Review: The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Release Date: September 2007

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Age Group: Adult

Pages: 120

Source: Borrowed from the Library

Summary (goodreads.com): A deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading.

When the Queen in pursuit of her wandering corgis stumbles upon a mobile library she feels duty bound to borrow a book. Aided by Norman, a young man from the palace kitchen who frequents the library, Bennett describes the Queen's transformation as she discovers the liberating pleasures of the written word.

With the poignant and mischievous wit of The History Boys, England's best loved author revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader's life.

My Review:

I first found out about this book in a Bas Bleu catalog several years ago and checked it out from the library. For some reason, despite its small size I couldn’t get through it, I just couldn’t get into it, and returned it. By chance I found it again and decided to give it another shot. This time I couldn’t put it down. With a degree in Literature I feel like I understand the Queen’s view points on reading better now than I would have before. The Queen was new to reading and was exploring the classics much like a college student must. Every time I recognized an author or title that the Queen was reading I would get excited. At one point she quotes Dickinson’s poem “Tell the truth but tell it slant” and almost misnames the author, but catches herself. Before she did, however, I caught her mistake right off because I had read the poem not a week before for my seminar class. The plot of The Uncommon Reader was incredibly intriguing to me because I myself am a reading anglophile so the fact that the Queen of England is the title character alone had my interest. The depth Bennett gave to the Queen was extremely well done and very convincing. She is understandably wise while also being short sighted when it comes to dealing with commoners. After reading this I had a hard time fighting the temptation to search for video of the Queen sneaking out of public events with a book in hand!

~Laura!

Review: Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez

Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez

Release Date: July 13^th, 2013

Publisher: Orbit

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 300

Source: ebook via NetGalley

Summary (goodreads.com): Witness the epic battle of the cyclops! Visit the endangered dragon preserve! Please, no slaying. Solve the mystery of The Mystery Cottage, if you dare! Buy some knick knacks from The Fates! They might come in handy later.

On a road trip across an enchanted America, Helen and Troy will discover all this and more. If the curse placed upon them by an ancient god doesn't kill them or the pack of reluctant orc assassins don't catch up to them, Helen and Troy might reach the end their journey in one piece, where they might just end up destroying the world. Or at least a state or two.

A minotaur girl, an all-American boy, a three-legged dog, and a classic car are on the road to adventure, where every exit leads to adventure. Whether they like it or not.

My Review:  

First off, this novel has scenes that are very graphic and there is a lot of swearing. That aside, I liked this book. It reminded me a bit of Percy Jackson on the quest aspect, but overall it is its own thing. I liked that one of the main characters, Helen, wasn't human. She was a minotaur and Troy was a seemingly perfect human and they live in a world where that is completely normal. They contrasted each other quite nicely and I really liked how they each developed while they worked their way through their quest.  I loved the setting of enchanted America where Gods and mythical creatures aren’t just accepted as real but they live alongside humans. The plot was intriguing and it was suspenseful enough to keep me turning the pages. It was cleverly written and entertaining. I would recommend it for fans of Greek myths and adventure!

~Laura!

Review: Feed by M.T. Anderson

Title: Feed

Author:  M.T. Anderson

Release Date: September 23^rd, 2002

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 308

Source: Bought for my YA Lit Class

Summary (goodreads.com): Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.

My Review: 

