Friday Forward: Worlds of Ink and Shadow, by Lena Coakley, AND A GIVEAWAY!!

Once upon a time, many moons ago, a budding novelist (that's me) sat in a critique group at a writers' conference in Niagara Falls and listened to a passage that left her feeling awed, slightly inadequate, and a weeny bit jealous.

That the passage was one which was put forward for critique, and therefore considered by its author to be somehow lacking or Not Quite Right, left the budding novelist feeling even more inadequate and jealous. But mostly, awed.

The author of said passage was Lena Coakley, and the passage - which did not quite make it into the final draft - was a magical beginning, that grew into an even more magical book: Worlds of Ink and Shadow.

Look at all the Pretties...

I have been waiting so long for this book to be born. I am so excited to have finally gotten it into my hot little hands.

SCORE.

Worlds of Ink and Shadow is an historical fantasy that, as anyone familiar with Coakley's previous novel Witchlanders would expect, accomplishes many things at once. At its surface, serves as an origin story of the Bronte family, and a most magical and mysterious one at that. Coakley makes every one of the four siblings - Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne - live and breathe and shine in this novel that takes each of their points of view in turn. The way she seamlessly slips from one point of view to the next, always showing exactly what the reader needs to see, is masterful. Additionally, the blending of fantasy with reality - the way in which a tale about siblings who can cross over into their invented worlds is interwoven with the tale of four siblings who achieved literary greatness in our world - is a literary accomplishment worthy of the Brontes themselves.

But this novel is so much more than that. As Coakley weaves the story of the literary beginnings of this famous family, she also spins the story of every author, capturing the simultaneous joy and anguish of creating entire worlds, the fervent wish that those worlds could be real coupled with the great burden of being a God in those worlds, of being responsible for the lives and deaths of so many. All authors know the grief that accompanies the death of a beloved character, the weight that every decision about a character carries, the worry that if one does not get it absolutely right, then the author is doing her characters - and her story - a great disservice. Coakley allows Charlotte and Emily and Branwell to carry this burden, and thus shares with the reader something of what it is to create story. For writers like me, it is a work of great empathy. For everyone else, it is the final fleshing out that makes this story of the Brontes truly complete.

This is a masterwork. It was so worth the wait, and I cannot wait to read it again.

And because I am lucky enough to know Lena, and to have been to her launch party (which featured tea and scones and bonnets and a reading of the funniest scene in an historical fantasy ever), I have a treat for you.

I got an extra copy. An extra signed copy.

OOOOOOH.

You want this. Trust me.

To enter, simply comment with your name and email address, and tell me which Bronte sibling is your favorite. (Your email address is important, since it's the only way I will have of contacting you if you win.)

One extra entry per share on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr - link to your share in the comment, so I can see it, or if you tweet about it, put my handle @IshtaWrites in the tweet.

I will close the giveaway and draw a random entry at MIDNIGHT on the night of FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5TH, 2016. MIDNIGHT on the night of FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH, 2016.*

Open in the USA and Canada only. (Sorry, but shipping to Europe and beyond is EXPENSIVE, and the life of a writer is a hungry one. Just ask the Brontes.)

Good Luck!

*This week, I was taken hostage by alien invaders, and was unable to promote this giveaway the way it deserved to be promoted. So now that the invaders have released me, I've extended the deadline.

Friday Forward: Books in the Wild!

It's Friday!

TGIF, guys. This has been a really heavy week - both for me personally, because TREE PLANTING/rewriting/landscaping/kids/GAAAH, and for humans in North America. I'm compiling my thoughts on the heinous acts of a white supremacist who opened fire on nine people in Charleston, and those thoughts will follow at some point (probably on my tumblr), but for now, I think my blog post on how racism is woven throughout America's narrative will suffice.

And now for some fun!

I took The Kidlets to the bookstore on Monday, and I found some awesome books that I've been wanting to sink my claws into. So, of course, I did what anyone would do.

Where are my books? IN THE BOOKSTORE!

I took a selfie! Because, CRAZYWRITERLADY.

I was really excited to see my friend Debbie Ohi's book on the top shelf at the bookstore. This is her first solo picture book, and I am SO excited for her! (And, it's an awesome book. It's about a boy who loves books, and one day he notices that… DUN DUN DUNNNNNN… is books are disappearing! The culprit and the solution have to be some of the cutest plot twists ever. You guys need to go out and buy it, because, seriously. It's adorable.)

And look, look what else I found?

GRABBY-HANDS

See that book on the far right? The whimsical-looking one? I have been waiting for Maggie Stiefvater's latest addition to her MG titles for aaaaaaaages. I love it when my favorite YA authors write books that I can share with The Kidlets.

And then I got to the bus stop and pulled out the IndigoKids Summer Reading Guide that one of the store people put in my bag, and look what I saw on the cover?

