Chronicles of a Book Evangelist

Top 10 Reads of 2012

I know I'm a little behind on this as well, but I really wanted to revisit my favorite reads of 2012 before moving on to the new year.  I already have reviews posted for most of them, but the few I don't are scheduled to appear this month.  So, without further ado, my top ten favorite reads of 2012:

Middle Grade:

Ordinary Magic by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway is the beautifully told story of Abby, a completely "ordinary" girl in a magical world.  I loved Rubino-Bradway's world building almost as much as I loved the relationships between her characters.

Young Adult:

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga is one of those books that takes hold of you and doesn't let go.  I devoured it, loved it, and still can't stop thinking about it.  Jaz is such an incredibly creepy, wonderful, complex character, and I can't wait to learn more about him.

 

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman is one of those rare novels that I would almost dare call perfect.  At least perfect for me.  It is an amazing representation of high fantasy with exceptional world building and positive representations of women!!!!  There is math! and logic! and romance! and dragons!

 

 

And All The Stars by Andrea K Höst completely took me by surprise.  Aside from the fact that it is self-published and still knocks the socks off almost everything else I read this year, it is also just an amazingly well done novel.  Höst manages to ask some really big questions while being incredibly entertaining, and I just can't get this book out of my head.

 

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan is another one of those perfect for me books.  It is an exceptional (though cliffhangery) beginning to a gothic series in the style of Mary Stewart, only YA, and modernized.  Again, when I try to talk about this book I turn into a gushy fan-girl.  Just read it.

 

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard is the story of Bria, a young girl who tries to leave herself behind and instead finds herself.  It was full of quotable quotes and insightful bits about travelling and had an adorably believable romance. 

 

Preloved by Shirley Marr is a ghost story.  About a modern girl and a ghost from the 80s.  It's so funny that I choked myself laughing more than once.  It's Australian -- which is the YA equivalent of saying PURE GOLD.  What is not to love?

 

 

Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross is part fairytale retelling and part fairytale reinvention.  I love that Cross brings in the dark bits of old Grimm fairytales, incorporates things the Disney generations would be familiar with, and still manages to create a wonderfully fresh world.  

 

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is simply stunning.  It is historical fiction, but still completely true in everything that really matters.  It is gut-wrenchingly beautiful and horrible all at once.  I defy you to read it and not cry.

 

Adult Fiction:

Chasing Magic by Stacia Kane is actually just the newest in the Downside Ghosts Series, many of which were published in 2012.  Stacia Kane went from being a completely unknown-to-me author to one of my favorite urban fantasy authors with this series.  It is dark and gritty and I can't stop reading it.  

And that is the short-list for 2012.  What were some of your favorite reads last year?

Review for 2012 Debut Author Challenge: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Publisher: Random House

Expected Publication Date: July 10, 2012

Book Description:

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high. 

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life. 

In her exquisitely written fantasy debut, Rachel Hartman creates a rich, complex, and utterly original world. Seraphina's tortuous journey to self-acceptance is one readers will remember long after they've turned the final page.

Review:

Rachel Hartman's Seraphina is nothing short of exquisite.  It is beautiful - breathtakingly so - and I find myself wanting to reread it again and again.  This is how it starts:

I remember being born.  

In fact, I remember a time before that. There was no light, but there was music: joints creaking, blood rushing, the heart's staccato lullaby, a rich symphony of indigestion.  Sound enfolded me, and I was safe.  

Then my world split open, and I was thrust into a cold and silent brightness.  I tried to fill the emptiness with my screams, but the space was too vast.  I raged, but there was no going back.

I simply could not help myself; I fell in love with Seraphina's voice right there.  

When I think about the idea of 'world-building' I often actually visualize little houses in my head - spaces that have been constructed piece by piece.   There are houses that are done quickly, with little care, and they look sloppy at first glance.  There are houses that look pretty good when taken as a whole, but upon closer inspection you see the slightly misaligned window trim, the irregular gaps between the wood-flooring, or the spots of cabinet paint on the edge of the wall.  Then you have houses like what Rachel Hartman has built: they look nice up front.  Then, you get a little closer and you start to see details.  That isn't just a nice wooden mantel - it's hand-carved with intricate details.  The walls aren't expertly painted with paint bought off the shelf - every color in the house has been custom tinted to compliment each other.  You get the idea.  Goredd doesn't feel 'built' at all - Hartman has made it so effortlessly stunning that it is impossible not to believe in it.  All the little details of culture and tradition have received the same level of attention as her big ideas - everything from blasphemous interjections stemming from a complex and lush religious tradition to the details of variations in regional style and dialect.  The characters, whether dragon, saar, quigutl, or human, were equally complex and vital. 

