Malinda Lo – Adaptation

For three of my WWE Challenges this year (Women of Genre Fiction, LGBT SF, and SF Authors of Color) I finally picked up a Malinda Lo novel. Unsure whether to pick Ash – a Cinderella retelling with a lesbian twist – or Adaptation, I did the smart thing and flipped a coin.

ADAPTATION
by Malinda Lo

Published by: Little, Brown, 2012
Ebook: 416 pages
Series: Adaptation #1
My rating: 6/10

First sentence: The birds plummeted to the tarmac, wings loose and limp.

Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.
Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.
Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.
Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

I see what the author did there. Normally I don’t start with what I disliked in a book but since it’s the most prevalent thought on my mind right now, I have to break with that rule. My biggest problem with Adaptation is that it reads like an unnecessary prequel to a much better story. On the one hand, Reese is discovering that she is bisexual and dealing with her new feelings and the questions that come with them. But this isn’t supposed to be an “issue novel” which is why you also get government conspiracies, genetic manipulation, and alien experiments. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, this is where some editing would have helped.

The story starts with a punch. Flocks of birds randomly fly into planes, causing them to crash all over the country. Other birds just plummet to the ground, commiting bird suicide. When airports are shut down, Resse, her debate partner David, and their teacher, rent a car to get back home from the national debates competition (which they lost) and madness ensues. This is exactly how a YA novel should start. Action follows action, but leaves enough room for setting up the characters, the tension between them, and giving them a life beyond what is happening right now. Reese and David end up in a hospital (read: secret government base) and are sent home after signing a non-disclosure contract forbidding them to speak to anyone about anything. So far, so interesting.

Once they are home, though, I would have expected them to at least talk to each other about the strange things that have happened to them. But no… they go on with their lives as if not much had changed. And this is when the tone of the novel flips to contemporary romance. Reese meets a girl named Amber and falls in love with her. The romance is well-written, no question, but during this middle part, all sfnal plot strings are abandoned in favor of just that: a romance. So Reese thinks she may be a lesbian, but she’s not sure because she’s had a crush on David for a long time. The obligatory talk with the mother is wonderfully drama-less and Reese can spend her time inspecting her feelings and what they mean. Only occasionaly does she think she should speak to David about what happened to them.

Again, none of this is badly written. I found the romance sweet and full of butterflies, but I picked this up because it is a science fiction book. The beginning promised all sorts of interesting ideas that are just put to the side because Romance Needs to Happen Now. After all, you can have a love life, and still try to figure out who the strange doctors were that magically healed your wounds without leaving a single scar, right? Right. Eventually, Reese does investigate, but things only get interesting again right at the end. In an exposition overload things are finally explained to her and David and the actual story is ready to start.

This is where my thought about editing came up. So many writers say that their first draft of any story is usually improved by chopping off the “beginning”. The story is supposed to begin when things get interesting, not wasting time setting it up for hundreds of pages. And that’s just the problem with Adaptation. I got the feeling that the real story begins where this novel ends. Everything that happens could be backstory, cleverly inserted into what will now be volume 2 of a series. Reese’s romance with Amber, her crush on David, their accident and regeneration… it would have made for excellent twists and reveals in a standalone book. Or flashbacks, if you’re into them.

But that’s just my wishful thinking. As YA novels go, this wasn’t bad. I suspect that, as a younger reader, I would have liked it much more, not spending so much time thinking of how to improve the story and just going with it. I’m not much of a romance reader and as such, I must say that I really enjoyed the little moments of tension – although I am getting mighty tired of the love triangle. At least this triangle is made more interesting in that it involves a heroine who has to choose between a boy and a girl.

Bottom line: Recommended, but don’t expect too much sci-fi.
Will I read the second book? Probably. You know… sometime.

RATING:  6/10  –  Good

China Miéville – Railsea

Octopusses, trains, and garbage – that’s how you recognize a China Miéville novel. In this case, there is a distinct lack of octopusses but to make up for it, we get trains and garbage galore. The elevator pitch for this YA novel is “Moby Dick with trains instead of ships” but Railsea is so much more.

RAILSEA
by China Miéville

Published by: Macmillan, 2012
ISBN: 0230765122
Paperback: 376 pages
Standalone
My rating: 8,5/10

First sentence: This is the story of a bloodstained boy.

On board the moletrain “Medes,” Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarpe hunt: the giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one’s death and the other’s glory. But no matter how spectacular it is, Sham can’t shake the sense that there is more to life than traveling the endless rails of the railsea-even if his captain can think only of the hunt for the ivory-coloured mole she’s been chasing since it took her arm all those years ago. When they come across a wrecked train, at first it’s a welcome distraction. But what Sham finds in the derelict–a series of pictures hinting at something, somewhere, that should be impossible–leads to considerably more than he’d bargained for. Soon he’s hunted on all sides, by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters and salvage-scrabblers. And it might not be just Sham’s life that’s about to change. It could be the whole of the railsea.

Sham is a young doctor’s apprentice aboard the mole train Medes but he’s really not that sure that this is what he wants to do with his life. Instead of helping doctor Vurinam or even hunting giant moles, a salvor’s job looks much more appealing. But Captain Naphi is obsessed with hunting her philosophy, a gigantic ivory-colored moldywarpe that bit off her left arm.
What starts as a riff on Moby Dick turns into something entirely different very soon. Yes, Captain Naphi desperately wants to kill that white mole and yes, Sham tags along because he happens to work on her train. But this gimmick has been given way too much attention in marketing this book.

China Miéville has always been playful with language and he continues that tradition with new verve. Any given review mentions his use of the ampersand instead of the word “and”. This includes the copyright page and the acknowledgements. Some readers may find it disrupting but I took to it immediately and quite loved it by the end. But it isn’t just this most obvious trick he plays on us readers. Take Abacat Naphi – an anagram for Captain Ahab – or words like nu-salvage and arche-salvage. Miéville’s language contributes greatly to his worldbuilding and should not be underestimated just because the ampersand is a bit obvious. Of course this is purely a love-or-hate question of taste. I am glad I am one of the ampersand-lovers.

©China Miéville

Of course, worldbuilding is done in more than one fashion and, let me tell you, this world is insane. I had a hard time suspeding my disbelief, especially in the beginning. Imagining a Robert Louis Stevenson story set on a train may sound plausible to begin with, but think about the concept of the railsea. Endless rails, running next to each other, intermingling, making it possible for trains to switch and steer and not just go straight ahead but turn in every direction at the turn of a lever. It is mindboggling and China Miéville deserves all the credit for making it believable.

I was also quite taken by the idea that the upsky is polluted to bits and populated by the most vicious flying animals you can imagine. The same goes for the earth – naked earth that’s not covered by rails, that is – you take one step on the earth and some creepy, crawling creature or other will burrow its way up to devour you. Let’s just say it’s not pretty. The only safe place to live is on islands off the railsea. These come with harbors and cities and trade, the way you’d expect it of terra firma. The railsea, on the other hand, is crawling with huge animals, mole trains, salvors, and – are you really surprised? – pirates!