(NOTE: this review is way longer than any other review I've written because it was also an assignment for my YA lit class)
Titus’ world scares the ever-living stuffing out of me. M.T. Anderson has created a world that seems incredibly plausible to me. Everything that happens to Titus and Violet could happen to us in the future. The best part of Feed was the language and his use of it to help characterize the main characters. He channeled teenagers better than any YA author I have ever read. Titus describes conversation a lot like I do when he’s chatting with his chat on the feed (examples: and then she was all… and then he was like…).  This was so similar to how I describe conversations that I actually got freaked out and I liked that I was able to draw such a strong connection. On the other hand some of the language Anderson had the characters use confused me. Their slang, for example, was futuristic and confusing. I feel like a futuristic slang dictionary would have been helpful. After a while I understood some terms but a lot of the time I was left guessing and I think that if I knew what the heck some of the words meant I would have gotten a better grasp of the characters. Despite all of the excellent characterization using language it was still really had to connect to the characters at first because I am so far removed from their setting. This might also be because I have never been one for science fiction like this. Normally I wouldn't have picked this book up and if I had a choice I wouldn't have made it more than twenty pages in because it was so hard to connect with.
               One of the creepiest parts of Feed was the ads. The novel is interspersed with sections of sample ads that are transmitted through the feed. I think that was a really interesting way of conveying how disruptive they are. They always caught me off guard and I always had the urge to skip over them because they got in the way of the plot. They were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. They got me to think about if I had a feed and had to have these commercials fed directly into my brain all the time. I'd go crazy or I would learn to ignore them, just like I ignore my facebook ads! I really liked Violet’s idea to beat the system when it came to the ads. The ads of the novel are extremely personalized to each individual person, much like the ads of facebook. After I read Feed I checked my facebook to see if the ads they had would be things I was interested in. Six out of six were spot on. There were ads for New Zealand’s Middle Earth tour, Harper Voyager books, book scout, Amazon’s Kindle, This is Teen, and a Jack Skellington cake. This drove the idea of Feed home for me.
            Anderson did a fantastic job portraying a society that has taken technology to far. The internet has literally become their brains, so much so that without the feed people couldn’t function in society and if the feed itself malfunctions I suggest you start saying goodbye because you will not survive! I really hope this book makes others think about how much we rely on technology and how it is making our society worse rather than better.

~Read More,

Talk Less,

Laura!

Review: Beyond the Grave by Mara Purnhagen

Title: Beyond the Grave

Author: Mara Purnhagen

Release Date: August 30^th, 2011

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 256

Source: ebook from Publisher via Netgalley

Series: Past Midnight (#3)

Other Titles in the Series: Past Midnight (#1), One Hundred Candles (#2)

Summary (goodreads.com): I can’t move forward with my life until I know my demons are confined to the past...

Being Charlotte Silver, the daughter of famous paranormal investigators, means my life isn’t like that of other teenage girls. Especially after what happened to my parents. Things changed. I missed prom and deferred my big college plans. But I still have my boyfriend, Noah. He’s everything I could want—if I can figure out what’s up with him. Suddenly Noah is secretive.

I fear it has something to do with what happened to us three months ago. The bruise Noah suffered during a paranormal attack has never completely faded. Now I’ve learned Noah is researching demons. And when he disappears, it’s up to me to find him—before something else does.

My Review:

This book wasn’t as scary as its predecessors. I think that is why I liked it a bit less than the other ones even though I understood why it had to be calmer. This is the end of this series and so things needed to be wrapped up, there isn’t a cliff hanger ending that needed to be built up and so we got a less scary but still brilliant novel. Don’t get me wrong though, Charlotte’s narration is still quote foreboding and creepy at times to fit with the melancholy mood that was established in the other books, to me, there weren’t as many instances where I was scared out of my mind like in the previous two. All the familiar characters are back and better than ever, as well. I can’t really say too much more without spoiling the book (which would be quite a shame), so let’s just say that I am pleased with how this book wrapped up this brilliant series. If you haven’t yet read previous two Past Midnight books I encourage you to do so, you won’t be sorry!

Review: Girl Wonder by Alexa Martin

Title: Girl Wonder

Author: Alexa Martin

Release Date: May 3^rd, 2011

Publisher: Hyperion

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 304

Source: Won ARC at TBF 2011

Challenge: Debut Author Challenge (hosted by The Story Siren)

Summary (goodreads.com): As if transferring senior year weren't hard enough, Charlotte Locke has been bumped to lower level classes at her new school. With no friends, a terrible math SAT score, and looming college application deadlines, the future is starting to seem like an oncoming train for which she has no ticket.

Then Amanda enters her orbit like a hot-pink meteor, offering Charlotte a ticket to something else: popularity. Amanda is fearless, beautiful, brilliant, and rich. As her new side kick, Charlotte is brought into the elite clique of the debate team—and closer to Neal, Amanda's equally brilliant friend and the most perfect boy Charlotte has ever seen.

But just when senior year is looking up, Charlotte’s life starts to crumble. The more things heat up between Charlotte and Neal, the more Neal wants to hide their relationship. Is he ashamed? Meanwhile, Amanda is starting to act strangely competitive, and she's keeping a secret Charlotte doesn't want to know.

