Category Archives: Fantasy

Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , ,

Catching Fire by Suzanne CollinsCatching Fire
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic Press
Published on September 1, 2009

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Catching Fire
Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol – a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she’s afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she’s not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol’s cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

My Review
I feel like The Hunger Games is a hard act to follow. In that first book, the whole idea of the Arena, the districts and Capitol were so stark and fresh. In Catching Fire, we already acclimated to the brutality and high stakes of Katniss’s world. So only the plot events can be fresh and new.

I thought the characters, in particular the other victors, added a lot to the story. They were very different from each other and different than the tributes Katniss faced in the Arena in The Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta’s complementary strengths carry into this book, too. His love for her and his savviness with understanding emotions and motives, which Katniss is pretty much blind to, and her ability to solve puzzles and survive dictate their ability to survive the traps the Capitol sets for them. It also makes them a great couple, even if Katniss stays a bit slow to realize what her true feelings are regarding Peeta and Gale.

Side note: I’ve never liked those names—Peeta and Gale. They both seem kind of feminine to me. The names, not the characters. But it has never bothered me enough to interfere with my ability to read and enjoy the books.

In the first book, Katniss uses physical strength to survive the Arena. Here, she has to rely more on her ability to solve puzzles and choose the right allies. I liked the message, again, that violence isn’t the answer. That instead, cleverness and unity can destroy a powerful enemy.

I’ve listened to Catching Fire as an audiobook at least twice, but I think more often than that. I feel like it’s rare for me to find a dystopian series that I like all the way through where the story, characters, and premise all have equal weight and draw. This one probably tops that list for me. Right up there with Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Central characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Katniss and Peeta spend nights together sleeping and comforting one another through nightmares. No sexual contact. At one point Peeta claims he and Katniss have married in secret and she’s pregnant.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Tributes fight in the arena, killing one another. Some brief, graphic descriptions.

Drug Content
Haymitch spends a lot of time drunk. Katniss and Peeta both squirrel away some liquor for him in case there’s ever a shortage (since it’s against the law to make or sell), which is a pretty enabling thing to do. After receiving some terrible news, Katniss drinks some of the liquor with Haymitch and gets pretty drunk herself.

 

Review and Blog Tour: Winter Glass by Lexa Hillyer

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

Yay! I’m so excited to be part of the Winter Glass Blog Tour (Thank you for the invitation, Glasstown Entertainment!) because I’ve been waiting for this book since I first read Spindle Fire, part one of this rich duology. In fact, you probably saw Winter Glass listed on Gabrielle’s Top Ten Exciting YA Releases of 2018 post in January.

Winter Glass
Lexa Hillyer
HarperCollins
Published on April 10, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Winter Glass

A curse comes undone. A kingdom shatters. But some bonds can’t be broken.

Princess Aurora, torn from the dream world, plots to assassinate the faerie queen Malfleur, only to confront temptations she never expected. Isabelle, meanwhile, opens her heart to Prince William as they attempt to unite their kingdoms and wage war against Malfleur’s army. But when the appearance of an unbreakable glass slipper prompts Isabelle to discover more about her lineage, her true identity begins to take shape and her legacy becomes as clear as ice.

Devoted half-sisters Isabelle and Aurora will grapple with their understanding of love and loyalty as they face a threat even greater than that of the evil queen—the threat of losing each other forever.

My Review
There’s a certain kind of pressure that comes from picking up such a highly anticipated book. Sequel Anxiety, I guess it could be called. I find when I especially loved a first book in a series, I’m super eager to get to the second one, but then when I have the copy in my hands, lots of times I put off reading it, worried it will not live up to my memories of the other story. I did the same thing this time, too.

But as soon as I started reading Winter Glass, I remembered why I loved Spindle Fire so much. The prose strikes with poetry and power. I found myself instantly carted off to Deluce and the plight of two very different, very strong princesses. Hillyer’s writing makes emotions reach out from the page and take you by the throat. It’s intense and delicious at once.

Another of my favorite things about this book (both books really) is the way the author twists fairy tales together to form a new sort of story. Spindle Fire read a bit like a mash-up of Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland. Winter Glass doesn’t have quite the same overt story-for-story feel to it. Instead, familiar fairy tale elements (the glass slipper, the rogue who hunts the king’s deer and gives them to the poor) add flavor and depth to the story, but the tale itself stands on its own as something original.

