Review: Red Glove

By Holly Black
Available now from Simon & Schuster
Review copy
Read my review of WHITE CAT

Cassel Sharpe and his friends return in the second installment of the Curse Workers series. This time, the mysteries afoot are ones Cassel has already solved. (Or mostly solved.) The Feds want Cassel to find out who Zacharov's wetworks man is. They're interested in one murder in particular, one that Cassel has a personal interest in. He needs to give them an answer, not just to protect himself, but also to protect their number one suspect and his love interest: Lila.

I loved RED GLOVE as much as I loved WHITE CAT. I was pleased to see that most of the book took place at Cassel's snooty private school. I loved his friends and their willingness to help him out at WHITE CAT's denoument. They also prove that Cassel doesn't have a monopoly on secrets. One of them is hiding something rather important, in fact. (Do you know how hard it is to review a book about cons? I'm afraid to give away any information in case it's too much information.)

Also like WHITE CAT, Holly Black ripped my heart out just as I thought everything was going to turn out perfectly. This time the heart-ripping was tempered by a bit of, "Okay, that was your fault, Cassel." Still, this series better end happy. Cassel is earning his happy ending.

Cassel has more control of events in RED GLOVE. He's not scrambling around trying to find out what's going on. He's trying to figure out how to handle the various people who want control of him. (That group includes the Feds, Zacharov, and a rival crime family.)

If you didn't like WHITE CAT, you probably won't like RED GLOVE. The characters haven't fundamentally changed. Cassel will never be entirely a good guy. Lila will never be a good girl. I love the world Black has created, where every magic user has few opportunities aside from crime. I like the discussions of workers' rights. I like the crazy plots.

But why does Black insist on ripping my heart out at the end every time?

Week In Review

I may do this weekly, I may not. Pretty much I'm just linkspamming random nifty bookish things.  Feel free to share your favorite things from this week with me in the comments or on your own blog.

(Two via Go Fug Yourself)

Insulted by Authors (some NSFW)



360-Degree Panorama Takes You Inside Prague’s Off-Limits Baroque Library
One of the best things about college: you meet other girls who saw Beauty and the Beast and decided they were interested in the type of guy who would give them a library.

(via too many people to count)

BigAl's Books and Pals: Review of the GREEK SEAMAN by Jacqueline Howett

I want to thank every author I've ever reviewed for not reacting like this.

(via my own blogroll/browsing)

1bruce1 proves Francine Pascal is real. Ya'll don't know how badly I want to read SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL. I had to resist buying it in Target the other day.

Jennifer Egan Tells Young Writers to Ignore "Best Of" Lists

Signed onto Jezebel for the first time in forever. The new design still sucks.

Maggie Stiefvater's April Fools Prank: LITTER

A. S. King's V-Day Post



Sarah Rees Brennan announces a new trilogy. THE DEMON'S SURRENDER, the final novel in her current trilogy, will be released June 14. I had a ridiculously fun time seeing her live last year and can't wait to read the new book.

Tributes to Diana Wynne Jones:

Neil Gaiman

Emma Bull

Farah Mendlesohn

Quoth Mendlesohn:

It would be conventional to say here, “and had children of their own” but while that’s true too, what is fascinatingly true, is that many of them had books of their own. Diana had not just grown fans, she had grown writers. Science fiction and fantasy authors, writers for both adults and children, began to cite her influence, writers as diverse as Neil Gaiman, Kate Elliott, Marie Brennan, Chaz Brenchley, John Scalzi, Shweta Narayan, Rhiannon Lassiter, Charlie Butler, Sarah Monette, Sharianne Lewitt, Caroline Stevermer, Sonya Taafe, Nisi Shawl, Gillian Polack and Greer Gilman. Some had read her as children, some met her work later in life.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

You may have noticed some changes in the blog lately. I've added an "About Me" page, a widget for the Book Blogs Search Engine, the LinkWithin widget, and a few ads. I'm also trying to update my blogroll, so if I've left you off, please let me know.

As always, comment if you have any ideas about how I can improve the blog.

Happy International Children's Books Day!

