Review - My Book of Life by Angel

My Book of Life by Angel
by Martine Leavitt
Date: 2012
Publisher: Groundwood Books
Reading level: YA
Book type: verse novel
Pages: 256
Format: e-book
Source: library

When sixteen-year-old Angel meets Call at the mall, he buys her meals and says he loves her, and he gives her some candy that makes her feel like she can fly. Pretty soon she's addicted to his candy, and she moves in with him. As a favor, he asks her to hook up with a couple of friends of his, and then a couple more. Now Angel is stuck working the streets at Hastings and Main, a notorious spot in Vancouver, Canada, where the girls turn tricks until they disappear without a trace, and the authorities don't care. But after her friend Serena disappears, and when Call brings home a girl who is even younger and more vulnerable than her to learn the trade, Angel knows that she and the new girl have got to find a way out.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I love how verse novels can be short on words but long on impact.  I didn't think this would necessarily be my type of book.  Historical fiction about a teenaged prostitute?  That's a little bit out of my comfort zone.  But My Book of Life by Angel was a story that I just couldn't put down.  I read it all in one sitting, transfixed by the awfulness of the main character's situation and the lyrical beauty with which she told the story.

This book takes place during the time when sex-trade workers were disappearing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside; this happened in the late 1990s.  It must have been an absolutely terrifying time if you were in that line of work; knowing what we know now about what was actually going on makes you feel fear for the characters in the story.  Robert Pickton was eventually convicted of the murders of six women and charged with the murders of twenty more.  In the book, there are references to a "Mr. P.", presumably Pickton; one of Angel's co-workers warns her about him and his van, hinting that he may be behind the disappearances of the women.  But the police wouldn't listen, and the terror continued for years.

Against this backdrop is the story of Angel, a sixteen-year-old runaway who falls into the lifestyle after being lured there by her "boyfriend", Call.  Call is a real piece of work, though he seems to think of himself as an upstanding citizen, an entrepreneur who's trying to clean up the trade by getting it legalized.  He spends much of the book threatening and blackmailing Angel, until she finds a reason to stand up to him: to keep Melli, an eleven-year-old girl that Call wants to groom into a prostitute, safe.

I don't know if it was due to the verse format, or if this is just a really skilled author, but the characters were all so well developed -- despite the lack of physical descriptions.  We get to know these people through what they say (and how they say it) and what they do (and how they do it).  Leavitt makes the outcasts of society into people that we truly come to care about.  They all have their own stories, their own reasons for being where they are.  Even the johns were unique and colourful characters; they were more than just one-dimensional, stereotypical villains.

I'm not quite sure who I would recommend this book to.  Fans of verse novels... contemporary fiction... historical fiction...  Or maybe just fans of beautiful words.  (Despite the subject matter, this book is not overtly graphic.  There isn't even any swearing.)

Even if you think this book is not your thing, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try.  It's a quick read, and you never know: you might find you really enjoy it.

Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Pace: 4/5
Writing: 5/5
Editing: 5/5
Originality: 4/5
Enjoyment: 5/5

Overall: 4.57 out of 5

Review - Vamplayers

Vamplayers
by Rusty Fischer
Date: 2011
Publisher: Medallion Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 384
Format: e-book
Source: library

At the Afterlife Academy of Exceptionally Dark Arts, Lily Fielding is a measly trainee who dreams of one day becoming a Savior—those who visit vampire-infested high schools and put down the undead with their deadly crossbows. When Lily and her classmates Alice and Cara begin their latest assignment, it seems like just another run-of-the-mill gig: they’re to simply spot the Vamplayer—part vampire, part player—identify the popular girl he’s set his sights on, and befriend her before the Vamplayer can turn her to do his bidding. Before long, however, the Vamplayer sets his sights on Lily's friends, and she is left to face the threat alone while protecting her friends from the dark forces she has sworn to resist.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This book just didn't work for me, and there are a number of reasons why.  While I did somewhat enjoy the first part, I spent much of the remainder of the book in a state of confusion.  Things that I expected to be explained never were.  The characterization kind of fell apart.  When you have a group with a name like the Sisterhood of Dangerous Girlfriends that trains at a place called the Afterlife Academy of Exceptionally Dark Arts, you'd expect this book to be a lot funnier and fluffier than it was.  But after a certain point, it started to take itself way too seriously... and that's the point where I couldn't take it seriously anymore.

A lot of the time, the action was mixed up and I couldn't tell what was going on.  I felt like the author thought we -- as readers -- were in her head and could see the scenes unfold the way she did.  Unfortunately, there often wasn't enough information given (or, if there was, it was contradictory).  Some things were just plain stupid.  The girls in the Afterlife Academy train on a Simulator, which is basically a 1970s-style house full of booby traps (mostly wooden stakes that get triggered when you step in the wrong place).  At one point in the story, Lily says that maybe they needed a simulator for dealing with a Vamplayer's seduction rather than his fighting skills.  Um, yeah!  That would have been a lot more useful.  I mean, how often are you going to be skulking through a booby-trapped house?  Then there was the whole deal with vampires being "turned".  I thought they already were "turned"!  Isn't that why they're vampires?  It was never explained how, exactly, this could happen.  With the vampire mythology especially, I felt like I had missed a huge chunk of information.  Why can these vampires tolerate sunlight?  Why was Lily so clueless about the effects of communion wine on a vampire?  What's with the flying?  How do these vampires manipulate such long fangs, and why are they necessary?  What's the deal with the claws?  Why did Lily have such little knowledge about the hierarchy of vampires that she thought the Royals were just a myth?