I loved the themes about storytelling and the truth finding you. I’ve just finished another read-through of The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis with my daughter, and it reminded me of the way Aslan says to Shasta that he only tells a person his own story. So that resonated with me for sure.

One of the things I found interesting about Winter Glass is the lack of older mentors. There are a couple brief moments where Isabella receives some wisdom from a mentor-type character, but all of the older characters are deeply flawed people, often deeply selfish. I missed the appearance of really admirable characters. Obviously every story doesn’t have to have them. I’ve realized for myself lately that it’s hard for me to connect with a story if I don’t find at least one of the characters admirable. (I think this is true for a lot of people.) I did admire both Aurora and Isabelle for their tenacity, self-sacrifice, and commitment to help others.

I totally enjoyed reading Winter Glass and recommend it to fairy tale fans for its unusual spin on familiar stories as well as its strong heroines.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Isabelle is blind and Aurora mute. Aurora also lacks a sense of touch.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between man and woman. Sensual references to more intimate contact—response to the memories, like blushing or feeling pulse race. Two scenes hint at sex, but very vaguely. One refers to a married couple. The other to two women. This scene shows a kiss and one character beginning to undress the other.

Spiritual Content
Powerful faeries have the ability to tithe (take) things like sight or compassion. An evil faerie spread a sleeping sickness across the land and has taken other powers for herself. One character says no faerie or god can discern justice for anyone besides himself.

Violent Content
Some descriptions of rotting corpses (victims of a plague). Descriptions of prisoners who’ve been tortured by starvation and solitary confinement. Several scenes describe battles—some in an arena-like atmosphere in which one character must kill an opponent. Other scenes describe warfare. Details are sometimes graphic.

Drug Content
None.

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

About Lexa Hillyer

Website | Twitter | Instagram

Lexa Hillyer is the author of the young adult novels Spindle Fire, Winter Glass, and Proof of Forever, as well as the poetry collection, Acquainted with the Cold (Bona Fide Books), the 2012 gold prize winner of the Foreword Book of the Year Award for Poetry, and a recipient of the Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize. Her work has been featured in Best New Poets 2012, and she has received various other prizes and honors for poetry. Lexa earned her BA in English from Vassar College and her MFA in Poetry from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. She worked as an editor at both Harper Collins and Penguin, before founding the production company Glasstown Entertainment along with bestselling author Lauren Oliver. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, their daughter, and a very skinny orange tree.

Review: Seeker of the Crown by Ruth Lauren

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , ,

Seeker of the Crown
Ruth Lauren
Bloomsbury
Published on April 3, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Valor risks everything to protect her friends in this second book in a thrilling fantasy series that’s Percy Jackson meets Frozen.

One month has passed since Valor broke her twin sister Sasha out of jail. But the girl who imprisoned her to begin with—Princess Anastasia—has gone missing. The queen, desperate to find her daughter, asks Valor and Sasha to track Anastasia down and bring her home.

But just as the girls and their friends embark on the search, the queen also vanishes, throwing the realm into utter chaos. If Valor can’t restore order, she risks getting sent back to prison . . . and tearing her newly reunited family apart once again. She must rely on people she can’t quite trust, as well as her own instincts, to protect the people she holds dear.

My Review
“Percy Jackson meets Frozen” is a great description of Seeker of the Crown. Two sisters with very different roles and talents team up with a couple of outlaws awaiting pardons to save their kingdom from a rebel princess who means to take all for herself.

The action never lags—from the first page to the last, Valor runs from one challenge to the next as the stakes get higher and higher. This plus the clear, smooth writing makes this book a quick, fun read.

Valor’s tenacity and independence set her up as a strong heroine. She struggles to trust others and depend on them for help. But when her impulsive actions get her into trouble, she has to accept that she can’t do things totally alone.

I liked that the two sisters were so different. Valor’s point-of-view leads us through the story, but we learn a lot about her relationship with her twin, Sasha. While Valor is impulsive and a fighter, Sasha is a thinker and more rules-oriented.

The only hiccup for me was that the girls are only thirteen. The story world describes them as basically being adults—beginning apprenticeships and having a lot of independence—but I found it hard to get my head around that sometimes. I don’t think there was anything wrong with it, I just struggled to connect with them as such young characters. I kept thinking they were fifteen or sixteen.

