Review: Learn to Draw True Beauty

By Yaongyi
Step-by-step artwork by Ryan Axxel

Available now from Walter Foster Publishing

Review copy

I enjoyed the True Beauty webtoon, so I thought it would be fun to go through the Learn to Draw True Beauty book. I feel like this is a great idea for a tie-in to inspire young fanartists, with perhaps information they can also carry on to other art.

I found it a little disappointing how much of this title is fluff. This book has 96 pages. Getting Started is on page 22, with a full-page title page and full-page image of Jugyeong (the main character), with the actual information starting on page 24. Before that is intros to what webtoons are, what the story of True Beauty is, and who the main characters are. The most useful bit in these pages is the palettes for the main characters, listed on each of their pages. In general, I don't find these pages very useful since this book is aimed at people who are already fans of True Beauty.

The step-by-step section begins on page 34, again with a two-page splash before the information starts. As far as step-by-step goes, this book is definitely written for artists who already know the basics and just want to focus on the details of these characters. This is not a book for beginners, which might disappoint some young fans.

This is a well-produced book. Good paper, beautifully printed colors, good imagery to follow. But I feel like about a fifth of the book is wasted and could've been used to give more detail on the actual drawing part. Some fans will enjoy this tie-in, but I think many fanartists can develop their own takes on the characters without its help. A little more focus on the basics and details to make this more friendly to beginners would give the book a wider appeal.

Review: What Big Teeth

By Rose Szabo

Available now from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review copy

A boy runs through the forest, pursued by monsters. He has no chance of escaping; they're toying with him, having fun. I know how fun it is because the narrator is telling me so. In fact, she thinks he looks rather delicious. So begins What Big Teeth. It's an electric, perverse opening, and the book struggles to regain that feel.

After that fateful night, Eleanor Zarrin was sent away from her wild family. Years later she returns from boarding school, fleeing the consequences of an incident with a schoolmate. She returns home a total stick in the mud. She's forgotten her family in those years away and struggles to handle their monstrous nature. She wants them to be polite and mannered and fit in, like she spent so long doing.

For quite a while, What Big Teeth builds mystery after mystery. There are the mysterious incidents that drove Eleanor away from her family and then back. There are questions about Eleanor's nature, who she truly is inside. There's her grandmother's mysterious accountant, who all the Zarrin's are mysteriously in love with (including Eleanor's father, cousin, sister, and self). So much is kept mysterious for so long that I'd find myself startled by facts, like Eleanor's sister Lucy being about five years older than her. 

What Big Teeth is not short on atmosphere. Rose Szabo has a way with creepy imagery and haunting emotions. But this is Szabo's debut novel, and it very much feels like it. The ending of the novel is filled with several chunks of exposition, some of which Eleanor could have figured out much earlier to get the plot moving a little more quickly. When characters are horribly maimed I had little reaction, because outside of Eleanor and Arthur the characters are extremely flat. This is the kind of debut novel that makes me want to read what the author writes next, even if I don't want to read this book again.

What Big Teeth is a defiantly strange novel. It is often deliberately off-putting, which is what makes it appealing to weirdos like me. I'd recommend it to fans of Hannah Moskowitz. A faster pace and more characters to be invested in would have served the story well, but Szabo has shown a strong sense of style.

Review: The Farm That Feeds Us

By Nancy Castaldo

Illustrated by Ginnie Hsu

Available now from words & pictures

Review copy

The Farm That Feeds Us: A year in the life of an organic farm is an 80-page nonfiction picture book. I feel that it has the most appeal to a narrow age group, probably first and second graders. The Farm That Feeds Us is too dense to appeal to younger children, but older children probably feel like they are beyond children's books.

Broken into sections by the four seasons, The Farm That Feeds Us covers various farming activities in no particular order other than the seasonal theme. Each spread covers one topic and then moves to the next. This is not a sun-up to sun-down description of activities, but covers everything from crop growing to animal husbandry to jam making. Every once in awhile there is some shorter, more poetic text to break up the larger informative paragraphs. Perhaps this text could be used by parents to make a shorter version for younger kids. I will admit, even I learned a few things from this book.

There are things to appreciate. The Farm That Feeds Us is very informative. It also has a focus on ethical consumerism and the advantages of patronizing smaller farms. It might also get kids interested in trying some new fruits and vegetables after they read about them. The art doesn't do much for me, but I think it has kid appeal and it is easy to tell what is happening on each page. I do like that a variety of people are shown throughout the book.

I think The Farm That Feeds Us has noble goals, but I wouldn't expect most kids to be all that interested.

Review: Jillian Cade: (Fake) Paranormal Investigator

Book one in a series
By Jen Klein
Available now from Soho Teen
Review copy

JILLIAN CADE: (FAKE) PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR is Jen Klein's first YA novel, but she's already a seasoned writer due to her work with hit TV show Grey's Anatomy.  The eponymous Jillian Cade knows all about the paranormal due to her father.  She uses the information she's picked up from him (in addition to some common sense) to run Umbra Investigations.  After all, it isn't too hard to solve a haunting that isn't actually happening.  When a classmate hires Jillian to find a missing person, she realizes that she might be in over her head trying to solve a real case.  But her dad ditched her, so she has to make money somehow.

