Book Reviews

A is for Älvor by Laura Bingham

/ Lisa Asanuma / Leave a comment

Today is the first day of the monstrous A-Z blogfest, and it just happens that today I finished a book that starts with the letter A, so here we go!

Älvor is the story of Erin and Bain, twin siblings who discover a mystical cabin in the woods near their home. After a little investigation, and a few interesting encounters, they learn that they are to train to become alvs, or elves. After training, they are inducted into a magical world and a whole new community, but they aren’t there long before Bain goes off on his own, and it’s up to Erin to track him down.

This book has some great aspects to it: I could certainly see everything that was going on, and in a fantasy novel, that’s not always true with me. Secondly, aspects of it were quite original, or at least turned on their head in an interesting way. Erin and Bain were both interesting characters, and most people could probably relate to one or the other of them.

That said, there are a lot of things here that could have used some more work. In fact, something that kept running through my mind as I was reading was how I’ve heard a lot of agents and authors say that in order to get published, you should write a whole novel from beginning to end, then put it in a drawer and write a new one, and likely the second one will be better, because you’ve learned the process already and aren’t grasping around for it like you do in your first. Then sell that book. And then, if you want to, go back to the first novel and fix it up and work on it again.

Obviously that isn’t true for all writers, but I felt like maybe Älvor could have benefited by this advice, or at least from a few more beta readers. There were a lot of places that just didn’t quite hit the mark like they should have, or more to the point, could have. This book had a lot of potential, but I feel it was underwritten. There was a lot of telling rather than showing, a lot of info-dumping that could have been related through actually going through the scenes, instead of summing them up later, and in general it felt a little rushed, like the author was taking the easy route and handing ability over to her characters, instead of having them earn it.

My main concern with the novel, though, are Erin and Bain themselves. They were meant to be fifteen years old, turning sixteen in the course of the novel, but they were written much younger, to where I was imagining them being twelve or thirteen, at most. Once in a while a comment would be thrown in that reflected the ages they were supposed to be, and I was completely jarred out of the story for a second. I had two versions of Erin and Bain in my head—the younger ones, who read like their own age, and the older versions, who I forced my imagination to come up with.

I was also a little disappointed with the kids themselves. Erin had the potential to become quite the hero in this story, but instead she spends a whole month being heartbroken and feeling like she’s nothing because her brother left her—this is as bad as Bella going catatonic just because her boyfriend broke up with her. Not the best message to send to kids. I wanted Erin to realize that she could be her own person and that she could save Bain because he needed to be saved, but instead she wasn’t even particularly worried about her brother—just selfishly wanted him back, as she says herself.

I… don’t know what to do with that. I can’t understand anyone losing all contact with a close family member for an entire month or more without worrying even a little bit what might have happened to them. Even when Erin does move forward with looking for her brother, also, 95% of it is done by others and handed to her. She falls for another elf named Joel that becomes her friend, when really all we get about him that’s anything at all attractive is—that he’s attractive. In their first encounter Erin is bored with him, and there’s nothing to talk about until she admits she wants to find Bain—then that is all they talk about. Suddenly Erin is blushing around him and being self-conscious, but why would she, if they have nothing in common, something she also said herself?

Joel is helpful, though, certainly. He knows the ins and outs of the elf world, and is able to like I said, hand information to Erin on a plate. Joel doesn’t even do most of the work himself, there are mysterious, amorphous groups of techie elves that belong to the community that do the work for them.

Really, I think this book played it safe in a lot of ways, ways that robbed the book of being as strong as it could be. Middle-grade readers would probably enjoy the book, but I didn’t very much. The sequel comes out in just a few days, but I don’t know that I’ll be going to track it down… still, I wish the author the very best.

Review: The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman

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The Dark Hills Divide is a middle grade book about a girl named Alexa who lives in a world (city, really) encased by very high walls. All her life, Alexa has looked for ways outside of the walls, and finally she finds one.

I can already tell you that this won’t rank among my favorite reads for 2011. Actually, I’ve been reading this book for a long time. Put it down a lot, lost it a few times, got distracted with getting married last year, etc. Even so, I remained intrigued enough to keep truckin’ through the book.

It was extremely predictable. Now, to be fair, this is a middle-grade book. That said, I felt like all of Alexa’s little discoveries were made a little too conveniently. The one character whose flip was supposed to surprise you didn’t at all, and the one whose was supposed to be galling wasn’t—because we had no emotional tie to him.

Really the biggest problem I have with this book, though, is that I feel as though it may have shot itself in the foot so far as potential goes. There are several more books in the series, and I own three more of them myself, so I’ll keep reading, hoping that the magic that disappears in this book comes back at some point, but the fact that there was no reason for the magic to go away in the first place frustrates me.

The writing was alright, though, and like I said, I’ll keep reading the books. I’m intrigued by this world, and I like Alexa, which is always a plus.