Eeny-meeny-miney...

See that book there? The one on the bottom right-hand corner? The one that is awesome? I bought Kevin Sylvester's book, Neil Flambe and the Bard's Banquet, as soon as it came out, and Kidlet Number Two (who will henceforth be referred to as "Love Nugget") read it in an afternoon and then asked me if he could try the recipes.

THAT'S RIGHT. RECIPES. I might be even more in love with this series than I was already, and I'm thrilled that Kevin's book is on the cover of the reading guide. It totally deserves to be there, because it is amazing. Go buy it.

So, that's what I'm reading this week. How about you? What are you reading?

BOOK REVIEW: The Opposite of Geek, by Ria Voros

It's Friday!

You know what that means: a full work-day of scrambling to get all those things done that you still haven't managed to wrap up before the weekend starts and no-one else will be at the office to take your calls!

Also, it's Book Review Day.

(Okay, Book Review Day is the real reason for Friday. That, and staying up late watching movies and making nomming popcorn.)

I've been participating in Ontario's Forest of Reading Program, which is basically a Readers' Choice award program for Canadian books. This means a Lot of Reading. A LOT. There are seventy books on my TBR list before voting starts in April! I've read a few real gems, so I'll be sharing some of those with you guys on Fridays for the next few weeks.

Most recently, I was delighted to discover The Opposite of Geek, by Ria Voros. Here's the blurb:

A piercing novel about the unnerving process of growing up, and a girl finding her feet.

Gretchen Meyers doesn't know exactly what went wrong, but life in the eleventh grade is beginning to suck. As if having a semi-nudist, food-obsessed family wasn't awkward enough, she has lost her best friend to the fanatical school swim team, and her chemistry grade is so close to negative digits that only emergency tutoring can save it. So far, so high school. Then James/Dean rolls into her life — also known as her zit-faced chemistry tutor James and his slightly less zit-faced cousin Dean. Kind-hearted rebels without a cause, they draw Gretchen out of classroom hell, and briefly the world seems full of possibility.

But everything changes over the course of one awful night.

Bewildered by harsh new emotions of grief and love, Gretchen realizes she must now decide who she wants to be and what it means to be loyal. Written partly in verse, as self-confessed poetry geek Gretchen finds new ways of expressing herself, The Opposite of Geek is a tale of haiku, high school, and heartache. Rich with humour, it explores all the anguished details of teenage life through the words of one girl who is finding her way.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. I mean, I can tell you - I enjoyed it a LOT!! - but that's pretty inadequate. After thinking about it, I can break it down into a few key elements:

Characterization: I love the details with which the author imbues the minor characters. Gretchen's dad is German and her mom is Scottish, which plays out in all kinds of interesting little ways throughout the text. There are cliques, whose walls break down as we get to know the characters within them better. There is a guy who is totally hot on the outside, but totally not on the inside. When we talk about a world that is fully fleshed out, a big part of that is having three-dimensional characters living in it, and that is really well-done in this novel.

Playful and Interesting Storytelling Choices: There are moments in which this novel feels like it's been written in free verse, and other moments when it's written in haiku. There are moments wen it's straight-up prose. This could have been garbled and awful and jarring, but in this book, it just all flows and it WORKS. The changes to haiku happen at key emotional beats, when really, who thinks in whole sentences anyway? I felt that I was in good hands the whole time I was reading. I was in the hands of a person who knew how best to tell this story.

Language and Voice: Gretchen is a poet, and she uses phrases like "word sugar". Her voice matches the description we are given of her. That is so much rarer than it should be, and it's a delight when I find a novel in which there is a true synthesis of voice and character.

It all boils down to:

Honesty: The growth that Gretchen goes through in this novel makes sense given the circumstances of the story; the emotions and how the characters express them feel true; the world feels real.

This is a really, really good book, guys. You're missing out if you haven't read it.

Get The Opposite of Geek at your local independent bookstore, or from these online spaces:

IndieBound: CLICK HERE

Chapters: CLICK HERE

Amazon: CLICK HERE

Thanks for stopping by.

Book Review: THE THICKETY: A PATH BEGINS, by J. A. White

Oh, you guys. This book.

THIS BOOK.

I loved this book.

Incidentally, so did Kidlet Number One. We read it for book club, and oh, my gosh. We couldn’t put it down.

Here’s the publisher’s copy:

Hand in hand, the witch's children walked down the empty road.

When Kara Westfall was six years old, her mother was convicted of the worst of all crimes: witchcraft. Years later, Kara and her little brother, Taff, are still shunned by the people of their village, who believe that nothing is more evil than magic . . . except, perhaps, the mysterious forest that covers nearly the entire island. It has many names, this place. Sometimes it is called the Dark Wood, or Sordyr's Realm. But mostly it's called the Thickety.

