The October Round-Up!

Happy Halloween, folks! I'm writing my October Round-Up a little early this month, if only to get it out of the way to leave more room for NaNo'ing come November! And here are the books I read and reviewed over the last 31 days:

The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman. Fiction, Historical. A
Pros: Absorbing moral debate, well-developed characters, magical setting. Cons: Slow pacing.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, by Cathrynne M. Valente. Middle Grade, Fantasy. A
Pros: Endlessly creative setting, excellent characterization, gorgeous wordplay. Cons: Uneven pacing, occasionally cluttered language.

Zombies Vs. Unicorns. Anthology Review. YA, Fantasy, Horror. A-
Pros: The zombie stories. Cons: The unicorn stories. And Justine Larbalestier's commentary.

Cold Magic, by Kate Elliott. Fantasy, YA. B-
Pros: Intricate alternate world, gripping actual plot. Cons: Infodumps out the whazoo, irritating characters.

I Kissed an Earl, by Julie Anne Long. Romance, Historical. B-
Pros: Self-aware heroine, intriguingly complex financial storyline, strong writing. Cons: Heroine is a loathsomely spoiled idiot for the majority of the book.

*October Dud* Seize the Fire, by Laura Kinsale. Romance, Historical. D+
Pros: Conflicted hero, some serious dramas. Cons: Boring, sluggish pacing, and the most stupid, useless, crybaby heroine in existence.

Who knew a Laura Kinsale book would wind up a dud? How was your month, reading-wise?

"Cold Magic," by Kate Elliott

The Protagonist: Cat Hassi Barahal. An orphan raised in the household of her aunt, uncle and cousin Bee, she just wants to blend in and avoid getting involved in radical politics between the lower class and the princes and mages.
Her Angst: Her life plan is shot to hell when her "beloved" aunt and uncle bind her in marriage to a Mage House to spare their own daughter - who, in turns out, has magical powers the Mage Houses are perfectly willing to kill for.

The Secondary Cast:

Bee Hassi Barahal: Cat's crazy-annoying cousin who acts like a chihuahua who was force-fed espresso beans. Also has possibly world-saving magical powers. Sucks to be the world!

Andevai Diarrisso Haranwy: The powerful but young cold mage tasked with marrying the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter in order to secure her powers for his Mage House. Too bad he marries the wrong girl instead!

Chartji: An American troll solicitor. For reals.

Roderic: Cat's Surprise!Brother! Revealing any more would spoil it.

Angst Checklist:

• My Cousin is Ferociously Irritating But Everyone Seems to Like Her for Some Reason
• Self-Identity
• Independence
• Human Rights
• The Industrial Age
• My Relatives Sold Me Into Marriage

Fantasy Checklist:

• 2 Surprise! Magical Powers
• 1 Surprise! Sibling
• 1 Poor Farmer's Son With Surprising Magical Strength
• 1 Destroyed Airship
• Two Trolls
• 1 Dimension into the Spirit World
• 1 Pack of Magical Cats

The Word: Cat Hassi Barahal is the orphan niece of an illustrious family that's fallen on hard times. For the first few chapters, she attends university with her bouncy, perfectly beautiful and monstrously annoying cousin Bee. The world she lives in is divided by unrest - the continent of Europa is split into hundreds of puzzle pieces ruled over by spoiled princes and powerful Mage Houses, who are in turn threatened by the advent of the Industrial Age and the radical democratic notions of the increasingly rebellious populace.

Cat's personal world, however, is thrown into turmoil when a young mage from the powerful Four Moons House abruptly arrives and demands Cat's aunt and uncle honour a contract they made years ago promising the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter in marriage. Cat, being two months older than Bee, is promptly handed over to a total stranger in marriage and is told to make the best of it. Her new mage husband Andevai is, of course, arrogant, vain, pig-headed, and Inexplicably Handsome in the way of all Obvious Love Interests.

Too late, Cat realizes her aunt and uncle tricked the Four Moons House into accepting her in place of their own daughter, who has an innate magical talent the head Mage wants. Cat is then forced to flee when she overhears the head Mage ordering her new husband to kill her, in order to free him to marry Bee.

While on the run, Cat comes to learn more about the world, the tyranny of the petty princes and Mage Houses, and her own secret heritage and innate magical talents.

Confused? Well, the first 150 pages of this novel are nigh-incoherent - full of confusing staging, stilted dialogue, contrived situations, and screamingly annoying characters (can Bee just go away? Forever?), with piles and piles AND PILES of clunky exposition inexpertly wadded into every nook and crevice. I'm talking about telling over showing, "As You Know Bob*" Dialogue, and just plain infodumping, where our heroine presumably stares off into space while she relates pages of history to the reader that ultimately have nothing to do with the story at all.

I'm not kidding. It's like every character is on the Tourism Board for their particular tribe or clan or country and are incapable of introducing themselves without also listing their country's historical battles, natural resources, and cultural holidays. It's disappointing, because the worldbuilding in itself is interesting and original - an alternate universe in which Rome crumbled before it could become a driving cultural force, leaving Europe and Africa a mosaic of cultures and traditions. The majority of the worldbuilding is easily conveyed by the organic interaction of the characters with the setting.

Thus, the blatant infodumping is entirely unnecessary, which makes it as offensive as it is puzzling. I've read Kate Elliott before - her Crown of Stars septet was amazing and managed to convey an intriguingly gender-bent medieval society without reams and reams of lectures. So why does she go completely overboard overexplaining everything here? Is it because this book is more targeted towards YA readers? Because teenagers need to be talked down to and hand-held through the harder bits?

That being said, the story does start to pick up steam around the time Cat hooks up with her Arrogant, Vain, but Inexplicably Handsome hubby - basically, once the story starts being about Interesting Things That Are Happening Right Now and less about Less-Interesting Things That Happened a Thousand Years Ago To The Ancestors of Minor Characters. To Elliott's credit, once the plot gets going, it's pretty hard to put the book down. She's a master of description, setting, and suspense. However, even when the story is chugging along at full pace, the writing style still seems juvenile and even a little corny, at least in regards to the overwrought dialogue and the characters' behaviour.

It's difficult for me to truly summarize my reaction to this novel - while on the whole, I enjoyed reading it and thought the ideas and the setting were interesting, I felt enormous swathes of dialogue and exposition could have easily been cut and I couldn't really get invested in any of the characters (except perhaps Andevai - he is Inexplicably Handsome). I felt torn between Raging Frustration and a compulsive urge to turn the next page.

So I loved it - and I hated it? Ultimately, I think I loved it because Kate Elliott writes ferociously addictive set pieces and conflicts - and hated it because the author wastes so much time stopping to explain things when she could instead be writing more ferociously addictive set pieces and conflicts. Hopefully this might thin out in future books, such as Cold Steel (which is already on my TBR).

I'm just saying - most people start reading epic fantasy when they're still in their teens. Give teen readers the benefit of the doubt.
B-

You can purchase Cold Magic here.

*As You Know Bob dialogue is when two characters talk about things they both already know for no reason except to inform the reader.

The Weekly Wanting (17)

It's Weekly Wanting time - and probably the last one in a while. November's starting, and with it, National Novel Writing Month. I'm going to be writing up a storm so I can't say how consistently I'll be able to blog over that time. I'll try - but. 50, 000 words. 30 days. It's anyone's guess.

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Magical Realism

Cover Snark: Lens flare! LENS FLAAAARE.

The Story: A girl in a small town deals with the realization that she's a lesbian by sending her complicated thoughts and feelings out to the passengers of the planes that fly above her house.

Why I Want It? Small-town setting. LGBT plot. The one-two punch of rave reviews from both The Booksmugglers and the gals of Forever Young Adult! How could I not want this?

What books are you guys eagerly wanting this week?

"I Kissed an Earl," by Julie Anne Long

The Chick: Violet Redmond. A spoiled, petulant debutante with an inflated sense of self-worth, when she suspects her MIA brother Lyon might be a pirate, she bribes her way onto the ship of the man hired to track him down. Piece of cake!
The Rub: "What do you mean I have to eat hard tack and peel vegetables and earn my keep? Isn't my Pretentiously Wild-Spirited and Secretly Clever Presence payment enough?"
Dream Casting: Anne Hathaway.

