"Lair of Dreams," by Libba Bray

Lair of Dreams is the long-awaited sequel to Libba Bray's absolutely mah-velous 1920s-set fantasy, The Diviners. The characters are just as engrossing, the rat-a-tat screwball dialogue is as sharp and as nonstop as ever, and the gruesomely dark mystery at this novel's heart is as shiver-inducing - perhaps even more so - than the one in The Diviners.

So was Lair of Dreams better than The Diviners? Not quite.

The Diviners had a diverse and rambunctious cast, and while Lair of Dreams returns to most of them, their stories are unevenly organized and paced, and they're too scattered to really function as a team until the very end. The sad thing is, half the reason the mystery takes so long to solve is because many of the characters barely take the time to talk to each other because they're too engrossed in their own problems.

It's still a whip-smart and entertaining novel, but the all-too-frequent "whoops I didn't tell this character an important tidbit because I magically forgot about it when I picked up the phone" coincidences can become frustrating.

But let's get to the plot, shall we? Ever since Evie O'Neill went public about being a Diviner and using her powers to save the city from Naughty John in the previous novel, New York has been swept up with Diviner fever. People are hosting Diviner parties. Ziegfeld is choreographing a Diviner Dancers Revue. And Evie is now a bona fide celebrity with her own radio show, the Sweetheart Seer.

But beneath all the glitz and glamour, trouble is brewing. After a group of construction workers fall mysteriously ill after discovering a buried subway station in Chinatown, the ensuing Sleeping Sickness awakens a rising tide of bigotry and paranoia as more and more people fall asleep and never wake up. The frightened populace has to point a finger somewhere. Who to blame? The Chinese? The immigrants? Or those strange Diviners?

Through it all, Bray concocts a heady and addictive sense of setting and period, from the sparkling dustbowl dialogue, to the sumptuous descriptions of jiving dance halls and rebellious hotel room parties. Each of our major players has their own narrative arc that settles them squarely within their time period while also making them relatable, interesting, and a little bit magical. Along with that, Bray continues to tease us with increasing hints at a series-long arc involving "Project Buffalo," a secret government Diviner program. Whatever this book's faults, they are minimal compared to the successful narrative plate-spinning Bray achieves with her blending of glamorous time period, bloody horror, timeless teen drama, old-school humour, and social justice.

Lair of Dreams is a worthy successor to The Diviners. I can't wait to read what comes next.

Do Not Read If: You don't like ghosts; you absolutely cannot stand horror or the jeepers creepers in any way, shape, or form; if you dislike Pears Soap and all those who advocate for it; diversity makes you ill, you creepy bigot; you hate fun.
A-

"Tapping the Dream Tree," by Charles de Lint

So I'm back to reviewing!

Sort of!

Basically to get myself back in the habit of both reading and writing critically, I'm going to go back to reviewing books - although I might be briefer than I used to be.

I've recently moved back in with my parents, and to while away the hours I started an impromptu Parental Book Club, encouraging my parents to submit books or authors they've always loved and always wanted me to try.

Which is what got me reading Tapping the Dream Tree. Charles de Lint is one of my mother's favourite authors, and she thought this collection of stories would be the perfect appetizer platter to introduce me to his unique brand of urban fantasy.

And to be honest - it was rather refreshing. I burnt out on urban fantasy pretty early after one-too-many novels about a Tough Heroine with a Mysterious Parentage who wears a Leather Jacket and Disrespects Authority and is in a Love Triangle with Two Equally Hot and Morally Ambiguous Magical Boyfriends.

De Lint's stories have a different, folkie, down-to-earth tone, inspired by Celtic and First Nations folklore. Most of them take place in or around the fictional town of Newford, with a revolving cast of recurring characters. Most of the protagonists are artists or musicians - people who, while not explicitly magical, are still open enough to the world's mysteries to be pretty chill about the magical stuff that inevitably goes down. I really enjoyed this - none of the stories get bogged down in "What do you mean magic is real?!" denials or overwrought explanations about rules or worldbuilding. Whether it's a fairy-powered internet search engine, a Ferris Wheel of alternate universes, or the ghost of the teenage free spirit you sacrificed for a happy adulthood, the drama comes not from confronting magic, but from accepting and learning from it.

What I enjoyed the most about these stories is that although characters might reference events from other collections or novels, I never felt lost or left out because I was a de Lint newbie. Tapping the Dream Tree is an effective Charles de Lint taster - each story is a satisfying standalone that still drops delicious hints about his pretty impressive backlist. I may have to try one of his novels, next.
B

"White Cat," by Holly Black

The Protagonist: Cassel Sharpe. The only non-magical dud in a family of curse workers, he ought to be able to live a normal life.
The Rub: His family's magic might not run in his blood, but their propensity for mischief does.

Secondary Characters:

Phillip: Cassel's oldest brother. A body worker for the Zacharov crime family.

Barron: Cassel's second oldest brother, a luck worker who dated the only girl Cassel ever loved. How's that for luck?

Sam: Cassel's boarding school roommate and eventual, reluctant partner-in-crime.

Lila: The daughter of the powerful Zacharov crime family, and Cassel's best friend - and murder victim. Cassel's family was forced to hide the evidence to protect them from mob vengeance, but Cassel can't quite get her out of his mind.

YA Trope Checklist:

• Unattainable Female Love Interest
• Screwed Up Parents
• The "Normal" Best Friend
• Private School Angst

The Word: Why have I never read Holly Black before? This is obviously an unconscionable oversight, and shall be corrected immediately.

With a few deft strokes, Black creates a rich, vibrant world that is like our own, but not quite. Everyone wears gloves. People carry enchanted pieces of stone around their necks to protect them. And almost everyone at Cassel Sharpe's boarding school holds him under suspicion due to his unsavoury family connections and mysterious sleepwalking.

In this world, magic (or "working") was outlawed along with alcohol during Prohibition, and like Prohibition, outlawing magic didn't make the workers disappear - it just made them all outlaws. The world is now riddled with massive magical crime families who can make people forget things, lose at craps, or fall in love - for the right price. And God help you if you can't pay it. All it takes to work a curse is skin-to-skin contact - that's why everyone wears gloves in public.

Cassel Sharpe, our hero, goes through life haunted by three facts: 1) he comes from a family of magical criminals and con artists, 2) of that family, he is the only one with no magical talent, and 3) he is a murderer. Three years ago, he killed Lila Zacharov - his best friend, first love, and the daughter of the Zacharov crime boss. Even worse, he has no idea how or why he did it, but his worker brothers rallied around him to cover it up and protect the family from Daddy Zacharov's vengeance.

However, when he starts experiencing powerful, dangerous dreams involving a white cat demanding he remove a curse, Cassel begins to wonder if his understanding of those three basic facts - hell, of his entire reality - is all that it seems. But to do that, he will have to dive into the worker underworld despite having no powers of his own.

The world building in this novel is so fresh and interesting. The idea of magic users forming this immensely powerful criminal underground is fascinating and opens up so many narrative possibilities that the author takes full advantage of. Not only that, but the magic itself is cool - there are dozens of different types of workers, and each one experiences a particular type of "blowback" when they overuse their magic. Memory workers forget things, death workers develop necrosis, emotion workers lose emotional stability, that sort of thing.

The underground aspect adds a sly subtlety to our teenage hero, Cassel. Despite being magic-less, he's still inherited his family's con artistry and he has trouble trusting people without analyzing how they fit into a particular con or plot. He's intriguing but also tragic - because he trusts himself as little as he trusts other people. He murdered his best friend three years ago and he still has no idea why, only that there must be something in him, something hidden, that made him do it. What if it wakes up again?

I don't want to give anything more away, because half the fun of this original, addictive novel is the sense of discovery as Holly Black continually stirs more delight into this potent stew of con men, magic, lies, politics, and family drama. I've never read a full-length Holly Black novel before, but White Cat will not be the last. Not by a long shot.
A+

"Three Princes," by Ramona Wheeler

The Protagonists: Lord Scott Oken and Professor-Prince Mikel Mabruke. Two princes from different nations under the mighty Egyptian Empire, they are also secret agents for the Pharaoh.
The Rub: When reports reach Egypt that the Nation of the Four Corners (the Incans) are working on rocket technology, Mikel and Scott are sent to see how viable this project is.

Fantasy Trope Checklist:

• Alternate Timelines
• Double-Crosses
• Magical Bond Animals
• Obviously Evil Monarchs
• Royal Intrigues

The Word: Three Princes is the most beautifully-written utter waste of time you'll ever read. 

