Book Review: The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer

Prior to this I had not read anything by Nancy Farmer, although I do own the multiple-award-winning The House of the Scorpion. I'll probably read that soon enough. I listened to this one as a Recorded Books audio production, read by Gerard Doyle.

The plot: After being captured by berserkers from the north in the late 700's A.D., Jack and his young sister Lucy are forced on a journey to meet the terrible Queen Frith and her husband, King Ivar the Boneless (who was a real person). Jack attempts to sing her an epic song of praise but accidentally curses the queen and makes her hair fall out. In exchange for his life, Jack agrees to embark upon an extremely dangerous journey to Jotunheim, the fabled land of trolls, dragons, enormous spiders, and deadly magic. If he returns within a certain amount of time, Frith will spare his life as well as that of Lucy, whom she intends to sacrifice to the goddess Freya when Jack fails to return.

The book never gets dull for a second, and is filled with mythical things and references to the saga of Beowulf and to that of Sigurd. The writing is very good and it is truly fascinating. I particularly like the scene at Yggdrasil, which I seem to recall from Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. It had something similar, if not that, but I think it was Yggdrasil. The means of obtaining water from Mimir's Well reminded me a bit of the Fountain of Youth in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - but this book came out in 2004, I believe, and so before Pirates. I won't spoil why - you'd have to read it! But this book was a hit with me, and I believe it has two sequels. I ought to read them as well.

Great book, but for now I'm not giving letter grades, maybe never again: They remind me of public school, I tend to change my mind a lot, and they are too technical, for lack of a better word. I think I'm done with those, so look to my Shelfari or my Goodreads.

60-Page Reviews: Ditched: A Love Story by Robin Mellom

What can I say? I think the title says loud and clear that this book sucks. I actually read significantly more than sixty pages, but I was just trying to read the whole thing so that I might make fun of it more easily. But alas, my life is time-crunched, both in and out of book club. Thus I found it prudent to stop this bloody awful novel and promptly did so.

While I may not be an expert on determining prose quality (I know, I know), the writing here felt very loose and awkward. Certainly not eloquent like Mary Shelley or, say, Jenny Hubbard. The story was dull enough (just an air-headed girl fussing about boys and kisses), but what drove me bleedin' bonky was the narrator, Justina Griffith. She just struck me as a tease, kissing boys and then running off to kiss other boys. At one point someone says Justina seems to consider kissing some kind of chore and she replies (paraphrased), "No, more of a sport." Plus the humor relied heavily on randomness - not the good kind one finds in the works of Lewis Carroll or Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett - just oddness. Random humor, in my opinion, has to be carefully executed or else we have an effect akin to that of a slasher movie claiming to be horror.

I tried not to judge this book by its cover and subject, but garsh, does it suck! Neeext!

Final grade: F

60 Page Review: What Boys Really Want by Pete Hautman

At the end of the 2012 Melinda Awards, there was a "galley grab," in which we teens all fell upon the past year's unpublished proofs like piranhas on a bleeding cow. The cow somehow fell into the river. Anyway, after the aforementioned grab, the cart of books for 2012 was opened to us and this was the one thing I took at the time. To quote myself, "It [looked] like a great book...to throw off the list [of potential winners]." We tend to weed things out rather quickly; only the best of books (in a majority's opinion) make it through to the very end. And this had a ridiculous title, so I grabbed it with the intention of landing it in the Chair of Shame.

The writing was below average but not awful. It's mostly the sexism, for which the term "blatant" would be an understatement. I mean, just look at the title! Not all boys want the same thing, nor do all girls, nor does any other gender. It was chock-full of "That's a girl thing" and "Only a guy would do that" and such. Mind you, this isn't a super-bomb like Vampire Crush, but Hautman certainly isn't quite a Jo Rowling, a Suzanne Collins, or a Holly Black. He's no John Green, no David Levithan, no Jenny Hubbard. What I'm saying is that there are so many superb writers out there, and so many more mediocre ones, that I generally read only the best of things. I also do 60 Page Reviews, but - at least for the moment - I read precisely sixty of the pages before putting things down.

And trust me, I'm pretty damn good at judging books by their covers. Of course, there's a process of getting into a non-60-Page-Review book:

• Look at the cover and title, or spine if shelved
• Look at the summary
• Read the first page or flip to a random page and determine the writing quality
• Make a judgment: to read or not to read?

This book struck me as slightly below average and not worth a good deal of my time. I recently secured its return to the Printz cart and signed it back in for some other poor, brave soul to read.

Final grade: D

Book Review: The Summer of May by Cecelia Galante

At my Mock Printz book club a few sessions back, we were each assigned a Book of Fate in order to clear those which needed to be read and reviewed. Some sounded absolutely atrocious; I was spared that...to a degree.

PLOT. May's mother left years ago, and now her family and life seem to be falling apart. She gets into trouble 24/7 at school, and her father is verbally (and physically, as it later turns out) abusive. After she sprays graffiti on her English teacher's board (and somehow thinks not to be caught), she is faced with either expulsion or one-on-one summer school with the same teacher. She chooses the latter and finds that the teacher has an interesting past.