Lily, as a main character, was pretty bland.  She's got a dark ponytail and she's a vampire.  Okay, fine.  She's also not very interesting.  She doesn't have a heck of a lot of emotions, either, and when she does have them, you end up scratching your head.  She thinks Tristan is a horrible, evil sleaze, but she's not ruling out a relationship with him.  (What?)  She watches vampires dissolve into puddles of goo in front of her, and she barely reacts.  She falls for a guy, but all she seems to like about him is his hair (at least, that's what she keeps going on about).  She's clueless about what's going on with the Vamplayer, and even when the evidence is staring her in the face, she stubbornly insists that it can't be so!  The rest of the characters were pretty unremarkable as well.  Lily's friends, Alice and Cara, seem like they were just there to create conflict and move the plot along.  The human boys, Grover and Zander, were okay, but even then they weren't written well enough for me to get really attached to them.  Another problem was that all the action seemed to happen in a vacuum.  This story supposedly took place at a boarding school... but we rarely see any of the other students, giving the impression that the main characters are rambling around in this Gothic building all by themselves.  It just seemed odd.

While reading this, I often felt like I was reading a sequel, and the first book must've been where everything was explained.  I've read that this is, in fact, a companion novel to Zombies Don't Cry.  Companion novel... not sequel.  As such, I expected a lot more explanation for the world these characters were inhabiting.  As it was, I felt like I'd been dropped in the middle of their world without any sort of explanation or guidance.  That's not a bad thing... if the world-building helps flesh things out as the story goes along.  Unfortunately, in this case, it didn't.

Plot: 3/5
Characters: 1/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Editing: 2/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.43 out of 5

Review - Blink Once

Blink Once
by Cylin Busby
Date: 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 288
Format: e-book
Source: library

West is a high school senior who has everything going for him until an accident leaves him paralyzed. Strapped down in his hospital bed, slipping in and out of consciousness, West is terrified and alone. Until he meets Olivia.

She's the girl next door-sort of. A patient in the room next to his, only Olivia can tell what West is thinking, and only Olivia seems to know that the terrible dreams he's been having are not just a result of his medication. Yet as West comes to rely on Olivia-to love her, even-certain questions pull at him: Why has Olivia been in the hospital for so long? And what does it mean that she is at the center of his nightmares? But the biggest question of all comes when West begins to recover and learns that the mysterious girl he's fallen in love with has a secret he could never have seen coming.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This was a book that should have been interesting and engaging.  But it failed to draw me in emotionally, and so I can't get that worked up about anything that happened during the course of the story.  It didn't help that the writing and editing were not that great, and these two things kept drawing me out of the flow.  I kept getting tripped up by sentences that didn't seem to make any sense; I'm not sure if the author was going for a stream-of-consciousness thing, but these rambling musings just seemed like comma splices to me, and they messed up the syntax of a lot of the sentences.  There were also some weird tense shifts throughout the book.  Some were intentional.  Some seemed more like outright mistakes that should have been caught by an editor.  And, finally, West is a junior, not a senior, a fact that's mentioned numerous times throughout the book.  I don't know why the synopsis says he's a senior.

Then there was the whole deal with West and his accident.  There was a lot of medical-type information in the book, and you could tell that the author had done some research on the subject.  However, in places there were not enough details.  For example, we're not given quite enough information about West's condition in the beginning.  We know he's paralyzed, strapped to a bed, and has a tube to help him breathe.  He resorts to communicating by blinking, because of the breathing tube.  I assumed that that meant it was in his mouth.  But it wasn't.  He'd had a tracheotomy, which led me to wonder why he had to blink to communicate with Olivia.  I know that not everyone can read lips that well, but surely most people can tell the difference between "yes" and "no".  Maybe this was all so the book could be called Blink Once.

I was very disappointed by the characters and their relationships.  For the predicament that West finds himself in, he seems awfully stoic about the whole situation.  Would a 17-year-old boy really be that calm about the prospect of spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair?  And then there was the relationship between West and Olivia.  I kind of suspected Olivia's secret for a while, so it wasn't that much of a surprise.  It also didn't have that much of an emotional impact for me (possibly because I'd seen it coming from so far away).  And the ending was just... blah.  There are things that West could have done (or even seriously considered doing) that would have brought up some interesting ethical and moral questions.  As it was, the ending was convenient, trite, and a little bit sappy.  What came out of West's narration in the last few sentences just didn't ring true.

