Review: A Chalice of Wind by Cate Tiernan (2005)

 Posted by Anastasia on February 28, 2009  No Responses »
Feb 282009
 

Balefire 1Balefire #1: A Chalice of Wind by Cate Tiernan
Publication: Razorbill (2005), Paperback, 256 pages / ISBN 159514045X
Genre: Fantasy, Teen
Rating: 3/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenges: 666 Horror/Paranormal Book Challenge (#5?), Read Your Own Books 2009 (#12)
First sentence: When the shades were down, you had to open the train compartment door to see who was inside.

I picked this up last year during a sale at BookCloseouts.com. It sounded interesting, and I was hoping it wasn’t complete malarky. Luckily it wasn’t, and it had enough things I could snark over to make up for any bad bits.

Summary from Amazon:

After seventeen-year-old Thais Allard loses her widowed father in a tragic car accident, she is forced to leave the only home she’s ever known to live with a total stranger in New Orleans. New Orleans greets Thais with many secrets and mysteries, but none as unbelievable as the moment she comes face to face with the impossible— an identical twin, Clio.Thais soon learns that she and the twin she never knew come from a family of witches, that she possesses astonishing powers, and that she, along with Clio, has a key role in Balefire, the coven she was born into. Fiery Clio is less than thrilled to have to share the spotlight, but the twins must learn to combine their powers in order to complete a rite that will transform their lives and the coven forever.

So, yeah, this is COMPLETELY PREDICTABLE. I mean, c’mon, twins separated at birth with magical powers? It’s nearly as common as the seventh son of a seventh son being awesomely powerful. However, like every other time I’ve run into a cliche, I’ve forced myself to get through it and, hopefully, find the good stuff, whatever it is.

For A Chalice of Wind, the stuff that kept me reading was the ridiculously melodramatic love scenes between the twins and their Twu Luv. I hate when characters get smushy with one another, especially if one character happens to be a witch who “just knows” things, including that she and her boo are going be TOGETHER FUR EVAR and that that boo is PERFACT IN EVARY WAY. God, so annoying. And the other twin is just as bad! She’s all HE SO PERFECT AND UNDERSTANDING AND WONDERFUL. He really LISTENS to me, you know? And he’s perfect!

That kind of stuff seriously and truly irritates the every-loving crap outta me. It’s like diarrhea for my soul. Which is why, later on when they got burned? Yeah, I laughed. And that laughter is what kept me reading. Mostly. There was some genuinely good things, too.

Besides the ridiculous love stuff, the rest of the book is pretty decent. It’s not too badly written, and there’s some other interesting characters to make up for the Banal Twins of Doom. The plot isn’t so bad; there’s enough mystery and neat magic stuff to keep me reading, and it was seriously fun to watch Thais go OMG WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN when underagers were caught drinking alcohol. Also when she cried into her pastry. Heh.

It does end on a cliffhanger (kinda), but it was the kind of cliffhanger that amps you up for the next book, not wish the author had added just one more chapter PLEASE. Or, er, something.

I do want to read at least the next book, but I don’t necessarily think I’ll fork out cash for it. If I can get it from the library or from BookMooch, though, I’m there.

Other reviews: Rhinoa’s Ramblings | Amberkatze’s Book Blog | 50bookchallenge by tigerkat

Bookmark and Share

 3/5, Fantasy, Fiction, Reviews, Teen

Review: The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay (2009)

 Posted by Anastasia on February 28, 2009  No Responses »
Feb 282009
 

Little Sleep The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay
Publication: Holt Paperbacks (2009), Paperback, 288 pages / ISBN 0805088490
Genre: Mystery
Rating: 2/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenges: 2009 Pub Challenge (#3)

This is a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book and will be released March 3.

I had a lot of hope for this book. Unusual detective set in a noir-ish world? Awesome cover? Lots of potential! Unfortunately I didn’t really like it. It’s not bad, necessarily, but I didn’t enjoy reading it.

Summary from Amazon:

Mark Genevich is a South Boston P.I. with a little problem: he’s narcoleptic, and he suffers from the most severe symptoms, including hypnogogic hallucinations. These waking dreams wreak havoc for a guy who depends on real-life clues to make his living.

Clients haven’t exactly been beating down the door when Mark meets Jennifer Times—daughter of the powerful local D.A. and a contestant on American Star—who walks into his office with an outlandish story about a man who stole her fingers. He awakes from his latest hallucination alone, but on his desk is a manila envelope containing risqué photos of Jennifer. Are the pictures real, and if so, is Mark hunting a blackmailer, or worse?