My favorite thing about Seraphina, though, is the way Hartman interweaves science, logic, art and music.  So often people who are scientific or logical are thought of or portrayed as being cold and passionless.  In contrast, artists and musicians are thought to be moody and mercurial.  But that isn't really the case at all.  Anyone who has ever watched Feynman talk about, well, anything, can see his passion for science; and the methodical precision required to master the most passionate of musical masterpieces requires determined discipline.  And Math.  Math is at the core of everything.  There is no music without math.  There is no logic without math.  The scientific method is defined by its ability to produce measurable results, and there is no measurement without math.  They are all interconnected.  The very idea of separate areas of study is just our human brain trying to analyze and compartmentalize  reality.  The real world, and the way our human mind approaches it, is much more complex than than that; and I think Hartman would agree.  The book itself is a testament to this idea - it is lyrical even at its most analytical.  At moments of highest emotion for Seraphina, she invokes mathematics and logic.  For example:

I couldn't fill that space with Linn.  That name meant nothing to me; it was a placeholder, like zero.  

 Hartman allows her characters to be passionately logical and coolly romantic, and that impresses me to no end.

I will admit that I found the romance a little lacking in spark or chemistry at times.  However, I am not sure if that is because it was actually lacking, or because I was uncomfortable with it happening.  ( I was thinking of  Selda.)  That is really the only complaint I can find, and (considering the romance is really low on the hierarchy of importance in the story) it isn't even a very big one.  I can't imagine not  rereading Seraphina  time and again.  I can't wait to give it to my daughter for the first time with a, "this is what complex, vital, talented, vibrant, brave, strong, intelligent heroines can be like!"  And I will be recommending it to everyone who will listen to me (and probably those who won't as well.)

Some Quotes I loved:

Orma called me "it" as if I were a dog; I was drawn to his aloofness, the way cats gravitate toward people who'd rather avoid them.

Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach.  I have not adequately mastered the art, but his comparisons always move me with their precision.

Sometimes the truth has difficulty breaching the city walls of our beliefs.  A lie, dressed in the correct livery, passes through more easily.

 Other Opinions:

Phoebe love it as well.

Jo wasn't as impressed. 

Review also appears on Goodreads; a review copy was provided by the publisher.

Review: Precious Bones by Mika Ashley-Hollinger

Publilsher: Random House Children's Books

Publication Date: May 8, 2012

Goodreads Description:

Meet ten-year-old Bones, whose playground is the Florida swamps, brimming with mystical witches, black bears, alligators and bobcats. Bones' father, Nolay, a Miccosukee Indian, is smart and mischievous. Her Mama, practical as corn bread, can see straight into Bones' soul.

It's summer, and Bones is busy hunting and fishing with her best friend, Little Man. But then two Yankee real estate agents trespass on her family's land, and Nolay scares them off with his gun. When a storm blows in and Bones and Little Man uncover something horrible at the edge of the Loo-chee swamp, the evidence of foul play points to Nolay. The only person that can help Nolay is Sheriff LeRoy, who's as slow as pond water. Bones is determined to take matters into her own hands. If it takes a miracle, then a miracle is what she will deliver.

Review:

One of my favorite uncles growing up was my Uncle Joe.  He was big, larger than life even.  He could sing like Hank Williams.  He was a gifted storyteller who usually focused more on the quality of the story than the truth.  He had that quintessential southern accent -- smooth and warm, it would roll through you like good whiskey.  He could make a mean boiling pot -- with Uncle Joe, food went beyond nourishment and became an event.  He was an amazing and skilled hunter and fisherman.  And (as odd as it may sound coming from this nearly life-long vegetarian) it was partly his love of nature and animals that helped inspire my own.  He was a drifter by nature, unlike Nolay (see! I didn't forget the book!), because his roots were not a place but people.  Like a boomerang he always circled back to us.  Of all the stopping places he found, the one that lasted the longest in my memory was Alabama.  He fell equally in love with the swamp and the Gulf; and, for a man who seldom did such things, he could wax poetically about both.  Uncle Joe was also a lot like Nolay in that he always seemed to have something to prove -- to himself and everyone else.  He was fiercely protective of us, his family, both as people and ideas.  Somehow, after he died, we became a little less a unit and more a collection of people.  He had a temper, and he didn't always make the best choices.   But, like Bones, I didn't see that when I was a child.  All I saw was this amazingly smart man who could do anything except wrong.

