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MINI-REVIEWS: Silver Phoenix, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, This Thing Called the Future

Posted by Anastasia on July 18, 2011 4 Responses »

Jul 182011

I completely by accident picked a group of three books with the same high rating. I don’t know if that makes my mini-reviews less effective than if I had spread them out a bit? But anyway, they’re all really good books, which is why I rated them so high!

Also, click on a book cover to go to its page at Amazon.

43. Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
Publication: Greenwillow Books (April 28, 2009), Hardcover, 352pp / ISBN 0061730211
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy

Read: May 6, 2011
Source: Bought

Mini-Review

I don’t remember what I was expecting Silver Phoenix to be, but it was better than anything I imagined. I loved it! It’s got the perfect balance of character growth/development, adventure, magic, romance, and excitement. I loved the historical-ish setting, and the mixing of Real World with Magical World stuff. Ai Ling is a great heroine, with enough flaws to balance out her virtues, and the secondary characters were pretty good, as well. I can’t wait to read the next book, especially since some things weren’t completely answered in this one re:the baddie. AND the romance was basically cut off at the knees– this is the one time I wanted a perfect happy romantic ending! I have great hopes for the next book, haha!

Rating

Please read it now if you haven’t already.

47. The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman by Meg Wolitzer
Publication: Dutton Juvenile (September 20, 2011), ARC paperback, 296pp / ISBN 0525423044
Genre: MG Fiction (magical realism?)

Read: May 27, 20112
Source: BEA 2011

This title will be released on September 20, 2011.

Mini-Review

The lady who handed me this book at BEA told me it was cute, and it IS. It reminds me of some E.L. Konigsburg books, actually, with the emphasis on emotion and relationships between characters over adventurous plot. The fact that it’s set mostly at a Scrabble tournament just fed my dorky side (loved it!), and the slight touch of magical realism was fun. I just wish the cover was less boring.

Rating

Word nerd kids and their relationships = awesome reading!

Note: You can try winning a copy for yourself on Goodreads! Closes August 1, 2011.

49. This Thing Called the Future by J.L. Powers
Publication: Cinco Puntos Press (April 12, 2011), Hardcover, 208pp / ISBN 1933693959
Genre: YA Fiction, magical realism

Read: May 30, 2011
Source: BEA 2011

Mini-Review

I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while, so I was really excited when I got to meet the author at BEA! And yay– the book is really good. It reminds me of Nancy Farmer’s books except without the sci-fi and set in modern-ish times instead of in the future (or past). The whole story is full of tension: tension about the past and the present, tension about science and magic, and tension about the simple act of growing older. Me? I like tension, especially when I’m experiencing it with a character like Khosi. She always felt like a real person to me, and so did everyone else in the book, really.

Rating

I actually feel like reading it again, right now.

Review: The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer

Posted by Anastasia on July 15, 2010 No Responses »

Jul 152010

132. The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer
Publication: Philomel (February 16, 2006), Hardcover, 208pp / ISBN 0399243046
Genre: Mystery, MG
Rating:
Read: June 13, 2010
Source: Library
Summary from Amazon:

A new series featuring Sherlock Holmes’ much-younger sister Enola begins. When her mother disappears, Enola is determined to find her and sets out to the heart of London. There Enola becomes involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess.

Review

I’m one of those people who’ll read any sort of Sherlock Holmes pastiche, even if it sounds ridiculous (Holmes in space! Dr. Watson the zombie killer!). The Enola Holmes mysteries are based around the idea that Holmes had a much younger sister, and that she was just as intelligent as her brothers but was constrained by society in ways that they were not. And it works! It works really well, actually, and certainly a younger sister isn’t as ridiculous of an idea as a great grand-niece because that’d mean Mycroft would have had to father a child and that’s about as ridiculous as Holmes fathering someone. (Although I REALLY loved that TV show.)

Anyway! I really enjoyed this book. It’s really more of a set-up for the rest of a series that an encompassing first novel, but I liked reading about Enola finding out useful things about herself, like how she’s good at disguises and finding things and other generally exciting detective-like traits. I also thought that the Holmes brothers were portrayed in a nice way; Mycroft doesn’t understand young girls and so is a brute, and Sherlock sort of understands but doesn’t have time to really do anything to help Enola. It’s a more realistic characterization of the Holmes family than I was expecting.