While some parts of the premise reminded me a little bit of Rear Window, it wasn't anywhere near that interesting or exciting.  The mystery part of the plot felt a bit like an afterthought; had that part been expanded a little more, it might have made for a better story.  Though, ultimately, when you can't connect with the characters, there may not be much that can be done to make you like a particular book.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 2/5
Editing: 2/5
Originality: 2/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.14 out of 5

Review - Skellig

Skellig (Skellig #1)
by David Almond
Date: 1998
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Reading level: MG
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 208
Format: e-book
Source: library

Michael was looking forward to moving into a new house. But now his baby sister is ill, his parents are frantic, and Doctor Death has come to call. Michael feels helpless. Then he steps into the crumbling garage and encounters a strange being who changes his world forever.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

On the surface, this is a short middle-grade contemporary fantasy about a boy who discovers something extraordinary in a dilapidated garage.  But I suspect that this book is deeper than outward appearances would suggest.  It's about evolution, about being aware of the little things that we don't always notice, and about how love and connection have the power to heal.  And all of that in a thin volume that you can probably read in an afternoon...

Since the book is so short and the plot is so straightforward, I don't really want to say too much about it for fear of giving anything away.  But I did really enjoy it.  The writing was spare and made an interesting use of repetition.  I liked Michael, the main character, and his friend Mina brought some interesting tidbits into the story.  She's homeschooled and her current obsession is things that fly, so we learn plenty about birds.  There are also numerous references to the works of William Blake.  Skellig was an interesting character, too, though I wish that he hadn't remained so much of a mystery.  We never do find out how he ended up in Michael's father's garage in the first place.

I'm not sure if all the kids who've had to read this book in school would agree with me, but as an adult who read the book simply for enjoyment, I have to say that it was pretty good.  Fans of paranormal or contemporary fantasy will probably enjoy this one.

Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Pace: 4/5
Writing: 5/5
Editing: 4/5
Originality: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 4.29 out of 5

Review - The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1)
by Maggie Stiefvater
Date: 2012
Publisher: Scholastic
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 416
Format: e-book
Source: Amazon

"There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love... or you killed him."

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I am completely exhausted after reading this book.  When you go into a novel and find out fairly quickly that one of the main characters is doomed by a prophecy, it's difficult not to read every scene after that with a certain sense of trepidation.  I anticipated that I would, at some point, be on my knees with the book held aloft, shouting, "Why, Stiefvater?  Why?!"  Okay, not really.  But I felt like that might be a distinct possibility... until the point where I glanced at my Kindle app's progress bar and saw that it was at 99%.  This was a great 416-page lead-in for a sequel, I'll give the author that.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy myself before the story abruptly, unsatisfyingly ended.  The plot and the promise of the plot were interesting and unique.  But what I really enjoyed were the characters, particularly the boys.  The novel switches points of view from chapter to chapter.  We get to see through the eyes of Blue, Gansey, Adam, and Whelk (the boys' Latin teacher), and through them, we also get to know Ronan and Noah and the psychic women in Blue's life.  Unfortunately, I found just about every character more interesting and well developed than Blue.  I'm not sure if that was intentional or not; in the story, she acts as an amplifier for the psychic women's gifts.  For me, she seemed that way in the narrative as well, only serving as a sounding board or a piece of scenery that doesn't do much except support everything around it.  If Blue's point of view had been the only one we'd seen, it would have been very disappointing.  Luckily, we got to experience parts of the story through other eyes as well.  My favourite character was probably Gansey, who was nothing like I expected.  While it could be argued that Ronan and Adam were a bit stereotypical in their roles (alcohol-loving Irish scrapper and downtrodden abused kid, respectively), Gansey was something else altogether.  I appreciated the fact that he was different, and that he tried so hard to find something to believe in.

The only other book I've read by this author was Shiver, so I knew I could count on some fairly solid writing here.  I wasn't disappointed until near the end, when a bunch of what I assume were typos started to creep in (though one never knows if it's just something unique to the Kindle edition).  I was, however, quite confounded by the very last sentence of the book.  It made no sense to me, and I'm not sure if it was supposed to be some really obscure reference to something that's going to happen in the second book, or if my copy is plagued by a syntax-impaired typographical error.

As much as I enjoyed the journey, breathless as I was for most of it, I'm kind of hesitant to read the next book in the series for fear that I'll run into more of the same problems that plagued this story.  I didn't find that much got resolved in the way of the plot.  So many loose ends were left hanging and the foreshadowing went kaput, so that it almost doesn't feel like I finished a book at all; it feels like I merely finished a chapter.

Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 4/5
Editing: 3/5
Originality: 5/5
Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3.71 out of 5

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Books on My Fall 2013 TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Books on My Fall 2013 TBR List.  Subject to change, of course, because I'll probably find something at the library or in the bargain bin at the bookstore... and the TBR list will be even longer!  Here are the books I'd like to get to this fall:

10. The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Clarke

9. Feed by M. T. Anderson

8. Jessica Rules the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey

7. Enchanted by Alethea Kontis

6. A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

5. 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass

4. Evernight by Claudia Gray

3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2. Plain Kate by Erin Bow

1. Skellig by David Almond

In My Mailbox (58)

Borrowed from the library:

Alligator Pie
by Dennis Lee

Dennis Lee won the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1972 for his poetic meditation on Canadian identity in Civil Elegies, but he made perhaps his most enduring contribution to Canadian nationalism two years later with a short collection of near-nonsense rhymes written for a much younger set. Alligator Pie, which remains the classic Canadian bedtime book, is written as if Mother Goose had the Latin name Branta canadensis, from William Lyon Mackenzie King, who "loved his mother like anything," to Trois-Rivières, which, of course, rhymes with "eat your hair."

