The Dragon's Price

The Dragon's Price
by Bethany Wiggins

This book is a good choice for anyone out there who are fans of Julie Kagawa and her novels. This book starts off sounding like your typical, every-day "I don't want to be forced into marriage so I'm going to do whatever I can to save my individuality" quest-type story. The main character comes from royal blood (also a common book character trait) and has a long-standing peace treaty with another kingdom (again, as per usual). This, however, is where the similarities end. For one, this novel has DRAGONS. I love dragons (as I suspect some of you do as well). Dragons are something that has an allure to readers- if a book is about dragons, I will pick it up. If there is a dragon on the cover, I will pick it up. There is some kind of special draw to the magic of them, to their mystery and mythology. However, in The Dragon's Price, the first book in the new Transference trilogy, there is a bit of a twist. When you kill a dragon, you gain its treasure. Sure, normally this would mean gold or money. However, in this novel, "treasure" is shown to mean a whole lot more.

The Dragon's Price is a great read for fans like me of the dragon stories, but it also holds an appeal for multiple other genres of readers- romance is another biggie. If you like romance novels; doomed ones, prince/princess ones, and pretty much any other kind of romance, this is the book for you. Sorrow, the main character, goes into her unsure future trying to avoid a loveless (and disturbing) marriage arrangement. What she would least expect to do is fall in love, right? Well, gear up- this romance is one that will keep you enthralled in the characters and their story, and will keep you on your toes wondering and hoping about what will happen.


What? You say?
What will happen?
Well, I guess you'll just have to read it to find out! (Hint: the end had me surprised, slightly flabbergasted, and ready and eager for a sequel!)

If I have to give this book a traditional, "what would you rate it on a scale of 1-5" rating, I would probably give it somewhere between a 3 and a 4. The plot had DRAGONS (that is two automatic stars) and it had great twists- to the dragon mythology, to the character and her story, and to the romantic plot. However, it could use some improvement. It felt more like a trial-run for the author- like this was a test run at writing, but that she has a LOT of potential to improve. I look forwards to reading her work in the future!

This book is a lot like bread. If you eat (read) too much, it makes you feel kinda sick. On the other hand, there are so many kinds of bread that it appeals to so many people- some people like sourdough just as some people like romance. Some people like fantasies, just like some people like whole wheat. This book is like bread for that reason- it suits many people because it has many genres in it. Then, once you think that you've had so much and you've eaten all sorts of bread that it can never surprise you anymore, you discover a new type of bread that you love- and then you start eating breads all over again. This book is a lot like that- something happens that outrages you or annoys you and then makes you more invested in the story. Personally, I would say that this book is whole wheat- grainy with some rough patches that need smoothing out and with little bits of everything so that anyone can find something they like about it.

Enjoy reading, everyone! This one is a fun read, even if it is not quite a five-star novel, so give it a try! Chances are there is something you will like about it! If you are . interested in this author, you can check her out at http://bethanywiggins.com/.

    ~Lucy

Empress of a Thousand Skies

Empress of a Thousand Skies
Written by Rhoda Belleza
Published by Razorbill

It had been a long time since I had found a decent book to read. There had been many new authors attempting to write amazing stories, but some ended up, in my opinion, with unrealistic romances, weak plot lines, and characters that just weren't believable. As someone who enjoys writing, I know that it is hard build the characters and plot into a complex, great story. Just when I had realized that I couldn't find I good book, I had stumbled across Empress of a Thousand Skies. I started it, not really expecting to like it, but soon, I couldn't stop reading the book.

Empress of a Thousand Skies was an interesting and enjoyable book. While the plot was not entirely unique, the story was not as predictable as one might expect. Yes, there were some obvious clichés and it seemed to have been written for a certain age group, rather than being universal. However, the characters were intriguing and the setting was impressive. The author was able to portray the characters in such a way that caused the reader to sympathize with them. I also enjoyed the diversity of the characters. They were all from different planets and were subjected to stereotypes. The plot was written around an captivating concept that not many authors choose to write about. While I usually don't enjoy books that go back and forth between two separate characters, Belleza made it work out okay in the end. I did not enjoy everything about this book, though. It was strange that the two main characters had never really crossed paths in the book, and were both extremely different. The transitions between characters were not very smooth, either. While the readers were able to sympathize with the characters, it is hard to relate to them as their situations are so difficult to compare with real-life situations. At the beginning of the book, it was easy to get lost in the foriegn words of different planets and the odd people of the government. Belleza could have expanded her book much more in order to fully develop the plot, characters, setting, and much more. I look forward to the sequel book she writing.