The writing is fine; not overwhelming in its awesomeness or anything, but fine. It’s a MG book besides so there’s not as much emotional depth as I’d normally like, but it’s a completely readable book and much better than what I was expecting. I’m definitely going to try reading the rest of the series as soon as I’ve, er, gotten my TBR pile down a bit more.

And

Get your own copy @ Amazon or Powell’s and support Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog!

Other reviews: Bookshelves of Doom | Jen Robinson’s Book Page | Tempting Persephone

Review: Heist Society by Ally Carter

Posted by Anastasia on April 7, 2010 10 Responses »

Apr 072010

53. Heist Society by Ally Carter (read by Angela Dawe)
Publication: Brilliance Audio (February 9, 2010), Audiobook / ISBN 1441826734
Genre: YA, Crime
Rating:
Read: February 26-March 2, 2010
Source: Library
Summary from Amazon:

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre . . . to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria . . . to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own — scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat’s friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster’s priceless art collection has been stolen and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled off this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and, hopefully, just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s (very crooked) history — and with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

Review

I’ve been putting off writing/posting this review because honestly, I’m a little afraid. I think the general consensus is that this is a great book, with excellent writing and characters and plot. And I happen to disagree. Like, a lot.

I really didn’t like this book. I listened to it as an audiobook and while I’m able to forgive a lot of things because, for some reason, audiobook format makes me feel more kindly towards the book in general, I wasn’t able to forgive Heist Society. It’s not as bad as some other books I’ve read, but it’s certainly somewhere down around the bottom on the scale of How Awesome is This Book.
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Review: The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

Posted by Anastasia on February 12, 2010 3 Responses »

Feb 122010

27. The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade
Publication: Wendy Lamb Books (September 22, 2009), Hardback, 288pp / ISBN 038573784X
Genre: Sci-Fi, YA
Rating:
Read: February 8, 2010
Source: Library
Summary from Amazon:

The mysterious Mr. Socrates rescues Modo, a child in a traveling freak show. Modo is a hunchback with an amazing ability to transform his appearance, and Mr. Socrates raises him in isolation as an agent for the Permanent Association, a spy agency behind Brittania’s efforts to rule the empire. At 14, Modo is left on the streets of London to fend for himself. When he encounters Octavia Milkweed, another Association agent, the two uncover a plot by the Clockword Guild behind the murders of important men. Furthermore, a mad scientist is turning orphan children into automatons to further the goals of the Guild. Modo and Octavia journey deep into the tunnels under London and discover a terrifying plot against the British government. It’s up to them to save their country.

Review

I read this because of a positive review and even featured it as a bonus book for Unsung YA, but unfortunately I didn’t like it as much as I hoped.

The idea is very interesting: a steampunk re-imagining of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I think I was expecting something like THOND plus steampunk stuff. Basically the same plot, but with added nifty science-y things, right? Well, it’s not.

I admit that I probably should have read the book summary before starting it because I think that would have kept me from being disappointed with what it actually was: young Quasimodo with superpowers. That’s not nearly as interesting and exciting to me as Quasimodo with, I don’t know. A mechanical tail or something. Like Frankenstein’s monster except with machinery added on. I think I just wanted it to be more closely tied to THOND than it was.

But if you ignore THOND connection, The Hunchback Assignments isn’t a bad steampunk book. It’s actually pretty good! I really liked how the steampunk technology was new and creepy. Like mechanical arms, for instance. Have you ever thought of how they’d actually work? When I was reading Boneshaker, and I read about the character with a gun-arm, I never thought of how it’d actually work. But Mr Slade describes it– and it’s gross. No steampunk gun-arms for me, thanks. But I loved the detail Mr Slade put into it.

The characters were pretty good, too. I think they tended to be a little bit on the cliched, stereotyped side of things (plucky, fiesty girl lead? Check. Miserable, disillusioned loner who falls in love with the female lead? Check. Sexy villainess? Check. Bah.) but I liked reading about them and how they handled themselves in this world. I feel bad for Modo, of course, but I liked that he was a little messed up in the head. It made things more interesting. (And of course he’s disfigured.)

This is going to be a series, and so I hope the second book improves on some of the things I had problems with. Who knows, maybe the farther on we’ll get in the series the more it’ll follow the original THOND! But I don’t think I’ll be running out to get a copy of the sequel.