Escape from Eden
by Elisa Nader

Since the age of ten, Mia has lived under the iron fist of the fundamentalist preacher who lured her mother away to join his fanatical family of followers. In Edenton, a supposed “Garden of Eden” deep in the South American jungle, everyone follows the Reverend’s strict but arbitrary rules—even the mandate of whom they can marry. Now sixteen, Mia dreams of slipping away from the armed guards who keep the faithful in, and the curious out. When the rebellious and sexy Gabriel, a new boy, arrives with his family, Mia sees a chance to escape.

But the scandalous secrets the two discover beyond the compound’s façade are more shocking than anything they ever imagined. While Gabriel has his own terrible secrets, he and Mia bond together, more than friends and freedom fighters. But is there time to think of each other as they race to stop the Reverend’s paranoid plan to free his flock from the corrupt world? Can two teenagers crush a criminal mastermind? And who will die in the fight to save the ones they love from a madman who’s only concerned about his own secrets?

The Lake and the Library
by S. M. Beiko

Wishing for something more than her adventureless life, 16-year-old Ash eagerly awaits the move she and her mother are taking from their dull, drab life in the prairie town of Treade. But as Ash counts the days, she finds her way into a mysterious, condemned building on the outskirts of town—one that has haunted her entire childhood with secrets and questions. What she finds inside is an untouched library, inhabited by an enchanting mute named Li. Brightened by Li’s charm and his indulgence in her dreams, Ash becomes locked in a world of dusty books and dying memories, with Li becoming the attachment to Treade she never wanted. This haunting and romantic debut novel explores the blurry boundary between the real and imagined with a narrative that illustrates the power and potency of literacy.

Odette's Secrets
by Maryann Macdonald

For Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris, nowhere is safe. So when Odette Meyer’s father is sent to a Nazi work camp, Odette’s mother takes desperate measures to protect her, sending Odette deep into the French countryside. There, Odette pretends to be a peasant girl, even posing as a Christian–and attending Catholic masses–with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets, and when the war ends Odette must figure out whether she can resume life in Paris as a Jew, or if she’s lost the connection to her former life forever. Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyer, this moving free-verse novel is a story of triumph over adversity.

Stupid Perfect World
by Scott Westerfeld

In this future-set novella by bestselling author Scott Westerfeld, Kieran Black lives in a "perfect" world. Disease and starvation have been eradicated, sleep is unnecessary, and it takes no time at all to go from the Bahamas to the moon. But now Kieran has to take Scarcity, a class about how people lived in the bad old days. And as if sitting through an hour of Scarcity every day wasn't depressing enough, it's final projects time. Each student must choose some form of ancient hardship to experience for two whole weeks. Kieran chooses having to sleep eight hours a night, which doesn't seem too annoying.

Maria Borsotti has never thought much of Kieran, but she decides to take pity on him and help him out with his project. Soon, Kieran is sleeping and having vivid dreams, while Maria, whose Scarcity project is to give up all teenage hormone regulation, is experiencing emotions she never knew she had. As their assignments draw them closer together, they begin to wonder if the olden days weren't so bad. Maybe something has been missing from their perfect lives after all?

What was in your "mailbox" this week?


In My Mailbox was started by Kristi of The Story Siren.

Weekly Recap - September 8-14, 2013

Here's what I managed to blog about over the last seven days:

Sunday - I shared the books I bought and borrowed the previous week.  I also reviewed Alligator Pie, a book of funny poems for children.

Thursday - I reviewed S. M. Beiko's The Lake and the Library.  I also discussed fibbing about having read certain books.

Friday - I reviewed Defy the Dark, a short story anthology edited by Saundra Mitchell.  I also reviewed Escape from Eden by Elisa Nader.

Saturday - I reviewed the middle grade free-verse novel Odette's Secrets by Maryann Macdonald.  I also read and reviewed Stupid Perfect World, a novella by Scott Westerfeld.

Review - Stupid Perfect World

Stupid Perfect World
by Scott Westerfeld
Date: 2012
Publisher: HarperTeen
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novella
Pages: 55
Format: e-book
Source: library

In this future-set novella by bestselling author Scott Westerfeld, Kieran Black lives in a "perfect" world. Disease and starvation have been eradicated, sleep is unnecessary, and it takes no time at all to go from the Bahamas to the moon. But now Kieran has to take Scarcity, a class about how people lived in the bad old days. And as if sitting through an hour of Scarcity every day wasn't depressing enough, it's final projects time. Each student must choose some form of ancient hardship to experience for two whole weeks. Kieran chooses having to sleep eight hours a night, which doesn't seem too annoying.