These similarities, of course, made my immersion into Precious Bones both quick and thorough.  Despite my personal parallels that made this book particularly compelling, I think many readers will find it equally compelling without them.  Ashley-Hollinger writes with such evocative, eloquent beauty that it just sucks you in and won't let go.  The mystery is fabulous, but the biggest reveals aren't necessarily related to the mystery.  Precious Bones is also a luscious coming of age story, a story about seeing people as they really are and still accepting them.  

Oddly enough, my biggest complaints about Precious Bones are also some of the things I loved most.  I love that Ashley-Hollinger includes regional dialect.  I also love the sweeping descriptions of her surroundings.  There is such a sense of place in Precious Bones.  However, upon closer examination, her descriptions don't make sense in the context of Bone's first person narration.  Bones has neither the education and experience for the similes and metaphors used, nor the vocabulary to have described many things as she did.  As an adult I found the descriptions poignant and apt, but many would have flown right over my son's head without further clarification and definition.  Also, despite the fact that I agree with all of Ashley-Hollinger's "messages" within the book, they were not exactly subtle.  I would hate for that to be what turned kids away from an otherwise beautiful and interesting book.

And, for your listening and viewing pleasure, the song that played through my head for most of my reading -- Hank Williams Jambalaya:

Rating:

3.5 of 5 Stars

This review also appears on Goodreads; a review copy was provided by the publisher.

Review for 2012 Debut Author Challenge: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Expected Publication Date: June 12, 2012

Publisher: Random House Children's Books

Goodreads Description: 

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother's death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family's homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistible good looks and charm on unsuspecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there's more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.

 Review:

(Highlight to view spoilers)

Lies Beneath is a bit of an enigma to me: despite the fact that there were quite a few things going on that normally would have made me dislike a book, I actually thought it was pretty good because they worked here.  It had a nice pace - Brown hit a perfect balance between creating a slow build-up and maintaining reader interest.  I also liked that it had a creepy, moody tone that slowly became slightly more upbeat - even while becoming more tense.  It was as if the story were revealed not only through Calder's voice, but also through his emotions.  The writing felt a bit stiff, detached, and lacking in emotions at times, but that felt right for Calder.    

I also really liked Brown's world building.  Despite the fact that I am about to make a lot of comparisons, I did not in any way feel like Lies Beneath was derivative.  I love Brown's take on merpeople -- I was always more a fan of Peter Pan's mermaids than Ariel.  I like that Brown's monsters were actually monsters!  Calder's sisters were seriously chill-inducingly creepy -- and it was awesome.  I also really liked the way(s) that the merpeople fed on emotions.  (spoiler)  It was a bit like Sulley's discovery in Monsters, Inc. to see the way Calder was able to 'feed' off Lily while with her -- the sustained laugh packs way more of a wallop than the scream.  (In the case of Lies Beneath, the emotion freely given lasts longer than the one forcefully taken.)  I thought this was beautifully done.  It would have taken some pretty special circumstances -- considering merpeople's usual behaviour -- to learn that. (end spoiler)

My reactions to Brown's characters are a bit more complex.  I thought Lily was a smart, strong young lady with a flair for the dramatic and a tendency to take herself a bit too seriously.  I thought Calder's emotional and social inadequacies made sense when put into context.  (And his stalker behavior even works, considering this all starts because he is supposed to be stalking her.  Brown never tries to make it anything but creepy; and everyone who knows about it calls it what it is.)  (spoiler)  The only point where I had a WTF moment with Calder was when he went to visit 'Joe.'  I am sure this was supposed to display his deep need for real emotional connections, his profound loneliness, something meaningful; but really, it was just too creepy. (end spoiler)  Calder's sisters and Lily's family are also really well done -- I especially liked Maris and Sophie!  Jack and Gabrielle, however, always felt more like devices used to move the plot along or mouthpieces for Brown to pass on information than actual characters.

I was also a little disappointed with the mysterious aspects of Lies Beneath.  I anticipated every single reveal long before I think Brown intended.  I thought about this for a while, and I don't necessarily think that Brown handled her foreshadowing clumsily.  I think it was more that each thing just made sense for the characters based on their personalities and actions; it was the natural progression, if you will.  I would have liked to be a little more surprised, though. All in all, very good for a debut effort!  