I took a long time to warm up to JILLIAN CADE.  I think I was expecting something kookier.  Instead, I got Jillian's reluctant attraction to Sky Ramsey, the mysterious new boy who knows too much about her.  (And who is totally off his rocker, since his explanation for the disappearance is that a succubus did it.)  The story did start to move once it pulled off one of my favorite tricks: it switched genres.

I feel like I'd like a sequel better, because the reveals really broadened the world of JILLIAN CADE.  This book took too long to build for me, and I just couldn't with Sky.  His whole stalker-act could've been written to be 90% less creepy, thus making the romance 90% more believable.  (As is, it mostly hinges on Sky being hot and Jillian feeling possessive of him.)

JILLIAN CADE: (FAKE) PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR isn't a bad first novel, but I expect more from someone working on a show that knows how to bring the drama.

Review: Cam Girl

By Leah Raeder
Available now from
Review copy

CAM GIRL starts with a crash on an icy road.  Vada is the only one who remembers what happened.  Her girlfriend, in the car with her, was drunk and can't remember the accident.  The other driver, a teen boy, was also drunk and died on the scene.  Everyone knows Vada is lying about how the accident happened, but not exactly what her lies are.

This is one of those books that I picked up to read and then forgot about for awhile.  It wasn't what I expected from the cover and description at all.  There are no real thriller elements, although every once in awhile the book convinced me that something sinister would happen.  It's much more of a character-driven story.

Although the crash is the final nail in Vada and Ellis's relationship, it soon becomes clear they had other problems.  Between losing her drawing hand and her relationship going horribly awry, Vada's self-esteem is low.  She's upset and carrying a lot of guilt.  She finds her way to working as a cam girl, for a new site that promises to pay better and be less predatory, but one that carves its market niche by taking things farther to the edge.  Vada is consenting to be exploited, but she's still be exploited.

At times, CAM GIRL felt like it was edgy just to be edgy.  Vada's specialty is breathplay, or auto-erotic asphyxiation.  The book eventually manages to ground it in Vada's character and past, but at first it seems like Vada is practicing hardcore BDSM with no buildup.  Surely it happens, but it was rather jarring.

Vada's life as a cam girl gets shaken up by several events: she starts falling for a big spender client, Ellis re-enters her life, and she finds out the driver of the other car might have been committing suicide.  Her complicated romantic life and search for answers about Ryan tangle together.  I felt everything was a bit too obvious and got frustrated with Vada quite a bit for not realizing what was right in front of her face.

Leah Raeder's CAM GIRL tackles many issues of gender and sexuality that society is really just beginning to discuss.  She's drawn a convincing portrait of a flawed character surrounded by equally flawed people.  (Including Brandt, Ellis's cousin who feels like he wandered in from the thriller I expected.)  It was a book I ultimately failed to connect to, but I expect its messages will connect to many other readers. 

Review: Hello, I Love You

By Katie M. Stout
Available now from St. Martin's Griffin
Review copy

Thanks to a Kdrama addiction, I couldn't imagine not reading HELLO, I LOVE YOU.  It is the story of Grace Wilde who goes to an international school in South Korea to get away from family drama and ends up falling for Kpop star Jason (who is her roommate Sophie's twin brother).

The romance between Grace and Jason is the kind where he's a total dick to her but she can't resist because he's so hot.  I thought HELLO, I LOVE YOU's Kdrama inspiration was fitting since it suffers from the same ailment as most Kdramas: Second Lead Syndrome.  For those not familiar with the genre, the second lead is the love interest that doesn't get the girl.  He's generally the guy who approaches romance like a normal person instead of going hot and cold without explanation.  In this case, it is the drummer of Eden, Yoon Jae.

Jason's angst is about the fact that he's making manufactured pop instead of real music, and had a band member from the idol system (Yoon Jae again) forced on him.  The fame bothers him sometimes, but those are the two that get the focus.  I felt like his issues were given disproportionate weight compared to Grace's.  She tries her best to help him, but I felt like only the end had him acknowledging the pain that drove her to Korea.  Admittedly, Jason's unhappiness is driving him to drink and impending alcoholism is a present danger.  One that is familiar to Grace, since her older brother was an alcoholic.  She interferes, but mostly on behalf of her roommate.  She has surprisingly little compunction about getting involved with another alcoholic after everything that went down in her life.

Look: HELLO, I LOVE YOU is a cute novel.  However, it doesn't make half as much use of the Korean setting as it could.  (Most of the book takes place at the school so that there isn't much reason to delve deeply into culture clashes.)  Also, I never warmed up to Jason as the romantic lead.  I did like Grace's journey to forgiving herself and liked it well enough as a beach read.