On the whole, Seeker of the Crown is a great adventure, and except for some mild-ish violence, it’s clean! I think fifth and sixth grade readers would enjoy it most, but the style of the storytelling should make it appealing to some older readers, too. I’m so glad I got to read it, and now I want to go back and read the first book. I had no trouble following the second book without reading the first one, but I’m interested in the story enough to want to know how it all started.

Recommended for Ages 8 up.

Cultural Elements
The characters and story setting have a Russian/Scandinavian feel to them.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Valor remembers her captivity in a terrible prison (where she had been wrongfully imprisoned) and makes some references to torture. I’d describe these references as dark but not graphic. They focus on her mental and emotional scarring rather than physical harm.

Battle scenes show soldiers in combat. Valor defends herself with a crossbow and is prepared to shoot enemies.

Drug Content
None.

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

 

Review: Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Paranormal, , , , , , ,

Ghosts of Tupelo Landing (Mo and Dale Mysteries #2)
Sheila Turnage
Kathy Dawson Books
Published on February 4, 2014

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Ghosts of Tupelo Landing
Small towns have rules. One is, you got to stay who you are – no matter how many murders you solve.

When Miss Lana makes an Accidental Bid at the Tupelo auction and winds up the mortified owner of an old inn, she doesn’t realize there’s a ghost in the fine print. Naturally, Desperado Detective Agency (aka Mo and Dale) opens a paranormal division to solve the mystery of the ghost’s identity. They’ve got to figure out who the ghost is so they can interview it for their history assignment (extra credit). But Mo and Dale start to realize that the Inn isn’t the only haunted place in Tupelo Landing. People can also be haunted by their own past. As Mo and Dale handily track down the truth about the ghost (with some help from the new kid in town), they discover the truth about a great many other people, too.

My Review
Three Times Lucky was one of my favorite books from my reading list last year, so as soon as I started listening to audiobooks (after my daughter was born at the end of the year), I knew I needed to get the sequel. While it’s packed with the same great characters as Three Times Lucky, I felt like the story didn’t have the same oomph. Maybe because I was already familiar with the town and people, so it didn’t have that same freshness as the first book. The ghost mystery didn’t have quite the same weight as a murder mystery, either, and it had some definite willing-suspension-of-disbelief requirements. Which is okay. It still had the same killer descriptions and hilarious antics and dialogue as well as a fantastic cast of characters.

I still enjoyed The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing a lot. I’m glad I read it—nothing wrong with more Mo and Dale in my reading. I would be interested in reading the third book. Fans of books like Because of Winn Dixie and Elsie Mae Has Something to Say will want to check out this series and won’t be able to help falling head over heels for Mo and Dale.

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Cultural Elements
Takes place in a small southern town. I think all the characters were white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Mo talks about her wish to marry Dale’s older brother someday.

Spiritual Content
Mo and Dale meet a ghost living in the old inn. They decide to interview her for a school project and hope they can figure out what happened to her so she can be at peace. They have some other ghostly encounters, like seeing ghost cars in the middle of the night.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
One of the men in Mo’s town is rumored to have a still where he brews alcohol.

 

Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Children of Blood and Bone
Tomi Adeyemi
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
Published on March 6, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Children of Blood and Bone

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were targeted and killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now, Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers—and her growing feelings for the enemy.

My Review

I have heard SO MUCH about CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE and really looked forward to reading it. I love the story world. It felt really different than anything I’ve read before. Very fresh. I love the maji system even though it’s a little complex. Not too bad, though. I never felt lost in reading scenes.

Amari quickly became my favorite character. Her bravery and her love for her best friend totally endeared her to me right from the get-go. It took a little longer for me to warm up to the powerful Zélie who made some selfish choices at the beginning of the story. But as I got to know her true nature, I couldn’t help rooting for her and wanting her to succeed. I’m kind of wondering if there’s not a love triangle ahead for her? I felt some sparks between her and a pretty minor character who seems poised to have a larger role in the next book. We’ll see what happens!

Zélie wants freedom for her people more than anything, but she hesitates to use her power to fight at first and she has a strong moral sense of good and evil. Inan seems more mixed up. His need for his father’s approval made him a sympathetic character to me, but his relationship with violence and the lengths to which he was willing to go to get his father’s love were a challenge for me. He also seemed to flip flop a little quickly where one minute he’d be thinking he could disregard his goal and the next reversed his position.

On the whole, I loved the originality of the tale and both of the female leads. This is a rich, immersive story and a great start to a new fantasy series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Characters are brown-skinned.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used with moderate frequency.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. One romantic interlude progresses further and hints at sex. No graphic descriptions of it.

