Get Lost in Literature

' "Just trust me, Nina." "I wouldn't trust you to tie my shoes without stealing the laces, Kaz." ' This gritty fantasy opens with the introduction of six quirky characters. Kaz Brekker, only seventeen years old, is a hardened career criminal in a street gang known as the Dreggs. Jesper is an ex-farmboy turned sharpshooter with a gambling addiction. Inej, aka The Wraith, is indentured to the Dreggs but finds she has a talent for criminality; she's dangerous, fearless. She's the thief of secrets. Wylan was born to privilege and ran from it; he went from being a wealthy merchant's son, to being a demolitions expert for Kaz's gang. Matthias, Kaz's opposite; run by what he considers to be a moral high ground, is a soldier trained to hunt down witches and was convicted on false charges. And then there's Nina, a witch, or Grisha, who put Matthias in prison and is desperate to correct that wrong. These six teenagers hardened by their own ...

  "As I feel my way through the kitchen to the stairs... I realize there's one good thing about the dark. In the dark I can't see myself." Kasey LeBlanc, Flyboy Asher is a closeted trans boy who goes to sleep every night dreaming of a circus, where he is himself for the first time. By day, he lives his worst nightmare: Catholic School. Then one night, he's transported to his fantasy world, where dreams and reality begin to blend. I was skeptical during the prologue. I was promised a story that was similar to  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern , but the prologue wasn't just comparable, it was downright derivative. The circus is even named, " The Midnight Circus. " Which, to be fair, it probably is hard to name a circus that comes only at night... But then the story morphs into its own. Asher lives with his mom, a nurse who is almost never home, and cared for by his ridiculously old-fashioned and super controlling grandparents. Grandparents who drag...

  "All the best plans are a bit risky..." Gulo the Savage, ruler of his homeland in the hard and cold North, is searching for a relic known as the Walking Stone, which has been stolen by his brother Askor. The titular character Rakkety Tam and his best friend Wild Doogy Plum are given the task of bringing the stolen royal banner home to the King and Queen in exchange for their freedom. Meanwhile in Redwall Abbey, Sister Armel has had a vision of long dead Martin the Warrior, who tells her to take his sword and deliver it to Tam, who in turn vows to protect the Abbey from those who would threaten it. When I was young, I thought the Novels of Redwall were some of the best advanced-reader children's novels on the market. They have all the hallmarks of a good children's novel. Always including poetry, songs and riddles, Brian Jacques was the master of rhyme. The characters are all talking animals, stereotypically cast again and again in predictable roles: we know mice, s...

"For a long time there is only darkness and the sound of distant thunder and the hazy sensation of falling." And so we finally have it, the last book in Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, The Desolations of Devil's Acre . The war between good and evil has come to Peculiardom with Jacob and Noor at its center. The last couple of books in the series, I reviewed negatively. I mean, come on, you have to know where you're going to get there, and the books aimlessly waffled. In this book, Ransom Riggs knows exactly where he's going, and he showed me the way with the quirky characters I've come to love and expect. This was an action-packed, fast-paced finale, with stakes that have never been higher for the cast of peculiars. There's a moment near the end, where the characters are losing hope of victory and then - plot twist. The plot twist makes Jacob's seemingly useless relationship with Noor have a use, and makes me think Mr. Riggs knew what he...

“Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same.” ― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies In this futuristic world, there are Uglies and there are Pretties. Main character, Tally is an Ugly, who can't wait for her sixteenth birthday, that magical birthday when all newly 16-year-olds get to undergo plastic surgery to become a Pretty. Once Pretty, she gets to go to New Prettytown, where a Pretty's only job is to have fun. Everything looks like it's going to go according to Tally's plan, until her friend Shay, decides to run away rather than become pretty...And Tally is given the task of tracking her down and bringing her back to civilization. I didn't love this book from start to finish, but some parts were definitely more lovable than others. At first, the story was hard to get into: Even though the story is told by Tally, who is almost sixteen, her voice seemed to belong to someone much younger than a teenager approaching adulthood. In ...