I think I'm just disappointed because I had really high hopes for HELLO, I LOVE YOU.  I liked part of it, like Sophie and Tae Hwa's background romance and Yoon Jae's desire to be a dancer instead of a drummer.  I'd read the Yoon Jae spinoff.  HELLO, I LOVE YOU just didn't deliver my kind of froth.  It also needed a car crash.

Review: Love and Miss Communication

By Elyssa Friedland
Available now from William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Review copy

LOVE AND MISS COMMUNICATION looked super cute.  It's the story of Evie Rosen, who gets fired for sending too many personal emails and discovers that her commitment-phobe ex got married six months after their breakup on Facebook, and decides to stay off the Internet for a year.  I spent the first half of the book wanting to shake Evie out of her self-absorbed funk.

I wasn't surprised by the zeal she brings to her decision to leave the Internet behind; there's nothing like the converted to disdain they were before.  I did think her characterization needed work.  Debut author Elyssa Friedland describes her as always having her Blackberry in her hand and constantly Facebook stalking people.  Yet, for instance, she's surprised when one of her stepsisters has already made friends at the college she's going to in the fall through Facebook.  It's not like she'd never used the Internet.

Then there's the way she is with her family and friends.  She's weirdly contemptuous of her stepsisters and has inappropriate boundaries with a student at her new job.  For talk of using actual phone calls to get closer to people, she never reaches out to her friends but waits for them to reach out to her.  However, LOVE AND MISS COMMUNICATION did start clicking into place for me once Evie's mother snaps at her that everyone tries to matchmake for her because she's so desperately and obviously unhappy being single.  The characters finally get tired of Evie and start talking to her and helping her realize that she needs to change her attitude.

Thus, the second half did work better for me.  Evie does have a journey to go on and a coherent character arc.  There is room in the world for grating characters.  And throughout the book I thought the romance worked well.  Now, it shows how much Evie idolizes marriage and how bad she is at communication that she never thinks to just ask the guy if she's divorced, but I did like that she holds back from actually making a move until she knows he isn't attached.  I also just thought their flirting was cute.  I also liked the parts about Evie's ex, Jack.  She's still reeling from the bad breakup, and Friedman captures the way you never really forget the people you loved.

I loved the premise of LOVE AND MISS COMMUNICATION.  I feel like it could've been explored more to its full potential with a character who was interested in actually connecting with people instead of being content to just complain about another missed evite.  The romance was cute and I liked Evie's grandmother and mother.  I also enjoyed every time someone pointed out to Evie how self-absorbed she was.  It made for an uneven reading experience, but not a wasted one.

Review: The Truth About Jack

By Jody Gehrman
Available now from Entangled Crush
Review copy

Dakota McCloud is on cloud nine when she gets her acceptance to Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).  It's the art school she's always wanted to go to, plus she'll be able to reunite with her boyfriend next year.  But before she can share the good news, her best friend emails her to let her know that she's hooked up with said boyfriend.  To deal with the extreme emotions of the day, Dakota writes it all in a letter which she stuffs into a bottle and throws into the ocean.  A bottle Jack Sauvage picks up, because he wanted to meet Dakota and it came right back in on the next wave.

It's a pretty good setup for a romance, but I felt like yelling "No, no, no!" at the book when Jack decides to write back ... as Alejandro Torres from Barcelona.  He knows Barcelona is the hook since Dakota says she wants to go there in the cafe where he first say her.  And he feels like he can't introduce himself to her as himself because he's been idealizing her like whoa.

Now, I felt for Jack.  He's pretty socially awkward, particularly since he was homeschooled after his best friend ODed.  His last girlfriend dumped him because he didn't spend enough money on her, so he's not all that confident in his looks and personality as an attraction.  But man oh man was I put off by the way he romances Dakota, both as Alejandro and Jack.  He uses things she writes to Alejandro to make himself more appealing as Jack.  Jody Gehrman does a good job of establishing in THE TRUTH ABOUT JACK that Dakota would like Jack without this malarkey, so the borderline stalking really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Dakota is the easier protagonist to like, since she isn't romancing anyone under a false identity.  She's struggling with how to proceed next, and wondering if RISD is really her dream or if there are better ways to become a professional artist.  I love that she's shown working on her art, even going to the landfill for parts.  I also like how Dakota and Jack both reach out to other people in their lives for advice and help with relationships.

I think THE TRUTH ABOUT JACK is a super cute book with very real chemistry between the leads.  But you just have to go with the premise.  It's not something I would ever accept in reality, even though Jack does try to make things right.   I preferred Gehrman's Triple Shot Bettys books, because I did have so much trouble with Jack's actions.

Review: Love Is the Drug

By Alaya Dawn Johnson
Available now from Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic)
Review copy
Read my review of The Summer Prince

Emily Bird - Emily to most, Bird to the best - is a senior at one of the most prestigious high schools in the country.  She doesn't entirely fit in, being one of the few black kids.  She also doesn't fit in because she might be going along with her mother's plan to go to college (and thinking of Stanford for herself), but her real goal is to run a small shop.  (Not that having a business degree wouldn't help with that, but it never comes up.)