The writing, while not beautiful, was good, and I liked the teacher (Miss Movado). I did not care for May's character at all; she whined a lot (not quite Bella Swan, but still annoying) and seemed malcontent. She continued to refer to her teacher as Movado the Avocado, due to Movado's squat form and green attire, despite the many kind things which the lady did for her. She was basically impossible to please: for example, Miss Movado took her to a restaurant - which she really didn't have to do, especially after what May did during the school year - and May complained about the food, the seat, you get the idea. Show some gratitude, you little brat! In the end you're supposed to end up liking the father (or at least, that was my impression), but I see no excuse for the way he treated his daughter - even though I understand his being unhappy with her. What I liked was Miss Movado's back-story, which ties in with the mother thing. Bit of a spoiler, but it says that in the front cover anyway.

I somewhat enjoyed The Summer of May, but I would not nominate it for an award (and I didn't), and I wouldn't read it time and time again.

Final grade: C

Slaying and Butchering

Slaying vampires is freaking awesome. Butchering their concept is not. What has happened to media!? It might have started with Twilight, my all-time least favorite book, but now they have an entire section at the bookstore devoted to paranormal romance. And now, apparently, there is paranormal erotica. If Count Dracula were still undead, he'd bite garlic, stake himself, or maybe run into daylight. And I'm sure Bram Stoker is spinning in his grave.

I think I'll do a numerical list:

1. They do not bloody sparkle! That is the least menacing thing ever.
2. Don't date them! They will bite you and have you drink their blood in exchange! Eek!
3. Why are they made out to be sexually attractive? If I fell in love, I'd prefer my partner to be, well, alive. Ugh.
4. You YA romance writers are crowding out most chances of us actual fantasy and/or horror writers publishing vampire stories. It's become a cliche and horror publishers are apt to assume that we are writing about fairies as opposed to bloodsucking demons.
5. What ever happened to the awesome backstories? Satan, the Reaper, werewolves, snakes, bats, crows and ravens, underworld, Hell, necromancy, wolves, spiders, rats, mist, smoke, curses, and so on? Now they are just overdone humans.
6. As a continuation of #5, where did the scary go? The only reason Edward makes me shiver is that he watches Bella sleep, and teenage girls find it acceptable. Vampires, nosferatus, used to be an emblem of terror. Watch Dracula or Salem's Lot (both the 1979 versions - year of vampires?) and you'll see what I mean. Undead Mina approaching her father under the cemetery and saying "Papa?" (Dracula) and demonic Danny Glick tapping on Mark Petries window (Salem's Lot) are both spine-chilling. The books of both are even better, although I loved the appearance of Kurt Barlow (Salem's Lot master vampire) ,and Count Dracula's ability to crawl down walls was beyond really cool.
7. Werewolves. I actually thought the ones in the New Moon film were pretty cool, although I have no plans to read it, and I don't consider the wolves to be "were-". They are supposed to change at the full moon, not by will, and they become a wild beast instead of fully-in-control teddy bears. If you want good werewolf movies, watch any Wolf Man film (I've seen the newest one and half the 1941 version), The American Werewolf in London, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, or Van Helsing - VH is not a perfect film critically speaking, but the vampires are really cool, as are the werewolves. It's a fun watch. And it also has the Frankenstein monster and Mr. Hyde - a bit of a mash-up of horror beasts.

I suppose that is all. I have school tomorrow and this is my third post tonight, so I'd better hit the hay!

Long (unlive?) the true meaning of necromancy and vampirism! Sanguis bibimus! Ave Draculea!

Living, breathing love from,

Lewis

Book Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry

I should have read this for eighth grade, but shall we say complications arose and I did not. Most of my friends seem to have read it. I read Number the Stars by Lowry a year or two back and it was decent, but I prefer this. I saw Ms. Lowry at the bookstore once but did not meet her; she seemed nice, though.

So I listened to the audio book - four discs, narrated by Ron Rifkin. It's about a Utopian society which doesn't seem so bad until further along, but there's a lot of spoiler traps here. Let's just say the protagonist, Jonas, is selected to be the new Receiver, onto whom the Giver bestows memories. He finds out that the world has sort of stopped, that they are no longer moving forward due to fearful contentment. And that the authorities do awful things and lie about them to please people. (Personally I'd rather be upset and knowledgeable than ignorant and happy, dependably.)

I didn't agree with what Jonas does at the end (literally runs away - I'd have him rebel), so that's minus a star. I know there are some "companion" books, so maybe I'll look at them. They are Gathering Blue and Messenger, the latter of which I also have as an audio file. I did rather enjoy this book. Took me long enough.

Final grade: B

Book Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

This book came out before I started it, but I took the galley (uncorrected proof) from Printz and read it. I loved it.

The plot revolves around sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery, who lives in a not-too distant future in which a medical accident causes males to die at age twenty-five and females at twenty. And young women and girls are being snatched off the streets and sold as wives to polygamous mansions. Rhine is kidnapped and ends up with three other brides at the estate of Vaughn Ashby and his son Linden. And she plans to escape.

The prose was quite clear in this, and reminded me of that of The Hunger Games - not in a copious way, but in the sense that they are both well-written and both first-person present-tense. The story was clever, I thought, and I felt for Rhine throughout. I liked how she kept trying to escape and failing, or rather, how convinced I was she'd make it each time. Some really good methods, but you'll have to read the book to see that...and whether she escapes at all by the end. But this is the first of a series (the Chemical Garden trilogy), and I'll definitely want to see what happens next.

Final grade: A