I would compare this book to a soup. Everything is blended well and the "flavors" mostly go together. There are garnishes that complement the finished product, and the use of "spices" enhances the base flavors. There may be a few parts that are not mixed in well, and a few ingredients that not everyone enjoys "eating" in their "soup". And some people just don't like soup. Some people need more "seasoning" in their soup, and some people need less. It all depends on what the preferences of the person who "eats" it are. Overall, I would guess that most people would "eat" it again. Personally, I would read this book again, and I would give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
If you want to know more about Empress of a Thousand Skies or the author, visit her website at http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2135166/rhoda-belleza

~Erin

The Baby

The Baby
by Lisa Drakeford

The Baby by Lisa Drakeford is a well-written piece about a high school girl and her four friends. She did not know that she was pregnant, and has to give birth in the middle of her best friend's house party. This book gives teens a good glimpse into what their future would look like if anything were to happen to them regarding high school pregnancy. This book uses multiple voices in a shifting point of view in five different sections. The five sections are titled by the characters names to let you know which life you are going to get a peek into.
This book, while it has it's crazy baby plot, the other plots are super cute such as the pursuit for friendship, the pursuit for a partner, and, in some ways, the pursuit for truth. This book could be viewed as a health video in some ways, but compared to it, it's SO much BETTER. Depending on a video, the book is not corny or cheesy, and when it get too intense, you can put it down and pick it up later, and when you pick it up later, read at your own pace. A health video, depending on the video, is cheesy and corny and NOT well written.

If this book were a food, it would be watermelon and feta cheese. The watermelon, which is really yummy but can get everywhere really fast and then start to stick even quicker, is like the main plot with the baby being a serious issue. The feta cheese, which adds flavor to the already good watermelon, is like the mini plots because they are the toppers on the baby plot.

I really have to give this book a five out of five stars and a recommendation for the Teen's Top Ten because of its great execution of describing the teen mom life, and my information is based off of totally awkward health videos. I should mention that the ending should have deducted a fraction of a star because it left a cliffhanger, but it's all the more reason to add, even though it's not possible, another star. It also makes me want Lisa Drakeford to write another one. Oh, I looked her up online and coming up this year is a book called The Crash that I really want to read when it comes out because it looks so amazing, and I love books! If you think that you might love this book as much as I do, check her out at  https://www.chickenhousebooks.com/authors/lisa-drakeford/

             ~Libby

Entangled and the Splintered Trilogy

Ensnared and the Splintered Trilogy
by A.G. Howard

Ensnared is the conclusion to the Splintered series, a series that is, essentially, a spinoff of Alice in Wonderland. I started following this series right after it came out, and it is honestly one of my favorite book series- ever.

Alyssa is a descendant of Alice, and is afflicted by a strange issue- she heard the plants and insects talk to her. Her mom had the same thing, and everyone thinks that she is crazy- but Alyssa finds out differently. On her journey(s), she has to fix Alice's mistakes, defeat an evil queen, and a lot more. This series is packed with adventure, romance, and an incredible plot. This book, Ensnared, is the conclusion to this series.
I, personally, was worried that this series would fall flat on the second book and the third (like so many others have done in the past). However, it surprised me by continuing to be amazing all of the way through; a very rare thing for a trilogy to do. This book was a fantastic conclusion to the trilogy. Without giving too many spoilers, I just have to say that I was scared the love interests would get messed up in the end- but A.G. Howard came up with the perfect conclusion that satisfied this worry without ruining the series for me. I was even more pleased when the romance did not take over the entire plot, because I have always been... well, not the biggest fan of romance. This series has just enough romance to add to the plot, but not too much to make the book focus on it.

This series is simply amazing- one of the best I've read in a long time. I highly suggest it to anyone who may ask (and have done so on numerous occasions). If you are interested in Wonderland, spinoffs of famous tales, romance, or just reading an amazing book, find this one! It is AMAZING!!!

If I was to relate this book to a food, it would be Altoids. "Whaattttt?" is what you are probably thinking right now... here's why Altoids are the perfect food to represent this book; in my house, Altoids are not just an after-meal breath freshener. They are a snack. We can eat a box of Altoids and enjoy it. You can never eat too many, and they taste good no matter what. You don't feel bad after you eat a ton of them either... they are like the infinity snack that you can just. keep. eating. This series is like that- you can keep reading it and never get sick of it. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
For those of you who are like "Cool, I'm in!"or "I want to find out more about this supercool author", you can check her out at http://www.aghoward.com/
If you are someone who is interested in the idea of reading a spinoff of a classic tale, A.G. Howard also recently released a spinoff of The Phantom of the Opera, so if that peaks your interest more than Wonderland, check it out! You can find information on this book, called Roseblood, at the website cited above.

I contributed towards another blog post in 2014 about trilogies that do not get worse in the middle and actually deliver to the reader (I used this trilogy as an example). If you want to read more about this, you can find the post at http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2014/10/27/notes-from-a-teens-top-ten-book-club-book-group-participant-series-that-deliver/#more-11408

Enjoy reading!
         -Lucy

A Thousand Miles to Freedom

By: Eunsun Kim

At eleven years old, Eunsun Kim wrote her will.  She thought we was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it.  Her mother and older sister had left to find food and didn't come back for days.  When she was finally giving up her mother and sister returned -- without a single bite to eat.  The famine in North Korea had already claimed Eunsun's grandparents and father.  Despite the overwhelming belief in their eternal president, Kim Il-Sung, and dear leader, Kim Jong-il, Eunsun's mom decided there was nothing left for them in their North Korean town and they had no choice to but leave.  This started Eunsun's nine year journey to South Korea, despite the risks: imprisonment in a labor camp or death.  Throughout her journey Eunsun and her family live homeless, get caught by North Korean police, fall into the hands of Chinese human traffickers, and eventually make it to South Korea.  However, A Thousand Miles to Freedom, details more than just Eunsun's incredible journey.  It also explains her hopes and dreams for the fall of the Kim regime and a united Korea.  Her dreams for raising awareness of human rights violations come to life in this memoir.  Eunsun's passion and voice are astonishing and beautiful.  She doesn't hide from the truth -- she explains the good and bad of North Korea and South Korea.