April 2 is International Children's Books Day, in honor of Hans Christian Anderson's birthday. This year the international sponsor of ICBD is Estonia. A message from author Aino Pervik can be found by following the link on the USBBYP site.

To celebrate, I'm going to look at the international visitors to IBWB!

This week, there were more visitors from France than the United States. I don't know why I struck a chord with the French, but I'm grateful for the attention anyway. I unfortunately didn't get to visit France while I was in Europe, but I've heard good things. This week, countries 3-9 were Canada, Russia, Germany, Hong Kong, the UK, Iran, Brazil, and Ukraine. I'm familiar with some Canadian, German, and UK bloggers, but puzzled about how everyone else found me! I can only be happy that my words have reached a variety of people. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you come again.

Here's my challenge for you, today: give a book to someone under the age of 13. I don't care whether you do it directly or through a charity. It can be something you loved, something new that's now being hyped, or something you discover poking around the site on ICBD.

Review: Why I Love Singlehood

By Elisa Lorello and Sarah Girrell
Available May 31 from AmazonEncore (Kindle edition available now)
Review copy



I loved the first AmazonEncore novel I read. I'll admit to being nervous when I started Andrew Xia Fukuda's CROSSING. I've wanted to rewrite the review of CROSSING, as I don't think I captured the novel well. I felt it exemplified the AmazonEncore statement of "exceptional yet overlooked books." I could see why it would be overlooked - the protagonist is often unlikeable and there is no happy ending. WHY I LOVE SINGLEHOOD had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, I felt like the novel fit "overlooked" more than "exceptional," because WHY I LOVE SINGLEHOOD would be overlooked due to being average.

WHY I LOVE SINGLEHOOD is Eva Perino's journey from lying to herself and playing it safe to doing the things that fulfill her. That doesn't mean her life at the start of the novel is terrible. She has a thriving business – a coffee shop named The Grounds – and a group of fabulous friends. When her ex-who-she-remained-friends-with Shaun tells her he's engaged, Eva is hurt and realizes remaining close to the guy she used to love might not have been the best idea. Unfortunately, she just started the eponymous blog. Thus, she begins to turn it into a chronicle of her forays into dating again.

I liked that it wasn't immediately apparent which guy in Eva's life would be the one she ended up with. She has several good choices, including The Grounds' manager Norman and regular customer Car Talk Kenny. While WHY I LOVE SINGLEHOOD is chick lit rather than romance, the romantic storyline is the strongest. Other aspects of Eva's life are interesting, but the book meanders. There isn't a strong sense of structure.

In some ways, that's good. The way things unfold in the story feel organic. At the same time, it's sometimes confusing. The Grounds contains the Originals and the Regulars, a reoccurring cast of customers. Members of this supporting cast disappear and reappear. There's quite a few and most are minor, so I kept losing track of who some of them were and what they'd previously done in the story. (I forgot Jan and Dean were dating until it became important, long after it was first mentioned.) It felt like some of them could have been cut.

I also feel like the setting is slightly misued. Elisa Lorello and Sarah Girrell focus on the people that inhabit the coffee shop. The coffee itself is rarely mentioned. (Eva dislikes coffee.) As for the baked goods, two are mentioned in detail - a lemon tart and a halfmoon cookie. Both are excellent, evocative scenes. How is it through the rest of the novel that the sensual power of food is ignored? WHY I LOVE SINGLEHOOD lacks a sense of taste and smell that's right there. Instead it is content to remain floating on the surface of the coffee shop.

WHY I LOVE SINGLEHOOD is definitely the kind of chick lit I prefer. It tends to be humorous and light rather than dramatic and angsty. There are moments of drama. Terrible things happen to some of the characters. But even when a character lands in the hospital, things quickly return to normal.

WHY I LOVE SINGLEHOOD will appeal to those who enjoy stories about women reevaluating their life choices, told in a way that isn't overly serious. Eva is a decent heroine – she's hard-working and a bit controlling, but she's willing to own up to her own mistakes. At the same time, I didn't feel a spark. I found the novel fun, but I'm already forgetting the details and I just finished.