When LOVE IS THE DRUG opens, Bird is at a party with her boyfriend.  She meets a man who works with her parents and drops the name of a lab she once saw in the trash.  What follows is a nightmare as the man stalks her, threatens her friends and family, and messes with her life in an attempt to get her to confess what she knows.  It just makes Bird determined to find the truth, and to discover whether she really did find out a national secret that night.

This thriller plays out against a widespread plague, the worst since the Spanish flu.  The v-flu, as it is known, is being held back by a quarantine.  Bird is as safe as can be in her high-class school full of politician's kids.  But how is the country ensuring that those kids stay so safe?  And, of course, does the flu have anything to do with what Bird might know?  Unrealistic diseases are a pet peeve of mine, so I like that this flu plays out like a real disease.  There's no killing everyone over 25 or anything silly like that.

I loved the paranoid atmosphere of LOVE IS THE DRUG, although I felt the plot faltered at the end.  There were a lot of ideas but nowhere for them to go.  And the romance dragged the whole thing down.  Bird falls for Coffee, the one guy who really gets her.  He's also a drug dealer, and the story never really convinced me to get over it.  He's just the cliche soulful, smart bad boy.  Now, Marella, Blue's lesbian friend, is where it's at.  Their friendship blooms throughout the pages, starting warily and growing as they're stuck in quarantine together.  I think they spend more time together than Blue and Coffee, and honestly have better chemistry.  I wished I were reading a more inventive lesbian romance instead of what the book actually was.

LOVE IS THE DRUG has its high points.  I loved Bird's relationship with her uncle, the disappointment of her family.  I loved the way LOVE IS THE DRUG tackled social issues, from being black to being foreign to being LGBTQ.  Alaya Dawn Johnson really brought the diversity of DC to life.  There are strong characters, a compelling atmosphere, and beautiful writing, but a boring romance and a plot that never has any steam.  Johnson has written better.

Review: Astonish Me

By Maggie Shipstead
Available now from Knopf (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

I have trouble resisting novels about ballet.  As far as literary ballet novels go, I prefer THE CRANES DANCE by Meg Howrey.  However, ASTONISH ME does have quite a bit to offer.

In a series of vignette-like chapters, ASTONISH ME covers a few decades in the life of Joan, her husband, her son, their neighbors, and Arslan Rusakov, a dance who Joan helped defect from Russia.  Their lives come together and fall apart, the tangle more complicated than it first appears.

As short as ASTONISH ME is, there are still some subplots I wish had been cut.  For instance, the neighboring wife and mother has a chapter of narration that's everything people mock about literary fiction: brutal observations about every character, some musings on the banality of suburban life, cheating.  It does have consequences on her daughter Chloe, one of the book's many ballerinas, but none that couldn't have been accomplished in a more interesting way.

I also found ASTONISH ME disappointing as a dance novel.  Many of the characters are passionate about dance, and that felt true.  But there's no sense of the pain in their bodies.  Their dances are sketched out, but never came to life for me.  The climatic ballet left me cold.  It felt like a piece of stuntcasting, everything the characters tried to promise it wasn't.

At the same time, Maggie Shipstead's writing is wonderful.  It has a beautiful flow to it.  For instance, I love how she describes the instant one character realizes how arrogant he used to be, upon being faced with an ex-girlfriend, or how she describes the anger in Chloe.  I liked seeing the pieces of the past and the present come together, as the story is told nonlinear-ly.  But I felt like the ending was rushed, with a central relationship coming out of nowhere and everything coming to a head when previously the book just moseyed along.  ASTONISH ME could've had a bit more balance by cutting out some of the beginning and giving more time to the end.

I'd be willing to read another book by Shipstead, since she clearly has talent, but ASTONISH ME felt a bit paint by numbers.

Review: The Walk-In Closet

By Abdi Nazemian
Available now from Curtis Brown Digital
Review copy

Kara and Babak, called Bobby, have been living together for years.  Now that Kara is turning thirty, Bobby's parents are upping the pressure for them to get married and have kids.  The only problem is that Kara really is just Bobby's roommate; they let his traditional Persian parents think otherwise so that Bobby can stay in the closet.  It helps that she loves his family's traditions.

I swung back and forth on whether I liked THE WALK-IN CLOSET.  I laughed quite a bit, and enjoyed the peek into the lifestyle of Tehrangeles.  One of the themes of the novel is that both Kara and Bobby need to grow up.  Their immaturity can make parts of THE WALK-IN CLOSET a difficult read.  For instance, when Kara confronts her ex-boyfriend and he gives her some lame philosophical line about her inability to have multiple relationships, she decides that he's right and she should just have some casual sex.  Thus, she has Bobby set her up a profile on Craigslist.  Craigslist.

(And let's not even get into the scene where Kara tells a man that only women can use "No means no."  I probably would've stopped the book there if I wasn't reviewing it.)

