"Mockingjay," by Suzanne Collins

The Heroine: Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire - a.k.a. "The Mockingjay." Due to her actions in both of her Hunger Games, she is now the face of a revolution that could finally topple the tyranny of the Capitol.
Her Angst: Her face, unfortunately, is more important than her actual actions - her handlers are more concerned with keeping her in the limelight than actually having her fight or help.

The Secondary Cast:
Gale: Katniss' right-hand man and a highly-ranked soldier in District 13's war with the Capitol.

Peeta: Currently in Capitol custody, probably under torture, thanks to the rebels' failure to rescue him from the Quarter Quell.

President Alma Coin: The leader of District 13, she's willing to use Katniss as the figurehead of the rebellion, but she's got a personal agenda of her own when it comes to the war and the future of Panem.

Prim: Katniss' sister - now training as a medic to help the rebel cause.

Finnick: One of the former victors of the Hunger Games to survive the Quarter Quell with Katniss. While definitely an ally, he's still recuperating mentally and physically from his ordeal.

Johanna: Another former victor. Mayor of Bald Crazy-Through-Torture Town.
The Word: I didn't like this book.

No, I didn't like this book - and the strong start of The Hunger Games is partly to blame. The first novel created a heroine of such strength and determination, that it made her lack of agency in this book that much harder to swallow. I was less tolerant of the flaws of this book because I knew how good it could be, and was frustrated when it wasn't.

District 12 is in ruins after being firebombed by the Capital, and Katniss is now living in District 13, the "secret" district that rebuilt itself underground after being nuked by the Capital years ago. The people of this district, however, are ready to come out of hiding and end the rule of President Snow once and for all - and they want Katniss to be the Mockingjay, the face of the revolution that everyone in the world instantly recognizes.

And I have no problem with that. The actual worldbuilding in The Hunger Games trilogy is pretty shaky - its strong point has always been how it explores the social aspect of government-sanctioned violence. In Mockingjay, Katniss' image is just as important as it was in the first book, as footage of her fighting Capital troops can stir up the people when released to the media at the correct moment. It also means, however, that Katniss' handlers are eager to put her in the spotlight but loathe to send into her into actual danger.

This would be fine if this was just the introduction of the novel, but the first, oh, 70% of Mockingjay is a) Katniss being moved to a strategic point and acting like a good obedient puppet (albeit one with angsty thoughts), b) something going drastically wrong, ending with a minor character dying in a ridiculously over-the-top way, or c) Katniss doing something stupid and winding up in the hospital for pages and pages after, and the cycle restarts anew.

The remaining 30%, of course, is a wildly inventive, fast-pasted, gratuitously violent and heartbreaking climax that, if you've carried any emotional investment at all for any of the characters, will tear you inside out. If only the lead up to it was less sluggish and boring. And if only Katniss had more control over it. Much like Catching Fire, Katniss is removed from the majority of the major action in the novel. Until the last third of the novel, it still felt like the real story was happening off-screen and we just had to experience it third-hand from Katniss' handlers.

And through it all, Katniss is just trying to keep the pieces together. In the case of Mockingjay, I think the realism Collins tried to impart onto her narrative actually hindered how I enjoyed the book. Katniss deals with repeated traumas in a very understandable and realistic way - she is put through the physical and emotional and psychological wringer. She is butchered and burned and cut up and abandoned and frequently suicidal and witness to countless atrocities.

But the constant pressure lends her character a note of tedium. I wondered who she really was when she wasn't busy reacting to something awful. The one time she is asked to make a significant choice about Panem's future (near the end, with her vote being the deciding one), she goes with a choice that made me instantly lose all respect for her. I wondered, Is this the person she really is? and realized I still wasn't completely sure.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS BOOK DO RIGHT? Well, for starters - the love triangle. I have very shifty, Twilight-fail-created feelings about love triangles. Too often, they involve either a) a girl, the Perfect Guy, and the Obvious Asshole or b) a girl, the Perfect Guy, and A Nice, Decent, Well-Adjusted Guy Who's Just Not Bad/Vampirey Enough.

But Gale and Peeta are two of the best-developed love interests I have come across in fiction. Neither of them is the obviously wrong or obviously right choice. They both come from different worlds and upbringings and contribute their own unique takes to the world. Gale is the revolutionary. Peeta is the diplomat. Honestly, Gale has the balls to force a change in the horrid status quo, but Peeta has the smarts and social far-sightedness to make that change stick. Gale is the lifelong friend. Peeta is the obstacle turned ally.

And finally, they both love and (more importantly!) respect Katniss. There's refreshingly little dick-waving or "YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE" moments. I really enjoyed that. Neither of them tried to force the issue or guilt Katniss. And I have to say, while I agreed with Katniss' ultimate choice, I really, genuinely liked both boys as independent characters, not just as love interests.

Okay, so I didn't really like the experience of reading Mockingjay. It was tedious and frustrating for the most part, and the ending, while cathartic, seemed a little rushed and random. However, as the final entry in the series, it's a fascinating endpoint. The trilogy as a whole is a creative and engaging examination of cultural morality, social media, organized violent sports, and how good intentions in the wrong hands can lead to bad ends.

Mockingjay by itself: C+

The Hunger Games Trilogy: B+

"Unveiled," by Courtney Milan

The Chick: Lady Anna Margaret Dalrymple, a.k.a. "Margaret Lowell." When her father is exposed as a bigamist by an opportunistic fifth cousin, she and her brothers lose their social status and their ability to inherit, leaving them penniless bastards.The Rub: This same fifth cousin seems to be the only one in the world who believes Margaret has personal value, independent of family or wealth.Dream Casting: Ginnifer Goodwin.

The Dude: Ye Shall Tread Down The Wicked, For They Shall Be Ashes Under the Soles Of Your Feet Turner - a.k.a. "Ash Turner." He finally gets the chance to exact vengeance upon the duke who abandoned his family to poverty when he discovers the peer's secret first marriage.
The Rub: His vengeance unexpectedly winds up hurting the one woman he's come to care for the most.Dream Casting: Rob James-Collier.

The Plot:
Ash: ALL YOUR DUKEDOM ARE BELONG TO ME.

Old Duke: LOL, I'm dying, I don't care!

Margaret: I DO.

Ash: Wow, you're hot. We should date.

Margaret: Wait, what? NO.

Ash: But I respect your mind!

Margaret: No!

Ash: But I'm secretly illiterate and all torn up and angsty over that fact!

Margaret: ... okay!

Richard, Margaret's Asstastic Brother: Hands off my sister!

Ash: Wait, WHAT? ... actually I'm pretty cool with that.

Margaret: Yay!

Ash: But I'm still going to get the dukedom and condemn your brothers to a life of impoverished bastardy. They deserve it, you see, because they picked on my brothers in school and I would do anything to protect my brothers.

Margaret: But that's what I'M doing!

Ash: No no no - trying to protect your brothers is silly and sentimental because your brothers are ignorant and hurtful.

Margaret: ... so are yours!

Ash: Yes but MY brothers get sequels. So as you can clearly see, my problems are more important than yours. Let's get married!

Margaret: No thanks.

Richard: BTW, Margaret, we're only filing for our own legitimacy, not yours, because otherwise we'd lose everything!

Margaret: FUCK THIS NOISE. Take the Dukedom, Ashy! Let's get married!

Ash: HOORAY!

Margaret: ... but you still have to be nice to my brothers.

Ash: Crud.
Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Revenge Plot

4 Inconsiderate Brothers

1 Very Bad Mutha (deceased)

1 Fairly Good Mutha (also deceased)

1 Very Bad Dad (still alive, for the nonce)

1 Secret Disability

1 Bout of Sex in a Closet

The Word: The book starts shortly after the hero utterly ruins the heroine's life - and ends up redeeming it, in the process.

The hero, Ash Turner, blames the death of his sister and his brothers' poverty and sufferings on the selfishness of the Duke of Parford and his weak, spoiled sons. When he discovers the Duke secretly married his mistress as a young man years before publicly marrying his current one, Ash gains a twofold vengeance when he exposes the Duke's bigamy to the ecclesiastical courts - it renders the Duke's despised sons illegitimate and unable to inherit, and it leaves Ash (the closest legitimate relative) as the legal heir.

However, the Duke of Parford also has a daughter, Lady Anna Margaret. Thanks to Ash's exposure of her father's first marriage, she was stripped of her title, outcast from society, and abandoned by all her friends. Because of that, Margaret is determined to do whatever she can to help her brothers' quest to convince Parliament to restore their legitimacy. When Ash travels to the Duke's country estate, Margaret stays on in the guise of a nurse to the ailing Duke - partly to protect her father from any attempt on Ash's part to inherit sooner, and partly to spy and gather intel she can pass on to her brothers, to convince Parliament that Mr. Turner is an unfit addition to the House of Lords.

