I could have been using the word "aughts" in daily conversation this entire time and NOBODY TOLD ME????

Title: Little Black Lies

Author: Tish Cohen

Pages: 320

Received from: author

Summary:

Sara and her father are moving to Boston from small-town Lundun, Massachusetts. She is going to attend the very prestigious Anton High School—crowned “North America’s Most Elite and Most Bizarre” by TIME magazine, and harder to get into than Harvard. As the new girl, Sara doesn’t know anyone; better yet, no one knows her. This means she can escape her family’s checkered past, and her father can be a surgeon instead of “Crazy Charlie,” the school janitor.

What’s the harm in a few little black lies? Especially if they transform Sara into Anton’s latest “It” girl . . . .But then one of the popular girls at school starts looking into Sara’s past, and her father’s obsessive-compulsive disorder takes a turn for the worse. Soon, the whole charade just might come crashing down . . .

Sara Black is not having a good year.

Beside the fact that she has to move from her native Lundon (that's Massechusets, not England) for the hardcore high school known for it's Ivy-league graduates, her janitor father's OCD is hitting full force because of her mother's decision to leave for a cooking school in France (with her science teacher, by the way.) So surviving a year at Anton High for the brilliant and wealthy is definetly not something Sara's looking forward to. Soon, however, she finds a segway into the elite social status of Anton, but they require something of a spelling mistake and a whole mess of lies. And, as well all know, the shit has to hit the fan some time.

Little Black Lies is, in a word, simple. It's the tellings of a young girl who tells a few lies to get ahead in school. There isn't any kind of real complexity to speak of, though this isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I rather liked the simple premise, and the simpler message: lies come back to haunt you.

The lies in question include, but are not limited to: she is from London (not Lundon), her mother is a French cheif (not a complete lie) and, most notably, her father is a brain surgeon who got her into the school because some of his patients work at Anton (as opposed to good ol' Charlie the Janitor, who cleans the sinks until his hands bleed and smells so strongly of bleach kids tear up when they approach him).

There is no malace in the lies Sara tells. In fact, for every fib she tells for the sake of position, she battles with her nagging conciounse for about twenty to thirty pages. These lies can even be seen as understandable; this is not a typical New Kid routine. This is a girl who has had no control in her life thus far, moving into a school of rich geniuses her Junior year (even though the school's official policy is no new students after Freshman year) because her OCD-riddled janitor of a father took a job. I mean, damn, I would fib a little too. The admirable trait about Sara is how guilty she feels about lying. I mean, most kids lie through their teeth every day without breaking a sweat, and here's this chick who literally loses hours of sleep because she told the titular "little black lie". This is probably the reason she's so likeable. Cohen doesn't glamorize lying, making it seem like this ploy to get you friends or status. There are some pretty juicy consequences to everything Sara does that, let me tell you, is way more then most YA authors would have the guts to write about.

The best aspect in this blogger's opinion is the relationship between Sara and her father, Charlie. Cohen creates this warm and lovable man, this ridiculously devoted father and all around nice guy whom, in any normal circumstance, would be a great person to read about, but then sticks him with this dibilitating illness that haunts both he and his daughter to the point where their positions are almost reversed...it was just a sad thing, though beautifully excecuted.

I'm loving the math aspect of Little Black Lies (God help me if I ever say that again). Sara would make little equations in her head involving the people around her and the decisions they make, such as "Mom-(Dad+Me)=happiness".

The real depth from the plot comes with Sara's comparison's of her own life to the novel Crime and Punishment (which, until reading this book, I believed to be some kind of law encyclopedia...shut up). It was very interesting to read the parralels between Sara and Raskolnikov (whom she nicknames Rascal), as well as the itnerpretations she offers (which proves how intelligent she is, taking this novel out of the "She's Smart Because I Say So" category).

There were a lot of weird things too--such as the flashbacks Sara has of the weeks leading up to her mother's take off. While they are fascinating, they just came at weird and often irrelevant times in the text that I found myself forgetting where Sara left off and the flashback began. If there were maybe some smoother transitions, or more indications that this is the past and that is the present, this wouldn't have been a problem.

And what would a YA be without a freakin' love interest?

Leo. Dear, sweet Leo. If only I could have gotten to know you better, if only I could have gotten inside that little head and figure out exactly why you were dating The School Bitch for as long as you did when you clearly despised the dirt she walked on, we could have been something great. Your a nice guy, Leo, but you need to open up more. And why, my dear boy, are you so defensive about some scars you got on your chest from blowing up nail polish in middle school? You had me thinking you were a tragic, abused ruffian ala Cabel of Wake fame. That is teasing me, my friend, and I don't take well to teasing.

Despite the unfleshed out Leading Man and some strange flashback placements, Little Black Lies is definetly an intriguing novel that does a fine job of setting itself apart from the YA scene. I eagerly await any future releases Tish Cohen has for us.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Also: This song is stuck in my head and refuses to leave.

By a show of hands, how many of you bloggers are a Modern American (Eurpean?) Teenager?

By another show of hands, how many of you Modern American (European?) Teenagers have, say, written a book?

How many of you have showed it to other people? (namely: adults)

How many of you have been taken seriously?

Thought so.

This is situation we crazy kids often find ourselves in--we are simply not seen as intelligent, free-thinking human beings. We are shells, you see. Delicate flowers. We can't speak politics! We can't make our own decisions! We don't know what's best! Your just angstin' out, Dannie-girl! You don't know nothing.