Maria Borsotti has never thought much of Kieran, but she decides to take pity on him and help him out with his project. Soon, Kieran is sleeping and having vivid dreams, while Maria, whose Scarcity project is to give up all teenage hormone regulation, is experiencing emotions she never knew she had. As their assignments draw them closer together, they begin to wonder if the olden days weren't so bad. Maybe something has been missing from their perfect lives after all?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is an interesting novella about two teenagers in a seemingly utopian society.  Both have to come up with projects for their Scarcity class, which is where they learn about all the horrible things that beset their ancestors in the olden days.  For their final projects, Kieran chooses to experience sleep and Maria chooses to experience unregulated teenage hormones.

I thought the characters were developed pretty well, even though the story was so short.  The nine chapters alternate between Kieran's and Maria's points of view, so we get to spend some time in the head of each.  The supporting characters like Kieran and Maria's classmates were interesting, too, and I wouldn't have minded reading more about their Scarcity projects.  Actually, I wouldn't have minded reading more about this future world in general.

This could have been made into a longer novel, but I think the novella length worked just fine here, and got the point across.  Stupid perfect world, as Maria repeatedly said.  Can a world be so utopian that it actually turns into a sort of dystopia?  I think that's the idea the author was trying to explore here... and with only 55 pages to work with, I think he did a pretty good job.

Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Pace: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Editing: 5/5
Originality: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 4.29 out of 5

Review - Odette's Secrets

Odette's Secrets
by Maryann Macdonald
Date: 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's
Reading level: MG
Book type: verse novel
Pages: 240
Format: e-book
Source: library

For Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris, nowhere is safe. So when Odette Meyer’s father is sent to a Nazi work camp, Odette’s mother takes desperate measures to protect her, sending Odette deep into the French countryside. There, Odette pretends to be a peasant girl, even posing as a Christian–and attending Catholic masses–with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets, and when the war ends Odette must figure out whether she can resume life in Paris as a Jew, or if she’s lost the connection to her former life forever. Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyer, this moving free-verse novel is a story of triumph over adversity.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

The free-verse format works well for historical fiction.  Blocks of almost-poetry can help tell a story about the past without ending up sounding like a textbook.  That's the case here, in this based-on-real-people-and-events story about a young Jewish girl from Paris who escapes the war by living as a Christian in the French countryside.

I'm not generally a fan of books about the Holocaust.  I find many of them too depressing.  This book is a bit different in that, while it is about the Holocaust, the more gruesome events are on the periphery of Odette's world.  That's not to say that nothing bad ever happened, but Odette was one of the lucky ones.  According to the author's note at the back (which is a fascinating must-read after you've finished the book), 84% of France's Jewish children survived... more than in any other European country.  Odette's story gives us an idea of how that happened.

A unique touch (and something that's not always possible with straight fiction) was the inclusion of photographs of the people in Odette's life.  It was wonderful to see the actual faces of the characters in the story.

I really have no major complaints with this book.  The writing is accessible and helps us understand the world of a child during wartime.  Fans of historical fiction and novels written in verse will probably find much to like about Odette's Secrets.

Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Pace: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Editing: 5/5
Originality: 4/5
Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 4 out of 5

Review - Escape from Eden

Escape from Eden
by Elisa Nader
Date: 2013
Publisher: Merit Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 271
Format: e-book
Source: library

Since the age of ten, Mia has lived under the iron fist of the fundamentalist preacher who lured her mother away to join his fanatical family of followers. In Edenton, a supposed “Garden of Eden” deep in the South American jungle, everyone follows the Reverend’s strict but arbitrary rules—even the mandate of whom they can marry. Now sixteen, Mia dreams of slipping away from the armed guards who keep the faithful in, and the curious out. When the rebellious and sexy Gabriel, a new boy, arrives with his family, Mia sees a chance to escape.

But the scandalous secrets the two discover beyond the compound’s façade are more shocking than anything they ever imagined. While Gabriel has his own terrible secrets, he and Mia bond together, more than friends and freedom fighters. But is there time to think of each other as they race to stop the Reverend’s paranoid plan to free his flock from the corrupt world? Can two teenagers crush a criminal mastermind? And who will die in the fight to save the ones they love from a madman who’s only concerned about his own secrets?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

The synopsis makes this one sound like a great read, right?  The forty-four bookmarks' worth of "wish-I-had-a-red-pen" snarky editor comments in my e-reading app make it pretty clear that this book did not live up to my expectations.  I rolled my eyes so many times while reading this, my eyeballs still hurt.

What's the problem?  First of all, the Reverend, his dastardly master plan, and his absolute control over the community are too far-fetched to be believed.  Edenton has supposedly been around for decades, and yet nobody except for our little heroine has been spunky enough to make any change until now.  And Mia isn't really that special, so that doesn't make much sense.  She's a Mary Sue, unremarkable in almost every way.  She's supposedly "different" because she'd rather be out in the real world, having a 21st-century teenager experience, instead of blindly following the dictates of some religious nut in a South American jungle like an obedient sheep.  That doesn't make her "different".  That makes her extremely, boringly normal.

Second, we've got a bad case of insta-love going on here.  I've seen quick romances in some YA books, but this one took the cake.  Almost from the instant Mia lays eyes on Gabriel, she's smitten.  Their first meeting (mere hours after his arrival) triggers some pretty sudden lovey-dovey crap in Mia, though all Gabriel really does is stand there looking sexy before stealing a kitchen knife.  Then we get to listen to Mia go on about how she likes him, and then watch her act like she doesn't, and then roll our eyes when she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she should be thinking about things other than Gabriel's hot bod when the lives of two hundred people are at stake.  Gee, Mia.  You think?