Other Opinions:

Jo from Wear The Old Coat wasn't that impressed

Stephanie and Kat Duke it Out in a Review War

Wendy from The Midnight Garden liked it

Rating:

3.5 of 5 stars

This review also appears on Goodreads; a review copy was provided by the publisher.

Link Trove #12

Link Trove will be done just a little differently this week.  Some pretty serious things have come up in the Young Adult Book blogging community that really need to be addressed, and it felt wrong to include my response to something so big in amongst funny lists and videos, so I will refrain.  However, I do want to talk about a few REALLY cool and good things first.

• World Book Night 2012 was a blast.  It was not without its hitches -- but I think it was actually more fun that way.  One local Giver forgot to pick up their box of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, one of my husband's favorite books, so with my The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie we were each able to give out books we love. To keep myself from getting into further trouble, I will only say that there was some miscommunication between day staff and evening security with the first location we chose to give out books, and we were escorted from the premises.  (Yes, we almost got arrested for giving away free books!  Note for next year: get written permission for overzealous security guards.)  We forgot our camera so we could not get any pictures, and it was after 5:00pm when we started giving books away, so most managers were already gone for the day.  BUT, we had a blast hopping from parking lot to theater to fast food joint to coffee shop asking if we could give out books to patrons.  In a way, I think we were able to reach a larger and more diverse group of people because of the mishap -- it was spontanious and fun and we haven't got to just go places like that in years!  To see what other people were doing on World Book Night, check out the Tumblr.

• I know I have been going on and on about Kate Milford's Kickstarter project for The Kairos Mechanism (Arcana #1).  (Seriously, if you haven't yet checked it out, you should!)  However, I recently discovered another really great middle grade novel Kickstarter project: Wollstonecraft.  From author Jordan Stratford's description:

London 1826: The Advent of the Steam Age

11 year old Ada has a problem: her governess, Miss Coverlet, has quit her job to go get married (a dumb idea if ever there was one, if you ask Ada) and her new tutor Percy ("Peebs") is a total drip.  She'd rather be left to her own devices – literally – inventing things and solving math problems and ignoring people altogether.

She's also forced to study alongside the imaginative girlie-girl Mary, who's always going on about romance and exotic travels.  Fortunately, Mary's appetite for adventure leads her to propose the two girls open a detective agency, and when an heiress shows up with a case about a missing diamond, it's the perfect puzzle to coax Ada out of her shell.

This is the made up story about two very real girls – Ada, the world's first computer programmer, and Mary, the world's first science fiction author – caught up in a steampunk world of hot-air balloons and steam engines, jewel thieves and mechanical contraptions.  For readers 8-12.

This is a pro-math, pro-science, pro-history and pro-literature adventure novel for and about girls, who use their education to solve problems and catch a jewel thief.  Ada and Mary encounter real historical characters, such as Percy Shelley, Charles Babbage, Michael Faraday, and Charles Dickens – people whom the girls actually knew.  If Jane Austen wrote about zeppelins and brass goggles, this would be the book.

Why "Wollstonecraft"?  Mary names the detective agency after her mother, the famous feminist writer. If this is the kind of book you'd like to see, please support this project.

 Now that is a project I can get behind!  If you are interested, move quickly!  It ends on Monday.

 

Okay, so fun-times are over.  Kat and Stephanie from Cuddlebuggery hesitantly broke the news on Monday that Kristi of The Story Siren had been plagiarizing content from other blogs.  They refrained from naming names because they were still uncertain as to the validity of the accusations, but Sarah from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books shortly thereafter wrote a pretty conclusive piece that left little doubt that the accusations were, in fact, true.  Naturally, the YA blogging community exploded, then promptly divided into sides, and I just really don't want to go into all of the details.  Leila from bookshelves of doom has a really great, reasonably objective outline of what happened with links. Kelly from Stacked, Kat from Cuddlebuggery, and Elizabeth from Gossamer Obsessions do a great job of showing the community's reactions.

Personally, I feel very disappointed and betrayed.  I used "Kristi's" posts to help set up my blog.  I admired her for the way she fostered a sense of community among book bloggers, and that she provided a platform for us to all interact with each other.  However, as I previously noted, I was not completely comfortable with In My Mailbox, and had already changed my format from that of the meme.  I became truly offended by her non-apologies: she made it very clear that her top priority was maintaining contacts within the industry, not the respect of her readers.  Because I do not want to contribute page-views (or anything else) to someone so wholly unwilling to take responsibility for her actions, I will no longer be linking to her meme.  As of this Sunday, I will be participating in Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer's The Sunday Post Meme in place of In My Mailbox, as it most closely resembles what I was already doing.  (Edited to add: I will link, with credit, to both Kimba's The Sunday Post Meme, and Stacking the Shelves from Tynga's Reviews, on my regular "Weekly Forecast" post.)  I will finish out the Debut Author Challenge of reading 12 debut authors by the end of the year because I was doing it to challenge myself and find new authors.  I will no longer be linking that to The Story Siren either.  

