Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard

I have to confess that I often judge a book by its cover.  Who doesn't love attractive jacket art?  I'm absolutely the kind of person who will pick up a book at the store if the cover art catches my eye.  And how great is the image to the left?  If you don't want to pick up the book based on that fantastic cover, then you must be blind.  That being said, if you know absolutely nothing about the book at all, you may be thinking you're getting ready to read an historical fiction tale; maybe something about "Bloody Mary" for example.

What you're going to get, however, is a fantasy/sci-fi/adventure story that presents very little that we haven't already seen.  The story opens with Mare Barrow, who lives in poverty with her parents and sister.  Her brothers are off fighting in war, and her sister is apprenticed as a seamstress.  Mare has no skills, so she spends her time picking pockets around town, dreading the day she will be "conscripted" to go the front lines of battle.  At least Aveyard didn't give her a bow and arrow to hunt food for family.  Mare just steals things outright. 

The world in which Mare lives is strictly divided into two castes: the Reds, like her, who are poor laborers and soldiers, and the Silvers, the elite ruling class.  But Silvers don't just merely have silver blood (literally), they also have X-Men like superpowers which keep the Reds in check.  One day Mare runs into Prince Cal, heir to the silver throne.  He takes a liking to Mare and arranges for her to have a job inside the palace, thus freeing her from having to go to war.  In a pivotal moment, Mare is serving the silvers during an exhibition: young women from across the land have come to prove their worth in order to become Cal's bride and future queen.  But this is no Cinderella-like ball.  The girls enter an arena and show off their powers and skills.  One such demonstration causes Mare to lose her balance and she falls into the arena.  Rather than be killed, however, an electrical jolt awakens something within her, and in front of everyone, she begins to produce lightning and electricity.

Because no Red has ever displayed powers before, the royal family quickly concocts a story to explain that she is a long-lost Silver princess, and they move her into the palace to keep a watch on her.

What follows is nothing new: Mare has to attend classes and training exercises.  She might as well be at Hogwarts, except without a wand.  She's also betrothed to Cal's younger brother, Maven.  Although she harbors some feelings for Cal, Mare and Maven begin to bond as she realizes they are both working in secret with a rogue group intent on taking down the royal family. 

I enjoyed a lot of this book, despite the fact that so much of it was familiar.  Towards the end I got a little tired of the fights and scheming and plots, and skimmed the last 100 pages or so to the end.  Naturally we will be set up for a sequel.  Give this one to students who have read Hunger Games and Divergent and still want more.

A Court of Thorns and Roses

I think it's safe to say that fairy tale retellings are certainly the 'in thing' right now.  As I write this review, Cinderella is at the top of the movie box office, and the Internet is all abuzz about the new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast set to begin filming with Emma Watson.  Teens who just can't wait until that film comes out, however, can spend many a happy hour with in the stacks of YA Lit devoted to fairy tales.  A Court of Thorns and Roses, the first in a new series by Sarah J. Maas, tackles the familiar Beauty and the Beast story but gives it a fresh spin.  It's a little bit Beauty and the Beast meets The Hunger Games meets Twilight.  I realize that sentence may be a big turnoff to many people, but don't let your biases get in the way. A Court of Thorns and Roses is exciting, sexy, violent, and sure to find an audience.

The story begins with 19-year-old Fayre hunting in the woods.  She lives with her father and two selfish sisters.  Once a wealthy family, their mother died and the father lost their fortune.  They now live in poverty in a small cottage, getting by on the meat and furs Fayre brings in thanks to her hunting skills.  One day she kills a large wolf, expecting to sell its fur in the market for a handsome price.  What she was not expecting was for a large beast to show up at their cottage, demanding Feyre come with him as payment for killing one of his soldiers.  It was no ordinary wolf she killed.  It - and the beast - are not just animals.  They are faeries, powerful creatures who once ruled the human lands.

In keeping with what we know of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, Fayre at first resents her captivity and has no interest in being friendly with the beast (named Tamlin).  Of course, the more she learns about the Fae and the curse that has been placed upon them, she begins to soften, eventually falling for the one who's taken her prisoner.  

Whereas the familiar fairy tale ends with Belle falling for the beast, he becomes a prince, and they live happily ever after, Maas's story gives our heroine a second act.  Fayre fails to declare her love for Tamlin aloud, and thus unwittingly condemns him into the hands of the one who cursed him, an evil woman named Amarantha.  When she realizes what she's done, Fayre goes to Amarantha's lair to try and save Tamlin.  She is given two options: solve Amarantha's riddle or undergo three dangerous and deadly trials.

A Court of Thorns and Roses is best suited for high school students, as it contains a few rather steamy sex scenes, as well as scenes of graphic violence.  Although there are additional entries in this series still to come, and there are still some questions left unanswered (what happened to Feyre's family?), I think this entry can stand alone as Maas does a good job at bringing the narrative to a conclusion.

Review given in exchange for an ARC from NetGalley.

Jackaby by William Ritter

I feel the need to state off the bat that I came into this book highly biased.  Jackaby has been touted by booksellers as "A cross between Sherlock and Doctor Who."  Now, anyone who's met me knows that I'm a freak for these shows.  My office is filled with Doctor Who things.  I have a sonic screwdriver.  (A student once asked me, "What is that?  A lightsaber?")  I have this cover from Entertainment Weekly up on my office wall.  I wore this t-shirt to school on Halloween. 
So, a book that's called a mash up of these two shows?  Um, yeah.  I'm all over it.

