Category Archives: By Age Range

Review and Giveaway: Mistress of All Evil by Serena Valentino

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , , ,

I’m super excited to share this review of the fourth book in the Villains Series by Serena Valentino. Check out my thoughts and be sure to read to the end where you can enter to win the first four books in the series plus a branded mug that changes color in hot water. (Check it out in the prize pack picture below. It’s so cool.) Thanks to Disney-Hyperion for sending me a set of VILLAINS books, and for providing a prize pack!

Mistress of All Evil (Villains #4)
Serena Valentino
Disney Press
Published on October 3, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Mistress of All Evil
The tale is told as if it’s happening once upon a dream: the lovely maiden meets her handsome prince in the woods. The story has been told many times and in many ways. But always the maiden finds out that she is a princess-a princess who has been cursed by a dark fairy to prick her finger on a spindle and fall into an eternal sleep. Though her three good fairies try to protect her, the princess succumbs to the curse. But the power of good endures, as her true love defeats the fire-breathing dragon and awakens the princess with true love’s first kiss. The two live happily ever after.

And yet this is only half the story. So what of the dark fairy, Maleficent? Why does she curse the innocent princess? What led to her becoming so filled with malice, anger, and hatred? Many tales have tried to explain her motives. Here is one account, pulled down from the many passed down through the ages. It is a tale of love and betrayal, of magic and reveries. It is a tale of the Mistress of All Evil.

My Review
The book started out a little rough for me. It introduced a lot of characters I wasn’t familiar with who I think feature in earlier books in the series. So if I’d read from the beginning, I probably would have had a better frame of reference. Without that, it took me a while to figure out who the odd sisters and Circe were and why they were significant to the story.

The other tricky thing for me was that at times the story jumped around a bit, and I wasn’t always sure I followed what was happening. At one point the story references Princess Tulip as (I think?) Aurora’s daughter and I didn’t understand how that could be. Probably I misunderstood the reference or it’s better explained in an earlier book in the series.

Once I got my bearings, I enjoyed the way the book explained some of Maleficent’s history and wove together the stories of other villains in other fairy tales. That definitely made me want to read the rest of the series. In fact, a couple of times I almost put down Mistress of All Evil in order to go back and get the full backstory on some of the other fairytales. I especially found the story behind Snow White and her relationship with her stepmother compelling. Totally have to add that to my reading list now.

On the whole, I found the concept for the series pretty cool. I liked that it went above and beyond the facts and elements present in the familiar Disney fairy tales to create a larger whole story world connecting them all. I’d recommend starting with the first book in the series if you can, just so you don’t have the confusion I had at the beginning. I think especially younger readers would find that off-putting. Fans of Jennifer Donnelly’s Deep Blue should check out this series.

Recommended for Ages 9 to 12.

Cultural Elements
As in the fairy tale movie, it seems like most of the characters are white. Maleficent, as in the movie, has greenish skin, though here it changes color with her mood.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Infrequent use of mild profanity.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief references to kissing, marriage, or betrothal between a prince and princess.

Spiritual Content
Maleficent grew up in Fairyland with lots of other fairies, like Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother, the three good fairies who protect Princess Aurora, and the Blue Fairy who guides Pinocchio.

Several reference to nameless gods. Maleficent finds a ruined castle which she learns was once the home of the god Hades. She never meets him but hears about him from her goons, creatures who were once his servants.

Violent Content
Brief descriptions of Ursula’s death and the battle between Maleficent (as a dragon) and the prince who wants to rescue Princess Aurora.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

About Serena Valentino

Website | Facebook |Twitter

Serena Valentino has been weaving tales that combine mythos and guile for the past decade. She has earned critical acclaim in both the comic and horror domains, where she is known for her unique style of storytelling, bringing her readers into exquisitely frightening worlds filled with terror, beauty, and extraordinary protagonists. The books in her best-selling Villains series are best enjoyed when read in the following order: Fairest of All, The Beast Within, Poor Unfortunate Soul, and Mistress of All Evil.

About the Villains Series

The Disney Villains series by Serena Valentino explores how the antagonists in Disney movies became some of storytelling’s most iconic villains. In the first four Villains books, we see how the Evil Queen, the Beast, Ursula, and Maleficent fall into darkness, through the instigation of the mysterious Odd Sisters: Lucinda, Martha, and Ruby.

Enter to Win the Villains Prize Pack

One winner receives a copy of the first four books in the Villains series and a branded mug that changes color in hot water. Giveaway open to US addresses only. Prizing and samples provided by Disney-Hyperion.