These attempted hookups lead Kara to Kyle, a man she can see herself having a relationship with.  Her continued relationship with Kyle and the pressure from Bobby's parents push her to finally confront what she wants and to stop being complacent about her life.  It's a bit of well-needed character development, but the pressure definitely gets to Kara.

THE WALK-IN CLOSET is fairly fun if you accept the heightened reality and the arrested development of the characters.  The final twist is fairly telegraphed, but it still added a strong plotline that the book needed.  This was a good enough summer read, but I prefer something somewhat more mature.

Review: Deep Blue

Book one of the Waterfire Saga
By Jennifer Donnelly
Available now from Disney-Hyperion
Review copy

Jennifer Donnelly burst onto the literary YA scene with A NORTHERN LIGHT, a critically acclaimed darling.  Her next YA novel, REVOLUTION, was also well received.  I was super excited to see that her newest novel, DEEP BLUE, would tackle current genre trend mermaids.  Mermaids + Donnelly's lush writing = how could it go wrong?

The opening chapters supported my excitement.  The witchy opening reminded me of Macbeth, and set up a portentous mood.  Then the action shifted to main character Serafina getting reading for her coming-of-age ceremony and betrothal.  The little details of language, clothing, objects, and culture showed that Donnelly had really thought out how her undersea world worked.  I really appreciated that it wasn't just Earth, but wet.

But at some point, that started to grate on me.  Serafina and her best friend's language just sounds so teeny-bopper.  There's dark danger and epic destiny lurking around the edges, but the tone is insistently light and preteen.  Plus, that beginning section about getting ready goes on forever - it takes a full third of the book to reach the ceremony, which is when things get really started.  That leads into the ending being majorly rushed.  Three major characters are introduced in the last part of the book, which leaves no time to get to know or care about them.  (Two of their names started with an "A," which did not help me tell them apart.)

There are good things about DEEP BLUE.  Serafina and her best friend Neela are well developed characters.  Both are princesses, which means that they've been raised to rule in addition to appreciating a nice dress.  They have their own strengths and fears, which help and hinder their quest through the ocean.  Ling, who they meet part of the way through, is a great addition to the group.  I latched on to her practicality pretty hard.  I also have to give Donnelly props for making her central characters a diverse group of girls. I can't say that I've ever read a book with a blind mermaid who uses a guide fish before.

At the same time, the character beats are pretty predictable.  I expect exactly zero older readers won't tune up to what's really going on with Mahdi, Serafina's loving fiance who suddenly turned into a party boy.  (I think the fact that this twist is obvious wouldn't be notable except for the fact that the resolution is delayed for the next book in the series.)

I don't think DEEP BLUE is bad, it's just not what I expected from Donnelly.  (Nor is it what I expected from the cover and blurb.)  Her prose is hampered by the cutesy undersea-speak ("currensea") and the characters seem very young.  I expected a dark, literary fantasy aimed at the older YA crowd.  DEEP BLUE is a mermaid adventure that I would feel pretty safe giving to most middle grade readers.  (There is violence, but it is on-par with last year's middle grade undersea adventure THE NEPTUNE PROJECT.)  Likewise, the politics are detailed, but grasping the finer points isn't necessary at all to the plot, which is standard go to this place, pick up these MacGuffins, defeat the bad guys fare.  The environmental message is commendable, but simply presented.

Perhaps DEEP BLUE will mature in future outings.  But as is, Disney is doing the book a major disservice packaging it this way.  Do pick it up if you're into cute, diverse mermaids banding together to save the ocean.

Review: The Geography of You and Me

By Jennifer E. Smith
Available now from Poppy (Hachette)
Review copy

Popular YA author Jennifer E. Smith takes a real-life blackout in New York and turns it into a story that spans a year and multiple countries.  It is a slight story, although an appealing one.  Lucy and Owen are trapped together in an elevator during the blackout and share an amazing night, but their new bond is strained when they both move.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF YOU AND ME takes the one-amazing-night plot of books like BRIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE and asks, "What happens next?"  Smith does excel at the high-concept premise.  She falls a little short, however, in the execution.  Oh, THE GEOGRAPHY OF YOU AND ME is breezy and sweet, but the romance could use some serious beefing up.

The blurb talks about how Lucy and Owen stay in touch and want to reunite.  Stay in touch mostly means that Owen sends brief postcards and Lucy sometimes sends emails Owen never responds to.  Want to reunite means they both date other people and sometimes stop talking to each other altogether.  Don't get me wrong; it's realistic.  Why wouldn't they attempt relationships with people who are right there?  Why wouldn't the pressures of long distance and not knowing each other all that well not get to them?  But I felt like I signed up for a book full of long, romantic communications and that's not what I got at all.

I enjoyed that Lucy and Owen both had developed personalities and families.  When they first meet, neither one is in the best place.  But as they grow through the year, they make decisions to make themselves happier and their perspectives naturally change.  There's some nice character growth for both of them.  It's just that neither of them gets a full chance to shine since they're co-narrators, and their potential keeps coming back to a slight, romantic comedy plotline.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF YOU AND ME is an enjoyable beach read, and I expect many teens will love it as such.  But it had the potential to be something better.