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

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Scott Westerfeld created a rich and lush steampunk alternate WWI history in Leviathan, which was one of my favorite reads of last year. The sequel, Behemoth, did not disappoint in the slightest.

I cannot express enough how complete the world-building is in this series. Westerfeld clearly knows just how history played out and just how he wanted to diverge for the sake of story.

Besides that, he is a master at putting his characters in just the right place to move the story forward, something that speaks to his experience as an author. I’ve never read any of Westerfeld’s other books, but I really look forward to the experience.

The story ranges between two main characters, Alek, who may well be the heir to the Austrian throne, and a girl named Deryn, who is disguised as the boy “Dylan” in order to serve in the British Air Service. Alek is a “Clanker” while Deryn is a “Darwinist,” in a world-wide fission between machinery and fabricated animals.

Circumstances have thrown the two together constantly, and they’ve come to trust each other with all of each others’ secrets—well, except for the fact that one of them is secretly a girl. Obviously that would only complicate things. The characters are dynamic and true-to-life, and it was a lot of fun to meet some new faces in the story, along with keeping tabs on the ones we already knew and liked. It’s fun to watch the bigger story unfold, too—the worldwide one.

Probably my favorite part of this particular book was Bovril, a fabricated beastie known as a perspicacious loris, which was quite the charmer over all. I wasn’t really a big fan of one newspapery character in the book, but I had a feeling he was fun to write… and that we might see more of him. I’m really excited because the next book is headed to Japan, and I’m insanely curious what all is going to go on there.

And then the question can’t help but tug at me… is there going to be a WWII series as well?

All My Friends are Dead by Avery Monsen and Jory John

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Book #4 for the year is All My Friends are Dead by Avery Monsen and Jory John.

I ran across this strange little book in the Comedy aisle at Barnes and Noble. This isn’t an aisle that I peruse frequently, but I was with my husband and wandering the store, and the cover caught my eye. We proceeded to stand in the aisle and flip through the entire book, reading the whole thing. Not that this was much of a feat—most pages only had five or six words on them to begin with.

This is a funny book. Funny, sad, poignant, true. It conveys a lot of honesty and as the back of the book puts it, “existential crisis” of a lot of things, and of course by things, it reflects people. I really enjoyed this little book, even in its sadness and harsh realities about some things (like a guy sitting in front of a computer, saying that he has 3,284 friends, but never met any of them face to face). It made me laugh out loud, even while it mock-horrified me.

Somebody made a graphic showing examples of some of the pages in the book, and I thought I’d share that with you:

See? A little sad, a little harsh. A lot funny. Probably keep this away from tender-hearted kids who might think it’s a fun cartoon story, but I’d definitely picking it up and giving it a read, maybe using it as a conversation piece. It’s worth the read. 🙂

In other news, my keyboard doesn’t like the letter “J” all of a sudden. I have to hit the button in just the right spot for the letter to appear. It’s a hassle, let me tell you.

Matched by Ally Condie

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I downloaded this on a whim as my one free audible.com download. It was the first audiobook I’d listened to in a couple of years—the last being Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on a roadtrip with my brother. It was a very nicely done audio book. The voice was a bit annoying at times, but the production and sound effects were impressive. There were loudspeaker effects and things like that which I wasn’t really used to or expecting, but they did add to the experience.

On to the book itself, in case you haven’t been familiarized with the buzz surrounding this book, it’s about a utopian/dystopian society (people seem to forget or ignore the fact that Utopia itself was a dystopic book) where every person is watched and kept data about since the moment they’re born. Because of this, they can predict everything you might want or need, and the society can provide it for you—which they do, before you even ask for it, most of the time.

In this society, you are matched at the age of 17 or so, unless you’ve chosen to be a “Single.” (Which choice is forever, folks.) Cassia Reyes is delighted when she’s matched with her close friend, Xander, but after she gets home from her Matching ceremony, the info card they’ve given her does something odd. It shows her Xander’s face alright, but then it blinks to a picture of another boy that Cassia knows—a Ky Markham. She soon finds out that for certain reasons, Ky could never be her true match, but that doesn’t stop her from being curious about what exactly happened here. Or about how much say the society has on her choices, or lack thereof.

I know a lot of people are miffed because it’s a lot like The Giver. I’ve never actually read The Giver, so I can’t say anything about the concepts originality or not… even I could see that the dystopia wasn’t the most original around there, but I don’t really think that it held the book back in any way. The start was a bit slow, but once we got into the story and Cassia starts really figuring out just how messed up the society is I really enjoyed it.

I was frustrated at first by how hesitant Cassia is to question everything, but then I decided to forgive her of that. After all, this is the world she was born into, the only world she knows. It seemed for a time that she was the first person to ever question, which I would not have been able to accept at all, but Condie was very smart about how she put her world together.

I was VERY impressed by the love triangle. At first I didn’t know what to think because Ky and Xander were so very similar, and they are fairly similar, but still I like Cassia’s choice. What I like even better is the friendship of the unlucky one that happens *after* she chooses. Anyhow, really enjoyed the book. It’s not something I’m dying to read over again right away, but it’s a good solid read, and I have a feeling I’ll LOVE the sequel.