I think my biggest problem was that I hated Mark. Sure, I felt bad for him because his life sucks, but he kept whining about it and didn’t try to do anything to change it. He isn’t good at verbal sparring, jokes, or detecting (aka his JOB) and he was ultimately just a big fat downer. Also, boring.

The mystery part was interesting, and though it gets confusing because of Mark’s proclivity to hallucinations it does have a very nice solution. And the ending fits in well with the rest of the book– depressing, with lots of things unanswered. More bittersweet than anything else, I guess.

I’m sure that someone somewhere will enjoy reading about a dull “detective” whine his way through solving a mystery that may or may not even exist, but that someone wasn’t me. I appreciate that Mr. Tremblay tried to do something different within the detective noir genre, and once I stop being annoyed at Mark I could see what he was trying to do, but I simply didn’t enjoy the result.

Mr. Tremblay is apparently often compared to Jonathan Lethem. I’d, er, start with Jonathan Lethem first (maybe Gun, With Occasional Music, which I loved) and then move to The Little Sleep. The reverse might make think Mr. Lethem was like Mr. Tremblay, which would be a shame.

Other reviews: Breaking the Fourth Wall | The Book Catapult

Bookmark and Share

 2/5, Fiction, Mystery/Detective, Reviews

links for 2009-2-26

 Posted by Anastasia on February 27, 2009  No Responses »
Feb 272009
 
 Link Posts, Misc

Review: Creepers by Keith Gray (1996)

 Posted by Anastasia on February 27, 2009  No Responses »
Feb 272009
 

Creepers HC Creepers by Keith Gray
Publication: Putnam Juvenile (1997), Hardcover, 139 pages / ISBN 0399231862
Genre: Fiction, Children’s/YA
Rating: 4.5/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenge: Read Your Own Books 2009 (#11)
First sentence: A dog was barking.

I read a review of this on Chicklish and thought it sounded really good, so I got it from BookMooch last December. For some reason I didn’t read it ’til now, but I got a nice surprise once I did. This is a really excellent book!

Summary from Amazon:

Jamie was the best Creeper at school. He could sneak through more yards than anyone else without being caught. He was fast and hardly made any noise. I was surprised when he wanted to Creep with me. I was pretty good, but with Jamie I felt like I could climb over any fence and never get caught.

Then we decided to do Derwent Drive–the longest Creep in the village. You had to move so fast, most of the way along you didn’t have time to think. We were halfway down when it happened. I went Haywire. I just freaked out. I don’t know why. I’d handled big dogs before, but this time I lost it. I can’t believe I did that. I got away, but Jamie was Snared! The police came! What am I going to do now? And what’s going to happen to Jamie?

I was hoping it wouldn’t be too depressing, considering the inside flap says “A brilliant first novel about friendship, courage, and loss” and THAT means something depressing will probably happen. Well, yeah, something depressing happened, but it was balanced out by the happy(ish) ending and the writing was so awesome I didn’t even really mind the depressing thing.

I can’t really talk about the depressing thing without giving away massive spoilers, but I will say that there’s immense character growth (which you should know by now I absolutely love) and some learning-what-life-is-about situations. Not that it’s cheesy, or preachy. It’s quite subtle, actually, yet sharp and to-the-point. Lovely!

Creeping sounds like a really fun thing to do, doesn’t it? And I also love that Creepers have their own vocabulary and rules and such. I love me some secret kid society! Unfortunately I think if I creeped around here I’d be shot, but I can dream.

There’s two very different covers for Creepers (that I’ve found, at least). One’s the hardcover copy, up there, and then there’s this paperback cover:

Creepers PB

I actually like it better than the hardcover one. It’s got two people on it, rather than just one, and it shows them in the act of helping one another over a difficult obstacle. The hardback cover just looks like the kid is getting chased by searchlights or something. What do you think? Which cover do you prefer?

Other reviews: Chicklish

Bookmark and Share

 Fiction, Reviews, YA

Review: Flyte by Angie Sage (2006)

 Posted by Anastasia on February 27, 2009  2 Responses »
Feb 272009
 

FlyteSeptimus Heap #2: Flyte by Angie Sage
Publication: HarperCollins (2007), Paperback, 544 pages / ISBN 0060577363
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Rating: 4/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenge: Read Your Own Books 2009 (#10)
First sentence: It is night on the Marram Marshes; a full moon shines down on the black waters and illuminates the nighttime Things who are going about their business.

Series: Book #1 | Book #2 | Book #3 | Book #4

I love the first Septimus Heap book, Magyk, and so I was super excited to read this one. I had just as much fun reading it as I did Magyk, yet I felt slightly disappointed.