Finally, you should really check out the blogs Beautifully Invisible and Grit and Glamour.  These ladies are smart, write well and with authenticity (and they have way more style than you will find here!)  They have remained classy throughout this entire ordeal.  I learned so much about stats, IP addresses, and responsible blogging from their posts about how they caught Kristi plagiarizing.  (And, of course, they were the original authors of all the wonderful pages that helped me set up this blog!)  These ladies really know what they are doing!

Phew!  Okay, back next week with fun lists, videos, links and pictures!

Review: Viral by James Lilliefors

Publisher: Random House

Expected Date: April 10, 2012 

Book Description: 

In remote pockets of the Third World, a deadly virus is quietly sweeping through impoverished farming villages and shanty towns with frightening speed and potency. Meanwhile, in Washington, a three-word message left in a safe-deposit box may be the key to stopping the crisis—if, that is, Charles Mallory, a private intelligence contractor and former CIA operative, can decipher the puzzle before time runs out. 
 
What Mallory begins to discover are the traces of a secret war, with a bold objective—to create a new, technologically advanced society. With the help of his brother Jon, an investigative reporter, can he break the story to the world before it is too late—before a planned “humane depopulation” takes place?
 
As the stakes and strategies of this secret war become more evident, the Mallory brothers find themselves in a complex game of wits with an enemy they can’t see: a new sort of superpower led by a brilliant, elusive tactician who believes that ends justify means.

Review:

I should start by saying that Lilliefors' background as a good journalist is clear from page one.  Whether it be politics, history, geography, technology, or biology, where there are facts he has used them.  His precision and acute attention to detail lend a veracity and viability to his fiction.  At no point did I ever stop reading or pull away from the story and think, "like that could ever happen!"  There was a chilling plausibility to everything he wrote.  

Lilliefors style was also very journalistic.  Everything felt rapid-fire.  There was an urgency--a hot-off-the-press vibe, if you will--in the way the story unfolded.  The chapters were short snippets of pertinent information; there was an efficiency in the words he chose.  I would tell myself, "one chapter more," then find that I had read five chapters without noticing.  Lilliefors method of writing propelled me further into the story just as much as my interest.

The only place where I feel his style failed him is in characterization.  Too often it felt like a cool recitation of facts or events.  I didn't feel anything from the characters.  The Mallory's were interesting, but never relatable.  Lilliefors crafted such an compelling, suspenseful, and scary story, but I was prevented from ever becoming truly engaged by an insurmountable wall of objectivity.

All in all, I think it is very much worth the read for fans of action packed thrillers and political espionage.  However, I think it would be too inaccessible to fans of character-driven novels.  

Rating:

3.5 of 5 stars

This review also appears at Goodreads; a review copy was provided by the publisher.

Review for 2012 Debut Author Challenge: The Weepers: The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish

Expected Publication Date: May 01, 2012

Description: 

3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life. 

Sherry and her family have lived sealed in a bunker in the garden since things went wrong up above. Her grandfather has been in the freezer for the last three months, her parents are at each other’s throats and two minutes ago they ran out of food. 

Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by ‘Weepers’ - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus. 

While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry’s father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their ‘other lives’. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all.

Review:

(Highlight to view Spoilers)

 The Weepers: The Other Life engendered really mixed responses in me - some of them even conflicting - which is making it hard to process exactly what I think about it.  It is not very often that a book can simultaneously remind me of The Diary of Anne Frank and Resident Evil!  And therein lies, I believe, the problem: it almost feels like there is more than one book here.   It's as if Winnacker had more than one direction she wanted to go with the book and, in failing to choose a direction, pulled it to pieces.  That is not to say that there weren't some really great bits, so let's start with those.