We follow Sham on an adventure that may at first seem like it isn’t even his but captain Naphi’s. But undecided as he may start,  he soon finds his own kind of philosophy and pursues it with every bit of passion he can muster. On this journey, he falls into the hands of pirates, meets salvors and railsea nomads, acquires a pet daybat (who is incredibly lovable), and helps two siblings find out the truth about their parents. A nice surprise in a novel that clearly follows the tradition of Melville and Stevenson was the presence of women. Not only do we get a female train captain, but we get the clever half of the Shroakes siblings, Caldera, several women harpoonists and a female salvor who isn’t nearly as cold on the inside as she lets on.
This is part adventure novel, part coming-of-age story, part science fiction and part meta fiction – and probably some other parts that I forgot. There is very much to love about Railsea.

©China Miéville

One last thing I must mention is how the author breaks the fourth wall. Every so often, he will speak to us readers directly, taunt and tease us about that other plotline that has been dropped a while back and that we yearn to return to. In the very beginning, we zoom out of the image of a bloodstained Sham, turn back time, to begin the story where the narrator deems it appropriate. And like a polite and friendly story teller, he lets us in on some of his secrets. Close to the end, he explains that this could have been a very different tale. But in finest Miéville fashion, he is well aware that the story is not his alone and that we, the readers, have the power to create something new from it.

Had you been in charge you would, even had you started & ended in the same places, have described a different figure. A different “&.” But nothing’s done. If you tell any of this to others, you can drive, & if you wish, go elsewhere on the way. Until then, safe travels & thank you.

Railsea was a fantastic, fun, engaging read that I would put in the hands of any Miéville fan as well as people who are unsure about where to start. At 376 pages, it is one of his slimmer  novels and the ideas, while fantastic, aren’t quite as dark or wacky as in, say, Perdido Street Station. While marketed at “younger readers”, people of any age will find enjoyment in this story. Whether it is word play or worldbuilding, characters or adventurous plot that tickles you most, there is something in here for everybody. And – dare I mention it… – the ending is awesome!

MY RATING: 8,5  –  Quite excellent!

Second opinions:

• io9
• We Sat Down
• Staffer’s Book Review

Courtney Summers – This is Not a Test

This month was zombie month (even in Discworld) and so I read a few books that show zombies in very different ways and from different perspectives. I got action zombies in Feed, zombies who live like humans in Witches Abroad, and then I read this book which almost doesn’t feature zombies at all but deals with them in a quiet, emotional way.

THIS IS NOT A TEST
by Courtney Summers

Published by: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012
ISBN: 0312656742
paperback: 323 pages
Standalone
My rating: 5,5/10

First sentence: Lily, I woke up and the last piece of my heart disappeared.

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

This is a book which starts out incredibly strong, then slowly loses momentum, only to end in the most unspectacular way you can imagine. A good book should get better the longer you read. This story had its finest moments right in the beginning and just lost me along the way. Of course, the final impression is the one that lasts and mine was a clear meh.

Sloane Price gets up to have breakfast and from the moment she steps into the kitchen, you can feel the tension in the air. It becomes clear that if she doesn’t eat her (burnt) toast, something terrible will happen. Her father, brief as his appearance may be, feels menacing from the get-go. I was impressed with how quickly Courtney Summers managed to create such intense atmosphere and suspense. You want to know what is going on in this broken family – the zombies just happen to show up just at that moment.

The bulk of the story takes place in Cortege High School where Sloane and five other teenagers managed to barricade themselves from the zombies. They have water, they have food, they have mattresses to sleep on. But anyone who ever had to spend an extended amount of time with five more-or-less strangers in more-or-less close quarters, knows that you don’t need a zombie apocalypse for conflicts to happen. These six teenagers vary in personality but sadly, most of them are given only one or two traits (eg. the aggressive one, the “survival specialist”, the crybaby) and stick to them. Sure, there is friction between them but they remain rather pale in comparison to Sloane.

She is an intriguing person. Her plan, before the outbreak happened, was to kill herself. And now she is stuck surviving with the others when all she really wants to do is go outside and let one of the zombies kill her. But she doesn’t want anyone else to get killed or hurt. Her inner conflicts are far more interesting than the fights between angry Trace and defensive Cary, for example.

The time spent hiding away in their old school doesn’t just feel like an eternity to the characters. Considering that this is a fairly slim book, it took me a long, long time to finish it. Once a certain point is reached and the mysery of what exactly happened in Sloane’s household is resolved, there remains only one more point of interest. And that is what happened when the children and Trace’s parents were making their way to the school. Said parents died during that journey but the circumstances aren’t all too clear. As soon as this is resolved, however, the story doesn’t have any drive left.

I slogged through the last 75 pages, not really caring about the characters, having a hard time relating to a suicidal 17-year-old girl (even is she is well-written) and wondering how a story like this could end. When I reached that ending, I felt even more let down. I don’t spoil so nothing more will be mentioned but now, about an hour after finishing, my overall feeling is: So what was this all about? Why was this a story worth telling? To read a zombie book that focuses more on the characters’ inner workings and emotion rather than on action scenes or the scientific reason for the zombies’ existence? Maybe. It started out really well, but in the end, this is a book that’s pretty much hit or miss.

RATING:  5,5/10  –  Meh.

Related articles

• This is Not a Test (bringuivera.wordpress.com)
• Book Review: This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers (thebooksmugglers.com)
• Book Review: This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers (theprettybooks.wordpress.com)

Sarah Zettel – Dust Girl

I must congratulate myself on my choice of summer reading material. It has been so hot and dry this last week that I find myself desperately wishing for rain to cool down the city. Dust Girl takes place in Kansas which, I admit, may be just a bit dustier and drier than Vienna, but the atmosphere of the book went well with the stifling heat I’m experiencing in real life.

DUST GIRL
by Sarah Zettel

Published by: Random House, 2012
ISBN:9780375983184
ebook: 304 pages
Series: The American Fairy Trilogy #1

My rating: 6/10

First sentence: Once upon a time, I was a girl called Callie.

Callie LeRoux is choking on dust. It settles on the food in the kitchen. It seeps through the cracks in the hotel that Callie and her mother run in Kansas. It’s slowly filling her lungs. Callie’s begged her mother to leave their town, like their neighbors have already done, but her mother refuses. She’s waiting for Callie’s long-gone father to return.
Just as the biggest dust storm in history sweeps through the Midwest, Callie discovers her mother’s long-kept secret. Callie’s not just mixed race—she’s half fairy, too. Now, Callie’s fairy kin have found where she’s been hidden, and they’re coming for her.
While red dust engulf the prairie, magic unfolds around Callie. Buildings flicker from lush to shabby, and people aren’t what they seem. She catches glimpses of a tail, a wing, dark eyes full of stars. The only person Callie can trust may be Jack, the charming ex-bootlegger she helped break out of jail.
From the despair of the Dust Bowl to the hot jazz of Kansas City, from dance marathons to train yards, to the dangerous beauties of the fairy realm, Sarah Zettel creates a world rooted equally in American history and in magic, where two fairy clans war over a girl marked by prophecy.