The Dude: Captain Asher Flint, Earl of Ardmay. An American-raised bastard-turned-sea-captain, he was raised to the rank of Earl by the King and gifted with a vast estate - but if he wants the fortune to maintain said estate, he will have to find and capture an infamous pirate named Le Chat.
The Rub: The crazy mess of a woman who's stowed away on his ship will do everything in her power to thwart him - but she also has information on Le Chat that he desperately needs.
Dream Casting: A younger Liam Neeson.

The Plot:

Violet: I am bored and wealthy! FATE! GIVE ME PURPOSE!

Random Extra: Hey all these random facts about this random pirate remind me of your missing brother, Lyon!

Violet: TO THE SEA! *bribes her way onto ship*

Flint: WTF.

Violet: Hello, peasant. Where's my feather mattress? What time are cocktails? Why is there no shuffleboard equipment on deck?

Flint: YOU'RE A MORON.

Violet: But I'm so Fiery and Clever! Even when I'm outmatched by almost everything and entirely due to my own poorly-planned decisions! Don't you find me charming?

Flint: NO.

Violet: But I'm gorgeous and rich! How is that possible?! We could work together to find and save Le Chat.

Flint: You mean find and capture and/or kill Le Chat.

Violet: Let's cross that Sibling-Killing Bridge when we come to it.

Giant Storm: *arrives*

Violet: HEY DID YOU SAY STAY BELOW DURING THE STORM OR COME UP AND FLAIL AROUND AND ALMOST DROWN IN A TIDAL WAVE DURING THE STORM?

Flint: OMG, you really ARE a moron!

Violet: But this time I did it because I'm in love with you!

Flint: I am inexplicably turned on!

Shipboard Storm Sex: *is had*

Flint: I'm off to kill Le Chat!

Violet: Please don't!

Flint: Well, since you asked nicely.

Violet: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Inconvenient Inheritance
• 1 Missing Brother-Turned-Pirate
• 1 Evil Pirate Captain
• 1 Good Pirate Captain
• Several Tidal Waves
• Hundreds of Peeled Potatoes
• 0 Mustard-Flavoured Weevils

The Word: Much like my reaction to Seize the Fire, I found that while Julie Anne Long's writing is as ornate and lyrical as it ever was, the stupidity and selfishness of her heroine prevented me from truly enjoying the book.

I Kissed an Earl is fourth in the Pennyroyal Green series, one that deals primarily with the feuding families, the scandalous Everseas and the snobbish Redmonds. The series started with The Perils of Pleasure (good), Like No Other Lover (very good), and Since the Surrender (dumb but charming).

Violet Redmond is spoiled and bored, and has garnered a bit of a reputation around Pennyroyal Green for being a crazy hot mess - her highlight reel includes an attempt to throw herself down a well after an argument with a suitor.

At a party in town, however, she overhears speculation about a nefarious pirate named Le Chat who has been attacking and sinking English merchant ships. Due to certain details regarding his nickname, the name of his ship, and his apparent resemblance to Violet's brother Jonathan, Violet begins to suspect Le Chat might be her older brother Lyon, who went missing ever since his heart was broken by Olivia Eversea.

Surprisingly, no one in her immediate family is willing to take her suspicions seriously (throwing oneself down a well for kicks can put a damper on one's trustworthiness). So she does what any pampered, spoiled rich girl would do - pay someone to break the rules for her. She bribes her way on to the ship of Captain Asher Flint, a man recently named an Earl by the King in return for capturing Le Chat and bringing him back to face justice.

Flint is, shall we say, less than pleased to discover a Too Stupid To Live heroine stowed away on his  ship. A TSTL heroine who immediately demands better food and a better room, and proceeds to explain how he's inferior to herself because he works for a living.

Violet is not as bad as, say, Olympia in Seize the Fire. For one thing, she's a (somewhat) better fleshed-out character who is smart in her own way but has never been given an appropriate outlet for her passions and intelligence in her stifled life in Sussex. I get it, she's sheltered, she's repressed, she's not going to know certain things, but it's like the book itself can't decide what type of Crazy she is. Parts of the story imply that she can't help being nuttier than a fruitcake because Her Heroine's Heart Is Too Big For Sussex! But there are just as many aspects of the story that suggest she acts like a hot mess on purpose because she gets off on the attention. And I found I really had no sympathy for the Paris Hilton of Pennyroyal Green.

To her credit, she does develop more understanding and intelligence as the story goes on - particularly in regards to the interesting mystery surrounding Le Chat and why he's sinking all those ships. She is someone who's been cosseted and sheltered, and she's quite aware of that, so she does need to start at the bottom, character-wise. However, she never stops pulling stupid, contrived stunts - the difference is that later in the book, instead of doing it because she's a bored prat, she's doing it because she's in love. So that makes it better?

Flint was somewhat less developed - not surprisingly, since the vast majority of the novel's POV is told from Violet's skewed perspective. A fatherless bastard, Flint was saved from rootless poverty as a child by Captain Moreheart - a man who was recently killed by Le Chat when the pirate captured and sunk his ship. Revenge fuels Flint even more than his desire for a family.

Most of the delicious tension in his relationship with Violet comes from them being completely at cross-purposes about Le Chat. Flint wants to bring Le Chat to justice for murder and theft (and also for the King's reward), while Violet wants to save him, since if Lyon is attacking and sinking ships, he must be doing it for some higher purpose. However, Violet needs Flint's ship, and Flint needs Violet's inside info on Lyon, so the two have to stick pretty close together while maintaining a pretty cat-and-mouse game regarding their intentions. Admittedly, most of this is pretty entertaining.

That being said, I couldn't really invest myself in either of the characters, although Julie Anne Long's lovely, insightful writing style tried its very best. I Kissed an Earl is not a terrible novel. It had a genuinely entertaining piracy subplot, good writing and description, interesting hero and heroine tension. However, the romance itself never fit into place for me. Protagonists should definitely screw up and make mistakes, but the romantic plot should emerge organically from a variety of decisions and factors. The story's sole existence should not rely on a character's stupidity.
B-


You can purchase I Kissed An Earl here.

The Weekly Wanting (16)

Hey! It's time for another Weekly Wanting! And by that I mean - I finally got my ass off the couch and stopped being super lazy about them. My bad.

Unspoken: The Lynburn Legacy, by Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: YA, Paranormal.
Cover Snark: No snark, actually. This is a lovely cover!
The Story: An amateur sleuth in a small British village finds a new mystery to uncover when a mysterious aristocratic family moves back into town.
Why I Want It? I was a little ambivalent about the reviews at first (particularly the part where the heroine casually hears voices in her head all the time), until - as is becoming pretty usual for me - the Booksmugglers raved about it. Well, then I'm pretty much sold.

The Brides of Rollrock Island, by Margo Lanagan

Genre: Fantasy, Horror.

Cover Snark: Eau de Poisson - by Chanel.

The Story: Selkies, and the men who love them.

Why I Want It? I've always been particularly fascinated by selkie stories, that of men or women who can turn into seals. And this one is written by the fabulous Margo Lanagan, an author I'm definitely going to have to read more of.

And that's it! What books are you eagerly awaiting?

"The Light Between Oceans," by M.L. Stedman

The Principal Cast:

Tom: A war veteran still troubled by the horrors of war, he hopes the isolation of working a lighthouse will calm his spirit. The addition of a passionate and fiercely loving wife disrupts his peace - but in a good way.

Isabel: The deaths of her brothers in the war taught her to grab life and love however she can - it results in her marriage to Tom, and also her decision to keep a baby that washes up on their island.

Hannah Roennfeldt: Her marriage to an Austrian earned her the townsfolks' enmity, and the mysterious loss of her husband and new baby at sea earns her their pity - but hope springs eternal.

The Secondary Cast:

Ralph: Tom's coworker who sees him once every three months on the supply boat.

Violet and Bill: Isabel's parents, whose heartbreak at the deaths of their sons is eased by the arrival of their new granddaughter, Lucy.

The Word: The story centres around Tom and Isabel, a lighthouse operator and his wife who are the sole occupants of the isolated south Australian island of Janus. While they love each other and have grown to love and appreciate the strange, magical isolation of Janus, their attempts to populate the island have resulted in miscarriage after miscarriage.

Two weeks after Isabel's third pregnancy results in a stillbirth, a boat washes up on shore, carrying a dead man and a living baby, wrapped in a woman's cardigan. Tom's duty is to signal to shore, write it in the log books, alert the authorities, but Isabel, in a moment of desperation, stays his hand. The child's most likely an orphan, she says. The mother probably drowned. An orphanage is no place for a child. This is obviously God's will.