Review: Ripper

By Isabel Allende
Translated by Ollie Brock and Frank Wynne
Available now from Harper (HarperCollins)
Review copy

Isabel Allende has a tremendous reputation, and I was excited to see that her latest novel was genre: a thriller.  However, her literary roots are obvious.  The crimes and their investigation tend to take a background to character vignettes and digressions.

At first, I thought that RIPPER would focus on teenage Amanda and her leadership of a group of kids (and her grandfather) determined to research true crimes.  But the book quickly turns its focus to her mother, Indiana, and Indiana's various loves, customers/patients, and friends.  Although Indiana seems entirely peripheral to the crimes, it doesn't take a great detective to realize she'll be central at the end.  (It's that fact that gave away who the killer was for me, although there was a brief moment where I doubted my own guess.)

Thus, RIPPER took awhile to capture my attention.  There was much flipping between a large cast, and I didn't find Indiana all that compelling.  She's a touch too beloved by every other character.  However, I read it while waiting for car repairs, which forced me to push through and eventually fall into the rhythm of the novel.

I particularly liked the setting.  RIPPER is set in San Francisco and makes good use of the city's various neighborhoods, social classes, gay friendliness, and reputation for hippie-ness.  Also, the various characters seemed to connect in natural ways, although it took awhile to put together who knew who and how.  To be fair, that seemed to be Allende's design.

I think that RIPPER has a bit too much literary fiction in its blood to be a truly compelling thriller.  The same details about the crimes are endlessly rehashed, and since the police characters aren't the focus, there's rarely an actual scene with someone discovering a new clue, just reporting it.  I must admit, I'd also rather read a novel about ambitious, morbid Amanda than healing, maternal-except-with-her-daughter Indiana.  It was fun to read a thriller that didn't pay much attention to the conventions of its genre.   I enjoyed RIPPER by the end, but think I'd've given up if I had more with me to read.

Review: Antigoddess

First in The Goddess War series
By Kendare Blake
Available now from Tor Teen (Macmillan)
Review copy

When ANTIGODDESS began, I recognized the Kendare Blake who wrote ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD and GIRL OF NIGHTMARES.  Athena, hiking across a desert with Hermes, is slowly dying of feathers growing in her body.   She recounts, in detail, what will happen when one finishes coming through her mouth.  It is quite the image, full of blood and tissue and canker sores.

At other times, I had trouble recognizing Blake's style.  Where were the sharply drawn characters like Anna and Cas?  I love Greek mythology, and felt I was often leaning on my knowledge of The Iliad and The Odyssey to shade in the characterization of ANTIGODDESS.  Hermes, Athena's ally in companion, was perhaps the most inscrutable.  Now, Athena doesn't understand him, but surely the narrative could've dropped hints to help pull the very different parts of his personality together.

The two main characters are Athena, the goddess trying to find a way to survive, and Cassandra, the prophetess reincarnated and unaware of her past with the gods.  I felt like Cassandra's story was the stronger one.  She had a clearer motive, protecting her friends and boyfriend, and her romance with Aidan was quite sweet.  (Those who have read the book might not believe me, but it turned out better than I expected!)  With Athena, I felt more was being told than said.  Many characters emphasize that she's the goddess of strategy, but her strategy never goes much beyond, "Let's go to this place next."  Blake does do interesting things with Athena's status as a virgin goddess, however.

But I did get into ANTIGODDESS once the plot really kicked into gear - enemy gods show up, Athena and Hermes get a lead, Cassandra clues in.  I wish the book hadn't taken so long to get to the good stuff, but it does give me high hopes for the next book in The Goddess War series.  However, I felt like Athena and Hermes showed a shocking lack of curiosity in the second half.  They don't even question why another god they meet isn't dying like all the others.

ANTIGODDESS is full of great ideas and has an interesting approach to mythology, but the characters are thin and the book is slow to start.  I think Blake is a terrific author, but this highly anticipated release disappointed me.  The ending is strong enough to make me want to read the second book, which I hope fulfills the promise of the series instead of briefly touching it.

Review: Playing Tyler

By T.L. Costa
Available now from Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot)
Review copy

I love the bottom half of the PLAYING TYLER cover.  The red poppies against the white are dramatic and different, especially in person.  But the silhouette of the helicopter feels awkwardly angled and out of balance to me.  The way I feel about the cover is similar to how I feel about the book.  There are parts I really like, and parts I really don't.

PLAYING TYLER alternates between two points of view.  Tyler MacCandless is a talented gamer, but he's failing school.  He doesn't want to take his ADHD medicine, his mom is never home, and his brother is in rehab.  All he wants to do is fly, and this new simulator he's testing could be his ticket into flight school.  Ani Bagdorian is also a gamer, but she's an even better programmer.  It's gotten her into Yale years early, although she didn't get a full ride.  She's paying for the rest with a job creating a simulation.