Callie LeRoux hast two secrets. The one she knows is that her father is dark-skinned, which is why she isn’t allowed out in the sun too much. Her mother does her best to keep Callie’s skin as pale as possible. The second secret is that Callie is a half-fairy. The story starts out very well with Callie witnessing the biggest sandstorm ever, loses her mother in that storm, and returns to the hotel to find the Hoppers waiting to check into some rooms. That family rivals any thriller writer in creepiness. I guarantee chills down your spines when you read about the Hoppers, especially the children (why is it that children in horror movies are always the scariest things?).

When Callie meets Jack and decides to go and find her mother, he joins her on a journey through Kansas and the dust. They find out about Callie’s heritage as a half-fairy, about fairy politics (and real-world ones) and are on the run from one person or another throughout the rest of the book.

What I loved was how several strands of story are set up throughout the beginning, how side characters were introduced that pushed all of my mythology buttons, and how Callie and Jack are portrayed. I did have a huge problem placing them age-wise. Callie behaved like a 12-year-old but was treated more like a girl of 15 or even 16. Jack being described as “no older than Callie” didn’t help either. Goodreads tells me Callie is supposed to be 13 and that’s what I settled for. But it was not apparent through the writing and my brain wasn’t sure whether to picture a little girl or a young woman.

While I enjoyed the ideas and themes in Dust Girl, I was sad that they were left mostly unexplored. As for world-building, the author kind of wrote herself into corners. The magic is never really explained but it seems to follow no rules at all – a matter of taste, surely, but I like boundaries to my magic. Otherwise, the heroine is all-powerful and where’s the fun in reading about someone like that? Callie being mixed race should have had a much deeper impact on her life. After a few days on the run, being exposed to the hot desert sun, Callie’s skin grows visibly darker and she receives sidelong glances. It is mentioned but not really explored. So yes, racism exists, and it existed in the 1930s. But I was hoping for much more than a few throwaway remarks.

Sarah Zettel writes action really well. Callie and Jack stumble from one problem into the next, a repetition I didn’t mind because every time they were being hunted, I was on the edge of my seat, worrying for them and hoping they would get out of it. I expect that young adults will enjoy this book a lot because it is fast-moving and engaging and keeps things simple.

That simplicity is one of my qualms. I realize that, as an adult, this book was not written for me or my age-group. But all the best children’s fiction can be read by adults and enjoyed on a different level. Take Harry Potter or Terry Pratchett’s YA novels – children will mostly read for pure story, adults may choose to look deeper and find what additional levels the author has hidden in what only seems like a simple story. I was missing that element completely in Dust Girl.

Towards the end, I felt like the plot strings and world-building were a big fat mess. Not only does Callie not know whom to trust and what to do with her powers, the readers are left hanging as well. It is clear that this is the set-up for a trilogy or series because 90% of the story arcs introduced are left unresolved. The ending is rounded enough so you don’t want to throw the book against a wall and scream because you want to know what will happen next. But of all the strange things that happened to Callie, of all the things she has found out about herself, the Seelie and Unseelie people, where her mother and absentee father are, we don’t really get any answers.

This sounds a lot more negative than I actually felt about the story while reading it. It is competently written, was very engaging and fantastically creepy at times. For me, the style was a bit too child-like, the story a bit too messy in terms of structure, and while I did enjoy it and read it quickly, I was left feeling a little underwhelmed. I will pick up the second book and see where Callie’s story leads me but I’m in no hurry to do so.

THE GOOD: Great ideas, wonderfully creepy, a page-turner. Nicely atmospheric.
THE BAD: Plot strings get tangled, no clear rules for the magic-system, messy world-building. Unresolved ending.
THE VERDICT: Recommended for younger readers (11+) or as a quick read between meatier books. It’s not a highlight, but it was fun enough to keep reading.

RATING:  6/10   Good.

The American Fairy Trilogy:

1. Dust Girl
2. Golden Girl

Other reviews:

• Little Red Reviewer
• Bookshelf Bombshells
• Bunbury in the Stacks

Bennett Madison – September Girls

Neither cover nor synopsis would have convinced me of buying this book – our friendly neighbourhood Booksmugglers, however…. September Girls is surrounded by an interesting kind of buzz and seems to divide its readers into two rather extreme camps. On the one side, people call it incredibly sexist, and on the other, it is hailed as a wonderfully feminist book that examines gender roles and puts a spin on them. Wait, what?
This sounded like something I had to read myself, and boy, do I wish I hadn’t.

SEPTEMBER GIRLS
by Bennett Madison

Published by: Harper Teen, 2013
ISBN: 9780062201294
ebook: 352 pages
Standalone

My rating:  3/10

First sentence: The summer following the winter that my mother took off into something called Woemn’s Land for what I could only guess would be all eternity, my father decided that there was no choice but for him to quit his despised job and take me and my brother to the beach for at least the entire summer and possibly longer.

In September Girls, Sam is spending the summer in a beach town filled with beautiful blond girls who all seem inexplicably attracted to him. But that’s not the only reason why he thinks the Girls are strange. They only wear flats because heels make their feet bleed. They never go swimming in the water. And they all want something from him.
Sam finds himself in an unexpected summer romance when he falls for one of the Girls, DeeDee. But as they get closer, she pulls away without explanation. Sam knows that if he is going to win her back, he’ll have to learn the Girls’ secret.

Having spent the last few weeks with this book, the overwhelming feeling I get at the end of it is relief that it’s over. I actually made it through… at a few points, I didn’t think I would. This book begged to be thrown against a wall, then suddenly showed a spark of imagination, then wanted to hit the wall again.

Many people have said it all comes down to interpretation, and that is absolutely true. (Read the following quotes from the book and tell me how many ways there are of interpreting them, exactly…) Between the chapters told by Sam and the short chapters from the Girls’ point of view, there is a world of differences. Not only are the latter actually well-written, they do examine stereotypes and gender roles, and they do so without being blunt or preachy. Not so the rest of the story. Here’s the (spoiler-free) plot: Sam goes to the beach. Tons of gorgeous, yellow-haired beauties want him. He thinks about All The Things. The mystery – obvious to anyone who reads the first chapters with even the most fleeting attention – gets “revealed”. Sentimental end. Nothing’s changed for Sam.

Let’s take a look at the handful of characters we get to meet in this strange book.
Enter Jeff, Sam’s brother, with one of his smart ideas about the beach full of Barbies.

“Oh, who gives a fuck,” Jeff  said. “The point is they’re hot and they’re here. I just hope they’re already drunk when we get to the party. I hope they’re ready for a piece of this.” He groped his croch obnoxiously […]

Mmh… yes, I can hardly resist. But let’s not be too hard on Jeff – he’s actually alright (because silent) most of the time. Instead, please also look at Sebastian, Sam’s absent best friend, who is a particular brand of asshole:

Sebastian always advised me to ask questions when in doubt. “Girls like to talk about themselves. If you can’t think of anything to say, just ask some dumb questions about nothing, and if you’re lucky she’ll go off and you won’t have to say anything else for another ten minutes and she’ll think you’re a great listener.“

Apart from truly understanding women, Sebastian also would offer Sam this gem of wisdom. And don’t I love it when people use female genitals to describe a douchebag?