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Review: Ungifted by Gordon Korman

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , ,

Ungifted
Gordon Korman
Balzer + Bray
Published on August 21, 2012

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About Ungifted
The word gifted has never been applied to a kid like Donovan Curtis. It’s usually more like Don’t try this at home. So when the troublemaker pulls a major prank at his middle school, he thinks he’s finally gone too far. But thanks to a mix-up by one of the administrators, instead of getting in trouble, Donovan is sent to the Academy of Scholastic Distinction (ASD), a special program for gifted and talented students.

It wasn’t exactly what Donovan had intended, but there couldn’t be a more perfect hideout for someone like him. That is, if he can manage to fool people whose IQs are above genius level. And that becomes harder and harder as the students and teachers of ASD grow to realize that Donovan may not be good at math or science (or just about anything). But after an ongoing experiment with a live human (sister), an unforgettably dramatic middle-school dance, and the most astonishing come-from-behind robot victory ever, Donovan shows that his gifts might be exactly what the ASD students never knew they needed.

My Review
The opening chapter of Ungifted was one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. I was immediately drawn in to Donovan’s frank humor and way of viewing the world around him (despite its sometimes disastrous consequences!). I’m not a huge fan of adult point-of-view scenes in children’s literature. Ungifted contains a few of those, but not too many. I still kind of wish they’d been left out. I found the kids’ viewpoints much more interesting and entertaining.

I liked how each character had a distinct voice and a story which contributed to the overall whole. I thought the positive view of science was great and the parts about the robotics competition were super cool. The tone and quick pacing make this book a great choice for reluctant readers as well as those interested in science and robotics. Highly recommended.

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Cultural Elements
Main characters appear to be white. I think some other races are represented in minor characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
One of the boys uses a wrestling move he learned on YouTube to attack a couple of bullies trying to break the gifted students’ robot.

Drug Content
None.

Review: Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Once Was Lost
Sara Zarr
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published on October 1, 2009

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About Once Was Lost
Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. But her mother is in rehab, and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. And when a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, her already-worn thread of faith begins to unravel.

Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. She used to believe in a lot of things. As a pastor’s kid, it’s hard not to buy in to the idea of the perfect family, a loving God, and amazing grace. But lately, Sam has a lot of reason to doubt. Her mother lands in rehab after a DUI and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. When a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, the local tragedy overlaps with Sam’s personal one, and the already-worn thread of faith holding her together begins to unravel.

In her third novel, acclaimed author Sara Zarr examines the coexistence of affliction and hope, and what happens when everything you thought you believed—about God, about your family, about yourself—is transformed.

My Review
Once Was Lost has been on my reading list for years. I kind of have no excuse for taking so long to get to it, because it’s not a long book, and it’s exactly the kind of story I love—someone in a difficult place desperately trying to do the right thing anyway. I loved that about Sam. She makes some choices that get her into trouble, but I never doubted that her heart was good and never wavered in wanting to know how her story ended.

Perhaps it’s a little unexpected to find a book in mainstream literature with such strong spiritual themes. I loved the way Zarr handled the descriptions of the small town and the church people. She made them real and gave them real problems without vilifying them. I also loved the way she let us into Sam’s struggles about her faith and her disappointment about what youth group was like. Sam expected this joyous, close-knit community, and instead, she felt distant from the other participants. That war between appearances and genuine connection totally resonated with me thinking back to my own youth group days. It felt so very right on.

All in all, I loved this book. I think it’s a great read for Christian kids who may be facing the same kinds of struggles Sam is but also for kids who don’t share Sam’s upbringing or faith. It’s a great window into what church life can be like with its ups and downs. And ultimately, this story is about self-discovery and personal growth and healing. You don’t need to have faith for those messages to matter. I highly recommend this one.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white. The story takes place in a small California town.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
One instance of mild profanity.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing between a boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
As pastor’s daughter, Sam and her family feel a lot of pressure to behave in certain ways. Sam feels like she can’t be honest about doubts she’s having, and when others have significant spiritual experiences, they expect her to be as thrilled about them as they are. Sam wrestles with her faith in a genuine, sensitive way. The church is depicted as a group of well-meaning, even if sometimes hurtful, people. While Sam’s faith isn’t the focal point of the story, her wrestling with doubts does have a meaningful resolution.

Violent Content
While Jody is missing, people speculate about what may have happened to her. The story doesn’t give any details about what goes on during her captivity, but it obviously traumatized her.