Tom loves Isabel and knows the toll her miscarriages have taken on her. So, with deep misgivings, he remains silent. They bury the body of the dead man and pass the child off as their own, naming her Lucy. But as years pass and they finally get shore leave, they discover the moral fantasy they built around Lucy was only that - a fantasy - and that their actions ruined the life of a tragic young woman.

The novel's central debate is on the importance of rules and morality, and the spectrum of thought and action in between. Tom, an emotionally-scarred veteran of the First World War, clings to the letter of the law in order to forge some form of order out of the chaos of life, but finds it difficult to accommodate human frailty and feeling into his rigid code. Isabel, meanwhile, lives for emotion and impulse - but quickly finds herself rewriting the rules to support her own desires.

I love how beautifully the author describes the lonely island of Janus, and the solitary work of maintaining the lighthouse. She aptly conveys how easy it is to use that isolation to build one's own moral framework - it's convenient for Tom and Isabel to assume Lucy is an orphan and that they rescued her when there's no one to gainsay them. Once they return to the mainland, however, they are forced to realize that even in isolation, they are connected to other people and that their decisions have far-reaching consequences.

A secondary theme is also the importance of human life, and how its addition or removal from a family can have long-standing effects. It's not only Tom and Isabel who come to embrace Lucy as part of their family - but Isabel's parents do, too. Grandparenthood enlivens them again, and allows them to move on after the death of their sons in the war. But the author allows us into the heads and lives of Lucy's birth family, as well, and how her disappearance affected them. With whom does Lucy belong?

It would be easy to dislike Isabel as a character, especially in the novel's second half as she retreats further and further into the willfully blind belief that she's only looking out for Lucy's bests interests. However, Isabel and Tom are so fleshed-out and intimately described that it's impossible to hate them. One can hate their decisions and their weaknesses, but not them. While Tom receives the lion's share of the POV, those secondary passages into Isabel's consciousness depict such a strong, sudden, fierce love she has bottled up inside of her, just waiting to be unlocked.

As it stands, The Light Between Oceans is a fantastic book. The pacing is swift and enjoyable (particularly in the novel's second half as the suspense builds), the characters are fascinating, the central theme thorny and ripe for book club discussions. It manages a near-perfect balance between flashy drama and thematic substance.
A

You can purchase The Light Between Oceans here.

Anthology Review: "Zombies Vs. Unicorns"

The eternal question - zombies or unicorns.

Actually, it's not so much an eternal question as one that can be answered fairly quickly - unicorns.

Unicorns. Peter S. Beagle owns. Zombies are also gross and I'm not generally interested in their stories. 'Nuff said.

Unicorns.

But I'd received a number of suggestions to read this anthology after I read both a zombie and a unicorn romance, only for both to suck various decaying/sparkly nether regions.

The anthology is edited by Holly Black (team unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (team zombie) and was built on the premise of WELL WHY THE HELL NOT? They then proceeded to rope in a flock of supremely talented YA authors to contribute interesting stories for one or the other supernatural creature (and in one case, both).

My reactions are as follows:

"The Highest Justice," by Garth Nix (a.k.a. "The One With Both a Unicorn and a Zombie In It")
The Plot: A princess calls upon the legendary unicorn protector of her kingdom to avenge the murder of her mother, with unpredictable results.
The Word: This was a nice enough entry into the anthology - well-written, with a genuine creep factor (the zombified remains of the princess' mother factor into the revenge). However, it seemed a little too low-conflict for me, as the unicorn promptly and quickly solves all the princess' problems as they arise, with little to no effort required on the princess' part. B

"Love Will Tear Us Apart," by Alaya Dawn Johnson (a.k.a. "The One with the Gay Indierock Zombie")
The Plot: A high-functioning zombie teenager falls in love with a troubled zombie hunter with similar taste in music - but will the Eaten People in his past destroy their budding relationship before it even begins?
The Word: This was a fantastic story - firstly, because we get a zombie's point of view. Secondly, because thanks to a well-developed premise, our zombie is still capable of cutting and hilarious commentary (even if the virus ate away the part of his brain that tells him killing people is wrong). The story is tense and enjoyable, even if the violence at the end seemed a shade too over-the-top. A

"Purity Test," by Naomi Novik (a.k.a. "The One With the Unicorns In Manhattan")
The Plot: A homeless teenage girl in New York City is recruited by an unprepared unicorn to help him save a herd of baby unicorns captured by an evil wizard.
The Word: I loves me some Naomi Novik, and I never even knew she wrote YA! This story is pretty fluffy, but it's saved by the practical human heroine and her hilarious dialogue with Belcazar, the unicorn who wouldn't know a virgin if it bit him on the butt. A witty send-up of fantasy tropes set in modern Manhattan. B+

"Bougainvillea," by Carrie Ryan (a.k.a. "The One with the Zombie Pirates")
The Plot: In a world destroyed by zombies, our heroine is the daughter of a governor who's managed to keep their tropical island self-sufficient and zombie-free thanks to his strict rule - but at what price?
The Word: I've never read Carrie Ryan before - I skimmed over glowing reviews of her books (like The Forest of Hands and Teeth) because I was never that interested in zombie stories. I'm not a big fan of horror or dystopias - I'll read them, but I've never been interested enough to seek them out. I might have to change that - "Bougainvillea" is one of the best stories in this collection, a subtle, complex, layered tale that flashes back and forth in time as our heroine, Iza, reflects on how her father's quick-thinking reaction to the zombie apocalypse saved a number of lives - but also irreparably damaged his family and changed him into a man she no longer recognizes. A+

"A Thousand Flowers," by Margo Lanagan (a.k.a. "The Unicorn Story That Redefines the Definition of Horny")
The Plot: A hapless young man finds a unicorn in the woods who leads him to the unconscious body of a ravished princess, and he's then blamed for her rape. Later, the princess's midwife/jailer realizes the case wasn't as cut-and-dry as it seemed.
The Word: This story totally sucked me in with its gorgeous, poetical language and beautifully weird plot (as Lanagan demonstrated in the short story "Singing My Sister Down," she's aces at Gorgeous Language and the Beautifully Weird). The plot twist is fairly obvious (and also totally spoiled in the editors' foreword), but the story is clearly meant to be enjoyed for its marvellous description and uncanny, magical setting. A gem. A+

"The Children of the Revolution," by Maureen Johnson. (a.k.a. "The One with the ZomBabies")
The Plot: A stranded American teenager in Britain is hired by a Famous Unnamed Celebrity to babysit her flock of adopted children for a night, provided she abides by very specific childrearing instructions. Ha, that'll work.
The Word: Maureen Johnson is an author I'm more familiar with from Twitter than from reading her books, so I was eager to try this one. Ignore the fact that it uses the age-old Protagonist is Doomed By Defying Basic Instructions plot - "Children'''s real charm comes from the zany humour and sharp satire of celebrity eccentricity - where this time, a celebrity's gonzo cult religion and odd life choices have terrifying, and terrifyingly funny, connotations. A

"The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn," by Diana Peterfreund (a.k.a. "The One with Unicolts")
The Plot: A devout Christian girl with a hidden gift for attracting and hunting unicorns (which in this universe are violent and man-eating), rescues a baby unicorn from drowning and starts taking care of it, against her better instincts. This causes her to question whether unicorns are really evil and if they can be tamed.
The Word: This story left me feeling I should have read Peterfreund's books first (she has a series about killer unicorns, Rampant and Ascendant), and not in the good way. The heroine keeps referencing "what happened last fall" every other page (a mysterious event that resulted in both her first kiss and the deaths of her cousins), and the ending is completely open ended. I felt like this was a prologue to something and it does not work very well as a standalone for those unfamiliar with her work. C+

"Inoculata," by Scott Westerfeld. (a.k.a. "The One with Half-Zombies")
The Plot: Our heroine, along with various children and a few adults, have spent the last 4 years since the Zombie Apocalypse living within a fenced-in farming compound, eating crops and canned food while zombies groan behind the fence day and night. When she discovers a way to inoculate oneself against the infection, but at a steep price, she has to decide between risk and freedom, or safety and stagnation.
The Word: This had an interesting but not-entirely-developed plot, but that may just have been due to the story's length. I enjoyed the theme of freedom but at the cost of one's humanity, but I felt the characters made their decisions very cavalierly and there weren't really any real consequences for that choice. B