I think Winnacker did an excellent job introducing Sherry and her family to the readers.  She communicates their frayed psychological and emotional states very well in the tightly wound, claustrophobic interactions between people who clearly have been forced too close together for too long.  As a reader I felt the urgency to get out quite acutely; but was equally fearful of what they would find when they left.  I also liked her use of flashbacks.  They at first felt completely arbitrary.  However, as the story progressed these emotionally charged snapshots coalesced into clear images that displayed just how starkly the characters had changed.  The adults, but especially Sherry's Grandmother, were empty shells of what they once were, resigned to their new reality.  The Weepers, too, were actually quite chilling.  I really liked Winnacker's take on Zombies; I had some heart-thumping moments where I was truly frightened for the characters and was genuinely intrigued by the differentiation between types of Weepers.  (I could see the whys of this getting much more interesting in future books.)

But this is where Resident Evil kicks in: the plot felt entirely too safe.  NOTHING that came about really surprised me.  (spoiler) The virus was manufactured by the government; they had built a wall to keep people in, knowing they were not all infected; there was a cure available if only they could get out; someone who had been outside and tested on came back in; a scientist stayed behind because his family had been infected. (end spoiler)  I almost feel silly for hiding that, because every single reveal that should have been climatic was already right there in RE.  

I was also disappointed in the romance between Sherry and Joshua.  It felt lackluster at best; and two such otherwise well crafted characters deserved better.  This good set-up with poor follow-through is a problem throughout the book - especially with the world building.  Why didn't George and Izzy's family come directly to Sherry's house when they decided to leave their bunker?  I'm sorry, but best friends/neighbors who've been planning survivalist shelters together for years pre-disaster, and talking via radio for the last couple of years post-disaster, have absolutely got a backup plan to get to each other.  (spoiler)  Especially if all it takes is getting a key out of the cookie jar - a place that has always been the hidey-hole for spare keys.   And the "military's" behavior through the whole thing just doesn't make any sense to me at all - why now to shut off the radios?  Why not during the bombing, when it would have been quite logical for radio signals to fail?  How did they come in and get all the working radios without it being more obvious? (end spoiler) 

At times Winnacker had a no-holds-barred approach to her novel - the hint of rape and brutality in the public shelters, the bleakness of the characters' futures, her (seeming) willingness to sacrifice people of great importance to her main characters - but then she would backtrack or fail to follow through with the threat.  (spoiler)  It just felt inauthentic that Sherry's father survives AND Mia is safe.  The loss of Grandma doesn't really count because the woman who died was in no way the same woman in Sherry's memories.  Real War has Real Casualties.  And with her ending, Winnacker even hints that Zoe might be saved?  That's just a little too much rainbow and sunshine for a zombie dystopia.  (end spoiler)  A really good book is buried inside The Weepers underneath the weak romance and contrived hope, a book that I wish I had read.  There were the seeds of something dark and gritty and meaningful, but they were never allowed to flourish.  Instead it was cut off before coming to fruition. (In fact, the ending is so abrupt and incongruous with the rest of the story that some of the other reviewers I have read thought they hadn't been given the complete novel.)  I wish they were right and there were another hundred pages, because then I might have gotten the depth that Winnacker promised but failed to deliver.  She absolutely has promise; maybe I'll find what I'm looking for in the next books.

Other Opinions:

Similar Opinion with (some) different rants.

Liked it but thought it was incomplete.

Really Loved it but still willing to call it out on some flaws.

Review Copy Provided by Marshall Cavendish.

Review also on Goodreads

Review for 2012 Debut Author Challenge: Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

Publisher: Tor Teen

Publication Date: January 31, 2012

Goodreads Description:

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned. 

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes. 

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back. 

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different. 

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. 

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings—the only boy Ember has ever loved.

Review:

 I want to start by saying that the last fourth, perhaps even third, of the book was pretty good.  If I were reviewing a novel that had started out the way it ended, I would probably be saying something completely different.  However, That is not how Article 5 began.  Article 5 begins with some seriously flawed world building that not only creates a bad novel, but also encourages some very bad political ideas and behaviors.

The premise of Article 5 is that a totalitarian theocracy controls what amounts to a dystopic contemporary America as a result of a war - The War.  The War apparently included some bombing of major US cities, but left other areas almost completely untouched.  It was severe enough to warrant the re-establishment of the draft and wiped out our basic media infrastructure.  However, at least as far as can be inferred from the novel, it did not affect Mexico or Canada.  Also, it lasted less than three years.  There is very little information about the War provided, but what is provided is conflicting in nature.  The physical effects of the war imply an external 'other' - that this war is with a nation that is geographically independent of the US.  However, the socio-political effects do not match up with this sort of war.