The concept is original and intriguing - the novel's set in an alternate history (circa 1877 or thereabouts) where the Egyptian Empire never ended, but instead grew and thrived to become the dominant world power thanks to the successful marriage of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Egypt is now a wide-spanning and mostly benevolent commonwealth, with only a few rebellious areas left (like the Osterreich empire, ruled by Victoria and Albert!) to threaten the world's safety. 

The characters sound diverse and interesting - Lord Scott Oken, a minor prince from the Egyptian province of Scotland, is a spy for the Pharaoh. His mentor, Professor-Prince Mikel Mabruke (from Nubia), has retired from information-mongering - but both are called back into action by the Pharoah's wife. The Incas, it appears, are working on a scientific project to travel to the moon, and Egypt wants someone trustworthy to travel to South America and see a) if it could work or b) if it could be a threat. 

What follows is a dreadfully slow, narratively hollow, but gorgeously-described imaginary travelogue as Mikel and Scott slowly and cheerfully make their meandering way from Memphis to Tawantinsuyu, by way of several decadently-appointed airships. A luxurious attention to detail is lavished upon their expensive accommodations, their entertainments, the profusion of bare-breasted South American women, and the bizarre technology of airships (cyclists and trained albatrosses are involved) - and almost none on the actual plot, conflict or character development. 

Wheeler stretches out a short story's worth of plot to a 350-page novel, and doesn't waste any of the precious, precious filler (like pages of description devoted to guest room furniture lovingly carved to look like naked ladies) on developing any of the characters beyond the most basic, repetitive strokes. Lord Oken likes sex with ladies. Mikel likes making witty comments to mask his inner pain. Secondary characters pop out of nowhere and make jarringly huge and sudden decisions for no reason, and with no context or development to explain the outlandish choices they make. The novel's main antagonist, for example, is present for maybe ten pages (out of 350) and behaves like a Disney villain who's survived a meth lab explosion. There is no rhyme or reason to his behaviour - or to why anyone follows him or takes him seriously. 

Neither does Wheeler sacrifice completely relevant scenes of frolicking dogs, babies and guinea pigs (for reals) to develop her own plot threads. A mention of a Queen Victoria-led conspiracy involving orchids and bizarre religious cults goes nowhere, and the vicious attack on Mikel at the beginning of the novel that can't possibly be coincidence - turns out to be mere coincidence and is never mentioned again. Um, okay.

I kept reading and waiting for the plot to pick up because Wheeler is a genuinely fantastic wordsmith - her worldbuilding and her grasp of setting and culture are astonishing and beautiful. Her evident talent and skill makes the appalling lack of a plot in this novel an even greater frustration. If you're interested in reading about two friends going on an expensive and largely uneventful exotic vacation, this is the book for you. If you actually require story, substance, conflict, or coherent drama of any sort in your fiction - you'd best look elsewhere.

Three Princes is an empty, self-indulgent non-story wrapped up in beautiful writing.
D

"The Winner's Curse," by Marie Rutkoski

The Protagonist: Kestral Trajan. The daughter of Valorian's most celebrated general, she's under extreme pressure to either marry or enlist in the military. Her life is hard.
The Rub: But not quite as hard as those of the slaves she owns. Awkward.

YA Tropes Checklist:

• Parents Who Just Don't Understand
• 1 Poor Little Rich Girl
• 1 Boy From the Wrong Side of the Tracks Chains
• 1 Airhead Best Friend
• 2 Underappreciated Musical Talents
• 1 Romantically Lacklustre Rival
• 2 Villains Who Want to Bang the Heroine
• Love Made Me Do It

The Word: I underestimated this novel. Blame it on the woozy, swoony prom-dress cover. Poor little blond girl in a ball gown, whatever shall you do? What love triangles shall you muck up? What doorways will you adorably trip through to be caught by the hero? This cover is terrible, no doubt about it. However, The Winner's Curse pulls fewer punches and hides sharper edges of commentary than I would have guessed. 

Kestral is the pampered-but-unsatisifed daughter of a successful Valorian general living in the occupied Herrani capital city. Ten years ago, the warlike Valorians conquered the artistic, sophisticated Herrani and the survivors of that war now work as slaves in the houses they once owned. 

While out walking, Kestral accidentally winds up at the slave auction, where a slave named Smith is being sold. Intrigued by his spirit and misery that seem to mirror her own, she defies her better judgement and purchases him at an exaggeratedly high price. Despite being remarkably snarky, defiant, and disobedient for a slave, Smith (whose real name is Arin) becomes almost like a friend to Kestral, as they each learn more about each others' people. 

However, unbeknownst to Kestral, Arin is an agent for the underground Herrani revolution working to overthrow the brutal Valorian yoke and restore Herrani freedom once and for all. Can these two crazy kids overcome their teeny tiny ideological differences?

I was quite impressed by the way this novel handled slavery. Kestral is depicted as someone who, while uncomfortable when confronted by the realities of slavery, continues to benefit from it. Ideologically she recognizes that slavery probably sucks, but she can't imagine a life without it and often catches herself ignoring or downplaying it in order to make herself feel better. When we live in a world where fruit is picked by underpaid migrant workers and sneakers are made by child labour and iPods are assembled by starving factory workers - are we any different?

When Kestral's freed nanny-slave Enai dies, Arin mocks her grief by demanding if she even knew who Enai's real family, real children were. Kestral doesn't - she was too afraid to even ask. I appreciated that the author never made the heroine a naive saint who was always good to her slaves. People who contribute to an abusive system still possess the capacity for individual good, and the capacity to eventually wake up and overthrow the abusive system. But that capacity doesn't whitewash their flaws. 

I also loved that Kestral wasn't a super-heroic Katniss character who is miraculously adept at scaling walls and killing bad guys. Instead of being a warrior, she's a strategist - an underused role for women in YA. I really appreciated this - she uses her power in more subtle and original ways.

Rutkoski uses a deft hand that highlights points of insight without getting mired in rhetoric, and the story moves swiftly and smoothly, but I could perhaps have preferred a little more depth to the worldbuilding and the history. Instead, the author uses coding (the Valorians are Romans, the Herrani Greeks) to do her worldbuilding for her, and that felt like a cheat.

All in all, a surprisingly solid read.

B

Video Game Review: "Dragon Age II"

Well lookee here! Another videogame review! Don't worry - I'll go back to reviewing books relatively soon (including Ashes to Ashes and my reread of Prince of Midnight).

So remember when I fangirled all over Dragon Age: Origins? Well, there's a sequel!

And it's ... different. Still good! But very different, and different in a way that made some fans of the previous game pretty angry. However, I still really enjoyed it.

The game's narrative is built around a storytelling framework: the cataclysmic events of the game have already happened, and one of your party members, a roguish teller-of-tales named Varric, has been captured by the authorities who want to find out what happened and the depth of your character's involvement. He essentially "narrates" the game.

In a change that disappointed a lot of fans, you can only create your character to an extent. You can no longer choose your race or your backstory - instead, you are Hawke, a human whose family fled from Ferelden due to the Blight from the previous game (you can still choose your appearance, gender, class, and general personality, though).

Your family washes up on the shores of Kirkwall, an independent city-state in the Free Marches. You escape being confined to the slums with the other refugees, but only by indenturing yourself in servitude to either a band of mercenaries or a band of smugglers (one of your first choices in the game). Before long your prowess as a problem solver gains you a reputation and more people in Kirkwall start coming to you for help and trusting your decisions. As you gain power and prestige, the problems you're expected to solve get understandably bigger.

The Setting
One aspect of the game that really rubbed some fans the wrong way was the setting - in the last game, your adventurers were able to traipse all over the nation of Ferelden - through forests and mountains and castles and caves. In Dragon Age: II, you're confined to the city of Kirkwall and a few locations immediately outside it.

However, Kirkwall is no ordinary city. It's more like Sunnydale/the Hellmouth from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: a town whose grisly history of slavery and blood magic has made it a breeding ground for demons, corruption, and insanity. So Dragon Age: II has more of a noir feel to it, where even though the focus lies in one location, it's one with a lot of layers and context.

That being said, I can understand how people got frustrated with retreading their steps through all the same places in the city, over and over again, or going to the same (or same-looking) caves again and again while completing different quests. While the setting we get is beautifully designed and rendered, that's really it. There's no sense of exploration or travel that there is with Dragon Age: Origins or Dragon Age: Inquisition.