Talented newcomer Alexa Martin delivers a poignant story of first love, jealousy and friendship, where the ups and downs of senior year have never been so complicated. What else can Charlotte do but throw her hands up and ride?

My Review:

Alexa Martin did a really good job writing about a lost girl who is having a hard time figure out who she is and who she wants to be in her life. The main character Charlotte is a girl who got sucked up into the vacuum of a stereotypical high school senior year complete with drugs, sex and booze. I hated Charlotte because of this. I found her to be a written really well character, so well written in fact, that I ended up hating her for the majority of the novel. However, once her life imploded I really started to like her because she realized that she was an idiot and her so called friends were losers. The denouement of this story is what makes me like Charlotte and the book in general. I ended up rooting for Charlotte in the end. I could see that after she came to her epic realization that she finally started to see the people who were there for her all along such as her brother and his best friend (who, by the way, were my favorite characters of the novel). Overall, this is a story about growing up and making mistakes, but it is also a story about how even after making a ton of mistakes there will always be a tomorrow and it will be better than the day before!

Review: Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink

Title: Prophecy of the Sisters

Author: Michelle Zink

Release Date: August 1^st, 2009

Publisher: Little, Brown

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 352

Source: Borrowed from Library

Series: Prophecy of the Sisters (#1)

Other Titles in the Series: Guardian of the Gate (#2), Circle of Fire (#3)

Summary (goodreads.com): An ancient prophecy divides two sisters-

One good...

One evil...

Who will prevail?

Twin sisters Lia and Alice Milthorpe have just become orphans. They have also become enemies. As they discover their roles in a prophecy that has turned generations of sisters against each other, the girls find themselves entangled in a mystery that involves a tattoo-like mark, their parents' deaths, a boy, a book, and a lifetime of secrets.

Lia and Alice don't know whom they can trust.

They just know they can't trust each other.

My Review:

I read this upon the urging of two of my best friends who read it when it first came out in 2009. My one friend read it in one day, while the other read it in a double period of engineering (so about an hour and a half). I was convinced that it would be a brilliant book because they just blew through it like they couldn’t read fast enough. I didn’t blow through it at all, there was a slow start and it didn’t pick up until more than half way through. I felt as if I was always waiting for something to happen, something other than what the book jacket said. There’s a lot of talk and no action. However, I will be reading (and reviewing) the rest of the series because I am hoping it will get better. Overall, I liked this book, but it was nothing special.

Blog Tour Review: Elemental Reality by Cesya MaRae Cuono

Title: Elemental Reality

Author: Cesya MaRae Cuono

Release Date: August 21^st, 2011

Publisher: Revolution Publishing

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 251

Source: ebook from Publisher

Series: Elemental #1

Summary (goodreads.com): When Callie Pierce was ten, her mother disappeared without a trace. On the eve of her disappearance twelve years later, the earth seemingly comes alive. The elements speak to Callie, and that's only the beginning. Everything she has ever known was a twisted fabrication to protect her. Now the truth is set free. Callie and her sister are more powerful than any Faerie ever born. Now they have to use their powers to save their mother and family from the evil hands of fate that threaten to tear them apart. Welcome to her elemental reality.

My Review:

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I like it, I do, but I don’t love it. Should you read it? Hell yes. It’s a great story and really interesting, but personally I think the events happened way too quickly. This is the type of fantasy novel where things like wars, powers and such should really be explained thoroughly, but they weren’t and I was left very confused. The main character is also in her twenties and that really threw me off. I’m just not used to reading about non-teens in young adult/teen books. Other than those small complaints I did enjoy Elemental Reality. I loved Oli and his Aussie-ness and I loved how Lola, Callie’s sister, drove me crazy just like little sisters are supposed (she also made me really glad I don’t have one). I really liked that they weren’t traditional faeries either but ones with all the elements (even if that was a bit convenient for what was happening in the story). Overall, I liked Elemental Reality and am waiting patiently for the next installment.

This review is part of the Elemental Reality Blog Tour (which happens to be my very first blog tour ever. I couldn't have hoped for a better book to start off with)!