Third, the writing was pretty awful, and the editing was even worse.  There were so many continuity problems and plot holes that I got confused even trying to keep track of them all.  And after all that, we got a heroine who isn't even the hero of her own story.  I hate it when someone other than the protagonist ends up resolving the main conflict.

Fourth, we seem to be heading for a sequel.  Do I really want to read another 270+ pages of Mia waffling over the oh-so-hot Gabriel?  I don't think so.  No, I know so.  Escape from Eden was too long as it was.  There's not much here to recommend, other than the hint of a perfectly good premise that was ruined by weak writing and an unrealistic romance.

Plot: 3/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing: 1/5
Editing: 1/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2 out of 5

Review - Defy the Dark

Defy the Dark
edited by Saundra Mitchell
Date: 2006
Publisher: HarperTeen
Reading level: YA
Book type: short stories
Pages: 480
Format: e-book
Source: library

Defy the Dark, an all-new anthology edited by Saundra Mitchell. Coming Summer 2013 from HarperTeen!

It features 16 stories by critically-acclaimed and bestselling YA authors as they explore things that can only happen in the dark. Authors include Sarah Rees Brennan, Rachel Hawkins, Carrie Ryan, Aprilynne Pike, Malinda Lo, Courtney Summers, Beth Revis, Sarah Ockler, and more.

Contemporary, genre, these stories will explore every corner of our world- and so many others. What will be the final story that defies the dark? Who will the author be?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

Defy the Dark offers seventeen (I don't know why the synopsis says sixteen) short stories that all involve things that happen in the dark.  I wasn't sure what to expect, genre-wise, from this collection.  It's actually a mixed bag: contemporary, science fiction, fantasy, historical...

It's difficult to review and rate a book when it's written by seventeen different people.  So I thought I'd share a little bit of my reaction to each story in the collection:

"Sleepstalk" by Courtney Summers - This is an okay story about a girl who follows a sleepwalking boy around at night.  You can kind of tell from the title what's actually going on.  As short stories go, it's fairly typical and not that original.  Though I was glad it at least hinted at a proper ending.


"Nature" by Aprilynne Pike - This one is dystopian.  The world-building was pretty good, but this story felt more like a chapter removed from a longer novel.  It just ended... and it seemed like a waste of a perfectly good set-up.


"The Dark Side of the Moon" by Dia Reeves - All I can say about this one is, "WTF?!"  It's like it's weird for the sake of being weird.  I didn't get it.


"Ghost Town" by Malinda Lo - A decent ghost story.  It's nothing special, but it's not awful, either.


"Eyes in the Dark" by Rachel Hawkins - This is creepy, but also somewhat unsatisfying due to the characters.  Why is Kelley such a jerk and what (if anything) does it have to do with his past... and is it even relevant, or is it just a contrived way to put the characters into a predicament?  The suspense in this one is good, but I was left with too many unanswered questions.


"Stillwater" by Valerie Kemp - Creative and original, with a different sort of voice.  This is probably my favourite story in the whole collection.


"I Gave You My Love by the Light of the Moon" by Sarah Rees Brennan - I had a hard time even getting through this one.  It was something about the syntax; I don't think my brain is compatible with this writer.  The plot is nothing too exciting, either.  It's just another werewolf/vampire story.


"Night Swimming" by Beth Revis - Much like "Nature", this is a science-fiction story that seems like a chapter taken out of a novel.  The big questions aren't answered; important things are only hinted at.  I would've liked to read more... but the story ended just as it was getting going.


"The Sunflower Murders" by Kate Espey - This is a short -- and I mean really short -- story written from the point of view of the best friend of a murder victim.  There's not a lot to it; it's more like a character sketch than anything else.  While it was fairly well written, I didn't find it all that memorable.


"Almost Normal" by Carrie Ryan - Ostensibly taking place in the same world as The Forest of Hands and Teeth, this is mostly just a story about a group of teenagers riding a rollercoaster and their varying reactions to a zombie apocalypse.  It's creepy, but I didn't like the characters... especially after the ending.


"Nowhere Else" by Jon Skovron - The writing in this one was really weak.  It alternated between sounding like an after-school special and the creative-writing assignment of a sixth-grader.  Too much pontificating by the villain.  Probably my least favourite of the bunch.


"Naughty or Nice" by Myra McEntire - A weird sort of holiday-themed horror romance that takes place in Bavaria.  The characters are interesting, and the pacing is just right for a short story.


"Shadowed" by Christine Johnson - A fairytale-esque story about a cursed daughter of a duke and her murderous shadow.  This is one of the stronger stories in the collection.


"Now Bid Time Return" by Saundra Mitchell - This is another of those "I-wish-it-were-longer" stories.  The Norwegian setting, an intriguing paranormal story, and a cool dog character are a nice change of pace.


"The Moth and the Spider" by Sarah Ockler - A truncated, pointless tease.  This one reminded me of the short stories we had to read in school, where we had to divine meaning with not much to go on.  Reading stories like this feels like work.