The Politics
What Dragon Age II lacks in exploration, it makes up for in drama. Your Hawke and her family arrive in a city on the verge of a war from within. As explained in the previous game, mages in this world are able to tap into the magical power of the Fade (the otherworld), but it leaves them vulnerable to manipulation and possession by demons.

Because of this, the Chantry (this world's version of the Catholic Church) decreed that all individuals with magical talents need to be taught in church-sanctioned Circles and guarded by Templars who are trained to take down any mage who looks too demony. Templars are also trained to hunt down apostates - mages who refuse the Circle system.

But in Kirkwall, the system is broken, with mages and Templars at each others' throats. The mages say the Templars are magic-hating, civil-rights-violating religious zealots whose brutal tactics are driving mages to desperation. The Templars say that more mages are summoning demons and using blood magic than ever before, requiring stricter vigilance. Which side is right? Which side is the greater threat? There are a lot of different stories in the game as your pursue different quests, but the main conflict at the centre of Dragon Age: II is the growing Mage-Templar conflict and which side your character will eventually have to chose.

The Characters
Nowhere is the mage-versus-Templar debate more important than if you are a female Hawke! If you choose to play a female Hawke, your love interests lie on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one end is Fenris, a runaway elven slave with no memory of his former life thanks to the magical experimentation his mage owner subjected him to. He's very much a believer in "power corrupts" and that mages need to be kept on a leash for the greater good. On the other end is Anders, who believes Circles are prisons punishing innocent magic users for the crimes of a few. And whichever dude you choose, you can bet the other will have a few choice words regarding your decision.

In fact, almost every one of the characters in your party will have a beef with one of the others. Your characters interact not only with you, but with each other, and not always in a friendly way. There are friendships, enmities, and awkward situations between the people in your party - and, as always, these reactions and situations are determined by the decisions that you make. I actually think Dragon Age: II's characters are far more memorable than a lot of the characters in Origins - I'm a particular fan of Captain Aveline, an arrow-straight warrior who grows into a capable authority figure, and Varric, a rakish dwarf-of-all-trades who starts chronicling your adventures.

Also, Dragon Age: II improves on Origins' simplistic Approval friendship system by creating a Friend/Rival system - where, in certain situations, there's actually an advantage to certain characters disagreeing with you.

Ultimately, while the setting leaves much to be desired, and certain aspects of the game feel rushed - the storytelling and the characters are top notch and still very enjoyable. If you're a fan of Origins' combat and exploration, Dragon Age: II might not be the game for you. However, if it's the story, the cinematics and the fantastic character interactions that drew you to Origins, Dragon Age: II more than delivers.
A-

AnimeJune's First Ever Video Game Review: Dragon Age Origins

You didn't think I was much of a gamer, did you? Neither did I, to be honest. As a kid, I howled at my parents for a Nintendo 64 after spending several semi-interesting afternoons with my sisters in our neighbour's basement playing MarioKart and Banjo Kazooie. Once I finished howling over the injustice of receiving a Playstation for Christmas instead, I spent several years enjoyably bouncing along in Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, and scrolling my way through the Japanese soap operas of Final Fantasies VIII through X-II.

Once I grew up and moved out, I kind of lost interest in videogames. It wasn't that games were getting worse, far from it. To me, they seemed to grow more complicated, more difficult, and demand more investment than I was willing to give. My interests lay elsewhere - in books, writing and blogging. I didn't have time for games, and I didn't really miss them.

So this year, I dusted off my Xbox 360 and realized I hadn't turned it on in over a year. Yes, I'd bought an Xbox 360, and I'd tried Skyrim, LA Noire, and Batman Arkham Asylum, and nothing had clicked. I didn't even use it for Netflix anymore (I had a Blu-Ray for that). I figured it was finally time to give it away and turn my back on gaming for good.

But still, I felt guilty. There were games I'd bought that I hadn't even tried yet. I figured I couldn't give my Xbox away until I had tried every game I'd already bought for it. There was only one game I hadn't gotten around to opening - a secondhand copy of Dragon Age: Origins.

And that one game was enough to suck me right back in to gaming, and in a big way. Dragon Age introduced me to game and storytelling elements I'd never experienced fully in games before, it changed my whole view of gaming and turned it right back into the addictive experience it was in my teens.

The Story
So what's the story? Well, that depends. The main story is that the darkspawn, a race of subterranean demons, have amassed into a horde and are now invading the kingdom of Ferelden in a terrifying phenomenon known as a Blight. Your character, through one way or another, has just been recruited into the Grey Wardens, a secretive order of warriors dedicated to fighting darkspawn. Unfortunately, not long after you're recruited, the Grey Wardens and Ferelden's king are betrayed and slaughtered during a key battle, so you and your ragtag band of survivors, stragglers, and outcasts have to use the Grey Wardens' binding treaties to enlist the aid of the different peoples and races to end the Blight before it overruns the rest of the earth.

Your Story
The aspect of Dragon Age that shocked me the most (and had me scrambling to keep playing) is the the actual power you, the player, have over the story in the choices you get to make. In all the other RPGs I ever played, I controlled a specific character while experiencing a specific story. I didn't get to make any choices - I sat back, experienced the narrative, and continued it by fighting monsters and bosses.

Well, in Dragon Age: Origins, a large part of the story depends on your decisions. Those decisions change the story and actually have far-ranging consequences that can affect other quests in the game. The first choice you can make is your character - depending on your race (dwarf, elf, human) and class (mage, rogue, warrior), you get a different origin story and characters will interact with you differently. Other choices involve your character's personality - you can be righteous and altruistic, or hardened and practical, or sarcastic and only out for yourself.

Other choices are pretty huge, and have major repercussions throughout the game. Your ultimate quest is to amass enough allied forces to take on the darkspawn army and their Archdemon (head honcho). This takes you to several areas in the game, where you will have to complete a major task or quest - and how you complete it determines which type of forces will end up fighting for your side in the final battle. For instance, when your party encounters a mage training school overrun with demons, will you side with the Holy Templars and kill all the mages to eliminate the threat of demons, or will you side with the mages and protect them? Or when the dwarves you want to ally with are too busy with their civil war, which candidate for King will you support?

The best thing is - there are no wrong choices. There are certainly more moral choices, or more effective choices, or more hilariously evil choices (during one mini quest, I could choose between feeding a starving prisoner to get his treasure key - or simply stabbing him and taking it!). In some situations, there are no easy answers - for one particularly difficult quest in which a child is possessed by a demon, you can save him by sacrificing his mother to forbidden blood magic, or you can kill him to defeat the demon. Have fun with that one!

Not only that, but the choices make this game endlessly replayable. You played the game as a casteless, amoral dwarf rogue who romanced Leliana? Why not see how the game plays as a righteous human noble who seduces Alistair? The possibilities are endless.

The Characters
It's not only you fighting out there - you can also collect a varied cast of characters who will fight and interact with you (and with each other, if they're in the same party!). Each of these characters come with their own personalities, backstories and moral codes (or lack thereof) and will react differently to the decisions you make. There's Alistair - the bashful but righteous Grey Warden who shows you the ropes. Or Morrigan - the mysterious swamp witch with her own hidden agenda. Or Leliana - a religious sister who follows you after seeing you in a vision. Or Zevran - an elven assassin initially sent to kill you. And those are just a few.

They're all voiced expertly by talented voice actors (seriously - the voice acting in BioWare games is beyond compare), and their interactions with your character are one of the most entertaining aspects of the game. Not only that, but their loyalty and affection are not guaranteed. If a character disapproves of you enough, they might opt to leave your party - or betray you! Conversely, if their approval rating for you is high enough, they might pursue a more, shall we say, intimate alliance with you (and you can do the same!). It's your story, after all - and what's a story without a romance?

The Rest of the Story (Lore)
There's also a lot of lore. Picking things up or looking at certain things will upload books and information to your Codex. You can easily ignore this if you want. However, if you're like me - a diehard high fantasy reader, this is all delicious, delicious gravy. The worldbuilding in this game is amazing - it borrows from the common tropes regarding elves and dwarves and mages and such, but also adds unique touches to them. The idea of dwarves having a caste system, or elves being a persecuted nomadic people, or the church's control of magic with templars were all really fascinating to me.

Not all of this information is relevant to the exact quest at hand, but it's all interesting - and a lot of it carries over into future games. It gives the game and your decisions some context.