I actually thought about calling Sebastian for advice, but I could practically hear his voice: Wait, this is all over some girl? Don’t be such a fucking vagina, dude! I mean, dude! You go to the beach for a month and you turn into a human tampon.

Hell, even the women hate women. Here’s DeeDee talking about the bible:

“I like the parts about hos, even if they always come to a bad end. Eat a fucking apple, you’re a ho. Open a box, you’re a ho. Some guy looks at you: turn to stone, ho. See you later, ho. It’s always the same. The best one is Lilith – also a ho, but a different kind of ho. She went and got her own little thing going, and for that she gets to be an eternal demon queen, lucky her. No one likes a ho. Except when they do, which, obviously, is most of the time. Doesn’t make a difference; she always gets hers eventually.”

I understand that the author doesn’t share those views but created the characters to serve a purpose within the story. What that purpose is, other than to spit abuse at women, escapes me. Because 90% of the time, Sam swallows all the crap Jeff and Sebastian tell him, without reflection, without questioning it. In fact, he seems to think along the same lines, especially after his brother actually comes to care for Kristle, one of the girls (highlight by me):

After the brief initial foray into the subject of our insane mother, we were now pointedly avoiding all matters of substance, which included the topics of DeeDee, Dad, and Jeff’s recent queerification at the hands of Kristle.

Charming…

The remaining 10% of the time, he realises that DeeDee is not “a ho” and also not like all the other girls – because she is SPECIAL! The only regular (read: non-supernatural) woman to play any role in this ridiculous story is Sam’s mother who is basically the Evil Feminist who left her family all alone because she discovered Facebook and Farmville and stumbled across the SCUM manifesto – yeah, Sam seriously blames Farmville for his mother leaving. Because, remember this, people who read this book: Feminists are evil and will all leave their poor family to cook and clean for themselves!

She does come back but except for a few tattoos and a new passion for life, nothing much seems to have changed. I honestly don’t understand her part in the story. If there’s a lesson here, I don’t see it. If there is a message – feminist or otherwise – I didn’t catch it.

If we leave all of these issues aside (and trust me, it’s hard to do) and simply take a look at the story, we won’t find much. My best guess is that this is supposed to be Sam’s coming-of-age tale, not just because he loses his virginity but because there is nothing else here. Reading 300 pages about a rich white boy’s problems in a voice that rivals Holden Caulfield’s is not my idea of fun. The only thing left is the “mystery”. Sam and Jeff see a naked girl stumbling out of the sea on their first night at the beach. Then, DeeDee drops this line (as a Disney fan, I actually smirked):

“Look at this stuff,” DeeDee said. “Isn’t it neat?”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the Girls are. They are all thin and blonde and beautiful, and for some reason they all have their eye set on Sam. Well isn’t this a 17-year-old’s wet dream? But the suspense (which isn’t there) hinges on this being a mystery, a secret to be discovered. For two thirds of the book, Sam is clueless, and when all is finally revealed, it is as anticlimactic as you can imagine – excepting, of course, Sam’s actual climax because he finally gets to use his magical penis (and I’m not kidding, it is magical).

The bulk of the story is Sam’s thoughts about the world, his penis, the beach, the Girls, and his penis. A lot of people had issues with Sam thinking about masturbation or his penis. I had no problem with that, whatsoever. It’s sad if I have to explain this, but everybody masturbates. It is a natural, healthy thing to do and I totally get that – as a 17-year-old boy – Sam sometimes just has the urge to be alone so he can have a quiet moment with himself… so to speak. I also didn’t mind the cussing, but then I never do. What did bother me was the overall style of the language. If characters use “like” as a filler in dialogue, that’s fine and probably accurate. But please, don’t use it in descriptions!

There wasn’t like a whole thing or anything.

The same goes for everybody saying “dude” all the time. Do people really talk like that? Even without the “dudes”, the language just didn’t make sense. The pseudo-poetic blah-blah got on my nerves pretty quickly but when I stumble across things like this, it’s all over (highlight by me):

[…]from blond to blondest, all with full, glossy lips and eyes that floated an inch in front of their faces, suspended in deep pools of liquid liner.

What? Eyes that float in front of faces?? That’s not poetic, that is just dumb.

Why, if I hated the book that much, did I continue reading then? Because, every so often, between two chapters of Sam’s boring, douchebag ramblings, there were these special chapters. Chapters told from the point of view of the Girls. In these short interludes, they talk about beauty as the only weapon left to them, they talk about learning to make themselves fit into this world they were thrown into. These chapters are the only thing I interpreted as remotely feminist, and had this been a story written in that voice, with these characters, dealing with the issues at hand in that way, I would probably have loved the book. Sadly, we get Sam.

Like I said above, I am glad it’s over and I don’t have to deal with the bland, two-dimensional characters anymore. If this was supposed to be a romance, it failed. I cared about none of the characters – except in the Girls’ chapters, where I cared about all of them – and couldn’t get behind the sudden outburst of love. Sam doesn’t really grow much, even though he says he did, and still enjoys his friend Sebastian’s pick-up-artist level hate for women.

Ultimately, the question I have to ask myself is: Do the few well-written short chapters redeem the blatant sexism, misogyny, lack of plot, and flat, douchebag characters? The answer, for me at least, is no.

THE GOOD: The chapters in italics, told by the Girls.
THE BAD: Read what I wrote above and take your pick.
THE VERDICT: A waste of time and money. An incredibly boring, pretentious story that spews hate for women on almost every page.

RATING: 3/10 – Really bad.

Second opinions:

• Weird and Wonderful: “September Girls” by Bennett Madison (hellogiggles.com)
• Review: September Girls by Bennett Madison (gypsyreviews.com)
• Deconstructing September Girls with Bennett Madison (interview) (novelsounds.net)
  The author actually makes a lot of good points in this deconstruction/interview. I urge you to read it if you intend to pick this book up. What I take away from the interview is that Madison wanted to do great things with this novel. In my opinion, he simply failed in the execution.

Terry Pratchett – Nation

So… the blog is a bit Pratchett-heavy lately. The simple explanation is that I have finally discovered the man’s genius and my mood demands his particular mix of hilarious humor, social satire, and seriously clever, thought-provoking themes. There you have it! At this point, I’d read Pratchett’s shopping list, but because it is summer and I have a lot of his novels here (and unread), I went for the one with the prettiest and summeriest cover.

NATION
by Terry Pratchett

Published by: Doubleday, 2008
ISBN: 9780385613712
Hardcover: 410 pages
Standalone

My rating: 9/10

First sentence: Imo set out one day to catch some fish, but there was no sea.

Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He’s also completely alone – or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick which can make fire.
Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She’s certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship’s parrot.
As it happens, they are not alone for long. Other survivors start to arrive to take refuge on the island they all call the Nation and then raiders accompanied by murderous mutineers from the Sweet Judy. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things – including how to milk a pig and why spitting in beer is a good thing – and start to forge a new Nation.
As can be expected from Terry Pratchett, the master story-teller, this new children’s novel is both witty and wise, encompassing themes of death and nationhood, while being extremely funny. Mau’s ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone’s lives!