Drug Content
Sam’s mom spends much of the book in a rehab program for alcoholics. Sam remembers different events where her mom’s alcoholism interfered with family life or caused other problems. Sam knows her two best friends have gone out with other kids to have a beer at a party, but she’s never invited along, and they don’t tell her about it directly.

 

Review: Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Love and First Sight
Josh Sundquist
Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Published January 3rd, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Love and First Sight

Love is more than meets the eye.

On his first day at a new school, blind sixteen-year-old Will Porter accidentally groped a girl on the stairs, sat on another student in the cafeteria, and somehow drove a classmate to tears. High school can only go up from here, right?

As Will starts to find his footing, he develops a crush on a sweet but shy girl named Cecily. And despite his fear that having a girlfriend will make him inherently dependent on someone sighted, the two of them grow closer and closer. Then an unprecedented opportunity arises: an experimental surgery that could give Will eyesight for the first time in his life. But learning to see is more difficult than Will ever imagined, and he soon discovers that the sighted world has been keeping secrets. It turns out Cecily doesn’t meet traditional definitions of beauty—in fact, everything he’d heard about her appearance was a lie engineered by their so-called friends to get the two of them together. Does it matter what Cecily looks like? No, not really. But then why does Will feel so betrayed?

My Review

Love and First Sight was a fast read for me. I loved getting to view the world through Will’s senses, and get a feeling for what it might be like to be blind from birth. It was amazing how the author described Will’s surroundings and how his day went without ever using sight vocabulary. And when Will eventually gains eyesight, it blew my mind to discover how much of sight we take for granted–for example, learning depth perception and perspective, or what colors are. It was such a unique perspective to read from, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Another aspect of the book I liked was how Will viewed concepts like racism, or beauty. When Will finally gets to see his African-American friend for the first time, he comments that “for all the attention race gets, for all the wars that have been fought over it, all the atrocities committed and hatred based on differences in skin tone over the centuries of human history, I would honestly have expected something…more. The contrast is obvious, yes, but the difference is marginal….What’s the fuss about?” He had similar views about beauty, commenting on how silly it is we base our idea of beauty on the changeable opinion of society.

All in all, I thought Love and First Sight was a great read. While I felt like it did lack a bit of character development, it tackled some issues that are especially relevant to YA readers, and carried them off beautifully. I’m rating this book 4 out of 5 stars (minus 1 for some inappropriate jokes), and recommending it to fans of Kasie West and Amy Clipston.


Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Most of the characters are described as white. Whitford is African-American. Cecily has a birthmark on her face that most consider to be disfiguring. Will is blind for the first part of the book.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
A character curses once, but the actual words are not given. Characters say “Oh my God!”

Romance/Sexual Content
One kiss, not described in depth. Jokes about homosexuality, and both male and female body parts. Some pictures the characters run across are described as being X-rated. Will accidentally gropes a girl. 

Spiritual Content
Brief joke about a chicken nugget resembling Jesus.

Violent Content
Will tries to defend someone by beating up a bully, but ends up hurting himself instead. Will breaks stuff and punches things in his bedroom in a fit of a despair.

Drug Content
Anesthesia and immunosuppressant drugs are used.

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Review: Here Lies Daniel Tate by Cristin Terrill

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Here Lies Daniel Tate
Cristin Terrill
Simon & Schuster
Published on June 6, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Here Lies Daniel Tate
When ten-year-old Daniel Tate went missing from one of California’s most elite communities, he left no trace. He simply vanished.

Six years later, when he resurfaces on a snowy street in Vancouver, he’s no longer the same boy. His sandy hair is darker, the freckles are gone, and he’s initially too traumatized to speak, but he’s alive. His overjoyed family brings him home to a world of luxury and comfort he can barely remember. In time, they assure him, he’ll recover his memories; all that matters now is they’re together again.

It’s perfect. A miracle. Except for one thing.

He isn’t Daniel Tate.

He’s a petty con artist who accidentally stumbled into the scam of a lifetime, and he soon learns he’s not the only one in the Tate household with something to hide. The family has as many secrets as they have millions in the bank, and one of them might be ready to kill to keep the worst one buried.

My Review
The premise of this book pretty much hooked me before I even had a chance to read a word. I’d read another book a little bit like this, but not from the point-of-view of the kidnapping victim, so I was really interested to see a story told from inside that person’s mind, as Daniel’s is.

Daniel warns us right off the bat that he’s a liar, and yet I kept getting sucked into believing everything he said. I felt like the tug-of-war balance between those two ideas made this one of the most unique books I’ve ever read. I love unreliable narrators, but I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything where the narrator leads so point-blank with the fact that he’s a liar.