The Actual Game Stuff
Now - the gameplay. It's ... fine. It's serviceable. I played it on Casual - it's fun to explode enemies or decapitate them and there are interesting abilities and potions and stuff, but those things have never been very important to me in games. That may sound ridiculous, but that's the type of gamer I am. I'm a story person - and what I love about Dragon Age is that, instead of feeling like I'm reading an interactive fantasy novel (like with the Final Fantasy games), I feel like I am the hero of a fantasy novel. The combat and the game elements contribute to that, definitely, but all those other games I played and got tired of - they all had great gameplay elements. They just didn't have the story and the choice-based aspects.

That being said, from my inexperienced perspective, the gaming aspect is pretty sweet. Every time you level up you have the choice to improve certain aspects of your character (stamina, willpower, strength, cunning, etc) as well as learn new skills required outside combat (herbalism, lock picking) and in combat (spells, weapon moves, etc). There are also Tactics - you have the choice to actually program how your supporting party characters will behave in a battle. You can program them to use a certain spell if they're surrounded, or come to your rescue if your health is low - or you can leave it alone entirely as I did and let the automatic tactics work for you.

That's basically why I love this game - it can be as difficult or as easy as you want it to be. You can play on Casual, like me, and enjoy the story, or you can play it on Nightmare (the hardest setting, where you can actually do damage to your own party members if you're not careful enough) with strategically-programmed Tactics.

This is an older game - ha! It's from 2009! - but an enjoyable one nonetheless. I'd recommend it to any serious fantasy fans - and most especially to people who have played the new Dragon Age: Inquisition who want some more background information on what came before.
A+

"The Innkeeper's Song," by Peter S. Beagle

The Word: The Innkeeper's Song was one of those hidden literary gems that I picked up by chance at a remainders bookstore and immediately fell into. Written by the same dude who wrote the novel (and screenplay!) for The Last Unicorn, it was one of those transformatively good novels I was a little hesitant to read again, for fear that lightning wouldn't strike twice.

The novel centres around three strange, fascinating women who are drawn to the same inn. Lal is a storytelling warrior tracking the distress call of her former mentor, Lukassa is a drowned girl who was resurrected from the river by mysterious magic, and Nyateneri is a wanderer fleeing the murderous members of her former convent.

After arriving at the inn, the three women discover they're connected - Lal and Nyateneri were taught by the same old wizard at different points and Lukassa was revived by one of his spells. This same wizard, it turns out, is in rather dire straits and the women will have to band together and combine their unusual skills to rescue him.

The main plot (save The Wizard) is kind of weird and thin and not all that important in the grand scheme of things. It's a large, easily identifiable story that binds together the host of smaller stories that make up the bulk of the novel. Smaller stories involving the three women and their respective cultures and pasts, their ties to The Wizard, the employees of the inn (such as put-upon stableboy Rosseth), outsiders like Lukassa's fiancé and Nyateneri's shapeshifting fox companion, and their interactions with others.

The Innkeeper's Song is a surprisingly dense book, packed with lush description and tantalizing hints of various exotic worlds lying just at the margins of the main environment. Sometimes - at least during this particular reread - it felt a little too dense, but it could also have just been my frame of mind at the time that made the reading experience slower than I wanted. That part of me wanted more of a meat-and-potatoes, get-to-the-point story, instead of the pleasant, descriptive ramble The Innkeeper's Song is.

It remains a weird, subtle, meandering and unique book about three awesome magical ladies (two of whom are POCs ... one of whom is not as much of a lady as the others) and a truly bizarre/hilarious scene involving a fourway menage where not everyone remains the same gender they were when they started.

If you're looking for a diverse, original stand-alone fantasy, you can't do much better than The Innkeeper's Song.
A

"City of Dragons," by Robin Hobb

Reviewer's Note: This is going to be a little different from previous fantasy reviews, simply because I read this book a bit of a while ago, and I wasn't able to review it due to work, NaNoWriMo, and general Life Stuff.

So I'm running on memory!

So the first book of this series, Dragon Keeper, didn't wow me, but Dragon Haven blew me away with how easily it fixed the problems with the first book, advanced the plot, and developed the characters. My expectations were pretty high for City of Dragons.

Unfortunately - it's a bit of a filler book. Scratch that, it's entirely a filler book. The plot moves forward a couple of inches, but otherwise, it's entirely a set-up to what is presumably the final book in the quartet, Blood of Dragons.

The dragons and their keepers have finally reached the fabled Elderling city of Kelsingra. The only problem? A wild, uncrossable river stands between them and their destination, and the only dragon who has successfully crossed it is Heeby, the first dragon to master flight. If the other dragons want to reach the city and unlock its secrets, they'll have to force themselves to learn to fly or remain trapped on the rain-drenched shore. This is especially difficult for the arrogant, intractable dragon Sintara. Her first attempt to fly ended very badly and she's too proud and vain to admit that she's terrified of trying again.

Another issue arises regarding the fate of Kelsingra. Alise wants to preserve the Elderling city exactly as it is, to research it and finally discover the secrets of the Elderlings and why they disappeared. On the other side of the issue, Rapscal and some of the other keepers want to actually use the city and its contents rather than protecting it like a dead relic. On top of that, once the existence of Kelsingra becomes publicly known, it'll only be a matter of time before treasure hunters descend to try and wrest it from their grasp to sell it piece by piece.

Hobb also grooms more characters to become future antagonists (such as the Duke of Chalced and Alise's Evil Gay Husband Hest) and explores more on the theme of female sexuality, but otherwise, the story doesn't progress terribly far. I'm still looking forward to the final book, but perhaps my expectations will be more tempered this time.
B

I'm Late! I'm Late! Drive-By Reviewings

Okay, my bad.

I fell a little behind on reviewing. Okay, a lot behind. For several reasons, some of which weren't my fault but most of which totally were.

I was promoted to a new position at work (the day job), I've become (officially!) an editorial assistant at Entangled (a second job), I signed up for NaNoWriMo, and I discovered obsessively-absorbing role-playing video games.

The result: not a lot of time or inclination to review. After a stressful day of new-job training and reading manuscripts, I was more in the mood to explode darkspawn and romance knights in Dragon Age (which I will also be reviewing soon!). Now that NaNo is over and I have a bit more time on my hands, I'm just in time for my Annual Re-Reading Month.

But for now, let's recap the books I did read in October and November that aren't super-special enough to merit their own reviews:

Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen.

Yes, I finally read my first Sarah Dessen. From what my YA-focused blogger friends tell me, she's kind of the First Lady of Contemporary YA.

My first impression wasn't wholly strong - her language seemed too bare and simple for my taste, but she slowly and surely hooked me in so by the midpoint, I was pretty strongly invested in her heroine.

Our protagonist, Annabel, is someone incapable of speaking her mind for fear of hurting others. She experienced a terrible trauma at the end of the previous school year, but she can't tell her family - with them so focused on her older sister's recovery from an eating disorder, and her mother's history of depression, she can't bear to add to their burden or risk undoing her mother's progress. But the truth is eating her up inside.

The novel is all about truth-telling, and believing you're important enough to be heard, and Dessen aptly conveys how difficult it is for Annabel to speak up for herself and put herself above (or at least on the same level as) others. The novel has a deceptively simple start that reveals itself as more layered later on. However, it wasn't a perfect book. I felt the romantic interest's obsession with honesty was a little over-the-top and unreasonable, even with the novel's theme, and the treatment of rape and rape victims seemed a bit simplified by the novel's end, but otherwise, I understand where Dessen's fans are coming from.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton.

I had to read this novel for the FYA Bookclub, and let's just say this book sparked a lot of ... debate. And by debate, I mean rage.

The story explores three generations of women all leading to Ava Lavender, a girl born with wings. The story meanders along through unreliable narrators and magical realism - Alice Hoffman levels of magical realism. Spells, ghosts, girls with bird parts, all that jazz.

Walton is a splendid writer, and 90% of the novel is fine, if unfocused and a bit derivative. The ending, however, absolutely kills this novel - spoiler and trigger warning: the climax (not the conflict, but the climax) of the novel comes when Ava is brutally raped and mutilated by an obsessed stalker. And all of her family's  problems are solved by how they rally around and care for her.

Nothing in this novel - not the story, not the tone, not the theme - suggested or fit with a brutal rape. That event doesn't fit organically within the plot at all. Moreover, the rape is used as a disgusting plot device to better the lives of other characters, not the actual victim. Ava's character doesn't change or progress. In fact, she recovers and gets a boyfriend within the span of the epilogue and gets magical new white wings FOR SOME REASON. WTF. Mindbendingly stupid and offensive garbage.

Please, please, let's not make Magical Rape a trope.

Ravishing the Heiress, by Sherry Thomas

I'm still a general fan of Sherry Thomas, and this novel wasn't terrible, but that's about it.