When Terry Pratchett says in interviews that he gets better with every book, he is not lying. He seems to pour his heart and soul into his fiction, and while the writing has always been good, it became nothing short of remarkable in these last few books I’ve read. Whatever else you may think of Sir Terry and his sense of humor, nobody can dispute that he is a master storyteller who truly understands people and translates real humans onto the page.

This book starts with a tragedy. Mau is in the middle of his manhood ritual – getting safely back home from the Boy’s Island – when the wave strikes. It is the biggest wave he has ever seen and he only survives because he is in a canoe when it hits him. The Boy’s Island? Gone. Mau returns to his home to find his entire tribe – the Nation – gone. The last survivor of his people, he sends their dead bodies to the sea and grieves. But there is another human on the island. Daphne, whose true name is Ermintrude (but who’d want to be called that?), survived the wave aboard the Sweet Judy, a ship now stranded on the island, and mostly in pieces. Mau and this strange, white ghost girl have to try and build up a new Nation, and new lives for themselves.

The culture clash is expected but deftly handled. Neither Mau’s gods nor Daphne’s prim manners are portrayed in a way that makes them seem superior. They have each grown up in their own culture and now they have to find a way to understand each other and question what they’ve been taught all their lives. For Daphne, it may begin with not wearing 7 layers of clothing and actually showing her naked toes to strangers (gasp), for Mau – ever since the wave wiped out his family – it is the Big Question. Do the gods really exist? And if they do, how could they have let this happen?
As they both struggle to come to terms with their beliefs and their loss, more survivors appear on the island and a new, albeit small, Nation comes alive.

There is so much beauty on these pages and I am not sure where to begin. Daphne and Mau are wonderful protagonists. Mau’s self-doubt – for he is not a boy but never went through the proper manhood ritual, so he believes himself to have no soul – and Daphne’s keen scientific mind are not really all that different. The themes in this book may be obvious, but the characters are still at the center of the story, and I continued reading as much for Mau and Daphne as I did for the valuable life lessons. Pratchett doesn’t hit you over the head with a hammer of science. In this alternate Pacific Ocean nation (and it is alternate), neither Daphne nor the author find Mau’s culture and belief to be ridiculous or primitive. Yes, Daphne likes proof for the supposed miracles she sees – such as poison turning into beer – but she takes Mau’s gods seriously. This is a wonderful story that shows that different isn’t inferior – and to wrap this message in a wonderful, emotional, and funny story is the best way to deliver it.

The characters are vivid and real, they have gone through something terrible and deal with the aftermath in their own way. Mau thinks about giving himself to the darkness, Daphne tries to act the brave, proper lady. But inside – and the reader knows this – they are hurting and wondering about the future. As they slowly build their lives on the island, ideas start popping up. I loved the protagonists most of all because they enjoy thinking and through that learn more about the world and about themselves.

Someone had to eat the first oyster, you know.
Someone looked at a half shell full of snot and was brave.

Little asides like this may at first strike you as comic relief, a little fun to lighten the serious tone. But the thing that struck me over and over was that, despite being funny, there is so much truth in it as well. That is how people evolve, that is how inventions are made – by somebody doing something seemingly stupid or crazy, being brave, and discovering something new about the world. And in working together, amazing things can be achieved – such as the construction of a new Nation, even if it is different from the one before.

Take one strip of the vine lengthwise and yes, it needs the strength of two men to pull it apart. But weave five strands of it into a rope and a hundred men can’t break it. The more they pull, the more it binds together and the stronger it becomes. That is the Nation

Any book, for me, is carried by its characters and their growth. Both Mau and Daphne go through immense changes, not only because of the wave but out of sheer necessity. Daphne’s courage in the face of tragedy goes to show just how much she has grown. When this young girl with a passion for science performs an amputation, even Mau is surprised.

“[…] Those captives were treated very badly.”
“And you’ve been sawing the bad bits off them?”
“It’s called surgery, thank you so very much! It’s not hard if I can find someone to hold the instruction manual open at the right page.”
“No! No, I don’t think it’s wrong!” said Mau quickly. “It’s just that… it’s you doing it. I thought you hated the sight of blood.”
“That’s why I try to stop it. […]”

I have a fondness for pratical people and maybe that is why Tiffany Aching speaks to me so much. One thing I’ll definitely take away from this is that Terry Pratchett is made of Magic. I hope he will continue to write for many, many years and share his wisdom about humanity with us, in the shape of fantastic stories, peopled by lovable, wonderful characters.

http://www.theartsdesk.com

Nation has also been adapted for the stage and while I’ll probably never get to see it, the pictures look beautiful. Of course the actors look much older than I picture the characters but I love how small details have been taken into account. On the right, Daphne – still rather proper in her dress – is wearing the grass skirt the Unknown Woman made for her. And Mau is trying out trousers in order to understand what makes trousermen so excited about them (turns out he’s quite fond of the pockets, if nothing much else).

This is marketed as one of Pratchett’s books for young people and while it definitely can be read by children and young adults, I believe it is even more suited to an adult readership. I remember, as a child, I read books for the pure pleasure of story. I didn’t care about messages, or the exploration of themes, or even world-building. I watched characters I liked do things that were interesting, and on that level, Nation succeeds. But it is the message that form the heart of this novel, it is the encouragement to think for yourself, and to go through the world with open eyes and an open mind.

THE GOOD: Wonderful characters who live through a sad but beautiful story. Brilliant exploration of serious themes with just a pinch of Pratchett’s trademark humor.
THE BAD: Takes a while to get into, some story elements (the Navy plotline) could have been left out.
BONUS: The filthy-mouthed parrot.
THE VERDICT: Highly recommended to Pratchett lovers or newcomers, to scientists and religious people, to those who have suffered through loss and pain, and those who are simply interested in a good story.

RATING:  9/10  – Beautiful. Close to perfection.

Second opinions:

• Fantasy Book Café
• Fantasy Book Critic
• Little Squeed

Terry Pratchett – I Shall Wear Midnight

This is it. Tiffany Aching’s story is over, at least for now. Terry Pratchett said in an interview that, were he ever to continue telling Tiffany Aching’s story, the next book would have to be an adult novel because Tiffany would be grown up. Now that’s a thought I like. That girl kicked ass when she was nine and picked up a frying pan, just imagine what she can do as a fully-grown witch…

I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT
by Terry Pratchett

Published in: Corgi Childrens, 2010
ISBN: 9780552555593
Paperback: 424 pages
Series: Tiffany Aching #4
Discworld #38

My rating: 9/10

First sentence: Why was it, Tiffany Aching wondered, that people liked noise so much?

It starts with whispers.
Then someone picks up a stone.
Finally, the fires begin.
When people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .
Tiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.
But someone or something is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.
Chilling drama combines with laugh-out-loud humor and searing insight as beloved and bestselling author Terry Pratchett tells the high-stakes story of a young witch who stands in the gap between good and evil.