Jackaby is a paranormal mystery set in New England, 1892.  Abigail Rook arrives in town with no money, no job, and no husband, but with a healthy sense of adventure.  She answers an ad for "Investigated Services: Assistant Wanted."  The man who placed the ad is R.F. Jackaby, a private investigator who happens to be able to see spirits and inhuman creatures, and also wears a long, expensive coat and scarf.  Soon The Doctor and Clara Sherlock and Watson Jackaby and Abigail are investigating a string of grisly murders. 

For all the hype surrounding this book, I ultimately found Jackaby to be... fine.  I brought it home over Christmas break, and it sat on my coffee table for close to 2 weeks before I forced myself to finish it.  The "who done it" part of the mystery was not so hard to guess, although the paranormal aspect of it came out of slightly-left field.  Jackaby himself is certainly very Sherlock-ish.  He's an odd duck with a keen sense of observation that endears him few friends.  Abigail is given little to do other than to follow Jackaby around, although she has some skill at paying attention to details that eventually earns Jackaby's trust.

This book would be fine for middle school or high school, and at only 300 pages, is relatively short compared to many books coming out these days.  There's a good bit of odd humor (Jackaby's former assistant has been magically turned into a duck, for instance, thanks to a spell gone wrong), but I just wish it was more suspenseful.

Dream a Little Dream, by Kerstin Gier

At last!  Another book from the delightful Kerstin Gier, whose Ruby Red series was a fun, romantic, comical time-traveling adventure.  I've been eager to see what Gier would produce next, and now it's almost here.  Dream a Little Dream will be released in April, 2015.

This is book 1 in The Silver Trilogy.  Teenager Liv Silver and her sister, Mia, have lived all over the world with their parents.  The book begins with Liv and Mia arriving in England to join their mother, who is supposed to be lecturing at Oxford.  They cannot wait to live in a quaint English cottage filled with the possibility of charm and mystery.  However, upon arriving in London, they find their mother has met a man and plans for them all to move into his house along with his twin children.  Although there are the usual hiccups and disagreements when this new plan is announced, everyone in the household begins to genuinely gets along.

One night, Liv has a dream that feels incredibly real.  She follows her future stepbrother, Grayson, into a cemetery where he meets up with three other boys from school.  They perform a ritual, asking the "Lord of Shadows and Darkness" to show them who will be part of their circle.  Naturally, Liv falls out of the tree she's been hiding in right at this moment.  Only later will she learn out what she's been "chosen" for.

The book is part Inception, part Raven Boys (by Maggie Stiefvater), with Gier's knack for humor and a taste of Gossip Girl thrown into the mix.  As we previously saw in Ruby Red, she writes wonderfully real teenage girls, who are sarcastic, flawed, and spunky all at once.  As Liv gets pulled farther into this mysterious dream world, she begins to fall for one of the boys, Henry.  Their budding romance is genuine and sweet.

My only complaint about this book is that Gier spends a lot of time exploring dream worlds, but never really gets around to Liv's part in the secret circle.  When the moment finally arrives, it feels too rushed.  However, because we have 2 more books yet to come, the ending is only the beginning.

Review given in exchange for an advance reader's copy from Net Galley.

One additional comment: I really hate the cover.  The purple door, bubbles, butterflies, and pink curly script are all misleading.  The book was really a bit dark and sinister in some places, and I think could appeal to boys and girls if the bookseller or librarian talks it up enough.  However, NO TEENAGE BOY that I've met would touch this book with a ten-foot pole based on this cover.  maybe they'll change it before publication?

1/16/15 UPDATE  Yay!  They did change the cover after all.  The new one is still kinda' girly, but at least it better reflects the darker aspects of the book.

More Than This, by Patrick Ness

I must open this review with a disclaimer:  I love Patrick Ness as an author.  I think his Chaos Walking trilogy was completely brilliant and I talk it up to students whenever I get a chance.  A few years ago I read A Monster Calls and I was ugly crying by the end.  Lots of books move me, but few make me shed real tears.

That all being said, I absolutely could not wait to get my hands on his latest YA title.  The book opens with a drowning.  Seth is being washed out to sea and he cannot stop these events.  It's brutal and devastating.  The prologue ends with two simple words: "He dies."

But then, he awakens.  But he's not still in the ocean.  He's at home - but a home he hasn't lived in for many years.  There appears to be no sign of any other life around.  Where is Seth?  Is he in Hell?  Purgatory?

So begins More Than This.  I was completely engrossed in the first part of this book.  As Seth explores his surroundings, we also get flashbacks to the events leading up to his drowning.  There are many secrets, and things Seth doesn't quite want to admit to himself.

As the book progresses, Seth unexpectedly finds two other children in this place with him, and they are being pursued by mysterious "driver" in a black van.  Where are they, exactly?

When the revelation finally comes, I was shocked.  Not because it was such a surprising twist of events, but because I was so, so disappointed.  Having loved Ness's earlier books so much, I was let down that this was the "twist" he chose for the book.  I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I thought, "Really?  Are you kidding me?"  We've seen this all before in other movies and books.  Truth be told, I quit reading it for a while.  It sat on my coffee table, half-finished, for a couple of weeks.

I finally felt guilty and forced myself to finish it.  I didn't really buy into the "twist" and felt there were too many gaps in logic that he didn't explain.  Also, the quasi-uplifting moral at the end came across as a little heavy-handed and obvious.

I still love Patrick Ness and will look forward to his other books.  This one just didn't quite do it for me.