Llew's Reviews

I have been in reader HEAVEN! All of my favorite YA series have had another book come out. Septimus Heap has Queste out. After I finish devouring that, I get to hop on to Libba Bray’s third book wrapping up The Great & Terrible Beauty trilogy. Then, it’s on to Pullman’s prequel to the Golden Compass. I am so excited! I have such a huge stack of lovely looking fun reads that it’s making me giddy.

This one is the third in Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven series which is really quite likable. Normally, I like young adult books that are for the older readers whereas this one is more middle school level. It’s still a thick seemingly complex book though so I’m still a fan. I’ve had good luck with recommending this one because there’s really nothing for people to dislike.

versus

In this corner weighing in at 645 pages, I have a set of books set of books which are urban faeire tales with Seelie folk walking around with glamours to shield us mere mortal from their cruel beauty.

And in the other corner weighing in at 653 pages, I have a set of books set of books which are urban faeire tales with Seelie folk walking around with glamours to shield us mere mortal from their cruel beauty.

Hmm, wait. When I read the first book in each of these sets (where the second book is slightly related to each other as in they take place in the same world, but the second book isn’t a true sequel of the characters in the first books), I liked Melissa Marr’s tale slight better than Holly Black’s. Neither are fantastic books but there was something compelling about each one that kept me from stopping halfway through. They both try a little hard to be cool - look my humans have tattoos and problems! and so forth.

I didn’t love either book enough to whole heartedly recommend it to someone (unless they were a fan of the genre) but they weren’t horrible. Pretty much they’re on the same level - if you liked Holly Black’s books, I’d recommend Marr’s to you or vice versa.

However, Wicked Lovely & Ink Exchange have gorgeous covers so I declare them the winner by a hair!

I’m behind the times on this one, but it works in my favor since it means the second and third sequel to it are already out so worry about forgetting details as I wait for the sequels to come out. The reason I hadn’t picked it up before is a friend had read it and scrunched her nose at it. I don’t know if I would have liked it as much as I did if I had not gone into reading thinking that I might hate it. Turns out it was a nice light (but not happy) read. It was just what I was in the mood for and I love when that happens.

Spooks, boggarts, and witches - oh my!

This is the fourth in the Last Apprentice series which is a middle school level fantasy/horror series. I can’t handle scary things so a fifth grade horror book is about as much as I can handle. This is a good series that I’ve been fond of suggestion to that age of readers.

With this new addition, I’m a little weary to recommend it because it deals a lot with believing in God. I think it’s good for children this age, but I don’t think every child’s parents would agree with me.

Obviously, I had to read these books before I saw the movie. To be honest, they’re kind of annoying. I realize they’re children books but each individual book is so insignificant it’s hardly worth it. The entire series counts for one book - even for a middle school reader. I mean seriously.

Of course, I read them so I could see the movie and now I’ve heard nothing but poor reviews for the film so I shall wait until it comes out on dvd. Alas, alack!

Well, if I’m going to be hauling my aging lazy bum to the bookstore to host a midnight party for a book I SUPPOSE I should have read the two prior ones in the series. So, I did. And now I’m wishing I would have waited to do so because now I have until September before Brisingr is released. Oh snap!

I confess that I really thought reading these were going to be a chore. I mean it was written by a 15 year old homeschooled boy. I don’t like talking to teenage boys - why would I want to read anything written by one? Plus, I saw the movie. That horrible terrible no good wretched movie - ugh. To my surprise, I quite liked the books. I might have liked them more than I would have otherwise because I was expecting them to be SO bad. But they were quite fun to read.  I still wish I hadn’t had to break my self imposed rule about not starting a series unless all the books in it are already out, but sometimes work is work.

This young adult title comes out on February 1st and is a keeper. It’s the story of two friends, Jennifer & Cameron, from childhood who are outcasts at their elementary school. They’re picked on, called names, teased mercilessly, and have fairly rough home lives. However, they have each other and they’re each other’s saviors - more than friends, more than siblings, more of a connection than most of us have experience with at that age. Which is why Jennifer is more than crushed when Cameron disappears one day and later is reported to have passed away.

Jennifer reinvents herself - losing weight, learning to do things for herself that her mother doesn’t have time to do (like wash her clothes), and building an emotional facade to protect herself form her peers. She’s in high school with a boyfriend and a group of friends - no one to pick on her in sight - when Cameron comes back.

It’s a fairly turbulent story line with an ending that is neither neat nor final. It’s a quick read and a good read - but far from a happy one.

This is another galley (it comes out in May) so there’s currently no cover art up for the book which is a shame because the ARC has a right cute cover to it. And the story, of a girl turning 13, is right cute as well. Almost too cute (think “Hope” by Joan Bauer) in the way it’s told and conveniently wrapped up - but still an intriguing delightfully told story for the middle school age set.

It’s the story of an incredibly likable family with special talents which they don’t come into until their thirteenth birthday and don’t learn to fully control until some time after that. They keep these skills to themselves and the story takes place in an otherwise normal modern day society. When the father is in a car accident right as the main character’s 13 birthday is about to happen, everything goes topsy turvy. As I said, it’s really a delightful middle school age book that I’m pretty excited to come out so I can recommend to others. It’s along the lines of “Fablehaven” but a little younger and not as friendly to boy readers.

For Christmas, I received lots of fantastic presents. Among them was *not* this book. However, a dear friend did get a couple of bath bombs which are my favorite. Tonight, after a long dull day at work, I decided to tuck into a hot bath with this book and the chocolate flavored bath explosion of joy. Man, I love chocolate. And that bath bomb smelled and felt great.

But it looked. Well, sitting in a tub of hot brown water might be one of the most disturbing things I have ever willingly done. I decided I would just concentrate on my book but it’s hard not to notice that you’re neck high in BROWN water. I kept lifting the book higher and higher to read it, all the while negating any soothing effects the bath might have had on my neck.

Bathing in brown water = Ewwww.
Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac = Awww.

This is the right mix of cute, light, sad, and vulnerable. It’s full of overly self conscious mixes and Ingmar Bergman references. And it tries to hard, just like every teen does. I loved it.

If you recall, this was the series where I was going to try to use Zen Buddhist techniques when it came to reading young adult novels because that’s just how much of a *forward thinker* I am. My theory was that by knowing ahead of time and accepting that the endings to Westerfeld’s series are going to be let downs - that they then cease to do so. I have to say, I think it worked.I love this world Westerfeld created where there are 25 hours in a day - with the 25th hour being a dark nefarious time only experienced in a certain spot by those born at the stroke of midnight. These Midnighters all have a individual unique skill to help them during this hour ranging from brilliance in math to mind-casting to the ability to defy gravity for that one hour. These skills come in handy for the darklings which lurk then. They also cause for really diverse and intriguing characters that made the story have so much more depth than some of the author’s other work.

I really did expect the ending to be disappointing but was pleasantly surprised that I liked the way it was all tied together. No, it wasn’t a happy fairy tale close but at least it wasn’t some half-assed environmental love letter to Al Gore like The Uglies. Speaking of, I hear another book is coming out in October (”The Extras”) and here I thought that series was over. Oops. Maybe it will redeem itself after all! Now, there’s fairy tale optimism at its best.