The Discworld sub-series about the young apprentice witch Tiffany Aching has been consistently good, but was never more touching than in this final volume. As Tiffany grows older, so do the themes the author explores. Most striking, this book takes a very dark turn and recounts some of the more terrible things human beings are capable of doing. Tiffany, however, takes these things with her usual calm and the knowledge that she is doing the best she can, as any good witch would. While the first books can be put into children’s hands without second thoughts, there was one scene in particular in I Shall Wear Midnight that I found shocking, even as a grown-up. When a young girl, who is pregnant, is beaten by her father so violently that she loses the child, Tiffany is the one who will try to make things right. Or as right as they can be in such a situation. Clearly, being a witch of almost-sixteen means trodding darker territory than ever before.

In the way he does so well, Terry Pratchett manages to lift his readers’ moods by being absolutely hilarious. While I loved Tiffany’s visit to the actual Boffo, there were numerous moments that elicited chuckles, laughter, and sometimes hysterical giggling on my part. I feel like I’m repeating myself because, honestly, Pratchett does what he’s been doing for the last few books, and does it as well – if not better. While Discworld is a funny place, it is usually the little moments of wisdom, of bravery and kindness, that get to me and make these books so memorable.

And so, because nobody in the castle had ever been very enthusiastic about the dungeon, everybody had forgotten that it had a chimney. And that is why Tiffany looked up and saw, high above her, that little patch of blue which a prisoner calls the sky, but which she, as soon as it was dark enough, intended to call the exit.

I have talked a lot about Tiffany as a character and a rolemodel and someone I would want to be friends with if she were real (or I lived in Discworld). But, wonderful as she is, I must metion the side characters. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg only have a short cameo in this book. In their stead, we get to see a lot more or Roland and the lady Letitia (whose name is “halfway between a salad and a sneeze”) and her horrible snob of a mother. Just as I got comfortable hating certain characters and joining Tiffany in thinking nasty thoughts about them, Terry Pratchett reminded me that, despite their faults, these are still people with their own worries and dreams. Making every single character so very human that I can believe they are real (if only in my mind) is a feat that more authors should try to accomplish. Even characters we only see for one little scene get enough depth to make them three-dimensional.

As I said above, the plot is a lot more sinister than in the previous books. Tiffany is neither hunted by a hiver, nor wooed by the Wintersmith. Instead, she has a much creepier, and more dangerous, creature to deal with. A creature that brings out the worst in people and a perfect villain, if you ask me. I enjoyed seeing Tiffany do her regular witchy work, although it does require watching people die at times, or helping a young girl recover from a beating, but her trip to Ankh Morpork definitely added another layer of fun to it. Not only does she meet certain officers of the Watch and visit Boffo’s, but another familiar character from the early Discoworld books makes an appearance.

The last thing I want to mention is the romance. Or lack thereof. Or the turning-on-the-head of the non-existing romance. You know… Sir Terry takes tropes from fairytales and fantasy literature alike and shows Tiffany (and us readers) that tropes aren’t actually rules.

And Tiffany… went back in time, just for a second. But in that second she was a little girl again, reading the well-thumbed book of fairy stories that all her sisters had read before her. But she had seen what they had not seen; she had seen through it. It lied. no, well, not exactly lied, but told you truths that you did not want to know: that only blonde and blue-eyed girls could get the prince and wear the glittering crown. It was built into the world. Even worse, it was built into your hair colouring. Redheads and brunettes sometimes got more than a walk-on part in the land of story, but if all you had was a rather mousy shade of brown hair you were marked down to be a servant girl.

Terry Pratchett doesn’t just show us that this “rule” goes both ways (what if a blonde girl wants to be something other than a glittering princess?) but also that its bullshit. Young girls with mousy brown hair, take heart. The other trope that was clearly subverted is the love story, even the love triangle. Now Tiffany is not immune to jealousy but she is also a clever and resourceful girl who trusts her Second and Third thoughts when they tell her the difference between love and friendship.

I am truly sad that this wonderful journey is over and can only hope that Terry Pratchett writes another book about the coolest witch I’ve ever read about.

THE GOOD: Brilliant characters, hilarious moments, a strong heroine dealing with tough situations.
THE BAD: It’s the last one in the seires!
THE VERDICT: Still as highly recommended as three books ago. Tiffany has stolen my heart and I already long to go back to her universe, the Nac Mac Feegles and the witches. Although I like none of them half as much as I like Tiffany. These are the kinds of books I wish I could have read when I was little.

RATING: 9/10  – Close to perfection

The Tiffany Aching Series:

1. The Wee Free Men
2. A Hat Full of Sky
3. Wintersmith
4. I Shall Wear Midnight

Laini Taylor – Daughter of Smoke and Bone

I know, I know. My forays into recent YA fantasy have been mostly devastating (with the exception of Patrick Ness, who is awesome) and it seems that I keep falling for the same kind of hype. But Laini Taylor has been praised not only by voracious YA readers but by pretty much everyone, and I feel reluctant writing off a new (to me) writer just because the hype seems insincere (again). You know the feeling, right?

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE
by Laini Taylor

Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2011
ISBN: 0316192147
ebook: 391 pages
Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1

My rating: 2,5/10

First sentence: Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”; she speaks many languages–not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When one of the strangers–beautiful, haunted Akiva–fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Oh boy… it is at times like these that I am grateful I don’t have a lot of followers. Or at least not the kind of followers who will rip me apart for disliking a beloved book. Let’s do this! Karou is a young girl who goes to an art school in Prague. What her quirky best friend Zuzana doesn’t know is that Karou leads a second life. A life of running errands for the only family she has – a group of chimaera, monsters if you will, with bodies that are part human and part animal. Karou knows almost nothing about the chimaera or their magic which makes for a great premise and immediately drew me into the story. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t really focus on these interesting bits enough. Instead, she has other things in mind. Let me explain with this quote:

Karou was, simply, lovely. Creamy and leggy, with long azure hair and the eyes of a silent-movie star, she moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx. Beyond merely pretty, her face was vibrantly alive, her gaze always sparkling and luminous, and she had a birdlike way of cocking her head, her lips pressed together while her dark eyes danced, that hinted at secrets and mysteries.

This is worrying for two reasons. One, nobody is that perfect. Personally, I like my heroines flawed – physically as well as otherwise – and except for photoshopped supermodels, I have never seen a woman who could be described like this. I only quoted this one part, because it shows just how über-perfect Karou is and how clunky the language in which she is described. But there are numerous occasions on which Karou’s perfection is highlighted. Her ballet-dancer figure, her shiny hair. Every single girl and woman I know has in some way suffered because she didn’t fit the current beauty ideal. Having struggled with my own weight and a pimply face for quite a few years, I find it much easier to sympathise with protagonists who are in some way like me. Give her too bushy eyebrows, a potato nose, crooked front teeth – something to make her more realistic. I should also mention, that everyobdy in this book is of otherworldy beauty. I’ll grant that some of these characters actually are supernatural and I’ll forgive them their perfection, but with everybody being beautiful, the word just lost its meaning.