This novel - wasn't terrible. It was interesting enough but it didn't grab and wow me like her earlier novels. Our heroine, Millie, is a merchant-class heiress whose parents arrange for her to marry a debt-ridden earl named Fitz. Millie falls for Fitz immediately, but discovers Fitz is deeply, passionately in love with another woman - someone he now has to give up in order to save his family from ruin.

Fitz ... does not take this well. He's such a flamboyant ass about what a terrible SACRIFICE he had to make by marrying Millie, that Millie spends the next six years of their marriage keeping her feelings under wraps and allowing him to pursue his various emotionless, extramarital flings. However, when Fitz learns that the former love of his life is now widowed, he plans to leave Millie to set up a household with his ladylove - but not before "fulfilling his end of the bargain" and giving Millie a baby.

There were certain things I liked - Fitz finds it difficult to reconnect with his former love as he slowly comes to understand how meaningful the last six years of marriage with Millie have been to him. His attraction to Millie grows out of their deep and abiding friendship rather than instant lust. But their actual romantic development is remarkably spare on the page, and Millie is almost pathological in her emotional repression (not that I can blame her). It was a pleasant and even a relatively original romance, but I feel the romance was lacking.

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen

Here was another extremely-hyped novel that just underwhelmed me. Sage is an orphan who's picked up off the street along with two other orphans by an unscrupulous, obsessed noble determined to save his nation at any cost.

The nobleman reveals that the king, queen and crown prince were recently poisoned by an unknown party. The truth of their deaths is not publicly known yet, but once it gets out, their nation's enemies will waste no time in taking advantage of the political chaos. However, if another viable heir to the throne is discovered in time, the crisis may be averted. The noblemen chose orphans who best resembled the long-lost second prince who was supposedly killed by pirates years before, and he plans to train them to impersonate the kingdom's last heir. The most convincing fraud will accompany him to the capital - but the other two will become dangerous loose ends.

None of the characters here were particularly interesting. Sage was kind of a smarmy know-it-all, and the "twist" near the end of the novel had me rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of it. The novel was just boring from beginning to end and there's not much else I can say about it - I read it a while ago and nothing else remained memorable enough for me to recall today.

And that's it for now! More reviews to come later.

"Untold," by Sarah Rees Brennan

The Protagonist: Kami Glass. A budding investigative reporter whose sleuthing uncovered the fact that her town is full of resentful sorcerers waiting for a good excuse to come back into power.
Her Angst: She has no true idea who's a sorcerer and who's not, and no longer knows who to trust. On top of that, Jared is giving her the cold shoulder for breaking their magical bond.

The Secondary Cast:

Jared: An entitled, navel-gazing, self-absorbed whiny loser with low self-esteem who deals with this by being a dick to everyone. He's supposed to be attractive for some reason?

Ash: An entitled, navel-gazing, self-absorbed whiny loser with low self-esteem who nevertheless finds healthy ways to deal with his issues and other people. Why is he not the hero?

Angela: Kami's best friend who's coming to grips with her crush on Holly.

Holly: Friend to both Kami and Angela, who's struggling to come to grips with Angela's sexual orientation - and maybe her own?

Lillian: Ash's mum, Jared's aunt, and official Head Bitch In Charge of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Determined to hold on to her crown by any means necessary.

Rob: Ash's dad, Jared's uncle (?), who's determined to return sorcerers to power and make the humans of Sorry-in-the-Vale his rightful serfs.

YA Angst Checklist:

• I Know Way Too Many People Who Are Suddenly Okay With Human Sacrifice
• Child-snatching
• ANGST ANGST ANGST
• Why can't all these people see I'm acting like a Giant Tool because I'm starved for Love?
• Emotional Independence
• Bad Moms

The Word: I'd heard the hype about Unspoken, but I didn't truly get it until I opened the book and fell headfirst into a richly layered gothic fantasy that's serious, but not too serious to take itself too seriously. If that make sense. It used time-tested YA tropes, but in a fresh, self-aware way that made them entertaining instead of tiresome.

Needless to say, I was excited about the sequel. Untold picks up where Unspoken left off - that is, In A Very Bad Place. Kami's investigations from the previous novel uncovered the fact that the Lynburns are sorcerers and her town of Sorry-in-the-Vale is riddled with other magic-using families. Even worse, Rob Lynburn (Jared's uncle, Ash's father) had been secretly recruiting these local sorcerers in order to forcibly return the town to the Old Ways - the human-sacrifice kind.

So on top of coming to grips with the fact that people she's known her entire life are suddenly okay with murdering people, Kami has to stop Rob and his cronies from fulfilling their promise to sacrifice a human on the Winter Solstice to solidify their rule over the town. This means Kami and her friends have to team up with Lillian Lynburn, who stands in opposition to Rob - not because she opposes the murder of peasants, but because they are her peasants and that's rude. Yeah, Lillian's the worst.

I did enjoy this book, really, but it does suffer from a pretty severe case of middle-book-itis. It's heavy on character development, and really, really light on plot. The book layers on the description and the internal monologuing and the angst, but most of the novel is just a countdown to the Solstice.

Oh, and angsty tantrums from Jared. So many angsty tantrums. I put up with Jared in the previous novel because Kami was such a strong character and didn't put up with his pressuring. At the end of the previous novel, Kami actually severed their magical bond because she was (rightly) terrified about what it was doing to her emotional health and independence. Well, that action sends Jared spiralling into an insufferable, whiny, self-loathing angst-spiral for the rest of this damn book and I just couldn't stand him. He spends a good 70% of the novel being a total asshole to people who care about him while crying that "nobody wuvs me, I am so dark and unwuvable and broken, I cannot handle the feels!"

GET OVER YOURSELF, JARED.

The novel beats the dead horse that is Jared's Tortured Feels over and over, but at least other characters (like Ash and Holly) also get some spectacular development. Untold spends time examining the pieces on this particular chessboard rather than making any significant plays, but thankfully (most of) the characters (who are not named Jared) are interesting and multifaceted enough to hold my attention.

Yeah, it's a middle book, but it keeps a firm enough hold on the reigns to keep me excited for the final novel.
B

"The Raven Boys," by Maggie Stiefvater

The Protagonist: Blue Sargent. A non-psychic in a family of gifted seers, her own gift is the ability to amplify already-existing magic.
Angst: When some rich white dudes want to find a sleeping Welsh king, she sees an opportunity to be an active participant in an adventure instead of a passive supporter.

The Secondary Cast:

Gansey: It's tough out there for a rich white dude. Hopefully, finding this dead rich white dude with magical powers will finally make people take me seriously. If you need me, I'll be sulking about how unfair life is in the renovated factory I bought and turned into my own personal Batcave.

Ronan: Grrr! Ronan angry! Ronan mean! Ronan miss his dead dad! Feelings scare Ronan! LOVE RONAN!

Noah: I am shy and quiet and I pet people's hair and this makes me endearing for some reason.

Adam: I'm the Poor One. But I work hard! And I don't take any charity! I ... you gonna eat that? No?

Angst Checklist:

• Magic
• Poverty
• Child Abuse
• Being Dead
• Daddy Issues
• Whiny Rich People
• Ravens
• Aunts who are Weird in a Good Way
• Aunts who are Weird in a Bad Way

The Word: I didn't like this novel.

Let's just get this out of the way. I realize this novel and its characters (*cough* its male characters) are beloved in the YA blogging community in general, but me? I just didn't get it.

Our protagonist (sort of...) is Blue, a non-psychic from a family of psychics whose main source of income comes from dropping Cryptic Hints That Prove Relevant to the Plot Later On - which becomes pretty convenient as the book continues. Is it bad character development if they're written as people who spout random dialogue and have no background or motivation?

Anyway, Blue's helping her visiting aunt Neeve in a ritual to identify people who are going to die in the next year in an old graveyard (as one does), when she spots the future ghost of a boy wearing the uniform of the nearby Aglionby prep school. Blue's never been able to see ghosts (past or future) before, and Neeve tells her this means she might be the one who kills him. Or he might be her true love. So easy to get those two confused. The future ghost identifies himself only as Gansey.

Meanwhile, the actual Gansey turns up in the next scene, and he and his Raven Boys (nicknamed so by the resentful town for the raven emblem of their school) are searching for an ancient Welsh king who's buried somewhere in Virginia because hey we're all white dudes and crazy rich (except for the Not Rich One), so why not?