About Author:

Cesya MaRae Cuono hails from a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of Alvernia

University where she majored in Business Administration and also received her certificate of Multi-Media & Production makeup from Cosmix School of Makeup Artistry. You can find any updates from Cesya on her website at www.cesyacuonobooks.blogspot.com.

Review: Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton

Title: Blood Magic

Author: Tessa Gratton

Release Date: May 24^th, 2011

Publisher: Random House

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 405

Source: Library

Series: The Blood Journals (#1)

Challenge: Debut Author Challenge (Hosted by the Story Siren)

Summary (goodreads.com):

It starts off simply.

Draw a circle ... place a dead leaf in the center ... sprinkle some salt ... recite a little Latin ... add a drop of blood ...

Maybe that last part isn't exactly simple. Yet somehow it feels right to Silla Kennicott. And nothing in her life has felt remotely right since her parents' horrific deaths. She's willing to do anything to uncover the truth about her family—even try a few spells from the mysterious book that arrived on her doorstep ... and spill some blood.

The book isn't the only recent arrival in Silla's life. There's Nick Pardee, the new guy next door who may have seen Silla casting a spell. She's not sure what he saw and is afraid to find out. But as they spend more time together, Silla realizes this may not be Nick's first encounter with Blood Magic. Brought together by a combination of fate and chemistry, Silla and Nick can't deny their attraction. And they can't ignore the dark presence lurking nearby—waiting to reclaim the book and all its power.

Tessa Gratton's intoxicating first novel will keep pulses racing, minds reeling, and pages turning right up to the very last drop of blood.

My Review:

I have really mixed feelings about this book. At times I hated it and had to stop reading because I didn’t agree with what was happening in the plot lines. Overall, though, I liked it. Would I reread it? I don’t think so. Will I read the next book? Maybe. Do I recommend you read it? Absolutely. Just because it’s not precisely my taste doesn’t mean I will tell people not to read it. I liked all the characters and for the most part I enjoyed the plot. But at times Silla, Nick, and Reese’s casual blood spillage just sickened me. It was incredibly interesting, but very twisted. The writing was suburb, though, which really made this book work. I really liked the switching narratives (this book is told from Silla and Nick’s POVs as well as journal entries from the antagonist and a surprise character later on). All the history and flashbacks and journal entries were all presented at the right plot point so they didn’t bog down the story, but greatly enhanced it. Anyway, my advice is to try this book out because it never hurts to try.

Review: Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Title: Incarceron

Author: Catherine Fisher

Release Date: January 26th, 2010 (first published May 3rd, 2007 in the UK, I think)

Publisher: Dial

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 442

Source: Library

Series: Book one of Incarceron series

Other Titles in the Series: Sapphique (book #2)

Challenge: Steampunk Challenge

Summary (goodreads.com): Incarceron is a prison unlike any other: Its inmates live not only in cells, but also in metal forests, dilapidated cities, and unbounded wilderness. The prison has been sealed for centuries, and only one man, legend says, has ever escaped.

Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, can’t remember his childhood and believes he came from Outside Incarceron. He’s going to escape, even though most inmates don’t believe that Outside even exists. And then Finn finds a crystal key and through it, a girl named Claudia.

Claudia claims to live Outside—her father is the Warden of Incarceron and she’s doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn escape, she will need his help in return. But they don’t realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost far more than they know.

Because Incarceron is alive.

My Review: At first this book was really slow. I didn’t like Finn’s point of view chapters at all, but I liked Claudia’s so I trudged on. Once their stories intertwined I liked it a lot better. It was fascinating to learn about Incarceron from a prisoner’s point of view as well as an outside. See people outside of Incarceron have been told that it’s a paradise but really it’s a prison that has a mind of its on. The prison Incarceron is like the Demon Child of Stephen King’s Rose Red and Disney’s Smart House, not exactly the place I would want to live but it’s a great topic to read about. There are plenty of plot twists and action so I think it’s a book most teenagers will enjoy (my best friend loves this book!). There’s also going to be a movie made soon which I think will draw in even more readers (even if its only because Taylor Lautner is playing Finn (which makes no sense to me but there you go)).

Review: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Title: The Red Pyramid

Author: Rick Riordan

Release Date: May 4th, 2010

Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 516

Source: Library

Series: The Kane Chronicles (book #1)

Other Titles in the Series: The Throne of Fire (book #2) is due out May 3rd.