"Princess Prettypants," by Meg Cabot (a.k.a. "The One where Unicorns Fart Rainbows")
The Plot: Our heroine gets a unicorn for her birthday and uses it to get revenge for herself and her classmates.
The Word: I've never read Meg Cabot before, but I don't think I'm missing anything. The weakest story in the collection, the story is a shallow construction of first world problems and sitcom stereotypes - the most heinous of which is the heroine's Homeschooled Sidekick who is of course Super-Christian, super naive, and unable to dress herself. After reading the gripping and profound stories that came before, I thought Cabot's story seemed ridiculously superficial and lame - like an episode of Saved By the Bell that accidentally popped up in my DVR next to episodes of Game of Thrones and Call the Midwife. D

"Cold Hands," by Cassandra Clare (a.k.a. "The One With The ZomBoyfriend")
The Plot: In a town where the dead are prone to coming back to life, our heroine uses this curse to her advantage when her boyfriend is murdered by his uncle.
The Word: I liked the setting in this book (which was contemporary but with a feudal political system of dukes and princes and such), and how the zombies had come to be accepted (or not) in the town's community. That being said, the plot itself seemed a little abrupt and oversimplified - but the ending does leave one with a nice little chill. B

"The Third Virgin," by Kathleen Duey (a.k.a. "The One With the Life-Sucking Unicorn")
The Plot: An immortal unicorn whose horn has healing properties spends centuries searching for true virgins - the only people who are capable of communicating with him. When he becomes addicted to the darker side of his powers, he hopes the next virgin he finds will be able to do what he can't - end his life.
The Word: This was an odd, dark little tale. The unicorn is such a desperately lonely figure, who's only capable of communicating with a very rare type of individual. He spends most of his life searching for one, but as he succumbs to his hungers (saving life gives him a high, but taking one gets him a stronger one), he wonders if he's worthy of companionship or compassion anymore. I liked this take on it, even if the ending is a little unclear. B+

"Prom Night," by Libba Bray (a.k.a. "The One with Mum and Dad Zombies")
The Plot: The teenage heroine is a cop (and a Zoroastrian!) in a broken-down society run entirely by children and teenagers - after the adults (who were the most susceptible to the zombie virus) were driven out.
The Word: This beautiful and hauntingly sad tale was surprisingly moving - especially considering there's only one zombie depicted in the entire story and he's quickly dispatched. The story is subtly and movingly told, of teenagers playing adult roles in an attempt to pretend the world isn't broken, while at the same time trying to hold tight to some of the traditions of adolescence while they're still able to celebrate them (like the town-organized Prom Night). A

Altogether, the grades are B, A, B+, A+, A+, A, C+, B,  D, B, B+, A. All in all, Zombies Vs. Unicorns is an excellent anthology with a wide variety of stories and protagonists.

And ... honestly ... the zombie stories got most of the highest grades. I never really pegged myself as an end-of-the-world person. I like dark stories, but I do prefer happy (or at least stable) endings, and I never thought I'd get them with zombie stories. Who knew? That being said, most of the unicorn stories held up as well.

If you're a fan of supernatural stories and desire an introduction to a whole slew of incredibly talented authors, do give Zombies vs. Unicorns a try.
A-

You can purchase Zombies vs. Unicorns here.

"Seize the Fire," by Laura Kinsale

The Chick: Olympia St. Leger, Princess of Oriens. Born and raised in exile in Britain, she's at the mercy of her evil uncle who seeks to marry her in order to secure the throne for himself.
The Rub: She has a plan to introduce democracy to Oriens to prevent further terrible monarchies, but to do that, she'll have to place her trust in the famous Captain Sheridan Drake - who has some dark secrets of his own.
Dream Casting: Kristen Schaal.

The Dude: Sheridan Drake. The famous war hero returns from the Navy to discover his deceased father bankrupted him and left his own fortune to be dispensed of at the discretion of his ex-mistress - who happens to hate Sheridan's guts.
The Rub: When an incredibly gullible princess sitting on a priceless jewel collection comes to him for help, he figures separating her from her gems will be easy pickings - but what if she separates him from his heart?
Dream Casting: Wes Bentley.

The Plot:

Sheridan: OMG I HATE THE NAVY, THE OCEAN, AND EVERYTHING! *tries to kill commander, trips an saves everyone*

England: HOORAY!

Olympia: Please help me save my country from the oppression of monarchy!

Sheridan: Please help myself to your jewels? Don't mind if I do!

Olympia: Hey, while you do that, why not introduce democracy to the sailors on our ship! *sparks mutiny* Why not reveal Sheridan's secret identity to a totally trustworthy sailor whom I've never met! *nearly gets shot* Why don't I start screeching about my jewels in front of some escaped convicts? *nearly gets raped*

Sheridan: Wow, you totally fell out of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on the way down. It's a good thing you're hot.

Sheridan and Olympia: *stranded on desert Island*

Sheridan: Now I love you.

Sheridan and Olympia: *rescued and on board a ship*

Sheridan: ....and now I don't. Because I'm dark and damaged and stuff. Why don't I develop a mental illness, just to make things more interesting?

Olympia: Now it's time for me to fix you!

Plot: *Pirates* *White Slavers* *Possibly Gay Sultan BFFs*

Random Villains: *kidnap Olympia*

Olympia: Never mind. Back to being helpless until I'm rescued!

Sheridan: Hey look I'm suddenly rich now for no reason and your kingdom doesn't want you anymore, also for no reason. Let's hook up!

Olympia: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Antihero Hero
• 1 Evil Ex-Mistress
• 1 Unscrupulous Servant
• 1 Case of Body Issues
• 1 Case of Daddy Issues
• 1 Unfortunate Shipwreck
• 1 Desert Island Romance
• 1 Somewhat Incongruous Penguin
• 1 Band of Pirates
• 1 Case of Hand-Waved Plot-Propelling PTSD

The Word: I honestly never believed I would be typing the following words, but, I disliked a Laura Kinsale novel and thought it was horrible.

My safe, comforting worldview has been shattered. There's some things in this world that you think are just indisputable facts: Snow falls in winter. A full moon comes every 28 days. And Laura Kinsale novels are awesome.

That belief lasted until I read Seize the Fire, an inexplicably boring and haphazardly plotted mess of a novel.

Naval Captain Sheridan Drake is a famous war hero - entirely by accident. When his crazed attempt to murder his incompetent commanding officer during a sea battle results in him accidentally saving the fool's life and the lives of his shipmates (for reals), he is knighted and his name hailed across the nation as a brave selfless hero. Too bad he's completely broke - thanks to his apparently insane father who left him a demonically booby-trapped house while placing his fortune in a trust ruled by his manipulative ex-mistress, Julia.

Olympia is the princess of the tiny nation of Oriens, but she has lived her entire life in genteel exile in England after her despicable uncle murdered her parents. She has spent her twenty-four years of life stewing in self-loathing and French philosophy with her governess, Julia (yes, that Julia) and when she discovers her uncle is about to petition the Pope to marry her and seize the throne (consent-optional), she pays a call on the one man she knows will aid her in her plight - Captain Sheridan Drake. Surely, this glowing paragon of manhood will help escort her to Oriens to introduce democracy to her loyal subjects, or at the very least to Rome so that she can prevent her marriage by asking the Pope nicely.

Now, you might think Sheridan would be the harder character to like, as he immediately decides to fleece the plump little princess of her crown jewels and leave her in the lurch. Except not. As Sheridan rapidly comes to learn, Olympia is a breathtakingly stupid and obnoxiously pathetic heroine who is Literally Terrible at Everything except for crying, biting her fist in terror/misery/self-loathing, and almost getting Sheridan shot in the face. Poor Sheridan has to spend the next 500 pages of this massive book babysitting, protecting, getting waterboarded for (!), and Not Boning 160 crybaby pounds of narrative deadweight.