"Where the Light Is" by Jackson Pearce -  This one is a bit different, told from a young male coal miner's point of view.  The paranormal element isn't overdone, and there is just the right amount of suspense.


"This Was Ophelia" by Tessa Gratton - A gender-confused, 1920s-era retelling of Hamlet that I didn't quite understand.  Is O transsexual?  Is Hal gay?  Are we even supposed to know, or is it a statement about confusion and gender identity in a time where such issues were suppressed?  Oh, and if you're going to retell Hamlet, you can't go and give it a happy-sappy ending.  It's a famous Shakespearean tragedy... just sayin'.


All in all, it was a middle-of-the-road collection.  There were a few stories I really enjoyed, but most of them were just okay, and there were a couple that I really didn't like.  I had hoped to get more enjoyment out of this group of stories.

Since this collection is by different authors, my regular short-story rating system won't really work here... so I'm just going to average out the individual ratings.

Overall: 3 out of 5

Do you fib about reading books?

I came across this article about a recent survey that asked whether or not people have lied about reading certain books (mainly classics).

The top ten books people claim to have read (but haven't actually read) are:

1. 1984 by George Orwell (26%)
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (19%)
3. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (18%)
4. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (15%)
5. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (12%)
6. Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (11%)
7. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (10%)
8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (8%)
9. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (8%)
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (5%)

I'm not sure why people feel the need to actually lie about something like this.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a book abandoner.  I've only finished two of the books on the list (To Kill and Mockingbird and Jane Eyre).  I have, however, failed to finish three others (Great Expectations, Lord of the Rings, and Pride and Prejudice).  It doesn't benefit me to lie about having read them; in fact, claiming to have read Great Expectations only made the related unit in English class all the more difficult.  (Although, now that I think about it, I got the same grade on my Great Expectations paper as I did on my Jane Eyre paper... and I'd actually read that book!)

One book that I'm surprised didn't make the list?  The Bible!  Or what about one of the other most-printed books in history?  With that many copies floating around, you'd think that lots of people would have claimed to read some of those...

And then there's the other side of the coin.  There are those books that some of us really don't want to admit to having read.  Think Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey.  It's probably a lot less difficult to get away with this type of fib; it's easier to pretend you don't know anything about sparkling vampires and BDSM than it is to try to fake it as a Twihard or a... well, see, I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey, so I wouldn't even know what I was trying to fake.

What about you?  Do you lie about having read certain books?  Do you lie about not having read certain books (perhaps out of embarrassment)?  Have you ever gotten caught in a reading lie?  Are you surprised about any of the books on the list?  Are there any you think should be on there but aren't?

Review - The Lake and the Library

The Lake and the Library
by S. M. Beiko
Date: 2013
Publisher: ECW Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 160
Format: e-book
Source: library

Wishing for something more than her adventureless life, 16-year-old Ash eagerly awaits the move she and her mother are taking from their dull, drab life in the prairie town of Treade. But as Ash counts the days, she finds her way into a mysterious, condemned building on the outskirts of town—one that has haunted her entire childhood with secrets and questions. What she finds inside is an untouched library, inhabited by an enchanting mute named Li. Brightened by Li’s charm and his indulgence in her dreams, Ash becomes locked in a world of dusty books and dying memories, with Li becoming the attachment to Treade she never wanted. This haunting and romantic debut novel explores the blurry boundary between the real and imagined with a narrative that illustrates the power and potency of literacy.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is kind of a weird review for me.  I'm not quite sure how to rate a book that's so uneven.  Some parts of it were great.  Other parts... not so much.

In the acknowledgements, the author says that she was sixteen when she wrote the book.  On the one hand, I can scarcely believe it because the plot was so good.  On the other hand, I can totally believe it because of the writing.  And it wasn't that the writing was uniformly bad; that's what made it so frustrating.  There were passages that were beautiful and evocative and the author did do a lot of things right:

Finally, something existed just for me in this sterile town where everything was everyone's until it smothered.

But there were also those passages that bordered on purple prose, or that were just plain weird and unnecessary:

Her index and thumb to her temple, stretching her eye upwards, she nodded.

On more than one occasion, I came across words that made no sense in context; it was as if the author liked the sound of the word, though didn't quite know what it meant... but used it anyway, meaning be damned:

Something went off, and everything slowed to a mercurial pace.

This book also featured many, many instances of one of my biggest pet peeves: the "said bookism".  And these "said bookisms" didn't even make sense.  Throughout the novel, characters smiled, grimaced, shrugged, evaded, and stiffened their words (no, I know that makes no sense, and that's why it bothers me):

"Well, okay," he shuffled his feet again.

Aargh.  Sometimes, I think authors are allergic to the word "said".  And what was weirdest of all was that, half the time, this author did use "said"... which only made the other incorrect dialogue tags all the more jarring and annoying.  One other thing I noticed was that there were a few odd shifts in tense.  Most of the novel is written in first person, past tense (with some sections in third person, present tense).  There were a few instances where the past tense was replaced with present tense, but only momentarily... which leads me to believe it was an editing issue more than anything else.  In any case, it was still a bit irksome.