  The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness   "That's the thing I'm learning about being thrown out on your own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don't change it, it don't get changed." Todd Hewwit knows a lot of things: he knows a group of settlers left the Old World for the New World, to live a simpler existence away from the evils of society. He knows there was a war between the native people, The Spackles, and the humans. He knows The Spackles used Germ Warfare; releasing bugs that turned the internal monologues of men into never ending Noise, while killing off all the women, and giving animals the power to speak. He knows The Spackles were eventually defeated, leaving Prentisstown the only surviving settlement. Todd, the youngest member of Prentisstown, is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his thirteenth birthday, where he will officially be considered a man. But when Todd and his dog Manchee discover a hole in the Noise, he learns...

"All his work of the past three days had led to this moment. He took a last steadying breath and -- an explosion shattered the night." Eragon by Christopher Paolini   Eragon, a poor farm boy from Carvahall, finds a beautiful blue gem while out hunting in the mountains near his home. His intention is to sell it at market, but the gem hatches, revealing a baby dragon. Literally overnight, his life is changed forever as he becomes one of the mythical Dragon Riders. This is a young adult novel, written by a young adult, and as such reads like a young adult novel, and the reader shouldn't expect it to read any other way. And because I read it when I was roughly the same age as CP when he started writing it, it wound up holding a special place in my heart. My original rating of it, was as a five star novel, but this time around I dropped it down to a four. It's real reason for dropping down to a four star rating though is CP's overuse of over used fantasy character ster...

"Right now we were hunting the wights, but if they ever realized it, they'd start hunting us right back." The Conference of the Birds by Ransom Riggs The plot of this story isn't that spectacular. Jacob rescues Noor and helps her look for the mysterious V, with the usual fights with hollows and wights mixed in. Oh yeah, let's not forget the love at first sight teen romance that's about to unfold. That's pretty much it. I'm not sure that this plot offered enough, I certainly expected more from it. The previous stories have been so successful with Jacob and his friends, I didn't understand the sudden teen romance that pushed all these other great characters into the background.  With every book the photos are fewer and fewer, so if pictures are what you're after, don't depend on it. That's fine by me, because with every book the author is pulling more and more from imagination, and I'll give credit where it's due: he's got ple...

"...his next attack is brutal and swift and brings me to the ground. I taste blood and dirt on my tongue." - A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer So this is on the list of reviews that isn't really my best work. But Cursebreakers is reading material heavy on entertainment but light on substance, and my reviews tend to mirror the book.   In the first book, we followed Harper and Rhen on their fairytale romance. In the sequel, the story swaps between the perspectives of Grey, the used to be Commander of the Royal Guard and Not Quite Princess Lia Mara who wants to bring peace to two warring countries.  I feel a little irritated by the character developments that had to occur for this story to take place. In the first book, Harper was a fighter and in this one the fight went bye-bye. Rhen became crueler and more defensive, aggresive. But ultimately A Heart so Fierce and Broken was not their story...  The fairytale is gone.  Grey is in hiding as a means to p...

  "We're Miss Peregrine's peculiar children," said Bronwyn. "You know what," said Enoch. "That doesn't sound quite right anymore." You've got that right, Enoch. When I reviewed Library of Souls , I opened with the words, "The final installment of Miss Peregrine's, was a surplus of ebb and flow..." I felt like book 3 was comparatively lacking the magic and intrigue of the first two books, and neither book 3 or 2 had the charm of the first novel. It was the final installment and a part of me was relieved to have an ending... Quite obviously, Ransom Riggs wasn't ready to let go because the story continues on. (I know, I know, no one is making me read it.) Book 4 came as a surprise to me, not just because it exists when it shouldn't, but because I almost wish the book had been marketed as a new series for the same characters. Jacob and the Peculiars' original story arc is complete and this is something new. Long at la...