The black-leaved trees swayed toward Kara and then away, as though beckoning her.

The villagers live in fear of the Thickety and the terrible creatures that live there. But when an unusual bird lures Kara into the forbidden forest, she discovers a strange book with unspeakable powers. A book that might have belonged to her mother.

And that is just the beginning of the story.

The Thickety: A Path Begins is the start of a thrilling and spellbinding tale about a girl, the Thickety, and the power of magic.

This book pulled me in from the first sentence. I love the way the sentences were crafted, the language, the rhythm. The whole book feels like one of those ancient stories, handed down by oral tradition through generations. It feels like a fairy tale, but not the pastel-colored sappy Disney kind. The Grimm kind. There is a way people speak when they tell these kinds of stories, a cadence, and the author captured it perfectly.

I also loved the creepiness of it. Grace, the antagonist, is truly wicked, and I love the way her sociopathic nature comes through the page. I was really rooting for her to go down, and it’s not every book that can bring out that reaction.

But it is with the underlying themes of the book that THE THICKETY excels. This is a book that asks questions about the overlap between the faithful and the occult, about what it is to be good and what it is to be bad. This is a book that explores the difference between being obedient and being brainwashed, and that explores what it is like to have one’s beliefs challenged in the most basic and meaningful way. Most astonishingly, it does so in a way that is appropriate and approachable for Middle Grade readers. In Kara, we have the faithful trope of the Heroine Plagued by Self-Doubt, but in the hands of J. A. White the trope never feels tired, which is a very, very rare find. This is a girl who is shaken to her core, and the twist at the end (which caught me by complete surprise) answers just enough for the book to feel satisfying, but not enough for the resolution to feel neat.

This book is not for the faint of heart or the easily frightened or disturbed, but would make an excellent novel study for more mature Middle Grade readers. Five enormous stars!

Find The Thickety: a Path Begins at your legal independent bookseller, or online at:
IndieBound
Chapters Indigo (for Canadian readers)
Amazon

Book Review: We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

Once in a while, a book comes along that is so honest, so true, so close to home, that it takes your breath away. This is one of those books.

Here's the publisher's copy:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

(Okay, seriously - that last line? It's too cheesy. Whatever. The copy is not the book.)

On the surface, this is a book about a wealthy teenaged girl recovering from an accident, on a private island surrounded by her wealthy family. If you look deeper, this is still a book about a wealthy teenaged girl recovering from an accident, on a private island surrounded by her wealthy family. But it is also a book about what happens when money becomes one's sole purpose; about what happens when maintaining the illusion of perfection becomes more important than everything else; about what happens when we stop listening to each other, and stop trying to talk to one another. It is a book about the danger of lies. It is a book that reveals the truth.

I don't want to reveal anything about the plot in this review, so I'm going to stick to talking about narrative devices that I liked. The story is told in first person, from the perspective of Cadence, who has experienced selective amnesia ever since being found in the water off the beach on her family's island two years ago. She mostly uses a traditional prose format for her narrative, but occasionally she falls into free verse, and I like that. It feels like the way we think sometimes.

She also uses fairytales as a way to convey meaning, and as the narrative progresses and her amnesia slowly gives way to memories, the fairytales change. I really like that aspect of this book. I think people look for their own lives in stories, and we often have to change the stories in order to fit our lives, and I like that this book recognizes that.

I saw the "twist" coming - the ending was no surprise to me. It wasn't any less heartbreaking for it, but I saw it. I had been looking for it from the beginning - maybe because the book was set up as a book of lies, or maybe because something very much like this happened to my family. Not exactly like this - the stories and the truth never line up in their details. But in the deeper truth, in the heart of it, they are the same, so I wasn't surprised.

And I guess that's the last thing I want to say. That this is a made-up story, but if you look deeper, it is a true story about someone. Someone I knew; someone you know right now. That people, even really smart, wealthy, well-educated people, sometimes make stupid decisions, and do stupid things that lead to awful consequences, and then lie about them. To you; to me; to themselves. And that I really hope you read this, because it is the truth.

BOOK REVIEW: Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson

A while back (an embarrassingly long while back), I received this package:

What could it be???

I wasn't expecting a package. I LOVE packages! I eagerly tore it open, and inside:

I know Terry! This must be Terry Lynn Johnson!

 I hope MY books have covers that good one day...

IT WAS! It was her newly released book, ICE DOGS, a Middle Grade contemporary adventure that I had been WAITING for ever since she and I had shared a room at an SCBWI conference way back in…let me see now…2012???

Yeah, I wanted this!

My first reaction was, HOLY ICE DOGS, LOOK AT THAT COVER! I mean, just LOOK at it! It's gorgeous! It looks like someone opened the gates to Narnia and a sled dog is walking through them right now. I wanted to get lost in that book.