The second reason this paragraph struck me as awful was that this is a third person limited narrative. Meaning, we see and know only what Karou sees and knows. That is essential to the plot, because for the most part of the story, she is rather clueless. Then I read this paragraph and wonder how full of oneself a person has to be to describe herself in such a manner. Had another viewpoint character spotted her and thought these things, everything would be peachy, it would be his perception of her. The way it was done? Not ok. On a sidenote, the other viewpoint character does see her and describes her in equally flowery, cheesy language. So there you go.

Having gotten the author’s obsession with physical beauty out of the way, there were other things that rubbed me the wrong way.  As the story progresses, Karou stops thinking about her love life and starts thinking more about survival. But there is a clear line between her adventures concerning the chimaera world and Karou’s real world life. The latter never offers more than conversations about boys, idiotic stereotypical girl characters and – you guessed it – more talk about how beautiful everybody is. This became worse and worse, especially when the male romantic lead shows up. It was at that point that the writing took a terrible spin for wanna-be-poetic, but ended up being clunky and, a lot of times, illogical.

[…]when I saw her smile I wondered what it would be like to make her smile. I thought… I thought it would be like the discovery of smiling.

Apart from strange and not very elegant sentences like the one above, there are tons of continuity and logical mistakes in this book. Remember, this is third person limited. However, when we switch between the two protagonists, Akiva knows things that Karou only thought to herself in the last chapter, never said out loud. He has information that he couldn’t possibly have – unless he’s also a mind-reader. Frequently, you will find moments of head-jumping in the middle of a chapter. Generally, that’s ok. It is the inconsistency that bothered me. The author couldn’t make up her mind whether to use a third person limited or third person omniscient perspective. The fact that you never know what you’ll get in a given chapter is massively annoying.

But speaking of Akiva… oh boy. If you’re a Twilight fan, you will probably find him cute and strong and protective and whatnot, but let’s face it. He is 50 years old. He stalks Karou, watches her sleep, and – without warning, by the way – falls in love with her. Well, the only “warning” we get is that Karou is beautiful. That’s enough, right? Apart from being a creepy, old stalker who falls in love with a girl who could be his dauther, this felt wrong to me on so many levels. If at least there had been an actual romance, a getting to know each other and slowly falling in love, maybe (though probalby not) I wouldn’t feel so strongly about this. But it’s insta-love. And just because it is insta-love on second sight doesn’t change that fact. Karou is also most taken with Akiva’s beauty. At least people are equally shallow in this story – men are worthless if they don’t look pretty just the same way women are.
The bottom line is: A 17-year-old girl and a 50-year-old man fall in love because of how pretty they are. I am disgusted.

At pretty much the exact point the “romance” starts, Laini Taylor apparently decided to entirely drop all plot. Everything that we get to read in the second half of the book is how two impossibly beautiful people are in love after only a few minutes together. The last third was definitely the worst, though. Not only because the prose reaches levels of cheesiness that I thought were impossible but because the story is interrupted for flashbacks. Flashbacks that tell us – in minute and achingly boring detail – things we already know! In somewhat decent foreshadowing, we were given all the information we needed. But it seems that we get the prequel included in this first of a trilogy. Needless to say, it slowed down what was already a very loose plot to a standstill.

Let me mention the few things that were done well. In the first half of the book (this is vital, the second half is pure torture), the story was actually quite immersive, and hard to put down. It promised to show us a world of wonder, a world filled with monsters and dark magic – all of which was unceremoniously dropped for a lame romance between a child and an oldish man and for flashbacks with more gorgeous people telling each other how perfect they are.

Another thing I liked (again, only in the beginning) was Taylor’s sense of humor. Zuzana, who was mostly there for comic relief, always had something funny to say. Even Brimstone came up with the occasional chuckle-worthy sentence.

I don’t know many rules to live by,” he said. “But here’s one. It’s simple. Don’t put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles – drug or tattoo – and… no inessential penises, either.”

I could rant much more because this could have been a great book. If somebody had dared to tell the author to stay on track with the plot and to tune down the descriptions of beauty and flowery language a bit, it could have worked. This way, the book was just horrible. A fresh idea wasted on somebody who lacked either the will or help to execute it well.

THE GOOD: A great idea and a thrilling beginning.
THE BAD: Every character is of unnatural beauty, the language is clunky, there are logical mistakes galore, the romance is revolting, the plot gets dropped mid-book. Plus, cliffhanger (for those who care what happens).
THE VERDICT: Not recommended. Dear YA authors. Not every story needs a forced romance, especially between an old man and a teenage girl. Age is not just about how old you look, it is about experience and maturity. This was a pretty terrible book.

RATING: 2,5/10 – Terrible

Other reviews:

• Ten Things About… Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (tenthingsabout.wordpress.com)
• Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor; or, the Official Worldbuilding Committee (jennysbooks.wordpress.com)
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone ~ Laini Taylor (silkscreenviews.wordpress.com)
• Daughter of Smoke & Bone – Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #1) (nicsbookshelf.wordpress.com)

Terry Pratchett – Wee Free Men

It is official now. Discworld and I have become friends after all. I doubt I’ll ever become a big fan of the earlier Discworld books but ever since I started reading them at random, by pure whim, I have had nothing but fun in Terry Pratchett’s hilarious flat world.

THE WEE FREE MEN
by Terry Pratchett

Published by: Harper Collins, 2009 (2003)
ISBN: 0061975265
ebook: 375 pages
Series: Discworld #30
Tiffany Aching #1

My rating: 7,5/10

First sentence: Some things start before other things.

Up on the Wold, there’s a monster in the river and a headless horseman in the drive. And now Granny Aching has gone, there’s only young Tiffany Aching left to guard the boundaries. To stop . . . things getting through.

It’s her land. Her duty.

But it’s amazing how useful a horde of unruly pictsies can be – as long as they are pointed in the right direction and can stop fighting each other first . . .

Tiffany Aching is a practical, nine-year-old girl who has decided she would like to become a witch. Living on the Chalk, however, means herding sheep, making cheese and butter and – the one really bad thing – taking care of your useless and constantly sticky baby brother Wentworth. When Tiffany meets a scary creature in the stream and soon stands face to lack-of-face with a headless rider, she knows that things are afoot. Thankfully, the Nac Mac Feegle, little blue men in kilts and with a drinking problem, are there to help her wherever they can.

It is with utter charm and magic that Terry Pratchett allows us to enter Discworld once more. While Ankh-Morpork may be the center of the craziness, the Chalk made for a refreshing, rural setting and I couldn’t help but love Tiffany. A young girl who knows how to spell difficult words, how to cure ailments in sheep, and how to smack a monster over the head with a frying pan – she’s a heroine to my liking.

I found this book to be more obviously centered in the YA genre than The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents which is not to say that it is dumbed down in any way. I appreciate how Pratchett manages to keep the plot straight-forward (if not exaclty simple) and still respect his younger readers. He does not subscribe to the school of “that’s too hard for kids to understand”.