References to a relationship the king has with his mistress.

Spiritual Content
Each god or goddess is connected to a type of magic. Zélie uses reaper magic which connects with dead spirits to create animated helpers that she controls.  Inan’s magic shows him things about a person’s inner life, like memories and emotions.

Violent Content
Lots of battles, sometimes involving civilians. Some pretty graphic descriptions of combat and death. Zélie worries about being placed in slavery, a common fate for a maji. Men sometimes threaten her with harm or make vulgar, suggestive comments about harming her sexually.

Inan especially seems to view violence through a kind of morally gray lens. He desperately wants his father’s approval and is willing to do almost anything to get it, including harming people he otherwise wants to protect. He’s also desperate to hide his magic, and willing to harm anyone who will out him.

At one point, Zélie and her crew end up fighting in a sort of gladiator arena style match where only the winners come out alive. They watch a match first and are horrified at the bloodshed, but still decide to enter.

Drug Content
References to wine.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links which cost nothing for you to use, but which generate a small amount of support for this blog.

Review: Every Day by David Levithan

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

Every Day
David Levithan
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published on August 28, 2012

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Every Day
Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.
There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

My Review
Conceptually, this is probably one of the most intriguing books I’ve read this year. It reminds me a tiny bit of the show Quantum Leap, except that we don’t ever learn why A travels from body to body. And of course, Every Day takes a lot more time for exploration of what this kind of existence would mean in terms of understanding gender and sexual orientation. On that topic, I felt like the story sometimes got a bit preachy.

I think my favorite character by far was Rhiannon. I liked that she’s obviously a good person even though she’s sort of blind to her boyfriend’s flaws and therefore flawed herself. She struggles to understand life around her and embrace the relationships in her life. I liked that.

A was tougher for me. I liked him a lot more at the beginning of the story than the end. At the beginning, he tries to be really respectful of the person’s life into which he’s trespassing. But as the story progresses and his obsession with Rhiannon grows, he takes bigger and bigger risks and soon pretty much hijacks the life he’s occupying in order to spend the time with her, regardless of the consequences to the other person. As the story resolves, A tries to be the bigger person and do what he sees as right, but even in that, I felt like he was a bit controlling. I don’t want to spoil the ending, so I don’t want to say more. I just felt like he again took the choice away from other people Even though it was well-meaning, it still felt selfish to me.

On the whole, Every Day is a truly unusual book that did make me think about relationships and the things in life we so easily take for granted, like actually being able to have relationships and even possessions from one day to the next. To be honest, I felt like while the story posed some interesting questions, the content and ideas might be confusing for younger teen readers. For me personally, this would be one to wait on introducing or to read together and discuss some of the ideas and what they mean in the context of faith. See below for more content information.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
A has no body and therefore no gender, though he still falls in love—once with a boy, once with a girl. A experiences life as straight, gay, and transgender teens. Sometimes A is white, sometimes Asian, sometimes black or Latina. At one point A is an obese teenager, and makes some disparaging comments about the person’s character because of his weight.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
A knows Rhiannon and her boyfriend have had sex. When A is Rhiannon’s boyfriend, they sit on the “make-out blanket” and kiss. Later, A and a girl plan to have sex, but A ends up feeling it’s not fair for him to take that experience from the person whose body he’s using. They do climb into bed naked and kiss one another. Some scenes show kisses between two boys or two girls or a boy and girl.

A believes gender is sort of meaningless and doesn’t understand why Rhiannon is more comfortable showing affection to boys than girls. The narrative occasionally gets a bit preachy about this.

Spiritual Content
A has some really negative feelings about Evangelical Christians in particular. One person A “borrowed” later claims he was possessed by the devil for a day. A pastor supports his theory.

Because A has experienced life as a participant in many different religions, he feels they’re all the same and ultimately share the same goals. There’s a short passage in which the narrative focuses on this topic and emphasizes a belief that all religions are essentially equal.

Violent Content
A boy punches another boy in a school gym.

Drug Content
A, as a sixteen-year-old girl, watches her brother smoke a joint in the car on the way to school. She helps him lie to their parents about his drug use so he doesn’t get into trouble.

Teens drink alcohol at a party. A doesn’t drink because the boy whose life he is in wouldn’t do so.

A boy makes a comment about how much he enjoys using his girlfriend’s mom’s pills.