“It had become one of the defining truths of my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound inside books. It was never just a story. I would know: a story had swallowed my whole life.” The "final installment" of Miss Peregrine's was a surplus of ebb and flow. There were moments of high anxiety action and moments that dragged sleepily onward. The photographs were fewer and less quirky than in the previous two books, and when they appeared, the dialogue had to go out of its way to include the photos. This book probably could have been improved upon by removing the photos and all descriptions of them. Jacob and Emma are racing against time to save all their friends, the ymbrynes, and all of Peculiardom... But the story of Jacob and Emma, heroes of a children's book, seemed at odds with the story of Jacob and Emma the-mutant-teenage-couple. Ransom couldn't r...

“Four hundred billion suns spiraling through space together. Our solar system just one grain on that galactic carousel. The carousel itself a speck in the cosmos. And here I am in this small clearing, on the surface of the earth, as transient and unnoticed to the universe as the dry blades of grass that are poking into my shirt.”  This is the story of Sol. Who lives in a world where modern civilization has been divided into Night-dwellers (Smudges) and Day-dwellers (Rays). When I started this book, I admit I had something like Twilight in mind. I had a stressful week, and I wanted some light hearted, young adult nonsense, that oozed happiness from beginning to end. This did not ooze happiness, it oozed desperation. And I couldn't make myself stop reading it, because I was equally desperate to know what happened next.  Sol, a Smudge, is about to be left alone in the world. Her brother Ciel was reassigned to Day, she has no parents, and the grandfather who raised her is d...

"To Harry Potter -- the boy who lived!" Strange things are happening in the suburbs of England, all over town, all over the countryside, when Harry Potter is left on the doorstep of his Uncle's house. Harry Potter is lone survivor of a murder plot, left in the care of relatives, to live out his childhood in relative normalcy. On his eleventh birthday, letters start arriving, inviting him to enroll in an unusual school... Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I have long regarded this story one of the best pieces of children's literature to come out of the 90's, I think my grandkids will be reading it, and I think someday it will be taught in schools.  It has the themes we've been brought up to expect in children's lit: made up words to add an air of silliness, a few funny rhymes, a child from a broken home who wants to do what is right. (See my late night ramblings on OrphanLit  Here ) Additionally, the story adheres to the rules set down for f...

Young Adult Fiction, is fiction written and/or marketed to adolescent readers, between the ages of 12-18 -- although advanced readers may have been reading these well before 12. For me, Young Adult maybe the most important literary category; while picture books introduce us to words, introduce us to morals, its not until YA that we really start to understand how powerful words are and what you can do with them. And what we read in that formative, angst-filled, and confusing time period can shape how we view the world.  The Sight by David Clement-Davies, is probably the first book I put my hands on after I ventured bravely from the children's section at my local library. I couldn't have been 10 yet. It was a shock to my system, this fantasy world where wolves waged a war of good versus evil, nurture and nature. Where an evil she-wolf wants to enslave her species to create an army to overthrow man...and the wolf pack that will fight for freedom. I just enjoyed the ride, b...

Hollow City (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #2) by Ransom Riggs “I had come to the island to solve my grandfather’s mystery, and in doing so I had discovered my own.” Hollow City picks up right where the first novel ended. Jacob and his peculiar friends are trying to take rowboats across the sea to the mainland, having just survived an attack by wights. Their time loop has collapsed and Jacob is stuck in 1940 until a ymbryne can send him back home. Miss Peregrine can’t do it; she’s sick, stuck in bird form, and if they can’t find another ymbryne soon, she will be lost to them forever. So Jacob must help the peculiars evade capture while trying to find the last free ymbryne. This book has inspired me to invent a new adjective: creepadore -- when a thing is creepy and adorable at the same time. As in, “This book is so creepadore!” LOL. As with the first book, this story pits the expected innocence of YA child-heroes against the horror of unseen evil forces and comb...

Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking #3)  by Patrick Ness "He is worse than the others, I show. He is worst of all of them. Because-- The rest are worth as much as their pack animals, I show, but worst is the one who knows better and does nothing." Spoiler Alert. Patrick Ness is a bastard. Just so you know ahead of time, there will be no mercy. Book 3 began exactly where Book 2 left off: The army of New Prentisstown is at war with the army of The Answer and Mayor President Prentiss is talking his way out of being overthrown by Todd. The Spackle forces are attacking and Viola's racing to intercept her incoming scout ship before Mistress Coyle can get there. The story once again expands by adding yet another point of view, that of 1017. 1017 is essentially the one that got away... and proceeds to plot vengeance. He was a Spackle slave in New Haven, who watched his one in particular,  die to keep him safe. Forced to work under Prentiss's command and brand...

The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking #2)  by Patrick Ness ***Spoiler Alert*** If you haven't read Book 1 and hate spoilers, do not read this review!  There is absolutely no way to review Book 2 without mentioning the events and characters in Book 1. If you really want to know: Read on. ---------- “We are the choices we make. And have to make. We aren’t anything else.”  The Ask and the Answer is a little bit different than The Knife of Never Letting Go...The story pretty much starts where The Knife's cliffy lets us hanging... Viola's life hanging in the balance and Todd facing down evil Mayor Prentiss with no hope in sight. But in part 2 of Chaos Walking, Viola and Todd become separated, and so the story is told from two perspectives. His and hers. Through Todd we learn Haven surrendered to Mayor Prentiss, who then changed Haven's name to New Prentisstown and declared himself President of the New World. Mayor Prentiss is a sick tw...

The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1)  by Patrick Ness  "That's the thing I'm learning about being thrown out on your own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don't change it, it don't get changed." Todd Hewwit knows a lot of things: he knows a group of settlers left the Old World for the New World, to live a simpler existence away from the evils of society. He knows there was a war between the native people, The Spackles, and the humans. He knows The Spackles used Germ Warfare; releasing bugs that turned the internal monologues of men into never ending Noise, while killing off all the women, and giving animals the power to speak. He knows The Spackles were eventually defeated, leaving Prentisstown the only surviving settlement. Todd, the youngest member of Prentisstown, is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his thirteenth birthday, where he will officially be considered a man. But when Todd and his dog Manchee discover a hole in the Nois...

"I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me." Death has a story to tell about something that happened in 1939 Nazi Germany. A story about newly orphaned Liesel Meminger and her new foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann. A story about Rudy Steiner, the boy who wants to steal a kiss from her, and Max Vandenburg, the Jew who lives in her basement. This is one of those books that exceeds expectations by such a degree, I'm left awestruck. This is not what I expected from a book labeled YA. The language in this book is simple yes, which I suppose is for the benefit of the Young Adult, and about a child growing up in Nazi Germany, but the story is complex enough for the Old Adult, with a pile of emotional triggers ( code for I cried...a lot ). The story itself, is narrated by Death. That Death would take notice of anything besides ferrying souls between worlds, lends the ha...

“They were orphans of war, washed up on that little island in a tide of blood. What made them amazing wasn't that they had miraculous powers; that they had escaped the ghettos and gas chambers was miracle enough.” ― Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs Jacob Portman grew up on his grandfather's stories. Stories of surviving World War 2 by escaping to a mysterious island off the coast of Wales where he met all sorts of peculiar children with special abilities. At sixteen, Jacob hasn't believed the stories in a long time, but that's about to change when his grandfather is murdered by a monster. Now everyone thinks Jacob is losing his mind and his only chance at proving them wrong is to go in search of the boarding school where the the students are most peculiar. As far as concepts go, I thought Ransom Riggs executed his beautifully. Picking out a selection of haunting photographs, to accompany a brave selection of haunted "peculiar...