Summary (goodreads.com): Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.

One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them —Set— has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe - a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

My Review: At first I was a little disappointed with this book, it started off really slow but after a while I started to like it. I liked how it was supposed to be a transcript of what happened to Carter and Sadie since they recorded their story. It was well done, I would be reading and think it was just written and then whoever wasn’t talking would break in really quick to say there version or they would make a face and the person recording would comment on it. It's hard to explain if you haven’t read it, but it's cool. Personally, I like Sadie’s perspective better because she wasn’t as serious as Carter, she was funnier. At times it was hard to remember that Carter is supposed to be the older sibling because Sadie is so mature (what with being British and all). However, I feel as if they both should have been older maybe around 15 or 16, Carter and Sadie both seemed to handle things way too maturely for being in their lower teens. I liked that this book had so much of the Egyptian history because I just re-learned about them in my Western Civilization class last semester. I loved Bast, Carter and Sadie’s friend aka the goddess of cats, she’s fierce and funny! Overall, I would recommend this to teens who liked Rick Riordan’s other books as well as kids who like Egypt!

Review: Claire de Lune by Christine Johnson

Hi

Just a reminder this is going to be my last post and review of 2010 as well as my last post in this format.

Title: Claire de Lune

Author: Christine Johnson

Summary (B&N.com):

Torn between two destinies…

Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and her crush keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she’s the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: She’s a werewolf.

As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she finds her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart. Burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, she will be forced to make a choice that will change her life forever. . . .

My Review: The last book I read that was solely about werewolves was Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause and that was years ago. It was nice not having other fantasy creatures overshadow the werewolves, for once. Christine Johnson’s writing in Claire de Lune made me connect to a wolf pack like I never had before. I couldn’t imagine having my parent lie to me for 16 years about what she is and what I am to become though. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it I would have had a nervous break down but the main character, Claire while she was pissed at her mom, she handled it way better then I would have. It was also hard for me to imagine having to keep a secret that big. Keeping secrets for other people I am amazing at….it's keeping my own secrets I’m not so good at. If I become a werewolf there is no way I am not telling my best friends. What I really like though is that it was seriously different from all other stories about werewolves. You don’t get bitten to become one, you’re born one and only if you’re a girl. There are no male werewolves. And get this, werewolves aren’t myths, they’re real in this story and humans know about them (that doesn’t mean they accept them though as this story shows). Claire de Lune was all around a good book, I recommend it to all those who like werewolves and fantasy. Oh and props to goes out to Claire de Lune for its title it’s a whole new level of perfect, it sums it up so well with out even trying that hard.

Review: The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman

Hi

I’m so glad I finally got to read Polly Shulman’s Sophomore Novel.

Title: The Grimm Legacy

Author: Polly Shulman

Summary (B&N.com): Elizabeth has a new job at an unusual library— a lending library of objects, not books. In a secret room in the basement lies the Grimm Collection. That's where the librarians lock away powerful items straight out of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales: seven-league boots, a table that produces a feast at the blink of an eye, Snow White's stepmother's sinister mirror that talks in riddles.

When the magical objects start to disappear, Elizabeth embarks on a dangerous quest to catch the thief before she can be accused of the crime—or captured by the thief.

Polly Shulman has created a contemporary fantasy with a fascinating setting and premise, starring an ordinary girl whose after-school job is far from ordinary— and leads to a world of excitement, romance and magical intrigue.

My Review: For some reason this book took me a while to read (which surprised me because I read Polly Shulman’s debut novel Enthusiasm in only a few hours) I think the biggest problem for me was that I don’t like when books pressure me to feel like I should be suspicious of a character that I really want to trust. There’s really only so much mystery I can stand in a non mystery book, and having this happen to me with 4 separate characters is just too much. Every time I got over a plot twist that made me suspicious of someone, there was another one that made me suspicious of another character without clearing up the first one’s name! I like to know at least one person I can root for other then the main character. Other than that annoyance though I liked this book; once I figured out which characters I could trust (which happened about halfway in) I sped through the rest of it. I loved all the references to the Grimms’ fairy tales. that’s what really sold the book for me, that it’s a contemporary fantasy! Needless to say, I would love to work at this particular library.

Click here for my review of Polly Shulman’s debut novel Enthusiasm!