This book is soup.  For me, this means a light soup with a touch of citrus and onion with some pork.  the savory words and clean flavor reflect the elegant writing style and beautiful hopes.  The gentle warmth of the soup is the hope, dreams, and honesty of Eunsun Kim that define the message of this book.  This book is a savory dish because it has sustenance and retention.  It provides energy and power without being overwhelming or too sweet.  This book is without a doubt a 5.

Renegade (and Reckoning)

By Kerry Wilkinson

Despite the extreme popularity of the Hunger Games trilogy there were some serious flaws.  This book, Renegade, played into several of them.  One of my biggest problems wight his book was the extraordinary resemblance to Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  In order to fully explain my problems with this book I will be giving away part of the ending.  So there will be SPOILERS. Ok, I'll start at the beginning.  Renegade is the second book in the trilogy.  I read the first one, Reckoning, probably over a year ago.  I found it extremely similar to the Hunger Games when I read it for these reasons.  There is something called the Reckoning where everyone takes basically an aptitude test that nobody really understands how it works.  They get a status as a result of this test: Elite, Member, Inter, or Trog.  That's not the important part though.  Then, there is the Choosing.  It is basically the reaping from the Hunger Games.  A certain number of people are chosen from the North, the South, the West, and the East based on the status they got as part of the Reckoning.  (Just a note, the reckoning is a test that everyone takes when they are 16).  Silver Blackthorne, the main character, gets Member, which is very good for where she's from.  She has a friend, Opie, who she goes out hunting with even though it's illegal.  I'd say that's pretty similar to the Katniss Gale situation. Silver gets chosen as part of the Choosing which means that she has to go as an offering to the King.  King Victor is the king as a result of the war 17 years earlier.  Silver has a little brother, I'll come back to him.  Silver is torn from her mom (her dad's dead, a little like Katniss's), her little brother, and  her friend Opie.  She is brought to the Castle Windsor and makes some friends on the way.  So this all happens in the first book.  She also discovers bad things happen in the castle.  Most offerings die.  She gets them all (as in most of the offerings still alive) to escape after befriending Imrin, a male offering.  Imrin is basically Silver's Peeta.  Imrin is essential to the escape plan.

Ok, onto the second book.  This book is essentially a linking book.  It is bringing together the first and third books.  It doesn't really have a plot of it's own and Silver really doesn't have any character development.  So the Gale/Peeta or Opie/Imrin romance thing happens, which was not done well.  It was more of an annoyance and was never really dealt with in this book.  Silver worries about it but never does anything about it.  If you've read Catching Fire, then you know there is a second Reaping.  Guess what! There is a second choosing in this book and it is made especially to get at Silver, the same way the Quarter Quell reaping was to get at Katniss.  The rules are changed so that Silver's brother is chosen.  And then some more stuff happens and Silver realizes she is being used.  All I have to say is that at least she notices because Katniss didn't catch on this quickly.  Then at the end Silver, Imrin, Opie, and one of the other offerings, Faith, return to Castle Windsor to do some stuff and on the way out Imrin gets caught.  He is still caught at the end of the book.  Basically, the same thing happened to Peeta.  As I said, Imrin is basically Silver's Peeta.  So my prediction is that when she chooses, Silver will choose Imrin because Katniss chose Peeta.  There were more similarities as far as plot and characters go, but those were the most glaring.

You probably assume I didn't like this book because my review isn't exactly praising the book.  But I do have to say that I enjoyed reading it and plan to read the third.  I don't think it was that interesting as a whole, but it held my attention until about the last 100 pages.  Something was almost always happening, which was why I could tolerate it.  Also, the writing was pretty good.  There were some stylistic things I didn't like, but that's just me.  I personally think she uses the word "as" too much but I don't think that's really something to complain about.  As a whole, the writing portrayed what it was supposed too in an interesting way.  There were some places where I would have preferred a little more description, but that was about it.  Overall, the tone and style matched the subject matter and age group the book was targeting.  In general, I also liked the characters and whatever was happening at the moment.  More happened than I explained and what actually happened was interesting enough. It was exciting, if a little predictable, but still enjoyable.

I'd say this book (Renegade, that's the book I'm actually reviewing) is like chicken.  It's a pretty generic flavor and a lot of people say "tastes like chicken" about other things.  That doesn't always means its bad, it's just nothing special.  This book is a 2.5.  Strong in some ways, weak in others.  Enjoyable to read but not super exciting either.