Unfortunately for me, so did Kidlet Number One, and he snagged it before I could, the sneaky little sneaker.

He read it in an afternoon. This is an indication of just how good ICE DOGS is.

And then: MY TURN! First, a short intro. Here's the flap copy:

Lost.

That's how the fourteen-year-old dog-sledder Victoria Secord has felt ever since her father died. A champion musher, Victoria is independent, self-reliant, and, thanks to her father, an expert in surviving the unforgiving Alaskan bush. When an injured "city boy" and a freak snowstorm both catch Victoria and her dog team by surprise, however, a routine trip becomes a life-or-death trek through the frozen wilderness. As temperatures drop and food stores run out, Victoria must find a way to save them all in this high-stakes, high-adventure middle grade novel of endurance, hope, and finding your way back home.

This is a book that delivers. From the very first page, I was drawn into Victoria's world: the sights and sounds of a race, the tension, the way the dogs scratch and claw in anticipation… The writing crackles with description. Every detail is painted so clearly, but with exactly the right amount of sparsity, that I felt as if I was watching it play out in a film reel in my head. And the author's choice of first person, present tense lends an immediacy to the writing that is perfect for this story.

I also loved how much I learned from this book. As Victoria and Chris (the injured "city boy") navigate the Alaskan wilderness, they rig up snares to hunt for game, follow carrion birds to find food, build fires, snow camp, care for injured dogs…and that's just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I have some limited experience with snow camping and wilderness survival from my College days in the Berkshires, but what the kids do in this book is something else. The insights into life as a dog sledder are so clear, I feel almost as if you could plonk me in the winter wilderness and I'd survive. (The rational part of me knows that's not the case - DON'T TRY THAT AT HOME, KIDS - but it's an indication of the quality of writing that the imaginative part of me believes it.)

The only part that I didn't absolutely love was the way Chris came into the story. For the first few chapters after we met him, his character struck me as "off" - a little too weird, a little too unpredictable, and a little too unwilling to talk. In hindsight, I think this is all related to the accident that injured him, but while I was reading, I was half-trusting the author to take this to a good place, and half-wondering if he was going to turn out to be a rapist or amateur highway robber or something. As awful as it would have been for Chris, I kind of wanted Victoria to leave him behind at the beginning. Either way, it definitely ramped up the tension! (Not-really spoiler: It's good that she didn't leave him behind. He's not a rapist. This IS a middle grade book, guys…)

Finally, the way Victoria's handling of the issues with her mother is woven through the action of the book is so smooth, I didn't even notice it until the book was over. I cried a little at the end, guys. That doesn't happen often.

This is a finely paced page-turner of a novel that both keeps the adrenaline pumping and tugs at the heartstrings. It is a fine piece of writing, and a perfect autumn read! FOUR STARS.

SHATTER ME and UNRAVEL ME by Tahereh Mafi: Review and giveaway!

My review of the excellent SHATTER ME and UNRAVEL ME by the wonderful Tahereh Mafi!




The giveaway is international, but I have to have 20 or more people enter by midnight on the night of Thursday, April 4th, 2013 or I can't run the contest. (Choosing randomly between one or two people is ridiculous.)

Leave comments here or in the comments section on YouTube to win, and make sure you spread the word!

Friday-ish Forward: You Are Stardust, by Elin Kelsey and Soyeon Kim

This book is amazing. We borrowed a copy from the library and immediately went out to buy our own copy once we had read it.

Here's my full review:




Happy reading!

Friday(-ish) Forward: UGLIES, by Scott Westerfeld

First things first: I've been getting a lot of comments from "Anonymous" with badly translated versions of gobbledygook accompanied by links to "Anonymous"' website. Just to be clear: ALL COMMENTS WITH LINKS IN THEM GO STRAIGHT TO SPAM. So go the fonk away, "Anonymous."

So, now that that little piece of ugly business is out of the way (see what I did there), this weekend I want to sing the praises of Scott Westerfeld's richly imagined UGLIES. Here's the blurb: Tally Youngblood is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait for the operation that turns everyone from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to party. But new friend Shay would rather hoverboard to "the Smoke" and be free. Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The "Special Circumstances" authority Dr Cable offers Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

The more I talk about this book, the more I like it. Set in a future in which humans have nearly destroyed the world with their consumption habits and their wars, UGLIES is populated by people who have decided that the best way to end disagreements over differences is to eliminate the differences, and the best way to preserve resources is to take away the need to be responsible with them. Everything is used a few times and then recycled, a new whatever-it-is popping out of the wall on request. Teens and young adults have no responsibilities, except to have fun. Even skipping school and sneaking out and playing "tricks" get nothing more than a reprimand. To Tally, getting her surgery and moving to New Pretty Town sounds like heaven. To me, and to Shay, it sounds like anathema.