But here's the thing: I do know something. I know a lot, in fact. I might go far enough to say I know more then you.

What makes me say this, you ask? Well, maybe it's because I'm the one tutoring you on how to put together a fold-in table. Or perhaps because it's me who can name all fifty states without looking at a map. Or that I know the difference between Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin. Maybe it's because I have been able to figure out sex, drugs, men, women, how to procure a fake driver's license, how to steal up to three DVDs at a time and tamper with report cards by sixth grade. MAYBE--and just maybe--I know more then you because you have allowed me to. You have allowed me to be so underestimated I am able to gain as much information as I need to, and you haven't the slightest idea because you still hold on to the idea that us teenagers are big slices of idiot pie.

And we're not. We're really, really not.

I will not tell you the exact reason behind this rant--I've never been one to point fingers--but I will give you this: whatever you, as an author, think in your head teengers behave as--erase it. You are most likely wrong. Even you there with the sixteen year old daughter who is just the sweetest thing. She is not. No body is, and just because they don't walk around with a lip ring and dragon tattoo on their ass does not make them angels.

I will assemble a list of tropes commonly found in the YA genre. I will add my commentary. You can either respond with vigor, telling me I know nothing and I don't know every teenager on the planet. Or, you could agree whole-heartedly. It is that kind of list.

Let's begin.

Mean Girls



despite the hilarity and cheap plot points this trope could offer a novel, it is simply inaccurate. There is no such thing as an A-Typical mean girl or social hierarchy. That probably stopped when Claire's started selling chains. There is too many branches and subgenres of the styles that existed in the eighties and nineties to even begin putting them in A, B and C groups.

We Are From the Underworld (because we can't have a credit card!)



Obviously, in our strain to be taken seriously and be treated more like adults, we become hormonal beasts with a taste for human flesh. I mean, duh.

Just kidding. We don't. We have many more important things to be throwing tantrums about. Such as the impending threat of poverty and disease. Give us a little credit, here.

Like, Omigod



I don't know anyone--and I live in a pretty shallow high school--who uses IM speak. Likewise, I know no one who's idea of a good time is looking through fashion magazines and swooning over Zac Efron. Again, this stems from the argument that kids are able to process deep thought without blowing a circuit.

Your So Cool, Mr. Johnson!



Here's the thing about teachers; they don't give a shit about what you have to say. Cynical? Perhaps, but most kids are. None of my teachers, in all my years of schooling, have once tried to be more then that--teachers. A person who's job is to messure my intelligence by a letter grade for a year and then pass me along to the next grade. This is, 99.9% percent of the time, what happens. The remaining 1% is made into a movie starring Morgan Freeman.

Lonely, so lonely!



I am not often lonely. And this is not because I have a group of people surrounding me at all times. It is simply because I do not require a large amount of friends around me to feel whole. I like to sit in my room sometimes with no one to talk to. I enjoy having time to myself. If I'm not invited to a super cool party, I do not mope in my bedroom all night wishing Bobby would call me. It doesn't happen.

And, perhaps most importantly...

WE ARE NOT BOY CRAZY



Self-explanitory. I literally think about "cute boys" like, once a year. My friends and I do not spend our school days trolling the hallways for that cute senior who was totally giving me a look in English! Wanna know why? Because, in English, I was not looking for that cute senior's look. I was busy studying so I could pass the class so I could graduate so I could somehow procure a job in this highly competitive job market which, by the way, is plummeting as we speak.

Do I make myself clear?

So, those are my problems with YA fiction. What about you?

Twelfth Planet Press is part of the changing face of Australian publishing.

Blending print and electronic formats, Twelfth Planet Press aims to foster, develop and promote quality speculative fiction writing in fresh, exciting projects.

Title: Roadkill

Author: Robert Shearman

Pages: 50

Received from: publisher

Description:

Roadkill is a squeamishly uncomfortable story with the kind of illicit weekend away that you never want to have. “Roadkill” offers a taste of the new full length collection by Robert Shearman, out in November.

“Do you want some music?” he said at last, “would some music be nice?” He fished around for a wad of CDs with his spare hand. “I think some music would be nice,” he said, “I’ll see if I can find Elton John.” And then she didn’t so much hear it as feel it, there was a thud, and a quick streak of something very solid against the windscreen. “Jesus,” he said. He didn’t drop the CDs, she noted, he put them back safely into the glove compartment. “Jesus, what was that?”

“Pull over,” she said. And he looked at her with bewilderment. “Pull over,” she said again, and he did so. The car stopped on the hard shoulder.

“Jesus,” he said again. “We hit something.”

You hit something, she thought.

Here we have a horror story; it doesn't begin like that, not really. It begins as a road trip between two unnamed people. Ones a man, ones a women. The women is very irritated with the man, but she doesn't say so; the man is overly eager. They seem to work together, and they apparently did something that would warrant a "comfortable silence"--though the women doesn't think so at all. They hit something on the road. Something not quite a rabbit and not quite a bat, and the women wants to kill it and put it out of it's misery. The man convinces her not to; to wrap it in a blanket, take it somewhere and be responsible for the discovery of a new species.