American voters are, in actuality, on a spectrum.  We have Liberals and Conservatives on each extreme  jockeying for control, hoping to sway the Moderate Independents in the middle to their side each election.  The result, therefore, is that, on really polar issues, the country is often divided into fairly equal, diametrically opposed sides with a huge mass of not-as-concerned people in the middle.  That is part of why our politics tend to take a pendulum-type pattern - it takes something extreme to move the middle.  In order to have such an extreme Neo-Conservative government take power, we would have had to have experienced a civil war, or a long, sustained war with an external 'other.'  Neither of these options are even remotely possible with the way the war is described.  (Seriously.  Bush barely pulled 50.7% of the popular vote against a weak opponent three years after 9/11 while fighting two ongoing wars!!!)

Therefore, a contemporary America that could be interchanged for Nazi Germany, with a Morality Militia reminiscent of the Iranian militias and the Republican Guard, is really implausible based on Simmons' premise.  On this shaky ground she then proceeds to build every Liberal's worst nightmare of America.  Each flash-point is pulled directly from our current headlines, divided perfectly down the R/D line.  However, most of what Simmons shows in the early part of the novel, while frustratingly offensive to most liberals, would have the average conservative saying, "yeah, and?"

 This is where I have to ask myself who, precisely, Simmons intended as her audience.  I mean, I get that she anticipates them to be teenagers - hence the young adult label.  However, no age group has uniformly similar beliefs.  There are conservative teenagers, liberal teenagers, and those who could really care less.  Her portrayal of the 'liberal' characters is just sympathetic enough, and the 'conservatives' just offensive enough, to alienate most conservative readers.  If she was trying to change anyone's political beliefs by showing some of the hazier implications of conservative ideology (which she admittedly does later in the novel), she fails by alienating her conservative readers early on.  I doubt they even finish it.  The worst part?  If they do, it only reaffirms the often held belief of the religious conservative that all liberals are out to malign them as evil, simply for being religious and conservative.  

More dangerously, though, is what I feel  this book does to the liberal reader.  The further the book progresses, the worse it gets.  Article 5  is perfectly calibrated to push every liberal hot button. It makes your blood boil.  It makes you angry.  You feel frustrated rage and what those conservatives are doing to our country!!!......in a book.  It is, in short, fear and hate mongering!  Yes, these issues echo our current newspapers.  BUT we are still working on it!  There are equal and opposite reactions from the other side as well.

The only way to make a democracy work, without tearing ourselves apart, is to encourage discourse.  When we are busy whipping ourselves up into a fervor over imagined slights, it discourages discourse in a serious way.  America has real problems right now.  Women's rights are seriously in danger.  Religious freedom is daily being called into question.  The LGBTQ community is still systematically disenfranchised.  Racial equality has not yet been obtained.  We have problems, but books like this - books that encourage righteous anger but offer no answers - contribute to the problem, not the solution.  This is why, in my opinion, if you want to tackle serious issues in current events through fiction, it is best to create artificial distance by making the characters aliens or dragons, creating a futuristic or fantastical setting.  Books like this are too personal.  You can't get people to listen to you if they are busy defending themselves.

Add to these problems a heroine who is truly too stupid to live - and who is UTTERLY CLUELESS about basic world history if she believes all she professes to through the book.  She also had to basically have lived in a box during the war to treat Chase the way she did when he had to become physically violent to protect her.  (Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but I eventually thought of Ember as an allegorical representation of how the politically active often view the 'clueless' mass of moderates in the middle.  I can't even count how many times I have seen people on both sides of the fence nearly scream in frustration, 'how do they not see what is going on?!'  I was definitely screaming that at Ember.) 

In Simmons' defense, once she quite pushing her political agenda the book really did get quite enjoyable.  I really liked Chase, and the action was fast paced and engrossing.  I just really didn't like how Simmons got there.  I don't think I will be recommending this book.

Purchased from Barnes & Noble Nook Books

Review also appears on Goodreads

 

 

Review for 2012 Debut Author Challenge: Oppression by Jessica Therrien

Publisher: Zova Books

Publication Date: February 28, 2012

Goodreads Description:

Elyse knows what it means to keep a secret. She's been keeping secrets her whole life. Two, actually. First, that she ages five times slower than the average person, so that while she looks eighteen years old, she's closer to eighty. Second, that her blood has a mysterious power to heal. For Elyse, these things don't make her special. They make life dangerous. After the death of her parents, she's been careful to keep her secret as closely guarded as possible. Now, only one other person in the world knows about her age and ability. Or so she thinks. Elyse is not the only one keeping secrets. There are others like her all over the world, descendants of the very people the Greeks considered gods. She is one of them, and they have been waiting for her for a long time. Among so many of her kind, she should not be very remarkable--except for the prophecy. Some believe she will put an end to traditions, safeguarded by violence, which have oppressed her people for centuries. Others are determined to keep her from doing just that. But for Elyse, the game is just beginning--and she's not entirely willing to play by their rules.