Even more intriguing than the premise is that the world is so well thought out that I feel as if we really could end up this way. Westerfeld includes futuristic elements that we are alreadyworking towards: the idea that we can build things one molecule at a time, use them, and then break them down into molecular building blocks to be rebuilt into something else is being experimented with in the field of 3-D printers; the idea that we should deal with bullying by giving children plastic surgery to make them "fit in" better is already prevalent enough that it has been covered on Good Morning America here and ABC News here; and the rapid consumption of the Earth's resources is a conversation that politicians have been having for decades now. UGLIES presents a rather ugly possible future for us (pun fully intended), and I think it raises very important questions about whether we're really on the right track in terms of where we are headed culturally, with most Western economies dependent upon rampant consumerism and our tendency to look for a "quick fix" for things like bullying.

My one complaint about the book is Tally. I found her so vapid and gullible and susceptible to brainwashing in the beginning that I just couldn't relate to her, and I actually wondered if this book was meant as a satire. She got more interesting in Part Two, though, and that's when I started flying through the pages, desperate to know what would happen next.

UGLIES is awesome. Read it. Find it at your local independent bookstore, or get it online at IndieBound here, Chapters Indigo (in Canada) here, or if you really have to, Amazon here.

Happy Reading!

Friday(-ish) Forward: Stones For My Father, by Trilby Kent

So, "tomorrow" turned into longer than the usual. I have no excuse other than that December is busy getting ready for Christmas, and the first part of January is busy putting everything away after Christmas and getting back into the swing of things.

But it's time for another Friday(-ish) Forward, and this week's forward is Trilby Kent's stunning and moving Middle Grade novel, Stones For My Father. Here's the blurb: Corlie Roux’s farm life in South Africa is not easy: the Transvaal is beautiful, but it is also a harsh place where the heat can be so intense that the very raindrops sizzle. When her beloved father dies, she is left with a mother who is as devoted to her sons as she is cruel to her daughter. Despite this, Corlie finds solace in her friend, Sipho, and in Africa itself and in the stories she conjures for her brothers.

But Corlie’s world is about to vanish: the British are invading and driving Boer families like hers from their farms. Some escape into the bush to fight the enemy. The unlucky ones are rounded up and sent to internment camps.

Will Corlie’s resilience and devotion to her country sustain her through the suffering and squalor she finds in the camp at Kroonstad? That may depend on a soldier from faraway Canada and on inner resources Corlie never dreamed she had…

This book was awarded the 2012 TD Children's Literature Award, so I was really looking forward to reading it. Set in South Africa during the Boer War, Stones For My Father introduces us to Corlie, a heroine with nerve, smarts, compassion, and an abundance of courage. There is a lot to recommend this book.

I found the portrayal of Corlie's relationship with her younger brother Gert, wavering between part jealous sibling and part loving caretaker, to be spot on. I also loved the description of the landscape: the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of the Transvaal came alive in this book. The development of the relationship between Corlie and the Canadian soldier was expertly handled, especially in the final chapters of the story, and the details of life in Corlie's community, and then in the internment camp where her family is sent, are fascinating and horrifying.

I did feel let down a bit by the language - there are a lot of foreign terms used that never quite get explained, and even now I am not sure what they mean, which is unsettling and, for me as a reader, frustrating. I love it when novels employ words and phrases unique to a certain time or place, but not having them explained in the moment leaves me with an incomplete picture of the scene in my mind. Additionally, I would have liked the explanation for the hostility that Corlie's mother displays so openly towards her to come sooner than it did, and more subtly. 

However, this is still a very well written book. It takes a subject that is rarely discussed in detail, and brings it out into the open in a way that had me reaching for my history books. And that, in my mind, spells success.

STONES FOR MY FATHER is available in bookstores, or online at IndieBound here, Amazon here, and for my Canadian readers, ChaptersIndigo here.

Go forth and read! Happy Sunday!

Friday(-ish) Forward: BREATHE, by Sarah Crossan

So, last month my bookclub read BREATHE by Sarah Crossan. We liked it! Here's the blurb from amazon:

Inhale. Exhale. 
Breathe. 
Breathe. 
Breathe . . .
The world is dead. 
The survivors live under the protection of Breathe, the corporation that found a way to manufacture oxygen-rich air.

Alina
has been stealing for a long time. She's a little jittery, but not terrified. All she knows is that she's never been caught before. If she's careful, it'll be easy. If she's careful.

Quinn
should be worried about Alina and a bit afraid for himself, too, but even though this is dangerous, it's also the most interesting thing to happen to him in ages. It isn't every day that the girl of your dreams asks you to rescue her.

Bea
wants to tell him that none of this is fair; they'd planned a trip together, the two of them, and she'd hoped he'd discover her out here, not another girl.