I liked the way the story messed with his emotions, too. In the beginning, he only wants to survive, but as he gets to know the family, he finds himself invested in relationships with them and even contemplating staying long-term and living as Daniel.

The end was strange. I won’t give it away, and I feel like considering the premise, I shouldn’t have been as surprised by it. I don’t know. I liked that it left a lot of questions unanswered—Daniel’s character seemed incapable of anything else—but it also confused me. Did the family ever get any kind of justice? It seemed like the party most responsible kind of got off without consequence.

On the whole, I’m really glad I read the book. I loved Terrill’s debut, All Our Yesterdays, and was really excited about another suspenseful story from her. I got a lot of what I hoped for, even if the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I wished for.

If you liked The Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride or Lost and Found by Cat Clarke, you will want to grab a copy of Here Lies Daniel Tate.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Daniel and his family are a white, upper class group. He meets and is attracted to an Asian girl at school named Ren. Daniel’s brother Nicholas is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used frequently. I think because of the emotional intensity of some of the scenes, the swearing feels a little more prevalent than it actually is.

Romance/Sexual Content
A couple instances of kissing between a boy and girl. In one scene it’s unclear how far the romance progresses—it begins with kissing and jumps to later, when the couple is curled in bed watching a movie (apparently still clothed).

A couple scenes show Nicholas and his boyfriend briefly kiss on the mouth.

A reference to an incest relationship.

Spiritual Content
The closest instance is the fact that the protagonist, who poses as Daniel, sometimes feels guilty thinking about how the actual Daniel, who is likely dead, might feel about the imposter taking over his life.

Violent Content
Daniel learns that one member of his family has a violent past. He ends up in a violent altercation with one family member. Someone is shot, perhaps fatally.

Drug Content
Jessica Tate is an alcoholic who sometimes drives drunk. Lex drinks wine and has a history of addiction to pills. Ren tells Daniel about her cousin’s pot-smoking habit. He also hears rumors that Patrick used to sell pot at school.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

 

Review: The Prince Warriors by Priscilla Shirer with Gina Detwiler

Book Review and Content, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , ,

The Prince Warriors (The Prince Warriors #1)
Priscilla Shirer with Gina Detwiler
Broadman & Holman Publishers
Published on April 27, 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About The Prince Warriors
The battle is real.

As brothers, Xavier and Evan are used to battling each other. But now they’re discovering that there is a much bigger battle going on all around them. And it’s their turn to fight. Based on Ephesians 6:10–18, The Prince Warriors is the first book in Priscilla Shirer’s epic new series that brings to life the invisible struggle ensuing in the spiritual realm. Xavier, Evan, and their friends have typical lives until they enter a mysterious land called Ahoratos. There they meet their guide, Ruwach, who offers wisdom and direction as the kids’ initial adventure begins—an adventure filled with armor and danger and a very real enemy.

Written by New York Times Best-Selling author Priscilla Shirer, The Prince Warriors series was created for middle-grade readers and will include the fiction trilogy as well as Unseen: The 365 Prince Warriors Devotional and the Unseen app.

My Review
I liked the imaginative way the author used elements of the story to talk about spiritual warfare. I also thought it worked well to have a cast of four central characters on the quest. Brianna was my favorite, and her relationship with Levi might have been one of my favorite parts of the story.

The plot pacing was a little strange for me. The last part of this three-part book felt more like the beginning of a new quest rather than a conclusion to the story as a whole. That said, I liked the setup for future novels and the way that even though an adult becomes involved, the kids have to solve their own problems through the course of the story.

The Prince Warriors will probably appeal most to younger middle grade readers who enjoy doorway to fantasy type books. Fans of Jaimie Engle’s Clifton Chase and the Arrow of Light will probably enjoy this series.

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Cultural Elements
No racial details given in the story.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
When characters step into the world of Ahoratos, they put on armor which has some magical abilities as well as protects them from enemies. They encounter evil creatures (metal monsters and poisonous butterflies for example) and fight them using the wisdom from Ruwach and their armor.

Ruwach shares some scriptures with them as wisdom for battle. The scriptures aren’t identified by biblical reference, but some will be recognizable. The kids learn Ahoratos has been created by the Source (which seems to be a reference to God) and they must fight an enemy who opposes them and will try to capture them.

These elements create a parallel for Christian spiritual warfare without direct explanation or reference to the bible.

Violent Content
Battle scenes contain no gore or fatalities.

Drug Content
None.