Out of the two novelettes in this double sided booklette of sorts, Roadkill is by far the more...I guess you'd say 'literary' of the two. As in character driven. In fact, I found the fantasy aspect--y'know, the bat/rabbit thing--to take second banana next to the complexity of the man and women's relationship. I'm not from Australia, but I'll assume the dialogue is pretty good since I found myself chuckling to myself at the man and women's banter. It also does a fine job at conveying just exactly what's happening; the surreal events that transpire between the man and the women, the uncomfortable interactions and one sided affection. The words spoken between the two is the plot, in a sense. I was left feeling weird and rather disturbed when I finished, and this might've been Shearman's greatest accomplishment.

Rating: 9 out of 10

--

Title: Siren Beat

Author: Tansy Rayner Roberts

Pages: 54

Received from: publisher

Description:

“Siren Beat” is a paranormal romance sans vampires or werewolves but featuring a very sexy sea pony. A minor group of man-eating sirens on the docks of Hobart would not normally pose much of a challenge for Nancy, but she is distracted by the reappearance of Nick Cadmus, the man she blames for her sister’s death.

Sirens and mermaids tend to be bitter. You can’t blame them, really. Their tales don’t tend to have happy endings. Still and all. That doesn’t give them the right to come to my city, to seduce its children and dump them in the river. It should never have happened, and it’s my bloody fault. But I can stop them. If the push-push-push of the beat they play doesn’t get to me first.

After finishing the bizzare and unsettling Roadkill, Siren Beat was something of a disappointment. Not that it was bad, it just didn't...wow me.

It sits very comfortably in it's Paranormal Romance category, with it's impossible task and angst-ridden, fashion-conscious protagonist. While certainly not ground-breaking, it does serve as fun entertainment with some smexy scenes (that I, of course, skimmed less thoroughly then I should have) as well as a very full plot in such a short amount of space (I can think of countless authors who would need 400+ pages to get the first three paragraphs out of the way).

Rating: 6 out of 10

The strange thing is; neither of these stories are anything alike. It's an odd pairing, perhaps out of convience or perhaps there's some deeper meaning I'm not smart enough to comprehend. Either way, both of these novella's provide good entertainment from some very talented authors. I'd also look out for their first novel, out September of 2010, Robot War Expresso by Robert Hood (website).

Title: Queen of Secrets

Author: Jenny Meyerhoff

Pages: 240

Received from: Around the World Tours

Summary:

This year Essie Green’s life is going to be different. She’s made the cheerleading squad and caught the eye of the captain of the football team. However, she didn’t expect her estranged cousin to join the team too. Micah is instantly branded a freak for wearing a kippah and praying during games, and Essie doesn’t want anything to do with him. As the football team’s teasing of Micah shifts into hazing, Essie struggles to do what is right—even though it might mean losing her new friends and boyfriend.

Esther Green aka Essie has remarkably made the cheerleading squad her sophmore year, by extension earning herself high ranking among the "in" crowd, including the attention of the star player, Austin. But when her estranged (and mega-religious) cousin Micah moves back to town and joins the football team, her newfound popularity is suddenly threatened by his blatant religious habits (notably the beanie/kippah he wears on his head at all times). When the guys on the team begin their inevitable ostrication, Essie must choose between her family (two sides of it, actually) and her new buds which, like, sucks you guys.

I'm taking this entire review in stride, because I seriously doubt that I would go to any sort of heaven slamming it. But here's the thing: I didn't like it. I didn't not like it, but I didn't like it, either. It was so...immature. The author had previously only written for children, which explains things, but it's still very evident that Meyerhoff hasn't interacted with any teenagers in a very long time.

Now, I'm unable to instill much know power into the actual behavior of the characters, because I am not a cheerleader and I don't know any cheerleaders and cheerleading in my school is kind of like the Eighties High equivalent of Band Geeking (i.e. not popular at all). But I am able to insert my signiture Teenage Understanding into this review by letting you all know that I did not for one minute believe anything that was coming out of these kid's mouths. Harsh? Possibly. But that's how I roll and if that's a problem find another blog.

In elaboration: as we all know, believability is a huge factor for me when I pick up a book. Do I like these characters? Do I care for them, for their happiness? Do I relate? Can I flesh out these people in my mind? Or are they just words on a page, like those kids you read about in rhetorical situations found in STD and abstinance pamphlets? I was, unfortunatly, leaning towards the later as I went farthur into the story. There was no clever mystery behind Essie's past (such as her parent's death) or between her grandfather and uncle's Big Fight. As soon as someone had a question, they got an answer. It felt like everyone was 2-D, unreal and a tad boring. The cheerleaders were just as one would expect cheerleaders in a YA book to be; either way too perky, way too slutty or way too mean. And, omigod, Austin was so cute! I felt like there was no attempt at originality as far as characters went. Even our protagonist, Essie, felt like such a blank slate. She's quiet and shy and loves boys (especially Austin!!!) and wants to fit in and wants to be popular! and only feels fulfilled when she has a shitload of friends surrounding her and, okay, this may or may not reflect on many girls in this country, but it's not someone I want to read about. I want to read about a girl who stands up for herself, and doesn't wait until the very last chapter to do it. I want to read about a girl who can think of something other then Austin's dreamlicious eyes, or someone who has interest other then dance and cheerleading and talking on the phone. Her friends, the writer, the artist, and the drama queen (and Essie makes the dancer! it's like a goddamn toy box!) are so not-present I really wonder why they were there in the first place other then to take up paragraph space (especially so for the drama queen/acrtress. She's literally mentioned as a girl in a prom dress and tiara in the third chapter and then never again. She's so not-present, in fact, that I forgot her name completly.) Everything felt so hallow and fake and preachy (y'know, about being yerself!)