And as they walk into the Outlands with two days' worth of oxygen in their tanks, everything they believe will be shattered. Will they be able to make it back? Will they want to?

I found the concept behind this book really intriguing. And in today's political climate that sees several world leaders treating water as a commodity, it's not that far off, either. In the world of Breathe, someone is always watching. Oxygenated air is something that has to be bought, and it leaves people sick and struggling to survive. That said, this is where the parallels to that aspect of the real world end. While Bea and her family of "subs" do struggle to pay for the air they breathe, they still have modern commodities like showers and electricity. Bea goes to school with other kids from all tiers of society. Her best friend is a Premium. And while I found the social system disturbing, it still felt a lot like "First World Problems." This is not A LONG WALK TO WATER (which you should definitely go read, by the way).

Nor should it be. Despite its post-apocalyptic setting, this is not really a book about socioeconomics. It is a book about three teenagers and the decisions they make. It's about being faced with impossible choices and horrible truths, and growing up in the face of them. And in that respect, this book shines. Though I found myself repeatedly flipping back to check who was speaking during Bea and Alina's chapters, Quinn was a unique and very believable character, and I couldn't help empathizing with him, spoiled and clueless though he was. But the real strong point in this book is the cast of secondary characters. From the innocently obsessed Jazz, to the mysterious Maude Blue, to the freakishly bipolar resistance leader Petra, the people who populate this world are richly imagined and extremely well-fleshed-out. When I finished this book, I was left desperate to find out more about these people, and eagerly awaiting their appearances in its sequel.

BREATHE is not without its issues. The science behind the lack of oxygen, and the way Breathe controls the oxygen in the population living within the pod, could be really solid. But because there aren't enough details to satisfy my scientifically curious mind, it felt flimsy. With all that rain and all that carbon dioxide floating around, there's no way the employees of Breathe would have been able to zap every bit of plant matter for hundreds of miles. And what about other countries? Who runs their pods? How did those governments handle the drop in Oxygen? It is implied that every country responded the same way, but I just don't buy it. I felt like this book could really use an appendix to explain the science, a la AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by John Green (which you should also read), as well as more bigger-picture world building within the text itself. Additionally, even though the cover is intriguing, because it depicts a world so different from the world actually in the book, I felt that it really did the book a disservice. Every time they found a patch of moss or ivy growing on the outside, and especially when they were walking around in the city, I flipped back to the total wasteland depicted on the cover and shook my head. This is a big pet peeve for me - it's one thing to show something intriguing and metaphorical on the cover (like the infamous TWILIGHT apple), but it's another thing to show a scene differently from the way it actually happens in the book.

That said, I still enjoyed reading BREATHE. This book is carried by its supporting cast, and they. Are. AWESOME. I can't wait to see more of them in the sequel. BREATHE is out now, and can be found in most bookstores, or online at IndieBound here, at Amazon here, and for Canadian shoppers, at Chapters Indigo here.

Happy Reading!

Friday(-ish) Forward: Destroy Me by Tahereh Mafi

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll remember me getting a little excited when this book came out: 

Looooove...

And then I got even MORE excited when Tahereh Mafi came out to MY OWN BOOKSTORE to sign copies! ZOMG! Of course, I had to go there to meet her.

And, of course, I got her to sign the ARC that I had read. And I got her to sign another copy, too, for you guys. WOOT! More about that at the end of this post.

And, OF COURSE, I had to read Destroy Me, the e-novella that came out last month! Here's the blurb: Perfect for the fans of Shatter Me who are desperately awaiting the release of Unravel Me, this novella-length digital original will bridge the gap between these two novels from the perspective of the villain we all love to hate, Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.

In Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me, Juliette escaped from The Reestablishment by seducing Warner—and then putting a bullet in his shoulder. But as she’ll learn in Destroy Me, Warner is not that easy to get rid of. . .

Back at the base and recovering from his near-fatal wound, Warner must do everything in his power to keep his soldiers in check and suppress any mention of a rebellion in the sector. Still as obsessed with Juliette as ever, his first priority is to find her, bring her back, and dispose of Adam and Kenji, the two traitors who helped her escape. But when Warner’s father, The Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment, arrives to correct his son’s mistakes, it’s clear that he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner simply cannot allow.

Set after Shatter Me and before its forthcoming sequel, Unravel Me, Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.

I ate this up. What surprised me most, in a good way, was how sympathetic Warner is as a character. I finished Shatter Me wishing that a sinkhole would open and swallow him up, crush him, and erase him forever. I hated his guts. But I finished Destroy Me kind of feeling sorry for him, despite myself. And also wondering if he is as bad a guy as Shatter Me led us to believe. Kind of the way I felt about Mitt Romney after the election: he's still not my guy, but at least I don't hate him anymore, and I can't help feeling a little sorry for him and wondering if he would have turned out better if he'd only had a different beginning. And I KNOW we're going to need to know this stuff about Warner by the time Unravel Me comes out! Destroy Me is available on e-book only, and you can order it from all kinds of places from the Harper Teen webpage here.