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound

Other reviews: The Written World | Once Upon a Bookshelf | Dreaming of Books | Readspace

Review: The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett

Posted by Anastasia on January 23, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 232010

10. The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett
Publication: Scholastic Paperbacks (June 1, 2007), Paperback, 314pp / ISBN 0439693683
Genre: Mystery, MG
Rating:
Read: January 16, 2010
Source: Paperback Swap
Summary from Amazon:

Spring semester at the Lab School in Hyde Park finds Petra and Calder drawn into another mystery when unexplainable accidents and ghostly happenings throw a spotlight on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, and it’s up to the two junior sleuths to piece together the clues. Stir in the return of Calder’s friend Tommy (which creates a tense triangle), H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, 3-D pentominoes, and the hunt for a coded message left behind by Wright, and the kids become tangled in a dangerous web in which life and art intermingle with death, deception, and surprise.

Review

I really enjoyed Chasing Vermeer when I read it back in…2005? I liked the theme of coincidences-that-are-not, and the characters, and Blue Balliett’s writing, and basically just everything about it. It took me a while to read the sequel, The Wright 3, but it’s got everything I liked about the first book and MORE.

What I like best about Blue Balliett’s books is that they’re magical and exciting and they make me want to be a kid again so I can go off on adventures with art and books and so on. When you’re reading her books, you can really tell she admires and likes kids, and that she wants them to have fun and learn and grow. They’re cozy, her books, like a flannel blanket on a winter’s frosty morning.

In The Wright 3, there’s multitudes of things I could talk about, least of all the fish and Fibonacci numbers and triangles. Ms Balliett really knows how to use seemingly small things and make them big, and how to take big things and make them small (or else she turns them into red herrings). It goes beyond the plot and the clues that Petra, Calder and Tommy sort through, even. Her small, subtle things are in her writing, especially in the relationships between the kids.

When it first starts off, Tommy has moved back to Hyde Park after about a year away. His best friend, Calder, has gotten a new friend, Petra, which was part of the plot in Chasing Vermeer. But now Tommy feels left out and lonely, and while he never specifically says that, Ms Balliett managed to work in any number of clues to how he’s feeling. Mostly it’s in body language, but it’s also in how Petra and Calder act around him and with him. It was just lovely to read emotions without being bowled over by them, as in some other middle grade books. Ms Balliett’s writing is sophisticated without being stuffy, and I think it works equally well for adults as it does for kids.

Anyway, I particularly liked the idea of art and architecture as a living thing. Also that art needs to be protected, and that anyone can protect it– even kids. And I really liked how Ms Balliett kept comparing Tommy/Petra/Calder to different sorts of triangles, even when they were at odds with each other. It really showed that they were a team that was meant to be together, since of course you can’t have a trangle without three points.

There’s plenty of math and bookish things to satisfying any nerd, old or young, and there’s even some things for fish lovers and treasure-seekers as well. I really enjoyed this book, and I can’t wait to read The Calder Game next.

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound

Other reviews: Ms Bookish | Inkweaver Review

I didn’t mention it in my review, but I also like Ms Balliet’s Calder/Petra/Tommy books because all three of the protagonists are of mixed ethnic origins. Calder’s parents are Indian and Canadian, Tommy’s parents are British and Colombian, and Petra’s family is from North African/the Netherlands/the Middle East. I just find it really wonderful that Ms Balliett didn’t take the easy way out and make them all Caucasian, and the different cultures present (mostly background, at least in this book) just make the book(s) even richer. Petra’s family even speaks in more than one language at home! Yay!

Oh! And of course the illustrations by Brett Helquist are wonderful as well.

Review: So Below: Key to the City by Matt Whyman

Posted by Anastasia on September 20, 2009 No Responses »

Sep 202009

So Below: Key to the City (aka Street Runners, I think?) by Matt Whyman
Publication: Simon & Schuster Children’s (September 5, 2005), Paperback, 144 pages / ISBN 068987264X
Genre: Paranormal/Sci-Fi, YA
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Read: September 2009
First sentence: Let’s drop through winter clouds one night in the Year of the Snake, until London takes shape on the ground.

In one sentence: Good story, unfortunately let down by the writing.

Found this discounted somewhere a few months ago, and the summary sufficiently lured me in enough to read it. I didn’t hate it, but I wasn’t left completely satisfied, either.

Summary from Amazon:

In a bid to escape from a mysterious pursuer, Yoshi takes refuge below the streets of London – and finds a world away from our own. Here, in this sprawling, multi-layered network of tunnels, panic rooms, vaults, catacombs and lost waterways, he discovers his own vital part in a mission to tap into ancient forces underpinning the capital.