However, this isn't to say Queen of Secrets is unreadable. Far from it, in fact. I read it pretty quickly. It has it's little moments of sweetness and I could honestly feel some sort of connection between Essie and her love interest, Austin (on a side note, kudos to Ms. Meyerhoff for not going so completly cliche and making Austin a total d-bag.) The religious aspects were fairly original and I could see myself liking Essie and Micah had they been stretched out a bit more. The writing itself isn't complelty horrible, but I believe Meyerhoff either needs to read a few more YA novels or stick to children's books, because, again, not buying it.

Overall, a cute, fast read, but I wouldn't bother unless your a sucker for a good heartwarmer and junk.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Also: Ladies and gentlemen...kitteh.

Title: You Don't Love Me Yet

Author: Jonathan Lethem

Pages: 240

Received from: Amazon.com

Summary:

Lucinda Hoekke spends eight hours a day at the Complaint Line, listening to anonymous callers air their random grievances. Most of the time, the work is excruciatingly tedious. But one frequent caller, who insists on speaking only to Lucinda, captivates her with his off-color ruminations and opaque self-reflections. In blatant defiance of the rules, Lucinda and the Complainer arrange a face-to-face meeting—and fall desperately in love.

Consumed by passion, Lucinda manages only to tear herself away from the Complainer to practice with the alternative band in which she plays bass ..... Hoping to recharge the band’s creative energy, Lucinda “suggests” some of the Complainer’s philosophical musings to Bedwin. When Bedwin transforms them into brilliant songs, the band gets its big break, including an invitation to appear on L.A.’s premiere alternative radio show. The only problem is the Complainer. He insists on joining the band, with disastrous consequences for all.

I didn't like this book. I mean, it was perfectly okay to pass the time, and it's not like I lost anything in the hour it took to read it (not consecutively). It just wasn't very good.

This is weird for me, because normally I worship at the altar of Lethem. He is, seriously, my favorite writer currently taking up oxygen on this big blue lug of a planet. I keep Kafka Amerikana in my locker for reference every lunch period. So you see what difficulty I have in writing anything negative about anything he does ever.

My main problem was the characterization. You just don't get why any of these characters want to be around each other. It's not like they're overtly unpleasant, they're just not described in any way. For instance, the main character, Lucinda, is having conflicted feelings for her recent ex, the guitarist and songwriter for their perpetually nameless band, and who's name I've already forgotten. I just don't know why. He has so little description, so little personality, aside, of course, for Lucinda's mooning over his purdy eyes, and his empathy for a kangaroo at the zoo he works at (or was it a tiger?). The two supporting players get, maybe, a little more to work with--Whatsherface, the guitarist with weird hair that works at a sex shop, and Bedwin, the borderline-autistic songwriter and genius or the band, who gets his own little moment near the end. This end, by the way, is so incomprehensible, I'm not entirely sure it even existed. I'm not gonna spoil it or anything, but it was just so out of nowhere, I just like to pretend it was something else.

The richest character in the entire book was the sadsack yet poetic Complainer, who we meet not long after the beginning (so there goes that mystery), and who Lucinda goes to meet for some reason. These encounters they have are, by far, the best in the book--still hazy, but so sweet and funny and revealing it's okay. But, then again, the end rears it's ugly head, and ruins the whole thing.

Overall, it's just so very vague and unplanned, it almost feels like a rough draft. The plot, these half-assed character quirks, the quick and uncalled-for end. However, it is a funny mess, and fun to read if you're not overtly picky. Fine to read after an especially depressing book.

Rating: 3 out of 10

Also: Jonathan Lethem is a good author. Try Motherless Brooklyn or his latest, Chronic City.

Title: Goth Girl Rising (sequel to The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl)

Author: Barry Lyga

Pages: 390

Received from: author

Summary:

Time is a funny thing in the hospital. In the mental ward. You lose track of it easily.

After six months in the Maryland Mental Health Unit, Kyra Sellers, a.k.a. Goth Girl, is going home.

Unfortunately, she’s about to find out that while she was away, she lost track of more than time.

Things seem normal at first. Roger’s his typical, pain-in-the-ass fatherly self. Jecca and Simone and the rest of the goth crowd still do their thing. And Kyra is back in black, feeling good, and ready to make up with the only person who’s ever appreciated her for who she really is.

But then she sees him. Fanboy. Transcended from everything he was into someone she barely recognizes.

And the anger and memories come rushing back.

Fanboy. The Spermling. Miss Powell. Roger.

Her mother.

There’s so much to do to people when you’re angry.

Kyra’s about to get very busy

Whatever flaws Lyga had in The Astonishing Adventures, he more then makes up for in this haunting sequel that you will literally not be able to tear your eyes away from until the last paragraph. We take up six months after the end of Adventures, this time in Kyra's POV as she fills in the gaps between she and Fanboy's tumultuous last encounter. Her father, Roger, sent her to a mental hospital for fear she would try to kill herself (again) and, now that she's out, she's ready to make amends with Fanboy and make her best attempt at civility with her father and teachers. But on her first day back at school, she not only discovers that Fanboy's graphic novel that she and him worked on before she was sent away as been serialized in the lame-ass school literary magazine, but that he has become Popular because of it. Added to the fact that he did not contact her once during the six months she was locked up, Kyra is one Angry Goth Girl. She, in a rage, plots Fanboy's demise, all at once dealing with the hidden memories of her dead mother, rocky relationship with her father, and mixed feelings for her friend Jecca. But life is never meant to be easy, is it?