The sheer number of times Olympia almost gets Sheridan killed would be funny if she wasn't such a self-rightous TSTL dimwit about it. I hated Olympia - I thought her one of the worst and most useless heroines I've ever read. She never develops any spine, intelligence, or even any ambition beyond the incredibly shortsighted one of bestowing democracy upon everyone she meets. Once she has a protector her desire to free her people slips into the background. What does she want to do with her life? What does she do in her spare time? Who is she beyond this chubby, whinging, constantly complaining mess of a person? Her "kindness" and "purity" are supposed to be the Polysporin to Sheridan's Scraped Knee of Angst, but otherwise Sheridan seems to like her mainly because her breasts are the only things more impressive than her tear ducts.

Of course, most of the romantic progression involves Sheridan yo-yo'ing between Total Adoration Despite Being a Dark, Damaged Dude and treating Olympia like a turd in order to push her away from him because he's a Dark, Damaged Dude. You can imagine how quickly this becomes repetitive in a 583-page novel.

The thing is, the whole structure of the novel is a hot mess. The plotting is like a suitcase packed by an absentminded traveller - the type who forgets crucial items, only to shove them in at the last minute, one on top of the other, even though they don't really fit. The characterization of everyone except for Sheridan is atrocious, as their storylines are picked up and dropped, seemingly at random - Julia Plumb, for example, is depicted as a villainess even though she's only "on screen" for one chapter, in which she acts quite concerned and surprised. The only reason we even know she's a villainess is because Sheridan explicitly tells us how evil she is. Or Sheridan's father, who's mentioned in the initial chapters as a madman fascinated with pranks and booby traps, until his character and his impact on Sheridan is abruptly abandoned, never to be mentioned again except in passing.

In the last act of the novel we have, without any previous development of such plot points: the sudden insertion of severe and constant PTSD into our hero's character description, an entirely random violent past, an aristocratic dandy sidekick who appears 20 pages from the end and serves no narrative purpose whatsoever, a nonsensical misunderstanding that ensures the hero has a massive fortune by book's end, and an ambiguous Arabian Sultan who is apparently crazy in love with Sheridan until he's abruptly written out of the plot.

The thing is, Kinsale's written whackadoo plots before - evil cults, poisoned shellfish, kidnapped bulls, oral sex lessons from Catholic priests, white ninjas, and magic-sword-eating sharks, to name only a few. The thing is, in those cases she developed those ideas so that they made sense as one read them within the context of the story. She didn't just cram them in with no notice or precedent.

And it's just as likely that those plots appeared believable because they were populated by realistic, well-realized and sympathetic characters. The characters and their motivations and anguish felt real, so their adventures seemed real as well. In Seize the Fire, Sheridan's backstory is too vastly complicated to take very seriously (his previous positions include naval captain, harem slave, jewel thief, death goddess assassin, and gigolo - not making this up), and, as mentioned before, Olympia is such a pathetically incompetent twit that I had no empathy for her or her travails.

Laura Kinsale's writing is solid enough, but with such a randomly plotted storyline and dippy characters, there's just no reason to go on. Seize the Fire is all noise and no substance.
D+

Things to be Thankful For!

Well, it's Thanksgiving here in Canada, and I'm here celebrating with my family - but I haven't forgotten about you, readers.

I've been angsting over some mild health issues, a bit of a creative drought, and the fact that I'm currently reading a Laura Kinsale book that *gasp* isn't very good, but I felt now was a good time to look over and remember all the things I'm thankful for:

• I'm thankful for this blog - which I've maintained for eight years and with which I've accumulated a steady stream of readers. I've honestly never maintained any project for this long, so it's kind of surprising, but I like how it's kept me focused and turned me into a more insightful reader.
• I'm thankful for my books - so many of them to read! And so little time!
• I'm thankful for my excellent city library, which has been simultaneously saving and sucking my money with its wonderful selection and frequent booksales.
• I'm thankful for my wonderful parents - they helped me get my new computer and I'm staying with them over the long weekend and it's been such fun!
• I'm thankful for my new computer, which is lovely and totally NOT a piece of crap. Once I get a good enough idea to write on it, I'm going to be a writing machine.
• I'm thankful for the slew of great blogs I've been reading and following - keep up the great work! 

So what are you guys thankful for this wonderful season?

The September Round-Up

Well, dear readers, I am currently writing to you on my brand-shining-new MacBook. No more PCs for me! Learning to use a Mac for the first time since 1997 is pretty slick, especially since the modem doesn't make those beeping, screeching noises anymore! Progress!

Hopefully having a computer that isn't a rattling jalopy of a piece of crap like my previous Acer will inspire me with new stories and ideas - and all in time for NaNoWriMo next month, too!

With another month around the corner, it's time to go over what I read in September:

*September Winner!* The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller. Historical, LGBT, Fantasy. A+
Pros: Gorgeous language, relatable hero, swoon-romance. Cons: Hero a little indecisive. Novel loses confidence in the middle.

A Season to be Sinful, by Jo Goodman. Romance, Historical. A+
Pros: Fantastic mystery, developed characters, delicious slow-burning romance. Cons: Some slow pacing, a few confusing scenes.

Origin, by Jessica Khoury. YA, Science Fiction. C+
Pros: Interesting themes, colourful setting. Cons: Unbelievable insta-love romance, ridiculous ending.

What's Left of Me, by Kat Zhang. YA, Science Fiction/Alternate Universe. C+
Pros: Interesting concept. Cons: Piss-poor worldbuilding and repetitive pacing.

The World According to Garp, by John Irving. Classic, Contemporary. C
Pros: Fascinating exploration of themes of gender, sexuality and art. Cons: Very long and boring, "tell over show" writing style.

*September Dud* 
Lord of Ice, by Gaelen Foley. Romance, Historical. DNF
Pros: Saucy heroine (only at the beginning). Cons: Uninteresting and unoriginal plot, violent hero, "Innocent" Heroine used as Tylenol for Man Pain.

"The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There," by Cathrynne M. Valente

The Protagonist: September. A year after she saved Fairyland, she's more than ready to escape Nebraska and the stress of the war and go back - so when she sees a magical boat flying across the prairies, she seizes her chance.
Her Angst: Fairyland is slowly losing its magic thanks to Halloween, the shadow September gave up in the previous book, who is kidnapping shadows to live in her kingdom. Can September really go to war with someone who is essentially her other half?

Secondary Cast:


A-Through-L's Shadow: Timid, shy, and retiring - A-Through-L's shadow helps show September how Fairyland-Below and the released shadow-magic works.

Saturday's Shadow: Extroverted and loud where the real Saturday was quiet and shy, his presence disquiets September and forces her to evaluate her feelings for the real Saturday.

Halloween, a.k.a. the Hollow Queen: September's shadow, who has decided that being free and independent is far better than being some passive lightless doormat - and now she wants all the other shadows in Fairyland to feel the same.

The Alleyman: Halloween's invisible henchman who steals the shadows from the people in Fairyland-Above and brings them down into Halloween's kingdom.

Angst Checklist:

• Growing Up
• Dealing with Parents Fighting Overseas
• The Right to Independence
• The Periodic Table of Teatime
• Developing Empathy
• How Awesome Is It that All My Clothes Have Feelings?
• The Shadow of the Boy I Like Is Kind of a Dick
• First Kisses as Currency

The Word: In the previous book, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, our heartless heroine September saved Fairyland by defeating the evil Marquess hell-bent on destroying it. During her adventures, however, she was forced to relinquish her shadow in order to save a young Pooka.

In the much-anticipated sequel, September has been waiting a whole year in Nebraska, washing pink and yellow tea cups, reading with her mother, listening for news of her father on the radio - and looking out across the horizon for the Green Wind to take her back to Fairyland. When she spies two magical figures speeding across the prairies on an inconceivable boat, she chases after them, trips, and lands back in Fairyland, a few years after her last heroic exploits.

But all is not well in Fairyland - and September is partially to blame. As it turns out, the shadow she parted with (who has since named herself Halloween) has declared herself Queen of Fairyland-Below and has started kidnapping the shadows of Fairyland's other inhabitants with the help of a terrifying, invisible figure named the Alleyman. The loss of shadows means the loss of magic in Fairyland-Above (where they now use Magic Ration Cards not unlike the food ration cards September's family uses), and September knows she has to fix this. So off on another adventure she goes!

Similar to the last book, September's travels take her on a linear path through some spectacularly imaginative examples of worldbuilding and wordplay, as she meets characters both new (such as the hysterical Duke of Teatime and his wife, the Vicereine of Coffee), old (Gleam, September's faithful talking lamp), and sort-of-old (A-Through-L's and Saturday's shadows, kidnapped by Halloween).

