Review: The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy

By Kate Hattemer
Available now from Knopf BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

When NetGalley sent out an email of hot upcoming titles, I was instantly drawn to THE VIGILANTE POETS OF SELWYN ACADEMY.  I wanted to know what a vigilante poet was.  Add in that those vigilante poets' nemesis is a reality television show (a very current YA trend), and I was there.

Ethan and his three best friends, Luke, Jonathon, and Elizabeth, are students at Selwyn Academy.  It's an arts academy, where the halls are filled with conversations such as Monet versus Manet.  But lately, the only conversation is about For Arts' Sake.  FAS is a new reality TV show filming at Selwyn, featuring Selwyn students.  As they discover just how fake the show is, they decide to do something about it.  They'll write, print, and distribute a long poem (inspired by Ezra Pound's Cantos) to protest FAS and rile the student body.  Things don't go as planned when ringleader Luke joins the show and Ethan, Jonathon, and Elizabeth are left to fight alone.

This book is insane and I love it.  Debut author Kate Hattemer does an amazing job of keeping the plot from tipping too far into unreality.  The characters are studying the Cantos in English, which is why they have long poems on the brain.  Ethan doesn't actually get the Cantos all that easily and has to think about one the language means.  (And of course this all means that Pound gets quoted frequently, and his language is as lovely as ever.)  Then there's the poetry by Luke and the others, which is appealing and clever, but not too much so for high school students.

I also really loved the characters of THE VIGILANTE POETS OF SELWYN ACADEMY.  Several of the antagonists are just good people who could have done better.  (The vice principal is cartoonishly evil, but what vice principle isn't?  And one of the contestants doesn't have any redeeming features, but that's clearly because narrator Ethan loathes him.)  Ethan is a talented, nice kid, but he clearly has a lot to learn about interacting with people, particularly those he likes.  (Sometimes the book isn't subtle as I'd like about that point.)  The two girl characters are fantastic.  Elizabeth (who I assume is black due to her dreads) is as involved in the plans as any of the boys, makes sure that her point of view is heard, and drives recklessly.  Maura, a contestant on the show and Ethan's crush, really doesn't care how the show portrays her because she just wants the scholarship money to go to Julliard since she can dance.  Maura doesn't think twice about trashing her reputation for her arts' sake. 

I think THE VIGILANTE POETS OF SELWYN ACADEMY is a seriously great book.  It delivers and fast and funny story about teenage rebellion while contemplating the many ways reality TV is totally fake, friendship is hard (especially because people change or are never who you thought they were), and the tragically short lives of pocket pets.  It earns that "poets" in its title as well.  The poetry in the book is accessible, but not dumbed down.  THE VIGILANTE POETS OF SELWYN ACADEMY revels in how poetry can be a force.  I am all for that, and all for this book.

Review: Darkbound

Second book in The Legacy of Moonset series
By Scott Tracey
Available now from Flux (Llewellyn)
Review copy
Read my reviews of Phantom Eyes and Moonset

I thoroughly enjoyed MOONSET, which I called a book about "small towns with secrets, people with secrets, a closely bound found family, black magic, and a protagonist who has a lot to learn" and noted that I was eager for the next book to see how some surprising revelations played out and what other secrets would be uncovered.  It set the stage of five siblings bound my magic, possibly as part of their now deceased parents' villainous master plan.

DARKBOUND's point of view shifts from Justin (the mediator sibling), who narrated MOONSET, to Malcolm (the just-wants-to-be-normal sibling).  It picks up all the threads left open at the end of MOONSET, ties them up with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and throws in a powerful creep who misunderstands the meaning of love.

I took a bit to warm up to Mal at first.  I really liked Justin the super socially awkward.  Mal gets along with most people pretty well.  It's his siblings, the characters the reader already cares about, who he doesn't quite mesh with.  He wants a freedom that none of the others do.  But warm up to him I did, especially as DARKBOUND began to redeem Jenna (the troublemaking sibling).  Jenna wasn't flat-out awful or anything, but it's nice to see her point of view get some sympathy and for her to get some heroic moments.

I also liked how Mal was rounded out by the things he didn't say and his contradictions.  He clearly has a complicated relationship with his body (possibly an eating disorder) that possibly comes from the lack of control in his life due to his coven bond.  He also only expresses interests in other men, but never outright discusses his sexuality.  He gets along quite well with the head of the witchy Congress, despite the fact that he has a number of reasons to fear and dislike her.  He's unreasonable about magic in a way his siblings aren't, but he's more reasonable about a few things.

DARKBOUND does have it's flaws.  The climax is somewhat confusing, and definitely casts Mal in a different light.  Ash, Justin's girlfriend, disappears from the narrative completely.  There are only a few hints as to what the Moonset coven's ultimate plans were.  (Is this series going to be longer than a trilogy? I don't know.)  However, like its predecessor, it is fun.

I wonder which sibling will narrate next.  Jenna?  I'd love to read a book featuring her, but at the same time younger sibling Bailey and Cole have been shifted to the side.  (Cole certainly displays an intriguing bit of strangeness in DARKBOUND.)  But I'm eager to see where this series goes and how my perception will continue to shift as I read.  After all, like their parents, Justin, Jenna, Mal, Cole, and Bailey might not be the good guys.

Review: Sekret

By Lindsay Smith
Available now from Roaring Brook Press
Review copy

SEKRET is set in the Cold War-era USSR, when Nikita Krushchev was in power.  Heroine Yulia is in hiding with her mother and brother.  They used to be part of the Party, but then their father turned traitor and fled.  Now they survive based on her mother's medical skills and Yulia's talent for fencing medicine.  But things are about to change.