Review:

Opression is a relatively quick read, a mostly fast-paced, plot-driven novel with lots of action.  It was fun while reading; and Therrien comes up with some interesting new ideas about Greek Gods and their Mythos.  It is a pretty strong debut, and infinitely better than most of the other YA books taking on the Gods right now.  (Yes, Goddess Test and Starcrossed, I'm looking at you.) 

Unfortunately, Therrien's characters seriously lack consistency; and this inconsistency can be found in all of her characters, to varying degrees, but especially Elyse, Will and Kara.  Of these three, Kara's conflicting actions and character traits are the most easily reconciled because we are allowed to see her motivations toward the end of the novel.   Elyse and Will, however, remain an odd mixture of excellent traits and terrible ones. Elyse at times appears very strong, smart and independent.  Sometimes she gets really angry when she sees bad things happen, and gets ready to take on injustices.  At other times she just meekly allows other people to tell her what to do or what she can or cannot know.  Similarly, she can completely dismissed REALLY TERRIBLE THINGS from her mind right after they happen so that they will not ruin her or her friends' fun.   Will, likewise, can go from a really sweet, romantic guy to bit of a jerk without much warning.  He keeps things from her 'for her own good.'   And, naturally, there is Instalove with a lot of MeantToBe thrown in.  

There are also some pretty serious (possibly spoilery!) holes in the world building.  It doesn't really make sense that everyone within the world of the Descendants knows about the prophecy, but no one really does anything about it for most of the novel.  Nor does it make sense that - knowing Elyse is supposed to lead their upcoming war - the "adults" within their community take a hands-off you'll-figure-it-out approach to her education.  Also, what is with these "kids" going to school for 80+ years?  (Presumably it is a result of the complete lack of required attendance policy they seemed to have?)  Along the same lines, what is with allowing all these student to be taught by the previous leader of a rebellion and the husband of the woman who predicted the next one?  It seems to me that the Council would exercise a bit more control over who was teaching the next generation.

I didn't really like how extreme the cliff hanger was - the last chapter almost seemed like it would do better as the first chapter of the next book - , nor did I think the novel was flawless, but I do think that Oppression was a pretty nice series start, and I will give the sequel at least the Library try.  

Downloaded to my Nook from Barnes and Noble

Review also on Goodreads

Review for 2012 Debut Author Challenge: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

Publisher: Katherine Tegen

Publication Date: January 31, 2012

Description:

New soul

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul

Even Ana's own mother thinks she's a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she'll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana's new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana's enemies--human and creature alike--let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else's life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

Review:

I enjoyed Incarnate, but find that I feel a bit let down as well.  Medows' world building is phenomenal.  The world of Range, the city of Heart, the technology, the creatures - they're all fascinating.  I quickly realized that it would be better to rid myself of expectations because Medows broke with convention as often as she followed it.  I love that her dragons, sylph, and centaurs are recognizable but also refreshingly new and different.  Medows' also brought forth some very intriguing concepts - the idea of a new soul in a society comprised entirely of souls that have been living together, reincarnating over and over again for thousands of years is absorbing.  How would she fit in?  Why did it happen?  There was so much promise!   

However, rather than really letting the reader explore this stimulating new world, or perhaps dive into the mystery of how and why Ana was born, (Spoiler) or why the city feels safe to everyone else but creeps Ana out (End Spoiler), or even investigate some of the questions about Heart that Ana reminded the old souls they had all once had, we are instead left with a somewhat boring romance.  Don't get me wrong!  The romance between Sam and Ana is so much better than what one often comes across.  They slowly get to know each other; the relationship builds upon shared interests and experiences.  However, in a world so amazingly crafted, with so many mysteries waiting to be unveiled, their romance wasn't really what had my interest.  I wanted it to be part of the novel, not the focus of the novel.  

Incarnate is meant to be the first in a trilogy (series?), and as such is absolutely good enough to make the next one an instant read.  I just hope that now that Sam and Ana have their stuff figured out, we can actually get somewhere with the real mysteries.   

And, Because I really can't help myself:

 

Other Opinions:

 Loved It

Wasn't That Impressed

Copy Borrowed from Local Library

Review also on Goodreads