They're set up a bit like a boy band, where every Raven Boy gets his own accessories (relevant female protagonist sold separately). You have Batman With Parents (Gansey), Tim Riggins (Ronan), Pigpen (Noah), and The Not Rich One Who's Slightly More Interesting (Adam). Fate (or convenient plotting) has them meet up with Blue and her Phenomenal Not-Psychic Powers and they all jump into the Mystery Machine Gansey's broken-down Camaro because ancient Welsh kings aren't going to wake themselves.

There are a lot of interesting ideas in this book - too many, which is my main problem with The Raven Boys. Hear me out. There's so much Deeply Important Magical Nonsense crammed into this one book that it was impossible to stay interested or invested in any of it. Alfred Hitchcock once explained the concept of the MacGuffin: the MacGuffin is something that matters very deeply to the characters of a fictional narrative and very little to those reading or watching that narrative. We, the reader, care about the MacGuffin when we start to care about the characters who are pursuing it.

The Welsh King is The Raven Boys' boring-ass, meaningless MacGuffin because, in a novel stuffed with dream thieves, psychic hotlines, aunts who might be evil (on a good day?), magic mirrors, corpse roads, secret ghosts, mysterious father murders, grape juice scrying and baby animals, there is precious little time spent developing the actual characters, much less their gossamer-thin reasons for caring about a mythical wish-granting European monarch.

The characters are defined by one or two attributes apiece, cherry-picked for their YA-lit popularity - Ronan is Angry (and hot) because of his father's mysterious death. Adam is Independent (and hot) because he refuses to take his friends' charity to leave his abusive father. He Will Live Life on His Own Terms and Without Handouts - unless you're a magical wish-granting king. Then it's totally cool. Handout away!

The author tries - there are some marvellously insightful passages here and there, in between the untidy heaps of supernatural window dressing. But there's simply not enough.

And then there's Gansey. This privileged little asshole is the "hero" of our story and the one "destined" for Blue. He really is Batman with Parents - all the wealthy ego-stroking manipulativeness, none of the understanding of real-world misery. He lives in his own refurbished factory/Batcave. He decides to call Blue "Jane" because her real name is weird, but throws a stink eye at anyone who calls him by his real name (Dick, appropriately enough).

He's dedicated his life (and the lives of his friends) to finding this Welsh King because his amazing wealth and privilege is such a horrific burden to his dreams of being The Specialest Snowflake. It's so much harder to be recognized as a brilliant individual when you're busy tripping over all your daddy's money. He drives an old, beloved, broken-down Camaro to show you that he's deep - unless the road is rocky, in which case he'll just fly his sister's helicopter (for reals). If only his life could be more like Adam's, then people would value his accomplishments and his life would have meaning. Yes - Adam, who works three jobs while getting daily beatings from his trailer-trash father.

Why the hell should I give a shit if Gansey finds that damn Welsh King or not? You see what I mean about MacGuffins?

And don't even get me started on Blue. Seriously, don't - because I shut the book with only the haziest of impressions of her character. She was - nice. I guess. Didn't get in the way too much. She and Adam were cute but she's "obviously destined" for Gansey.

Honestly, if the contents of this book had been stretched out over a trilogy, with enough character development and build-up and layers and interaction in between, The Raven Boys could have been as good as the Fionavar Tapestry. The book's well-written and cobbles together an interesting mythology. As it was, I was overwhelmed by the fantasy aspects and underwhelmed by the human ones.
C-

"Unspoken," by Sarah Rees Brennan

The Protagonist: Kami Glass. An investigative report-in-training, she's always looking for the next big story to blow wide open, in her small English town.
Her Angst: The return of the infamous Lynburn family looks like the perfect scoop - until she learns she has a secret bond with Jared, the Lynburn black sheep.

The Secondary Cast:

Angela: Kami's ornery BFF who's happy to help with Kami's adventures, so long as they doesn't involve Annoying People or interfere with her naps.

Jared: The "voice" who has conversed with Kami in her head for the better part of her life. The good news? He's real and so are his abs! The bad news - he's real, and knows all of her innermost secrets.

Ash: The cute and helpful son of Lillian Lynburn. Jared's cousin. Genuinely likes Kami, and worries about her connection to his "dangerous" cousin.

Rosalind: Jared's awful mother. Just awful. The worst.

Lillian: Rosalind's icy sister and Ash's mother. Less awful to Jared, but not exactly welcoming, either.

Uncle Rob: Lillian's husband and Ash's dad. The only member of the Lynburn family who's openly loving to Jared.

Angst Checklist:

• Racism and Xenophobia
• Class Divides
• Slut Shaming
• Rich Hot Angsty Boy Shaming (for MYSTERIOUS REASONS)
• Relationship Boundaries
• Awkward Love Triangles
• My Best Friend Can Literally Read My Thoughts and That Is Not Helpful At All
• LGBT Issues
• Child Abuse
• Jealous Sisters
• Sssssecretsssss

The Word: Kami Glass has lived her whole life in Sorry-in-the-Vale, a bucolic little English village with roots going back hundreds of years. Despite being born there, she's always been a little bit of an outcast - partly because of her Asian heritage and partly because she regularly holds conversations in her head with an imaginary boy named Jared.

Now hear me out.

More than anything, Kami wants to be an investigative journalist, and sussing out the town's myriad secrets is her life's ambition. She thinks she's hit the jackpot when she learns the town's founding family, the Lynburns (two surviving sisters, a cousin, and their respective sons Jared and Ash) have returned to Sorry-in-the-Vale after a long absence in America. They're rich and live in a mansion. Everyone in town lives in fear of them, but refuses to explain why. And the two Lynburn boys are ridiculously hot, angsty, and mysterious. Kami can't wait to interview them and find out what all the fuss is about.

Hear me out! Just give me a minute!

When Kami runs into angry, mistreated Jared Lynburn, she discovers that he's the boy she's secretly conversed with her entire conscious life. Her imaginary boy is real, and neither knows what to do about their psychic connection, or what it means with regards to the Lynburns' dark history with Sorry-in-the-Vale.

Okay, now, I can see you side-eying this review already. Instant bonds, a Love Triangle with Angsty Angry Loner Boys, a quirky heroine too nosy for her own good. The perfect ingredients for One Hot-Ass Mess of a Book.

Except.

Except this book is actually kind of ... good? Amazingly good, even. One of the best things I've read this year, if you want to be specific. Yes, Unspoken trades on a lot of popular YA tropes that have been beaten into glue by previous and less-skilled authors, but Unspoken does it in an incredibly intelligent and self-aware way.

Kami does have an instant bond with Jared, but it's not a source of fuzzy duckling feelings that eschew reality. Rather, their connection is embarrassing and unpleasant and awkward. It's one thing to believe in a "real" imaginary friend - it's an entirely different thing to discover you've placed the quotation marks on the wrong word and you have very little privacy or independence for your own thoughts. Their bond is a source of (rather than a cheap solution to) conflict.

The story is not all about the guys, either. I mean, they're important - the Lyburn boys do live in a decrepit, thunderstorm-prone mansion drenched in sssssecretssss - but the novel spends just as much time with Kami and her friends Angela and Holly. One of the more interesting subplots involves Kami re-thinking her dismissive opinion of Holly as a boy-crazy flirt - thanks, in part, to Jared calling her on her close-mindedness.

Kami is such a dynamic character. I loved her. She's confident and take charge, and refuses to lower her expectations for anyone else. I loved her righteous search for the truth - even as she learns that some truths are ugly and painful and can erode her trust in the social structures in which she's lived her whole life. Even then, she never gives up her trust in herself. Take her bond with Jared - she's fine with using it for their friendship, but it makes the prospect of a romantic relationship deeply uncomfortable to her and she refuses to give in to Jared's pressuring. Yes, she genuinely likes and trusts Jared, but she respects herself enough to set boundaries and stick by them.

In fact, Kami's strength and confidence are the reason Jared doesn't look like a complete asshole in comparison. He's a very angry, broody, demanding character with more than just a few crazy wives locked up in his attic (metaphorically speaking!). He had an extremely lonely and painful childhood thanks to an abusive father and a selfishly uninterested mother, and even his aunt and cousin don't treat him much better.

His bond with Kami is pretty much the only positive relationship in his entire life and it's entirely understandable, from a character development standpoint, why he wants to hold onto it and develop it. But he's very aggressive about the bond, and constantly pressures Kami to deepen it. If Kami had been one of those submissive, doormat characters who treat the hero's Sad Past as a free pass to be an ass (hey, I rhymed!), Jared could have been a horrific character. However, Kami is constantly fighting back with her own strength and forcing Jared to back down and rethink himself, and because of this equal balance, I was able to enjoy and understand Jared more. And even so, I felt his angry tantrums got a little repetitive towards the end.