All in all, I’d give it about a B + It took me a long time to like Cassia much, partially because of her utter acceptance of her world (though I now see that as a plus) and partially because of the narrator’s voice on the audio book, but I think this would have been true if I’d been reading as well. I’m very interested in where Condie is going to take this one, though. I’ll be keeping an eye out.

Book Review: Zerah’s Chosen by Isabelle Santiago

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I managed to finish my first book of the year just about 45 minutes before February started. I was determined to have finished at least one book in January, so I spent as much time as I could today reading, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

My first book for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge (which at this point is already looking very questionable!) was Zerah’s Chosen by my good friend, Isabelle Santiago. It’s an ebook from Drollerie Press. I’m very lucky in that I’ve seen this story from very early stages, and I’ve had the privilege of fangirling about the characters directly with the author, but this was my first chance to sit and read through the book from beginning to end, and it was a definite treat.

Zerah is a rustic world, a world of common men, fishers, and prophets, ruled by Beings both mysterious and fearful. This story isn’t about common men or fishers or prophets, though. Every generation, six people are branded by the Beings and made Guardians over the elements—Water and Fire, Earth and Air, Life and Death. Those born with the brand are sent to the temple to train, to learn how to control the power they have over their elements in order to maintain the balance that makes up life.

The story begins with a woman who has been brought to trial. She has borne a child branded as a Guardian, but instead of sending him to the temple, she has hidden him away, kept him to herself. He is, after all, her child. Kieran has been marked for Death, though, and his power is too much for him to conquer on his own. When he is finally found, his mother hands him over without argument. She knows her time with her son is over. The elders sentence her to life in a solitary cell, fair payment for treason.

Kieran then is thrust into a life he neither wants nor understands. Most of the other Guardians—one is still missing—fear and dislike him. Only Amaya, the Guardian of Water and an empath to boot, accepts him without question from the beginning. Over the years Kieran begins to find his place among his fellow Guardians, and even learns to feel that the temple is his home, but he cannot forget what the “righteous” elders have done to his mother. More than that, he can’t forget to love the way that she taught him to. Guardians are supposed to live without tie, without emotion. Without love. A passionate person to begin with, Kieran simply cannot live under the conditions set for him, and the story comes to a head as Kieran and Amaya’s friendship turns into something much more—something the Code of the Guardians forbids.

Zerah’s Chosen is the first in what is to be a trilogy. The world-building is rich and absolutely superb—you know the minute you set foot into the story that this is a society that existed before you started reading. The characters are also fantastic. The story is mostly told from Amaya and Kieran’s POV’s, but all five Guardians we get to know are so fantastically diverse from each other that every time one of the other three are in the scene it’s a delight.

My personal favorite (as Isabelle well knows) is Phoenix, the Guardian of Fire, who has his own unrequited love for Amaya—something which I know is brought much more in to play in the second novel of the Guardian Circle Series, Zerah’s Offering, which isn’t quite available just yet, but I’ll let you know when it is. I’m lucky to have an advance copy, which I’ll be starting my read-through of… Oh, about now.

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

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I am all excitement.  Why, you may ask?  Because I just found out that my favorite YA paranormal series ever has now been repackaged and is on sale.  This actually came out in JULY.  Why am I only finding out about it now? I don’t know.  I’m kind of sorry, too, because I’ve just made a bit of a vow that I won’t buy a new book until after I’m done writing my own.  (I’m considering not buying ANY books in 2011, but this may prove impossible.)

Anyhow. The books used to be called Fingerprints by Melinda Metz, who wrote the Roswell High books, and I’ve waxed rhapsodic about them in the past. Rae Voight is a popular high school girl with the perfect life, the perfect boyfriend—and a very dark secret about her mother, who died in a psych ward when she was just a baby.  Still, she’s made sure to construct the perfect life for herself at her prep school, and she’s done a very good job, but one day something happens that scares Rae to her very core—because she may be going crazy, just like her mom.  And if she’s not… then that’s actually worse, because if she’s not crazy, then someone wants to kill her.

I’ve always thought it was a shame that Fingerprints came before the big YA paranormal kick, because I thought it would do so much better once the audience had been suitably prepped to receive it.  Well apparently I wasn’t the only one.  The book is now called Echoes, which puts the first three Fingerprints books in one, and it has a brand new, gorgeous cover:

Isn’t it breathtaking?  The girl on the cover is actually very similar to how I’ve pictured Rae.  She’s one of my all-time favorite girl-power protags, witty and clever, hot and sarcastic… and just a little bit spoiled.  And Anthony.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love Anthony Fascinelli.

Anyhow, if you see Echoes by Melinda Metz, definitely snap it up.  It is WELL worth the read.  I can’t wait to get my hands on it myself… though I may have to wait a while!

You can read an excerpt of Echoes here. Enjoy! 🙂