Her plans go awry when Ash spots her and is instantly attracted. An intelligent, intuitive businessman who made a fortune in India, Ash has learned to trust his instincts above anything else. He sees Margaret and immediately intuits that she is a woman of substance, and starts treating her as such as he tries to seduce her.

Ash's method of seduction is clever as well as sweet. There is a twisty, reversed aristocrat-commoner vibe between the two of them. Margaret is accustomed to the life of a peer, and has been raised to believe that names, wealth, and titles are emblematic of one's worth as a person - so she is very disturbed when Ash continues to pursue her and find value in her despite the fact that he knows nothing of her name, family, or history. Because of that, she discovers her own strengths and talents only after losing everything she initially thought was important about herself.

Ash is an equally interesting character. Thanks to a learning disability, he relies on his personality, confidence, and quick wit to conduct business, but at the same time he is taunted by his shortcomings, torn by the belief that his proud, brash face is all he is capable of offering to the world. This increasingly comes into play when he interacts with his university-educated brothers - he paid for their educations in order to make up for the privations they endured as children, but as a result, he feels isolated and inferior around them.

Honestly, the only real problem I had with this novel was the continuation of the revenge plot. As I've stated before in other articles, there is a thin line to walk when writing a vengeful hero or heroine. I mean, most romance novels ultimately tell us that Revenge is Wrong and we should just Forgive and Love Everybody, but it all boils down to how far the hero takes it and why he's pursuing this revenge in the first place. Ultimately, I didn't buy it with Ash:

1. He's already wealthy as sin and his brothers are already provided for.
2. He doesn't even respect the prestige that comes with a Dukedom ANYWAY, so why is he screwing up so many lives to get one?
3. His revenge creates a LOT of collateral damage for people who either didn't hurt him (Margaret and her mother) or only in the most petty of ways (he's essentially ruining Margaret's brothers' lives because they were mean to his bros in HIGH SCHOOL)
4. He continues to actively try and ruin the Dalrymple's lives EVEN AFTER HE KNOWS WHO MARGARET IS because he'll just marry Margaret which will totally fix her life because protecting his brothers is an important and righteous man-problem but Margaret protecting her brothers is a weak and sentimental woman-problem.

Yes. I had a LOT of problems with how the revenge plot got dragged out to the very bitter end, but otherwise, this was a thoughtful and beautifully written novel. I loved the author's inversion of the master-servant, aristocrat-commoner trope. I enjoyed her ambiguous characterization (particularly Margaret's family - who aren't the good guys in any real shape or form but they're not evil, either). I particularly loved Ash's intellectual seduction of Margaret - I'm growing increasingly tired of novels where the hero's seduction amounts to little more than the hero sexually harassing the heroine despite her protests until she inevitably gives in, but Ash courts Margaret on an emotional and mental level that was very chivalrous and incredibly sexy.
B+

New Month, New Plans, New Projects

Dearest readers,

Thank you for putting up my with my reading slowness. I have been trying to bring my reading speed back up to snuff, with limited success.

In project news, I have put my gender-reversed Snow White retelling in a box under the bed, metaphorically-speaking. It's had its run, I wrote it both as a Regency romance and as a YA, but it kind of flamed out and I'd like to work on other projects and come back to it when the passion does.


In other news, I have registered to attend Book Expo America and its accompanying BEA Bloggers Conference! I've just heard so much about how awesome it is from The Booksmugglers and Katiebabs and The Story Siren, on top of the fact that I looooooove NYC, on top of the OTHER fact that the registration is like a million bajillion times cheaper than RWA National, ON TOP OF ALL THE OTHER FACTS that it's about all genres of books, I decided to go!

I registered for both and, most recently, bought a ticket to the Children's Book and Author Breakfast when I found out it's being MC'd by Chris "I Wrote TV Pilots, Children's Novels, and Coming-Of-Age Movies While Filming Glee No Big Deal" Colfer, John "The Fault In Our Stars Looks Really Good, Especially Because The Plot Doesn't Revolve Around a Crazy Unattainable Manic Pixie Dream Girl" Green, and Lois "I Cried So Hard When The Dad Put The Baby In the Cardboard Box In The Giver" Lowry. Eeeee! So excited!

So that's what you missed with my life. I'm off to go read Mockingjay.

"The Dovekeepers," by Alice Hoffman

The Protagonists:

Yael: When her mother died in childbirth, her father raised her to believe she is cursed, already a murderess. When the destruction of the Temple forces them into the desert, she discovers how strong a person she really is.

Revka: With her husband and daughter murdered by the Romans, she arrived at Masada with her life in tatters, trailing two mute grandsons and a maddened son-in-law who lives only for pain. Believing her life is already over, she is astounded to learn there still is hope, even in the bleakest of times.

Aziza: Born a girl, she was taught by her mother Shirah to assume a boy's life in order to protect herself and her family. Here in Masada, she finds her woman's duties clash with her boy's warrior instincts.

Shirah: Raised in the ways of a now-outlawed Jewish cult, she is distrusted and despised as a witch, and yet will still provide aid and assistance to those who ask. While her spells can bring about fantastic change, she's also seen her fate (and the fate of her children) and knows that escaping it will be next to impossible.

The Secondary Cast:

Amram: Yael's brother and Aziza's lover. He is a warrior for the Zealot cause, but even he can be led astray by love.

The Man from the Valley: Revka's scholarly son-in-law. When his wife was brutally violated and murdered, he dedicated himself to a life of violence and self-inflicted pain, running into battle heedless of injury or death.

The Man from the North: A Welsh soldier forcibly conscripted by the Romans and then enslaved by the warriors of Masada, he befriends the women of the dove cote - Yael in particular.

Eleazar Ben Ya'ir: The leader of the rebels of Masada - he spurs and leads them on to victory with his persuasive speeches. But he is still only a man beneath all that glory.

The Word: Really, there are both too many and too few words I could use to describe Alice Hoffman and the effect her writing has on me. Her magnificent use of setting, and character, and magical realism can make every story come alive in a different way. She's one of the few authors whose books I can become fully-immersed in. I haven't reviewed too many of her books (or at least, as a whole review), because even a year ago I was still determined to be a "romance" blog. Now, I'm more of a book blog that leans strongly towards romance and YA but I'll still read just about anything and review it, too.

I went into this book with equal parts eagerness and curiosity - curiosity mainly because this is an historical novel, whereas all the other books of hers I've read have been set in modern times - well, her novels anyway. She's had a story collection or two where it started in an historical period, but never as far back as this. I wondered how she would incorporate her magical grasp of setting and description into an environment as distant and exotic as this one (Judea, circa 70 A.D.).

The Dovekeepers is a story about Masada - the fortress that protected Jewish rebels and their families from invading Roman forces for four years after the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem - told through the eyes of four women who helped cared for the doves whose leavings kept the fortress' gardens and orchards fertile. These four women detail how life brought each of them to the fortress in the desert and how life in that confined, arid place changed them, for better or worse.

The novel is divided into quarters, each told from a different woman's viewpoint, a tactic I enjoyed. Yael's story begins first - as she spends the most time wandering around in the desert with her father before finding the fortress. Yael was raised to believe she was worthless, but she discovers her true worth once she and her father are left to fend for themselves, and she brings that strength with her to the fortress, where in the presence of other women she blossoms even more.

Revka's portion comes next. Her story deals in themes of hope and renewal, just as when all seems lost. She lost nearly everything she cared about in her journey to Masada, but it's with the other women in the dove cote that she learns to cherish and find joy in what little she has left.

Aziza's portion of the book examines gender. As Roman forces begin to gather in earnest as Masada becomes the last holdout against total occupation, Aziza struggles with both her feminine and her masculine identities. She is a sister and a daughter and a lover, but despite a law that forbids it, she is also a warrior and cannot stand idly by with the women while their brothers and cousins and husbands are dying.

Shirah's part comes last, which is fitting. She's the most mysterious character, and the one who offers the most opportunities for Alice Hoffman's lovely is-or-isn't-it-real magical thinking. Women with supernatural abilities are a prominent theme in a lot of Hoffman's books (Practical Magic, The Probable Future, The Ice Queen) and this comes across more potently in this particular setting, when religion and superstition had far more influence. Shirah is definitely a descendent (or, ha ha, in this particular instance, an ancestor) of the aunts from Practical Magic - distrusted by other women for being the Witch of Moab, she is still approached by them in their times of need for her cures and spells. But even as she helps women (and she performs special favours for all three of the other protagonists), she's also a woman with fears and desires and flaws of her own.