I liked the story, mostly. Underground cities are always interesting to me, and there were some really exciting bits near the end that made the beginning bearable. But I had a lot of trouble connecting with any of the characters, I think because there wasn’t a whole lot of time spent on character development in this book. It’s the first of a series, however, so I’m assuming that things will become more detailed as the overarching plot progresses. But it doesn’t make for a fantastic first book.

So Below: Key to the City written in present tense, which makes everything seem really immediate and fast-paced– after getting used to it. Unfortunately I think it made the writing come off a little awkward as well, and things like dialogue and descriptions of emotions tended to sound fake or forced. The writing also sometimes got into ridiculous near-purple prose territory. Annoying! It was kind of like watching an amateur gymnast on a balance beam: the writing fell off more than it stayed on, but it tried its best.

What I liked best, and why I kept reading, was how the narrative went above the streets instead of sticking below it. Yoshi is a parkour artist, and I haven’t read a book with one of those, like, ever. It was a special little something that sparked my interest, and as much as I love books with secret underground cities, I think I love books with parkour in them even more.

I’m not entirely sure I’m going to read any of the other books. The writing is just not something that I’m into, and even though the story is interesting I don’t care enough about any of the characters to want to know what happens to them. I think I’d only read the next book to see if Yoshi does anymore parkour, but that’s not enough of a reason for me.

I know I’ve probably made it sound really bad, but it’s honestly not horrible. It just has a few problems, and if you can ignore or get over those problems there’s a truly interesting plot at the core.

Find out for yourself! Get your own copy from Amazon or your favorite indie bookstore.

Other reviews: Have you written a review for this? Let me know and I’ll link to it in this post!

Review: Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller

Posted by Anastasia on August 19, 2009 2 Responses »

Aug 192009

Kiki #1 Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller
Publication: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books (May 30, 2006), Hardcover, 387 pages / ISBN 1582349606
Genre: Action, Adventure, YA/Teen
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Read: August 2009
First sentence:

In one sentence: It’s the Babysitters Club with bite.

This is the first time in several months that I’ve written a review for a book I’ve JUST finished, and I’m doing it now because the book I read? Is. so. AWESOME!

I spotted the spine on a shelf in the library where I work, and I immediately thought it’d be entertaining if nothing else. It sounded like a version of Alex Rider or CHERUB– and it is. But better.

Summary from Amazon (slightly edited for spoilers):

White-haired, leprechaun-size Kiki Strike is a new student at Atalanta School in New York City when she meets 12-year-old Ananka Fishbein, the narrator of Miller’s debut novel. Together they begin a detailed exploration of the Shadow City, the subterranean rooms and streets under New York’s subway system, and Kiki recruits a team of other precocious 12-year-olds, whose skills include hacking, chemistry, lock picking, forging, making handmade explosives, and mechanical engineering, to join them. Ananka, the team’s urban archaeologist, will supply her family’s extensive library and learn everything about rats, the current Shadow City inhabitants. As the girls try to obtain layered maps of New York City’s infrastructure, they fear that terrorists with the same goals are putting the city in terrible danger.

To keep my review from simply being filled with gushing enthusiasm (and capslock), I’ve made a list of what I loved best about Inside the Shadow City:

1. The characters. Strong female characters who aren’t defined by their relationships with men (well, they’re 12/14, so there isn’t a lot there anyway), who don’t back down when adults tell them to, and who can take of themselves and put plans into action that would make Alex Rider hesitate. Yay!

2. The plot. It’s a little bumpy, but it’s so interesting. Spies? Princesses on the run? Secret underground cities?! This is the stuff action movies are made of, and it’s all made better by the fact that 12-year-old girls are a part of it.

3. The fact that it shows girls can do absolutely anything, even if no-one thinks they can. Even if they’re young, short, and being threatened by assassins! Even if they don’t think they can do it themselves– the girls in Inside the Shadow City are in charge of their own lives, and it makes for an awesomely empowering story.

4. Mixed up with the chapters are practical how-to guides and notes about interesting things related to the story, and if I was still 12 I’d totally be out doing everything in this book. Heck, I was a copy of Harriet the Spy for about four years after I read the book, and Inside the Shadow City has even more exciting stuff in it than just writing down observations in a notebook. Urban exploration! How to escape kidnappers! How to tail people! Famous underground cities that actually exist! I feel like putting together an exploration kit right now and carrying it around with me, and I’m 21!
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