And to celebrate the release of Destroy Me, I am GIVING AWAY my beautiful, signed, original cover design, basically-a-collector's-item copy of SHATTER ME! AAAAAAHHHHH!

To enter to win, simply leave a comment on this here post. I will put all the names in a hat (because I'm old-fashioned that way, and also still slightly technologically challenged) and pick one at MIDNIGHT, on the night of DECEMBER 8TH.

One extra entry for every time you spread the word, IF you leave a link in the comments. I homeschool, guys. Time is a precious, precious commodity. The direct links really help me out.

HAPPY WEEKEND!

Friday(-ish) Forward: The Vindico by Wesley King

This week's Friday Forward is another book club pick from last month: Wesley King's YA debut THE VINDICO.

Here's the blurb: The Vindico are a group of supervillains who have been fighting the League of Heroes for as long as anyone can remember. Realizing they’re not as young as they used to be, they devise a plan to kidnap a group of teenagers to take over for them when they retire—after all, how hard can it be to teach a bunch of angsty teens to be evil?

Held captive in a remote mansion, five teens train with their mentors and receive superpowers beyond their wildest dreams. Struggling to uncover the motives of the Vindico, the teens have to trust each other to plot their escape. But they quickly learn that the differences between good and evil are not as black and white as they seem, and they are left wondering whose side they should be fighting on after all . . .

I enjoyed this book on two levels. First, I enjoyed the superhero elements, and I loved the exploration of how different superheroes (and super-villains!) can get their powers. As a former (who am I kidding, current) superhero wannabe, I loved immersing myself in the possibility that a kid could get swept off the streets and given superpowers just like that. And what a premise! Kids kidnapped and trained to be superheroes is one thing - but training them to be super-villains? Now that's a twist I can go for.

Additionally, though, I enjoyed the exploration of what it means to be a hero in the first place. By coincidence, I read this book at the same time that the news about Lance Armstrong's doping scandal came out, and I was glad for the opportunity to think about the artificial granting of extraordinary abilities in a real-life context. While the League of Heroes insists that the only legitimate superpowers are those that a person is born with, and The Vindico insist that all people with superpowers should be welcomed no matter how they got them, the reader is asked to consider whether the fact that one has been born with an innate ability is more or less important than what we do with that ability, and how far one should go in trying to achieve and cultivate that ability. While it doesn't come across as pro-cheating, it does raise some very interesting questions about the nature of good and evil, and what it really means to be "good" or "bad".

I also loved the characterization. all the characters are well-thought-out, with deep histories that have shaped them into the people we meet in this book. I loved that even the worst of the bad guys are relatable and understandable - it lent a depth to this book that all superhero stories should have. And Hayden and Emily? All I can say is, AWESOME.

THE VINDICO is a quick, fun, surprisingly thought-provoking page-turner available in a bookstore near you or online at Indiebound here, Amazon here, and (for readers in Canada) Chapters Indigo here.

Happy Reading!

Friday Forward meets MMGM: Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I'll admit it: I was a holdout. I don't know if it was the fact that it was SUCH a big deal, or if it was the cartoony element (back before cartoons in books were a common as they are now - in other words, it was something new), or if it was the fact that when I opened it up to a random page, I got the page where he plays a prank on his best friend and my thought was, "This Wimpy Kid is a sucky friend, which is the opposite of awesome." Let it suffice to say that I was not eager for Kidlet Number One to discover these books.

Until he did.

It was one of those days. We were in a bookstore. We were waiting to see the amazing Libba Bray (more on that later!). The line was long. He was wilting. I told him to go pick a book - any book - from the pre-teen section and if he liked it, he could buy it with his allowance. And he came back with... Dun-dun-DUUUNNNNN: THE BOOK WHICH WAS NOT NAMED:

To my discredit, I argued with him. I told him that I hated that book with a passion that burned with the power of a thousand suns. (Yes, I actually said that. About a book. In a bookstore. I am a cretin.) But standing there surrounded by book-lovers, reason (and shame) prevailed. We can read this together, I thought. And then we can talk about it.

And then I laughed pretty much nonstop for over 45 minutes. This book is hilarious. Here's the blurb from Amazon and Goodreads:

It’s a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you’re ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary.

In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley’s star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend’s newfound popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.


Author/illustrator Jeff Kinney recalls the growing pains of school life and introduces a new kind of hero who epitomizes the challenges of being a kid. As Greg says in his diary, “Just don’t expect me to be all ‘Dear Diary’ this and ‘Dear Diary’ that.” Luckily for us, what Greg Heffley says he won’t do and what he actually does are two very different things.