As each protagonist gets her point of view, we also get to see the other three through a new lens, and the result is a multi-layered portrayal of female friendship and support during a time of crisis. While male characters do wander in and out, and a few lay claim to our heroines' hearts, the changing viewpoints keeps the focus on the women. The men often find themselves struggling to find space in the heroines' stories, rather than the other way around and I found that highly refreshing.

As I mentioned earlier in my review, Alice Hoffman's fantastic description gives life at Masada heat and smoke and smell. The woman who described different types of rain in The Probable Future, here gives us a world dictated by heat and water, and the overabundance and scarcity of both. Her use of imagery and symbolism is marvelous - the very nature of the protagonists' job creates a fantastic contrast of themes. Masada, a stronghold of warriors and rebels, is mainly sustained by the contributions of gentle, beautiful birds that are symbols of peace. If not for these birds, the orchards would die and the warriors and all their talk of blood and freedom would waste away.

The Dovekeepers is fantastic book - with a strong feminine focus, memorable characters, gorgeous description, and lyrical writing that produces hope and light even in the face of an inevitably tragic event.
A+

"Untie My Heart," by Judith Ivory

The Chick: Emma Darlington Hotchkiss. A former con artist-turned-sheep farmer, she puts her old skills to good use to fleece an arrogant aristocrat who kills her lamb and refuses to compensate her.
The Rub: Unfortunately, she gets caught - and now this high and mighty viscount wants her to use her skills to scam his larcenous uncle. Or else.
Dream Casting: Emily VanCamp.

The Dude: Stuart Aysgarth, Viscount Mount Villiers. A sexually dominant, but financially-restricted aristocrat who wants revenge against his uncle for stealing priceless heirlooms from him.
The Rub: He can blackmail a tasty little con artist into helping in his schemes, but not into having sex with him. Damn!
Dream Casting: Richard Armitage.

The Plot:

Emma: You killed my lamb!

Stuart: Don't care. Hey! You stole 50 pounds from me!

Emma: Don't care!

Stuart: *ties Emma to chair* You were saying?

Emma: Okay, I care very much now.

Stuart: Sharing is caring!

Emma and Stuart: *uncomfortable-sounding chair sex*

Stuart: Awesome! Now we can be sex friends and you can help me steal shit from my uncle!

Emma: NO!

Stuart: No to the con-artist deal or no to the sex-friends thing?

Emma: NO TO EVERYTHING.

Stuart: Well then I'll just have you arrested!

Emma: ...fine!

Stuart: Yaaaaaaaaaaaay! Sex friends! And con artistry.

Cons: *are had*

Emma: Bee tee dubs, I'm framing you for assault so I can get away and hide my tempestuous secret emotions!

Stuart: BOO! But I was going to marry you!

Emma: SHIT.

Stuart: S'all good. Now you can be my sex wife!

Emma: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Set of Daddy Issues

1 Very Bad Husband (Deceased)

1 Silent Lamb

8 Bad Horses

1 Terrible Uncle

2 Ugly Gumboots

1 Sexytimes in a Chair

Several Sexytimes on a Roof

1 "WE'RE GOING STREAKIIIIIIIIING!" Scene

1 Poke and a Send

The Word: This was a bit of a disappointing read for me, because I went in with such high expectations. At Read, React, Review's suggestion, I picked up The Proposition and adored the writing, the characters, and most of all, the interesting, gender-reversed retelling of My Fair Lady. Now, while all the elements of Judith Ivory's writing are still present in Untie My Heart, they were ultimately used to tell a story that made me uncomfortable and didn't seem to make much sense.

Emma is a widowed sheepfarmer in a small village in Yorkshire who survives by doing whatever she can - raising sheep, baking bread for the village, doing her neighbour's mending, and while it's a small life, it's honest and it's hers.

When a carriage owned by the new lord of the manor at the top of the hill (Viscount Mount Villiers) performs a fatal hit-and-run on her prize (and only) male breeding lamb, Emma is determined to obtain compensation. However, the lord responds only with condescending lackeys and rude letters and impractical bank cheques for meager sums that won't even begin to cover the income she's lost with the lamb.

When it looks like even a victory in court won't grant her the money she's owed (because the wealthy viscount can always appeal), she finally decides to fall back on her old roots: as a London con artist. Using an elaborate embezzling scheme, she manages to forge a cheque for the money she's owed and create a false bank account with which to cash it.

And then she gets caught.

As it turns out, the Viscount, Stuart, is in a despairingly complicated financial situation. He inherited the title while on the continent, and before he could get back to England, his villainous uncle attempted to usurp his titles and finances by having him declared dead. He arrived in time to save his title, but his uncle had twisted and tangled his finances so much that even months later, his lawyers and bankers are still trying to sort it out and he's on a very tight financial leash.

So while he's outraged to discover this woman robbed him, he's delighted to discover a way to embezzle his own money out of limbo, and a woman experienced enough in the art of the con to help him revenge himself upon his larcenous uncle. However, she still needs a little convincing so ... he ties her to a chair and has his way with her.

This was when the novel started to get unsettling for me. As it turns out, Untie My Heart is a romance founded on a BDSM theme. Which I perhaps should have guessed from the title. The thing is, because of that, I made the personal discovery that I do not like BDSM or those attitudes (in a "not my bag" way, not the "it's wrong you filthy, filthy hoors" way) and they made me very uncomfortable. Stuart is a man who openly states that he desires power in every situation (which is why he rages at being brought to heel by the mess of his financial affairs) and he likes frightening women - just a little, because they're so attractive when they're scared.

The "Chair Scene" is very indicative of the ultimate progression of Emma and Stuart's romance throughout the rest of the book - where Stuart makes a bunch of abrupt sexual decisions that terrify Emma until, quite suddenly, she's enjoying herself. Now, I already hate the types of romances where the hero sexually harasses the heroine until she finally gives in, but combine that with the couple's odd power dynamics, and the result is a read that left me uneasy. Stuart continually defies Emma's consent under the reasoning that he knows what's best for her, and while he righteously refuses to cross "the ultimate" boundary and insists that Emma is really in control of the whole situation, I didn't understand it.

But then, Emma is an inconsistently-written character to begin with, so it's hard to tell when she's in control or not. She swings between the Hardened Con and the Sexual Innocent and it sometimes comes across like the author is trying to play it both ways but it doesn't really work. For instance, one incredibly confusing and tense scene arises when she is appalled by something I would have assumed she'd encountered before with the type of criminal underworld past that she had.

Her criminal underworld bits (especially her and Stuart's plot to con his uncle into relinquishing stolen heirlooms) are the best parts of the novel, because they show the heroine at her smartest and most focused. However, the con really isn't the major part of the book. Most of the book is Stuart trying to get into Emma's pants and Emma fighting it and Stuart acting all concerned that she's fighting her perfectly natural beautiful urges and won't you let me help you release that sexual tension, darling? My bedroom's that way! Honestly, there were several times in this novel that the characters' actions just seemed so divorced from what I'd previously come to understand about them, their motivations and prejudices.

That being said, the writing is lovely, so rich and detailed - however, the downside is that if the author is describing an area or a situation that you don't like or feel is relevant, it takes forever. The pacing in this novel is very, very slow. There's one point near the beginning where two and a half pages of words are spent describing the hero's coat. It's an awesome coat, but since it can't talk or make any decisions does it really need that much description?

Honestly, most of the negativity from this review comes from lowered expectations and a discomfort with the material. Writing-wise, it's a solid book, with some interesting details about embezzlement and con artistry in late-Victorian England. And if you happen to like BDSM themes that don't translate into openly erotic scenes, then this might just be the romance for you.
B-.

Blink and You'll Miss It Review: "Catching Fire," by Suzanne Collins

Okay, so this is going to be a bit of a change-up - not a regular thing, unforch, but the fact of the matter is:

I read this book and totally forgot to review it.

It got lost in the shuffle.

I clicked on my YA tag and saw that there was no review for Catching Fire, even though I did read it.

And that's when I realized I'd forgotten. Eeep. I'd also already given the book back (it was borrowed). I also read it a month ago or more.

So I'm doing without my usual rigamarole because this is all from memory. I'm probably going to forget or misspell character names, that sort of thing, but my impressions of this novel are still strong.

My main impression? I felt cheated. *Spoilers for Both Books Ahead*

Let me explain. Catching Fire takes off after Hunger Games ended, with Katniss and Peeta returning triumphantly to their home district after Katniss' quick thinking saved them both from certain death. There's never been two winners in the Hunger Games before - the yearly tradition where each district sends two teenage "tributes" to a central arena where they all fight to the death.