Because in SEKRET's Soviet Union, there are psychics.  Yulia just happens to be one of them, and her government wants her.  Working for the government means better food, better clothes, care for her brother, training in her powers.  It also means working for the government.  Getting people killed. Other bad things.  Yulia knows she has to escape, but doesn't know how to escape from people who can read her mind or predict her every move.  Escaping might not mean freedom, either.  It might mean working for another country's government instead.  It might also mean the execution of her brother and mother.  Yulia's stuck, unless she's very, very clever.

Not one of SEKRET's twists surprised me.   That didn't matter much, because I still enjoyed reading it.  I liked most of the other psychics, and felt for Yulia and them both when their motives conflicted.  SEKRET doesn't shy away from how hard it can be to live with people whose goals only partially align with yours and who have the ability to discern just where you diverge.

The relationships between the kids aren't restricted to friendship and suspicion.  There is romance.  It is not a love triangle of the type where the heroine can't decide between two guys, although two boys are involved.  Yulia is only interested in one of guys, which causes a great deal of friction.  (And, well, there aren't an equal number of girl and guy psychics, so pickings are slim.)  I liked Yulia and Valentin's relationship, which develops as they begin to trust each other, and is both sweet and sexy.

I think SEKRET will appeal to fans of spy thrillers who don't mind a bit of genetic mutation in their plot.  Smith mixes the science fiction and history well so that both are integral to the story.  Best of all, the Soviet Union-United States space race is involved.  Smith's debut novel is quite the thriller, intriguing characters and concepts more than making up for a predictable plot.

Review: Stolen Songbird

First book of the Malediction trilogy
By Danielle L. Jensen
Available now from Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot)
Review copy

I think Strange Chemistry is putting out some great books, but STOLEN SONGBIRD, one of their newest releases, didn't quite work for me.  Cécile de Troyes dreams of making it as a singer - but then she is kidnapped, married and bonded to a troll prince, and forced to sink or swim in an unfamiliar, violent and political realm.  Understanding her new husband and his motivations might help her survive, or it might lead to both of their deaths.

STOLEN SONGBIRD contained many plot elements that I love.  There are political machinations and people hiding their true feelings for instance.  And debut author Danielle L. Jensen comes up with some interesting complications.  Tristan, Cécile's husband, and the other trolls cannot lie.  Thus, the brewing rebellion has at least one big weakness.  Also, the bond between Tristan and Cécile means that they can feel each other's emotions.

Even with these pluses, I found myself unentranced by STOLEN SONGBIRD.  There was nothing that made me hate the book, but I felt like I had to force myself to keep reading it when there were other books I wanted to read more.  I feel like Jensen never pushed the elements of her story to their full potential.  For instance, the bond turns out to mostly end up warning Tristan whenever Cécile gets hurt.  There's no sense of intrusiveness or an invasion privacy, despite both of them being unwilling to bond.  Given that there's a strong element of romance, it's also strangely sexless.  They never seem to feel lust.

I feel like STOLEN SONGBIRD had potential.  If it were a little tighter and more development given to Tristan and the implications of the bond, it might've worked better.  Or perhaps if more time had been spent on the rebellion than the tepid romance.  As is, STOLEN SONGBIRD was a fairly generic YA fantasy novel.  Although it was about trolls, which are an underused fantasy race.

Review: The Goblin Emperor

By Katherine Addison
Available now from Tor (Macmillan)
Review copy

THE GOBLIN EMPEROR grabbed me tight and didn't let me go until it finished.  Not an easy feat for a book with approximately one half of an action scene in over four hundred pages.  That doesn't mean the scope of the book is small - the health of an entire empire is on the line, as civil war and external war both loom on the horizon.

Maia was the youngest and least favored son of the emperor.  He's half goblin and not exactly attractive by court standards, to top it off.  When his father and brothers die in an accident shortly before his eighteenth birthday, he his unexpectedly crowned emperor.  Given his youth and isolated childhood, he's ill prepared to take the throne.  That doesn't mean, however, that Maia is prepared to roll over and be a puppet.  He's critical of his father's rule and determined to do better, but he'll need to find allies he can trust if he's going to figure out how to make "better" happen.

Katherine Addison is a new penname of Sarah Monette.  I've read her novels as Monette, but I didn't know she had something like THE GOBLIN EMPEROR in her.  It has the elegant descriptions I expected, but it works in a way The Doctrine of Labyrinths didn't work for me.  Part of that is Maia himself.  He's a terrific central character, thoughtful, clever, but perhaps a bit too trusting and with a potential for cruelty.  And cruelty is a bad trait to be seeded in an emperor.

I quite liked the other characters too.  Maia has bodyguards that must constantly be with him, as well as a secretary who is far below him in class and rank but far above him in interpreting the people of the court.  He also has a fiancee, because he must guarantee the succession.  I wished for more of their awkward courtship, although I understood the book already had so much going on.  But it was quite fascinating to see two people who don't want to get married attempt to make overtures to each other.

And, okay, while there's only half an outright action scene, there is tons of intrigue.  I love me some intrigue.  There is backstabbing, opportunism, trade disagreements, fear of progress, and more.  It's delicious.  I could eat it up with a spoon, and I did.

I felt that the ending of THE GOBLIN EMPEROR came too soon.  There is a resolution, a true indication of the type of ruler Maia will be, but honestly I could've spent five hundred pages more with these characters in this world.  I would give my left arm for a sequel.  (I will, however, need my right arm to turn the pages.)