All of these elements, brewed together, creates a delicious, seething cauldron of Gothic mystery that keeps the reader guessing. Something is definitely amiss with the Lynburns and their connection to the town. However, as Kami discovers, her town is is plenty amiss all on its own. With developed female characters, a great mystery, lots of small-town secrets, and swift pacing, Unspoken is a fantastic addition to my YA bookshelf.
A

"Dreams of Gods and Monsters," by Laini Taylor

The Principal Cast:

Karou: It's up to her to help the chimaera ally themselves with the exiled seraphim to bring peace to Eretz.

Akiva: He might be the only one with the experience and charisma to convince his fellow seraphim to rebel against the Empire - but can he convince Karou to forgive him?

Liraz: Akiva's angry, shamed sister, who believes she's too damaged by war to be any good in peacetime.

Ziri: A young chimaera who sacrifices his body to help impersonate Thiago to bring peace to his people.

Eliza: A human woman on the run from a mysterious heritage who's haunted by visions of angels and beasts.

Angst Checklist:

• Life is Hard
• Like, Really Hard
• Did I mention Life is Hard?
• Also War
• And Hope
• And a lot of other Abstract Concepts
• Evil Grandmas
• Gullible Christians
• Douchey Research Fellows

The Word: I love candy, but in moderation. Eating too many turns the saliva in my mouth to acidic syrup, burning my tongue until I can't even really taste the sweetness anymore.

That's the reaction I had to Dreams of Gods and Monsters. The eagerly-awaited follow-up to Laini Taylor's endlessly inventive Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Days of Blood and Starlight taught me nothing so much as, this: Sorry Zuzana, but there is such a thing as too much cake.

Since the last book, Akiva and his Misbegotten seraphim brethren have fled the Empire to try and make an alliance with the remaining chimaera. To his surprise, Thiago, the notoriously violent chimaera general, is willing to put aside his people's hostility to consider an uneasy partnership.

Unbeknownst to Akiva - Thiago isn't exactly in his right mind. Or right body, I should say. Karou was forced to kill the general in the previous book when he tried to rape her, but she resurrected his body - with the soul of her dear friend, Ziri, inside. Karou and Ziri know the only way to keep the chimaera under control is to keep up the charade that their trusted general Thiago is still alive. But will the gentle-hearted Ziri be able to successfully impersonate the brutal White Wolf?

Meanwhile, Jael, Akiva's monstrous uncle who has assumed the mantle of Emperor, has travelled to Earth in order to exploit Judeo-Christian symbolism in order to acquire human weapons of mass destruction. If it looks like an angel, carries a harp like an angel, and speaks Latin - well, then let's hand over our nukes!

This all sounds fascinating, right? Unfortunately, Gods and Monsters is a chocolate cake with too much icing. The cake itself is delicious and dark and layered and creative, there's no doubt about it - but you have to wade through so much sticky, sugary angst prose to get to it that it's almost not worth it.

There is no reason for Gods ands Monsters to be 600 pages long. I've always liked Laini Taylor's gorgeous writing - when it's applied economically. Here, a single act of magic will take five pages to describe. There are pages and pages of repetitive angsty inner monologues from both Karou and Akiva about how Everything is Dark and Bleak and Hopeless. Why do difficult things, when complaining about how difficult things are to do is so much easier?

The novel is rather haphazardly paced as a result. Karou will waste paragraphs dithering about the precise mechanics of Akiva's smile and what it means For Their Future, but the Big Giant Bad Guys are dispatched with rather hilarious (and overly-convenient) swiftness. Oh, and there's the sudden, out-of-nowhere Extra Adventure tacked on at the end to gum up the narrative in the name of Plugging a Sequel Series.

This novel reads better when it's skimmed. Taylor's language is beautiful, but it's the application of the language that matters. I'm frankly disappointed that such a promising first novel would get bogged down by increasingly bloated, bleak, self-indulgent sequels.
B-

"The Rook," by Daniel O'Malley

The Protagonist: Myfanwy Thomas. Possessed of paranormal body-altering powers, she works as a "Rook" for the Chequy - a secret organization bent on keeping Britain safe from magical threats.
Her Angst: This Myfanwy Thomas has absolutely no memory of who she is or was - thanks to a betrayal from someone in the Chequy. Is she capable of impersonating, well, herself, to find out who put a hit out on her?

The Secondary Cast:

Heretic: A friendly member of the Chequy court (Chevalier, to be exact) who can contort himself into impossible shapes.

Gestalt: Myfanwy's fellow Rook, who is a single soul born into four bodies and can operate each one independently and simultaneously. Not the easiest person to relate to.

Lady Farrier: The Lady of the Chequy, who can enter and control people through their dreams. She is the only one who knows of Myfanwy's amnesia, and she keeps it quiet to settle an old debt.

Grantchester: A Bishop of the Chequy who can emit gaseous chemicals from his pores. A swinging ladies' man and diplomat.

Alrich: The Chequy's other Bishop, who can only come out after sundown, is ridiculously gorgeous, and doesn't age. He's pretty much exactly what you think he is.

Eckhart: A former soldier who discovered his abilities in adulthood, he's a Chevalier of the Chequy and capable of manipulating metal into different forms.

Shantay: A Bishop from Croatoan (the US version of the Chequy), who can turn her body into metal and becomes an instant BFF with Myfanwy.

The Word: Reading has always been pleasant for me, but there have occasionally been times where, while I've enjoyed and appreciated what I've read, nothing has really connected with me in a way that makes me want to remember it and read it again and again.

I'm kind of grateful for my recent change of reviewing policy (i.e deciding to review only books that I've loved or hated - no more wasting time reviewing "blah" or "m'eh" books) because, well, there have been a lot of "m'eh" books lately. Most of them have been decent, but none of them really "grabbed" me. I miss being grabbed by books.

So it's always a pleasure to read something that absolutely abducts me from normal life so quickly and completely as Daniel O'Malley's The Rook.

At the start of the book, our heroine opens her eyes and finds herself surrounded by dead bodies wearing latex gloves. She has absolutely no memory of who she is. The only clue comes from two envelopes in the pocket of her coat, addressed to her and signed by - herself.

As it turns out, her name is Myfanwy (pronounced "Miffany") Thomas, someone stole her memories deliberately, and her previous self knew it was going to happen and prepared accordingly. As the new Myfanwy learns in the letters, she has two choices: she can go to the bank and open safety deposit box number one and find the money and instructions necessary to live the rest of her life anonymously and in comfort. Or she can open safety deposit box number two, find out more about who her body used to belong to, and impersonate the old Myfanwy long enough to find out who put a hit out on her.

After encountering more murderous glove-wearing goons and eliminating them with her just-discovered paranormal powers, Myfanwy chooses Box Number Two. And discovers the old Myfanwy belonged to a secret organization of super-powered people dedicated to protecting Britain from supernatural threats.

AWESOME.

Oh, and someone within that organization (known as the Chequy) betrayed her. Neither Myfanwy knows who. Less awesome.

There is seriously so much to love about this book that I almost don't know where to start. Actually - let's start with Myfanwy. Both Myfanwys. Old Myfanwy leaves New Myfanwy a suitcase full of letters explaining her life, the people around her, and the inner working of the Chequy. Old Myfanwy's voice is still very much present in New Myfanwy's life - even if they don't always agree. Old Myfanwy was taken from her parents by the Chequy the moment her powers manifested - and developed serious issues as a result. She was extremely shy, preferred administration to fieldwork, hated using her powers, and was generally looked down upon by the rest of the Chequy as a disappointment.

Thanks to New Myfanwy having no memories of old experiences, she doesn't have the same anxieties and fears - and develops into a far more active, take-charge character, to the astonishment of her coworkers. The interplay between Old and New Myfanwy is fascinating and an excellent examination of how environment and experience can shape a person's personality.

But then there's also the super-secret, super-rich organization of the Chequy with its near infinite resources and the many talents of its employees. Myfanwy is an administrator, which gives her a detailed and hilarious point of view into how everything works - yes, we get the cool details about brute squads and incident containment, but we also get all the red tape, bureaucracy and other highly entertaining mundanities of running a super-secret superhero organization. So there's a lot of action and gruesome deaths - but also a lot of everyday problems like dealing with snarky rookies and awkward Christmas parties. The balance between the mundane and the absurd, the human and the superhuman, is perfect.