Unfortunately, thanks to her little stunt, Katniss is under intense scrutiny from the Evil Powers that Be, who worry her defiance of the Games will spark a revolution they will have to mercilessly crush. Their Evil Leader, President Snow, makes it very clear to Katniss that she will have to toe the line as she makes her winner's progress through the districts - or else her family will suffer the consequences.

As in the last novel, "toeing the line" involves faking a romantic relationship with Peeta, which would paint her unorthodox moves in the Games as the actions of a lovestruck teenager rather than a rebel stickin' it to the man. Peeta is a nice enough guy, but Katniss also has feelings for Gale, a loyal childhood friend, and the idea of having even her romantic life controlled by the Capital (possibly for the rest of her life) is abhorrent.

The first half of the novel is quite strong. As Katniss and Peeta make their winners' progress through the districts, they witness that it's not only their hometown of District 12 that's dissatisfied with the Capital's tyranny. People everywhere feel the unfair weight of Capital control and the Capital's recent implementation of harsher punishments and regulations is taking its toll. Katniss has to war with some pretty hefty arguments - should she think of her family first and keep quiet, or should she look at the big picture and help turn that spark of defiance into a conflagration that could make things better for everyone? Or would that only end in more death and destruction?

The novel was well on its way to becoming something awesome when President Snow announces the rules for the Quarter Quell - the special Hunger Games that happen every 25 years (how convenient). Because it's the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games, the Capital can choose just about any kind of rules it wants, and this time around, it decides that tributes will only be picked from the surviving Hunger Game winners. Which means that Peeta and Katniss have to compete in the Hunger Games again.

And then the novel's all downhill from there. It's not particularly badly-written (and the design of the particular Games is clever), but it's just. More. Of. The. SAME. Cinna gives Katniss a flamboyantly awesome entrance. Katniss meets more contestants and has to wonder if she'll have to kill them or be killed. Weird, poorly-developed sci-fi dangers are confronted and defeated. Katniss has to pretend she loves Peeta (more than she's already starting to) - only this time she's faking a pregnancy too! It's all well and good but I liked it better WHEN I READ ALL OF THIS THE FIRST TIME, IN THE HUNGER GAMES.

And I have to admit, this is a review where I will HAVE to spoil the ending, because it's integral to how I viewed this novel and why it left me so disappointed and angry. SPOILERS: At the end of the new Hunger Games, Katniss is rescued by her mentor Haymitch and is told that he and a bunch of conspirators have engineered the revolution, which is already in progress.

Yes. THIS is the part of the novel that angered me the most - ALL of the super-important stuff to the story happened TO OTHER PEOPLE, OFF-SCREEN. I, as the reader, missed it, because I was too busy slogging through what was essentially a retread of the first book. I'm sorry, but NO. I'm the fucking reader. I should have been allowed to read how the revolution was started. I should have gotten to read about the spies and the sabotage AS IT HAPPENED, not SECONDHAND at the very end of the novel. After getting to the end, I felt as if the author had put me at the kiddie table while the adults had their own conversation without me.

I've never had to worry about sequels in book form because usually, they don't end up in the same pitfalls as, say, movie sequels. Movies, because they are usually self-contained narratives, don't require a sequel - so when sequels are made in order to capitalize off the success of the first one, they often fall prey to the Same But Different trope - where they essentially tell the same story as the first movie, just with a different villain/setting, etc. Look at Home Alone 2 as an example - exact same plot, just in a New York hotel.

But with books? Where they are often written with a series in mind (as The Hunger Games clearly was), I expected Catching Fire to tell a different story. It started to, but halfway through, we get another Hunger Games, and somehow this is so much more essential to the reader than the actual revolution. And honestly, it didn't leave as big an impression on me as the first novel.

Here's hoping that Mockingjay will set things right.
C+

"The Forever War," by Joe Haldeman

The Protagonist: William Mandella. A good-natured pacifist with a master's degree in physics, he's conscripted into the war effort against the alien Tauran race.The Rub: Interstellar travel involves "collapsars" - portals in space that warp time - meaning an eight-month battle might keep Mandella away from home for 20 years - or longer.
Secondary Cast:

Marygay Potter: A young woman conscripted at the same time as William, their relationship deepens as they bond over how the war has affected their lives.

Sargeant Cortez: Potter and Mandella's commanding officer for their first battles and missions - a hardass whose methods challenge wartime ethics.

Captain Charlie Moore: Mandella's executive officer during his first command.

Diana Alsever: The ship's doctor during Mandella's command.
Science Fiction Convention Checklist:
Several Time-Dilating Black Holes

2 Surprise! Lesbians

1 Ship of Heterophobes

1 Nutless Cyborg

1 Instance of Hypnosis-Influenced Bloodlust

1 Billion Clones

1 Middle Finger
The Word: I read this book for my dad.

I was influenced a lot by my parents, and I think my reading reflects that. There were a couple of years in my childhood in which our family's financial straights were nowhere near sound - but to this day I could not have picked out which ones they were. Apparently, those were the years where we had no dance lessons, rented no movies and the only furniture we had in the living room was bookshelves - but I was little. I had no problem sitting on the floor. We had carpeting.

But what I do remember is how every single Saturday, my dad would drive my sisters and I to his office downtown and walk to the main branch of public library. I could pick out whatever book I wanted. I took out books on biology, books on how to choose and train the dogs and cats I would ultimately never have, RL Stine and Ann Martin and Garfield anthologies. I discovered the fantasy section and took out The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

The only time my dad refused me a book was when I tried to take out a true crime novel about a young man who murdered his mother. He said it wasn't appropriate - I must have been eight or nine at the time. When I ask him about it now, he denies it. He says that doesn't sound like him, he would never have refused to let me read anything.

Even when we were poor, we were never without books. And we never had to go without hearing about books. For my father, he was always passionate about military history and science fiction. Isaac Asimov, Verner Vinge, Kim Stanley Robinson. His voicemail has directed callers to "press 0 to reach that human we have enslaved to be our receptionist, live long and prosper!" for more than a decade. He adored Men In Black and frequently recreates the scene where the alien eats Vincent D'Onofrio, his hand arching up and shooting down like the tentacle that skinned that poor redneck farmer.

I have never read Starship Troopers but thanks to him, I know the famous lines - "I always get the shakes before I drop." "Everybody drops. Everybody fights!" When they made the movie based on the book, he organized a whole event for his friends to go and see it. He went into the theatre with his buddies all wearing nametags with their favourite lines from the novel on them - and he came out with his sci-fi reader heart broken into a million pieces.

But the novel he's always brought up the most, at least when he's suggesting sci-fi, is The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. According to him, Haldeman was drafted for the Vietnam War and subsequently wounded. While being treated, he read a couple of sci-fi novels and was disgusted with how unrealistically they portrayed the wartime experience and decided to write his own.

A couple of weeks ago, while visiting my dad while my mother and sister were overseas, I broke down and decided to read it. Our reading tastes don't overlap very often (I tried to get him to read Linnea Sinclair's Games of Command with a piece of scotch tape futilely masking the "romance" label on the spine, but he didn't bite), so I decided I really, really wanted to read this book, so that we could talk about it, and find out what made our particular inner readers tick.

Our hero is William Mandella, a young physics major who is drafted into the army to fight the alien Tauron menace. But this is no ordinary war. Humankind has discovered an ingenious means for interstellar travel - portals called "collapsars," through which ships can cross insane distances in the span of a microsecond. The only caveat? While the people inside the ships subjectively experience only a second of time - years will have passed in the objective world. For Mandella, it means that for each campaign, he returns to find that life on Earth has progressed without him, new technology has been invented, and human society has evolved - and not necessarily for the better. And for every attempt he makes to get out of the war, the military finds a way to drag him back in.
While there are definitely some kick-ass battle sequences and interesting technology scattered throughout the novel, this is essentially a book about the useless, wasteful ridiculousness of war and the disorienting effect it has on the soldiers forced to fight in it - which I enjoyed. I mean, cool sci-fi ideas are interesting and all, but I find the best sci-fi narratives use them to explore what we already know about humanity.

The use of collapsars is, in fact, a cunning way of both highlighting the alienation felt by war veterans and examining the changes of human society and tolerance by placing the hero in the position of the "old codger" who is literally behind the times.