Paper Things

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Normally when books are about elementary school children, they show how stupid some people think these children are.  Even when these characters are supposed to be "smart" the book portrays them as stupid and overly proud of dumb achievements.  This book was different.  Ari, the main character, is a smart, thoughtful fifth grader.  Ari's brother, Gage, is 19 years old and he doesn't get along with their guardian Janna.  Gage decides to move out and Ari moves with him.  Janna was their mother's friend from high school and when both of their mom dies four years previously, their last living parent, they had to move in with Janna.  Gage tells Janna that he has an apartment set up for him and Ari, but it isn't until after they leave that Ari finds out this isn't true.  Ari's mom's dying wish was that Gage and Ari stay together always and that Ari go to Carter Middle School, a competitive school to get into.  Ari is just 11 years old, yet she learns what it is like to be homeless.  However, she never thinks of herself that way because her brother takes good care of her.  Unfortunately, it is hard for her to keep up her grades when she doesn't have a place to do her homework and she doesn't know where she'll have dinner or sleep each night.  Her best friend ditches her, but she makes friends in other surprising places.  She has paper dolls, which she cuts out of magazines, and she takes them everywhere she goes.  She carries around everything with her because she has no home to leave her stuff at.  Her paper dolls, for a while, seem to be the only thing grounding her.  They have a home, so she has a home.  This story was beautifully written, and I'm certain I didn't quite get across what it was about.  It's not a search for a home, but a search for a place to put her home.

What I really loved about this book was how realistic it was.  When she brings up the paper dolls she used to play with with her best friend, Sasha, Sasha starts out thinking about them in a positive way.  And as the reader, I was right there with Ari being proud that she liked them still.  And then Sasha turns around and says "God, we were such dorks."   While Sasha had no intention of hurting Ari, Ari still feels the bite, and I could too because I had already come to appreciate and love her paper things.  Small incidences like this build up the entire book.  Everything was entirely natural and Ari was such a beautiful person.  She was grateful for what she had and always tried to help those around her.  I also really liked Daniel, one of the friends Ari makes during her experiences.  He was such a great person and, like Ari, was believable.  He pushed  her to be brave in ways that she wasn't already and supported her when she needed it even though he had no reason to.

There was one teeny tiny flaw: Sasha's ending.  This might give a little bit away so if you don't want to read it, you can just skip this paragraph.  Sasha is quite mean to Ari.  I just can't believe at the end that Sasha was so willing to go back to Ari without a real apology.  I understand why Ari took her back, it just speaks to how great of a person Ari is.  I just don't like that Sasha didn't take responsibility.  She didn't know what Ari was going through, but she should have been able to see that Ari needed help, and yet she did nothing.  Well, that's not true.  She ditched her and found new more popular friends.  I guess I was sort of justice that Sasha was waitlisted at Carter, especially after she told Ari they would be going to different middle schools (implying at the time Sasha would be going to Carter and Ari would not be).  I think that Sasha should have been a little bit more responsible for what she did.

Also, just a quick note.  What a beautiful cover! I just love it and it matches the simplicity and beauty of the Paper Things in the book.  The paper things's meaning is hard to get across without reading the book, but the cover does a nice job of portraying what they mean.


This book was sort of like french onion soup.  The characters are the crouton on top, that really absorbs the rest of the plot, setting, and writing style.  They pull everything together so that you can take a bite of everything at once.  The combination is rich and almost creamy so that it makes your mouth water, or tears run down your cheeks.  The spices and herbs that help flavor the onions are the small incidences that make up the characters history.  The onions and other main ingredients are the plot and major events that make up Ari.  I would give this book a 4.75 because it was so beautifully written and extraordinarily heart warming.  The warm soup, just like the plot and characters, warms you up from the inside.  Both french onion soup and Paper Things are real treats.  A surprisingly good experience no matter when you take a bite.  I couldn't get everything across in this review, but I could suggest this book to everyone because it isn't a typical realistic fiction book.  I don't want to give away the ending, but Ari's journey is beautiful and comes to a fulfilling conclusion.

Shutter

By Courtney Alameda

Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat, she can see ghosts, and she uses her abilities to hunt ghosts with her friends Oliver, Jude, and Ryder. Micheline is the only heir to the Helsing corporation, a business that goes after the different kinds of ghosts and hunts them down before they can kill anyone. When a ghost hunt goes wrong, Micheline and her friends are infected with a soulchain, a ghostly disease that is slowly killing them from the inside. Now Micheline has to go against her father's wishes in order to save herself and her friends before they all die.

The way this book was written was not what I expected. There was a lot of detail and description and while it did show instead of tell the amount of descriptive words really threw me off of the actual plot that was going on. For instance: "I followed Damian out into the anemic, waning night. Spindly trees lined the wide avenue, shedding the gangrenous leaves of fall." (p 62). Read that sentence. Then read it again. Can someone please explain what that actually means? "anemic, waning night." Is it sick? Most of the book was written as if the author had written it, then edited it while going through a thesaurus and changing words to any synonyms she could find.

Another thing that bothered me about this book was the fact that Micheline's father, Leonard, was abusive. He hit her only once during the story, but it is showed that it was not the first time he had hit her. He also destroyed all of her cameras after a failed ghost hunt, locking her up in the bathroom while doing so. He then proceeded to get drunk and passed out, leaving her locked in the bathroom. While I understand that having an abusive parent can act as a plot point, the way it was written made it seem ok that her father hit her. Micheline managed to sneak out of her house and brushed off the incident as if it was nothing, and at the end of the book, she and her father make up as if nothing happened. While I can understand that having an abusive father is part of her character, I do not understand how the author has the two just make up and be all lovey-dovey at the end. Micheline would not have made it up to her father just like that with no second thoughts, he had abused her! And in the end they just go about like it was nothing.