The characters, on the whole, were pretty good, though Ash is arguably a bit bland (probably so the reader can live vicariously through her).  Li (pronounced "Lie", not "Lee"... he's not Chinese, as I first assumed) was everything the synopsis promised, and then some.  We even got two parent characters who actually played a role in the story (fancy that, in YA fiction)!  I did find Tabitha and Paul, Ash's friends, a bit on the weak side at times, but they were necessary.

Okay, then there's the plot.  I really, really liked this story.  The synopsis makes it sound like a contemporary romance novel, but it's not.  It's fantasy.  Li's "indulgence in [Ash's] dreams" is a big hint at where this story goes, but it's more than that, too (and I don't want to say much more and give anything away, because that would spoil the fun of readers discovering things for themselves).  I thought the secondary plot thread -- the bits told in third person -- was a nice addition, and it tied in seamlessly with Ash's story.  And the ending...  Well, I'll just say that books rarely make me emotional enough to shed any tears, but this one came close.  I haven't been that invested in fictional characters and their stories in a while.

So, on the whole, this was a good book with a great plot that had a few moments of great writing, but also quite a bit of bad writing.  With another round of editing, this probably could have been a five-star book.  It's still pretty good, though, and if you don't mind some of the technical issues I mentioned above, you might like this one even more than I did.  I'd recommend it to fans of romantic fantasy fiction.

Plot: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Editing: 3/5
Originality: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 3.86 out of 5

Review - Alligator Pie

Alligator Pie
by Dennis Lee
illustrated by Frank Newfeld
Date: 1974
Publisher: Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd.
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 64
Format: e-book
Source: library

Dennis Lee won the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1972 for his poetic meditation on Canadian identity in Civil Elegies, but he made perhaps his most enduring contribution to Canadian nationalism two years later with a short collection of near-nonsense rhymes written for a much younger set. Alligator Pie, which remains the classic Canadian bedtime book, is written as if Mother Goose had the Latin name Branta canadensis, from William Lyon Mackenzie King, who "loved his mother like anything," to Trois-Rivières, which, of course, rhymes with "eat your hair."

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I've known about Alligator Pie for years.  I was introduced to the title poem when I was in elementary school.  Its bouncy rhythm is unforgettable.  I'm not sure if I read the book as a child or not, because none of the poems seemed familiar (with the exception of "Skyscraper", which I'm pretty sure was read to us in Grade 1).

Given that this book is almost 40 years old, it's not surprising that aspects of it feel a bit dated.  Some of the illustrations are obviously from another time.  A poem about measles and mumps shouts that it's from another era.  And perhaps spousal abuse was once considered humourous, but that's no longer the case.

However, that being said, there are still a number of highly enjoyable poems in this collection.  "Alligator Pie" is one of the best.  "Ookpik" made me giggle.  "On Tuesdays I Polish My Uncle" has some delicious rhymes involving a pet shark.  "The Friends" is a sweet little poem about a child and their friend named Egg.  "Tricking" is a cute poem about reverse psychology.  "The Sitter and the Butter and the Better Batter Fritter" is so much fun to read aloud... if you can do it without cracking up at your attempts at the tongue twisters within.

This book is also extremely Canadian.  Poems like "In Kamloops", "Bed Song", "William Lyon Mackenzie King", "Tongue Twister", and "Kahshe or Chicoutimi" all feature distinctly Canadian people or places.  There's even a poem about hockey, appropriately titled "The Hockey Game".

The meter of these poems is such that they have a tendency to get stuck in your head, like a jump-rope song.  Some of them reminded me of the poems in A. A. Milne's When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.  I did not realize that Dennis Lee had been a lyricist for Fraggle Rock.  The whimsy and fun he brought to those songs is on full display here.

If you can overlook the few dated poems and illustrations, you'll probably find quite a bit to like here.  It would be a fun book to read aloud to children... but it's also fun for adults who just want to indulge their inner child.

Selection: 3/5
Meter: 4/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 4/5
Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3.4 out of 5

In My Mailbox (57)

Bought from Amazon.ca:

The Assassin's Curse
by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to another pirate clan. But that only prompts the scorned clan to send an assassin after her. When Ananna faces him down one night, armed with magic she doesn't really know how to use, she accidentally activates a curse binding them together.

To break the spell, Ananna and the assassin must complete three impossible tasks--all while grappling with evil wizards, floating islands, haughty manticores, runaway nobility, strange magic... and the growing romantic tension between them.

The Raven Boys
by Maggie Stiefvater

"There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love... or you killed him."

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

Borrowed from the library:

Absent
by Katie Williams

When seventeen-year-old Paige dies in a freak fall from the roof during Physics class, her spirit is bound to the grounds of her high school. At least she has company: her fellow ghosts Evan and Brooke, who also died there. But when Paige hears the rumor that her death wasn't an accident--that she supposedly jumped on purpose--she can't bear it. Then Paige discovers something amazing. She can possess living people when they think of her, and she can make them do almost anything. Maybe, just maybe, she can get to the most popular girl in school and stop the rumors once and for all.

What was in your "mailbox" this week?


In My Mailbox was started by Kristi of The Story Siren.