The concept of shadows is the novel's unifying plotline and it's fantastically developed. As September discovers, shadows have their own unique personalities, derived from the feelings and traits their casters suppress in themselves. Halloween, for example, is a less-inhibited and less responsible version of September, Saturday's shadow is far more impulsive and outgoing than the real thing (often to an alarming degree), while Ell's shadow is more timid. However, something all the separated shadows have in common is the desire to be free to live their own lives and adventures. If September finally finds a way to restore Fairyland to rights, will she be able to condemn them all to passive enslavement once again?

What I especially enjoyed about this installment of the series is that even amid all the magic and whimsy (quite a lot of whimsy - if your tolerance for tomfoolery is low, this book will exhaust you one chapter in), Cathrynne M. Valente still manages to explore and develop the character of September in a realistic and understandable way. She is no longer a heartless child - now thirteen and on the threshold of adolescence, September finds herself torn between her childish habits and her newer, stranger urges of maturity. Her greater capacity for empathy influences her to make certain choices that the September of a year ago would not have made.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland is an endlessly inventive and creative novel - but it's definitely not a quick read. It's the type of book written for those who love language as much as they love story. If you're the type of reader who reads for fast-moving plots and doesn't care one way or the other about word play or imaginative semantics, you might find Fairyland's pacing slow and frustratingly cluttered. However, if you're like me, and you love language and poetry and clever phrasing, you'll find the novel a double treat.
A

You can purchase The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There HERE.

"The Song of Achilles," by Madeline Miller

The Protagonist: Patroclus. When he is banished from his homeland by his unloving father, Patroclus is sent to another land to be fostered and befriends the crown prince, Achilles. Before long, their friendship develops into something more.
His Angst: However, it is clear to everyone that Achilles is destined for Greater Things - even if it comes at the cost of his own life.


The Secondary Cast:

Achilles: Son of a god, fated to be the greatest warrior of his generation, he has lived his entire life believing he is destined be immortalized in history - but how he'll leave his significant mark on the world is still in question.

Chiron: A sober and dedicated centaur who trains and educates Achilles and Patroclus as teenagers.

Thetis: Achilles' mother - a powerful sea nymph who has lofty ambitions for her son and sees Patroclus as a demeaning obstacle to those ambitions.

Agamemnon: The general of generals of the Greeks during the Trojan War - as well as a bully and a pig who resents Achilles' fame and cocky attitude.

Breseis: A young woman captured as a war-prize during the Trojan War, rescued by Patroclus and Achilles, and kidnapped by Agamemnon - sparking Achilles' withdrawal from the fight.

Odysseus: The cunning, wily King of Ithaca who is sent out to find Achilles and enlist him to fight in the Trojan War.

The Word: The Song of Achilles tells the story of the events leading up to the Trojan War, from the point of view of Patroclus, Achilles' male lover. In many narratives of the Trojan War, Patroclus' character is often given the shaft (and not in the good way), most especially in the Brad Pitt film Troy, in which he was rewritten as Achilles' cousin. That sound you hear is me, plucking the tune from Deliverance on a lyre.

However, Patroclus' viewpoint adds so many different layers and dimensions to a familiar tale - through his eyes, the novel is a romance, an examination of the nature of fame and immortality, and the importance of maintaining one's own identity and principles despite being surrounded by socially superior peers.

Patroclus is perfectly average in every way, which is a nice thing to be in modern times but in Ye Olde Hyberbolic Greece, in the age of heroes and deities and demigods and monsters, he's a bit of a limp noodle and a huge disappointment to his kingly father. When he accidentally kills another boy while defending himself, his father strips him of his princehood and sends him away to be fostered in another kingdom.

There, Patroclus meets Achilles, who is his polar opposite - golden, gorgeous, talented, and beloved by all. Born of a union between a human king and the sea-nymph Thetis, Achilles has been raised beneath the banner of a prophesy that foretells him becoming the greatest warrior of his generation. Despite being almost unbearably privileged, Achilles is generous and kind-hearted, and the two of them become friends, and then inseparable lovers.

And that's when that bitch Helen runs off with Paris and ruins everything. As the Greek kings assemble their armies to go to war against Troy, Patroclus and Achilles realize that this is the war Achilles is fated to become the greatest warrior in. There's only one catch - when Thetis reluctantly shares the rest of the prophesy, she reveals that Achilles is also destined to die during the war.

Patroclus is appalled - why not stay home then, avoid the war, and live to a ripe old age in obscurity? And yet, that is not an option in this version of mythic Greece - where the gods are present and their blood flows in countless half human descendants. Achilles is half-god, and yet immortality is denied him - the only way to access that godly part of himself is to strive towards the only immortality a human can attain: glorious fame in battle, that will be sung long after the battle is over and the bones are buried.

So Achilles and Patroclus sail to Troy with the rest of the Greek army - and with Achilles' doom hanging over their heads.

Part of the reason why I enjoyed this novel so much is the fact that it's narrated from the viewpoint of the story's Xander. Now, if you're unfamiliar with the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WATCH IT. IT'S ON NETFLIX), Xander was the one character who remained a magicless, regular human being through all seven seasons - because of that, he was the character through which the magicless, regular human being audience could access and express their feelings for the show, because his viewpoint was theirs.

Patroclus is the Xander to Achilles' Buffy. Patroclus is no one special - he's not great at fighting, he's not descended from a god, he's not brave or particularly cunning or even handsome. And yet, he is an intelligent observer (a common trait in Xander-characters) - and can interpret the events going on around him in a way that is accessible to the reader.

Because he has no stake in achieving any sort of glory, Patroclus' observations show a keen insight into the nature and ultimate emptiness of fame. He sees the death, rape and destruction of the war. He witnesses how petty and vengeful the assembled kings become if they feel their fame (and thus their immortality) is threatened, and how little their honour means in the greater scheme of things. He also knows the joy that comes from sharing a life with Achilles, and despairs that it isn't enough to keep Achilles from pursuing his destiny.

The romance between Achilles and Patroclus is another fantastic element to the story. Despite Achilles being phenomenally blessed in all ways, their relationship never feels unequal. Achilles adores Patroclus, passionately and devotedly, and their homosexuality is never a huge source of conflict. They get a few side-eyes, but the biggest opponent to their relationship (Achilles' fiercely protective mother, Thetis) reviles their love because she believes Patroclus is disgustingly inferior to Achilles, not because Achilles is in love with a man.

As well, the writing in this novel is simply gorgeous. Poetic while still accurate and readable, it gives a suitably epic cast to the story while still maintaining the private, humming tension of intimate scenes. Even the characters with smaller roles (like Odysseus and Chiron) are given hints of depth and backstory to illuminate their presence in the narrative.

For me, The Song of Achilles was a fantastic book, a near perfect package - great characters, beautiful language, a sweeping romance, and even a hint of fantasy. If you are at all a fan of Greek myth, The Song of Achilles is a worthwhile read.
A+ 

You can purchase The Song Of Achilles here.

"What's Left of Me," by Kat Zhang

The Protagonist: Eva. In a world where people are born with two souls, she is the "recessive soul" who was supposed to fade away and leave her sister Addie, the "dominant soul," to live her life as a normal human being. She didn't, and she and Addie have been pretending to be only one person.
Her Angst: No one can know she exists, or else both she and Addie will be shipped off to parts unknown by their tyrannical government.

The Secondary Cast:


Addie: Eva's soul sistah and the one who can control their body. She'd rather fly under the radar and live a normal, unnoticed existence.

Hally/Lissa: Schoolmates of Addie/Eva who hide the fact that they're a hybrid - even though they long to find more people like themselves.

Devon/Ryan: Hally/Lissa's brothers - Devon is silent and introspective, Ryan is open, shy and friendly.

Kitty/Nina: Addie/Eva's roommates at the cruel psychiatric facility they're shipped to when their condition becomes public.

Dr. Lyanne: A doctor at the psychiatric clinic who sincerely believes she can help hybrids reintegrate into society.

Mr. Conivent: A nasty employee of the government who helps round up hybrid children and deliver them to the psychiatric clinic for testing and treatment.

Angst Checklist:

• Personal Identity
• Sisterhood
• Sharing
• Institutionalized Racism
• Medical Ethics
• Sticking It To The Man

The Word: I was excited to start reading this book since I'd heard a lot of positive hype - and, to be fair, I read this book fairly quickly, eager to see what happened at the end.