The fact that Courtney Alameda made up her own mythology for this book was impressive and confusing. Every time there's something new coming in Micheline has to explain it and the amount of names for things and different kinds of hunters got me very confused. It was very impressive that she managed to create basically an entire mythology and incorporate it into a book.
The overall concept of the book was good, it was a good plot idea and there were many sections, especially dialogue-heavy sections, that were good. Some serious editing could really help this book and improve it by a hundred times.

I liked the fact that Alameda did not make a love triangle. With Micheline and Ryder having forbidden love and Jude being the one Micheline was supposed to marry there could have easily been a love triangle, but she did not put that in the book and I am grateful, too many YA novels have love triangles.
However, the other characters could have been more fleshed out. Ryder, Jude, and Oliver are her friends, but we never get an explanation for why they are friends, they don't seem to have much in common other than hunting ghosts. Oliver in particular is a very flat character, his entire character revolves around being the smart one that stays out of fights because he's hurt and everything. Jude is the stereotypical tough guy who can't show his feelings so he sleeps with a bunch of girls instead. And Ryder is the run-of-the-mill forbidden love interest, really strong and manly, the one Micheline really connects with and has feelings for, but she can never have him because she is destined to marry Jude instead. Do you see where I'm going with this? It's a pretty stereotypical friend group, the geek, the brooding one, the jock, and the quirky but lovable girl. It's like the Breakfast Club except the Princess and the Basket Case are melded into one character.

I think this book is like a slightly stale piece of plain bread with some raisins in it. It's not all that new of a concept and some of the tropes are overused, but there are some good aspects to it as well. I would rate it a 2.25.

Hit

By Delilah s. Dawson

Patsy is an indentured servant of the United States government, which has turned into the Valor National government. Valor National was a bank that got the United States out of debt by adding a clause in a credit card application which allows them to demand all the money owed on the spot, have them be killed, or have them be turned into a hit man. Patsy's mother had taken out a huge loan and now Patsy has to either kill ten people in five days or her mother dies.

This book had a good idea, but the way it was executed was a little boring. The entire book focused on Patsy and Wyatt, the son a man she just killed, riding around in a van and killing people. Their relationship was very implausible, considering Patsy killed her father and they met when he was about to get revenge by killing her, and a chapter later they were making out. Overall their relationship was not very fleshed out, and the pretense the book was set in was a little implausible. On one hand, what is the chance that a bank can manage to set up a dictatorship that allows them to take people as assassins, and on the other hand the entire plot hinges on no one saying anything. I find it very hard to believe that people would be dying and getting shot and no one connects the dots and makes a conspiracy theory. Another thing I had a problem with was that there was supposedly a rival bank that was competing with Valor National and both were using the same tactics to get people to kill others, the rival bank was mentioned two or three times in the book, and I get that it's a series and the confusion might be to have the reader want to read the next book but honestly it confused me more than made me interested. One thing I really liked about the book was the dog, Matty, and the dog never dies so I'm very happy about that.

Overall I thought the book was ok, it had a good idea but certain parts took away from it. This book was like bread with butter and a little bit of cinnamon sugar. Good, but not so special that it could be its own meal and similar to other books. I'd give it a 3.25

Bloodwitch

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes


     Vance is a quetzal shapeshifter who lives with the vampires of Midnight in the 19th century.  He has had everything he could want, but when a man visits the vampires and speaks with Vance, his dreamlike life starts to crack as Vance begins to question the actions of his beloved guardians and rulers of Midnight.
     Vance has good conflicts, and even when he starts doubting, the vampires don’t change their characters.  The consistency is nice because it makes it harder for Vance and easier for the reader to understand him.  I did not like Vance as a character, though, and I felt that a lot of his thoughts and doubts were forced.  He would arrive at a state of mind suddenly and then sit there for a while instead of gradually coming to realizations, and, given what happened to him throughout the book, I’m not sure Vance really would have gotten to where he ended up mentally at the end.
     The world it is set in is well developed with indications of other countries and the depth of an entire world, not just the city it takes place in.  The relations between the different types of shapeshifters are interesting, as are the different talents they all have.  The characters represented different types of thought to make Vance think about what was best and what needed to be fixed.
     This is a 4.2.  There was a good plot, solid writing, and I liked all the characters except for Vance.  It is a soft, dense cookie, with nothing in it to interrupt the texture.  Things happened as expected without much surprise.  It is not large, but it is filling and afterwards, you feel satisfied with what you’ve eaten.