In a particularly gutsy move (this book was published in 1975) Haldeman uses sexuality as the societal litmus test. When Mandella first returns to an Earth that's aged 20 years without him, he learns that one-third of the Earth's population is openly homosexual and that homosexuality is now encouraged as a means of bringing down overpopulation. When he travels back to Stargate as a commander, by the time he arrives, Earth's society is exclusively homosexual, and he's derisively nicknamed "The Old Queer" by soldiers who now consider heterosexuality a barbaric and deviant sexual proclivity.

Here's a snippet of a conversation between Mandella, his ship's doctor Diana and executive officer Captain Charlie Moore (both of whom are homosexual):

[Diana, regarding the elimination of natural childbirth:] "Mostly, though, it's not ... having to ... have a man. Inside me. You understand. It's disgusting."

Moore laughed. "If you haven't tried it, Diana, don't --"

"Oh shut up." She threw the empty capsule at him playfully.

"But it's perfectly natural," I protested.

"So is swinging through trees. Digging for roots with a blunt stick. Progress, my good major; progress."

It's these moments that made me enjoy the book. But I have to admit that this was a book I appreciated more than I enjoyed. The novel doesn't spoonfeed you characterization or story - it drops you right into the action and the details and the science and lets the experience wash over you. It also doesn't have much of a complicated, overarching plot - the narrative follows a linear episodic format as Mandella is bounced around from experience to experience, trying to adapt to rapidly-shifting history as best he can.

Personally, I wasn't very emotionally invested in the protagonist. He seemed like the prototypical "regular guy," nothing special about him at all. His only real claim to fame is his talent for Not Dying. And I understand that that's The Point, but at the same time, I couldn't really care about him. I think he could have had more personality - just because you're ordinary doesn't mean you're not special or different in some way. Mandella doesn't have a whole lot of agency in this story, either. In fact, he's more of an observer. In this way, I found it hard to care about the stakes since he has little power over what happens to and around him.

Ultimately though, I thought the storytelling was incredibly clever. It gives us cool space-age battles, but also demonstrates the bureaucracy, tedium and hypocrisy of life in the military - such as when Mandella, despite having no head for leadership and being barely older than his inferiors, is given command because objectively he's been in the military for hundreds of years and thus has the most seniority.

It gives us a fastforwarded look at human history and social mores, and how even the most "righteous" war looks pathetic and petty with the benefit of centuries of hindsight. And it also tells a story that, despite the battle suits and the invented technology and the alien battles, enacts a reality that actually exists - that soldiers go out to fight for their country, but it won't always be the same country by the time they return to it.B+.

"Crazy For You," by Jennifer Crusie

The Chick: Quinn McKenzie. When she rescues an abandoned little dog against her practical boyfriend's wishes, she realizes she's settled for a life she doesn't want because she's afraid of rocking the boat.
The Rub: She decides to dump her old life (including her boyfriend), but finds a whole new set of problems arise when she tries to start something new (including her now ex-boyfriend).
Dream Casting: Laura Linney.

The Dude: Nick Ziegler. An uncommitted mechanic who's been serially dating 20somethings for 15 years or so, he's always had a warm, loving friendship with Quinn - and thankfully, sexual attraction never got in the way, because she was always dating someone else.
The Rub: Now that she's cut loose and is determined to live the wild life, he's finding it harder and harder to keep friendship and sex separate.
Dream Casting: Sam Trammell.

The Plot:

Quinn: Oh look a dog! I will love her and squeeze her and she will be mine.

Bill: Our apartment doesn't take dogs.

Quinn: OMG SHUT UP BILL. WHY DID I EVER HANG OUT WITH YOU? I know, I'll move completely out of your apartment and leave you a tidy little note. I never loved you in the first place so I'm sure it'll be like the two years you spent in love with me never happened!

Bill: And I'm sure I'll take this remarkably well with no psychotic breakdowns of any kind!

Quinn: HEY NICK! LET'S HAVE SEX!

Nick: Wait, what? NO.

Quinn: C'mon, let's have a dirty little fling!

Nick: No ... thank you.

Quinn: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU NICK, MEN ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO REFUSE SEX DID YOU NOT READ THE DUDE RULE BOOK? I just want a fling!

Nick: Fine.

Quinn: OMG NICK, you banged me to Fleetwood Mac - HOW DARE YOU TREAT ME LIKE ALL YOUR OTHER TARTS? I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME!

Nick: Something is legitimately wrong with you.

Bill: Not as wrong as something is with me! *does crazy things*

Nick: Okay, Quinn, I'll protect you, but I can't commit. I can't even sleep in the same room with you.

Quinn: Why not? There's a killer on the loose!

Nick: BECAUSE I ACTUALLY *DO* READ THE DUDE RULE BOOK AND IT SAYS I CAN'T COMMIT UNTIL SOMEONE ACTUALLY TRIES TO KILL YOU, OKAY?!

Quinn: Oh, okay.

Bill: *tries to attack Quinn*

Nick: That'll do it!

Quinn: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Relationship-Aiding (and -Ending!) Pet

1 Hero Who Just Can't Commit

1 Psychotic Breakdown

1 Surprise! Lesbian

1 Not-So-Surprise! Homophobic Turd Principal

1 Dognapping (For Great Justice!)

3 Failed Husband Seductions

The Word: Okay, so I haven't read Jennifer Crusie in a while. Maybe I've lost touch. Maybe I've grown past her particular blend of humour.

Or maybe this book just sucked.

Quinn McKenzie is stuck in a rut, and has been for two years. She lives in an apartment she's only okay with, with furniture she's only okay with, with a boyfriend (Bill) she's only okay with. She's always been a peacekeeper, the one willing to help and fix things in order to prevent a scene. And the result is a life she's only okay with, but one she doesn't feel is bad enough to risk screwing up by trying anything different.

Until she rescues a tiny abandoned dog named Katie. She's always wanted a dog. Bill tells her to be reasonable, to be logical, their apartment doesn't allow pets, but Quinn is done being reasonable and insists on keeping the animal. When she comes back home the next day to find that Bill has taken Katie to the pound against her wishes - that's the last straw. She's done with Bill, she's done with boring, she's not going to wait around for life to get exciting.

And (of course) part of her "Get Life Exciting" plan is to get royally laid - by none other than Nick, her ex-brother-in-law, a pathologically commitment-phobic mechanic who, despite his ill-fated marriage and subsequent divorce from her sister, remains good friends with Quinn. And while all this is happening, good ol' Bill careens completely off the deep end and turns into a sociopathic stalker.

So let's start out with what I don't like, which is, frankly, most of this novel. I had some real problems with the characterization of the protagonists and their so-called history. Quinn is someone who wants to get some excitement, so she hits on her old friend Nick, who repeatedly spurns and dodges her advances because he's uncomfortable with mixing sex and friendship, despite his intense physical attraction to her. But Quinn is determined to have him, because she's a Free Wild Woman Now, but when she finally gets one night in bed with him, she flips her lid and labels him a jerk when he won't immediately commit - even though she made it clear she wasn't out for a relationship and just wanted Free Wild Woman Sex.

We're told that their friendship is decades long, but it's barely even referred to, and I don't think it really fits with Quinn's cavalier treatment of it with her desire for a dirty, sexy fling - especially since she emotionally reacts as if she'd expected a committed romantic relationship right away, which seemed terribly unfair to Nick.

That being said, I didn't like Nick much, either - he's described as someone who loves living alone and having no responsibility and is terrified of waking up next to another person - but I found that I kept asking, "Why?" What made him this way? Why don't we get any scenes or description that help develop why he's grown into this lifestyle? Nick is very shallowly developed, and his I Just Can't Commit! mantra comes off as a lame, stereotypical sitcom characterization, where his pathological solitude is filed neatly away under the It's Because He's Got Man Parts, Duh explanation.

And shallow is generally the impression I got from the novel as a whole - a lot of the surface appeal of the Jennifer Crusie trademarks are there (yappy dogs, romantically unsatisfied sassy girlfriends, bitchy town rednecks, colourful underwear, parents with Interesting Secrets), but everything's presented in such an offhand, underdeveloped way that it's only skin deep.

In fact, the most profound aspect of the entire novel is Bill's gradual descent into complete and utter madness - which makes it really jarring when the people he's stalking keep behaving like they're in a safe romantic comedy. Mild spoilers - there's a scene that happens directly after Bill assaults Quinn and rips her shirt off. Nick rescues Quinn and takes her back to her house - and not only does she not decide to call the cops right away to report an assault, but she decides it's a great time for her and Nick to have sex - while an unapprehended Bill watches from outside the window. Because, you know, THEY HAVEN'T CALLED THE COPS ON HIM YET.