From the moment Greg says that he specifically told his mother not to get him something that said "diary" on it (and then follows it up with a cartoon illustrating his fear: a bigger kid beating on him because of it), I knew that this was a book that would speak to the hearts of every middle-grader out there. Through Greg, Jeff Kinney gives us a picture of Middle School that echoes the universal Middle School experience: trying to find your niche in a universe that seems to have no niches left. From the Halloween mishap to the Christmas play shenanigans, Greg speaks for all middle-schoolers out there as he navigates the perils of hallway bullies, fights with his best friend, unreasonable parental expectations, and clueless teachers.

There are still definitely things about Greg's behavior that I didn't like: he treats his supposed best friend pretty badly from the very beginning, and he sneaks around a couple of times breaking his parents' rules. But these are things that echo the true middle-school experience, and while I don't like them and I don't want my kids feeling like it's okay to do these things, I do think that this book is a better way to bring up these issues and to illustrate why it's important to treat our friends well and listen to our parents, even when we don't know why they make the rules that they make. In other words, this book has some great talking points in it, and I encourage parents to read this book with their kids so that you can ask them questions and discuss those moments and find out what they think about Greg and his escapades.

As for me and my kid, we're already looking forward to laughing our way through the second book in this deservedly popular series.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney can be found in pretty much every bookstore that sells books for kids, or online at IndieBound here, at Amazon here, and (for Canadian readers) at Chapters Indigo here.

Friday Forward: LUNA, by Julie Anne Peters

It's Friday, and boy, do I have some catching up to do! I missed a couple weeks while I was busy at writing conferences and making videos about cupcakes, but from now on, I promise to be more vigilant about my Friday reviews - as well as with the rest of my online life!

This week's Friday Forward was a book club pick from last month: LUNA, by Julie Ann Peters. Here's the blurb from Goodreads and Amazon: Regan's brother Liam can't stand the person he is during the day. Like the moon from whom Liam has chosen his female namesake, his true self, Luna, only reveals herself at night. In the secrecy of his basement bedroom Liam transforms himself into the beautiful girl he longs to be, with help from his sister's clothes and makeup. Now, everything is about to change-Luna is preparing to emerge from her cocoon. But are Liam's family and friends ready to welcome Luna into their lives? Compelling and provocative, this is an unforgettable novel about a transgender teen's struggle for self-identity and acceptance.

This book was a real eye-opener, and on the heels of Presidential debates that (barely) touched on issues like gay rights and gender equality and a very informative vlog by the Hank half of the Vlogbrothers, it came at a good time for me: a time when I was interested in learning more about transsexuality from the viewpoint of a transsexual, and also interested in learning about what it looks like from a closer but still external viewpoint. Told from the perspective of a transsexual male-to-female's younger sister, this book informs on both those levels, which is an extremely tough thing to do.

I have to honestly say that I found the introduction of Luna's transsexuality and her sister Regan's conflicting feelings about it to be a little heavy-handed at the beginning. I loved the opening scene in which we first meet Luna and learn that Luna by night is Liam by day, but the moments after that when Regan remembers their childhood and wonders when little Liam first showed signs of identifying as a female felt like more overt backstory than I really needed. Additionally, Liam spent a lot of time at the beginning getting down on himself and crying and generally expressing how much he wanted to break free, and while I can't make any claims AT ALL to know how it really feels to literally be in the wrong body - I'm sure it is every bit as horrible as Liam says it is, and then some - strictly for the purpose of telling the story, I would have gotten more deeply into this story and found Regan's character more relatable if there were a scene or two less of that. The first time Liam said that Luna wanted to break free, I understood exactly what she meant, and it irked me that it took several more scenes of that for Regan to clue in.

That said, I did eventually get really into this book. I loved the extreme contrast between Regan and Luna's parents and the parents Regan babysits for, and the irony that Luna got stuck with a set of parents who are so extremely conservative and traditional and badly suited to dealing with a child who doesn't slot nicely into society's idea of "normal". Then the reaction of the parents Regan babysits for when they do find out that Liam is really Luna really highlights just how difficult it is for people who are transgender to find acceptance in the world. The scenes at the end between Luna and her best friend Alyson are honest and heart wrenching and one of the best parts of the book.

Additionally, Regan has a lot going on in her own life, and there was a good balance between moving Regan's story forward and letting us see how in a lot of ways, she was held back by feeling like she had to hide so much of her private life from her friends.

I came away from this book feeling like I understand transgendered people a little better, and also feeling like I have a few more tools in the box that will help me behave in a more sympathetic and understanding way when I meet people who are transgender. And for that alone, it's worth the read.

You can find Luna in bookstores now, or pick up a copy online at Amazon here or preferably at Indiebound here or (if you live in Canada) at ChaptersIndigo here.

Happy Reading!