That being said, I felt What's Left of Me was an example of a brilliant idea with faulty execution.

In an alternate universe, all human beings are born with two souls within their bodies. These two-souled beings were known as hybrids. However, the history our protagonists have been taught is that the nations ruled and populated by hybrids eventually descended into chaos and insanity, and only the Americas managed to free themselves from destruction during the American Revolution by eradicating hybrids from society and closing their borders.

In the Americas, everyone is still born with two souls, but usually by the time a child reaches the age of ten, one soul grows more dominant and the other one harmlessly and peacefully fades away, in a process called "settling." Those who do not settle by this age are taken in hand by the government and sent to shady psychiatric institutions where, more often than not, they are never seen again.

15-year-old Eva hides a secret - she is not supposed to exist. The "recessive soul" to her sister Addie (the "dominant soul"), she was supposed to fade away, and Addie/Eva's refusal to settle by the usual age ostracized and nearly bankrupted their family as they spent years in and out of hospitals trying to "cure" their affliction. For the good of their family (especially their declining brother Lyle who suffers from kidney disease), Addie and Eva have pretended to have settled for three years.

After three years of inactivity, Eva has lost all control over their shared body and is little more than a paralyzed ghost haunting Addie's mind, but she tells herself that it's better than not existing at all. That is, until they're approached by the new girl at school, Hally, who reveals she's secretly a hybrid (her sister soul is named Lissa) and that she can help them hide in plain sight and teach Eva how to move again.

Addie's afraid of jeopardizing their tenuously safe existence, but Eva is so hungry and desperate for the power to move, to live again that she insists. Addie finally consents and they spend more and more time with Hally/Lissa as well as their older hybrid brothers, Devon/Ryan. However, when disaster strikes and their condition is exposed, Addie and Eva are forced to learn the hard way just how "benevolent" their country's anti-hybrid society really is.

Let's start with the good, because there are a lot of interesting facets to this story. First of all, I loved the relationship between Addie and Eva, the push-and-pull, the power dynamic. As someone with sisters, I would seriously go batshit insane if I had to share a skull with one of them and never have any privacy ever, but the two-souls concept allowed for a fascinatingly new examination of sisterly relationships.

I loved how loving and fractured their relationship was - especially with the guilt Addie harbours over being the "dominant" soul who's capable of moving their body and being recognized in society and having a life while no one even acknowledges that her sister exists (not even their parents). I loved how Addie didn't have to set the plot going by visiting Hally/Lissa at their house. She controls their body, she could have ignored Eva's pleas and lived her life in peace and safety, but she didn't. That sacrifice adds so many layers and facets to their relationship. At the same time, I understood their frustration when they disagreed over how to act or move.

That being said, the rest of the novel is really frustrating - partly because some aspects of this novel are so good.

In regards to the central concept, the questions kept building up as I read the novel: what's supposed to be good about being a hybrid? What are the advantages? What can they do that one-souled people can't? Because even by the end of the novel it still sounded like having two souls is a major inconvenience compared to having only one. How do the two souls have lives? How do they choose postsecondary education if one wants to go into Arts and the other into Science? What happens when one soul falls in love with a man and the other soul falls in love with another man? And what about their partners' extra souls?!

And the worldbuilding for this type of society was just as frustratingly vague and nonsensical. For instance, why do parents even bother giving both souls names if they expect only one soul to make it? How do they even identify both souls in a newborn? Do they care when the recessive soul disappears? Do they mourn? Is there a social event, some sort of funeral for this sort of thing? If they don't care, why? How do they accept that one of their children will always be doomed to a premature death?

Again - these questions spring from the fact that Kat Zhang is working with a very original and fascinating story concept. There are so many directions to write about and explore with a concept like this, and I think that's where my dissatisfaction with this novel comes from. The novel has a brilliant idea - and it's put to use as mere window dressing to a standard dystopian adventure about a self-righteous teenager fighting The Evil Authority. Yup, the authority is just plain evil because it believes in the black-and-white "Hybridity is Bad" mindset - even though the story never gives a satisfactory explanation of how hybridity is good.

As for the novel's other features, the writing styles demonstrates some effort at writing lyrical prose, and while I sincerely appreciate that since I loooove lyrical writing styles, in some cases this results in cumbersome or confusing passages. For instance, there's a scene where Eva describes having a rubber stopper slammed into her windpipe - and for a few moments I kept reading to figure out who had attacked her like that, until I realized it was a poorly-integrated metaphor for her sudden silence.

That being said, What's Left of Me was still a quick read - part of that might have been my quest for answers, of which there were very, very few. I suspect many of the answers are being saved up for future books, a theory I deeply resent. I understand the need to save suspense and mystery for future novels, but a first book should still resolve and answer certain obstacles and problems, and I dislike first novels that explain nothing and leave open-ended conclusions in order to manipulate people into buying the next books.

Ultimately, though, my main beef with What's Left of Me is that it could been so much more, but it isn't.
C+
Disagree? You can purchase What's Left Of Me: A Hybrid Novel, here.

The 260-Page Drop and Skim: "Lord of Ice," by Gaelen Foley

I've had a bit of a weird reading experience with Gaelen Foley. Her debut novel, The Duke, was a marvel.

Her second novel, Lord of Fire (the one where our Spy Hero poses as a Sex Cult Leader and hosts orgies in a cave in his basement in order to learn state secrets), was cray-cray but still incredibly entertaining, with some good dialogue.

This third novel - had nothing. Nothing. It wasn't terrifyingly bad, but it offered absolutely nothing new, and it traded on tropes that were undeveloped.

The novel opens with a painfully obvious prologue that's meant to spell out the entire plot -  an Evil Viscount is going bankrupt, so he murders his alcoholic war veteran brother in order to get at the fortune of his illegitimate niece (the daughter of their older, deceased brother and his mistress). Unfortunately, the 50,000 pound inheritance is signed over to the girl's name, so the Evil Viscount will have to murder her, as well, to get his hands on the money.

An Evil Viscount wants to the kill the heroine - got that?

So the Sex Cult Spy guy from the previous book (Lucien)? Turns out he has a twin brother, Damien, who fought in the "real Army," so to speak, leading to their eventual falling out. Damien is suffering from some pretty severe PTSD, where dreams, loud noises, and bright lights can set him off and make him believe he is back in Spain. He's been hiding out at his newly-bestowed estate when he learns that a war buddy of his has been murdered, but not before he named Damien as the new guardian to his ward in his last will and testament.

Meanwhile, our plucky future murder victim heroine Miranda is currently studying Angst and Resentment at St. PedoBear's School for Molested Orphans. While she dreams of her neglected guardian riding up to take her away from the awful living conditions, she also secretly works as an actress with a local theatre troupe to save up money and an escape plan.

It is as an actress on the stage that Miranda first gains the attention of Damien, who has ridden over to collect his new ward but stopped to catch a show first. Damien supports local theatre, y'all! Damien is immediately attracted to the Hottest Woman in the Room (Miranda), and Miranda is immediately attracted to the Hottest Man in the Room (Damien). And I am bored with both of them.

Damien, who has been avoiding women and liquor since his last PTSD-induced mental episode in Lord of Fire, figures one quick bang can't hurt, and he waits outside the theatre to sexually harass and force a kiss on Miranda despite her repeated and vocal rejections. But she likes the kiss so it's okay!

However, at this point of the novel Miranda is an entertaining, intelligent, and saucy creature so she makes a break for it once Damien turns his back to summon the carriage. Unfortunately, she runs into a pack of suspiciously-organized thieves and vagrants. Damien rides to her rescue, but the conflict induces his PTSD (which is depicted in this novel as a kind of mental lycanthropy that Damien can sense coming and warn people away from), and he ends up throat-ripping a bunch of dudes to death with his bare hands, MacGruber-style. Miranda, showing admirable intelligence and restraint, runs like the dickens.

Then next day, Damien shows up at St. PedoBear's to pick up Miranda and is appalled to learn that a) the school won't take care of her anymore because she's failing the required courses of Being Molested and Being Young Enough For the Pedophile Reverend and b) she's the very same actress he ripped throats for the night before.