Curses and Smoke

by Vicky Alvear Shecter

   Set in Pompeii just before the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Lucia is about to be married off to a much older man so her father can get money for his gladiator school.  Just weeks before the impending marriage, however, Tag, one of her father’s slaves, returns from Rome where he had been studying medicine so he could heal hurt gladiators, and an old friendship rekindles between them.  The relationship blossoms into something more, but both Lucia and Tag know it wouldn’t be able to cross their class difference even if Lucia weren’t already engaged to someone else.
     I liked the story and found that I was engaged in the characters and the story and wanted to know what would happen even without the element of Mt. Vesuvius adding the sense of impending doom.  Although I’m not an expert in Ancient Rome, from what I’ve read of other reviews, the book is historically accurate and should appeal to those interested in historical fiction.
     Tag was a good counter viewpoint to Lucia.  Lucia was somewhat ignorant and probably would have come off as whiney if the reader were not also given the other side of the story to balance it out.  Tag could point out her mistaken assumptions and he broke many of her beliefs about her father that were fairly clear to the reader as wrong.
     This is a 3.8.  I liked the story right up until the end.  I won’t give details because it’s the end, but I felt cheated and it wasn’t what I wanted at all.  But the writing and story were good and the setting was made well.  It is whipped cream.  It’s tastes good as you’re eating it, but when you’re done, it has dissolved away without leaving much

The Twyning

by Terence Blacker


     Efren is a rat living in the rat kingdom in the sewers.  When the king dies and new leaders are selected, they decide that humans are a bigger threat than they had previously believed and they decide to wage war.  Meanwhile, a human doctor who has been studying the rats decides that they are one of the biggest threats to humans, and he rallies the people of the city to attack the rats.  Then Efren and some human children meet, and both types of animals have to decide which side deserves their victory.
     Efren was a likable character.  He noticed that he had differences, but he accepted them and still tried to serve his kingdom as best he could.  The children, Dogboy and Caz, both have interesting back stories and conflicts that they have to deal with.  Out of all the characters, only Efren, Dogboy, Caz, and two others really try to understand anything about the other species.  This helps flesh them out, but the whole war between rats and humans seemed blown a little out of proportion.  If you accepted it as it was though, it was a pretty good story.
     The pacing was often off for me.  There were a lot of parts that should have taken a while but passed by fairly quickly and parts that should have gone faster that took a long time.  The individual scenes were alright; it was the overall passage of time that wasn’t quite right.
     This is a 3.2.  I liked the rats and their kingdom and the two children.  I didn’t like most of the other characters and parts of it dragged, but I did like the story as a whole.  It is like store-bought chicken pot pie.  It’s not store-bought because it feels generic but because it didn’t have the warm, savory, homey feel about it.  There are some things in the pie that you like and some that you don’t, but mixed up all together, it’s still pretty good.

Whisper

by Chris Stuyk-Bonn

     Whisper has lived in the woods ever since she was abandoned as an infant because of a disfigured mouth.  In her society, disfigurations are frowned upon, so she instead lives with a few others who were also abandoned and taken in by a man named Nathaniel.  The beginning is very expository because Whisper doesn’t talk much, and when she does, she whispers - hence her name - and the book takes a while for the book to get going.

     After Whisper is taken away by the father who abandoned her then moved again to the city and forced to work to give her father money, the story picks up.  Whisper meets other characters who also have disfigurations and learns how to live with her own and use the talents she has to make a living.  I enjoyed the middle when Whisper was growing as a character and learning new things and the story was developing.  However, partway through, a doctor offered to fix Whisper’s disfiguration, and while this was probably supposed to make Whisper struggle with her identity and how much her disfiguration felt a part of her, I felt as though it undermined the premise.  Their society was advanced enough to be able to identify her disfiguration - a cleft palate - and the doctor has fixed many of them before, but they still treat those with any sort of disfiguration as evil and abandon their infants in the woods.  When the book started, I thought that there was almost no technology and they all believed in magic, but that’s not the case.  They call Whisper a devil, but that’s the only time anyone seems to believe that there’s anything supernatural in the world.

     This is a 2.7.  The writing sometimes got really wordy and I didn’t like the world it was set in.  The world could have been fleshed out some more, but I did like the middle and the development that happened there.  This is like a cream puff with really good cream inside but with the outer dough somewhat lacking.

Unforgotten

by Jessica Brody

     This is the second book in the Unremembered trilogy, although I have not read the first one.  I still felt like I knew what was going on, though, and Unforgotten stands pretty well on its own.  It started out strongly, with Seraphina and Zen living in 1609.  Due to a technological advancement in the nearish future, both Seraphina and Zen have a gene that allows them to travel through time.  Seraphina was created by a company called Diotech, so she has enhanced physical abilities.  In the previous book, she had escaped from Diotech, and they now desperately want her back, so she is careful not leave any trace of her identity that Diotech would be able to use to find her.
     The time travel aspect was done well, although I wish some parts of it had been explored a little more.  I also liked the main plot.  It was engaging, interesting, and gave you enough information without giving too much away.  The climax and resolve, however, were really unsatisfying.  It took away from a lot of the rest of the book and I felt cheated at the end.
    This is a 2.2.  The overall writing style is good, and Seraphina and Zen were likable enough, but it was like eating a good sandwich and most of the way through discovering that there’s a worm poking out (the book was not bad enough for you to have bitten the worm - just see it).  The whole experience is ruined because of that little worm, and the worm signifies the end of the experience.