Anyone doubting Lyga's ability as an writer will do a double take upon picking up Goth Girl...in fact, it was like reading another author all together. Whatever Fanboy was, Goth Girl wasn't. Fanboy's narrative was filled with quirky, self-deprecating humor and comic references and just the general musings of an unpopular comic book geek who meets a strange girl one day. Kyra's narrative is...not. It's not quirky or self-deprecating. It's not really funny, and it's not at all fun. It's...sad.

Sad, cynical, painful, sporadic, heartbreaking...again, all the things Fanboy wasn't. I always said I would never utter this phrase, but...

it was an Emotional Roller coaster.

(*facedesk*)

I can't even figure out where to begin explaining the complete and total Victory of this novel. Maybe the complete raw and open honesty of Kyra's narrative. Or perhaps the interludes of kind of free-verse poetry that all add up until we finally figure out why she's so opposed to the word "fuck". MAYBE it's the fact that Fanboy's "third thing" is never revealed but--praise the lord!--his name is? Or, most likely, it is the fact that this book is oozing with Sandman references--not just references, analazations. Comparisons. There are whole chapters consisting of Kyra writing letters to Neil Gaimen about her life. This in it's self is made of win, but the fact that Fanboy says--SAYS--that he concurs with my theory that the entire series was JUST A DREAM is astounding. Mr. Lyga, I am astounded.

It isn't even just references for the sake of references. They actually mean something. They both help and hurt Kyra as she spirals up and down through her fucked up life. In fact, her entire "Goth Girl" persona is entirely based off of Gaimen's Death.



Every word in Goth Girl Rising is both darkly captivating and essential to the plot. Every interaction and reaction she has to those around her all lead up to her eventual epiphany of sorts; her thoughts zig zag from incomparably pissed off to near-suicidal to debilitating confused and back to pissed off. You know how they say you feel things the strongest when your a teenager? Yeah, well, if there's any evidence of that, it would be Goth Girl Rising. Kyra could even be seen as an extreme case of Hormones Gone Wild, though I seriously doubt the humanity of anyone who would think such a thing after finishing the last chapter. I was literally sobbing, you guys. Sobbing. I was sitting in my living room at one in the morning watching a rerun of The Nanny and sobbing like a fucking baby.

The best part was that, despite her cynicism and craziness and often brattiness, I liked her. I liked her and, once more, I cared for her. I cared what happened to her and Roger and Fanboy and, even if I didn't, Lyga inserted enough tiny mysteries to keep me captivated nonetheless.

Goth Girl Rising was one of those rare finds that takes your breath away; there wasn't one instance where I felt like something was missing, or wished someone had said something different. Lyga has built a strong, troubled heroine that against all odds persuades the reader to root for her. I am definitely waiting for whatever this author has in store, and command of all ye reading this blog to go and pick it up wherever you can. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Also: Check out both the amazing Sandman series by Neil Gaimen as well as Lyga's first novel featuring Kyra, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl.

Title: Firespell (a novel of the Dark Elite)

Author: Chloe Neill

Pages: 246

Received from: author

Summary:

As the new girl at the elite St. Sophia’s boarding school, Lily Parker thinks her classmates are the most monstrous things she’ll have to face…

When Lily’s guardians decided to send her away to a fancy boarding school in Chicago, she was shocked. So was St. Sophia’s. Lily’s ultra-rich brat pack classmates think Lily should be the punchline to every joke, and on top of that, she’s hearing strange noises and seeing bizarre things in the shadows of the creepy building.

The only thing keeping her sane is her roommate, Scout, but even Scout’s a little weird—she keeps disappearing late at night and won’t tell Lily where she’s been. But when a prank leaves Lily trapped in the catacombs beneath the school, Lily finds Scout running from a real monster.

Scout’s a member of a splinter group of rebel teens with unique magical talents, who’ve sworn to protect the city against demons, vampires, and Reapers, magic users who’ve been corrupted by their power. And when Lily finds herself in the line of firespell, Scout tells her the truth about her secret life, even though Lily has no powers of her own—at least none that she’s discovered yet…

Lily lives happily in the suburbs of Upstate New York. She has friends and parents who love her, and she's just out of her Sophmore year, looking forward to a fun-filled summer and impending Junior year. She is, for all intent and purposes, normal...but when her parents accept a research sabatical in Germany, and Lily is shipped off to St. Sophia's in Chicago, she finds that her parents have been hiding a lot from her, including who (and what) she is.

Well, where do I begin?

Let's go with the obvious; we are all no doubt bored to tears with the whole supernatural boarding school for the gifted schtick, possibly more so with paranormal romance. And, clearly, Firespell is all of these things. I can't say to you honestly it breaks all the molds and sets itself apart from the other novels of it's genre, but I can say this: it is not lacking excitment.