Despite both being narrators, Tyler is definitely the protagonist.  The major events of the plot happen to him, and he undergoes a change in character.  But I did like that Ani's point of view was given.  Plus, her passages are a nice break from Tyler's run-on, rapid thoughts.  The chapters are also short, which keeps the pages moving.  All in all, PLAYING TYLER was a quick, easy read.

Probably the biggest flaw is that it takes more than a third, closer to half, of the novel to reach the good stuff.  It doesn't take anything more than reading the blurb to know that Tyler is going to turn out to be piloting drones for real.  But it takes forever for the book to reach that foregone plot point.  It also glosses over the nuanced moral issues of drones by throwing drug running into the mix.  Everyone can agree that drug runners suck - especially teen boys with addict brothers.

I did like T.L. Costa's portrayal of the affects of drug addiction on a family.  There are subtle hints that this isn't Brandon's first stint in rehab.  Their mother is wrong to not be there for Tyler, but it's understandable that she's cut ties with Brandon.  Sometimes, even though you love people, you just can't let them in your life while they're being toxic.  Costa's portrayal of romance isn't as good as her portrayal of family.  In fact, I might've found it creepy if not for Ani's passages revealing that she is into Tyler.

PLAYING TYLER is a quick, fun read.  But it's also one I started picking apart in my head almost as soon as I finished.  I think it's a debut that shows promise and look forward to Costa's future novels.  I don't regret reading PLAYING TYLER, but I wouldn't go out of my way to pick it up.

Review: A Midsummer Night's Scream

By R.L. Stine
Available now from Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan)
Review copy

I outgrew R.L. Stine's books pretty quick.  I still kept reading them regularly, at least through seventh grade, because they were fun.  Formulaic, yes, but the Fear Street books especially were chock-full of inventive deaths.  For a morbid little kid an inventive death goes a long way.

Nowadays, I have a fond nostalgia for Stine.  It helps that I met him once in person and he was incredibly nice.  (I was super awkward because my friend dropped out on me and I was the only person over eighteen there alone.)  Without that nostalgia, I might not have finished A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM.  But I'm sure the intended audience for the novel will enjoy it.  There's one death that's probably going to make my dreams a little freaky for a night or two.

The plot is simple: Claire and her best friend Delia have small roles in Mayhem Manor, the remake of a never-finished horror film.  Three members of the original cast died on tape.  Pretty soon, bad things start happening to the new cast too.  It's made clear that the studio will shut down if the production fails, but it's still hard to believe they don't close down the film for everyone's safety.  As for the connection to A Midsummer Night's Dream, it's fairly faint.  Each girl has a crush on a guy who has a crush on the other girl.  There's also a hairy man, Mr. Puckerman, with potions.

There was one aspect I found disappointing.  I remember Stine being delightfully gross, but I don't remember him being gross about gender.  There's a third girl, Annalee, who goes after Jake when Claire keeps failing to make a move.  She's catty about it, but it still grated on me when Claire and Delia constantly derided her for being a slut.  No wonder she didn't care to observe their unspoken hands off.

Don't go into A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM expecting complex characterization and an involved plot.  The characters are types, and sometimes hard to keep track of since there's a bunch of them.  The plot is only complicated in that it often requires people to act quite stupid.  Claire, for instance, keeps using potions she steals from Mr. Puckerman despite always grabbing the wrong one.

But I can't help but find something comforting about Stine's formula.  He's keeping cheesy teen (and child friendly) horror alive.  Just take a look at the fine work of Bitching, Books, and Baking to see how big the genre used to be.

Review: Delusion

By Laura L. Sullivan
Available now from Harcourt (Houghton Mifflin)
Review copy

DELUSION is one of those books with a killer premise.  Twin magicians (as in Harry Houdini) are sent to the countryside during WWII wherein they find as school of magicians (as in Harry Potter).  Unfortunately, it takes a long time to live up to the promise of that premise.

The novel is narrated in omniscient third, although it usually sticks close to Phil Albion, that is.  After the death of her little foster brother in a bombing, she's determined to convince the sleepy, forgotten village of Bittersweet to due its duty for the cause.  When she stumbles upon the College of Drycraeft, she's just as determined to convince the magicians to fight in the war.  But the war has touched the village in some ways, as evidenced by wounded veterans Uncle Walter and Algernon.  The magicians present their reasons for staying out of it, including their determination to never use magic to take a life.  But it takes Phil a long time to even admit shades of grey exists and that she might not know what's best for everyone.

DELUSION slips into other characters' heads randomly, for a few lines or a few paragraphs.  It is not done smoothly and often provides clumsy exposition.  Those other characters include Fee, Phil's twin, who is particularly wasted.  She's a romantic and falls in love with one of the magicians at first sight.  She has almost nothing to do in the story aside from that.  As for Arden, the magician Phil falls in love with, he's a real winner.  He's a jerk and possibly his only redeeming quality is that he agrees with Phil that the magicians need to protect the country that shelters them.

