Review: The Night Parade

By Kathryn Tanquary
Available now from Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review copy

Saki Yamamoto has the three nights of the night parade to put things right after she accidentally calls down a death curse.  Not properly finishing a game of Kokkuri-san might be the best thing that's happened to her, because each night one of the three spirits (all tricksters) she's called comes to guide her.

THE NIGHT PARADE draws heavily on Japanese folklore and Shinto beliefs to tell both a mythical quest and one girl's dawning maturity.  At the beginning of the story, Saki can be quite trying.  She rejects genuine friendship to pursue the acceptance of bullies and grumbles about chores and listening to her grandmother's stories.  She's a city girl in the boonies and wants everyone to know she's not happy about it.

Of course, it is her bad attitude, laziness, and lack of care during the Obon preparations that helps invite an evil spirit in.

She shapes up almost inordinately fast, but I can't complain too much since it made THE NIGHT PARADE a more enjoyable experience for me.  I enjoyed seeing Saki come up with clever solutions to her problems and learn to truly listen and empathize with others.  It did help that she was learning these things through fantastical interactions with the spirit world.

THE NIGHT PARADE is a thrilling tale about the power of tradition and the value of respect.  I particularly liked the touch of Saki growing closer to her grandmother.  If you'd like to read THE NIGHT PARADE to coincide with Obon, it occurs either July 13 through 15 or August 13 through 15 depending on which calendar you follow.

Review: Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

By Karen Foxlee
Available now from Knopf BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Given that Frozen is tearing up the box office, I suspect that many kids now have some interest in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen."  It's the perfect moment for Karen Foxlee's modern retelling OPHELIA AND THE MARVELOUS BOY to come out.  And this was a wonderful book to curl up with on a cold day.

The Marvelous Boy was chosen by wizards to bear a sword and deliver it to the person who can defeat the Snow Queen.  Ophelia is a young girl grieving over her mother's death and feeling ignored by her sister and father.  (They are, of course, reacting to the mother's death in their own way and the book is very fair about this.)  When Ophelia finds the Marvelous Boy, locked up for centuries by the Snow Queen, she reluctantly agrees to help free him and find his sword.

I've always enjoyed the way this story subverts standard gender roles and love that Foxlee kept that aspect.  The Marvelous Boy is the damsel in distress and Ophelia is the hero who finds her courage to save the day.  Of course, they can only do it by working together and trusting in each other, which is a nice message.

I thought OPHELIA AND THE MARVELOUS BOY did a good job of updating the story without losing the fairytale charm.  The Marvelous Boy tells Ophelia how he came to be trapped and his stories are basically pure fairytale style.  Ophelia, meanwhile, lives in a fairly typical modern city - even if it does happen to snow all the time.  But she's constantly in the museum where her father works and the Marvelous Boy is trapped, and a museum is a terrific setting for blending history and magic together.  I liked the descriptions of the various exhibits; it sounded like a fun museum to visit.

I think OPHELIA AND THE MARVELOUS BOY is a wonderful choice for middle grade readers.  It deals with themes of grief, death, and change in a whimsical, light story.  This would be a particularly good choice for kids who are slightly too young for Claire Legrand's THE YEAR OF SHADOWS.

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: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

By April Genevieve Tucholke
Available now from Dial (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Violet White and her brother Luke live alone in Citizen Kane, their crumbling family estate.  Their parents are off in Europe, and have been for awhile.  Violet's only friend is Sunshine, their neighbor who delights in flirting with the sexist Luke.  To make money, Violet decides to rent the guesthouse - which brings River West into their lives.

Soon enough, strange things are happening in their little town.  And it always seems like River is at the center of the strangeness, which is steadily becoming more sinister.  Debut author April Genevieve Tucholke has good instincts for making Violet's continued attraction to River believable.  For one thing, the first truly horrible thing done is partially done in defense of a child.  There's Violet's lack of supervision and upbringing.  And there's River himself, stacking the deck in his favor.

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, like UNSPOKEN, is a modern Gothic.  It has all the trappings of one of the classics: an atmospheric house, children in peril, an enigmatic man, possible supernatural shenanigans.  That traditional feel commingles with modern attitudes and morality to create a truly absorbing read.  There's mystery, romance, terror, and teenagers spinning out of control.

In some ways, I feel like I shouldn't like BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA.  Or perhaps I feel that I should feel guilty about liking it.  This is one twisted book.  But it's twisted in such a fun, compulsively readable sort of way.  I would've eaten it up back when I was a morbid teenager, and I ate it up pretty easily now.  It's why certain types of horror are popular.  There's a perverse pleasure in being disturbed.

Fans of paranormal romance looking for something with a lot of style and atmosphere should flock to BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA.  It's both different and familiar, in all the best ways.  It's certainly a promising beginning to Tucholke's career.

Review: Tides

By Betsy Cornwell
Available now from Clarion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Review copy

I have a secret fondness for selkies.  They aren't deadly, like some mythological creatures, and they're most well known for being kidnapped and stuck with horrible men, which is not a great fate.  But there's something about the folklore that resonates with me.

The two young people at the center of TIDES are Noah and Mara.  Noah is working as an intern at the Marine Science Research his last summer before college and living with his grandmother (the lighthouse keeper) and younger sister (who needed to get away from their parents).  He can't wait to move on and go to college in the fall.  Mara is a selkie whose sister Aine was kidnapped years ago.  Now, the Elder of her group is afraid to let the youngest selkies grow and Mara and her brother are stuck perpetually babysitting.  She wants to be a leader and is chafing under the rules that keep her close and powerless.  Then they meet. 

TIDES is a quiet, lovely novel that builds to an action-packed finish.  It's morality is fairly simple, but explored in interesting ways.  It shows the ways that people can hurt each other, accidentally and on purpose, as well as how they can forge new connections and become stronger.  I liked TIDES had a plot that came together neatly, even though the focus was on character.

Almost every character in TIDES has their own motivations and goals.  Even the grandmother Gemm has a lovely (lesbian) romance that's given a fair amount of detail.  There are also differences between the humans and selkies, culturally as well as physically.  Perhaps my favorite moment that illustrated the difference was when Mara first meets Lo and muses about how she does and doesn't look like Noah and decides that they do look enough alike to be siblings.  Then a human immediately mistakes them for not-siblings since Lo is adopted and Chinese.  I did feel that Lo's eating disorder was overcome somewhat quickly, but I liked that it never completely disappeared from the story despite not being the focus.  It's not a disease that shows up much outside of issue books.

I think TIDES will appeal to fans of classic fantasy novels like A RING OF ENDLESS LIGHT by Madeleine L'Engle.  It has that quiet, intimate appeal.  It's also a good choice for YA fans looking for a slightly older protagonist.  Noah definitely doesn't have high school worries.  I thoroughly enjoyed TIDES, and think I would've even if I weren't fond of selkies.