Jennifer Crusie is also a fan of using repetition of a certain trait, word or mantra to define her characters and it can be extremely effective - but sometimes it can be way overdone. For the Crazy For You drinking game, take a shot every time Crusie uses the word "round" to describe Quinn. Seriously - every guy with romantic designs on her uses that word, over and over - soft and round, hot and round, luscious and round. By the end of the novel I was half-convinced she was perfectly spherical.

Ultimately, while Crazy For You had all the basic ingredients of a classic Jennifer Crusie novel, they weren't developed well enough. This is a book that's really, well, only okay, and worth skipping in favour of a more fulfilling book.
C

"Freak Show," by James St. James

The Protagonist: Billy Bloom - fashionista, drag queen, swamp princess, death goddess, vamp extraordinaire. No one can match his style! No one can top his audacious swagger! No one can grasp his effervescent and insane creativity!
The Rub: ...except his fellow students at his all-white, ultra-conservative, southern Florida prep school.

The Secondary Cast:

Flossie: Billy's father's housekeeper. Takes care of him, but also kind of loathes him. Makes decent pecan scotchies.

Mary Jane McAfferty: Billy's first real friend at Eisenhower Academy (whose name he initially mishears as "Blah Blah Blah"), and de facto leader of the "shadow" student body - those less-advantaged, less-attractive, different students who maintain a peaceful existence by hiding their existence.

Flip Kelly: The school's star quarterback who won a championship by doing a miraculous flip during the game - hence the nickname. In the school's eyes, he can do no wrong, so when he decides to publicly befriend Billy - the rest of the school has to do the same. But Flip's real home life might not be as charmed as everyone thinks.

Lynette Franz: The bitchy Mean Girl who wants to keep Tradition in the school curriculum and protect the pious, advantaged students from Billy's "Gay Agenda."

Bernie Balch: An ugly, particularly vicious school bully who targets Billy.

Clancy Duckett: An out-and-proud lesbian TV anchor who decides to help Billy broadcast his message "Tease hair! Not homos!"

The Word: I've been wanting to read this book for a pretty long time, but again, it was one of the Books I Want To Get At the Library that I just never got around to because I've Got All Of These Perfectly Good Books to Read Already.

Well, finally I just decided, to heck with it, and took out Freak Show for free (yay libraries!). I read this book in TWO DAYS. That is fast for me. Super-fast. Unbelievable how quickly I burned through this book - and it's all thanks to Billy Bloom, the unbelievably manic, energetic, creative, flawed, oblivious, spectacular and unreliable teenage narrator of the novel.

Billy Bloom is a drag queen - his brain fizzes and starts with splashes of fabulousness and colour. He's got a room full of costumes and wigs and spirit gum and surgical adhesive and make-up. The guy's gifted. But he's also a 17-year-old boy stuck in an extremely conservative swamp of a Florida town with his wealthy but neglectful father, after his alcoholic mother up and decided she couldn't handle him anymore.

But Billy's got gumption. He's got spirit. He's determined to make a sparkling Gucci purse out of this sow's ear of a situation and make the best impression possible at his new school, Dwight D. Eisenhower Academy. And he makes a splash - but in the WORST way. The white, blond, privileged, preppy students of Eisenhower Academy do not react well to Billy's particular brand of pizzazz (particularly when he makes his first appearance in a Vivienne Westwood pirate costume - "what's more masculine than a pirate?"). Poor Billy finds himself targeted, bullied and brutalized - until the torment goes way out of control and lands him in the hospital.

Recovering from his injuries, Billy makes a new ally - Flip Kelly, the school's champion quarterback and social paragon. Motivated by outrage (and not a little guilt at his own unwitting participation in the attack), Flip befriends Billy and brings him under his social wing, protecting Billy from the physical abuse if not the bigotry and hypocrisy that still pervades the student body. Even though he's been beaten down, however, Billy's not out - instead, his bottomless pit of imagination comes up with even more harebrained, brilliant, impulsive ideas on how to change things in his school for the better - for everyone, not just the powerful and privileged.

Billy is the reason I read this book in two days. His voice screams off the page, waving its arms and shaking its bedazzled booty. He's ALWAYS excited and ALWAYS thinking and ALWAYS creating, and his excitement is outrageously infectious. He's like the Anne Shirley of the 21st century. His narration is highly exaggerated and sometimes unreliable, but it gets the point across so powerfully. When he's happy, he's ECSTATIC, when he's miserable, HE'S IN A PIT OF DESPAIR, when he's in love, HE JUST WANTS TO BE A SPECK OF DUST SWIMMING AROUND IN THE OBJECT OF HIS AFFECTION'S LUNGS. He also uses a lot of capslock, but I digress.

Despite the exaggeration and satire and parody of the characters and the setting, the story feels so real - and it feels real BECAUSE of the exaggeration, because of the unbreakable current of sincerity in Billy's voice. When I was 17, I felt everything was SO ALL-ENCOMPASSING, I felt my bullies were SCREAMING VILE HARLOTS, my life could NOT BE CONTAINED IN MERE LOWERCASE LETTERS. Billy is such an amazing character and you feel for him so powerfully - even if you are scratching your head when he elects to be blind for an entire day because he simply MUST wear twelve pairs of fake eyelashes to complete his look.

I'm personally religious and one of the Biblical messages that's seen a lot of action in my upbringing is "when you have a torch, don't hide your light under a bushel." When you've got a gift, you don't hide it away, you don't build your mansion at the bottom of a hill (or in a swamp), you don't wear your sequined, intentionally-singed 1920s flapper dress only in your closet and nowhere else - you shine it for everyone. And Billy's such a bright, screaming, alive character that I can't understand how ANYONE would want to snuff that light out under a bushel.

Freak Show is a flaming gut-punch of a novel, very emotional, very personal, and fun as hell to read. It's searingly honest and completely fantastical. It wrung me out, frankly. It's exciting and fast-paced and zany and painfully, painfully funny. I highly recommend it.
A+

"Wickedly Charming," by Kristine Grayson

The Chick: Melvina, a.k.a. "Mellie." Unfairly lambasted by the Grimm brothers and popular fiction in general as the Evil Stepmother to Snow White, she's made it her life's work to reveal the truth about how horrible fairy tales really are
The Rub: Trouble is, nobody listens to her because she's loud and annoying and ignorant.

Dream Casting: Lindsay Price.

The Dude: Prince Charming. Cinderella dumped him, his father walks all over him, he gave up custody of his daughters, and he's balding and paunchy. Happily ever after hasn't really happened to him yet.
The Rub: He really, really likes this beautiful stepmother, but can he learn to love again with a glass slipper lodged in his scrotum?
Dream Casting: Adrian Pasdar.

The Plot:

Mellie: LIES! LIES! LIES ABOUT ME EVERYWHERE! LIES ARE WHEN WORDS ARE SAID THAT AREN'T TRUE. BOOKS ARE FULL OF WORDS - THEREFORE IT STANDS TO REASON THAT SOME OF THEM MUST BE UNTRUE - THEREFORE BOOKS ARE FULL OF LIES ABOUT ME AND I NEED TO BAN THEM. LOGIC!

Prince Charming: I find your complete lack of restraint, logic and intelligence so gosh darn pretty!

Mellie: OMG YOU'RE SO HOT, I IMMEDIATELY HATE YOU BECAUSE YOUR LIFE IS BETTER THAN MINE, ARGH ARGH LIFE IS UNFAIR, CRUEL FATE!

Prince Charming: Your constant use of capslock is so gosh darn pretty! You should write a book about your problems!

Mellie: WELL, OKAY, THAT'S A GREAT IDEA. EXCEPT - DO PEOPLE READ ACTUAL READ BOOKS? FOR FUN? EVEN IF THEIR STUPID TEACHERS AREN'T MAKING THEM DO IT FOR SCHOOL?

Prince Charming: .... maybe I'll write the book.

Mellie: OMG WHY HAVE YOU BEEN AVOIDING ME FOR MONTHS? IT MUST BE BECAUSE I'M A BITTER OLD HAG AND YOU'RE ALREADY TIRED OF ME!

Prince Charming: ... I was writing your book! And everyone loves it!

Mellie: OH.

Prince Charming: Except for my ex-wife Cinderella, who tried to use a spell to annul the existence of my children.

Mellie: OH NO.

Prince Charming: Oh don't worry - that problem was quickly solved a chapter later and off-screen by a just-introduced secondary character!

Mellie: OH. HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

Evil Bitch Ex

1 Ghostwritten Book

1 Schlubby, Sexist Romantic Rival

2 Poorly-Developed Stepchildren

1 Bestseller than Rips Off Wicked

The Word: I love fairy tales. This is no secret. I watch Disney. I read the Grimm tales. I like the colour and the magic and the trickery. And I love how the basic enjoyability of these stories can translate so easily into different kinds of retellings and interpretations. So you'd think something like Wickedly Charming would be right up my alley, right? Wrong.