He adapts and agrees to take Miranda with him to meet his family, but Miranda's no longer willing to leave - she realizes that once she's gone, her young friend Amy will become the star pupil in the Being Molested course. She plays along with Damien until they arrive at a nearby inn and then attempts to flee back to the school, with the idea of snatching Amy and hieing off with the travelling theatre troupe.

Damien catches her, though, and forces the teary Miranda to confess her matriculation in Child Abuse. He storm the school in true Kick-Ass Hero fashion, busts the reverend and saves the kiddies - earning Miranda's love and admiration and effectively killing off the interesting aspects of her character.

See, before this, Miranda's quite an entertaining heroine. She's innocent without being naive, naughty without being childish. She handles situations practically and she shares some hilarious dialogue with Damien. However, once he brings down St. PedoBear's, the story rather explicitly transforms her into a different character entirely, as if by magic:

"She felt so strange. A quiet, womanly acquiescence settled over her with a willingness to set aside her childish ways; her tinselly, adolescent dreams of theatrical fame; and all her angry, headstrong willfulness. Instead, she would accept this strong, just man's rule, as though his very gentleness had already begun to tame her."

A more wall-banging paragraph I've never read. So, in one paragraph, Miranda gives up her dreams, career ambitions and cleverness in favour of the "more noble" ambition of Being Loved. Damien, after seeing only one performance, asserts that Miranda only acts so that she can confuse the applause with affection. You know, not because she's good at it (which she is), or because she enjoys it (which she does). Because The Man knows best.

Thus, in one paragraph, Miranda morphs from an interesting character in her own right into yet another Blankly Virtuous Heroine with No Self Esteem whose sole narrative purpose is to soak up the Hero's Dark Man Pain like a human Paper Towel of Lurve. In her new role as the Quicker Angst Picker-Upper, she basically spends the entire novel trying to get into Damian's pants while simultaneously believing she is unworthy to even pop the first button on his Lofty Aristocratic Fly.

The main obstacle, if you can call it that, is Damien's poorly-written and developed PTSD. At one point, Miranda tries to wake Damien up from a bad dream and he nearly strangles her to death. This, rather understandably, leaves Damien nervous about entering into a relationship. When Miranda asks Damien's bro Lucien for advice, this interchange happens:

[Miranda:] "But what happens if I approach him and he turns dangerous again? I told you what took place at the hotel. He could have killed me already."

"Stand up to him, girl," he said heartily.

Really, truly. If Damien, a 200-pound Alpha Male, tries to choke the life out of Miranda again, she should just stand up to him. Yes. That makes perfect sense.

And the rest of the book continues in this dreadfully boring and unoriginal fashion. It almost seems as if the author was working off a checklist of things that Have To Be In A Romance. The heroine marvels at all the luxury while feeling herself to be a poor, unloved orphan. The hero's family members are all unconditionally accepting. The heroine's ex shows up and makes an ass of himself for no reason and then disappears never to be seen again. The Evil Villain develops an unhealthy attraction to the heroine - again, for no real reason but to make him Even Eviler. Damien's PTSD magically disappears.

I gave up around page 260 when it wasn't even camp enough to be entertaining - it just felt rote. Skimming ahead, I was pleased to note I missed a last-minute conflict where Damien has to return to the front because Napoleon's escaped from Elba and Miranda whines about how selfish Damien is to choose his country's safety over her - the same last-minute conflict that occurred between the protagonists in the last book.

It wasn't only the fact that the novel was boring that made me frustrated - but the fact that all the overused tropes that bothered me in this book are so. Damn. Prevalent in romance. I've already whittled down most of my romance TBR to already-proven romance favourites and a very few interesting-looking new titles, but books like Lord of Ice almost make me want to give up on the whole genre.

DNF

"The World According to Garp," by John Irving

The Protagonist: T.S. Garp. Raised by an independent-thinking single mother, he wants to be a successful writer when he grows up.
His Angst: Well, he becomes a writer, and his works are published, but what is the nature of success? And how does his writing affect the rest of his life?

Secondary Cast:

Jenny Fields: Garp's mother. An asexual with no comprehending of lust and no patience for social or sexual norms, she cuts her own unique path through life, child rearing, and writing - and becomes revered as a noted feminist because of it.


Helen Holm: Garp's wife. A talented English professor, she loves Garp, even as she sometimes wonders if she plays second place to fiction in Garp's heart.

John Wolf: Garp's publisher - respects his work, even as he sometimes has to play dirty tricks in order to sell it successfully.

Roberta Muldoon: Formerly a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles, this transgender woman tracks down Jenny Fields thanks to her feminist reputation and becomes one of Jenny and Garp's closest friends.

Ellen James: A young girl whose rape and disfigurement as a child sparked a controversial and fanatical feminist movement. A fan of Jenny Fields' work and Garp's writing, she wants to be a writer, too.

The Word: I'm sorry I've been away from the blog so long - I've been reading a book.

A very long book.

A very long and ultimately boring book. I picked this one up because it's the favourite book of a friend of mine, and the next choice for our book club.

Essentially, The World According to Garp is a bildungsroman - a coming-of-age story or fictional biography of a single protagonist (who, frequently, grows into an artist). David Copperfield by Charles Dickens is one. Jane Eyre might even be one, since the novel follows her through her abusive childhood and her years at school before she even meets her Mr. Rochester.

Bildungsromans are, I've found, large on character development and short on plot, but, as a linear recounting of a life, this is more or less expected. The story tends to be rambling and episodic, everything eventually leading to the character's success or death (or both!).

Now, if I love or relate to the protagonist of a bildungsroman, I love the novel (hence why David Copperfield and Jane Eyre are among my favourite books). If I don't love the protagonist, or if I'm apathetic - I don't.

Such is the case with The World According to Garp. The novel recounts the conception, birth, and life of T.S. Garp, the artistically-inclined son of an asexual feminist nurse who conceived him with the dying, lobotomized technical sergeant under her care. The novel follows Garp as he studies at the prestigious Steering School (where his mother is the nurse), takes up wrestling, travels to Austria, and explores and develops his desire to write and be a writer.

The novel does explore some fascinating general themes - I struggled through the periods detailing Garp's writer's block at the same time I was struggling with my own. I liked how his stories and novels all came with a powerful autobiographical influence, to the point where his wife, Helen, flat-out refuses to read any more of his novels because she can't bear to see how much of their life he's put into the pages. Reading up on John Irving on Wikipedia, this in itself seems to be pulled from Irving's own life and writing style, as several elements in his life appear in Garp and his other novels (for instance, like Garp, John Irving never met his own father, who died during World War II).

I also appreciated the exploration of feminism and gender roles, with all their advantages and disadvantages. Jenny Fields, Garp's mother, never identifies herself as a feminist until other women do after reading her autobiography, and the women's movement that rallies around her is as powerful and inspiring as it is narrow-minded and short sighted. Perhaps the scene that best indicates this is Jenny's eventual funeral, from which Garp is barred because it's women-only. Thus Garp has to dress in drag in order to infiltrate his own mother's memorial service, and the reactions to his unmasking reveal so many of the different approaches to feminism, both positive and negative.

As well, I loved how Garp essentially lives unselfconsciously as a househusband who cleans house, cooks meals, and raises his children while his wife Helen goes out everyday to work. This is never a source of angst for him, and believe me, Garp has many opportunities to angst in this enormously long book.

Finally, I adored the character of Roberta Muldoon, a transgender woman who used to play professional football for the Philadelphia Eagles and becomes Garp's closest friend. She embodies an essential conflict of gender - she identifies as female, even as she worries that some of her proclivities, impulses, and actions (particularly when it comes to using her impressive brute force to defend Garp and his friends on a number of occasions) are too male.

That being said, the writing style completely put me off. It's written in a very "telling" style, from an omniscient, future narrator. It reads like commentary, not description. As a result, I felt like I was hearing everything secondhand, like I was kept at a distance from the story while someone else made all the observations for me. Because of this, I never felt particularly invested in any of the events or characters, and by the 356th page, I just wanted the book to be done. Reading can truly be a tedious exercise when you don't particularly care about the characters or what happens to them.

I finished for the sake of Book Club (and to maintain my standing as the Only Member Who's Read Every Pick), but by the end of the novel, I was relieved. In a sense, The World According to Garp is very much like experiencing someone else's life - it's long, convoluted and detailed, and intermittently fascinating, but every interesting event is heavily couched in the tedious everyday minutia of living.
C