Almost immediatley upon her arrival at St. Sophia's, Lily is bombarded with new information and, more importantly, a new friend, Scout. On her first night, Scout (who has already claiming Lily as her "new BFF") runs off, with the measly explanation that she has to "excerise". The next day, Lily follows her (why? don't ask me). She finds a hidden tunnel. She also finds Scout. Scout is running from a very large thing. She shuts an eqaually large door, and we don't get to see this very large thing. Scout is angry that she has been followed, and Lily is concerned for their newfound friendship (as opposed to the fact that there was a Very Large Thing chasing Scout). Mini-drama ensues (though it's probably the least dramatic moment in the entire novel--more on that later). Lily soon finds out (after being lurred to the catacombs by the bitchy rich girls who share her and Scout's suite, who tempt her with a secret stash of...magazines and candy?) that Scout is part of a group of magic-weiling teens who fight off eeeevil magic-weilders (called Reapers). Despite the official summary, there are no vampires. Or demons. There is a very little argument about whether or not they should tell Lily anything, but she gets hit with a thing called Firespell so they have to. There is also many references to Gossip Girl and Nancy Drew. And...stuff.

Let's get the bad out of the way, shall we?

The language. This is key when writing a YA novel. Key. If there is shotty dialogue, I will immediatley take a disliking to it. A YA author should write in a way that I don't know she is an adult, you know? That wasn't here in Firespell. I did not buy for a minute that I was reading really teenage conversation. I'm not saying it has to be right on--I can only expect so much. But every word any character said just screamed "this is what I think teenagers speak like!" It's like...Scout supposed to be a "rebel", right? Cuz she has a nose ring and oh my god the tip of her hair is blond. She also loves teen magazines and knick-knackes, how quircky! And everyone keeps saying notwithstanding and call each other by their last names (I don't know anyone who does that) and the "witty" banter sounds so forced and oh my god why must everything be compared to Gossip Girl? THE FRUSTRATION!

Secondly, there's Scout. I know she's meant to be the Fairy Pixie Dream Girl who comes whooshing in and introducing our heroine to the world of magic and being her BFFaF and omg we love her!! But that's the thing...I didn't. Not that I hated her, I just found her so unbelievable. Why in God's name, fi you have such a hugeass secret, would you become so chummy with a girl you hardly know? If it were me, I'd be more...I don't know...elusive? Goddamn.

The minor characters are somewhat interesting, but they're so minor and so hardly dwelled on they might as well have not even shown up. Plus, there's the whole *spoiler* Jason is a werewolf thing and, I swear, did Neil just decide halfway through editing that she needed some romance and inserted some awkwared gawking by Lily and a really weird, unexpected and anticlimatic relationship between the two in the last two pages. No chemistry whatsoever, but I'm going to give Neil the benefit of the doubt and hope for more in the next novel.

Despite it's misgivings, Firespell did contain a certain charm. It was incredibly approachable and readable, no abuse of the English language such as a certain sparkly-vampire themed quartet I know of. The whole magic aspect is very simply laid out, and it's pretty easy to follow along. I finished Firespell in only a couple of hours, and there wasn't a moment when I was bored. And, after all, is this what we all look for when we pick up a book? Entertainment?

The prose, when Neil isn't trying too hard to sound like a teenager, is very well done. I definetly have high hopes for Neil and where she takes the Dark Elit series, as well as what other shenanigans Lily and Scout'll get into.

Rating: torn between a 6 and a 7. Let's just say 6.5 out of 10--good.

Also: Check out Neil's other Chicago-based urban fantasy series, the Chicagoland Vampires.

They killed me. They healed me. They changed me.

Sure, the life of a graduate student wasn't exactly glamorous, but it was mine. I was doing fine until Chicago's vampires announced theirexistence to the world-and then a rogue vampire attacked me. But he only got a sip before he was scared away by another bloodsucker... and this one decided the best way to save my life was to make me the walking undead.

Turns out my savior was the master vampire of Cadogan House. Now I've traded sweating over my thesis for learning to fit in at a Hyde Park mansion full of vamps loyal to Ethan "Lord o' the Manor" Sullivan. Of course, as a tall, green-eyed, four hundred year old vampire, he has centuries' worth of charm, but unfortunately he expects my gratitude-and servitude. Right...

But my burgeoning powers (all of a sudden, I'm surprisingly handy with some serious weaponry), an inconvenient sunlight allergy, and Ethan's attitude are the least of my concerns. Someone's still out to get me. Is it the rogue vampire who bit me? A vamp from a rival House? An angry mob bearing torches?

My initiation into Chicago's nightlife may be the first skirmish in a war-and there will be blood...

Which is the safest seat on an airplane? Where is the best place to have a heart attack? Why does religious observance add years to your life? How can birthdays be hazardous to your health?

THE SURVIVORS CLUB

Each second of the day, someone in America faces a crisis, whether it's a car accident, violent crime, serious illness, or financial trouble. Given the inevitability of adversity, we all wonder: Who beats the odds and who surrenders? Why do some people bound back and others give up? How can I become the kind of person who survives and thrives?

The fascinating, hopeful answers to these questions are found in THE SURVIVORS CLUB. In the tradition of Freakonomics and The Tipping Point, this book reveals the hidden side of survival by combining astonishing true stories, gripping scientific research, and the author's adventures inside the U.S. military's elite survival schools and the government's airplane crash evacuation course.

With THE SURVIVORS CLUB, you can also discover your own Survivor IQ through a powerful Internet-based test called the Survivor Profiler. Developed exclusively for this book, the test analyzes your personality and generates a customized report on your top survivor strengths.