I mean, it has a good concept. At first. Our heroine, Mellie, is a perpetually-outraged woman who's the leader of PETA - the People for the Ethical Treatment of Archetypes (ha ha - it's a tired old joke that only gets older). She's tired of the way those awful brothers Grimm told all these lies that have now become the basis for much of modern literature. And she should know - since she's doomed to go down in history as Snow White's Evil Stepmother.

Now, how did the Grimm brothers find out about the magical world of the Kingdoms all fairy tale characters live in? Why did they tell such obvious lies? Why did they add parts like the magic mirror or the huntsman? These things aren't even discussed.

And Mellie's solution to the centuries of untruths? Holding protests at bookfairs, screaming at bookbuyers, and calling for the banning of books. Because they are full of lies, you see.

The heroine wants to ban books. Yeah. Let that sink in.

Mellie's counterpart is Prince Charming. Well, one of them - Cinderella's Prince Charming. Still smarting from his divorce from Cinderella (and more on her wretched characterization in a minute), he's now working as a bookseller in The Greater World (a.k.a. The Real World), which gives him access to the bookfair. There he meets Mellie and we get the standard unpleasant scene where the Bitter Bitch heroine unloads all of her problems on him and makes a lot of baseless assumptions about how great his life must be.

The heroine is not only a Bitter Bitch, but she's possibly dumber than a box of Rapunzel's hair, since Prince Charming literally has to explain the concept of fiction to her. She doesn't understand how people can just make stuff up on the spot and put that into writing. Isn't that lying?

NO.

Prince Charming, despite being a rabid bibliophile, is somehow not repulsed by her clear disdain and ignorance of literature as a whole. Instead, she's the prettiest girl he's ever seen. So he decides to help her. He explains to Mellie that screaming at people like a demented self-righteous howler monkey is not the best way to change hearts and minds. Taking a moment to dump on the entire subgenre of paranormal romance, he shows how ugly nasty vampires changed their PR by getting people to write books where they are the tortured heroes. So perhaps Mellie should write a book that tells the story from her point of view - and he'll be super happy to help her write it.

So, the concept itself is a strong one - the idea that fairy tales oversimplified the complex family dynamics of certain characters - but the novel itself just does not follow through, and instead does the same thing the fairy tales did. It still tells a lazy, underdeveloped, oversimplified story, just with the villain-and-hero roles reversed. Oh, all the stepmothers were just overworked women in tough situations who just made a few mistakes, and all the princesses were spoiled, evil, clawing, envious bitches. How convenient.

There's also the laughable fact that while the protagonist CONSTANTLY RAGES about how older women are made into villains for fairytales, the only recognizable villain in Wickedly Charming IS AN OLDER WOMAN: a middle-aged Cinderella, who is cruelly shoehorned into the Completely Evil Murderous Ex Role. This book, whose heroine complains that fairy tales distort ideas about women, gives us a villain who literally tries to wish her children out of existence because she loves attention, money and the spotlight too much. One small step for Cinderella, one giant leap backwards for womankind.

This story could have had a perfectly decent, nuanced, subtle plot where Prince Charming and Cinderella divorced because they didn't really know each other - they were two dazed teenagers with stars in their eyes who got married after knowing each other for less than a day thanks to some preternaturally tiny footwear. It happens. That would have been a great plot point. But instead, the novel goes the cartoon route and makes Cinderella a monstrously selfish, unambiguously evil sociopath.

How am I supposed to like Mellie, either? She's rude, she's bitter, she's envious, and she's so. Effing. IGNORANT that I just couldn't stand her. She doesn't understand one thing about how the world works and is just so blindly hateful of any woman younger and prettier than her (which, hey, SOUNDS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE HER CHARACTER WAS IN THE ORIGINAL FAIRY TALE, HMMMMM). And nothing about her character is consistent. It turns out she secretly burned out her magic keeping Snow White alive, and kept it a secret from everyone - and yet she's spent centuries stewing in impotent rage about how people misconstrue her actions. You can't tell me that she doesn't care what anyone thinks - and then make her number one motivation to change what people think about her!

And what about Prince Charming? Talk about ruining the Beta model of heroes. He's not a Beta, he's - hmmm, what's the last letter of the Greek Alphabet? There's shy, and then there's just plain spineless. This quivering, flavourless Jell-O mould of a man is frightened of everything and pushed around by everyone and is constantly nervous and insecure (despite being breathtakingly handsome). He scurries to and fro so regularly I wondered if he was one of the mice turned into a footman by mistake. And believe me, if you've read my blog before, you know I have a particular tendre for shy Beta heroes. This hero, however, takes it a step too far. Several times while reading this novel I wanted to shout at him to nut up, take it like a man, and stop (literally!) running away from the heroine.

The story is simplistic, the conflict (where there is any - the greater part of this novel is internal moping/bitching, let's be honest) is contrived, and the protagonists are just completely unlikeable. Ultimately, Wickedly Charming calls the kettle black - it lashes out at all fairy tales for being distorted and misogynist and poorly told, and yet it doesn't try to rise above any of these tropes, either.
D

"A Lily Among Thorns," by Rose Lerner

The Chick: Lady Serena, a.k.a. "The Siren," a.k.a. "The Thorn." A former courtesan, her life's work is bound up in the hotel she now owns - until a close friend suddenly betrays her.The Rub: She may not want to admit it, but she'll need help to retain control of her hotel - and who better than the random dude who was indirectly responsible for her getting the hotel in the first place?Dream Casting: Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery.

The Dude: Solomon Hathaway. Years ago, he recklessly gave away his entire quarterly allowance to a prostitute. Now he needs her help in recovering some stolen earrings.
The Rub: In the process, he realizes he's in love with her - but how can he convince her that he's the real deal?Dream Casting: Tom Hiddleston.

The Plot (some plot spoilers):

In the Past...

Serena: Do you want me to take your virginity?

Solomon: No thank you! HERE HAVE SOME FREE MONEY!

Present Day...Solomon: Will you help me find some stolen earrings?

Serena: Sure! No problem!

Rene, Marquis de Sacreval and Dirty French Spy: Bonjour! I've faked our marriage so I can steal your hotel for nefarious and not-to-be-spoken-of reasons!

Serena: THE HELL YOU ARE. I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN.

Solomon: And I'll help!

Serena: Wait, what?

Solomon: And I'll design pretty dresses for you! And stick up for you to your dad! And help uncover a secret network of spies and traitors for you! And step on the toes of men who are rude to you! And make you hot chocolate! And massage your feet!

Serena: HOW DOES SOMEONE AS NICE AS YOU PHYSICALLY EXIST?

Rene: OMG, does he have a brother?

Solomon: I do but he's dead and straight!

Elijah (Dead Brother): I'm not and I'm really not!

Rene: HOORAY! *plot foiled*

Solomon and Serena: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 French Frenemy

2 Stolen Earrings

1 Suspicious Fire

1 Very Bad Parent

1 Fortuitous Use of Hydrochloric Acid

1 Regency-Era Gay Bar

1 Faked Death

Several Sexy Spies

1 (Gay!) Secondary Romance (Between Sexy Spies)

The Word: Oh, Rose Lerner, you've done it again!

Rose Lerner SPLASHED (splashed, I tell you!) onto the Romance scene waaaaay back in 2010 with her debut novel, In For A Penny. I credit The Booksmugglers for pointing me and Rose Lerner in our respective directions, because it was a match made in heaven. In For a Penny surprised and delighted me with how it managed to create a sincere, lovely romance between complex characters without compromising the realism of the historical setting.

Rose Lerner takes the sophomore slump out to dinner and punches it in the face with A Lily Among Thorns, her long-awaited (and much-delayed) second book.

Lady Serena, prodigal daughter of a lord, used to be a whore, until a chance encounter with a nervous young man left her one hundred and twenty-five pounds richer. Serena turned that miracle money into an independent career as a successful courtesan, and then ultimately used those proceeds to purchase a sophisticated hotel, naming it the Ravenshaw Arms. Running the hotel is her joy and her pride and the last vestige of passion she allows herself.

So when she unexpectedly meets her mysterious benefactor when he asks for her help in locating some stolen earrings (her lady-of-the-night past left her with a bevy of useful underworld contacts), she sees it as the perfect way to repay his generosity without involving any unnecessary emotion.

Solomon Hathaway, a talented tailor, chemist, and dyer, has no idea this woman is the same prostitute to whom he recklessly gave his entire quarterly allowance so many years before - but he is drawn to her all the same.