Summary from Amazon:

It’s been a year since Septimus Heap discovered his real family and true calling to be a wizard. As Apprentice to Extra Ordinary Wizard Marcia Overstrand, he is learning the fine arts of Conjurations, Charms, and other Magyk, while Jenna is adapting to life as the Princess and enjoying the freedom of the Castle.

But there is something sinister at work. Marcia is constantly trailed by a menacing Darke Shadow, and Septimus’s brother Simon seems bent on a revenge no one understands. Why is the Darke Magyk still lingering?

The main problem was, I think, that it seemed like the plot started off very quickly, with a lot of movement and excitement and then BAM. Stopped short. And then it never really picked back up again. It felt more like a transition between two events than an event of its own, and though I enjoyed reading it I wanted something a little more.

There is some character change/growth, which was nice, and the various subplots were quite sweet: Septimus meeting the rest of his family, for instance, and the thing with the (dead) Queen and her (alive) husband. The adult characters were pretty much the same, except maybe more annoying because they wouldn’t listen to the kids. If they had ever read a Diana Wynne Jones book, they’d know that’s a dangerous thing to do.

There are some exciting, action-y parts, of course, plus lots of interesting magic, new characters and places that I grew to love as much as the old ones. I especially liked learning about the people who became friends with the main characters after the first book– it kept things from getting too enclosed.

However, there were some other things that didn’t seem to be fully explored (not yet, anyway. Maybe they’re explored in the next few books). Septimus’ new, er, “pet” kind of just appears, then doesn’t really serve a purpose until the end and yet still seems mostly a sideline thing. Like many other things introduced in this book, it seems like it won’t find its place in the narrative until the next book or later.

Overall, it feels very transitory, and somewhat jumbled. Not bad, but not entirely like the first book, either. The parts I liked I really liked, and the parts I didn’t were just meh. Still, I look forward to reading the rest of the series and seeing where everything ends up!

Other reviews: Cindy’s Blog of Everything

Bookmark and Share

 4/5, Fantasy, Fiction, Reviews, YA

Review: The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch (2007)

 Posted by Anastasia on February 27, 2009  10 Responses »
Feb 272009
 

The Name of This Book is Secret The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
Publication: Little, Brown Young Readers (2008), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 384 pages / ISBN 0316113697
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Children’s/YA
Rating: 4/5
Find @ Amazon
First sentence: WARNING: DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS PAGE!

So, yeah, this is a Series of Unfortunate Events rip-off, only it’s less depressing, has less moody characters, weirder villains (if possible), and codes to decipher. I liked it!

Summary from Amazon:

Warning: this description has not been authorized by Pseudonymous Bosch. As much as he’d love to sing the praises of his book (he is very vain), he wouldn’t want you to hear about his brave 11-year old heroes, Cass and Max-Ernest. Or about how a mysterious box of vials, the Symphony of Smells, sends them on the trail of a magician who has vanished under strange (and stinky) circumstances. And he certainly wouldn’t want you to know about the hair-raising adventures that follow and the nefarious villains they face. You see, not only is the name of this book secret, the story inside is, too. For it concerns a secret. A Big Secret.

It’s not entirely like Lemony Snicket’s books, of course, but it does resonate heavily of them. However, like I said, there’s practically no depressing parts and the writer is willing to actually tell us things, although very grudgingly. What he does’nt tell us are things that aren’t really important anyway, like Cass and Max-Ernest’s real names, where they live, etc. The author also a) isn’t on the run and b) hasn’t lost someone important in his life, so he isn’t whining all the time about them. This is very refreshing.

Besides the author and his writing style, there are fun characters, a fun mystery full of hidden codes and dangerous baddies, secret societies, and a sad story about twins who wanted to be magicians. I thought it was well done, and I enjoyed reading it once I stopped comparing it to the Lemony Snicket books.

I’d recommend it for those who didn’t like the Series of Unfortunate Events but want to read a quirky kid’s book with some interesting characters and a fantastic reveal.

The cover is pretty nice, eh? It’s the US version. Here’s the British cover:
the-name-of-this-book British

I’m not sure which one I like better. Which one do you prefer?

Get your own copy from Amazon.

Other reviews: Becky’s Book Reviews | The Book Bark! | A Fort Made of Books

Bookmark and Share

 4/5, Fiction, Mystery/Detective, Reviews, Sci-Fi, YA

links for 2009-2-25

 Posted by Anastasia on February 26, 2009  No Responses »
Feb 262009
 
 Link Posts, Misc
 Older Entries
© 2011 Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha