book. I picked this book because my language arts teacher recommended it to me. I would recommend this book to people who like the book Twilight.
Reviewer Grade: 8