Trouble arises in the form of Rene, the marquis of Sacreval, a dashing French aristocrat and Serena's business partner. Returning unexpectedly from the continent, he offers to buy out Serena's share in the Arms - but when she refuses, he produces expertly forged marriage lines that will be permit him, as her (il)legal husband, to take the Arms from her whether she wants to or not.

To Serena's surprise, Solomon offers to help her find a way to regain control of the Arms, and both find themselves drawn into a conspiracy involving French spies, English traitors, stolen rubies, secret doors, 19th-century gay bars, disapproving uncles, and expertly-tailored gowns.

One of the greatest joys in this book is that the hero and heroine don't begin the story with a reason to hate each other. A lot of other romances (even good ones), incite conflict right away by immediately putting the protagonists on opposite sides of a quarrel or problem. It's not necessarily a bad plot device, but it's used so frequently that it's just such a relief when we don't have romantic protagonists who immediately harbour the worst possible assumptions about each other.

Both Solomon and Serena have been shaped by being torn between two worlds. Serena was born an aristocrat, but sacrificed that status when she took on the world's oldest profession. She now uses underworld connections to survive in a world where a large number of the male haute ton can claim a "personal" connection to her. Solomon, meanwhile, is the offspring of an aristocratic woman who ran away with a Latin tutor. He has a Cambridge education from his disapproving Viscount uncle but prefers to work in trade with his (more lovingly disapproving) tailor uncle. In both cases, he's stuck somewhere in the middle.

But they both deal with such struggles differently, which is where their wonderful arguments and misunderstandings and interactions spring from. Righteous Beta Heroes and Dirty Heroines with Dirty Dealin's are my crack. Serena is such a magnificent heroine. Independent and strong-willed but practical - who believes she is cold and passionless until she meets the hero.

And what a hero! Solomon Hathaway is a prince among men. A prince among heroes! He cooks, he sews, he makes hot chocolate, he knows his way around a vial of hydrochloric acid, he has impeccable fashion sense, he's sweet and lovely and all that is good. He is wonderful. But he does have issues - he's only recently recovered from losing a twin brother in the war, the dashing and charming brother he always subconsciously compared himself to. And because of his mixed-class parentage he's always on the wrong side of someone's opinion - the aristos sneer that he's a commoner, and the plebs don't take him seriously.

The plot itself is darker and twistier than In For a Penny, but then again, I've always preferred those types of stories. Serena is such an evasive, closed-off, damaged character - who runs an inn that employs similarly evasive, closed-off and damaged characters. We learn new things about her in drip and drabs, because even from her point of view, she's close-mouthed. She's been used and abandoned by a lot of men in her day, which is why it takes a special one to win her heart - and even then, it take a good, long, delicious while to crack her shell.

But good things come to those who wait - and it's the same for Rose Lerner fans. We waited - and in the end, we were rewarded. While I don't particularly want to wait two years for her next book, I will if I have to.
A+

The Unwashed Blogger Masses: A Rant

I am AnimeJune.

And I am one of the unwashed blogger masses.

Let me explain. One of the most glorious things about the internet, is that is has given everyone a voice. Virtually anyone can start up a blog, give it a title, and start writing about whatever they please. Out of this has grown a thriving reviewer community - not just for books, but for about every product on the planet - plays, videogames, TV shows, movies, you name it.

Now, most artists and authors see bloggers as an untapped, budget-friendly goldmine. Give a few free ARCs away, have a reviewer give a positive review, and then another twelve bloggers will read that post and try the book themselves and realize they love it, and then that's twelve more reviews, with thirty bloggers reading those blogs and deciding to try the book themselves. And so on and so forth

The thing is, some authors have not learned how to deal with negative reviews. Writing takes an absurdly puffed-up sense of confidence - believe me, I've had it. So a scathing review out of nowhere can pop that bubble pretty damn fast, and some authors just can't cope. And, unfortunately, it is far easier to take out your rage on an "amateur" reviewer than it is a seasoned journalist who says the same thing.

There was an episode of Saturday Night Live recently, where Daniel Radcliffe plays an oblivious internet artist who "went to a school with no grades" and just assumes that everyone loves him. In the sketch, he attempts to draw Chinese calligraphy while simultaneously doing an Irish gig, and when he sits down, he blithely says, "I tried, and therefore no one can criticize me!"

I fear that there are a lot of authors who secretly feel that way - who feel, I actually wrote a BOOK, and therefore no one can criticize me! Who somehow believe that making it past the thorny tangle of agents and editors and slushpiles to join the ranks of the Printed Word renders one exempt from opinion. They have SURVIVED submissions. They have ENDURED revisions. Their experience with negativity is henceforth over, and they and their book lived happily ever after! I'm sorry, but that's not how it works.

Now, there have been quite a few kerfuffles recently in the YA and Romance communities about negative reviews, and I've even posted about the inevitable pattern these responses to negativity take. In a nutshell, these replies always follow along the same lines:

• "You're personally attacking me!"
• "You're a stupid loser poo-poo head who writes in her basement!"
• "How many books have YOU had published? Thought not!"
• "You're just jealous!"
• "You have no idea how much work goes into writing a book!"
• "All these other people on Amazon liked it!"
• "Nobody reads your blog anyway!"

But what I've recently taken the most exception towards is Maggie Steifvater's post about what makes a review a review. It starts off reasonably enough, stating that bloggers should never make reviews personal (as in, make personal remarks about the author - their sexuality, personal life, number of cats, education, etc. etc.). That is 100% correct.

But then she starts to veer off:

A review is an unbiased, careful look at a book — basically it is a little academic paper. It involves an itty-bitty thesis on your opinion of the book, surrounded by tiny supporting sentences describing the strengths and weaknesses of said book. Every month, dozens upon dozens of these reviews come out in professional journals. Because they're fair and thorough, they're prized and respected in the publishing world. Authors celebrate positive pro reviews. They sigh and learn from negative pro reviews. Publishing houses bend over backward to send review copies to these journals in time for a timely review, because good reviews can make or break a book's success with libraries and booksellers.

By now you'll have noticed the neat, little words she drops - "academic," "professional." Nice, clean, bland picket-fence words - so pretty and nice as they clearly separate "us" (the nose-picking, skinned-knee, orphan urchin bloggers) from "them" (the fair, thorough, prized and respected academic few, consuming their tea and cucumber sandwiches). And then, she goes on to condescendingly explain to us that we are not, in fact, true reviewers:

Let's talk about the negative "reviews" that authors have been lashing out at. They often involve animated gifs, swearing, and snark. They're often quite funny. But here's the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book. I'm not saying that bloggers shouldn't write biased, hilarious, snarky rundowns of books. I'm saying that those rundowns are not reviews. Bloggers who regularly write them cannot expect to garner the same respect and treatment from authors that pro reviewers or non-pro reviewers do. They can't expect authors to read their posts and learn something from them. And they cannot expect authors to not take it personally. They've made it personal.

You'll notice that this paragraph only mentions the negative blogger reviews as being "not reviews" - by the very nature of them being negative. No one ever takes issue with the "professionalism" of someone who writes a positive review. No one ever accuses them of being unqualified, or jealous, or tells them they write for a dinky little quarterly that nobody reads.

This post may be swaddled with reasonable-sounding rhetoric but at the heart of it is yet another author who reacts to negative reviewers by attacking their qualifications.

And have I mentioned how much I love it when authors accuse a book review of being biased? "How dare this reviewer express an opinion about a book in their book review! Opinions have no place in reviews!" A book review is the explanation of a bias - by reading the book, you become biased for or against, and a review is simply an explanation of how you got to that point.

Because of the Internet, everyone has a voice. But because anyone can do it, it allows people to diminish the voices of those they don't like. Just because we live in a society where everyone has the opportunity to perform a certain action, doesn't mean the action is meaningless.

Do you want to tell the new mother and her day-old infant that she's hasn't done anything that special? That literally billions of people, rich and poor, since the dawn of time have done the same thing a billion times over? Does that really diminish the importance? Or your child learning to read for the first time? Again - it's been done before. The vast majority of people in North America can already do it. That's not really an achievement or a special gift, now is it?

So I'm afraid author comments that the members of the blogger community are simply representatives of the unwashed, uneducated, common masses because we don't have the same literary gatekeepers doesn't hold a lot of water with me. We're the ones who do it for free. We're the ones who do it on top of our day jobs, in spite of our day jobs, staying up late, because we love it. Because we are passionate about books and reading. So who are you to say our voices don't matter - unless they say something that you like?