Just Myrto

by Laurie Gray

     Myrto is the second wife of Socrates.  Historians disagree on whether or not Myrto existed because Plato never mentioned her, although others from that time period did, but this book assumes she did.  Myrto has no dowry, so she is married to Socrates, who takes her gladly.  At first, Myrto is hesitant about the relationship.  Socrates is much older than her, and his first wife, Xanthippe, is quick to anger and terrifies Myrto.  In order to avoid Xanthippe, Myrto goes into town everyday with Socrates and learns with his pupils.  Through these lessons, Myrto’s relationship with Socrates and his son grows.
     This was a peaceful book.  Nothing much happened as Myrto discovered herself and found her place in the world.  The way she questioned everything did begin to grate on me, but I think that style of thinking was part of the point of the book.  The writing was clear, but the characters were a bit undeveloped.
     This is a 2.8.  Not a fantastic book, but not terrible.  It’s good for people who like historical fiction and simple pondering.  It manages to skim over the repetitive days at a good pace and introduce some of the lifestyle of Ancient Greece.  It’s like a cracker.  It’s a little dry, but pretty good.  Kind of plain, but still enjoyable, and there are people who really like crackers and would really enjoy this book.

The Killing Woods

by Lucy Christopher

     One day, Emily Shepherd’s father, an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD, stumbles out of the woods carrying the dead body of Ashlee Parker, a girl from Emily’s school.  Emily’s father pleads guilty of manslaughter, saying he was enacting one of his flashbacks from battle, but Emily is convinced that he didn’t murder Ashlee.  The story is told in the alternate viewpoints of Emily and Damon, Ashlee’s boyfriend.
   Sadly, there wasn’t much I liked about this book.  I didn’t really like the writing style, especially Damon’s voice.  I didn’t like Damon much at all.  He thinks like he’s trying to be a tough guy in his head, and his attitude changed significantly as a character depending on whether the reader was in his head or viewing him as Emily.  Emily was fairly decent as a character, and she had reasonable doubts about her father and dealt with the difficulties of being viewed as the daughter of a murderer in a reasonable way.  However, she also felt superfluous.  I don’t think much of anything would be lost if her chapters were cut out entirely.
     My main problem with the book was that it hinged on Damon waiting to remember what happened the night Ashlee died because he had been drunk and high.  He and his friends had been in the woods that night playing the Game, but they lied to the cops, saying nobody else had been in the woods, making everyone even more sure that the murderer really is Emily’s father.  I’m still not entirely sure exactly what the Game is.  Something that involves running around the woods with collars and fighting each other.  That really could have used some explanation and made the book a lot more disconcerting than it needed to be.
     This is a 1.6.  I didn’t like Damon, I didn’t like the plot, and I didn’t like the writing style.  There was too much waiting as I read.  It was not, however, as bad as some other books I’ve read.  It’s flavored water because it tastes artificial and a little overpowering in the wrong way.  Plain water would satisfy your thirst better.

Cold Calls

By: Charles Benoit

Three teenagers get mysterious phone calls.  There is no phone number and no trace of the call.  The call requires that each Eric, Shelly, and Fatima bully a specific person in a specific way on a specific day.  They are all supposed to call each victim names, bump into them in the hallway, and finish it off by pouring mac and cheese onto the victim's head, video it, and post it on Youtube.  If Eric, Shelly, and Fatima don't do what the caller demands then the caller will reveal a big secret about each one of them to everyone they know.  At first, these high schoolers don't know each other, but they meet when they are all sent to the same bullying program.  For the remainder of the book Eric, Shelly, and Fatima work together to find out who the mysterious caller is and how to get the caller to stop.

I was surprised by this book.  To me, the plot seemed sort of dumb.  Why would I want to read a book about some teenagers that are getting blackmailed into bullying someone?  It really did not sound interesting.  That being said, that isn't exactly what the book is about.  Most of the book focuses on Eric, Shelly, and Fatima figuring out how to catch the caller and the backstory of each character.  I was also surprised by the depth of the characters.  They were surprisingly realistic.  The motives were also very fitting for each character.  The motives seemed to build the character, not just take from it.  Overall, this book was pretty good.  It did lack some excitement and was slow from time to time, but other than that, the book was interesting.  The one thing I found the book lacked was a realistic antagonist.  The motive behind the "cold calls" was underwhelming.  The ending of the book also seemed a little clipped and unclear.  However, what I found to be unclear I don't think was intentionally ambiguous.  I just thought the writing confusing at the end.  This book was like broccoli -- pretty tasty but could have been better.  It had a good flavor but not one I would call excellent.   This book was a 2.25