There is no escaping life's inevitable struggles. But THE SURVIVORS CLUB can give you an edge when adversity strikes.

How many copies available? 5

Who's eligable? US and Canada, no P.O. boxes.

Who's giving it away? publishers.

When's the giveaway over? January 13th

How do you enter? Just leave a comment (though it is HIGHLY reccomended you become a follower due to issues I've had with the email notifications)

Again, you have til January 13th, and good luck!

Well, here you have it. The last day of



It's been a crazy ride, but all things must come to a conclusion (the epilogue to the preverbial book, if you will). And, for this closing day, I bring you my review of ISIS and my interview with the fabulous author, Douglass Clegg.

Title: Isis

Author: Douglas Clegg

Pages: 111

Recieved from: author

Summary:

If you lost someone you loved, what would you pay to bring them back from the dead?

Old Marsh, the gardener at Belerion Hall, warned the Villiers girl about the old ruins along the sea-cliffs. “Never go in, miss. Never say a prayer at its door. If you are angry, do not seek revenge by the Laughing Maiden stone or at the threshold of the Tombs. There be those who listen for oaths and vows….What may be said in innocence becomes flesh and blood in such places.”

She was born Iris Catherine Villiers. She became Isis.

From childhood until her sixteenth year, Iris Villiers wandered the stone-hedged gardens and the steep cliffs along the coast of Cornwall near her ancestral home. Surrounded by the stern judgments of her grandfather-the Gray Minister-and the taunts of her cruel governess, Iris finds solace in her beloved older brother who has always protected her.

But when a tragic accident occurs from the ledge of an open window, Iris discovers that she possesses the ability to speak to the dead…

Be careful what you wish for…it just may find you.

A prime example of the term, "less is more," Isis was a wonderfully haunting, atmospheric and most importatly heartbreaking read that I found myself re-reading as soon as I was finished with the last paragraph.

At only 111 pages, Isis is far from a Stephan King thriller. Iris Villiers lives at the gothic Belerion Hall with her aging mother, manic grandfather, and twin brothers, Spence and Harvey. While she certainly isn't happy, she is content as long as Harvey is there with her. But, at sixteen, a young, wicked servent moves in to the mansion, intent on making Iris' life as miserable as possible. During an unfortunate insident involving some pictures, a library and an unfortunatly placed window, Iris' beloved brother Harvey falls to his death in the garden, cushioning her own fall. But life is hollow without her brother, and Iris will do anything to bring him back.

Keep in mind that this is proceeded by seventy-odd pages of maddened rants of the dead and how they should never, under any circumstances, be brought back. By Old Marsh, Spence, Iris and Harvey are all told stories of people who were spited because of their desire to bring back the dead. I mean, there's a tomb outside the people's house. So the events that befall Iris isn't exactly surprising to me as a reader and, while I found myself a bit dissapointed at the predicibility of Clegg's novella, I was just as strongly--perhaps stronger--impressed with the beautiful scenery, illustrations and plain heartbreaking prose.

It's hard to say what the message behind Isis is--that the dead are meant to stay dead? the love of one's siblings? perhaps just be careful what you wish for?--but whatever it was, I got it loud and clear. The atmosphere and characters were so engaging I couldn't tear my eyes away. While the placing was a bit uneven, everything is just so lovely and horrifying and terribley sad that it will leave you with a pleasent--and perhaps heartbroken--aftertaste.

I loved the illustrations. They were so sad and so creepy (maybe a little less so then Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) and OMG you guys I wanted to cut them out and stick them on my notebook and look at them all day.



Rating: 8 out of 10--gorgeous, fantastic, dark, sad, and creepy.

Also: I was going to have an interview with the author--oh, look!



First off, thanks so much for stopping by to chat about your newest novel, Isis. Let's start with some basics; what got you into writing?

Before the age of eight, I made up a lot of stories for myself and drew them in my sketch pad with just a few lines from the story in the drawings. I was fairly serious about art as a kid, and my mother was somewhat of an artist and taught me some techniques early.

Sometime during my eighth year, a pet mockingbird died and I was sad, so I drew it on my sketch pad. Then, my mother brought me a typewriter and told me to write a story about the bird.

So, I did, and then I just taught myself to type. I began writing stories and decided I’d be a writer. I kept the door open a bit for filmmaking, because I had an interest in it, but by the time I graduated high school I was fairly certain I’d be a writer.

Writing has always saved my life, and it’s bigger than my life.

What was your inspiration for Isis? Any primary influences?

My primary influence was human nature and having to go through the loss of people I've loved. From there, I began writing about a girl who has what might be seen as both an idyllic young life and a very cold, isolated existence. And when the only truly caring person in her life dies, she decides she will bring him back from the dead.

From that, I saw parallels with the story of Isis and Osiris, which plays a part in the book.

I set it in the late 19th century for several reasons, the primary one being that I love stories set in the late 19th century, but also, historically, to place her just before technology hit in a big way. I also wanted to position the story far enough away from the contemporary world to give it a kind of fabled aspect and bring it closer to the world of Hawthorne, Poe, M.R. James and W.W. Jacobs.

Many of your novels gear towards the supernatural horror genre. Is there any particular reason for this, or does it just happen?

I love supernatural fiction, and I’ve written horror, suspense and fantasy fiction and I love all three.