O'Malley never falls back on the stereotypical "super-strength, flight, invisibility" standard powers for the Chequy folks, either, instead going for the weird and interesting. My favourites are Myfanwy's ability to alter the bodily functions of others and Gestalt's ability to share a single mind and identity among four siblings.

While this novel can be found in the Fantasy section of your bookstore, this book succeeds by refusing to restrict itself to any one genre. It's got action - but also mystery, with the suspense of an impersonation thriller as Myfanwy struggles to fit in without revealing her amnesia. It's got hilariously awkward office humour, along with supernatural creatures, a dash of political commentary and a skinless Belgian in a fish tank.

The Rook is pretty much an all-you-can-eat literary buffet and I encourage you to dive in, face-first.
A+

"Empire of Ivory," by Naomi Novik

The Protagonists:

Will Laurence: Captain of Temeraire - he's horrified to return to England to discover all of its dragons are sick or dying - and hopes the same doesn't happen to Temeraire.

Temeraire: Will's dragon, whose dreams of introducing freedom of expression to his scaled compatriots has to take a backseat to helping them recover from the mysterious illness.

Secondary Cast:

Admiral Jane Rowland: Leader of the aerial corps (and Laurence's companion-with-benefits), she's run ragged both by the dragons' health crisis and the effort needed to keep it a secret from Napoleon.

Mrs. Erasmus: The wife of a freedman preacher who travels with Laurence and Temeraire to Africa in order to spread the gospel - and winds up reuniting with the tribe she was kidnapped from.

Kefentse: A wrathful African dragon whose tribe was kidnapped by slavers who seeks vengeance on the white invaders.

The Plot: In this fourth entry in Naomi Novik's endlessly detailed and inventive historical fantasy series about dragons in the Napoleonic wars (here are books one, two, and three, Laurence and Temeraire return to England after fleeing France at the end of Black Powder War.  Upon landing, they discover why England failed to send the twenty dragons promised to the Continental war effort: England has no dragons to send.

A horrific plague has struck England's dragons (in a nice ironic twist, brought over on a Native American dragon from the New World), and they are dying by slow inches with no hope of recovery. Jane Rowland - now Admiral Rowland - is desperately trying to keep this information under wraps. Should knowledge of the plague reach France, Napoleon would not hesitate to launch a full-scale invasion.

Upon discovering that Temeraire is immune to the disease thanks to some medicine he received in the previous novel for what was thought to be a head cold, Laurence and Temeraire are ordered (along with six other valuable sick dragons) to set sail for Africa (where the medicine was made) to see if they can discover and reproduce a cure.

Much like the previous books in the series, Empire of Ivory has an over-arcing plot, but it approaches it with a series of amusing and detailed episodic scenes. This makes for a slower read than might be expected, but the levels of detail and social commentary more than make up for it. I have yet to encounter a novel with a more thorough worldbuliding than this one.

Inevitably, due to the book's major setting (coastal and interior Africa), the issue of slavery is an important theme in the novel. Laurence is devotedly anti-slavery, but England has not officially abolished it yet - and the politics, bureaucracies, and red tape involved in abolishing it are not easily explained to the more literal-minded British dragons - or to the extremely angry and vengeful African dragons they run into during their explorations.

Although the fantasy element of Novik's books is wonderful and scrupulously developed and explained, I love how she uses the relationship between humans and dragons to explore the social context of Napoleonic England - the use of women in warfare, the treatment of unwed mothers, the strained relationship between oblivious politicians and actual soldiers, and of course - the legality and politics of slavery. Laurence is an exceedingly decent chap - but he is the gentlemanly son of a peer, and he is constantly having to learn and adapt and rethink his priorities thanks to his discussions with Temeraire and the other members of the aerial corps.

That being said, it is a slow-moving, episodic book, but by now I'm pretty much used to it. I love the worldbuilding, I love the historical detail, I love the language - and I love Laurence and Temeraire.
A-

"Enchanted," by Alethea Kontis

The Protagonist: Sunday Woodcutter. The seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, she feels lonely and superfluous until she meets (and grows to love) a talking frog by the local well.
Her Angst: Just as she comes to realize her feelings for the frog, he disappears, and her family is swept up into a centuries-long conspiracy of kings, fairies, and forbidden magic.

The Other Protagonist: Prince Rumbold. Turned into a frog by a meddling fairy, he falls for the beautiful Sunday Woodcutter, and her love sets him free.
His Angst: He returns to human form in time to confront his father's evil machinations, his mother's ghost, and the fact that Sunday's family blames his for the death of their son, Jack.

Secondary Cast:

Jack: Sunday's father - holds a grudge against the Royal Family for the death of his son, Jack Junior.

Seven: Sunday's mother, who only speaks when she's criticizing or barking out orders.

Saturday: Sunday's crazy axe-wielding older sister.

Friday: Sunday's super-nice pious churchgoing sister.

Wednesday: Sunday's Super Emo Magical Poetry sister.

Sorrow: Rumbold's Fairy Godmother. Evil.

Joy: Sunday's Fairy Godmother - somehow not seen as Evil.

YA/Fantasy Angst Checklist:

• My Emo Journal entries keep coming true!
• My mother never has time for me
• Insta-Inter-Species-Love
• I'm in love with a boy my family hates
• Dead Relative Angst
• Daddy Issues
• Fairies Are Really Just Terrible People. WHY Do We Even Listen To Them?

The Word: So I'm back! Well, not really. I promised myself I would cut down on the book reviewing while I struggle to write something vaguely fictional. I didn't want to give up reviewing, but I decided for the next little while I would only review books that were exceptionally good or exceptionally bad.

While Enchanted is a very good book - it's more exceptionally interesting than anything else. Another word for "interesting" is weird.

Sunday is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter - and despite her large, unusual, but loving family, she often feels useless and lonely. That is, until she meets an enchanted talking frog at the local well. Sunday and Grumble, the frog, strike up a friendship that very quickly (in the nature of fairytales, natch) deepens into more. What sounds like a by-the-book retelling of The Frog Prince turns out to be something else entirely.

Sunday's kiss has a delayed reaction and Grumble changes back into Prince Rumbold after she leaves. Unfortunately, it's not all smooth sailing from then on. You see, Sunday's parents hate the Royal Family, whom they blame for the death of their firstborn son, Jack Junior. And the meddling fairy who cursed an innocent Rumbold to become a frog? She's Sunday's godmother. There's bad blood on both sides, on top of the fact that Rumbold's father, the King, is up to some Very Naughty Shenanigans.

This book is very, very weird and it's both a good and a bad thing.

In fact, I would probably say that almost every aspect of this novel is a double-edged sword. The writing style is whimsical and clever - but it can also be melodramatically purple. The story borrows many structural cues and references from fairytales, which serve it well when it comes to setting, atmosphere, and the wonderfully loopy history of Sunday's family - but it hinders it when it comes to plot progression that makes any sense whatsoever. Like fairy tales, there are sudden, out-of-the-blue revelations and just as sudden, out-of-the-blue solutions that pop up in the nick of time. It works in fairy tales but in the longer format of a novel it's difficult to establish real stakes.

While Sunday and Rumbold are relatively relatable, many characters behave in ways that serve the otherworldly nature of the fairy tale rather than understandable human motivation - for instance, one character purposefully chops herself in the leg with an axe to get out of going to a dance because she's shy. It's laughed off as wacky shenanigans and it's meant to call to mind the story of the enchanted axe that attacks the woodcutter but - but - dude. She nearly chopped her own leg off to get out of wearing a dress. That's insane. She needs psychiatric help and supervision. How are we supposed to understand her as a human character?

Overall, I felt the novel could have used a little more structure. I don't just mean realism - but it could have been bit more grounded, just when it comes to reactions and consequences. It reminded me a bit of Deerskin by Robin McKinley - and yet Deerskin still managed to balance the illogical, otherworldly setting with realistically human characters.

And yet, I still really enjoyed Enchanted and couldn't really put it down. I loved the mishmash of fairy tale references, explanations and tidbits that were thrown in willy-nilly. I loved the concept of the seven sisters, the power of words, and the nasty politics of Fairy Godmothers (seriously, why Godmother Joy is seen as a positive character is beyond me). And even though the ending makes no goshdarn sense I still wanted to keep reading to find out what gonzo Grimm-flavoured thing would happen next.

So like I said - Enchanted was an incredibly interesting book, and I look forward to reading the sequel, Hero. Even though the heroine of that novel (Saturday) is the same nutcase who took an axe to the leg to get out of dressing up. Cray. Zay.
B+