But I didn't totally hate DELUSION.  Once Phil finally agreed with every other person around her that war is complicated, the story began taking on layers.  Before that, the only layers were people offering their differing views to a brick wall pretending to be a redhead.  Plus, there are some really exciting developments toward the end of DELUSION.  Basically, by the end of the novel I was loving it.  But it was a bit of a slog to make it to the good stuff.

If you are longing to read a historical fantasy, then go ahead and pick up DELUSION.  Otherwise, you might be a little wary.  I want to read the next novel, but where Laura L. Sullivan goes next will definitely affect my opinion of the readability of DELUSION.

Review: This is Not a Drill

By Beck McDowell
Available now from Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin)
Review copy

Beck McDowell doesn't shy away from big subjects in her debut.  In THIS IS NOT A DRILL, an armed veteran comes to an elementary classroom looking to take his kid out of school early.  The completely awesome teacher tells him he needs to follow procedure and refuses to just let Brian Sutton take his son away - leading to Sutton taking the class hostage.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL is told through the alternating points of view of Emery and Jake, high school seniors who tutor the class part time.  They've very clearly got a past - Emery dislikes working with Jake and is mad at him for some reason.  The exact details unfold as the two work together to protect the kids.  Jake, I would say, has a more dynamic character arc than Emery, but both are fairly stock characters.  But THIS IS NOT A DRILL isn't about their character growth, so it doesn't matter that they're pretty thinly drawn.  It's a thriller with a decent-sized helping of political commentary.

McDowell puts little kids in danger, which both ups and lessens the tension.  It's scarier because no one wants little kids to get hurt and the kids are terrible at behaving and not angering the upset gunman.  They need to go to the bathroom, they can't sit for too long, they get into fights.  They're kids.  But it's less scary because I never felt that McDowell would actually transgress convention and kill one of the kids.  Only the older characters felt like they were in danger.  (McDowell also gives the death count at the beginning, which definitely makes it seem like the kids will be fine.)

As for Sutton, he's suffering from PTSD and clearly didn't integrate well into civilian life after his tour and Iraq.  His wife definitely has grounds to divorce him and go for full custody, and he definitely overreacts, but McDowell still makes a decent point.  Soldiers not getting the psychological support they need after spending time fighting a war is a real problem.  At the same time, the message of THIS IS NOT A DRILL is delivered in such a ham-fisted manner that I literally cringed while reading.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL is a surprisingly quick and easy read, given that it's about a school shooting.  There are some really clever moments, as the teacher, Emery, and Jake try to get help without Sutton noticing and hurting someone.  And I did hope than none of them would be included in the final body count, no matter how unlikely that seemed.  But what could have been a taut thriller went off the rails every time it started to harp on PTSD and the government's responsibility to soldiers.  It's even a point I agree with, but it just kept killing momentum instead of being folded into the action.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL is an okay read, but ends up being more forgettable than hard hitting.

Review: Dead Cat Bounce

First book in Jonah Lightbody series
By Nic Bennett
Available September 13, 2012 from Razorbill (Penguin)
Review copy

Confession: I find stocks very, very boring.  Reading passages about Jonah Lightbody learning about stocks and derivatives from his father and then his father-figure the Baron was like listening to my father talk about them.  Now, Bennett explains the bare minimum needed for DEAD CAT BOUNCE to make any sense, but that was still almost too much for me.  That is how boring I think stocks are.

Second confession: Economics classes and friends who work in financial sectors have pretty much convinced me that no one knows how the economy actually works.  (Look, I was studying the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis in 2008.  It's no wonder I have a negative mindset.)  Fortunately for DEAD CAT BOUNCE, it didn't ask me to give up that view. 

Nic Bennett's novel starts off with a terrific, in media res prologue.  Jonah's in a hotel room, downloading some secret program and shooting people.  It's tense and violent and genuinely suspenseful.  Then we go back in time to him being a twelve year old and gaining a passion for financial trading.  By sixteen, he's working for the same bank as his father, but as the protege of his nemesis.  Jonah's into taking big risks, whereas his neglectful father prefers to make small, safe bets.  Basically, there's interesting interpersonal dynamics but it's surrounded by a topic that I find extremely boring.

That doesn't mean others won't find it interesting.  Lots of people are involved in the stock market and plenty of them start young.  And DEAD CAT BOUNCE centers around the Financial Crisis of 2008, a crisis still affecting the world.  I can't imagine there aren't people who would find a conspiracy about the crisis fascinating.

As for me, DEAD CAT BOUNCE really started moving once it caught up to the opening.  International chases, shoot outs, confronting the bad guys - all good stuff.  I'm interested in reading the sequel, BLACK SWAN DIVE, since it will probably be more of an actioneer than DEAD CAT BOUNCE.  There's really nothing wrong with DEAD CAT BOUNCE, but if a thriller set in the City doesn't sound like your thing, then it probably isn't.  If it does sound like your thing, then have at it.