There Will Be Bears

by Ryan Gebhart

   Tyson is thirteen, and he is going through something of a social crisis when the book starts.  His best friend, Bright, is gravitating towards a new group, and Tyson is struggling in several of his classes.  Instead, he spends time with his grandfather, who has promised to take him hunting, and Tyson can’t wait.
     Tyson loves bears.  A lot.  It’s almost all he thinks about and most of what he talks about, which got pretty tiresome.  There was basically nothing else to Tyson’s character except his crush on a girl from Texas, who also happens to really like hunting.  Tyson barely tells her a single true thing in all of his conversation with her.  His desire to go hunting led him down a questionable decision making path.  When his parents decided he couldn’t go hunting with his grandfather because his grandfather was sick and needed special care most days, he decided to sneak his grandfather out of the nursing home and out into the wilderness to shoot an elk.  Oh, and there’s a loose grizzly bear wandering around the one area they decide to go to that has been eating people.  But they had to go to that spot to shoot an elk.
     Most of the characters didn’t have a sense of characters.  They existed in an abstract way and did stuff, but they each had one personality trait if they were lucky.  The writing was straightforward and to the point, which normally doesn’t bother me, but it seemed really blunt here.  There was also slang, which just about always bothers me.  I don’t want to read about what people ain’t going to do, and nobody calls a grizzly bear a grizz (although I guess I shouldn’t say nobody - clearly Tyson does).  The tone of the book is similar to that of the cover.
     This is a 1.4.  It did amuse me quite a bit, just because of some of the ridiculous things that got written.  Other than that, the best thing about it was that it was short and I knew the end was coming.  If it was longer, I probably wouldn’t have finished it.  This is like eating the leaves of a carrot.  It’s something probably best left uneaten, doesn’t taste very good, but once you’ve taken a bite, it’s not so disgusting that it necessitates being spit out.  It might be a good book if you think the cover is really great, or if you also really like bears and hunting.

I Become Shadow

by Joe Shine


     Ren Sharpe is living a normal life.  She just started high school and she’s working hard to fit in with the other kids.  Then she gets kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to a secret facility owned by F.A.T.E. that trains bodyguards.  There’s a satellite that takes pictures fifty years in the future, and it took a picture of her gravestone, indicating she only lived to be fourteen, so they took her for their program.  They also know who is important in fifty years, and it’s their job to protect the world changers.  This is an interesting idea, but I didn’t understand why it was necessary.  If they know the future, wouldn’t they know the world changers aren’t going to be dead?
     After four years of intense training, Ren is assigned to Gareth Young, a student at the University of Texas.  She’s not allowed to actually contact him, but she does.  After all, she’s a student there too, as cover - and all her grades are fixed, so she doesn’t actually have to do any of the work.  They start falling in love, even though Ren still likes someone from her training and is keeping in touch with him.
     This is where things start going downhill.  People attack Gareth, and now Ren can use her training.  I just have no idea why people attacked him.  The explanations were so full of conspiracy theories that I have no idea what was going on for pretty much the second half of the book.  Ren runs around with Gareth, other people run after them, people from F.A.T.E. show up, and that’s about what I understood.  The underlying plot was lost on me.
     Ren’s internal dialogue was a bit different.  I didn’t find it particularly better or worse than the standard, just kind of different.  It worked well with her character, a carefree, think-of-me-what-you-will sort.
     This is a 2.7.  The premise, while interesting, did raise some questions that weren’t addressed at all.  If I were kidnapped and forced to be a bodyguard, I would at least wonder why they didn’t bother try to save me if they knew I was going to die.  I also didn’t really like Ren’s relationship with Gareth, and I didn’t like Gareth that much.  And there was that whole second half that was just confusing.  This is like chewing gum.  At first, there’s some flavor and enough to keep it interesting, but then the flavor goes away and you’re left wondering why you’re chewing a tasteless chewy thing and making your jaw tired.

Returning to Shore

by Corinne Demas


     This is a story about a girl whose mother just got married for the third time, so she is sent to spend the summer with her father while her mother is on her honeymoon.  Her father lives on a small island along Cape Cod and is determined to save a local species of turtles.  Although at first Clare is hesitant and slightly uncomfortable around her father, who she hasn’t seen since she was very small, they grow to like each other by the end.
     Though not particularly fast paced, Clare manages to have enough activity to keep the reader engaged.  It’s a fairly short book, so I didn’t really expect much to happen.  Clare herself is a pretty realistic character.  Her emotions and reactions were fleshed out and they were what I would expect a girl in her situation to feel.  The other characters, however, were lacking.  They were there more for Clare to react to and seemed very flat and more like names floating around the page than actual people.  Even the father, who was a major part of Clare’s internal development, left a lot to be desired.  I wish the book had been a little longer and the other characters and their relationships with Clare had been developed more.  It would have made the book much more poignant, but instead, it was more of a flat read.
     The back cover description hints at a lot more development than was actually in the book.  There was a bunch of personal development for Clare, but the other subplots - the memory lane, her father being the town crazy - hinted at on the back cover are more like caricatures of what’s in the book.  The cover is also more bleak than the story deserves.  It’s serene, but not depressingly so like the cover indicates.  Imagine a blue sky and the girl looking towards the horizon instead of towards the ground.
     It is a 2.85.  It’s not something I would devour, and not something I would reread (though some might, depending on the type of book you like), but it was nice in a quiet, serene sort of way, and I think that some of Clare’s realizations were done really skillfully.  It is a piece of cheese.  Something to be eaten slowly in a relaxed way, but also something that is over pretty quickly.  It is soft, and it’s not a sharp tasting sort of cheese, but a mellow one that you enjoy while it’s there and appreciate what it gives you even though it’s not very filling.