The main story arc is Tiffany’s little brother getting lost and her trying to get him back. However, there is so much more to discover. This book is about dreams and magic and believing in yourself. Tiffany does not rely on other people to help her, and she is not a perfect little person. There are moments of self-doubt, a lot of self-reflections (her Second and Third Thoughts take care of that) and realisations about life. All of that is wrapped in a fun adventure story with cursing, sort-of-Scottish blue men who are six inches tall and whose swords glow blue when there are lawyers nearby.

You know that you will laugh when you pick up a Discworld novel and this one is no exception. It was not laugh-out-loud funny on every page, some jokes are much subtler than others. I believe that any child will adore the Nac Mac Feegles for the hilarious creatures that they are. But there is enough for adults to get out of this to merit a read. References to fairy tales or pop culture may not be understood by every child but they will add a chuckle or two for (young) adults.

I must say, Maurice blew me away more but it is really not fair to compare the two. Tiffany Aching is an engaging, strong heroine and I look forward to her next adventure. Her character arc alone made this worthwile and I highly recommend it to fans of Discworld or even someone completely new to Pratchett’s world. If you don’t know where to start, the YA books are good choices. And trust me, you will not want to stop there.

THE GOOD: A fantastic protagonist, a lot of fun, crazy adventures and terrifying creatures. Not a single boring moment.
THE BAD: A bit confusing at times, especially when we enter dreams-within-dreams. Also, the toad should have been allowed to talk more.
THE VERDICT: A highly recommended (starter) novel of Discworld that introduces a character the likes of whom YA literature needs more.

RATING: 7,5/10 – Very, very good (leaning towards an 8)

The Tiffany Aching Series:

• The Wee Free Men
• A Hat Full of Sky
• Wintersmith
• I Shall Wear Midnight

Martha Wells – Emilie and the Hollow World

I planned to make the Books of the Raksura my first Martha Wells books because so many people have raved about them. But, as these things go, Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot’s YA imprint) offered e-ARCs of Wells’ young adult novel on NetGalley and I couldn’t resist.

EMILIE & THE HOLLOW WORLD
by Martha Wells

Published by: Strange Chemistry, April 2013
ISBN: 1908844507
ebook: 320 pages
Series: Emilie #1

My rating: 4,5/10

First sentence: Creeping along the docks in the dark, looking for the steamship Merry Bell, Emilie was starting to wonder if it might be better to just walk to Silk Harbor.

While running away from home for reasons that are eminently defensible, Emilie’s plans to stow away on the steamship Merry Bell and reach her cousin in the big city go awry, landing her on the wrong ship and at the beginning of a fantastic adventure.
Taken under the protection of Lady Marlende, Emilie learns that the crew hopes to use the aether currents and an experimental engine, and with the assistance of Lord Engal, journey to the interior of the planet in search of Marlende’s missing father.
With the ship damaged on arrival, they attempt to traverse the strange lands on their quest. But when evidence points to sabotage and they encounter the treacherous Lord Ivers, along with the strange race of the sea-lands, Emilie has to make some challenging decisions and take daring action if they are ever to reach the surface world again.

It is rare that I can’t make up my mind whether I liked or disliked a book. I suppose one emotion always outweighs the other and if you pinned me down I’d have to go with “rather disliked it”. Emilie and the Hollow World is a nod toward the wonderful Jules Verne adventures, discovering new worlds hidden within our own, meeting strange peoples and making new friends. The idea is wonderful and adding magic to it seems like a nice bonus. But there were many little things wrong with this book that add up to a rather unengaging reading experience.

It starts with a minor qualm – the protagonist’s age. Emilie is supposed to be 16 but from the get go, I though of her much more as a 12-year-old, maximum. She acts and speaks like a much younger person and if her age hadn’t been mentioned, I would have happily continued imagining a little girl. But the fact that we are told how old she is, bothered me. Emilie runs away from home, intending to buy passage on a ship. Instead, she realises she’s spent too much of her money on food, has to run away from people who suspect her of being a thief, and ends up as a stowaway on the Sovereign.

Of course, that much fancier ship has its own crew but just when they disocver Emilie, chaos ensues. I assumed the issues of her being a runaway and hiding on their ship would be talked about when the characters were out of immediate danger. But no, people just seem to take things the way they come without asking questions. The author seems to expect a bit too much suspension of desbelief here and while I am willing to believe pretty much anything for the sake of a good story, it needs to work within that story. This tale is set in a world that seems to believe in reason and science and rules. So it should strike somebody as odd that a young girl has run away from home, and even though Emilie explains her reasons, there were still two points that annoyed me. First of all, her reasons sound very good but unfortunately we are told them, never shown them. If the book had opened with Emilie suffering from her uncle and aunt’s treatment, her entire character would have been much stronger. Secondly, even if I accept that the ship’s crew feels empathy for Emilie and there’s not much to be done about her (now that she’s on the ship) it strikes me as very unlikely they would involve her so quickly and deeply into their venture and lay open all their plans. If anything, it would have been believable for her to become a kitchen maid on the ship to pay her passage and cleverly overhear these plans.

Once they arrive in the Hollow World – via aetheric engine (read: magic) – a lot of stuff happens but nothing of real consequence. Of course, there are things afoot that will have consequences for the people of the hollow world, but since they aren’t the main characters of this story, there was not much for me to engage with. At that point, the focus of the story shifts from Emlie to the politics of the Hollow World – since we don’t get enough time with any of the parties involved, I had a lot of trouble working up enough interest to keep reading. This not very thick novel took me a good two months to finish. It just lacked drive, after the initial action-packed moments with Emilie running away from home.

The characters, including Emilie, were flat and underdeveloped. There would have been so much potential for this young girl to realise she can take things into her own hands, that she doesn’t have to depend on other people. But Emilie comes out of this story pretty much the way she entered. The only exception to this was Kenar, the most interesting character in the entire book. Unfortunately, we get see very little of him in the second half, which made it even more tedious to read. Another problem I had with the characters was that there was no real bonding between them, despite being through quite a lot of adventures together. If the protagonist doesn’t seem to truly care about her companions, why should I? Again, we were told that they were sad to say goodbye, but we’re not shown why.

The bottom line for me is: Reading this book felt more like a job, something I had to do, instead of a story I couldn’t wait to get back to. Whenever I put it aside after half a chapter, it took a lot of willpower to pick it up again. A novel, especially a novel aimed at children, should at least get the entertainment factor right.

THE GOOD: A good premise and a nice tip of the hat to Jules Verne.
THE BAD: Emilie came over much too young, despite non-stop action, there is very little development or emotionally engaging moments.
THE VERDICT: It’s a gamble. Maybe if I were 10 years old I would have liked this book more. This way, it was neither horrible nor good. The few elements I enjoyed didn’t get enough screen time and most of the time, I didn’t care enough to pick the book up and continue reading. And I certainly won’t be back for more of this series. Wells’ other books though… probably.

RATING: 4,5/10 – Bad but not terrible

Other reviews:

• The Book Smugglers (4/10)
• Bunbury in the Stacks
• Cozy up with a Good Book