I tend to sit down and write a story, and later discover whatever genre it’s going to be attached to – but I do love the supernatural in its fictional forms. I think when I write about the supernatural, I have a freedom in describing human nature when pitted against the unknowable. I also love horror fiction and have – within the past few years -- discovered an intense love for fantasy, itself, but I tend toward dark fantasy.

Any characters based off friends or family?

Not particularly, although my observations of people I’ve known as well as people I haven’t known definitely influence how I understand people at all.

I’ve experienced the deaths of friends and family, and I understand Iris Villiers – the protagonist of Isis – and her desire to defy death itself. I think a lot of life is about denying the finality of death. It exists and none of us wants to think about it until we absolutely have no choice.

There's a game to go along with Isis--where did you come up with it?

I didn’t. My friend Matt Schwartz, of Shocklines.com, suggested I try a game as a way of getting word out on the book, particularly since Glenn Chadbourne had produced these beautiful illustrations. He put me in touch with a game developer who took Glenn’s illustrations and added color and a “Spot the Difference” game aspect and then distributed it to dozens of casual gaming sites.

The game for Isis is primarily a promotion for the book – or an ad – yet the game itself is fun and doesn’t require that anyone playing it notice the book if they don’t wish to do so. More than 2 million people have played the Isis game, so it was a great way to promote a title and yet not get annoying with the promotion.

And anything that further publicizes the talents of Glenn Chadbourne is worth doing.

Did you begin Isis with a YA audience in mind?

No, I thought of a good story and decided to develop it. If I sat down and thought of the audience’s age whenever I wrote, I’d probably stop writing. A good story is for everybody.

Do you get writer's block and, if so, how do you overcome it?

I suspect writer’s block is a lack of confidence or an inability to find a story or subject that gets a writer excited.

I’ve had periods where I shift gears and don’t write for awhile, but I can’t call that writer’s block but a need to keep finding what interests me and learn more about life and human nature.

I recently took a couple of years off from writing novels and focused on some novellas, and also spent a lot of time re-reading Greek drama and certain Shakespeare plays and a lot of fiction that I consider great both for enjoyment and also to further understand this craft. Even after 20 years of writing fiction for a living, I still want to learn.

But writer’s block? Knock wood, but it hasn't happened to me.

Sell Isis over twitter (140 characters or less)

I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how. All I can do is mention Isis and hope people enjoy it.

If you could meet any of your characters, would you give them spoilers?

Do you mean spoil the plot of their lives? Of course not. The adventure in life is in the not-knowing and the constant ability to be surprised. I would hate to know what happens next in my life – half the fun is turning a corner and finding out when it happens.

During my customary pre-author interview website trolling, I notice you've listed quite a foray of early jobs, including Insect Zoo keeper and hamburger flipper. Any horror stories you'd like to share?

I started working at 12 and a lot of those jobs happened before I was 20. I loved working at the Smithsonian in the Insect Zoo – bugs would escape and we’d be gathering them off of mummies that had been brought up from Central America, or we’d pitch in to uncrate stuff in the truly magical Smithsonian basement in the Natural History museum or I’d spend my entire day with a beehive or a tarantula or hissing cockroaches. I loved it.

As a hamburger flipper, I worked at a Roy Rogers in Seven Corners, Virginia at 16 and sliced open the palm of my left hand on the roast beef cutter (I still have a small crescent scar left to prove it.)

The great thing about any experience -- when you’re a writer – is that, no matter how bad it seems at the time, it’s great background material for fiction. I always knew I would write fiction, so even in the more annoying jobs, I’d think: soak it up, you can write about it later.

You’re on a desert island. You have with you ONE book, ONE television show and ONE movie--what are they?

I wouldn’t need a book, a TV show or a movie. I’d just make stories up, one after the other, to while away the time. After all, if I picked one of each of those categories, I’d be bored with it within a week. But the stories I could create would be endless and I’d be the only reader I’ve ever have to satisfy.

If the yams, coconuts and mangoes were plentiful, and I could catch some fish and find some bird's eggs – and of course collect good rainwater…I don’t know, I might just enjoy that for a year or four.

What's next for you?

My novel Neverland hits bookstores in the spring, in a beautifully-illustrated edition – again, Glenn Chadbourne created a unique look for this book that’s different than what he created for Isis. Neverland is a southern gothic set in the 1960s about a boy who plays a series of games in a rundown shack that become more and more terrifying. It takes place on a fictional island off the coast of Georgia, and deals with family secrets and lies.

It's set in the '60s as a kind of nostalgia I have from my own childhood, since I was a little kid in those days.

Any advice for young writers?

Find what you love and follow it.

Thanks for stopping by, and I can't wait to see what you have in store :)

Thank you, Danielle, for such a thoughtful interview.

He wrote his first novel in Los Angeles. It was called Goat Dance, and was sold in 1987, and published in 1989 by Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books — launching Clegg’s career as a novelist.

Douglas Clegg began writing a book a year — sometimes more — from then on, as well as dozens of short stories.

He has primarily written supernatural fiction — from horror to fantasy to psychological suspense with a paranormal edge. His fiction-writing career currently spans about 20 years of constant writing and publication.

Since then, he’s seen more than 20 books published — and they keep coming.

Additionally, he’s been Director of Marketing for a publisher, editor for a bookstore’s website, a marketing consultant for publishers, publicity firms, and booksellers — and a wrangler for the cats, dogs and rabbits that have occupied his home. He has also co-authored the book Buzz Your Book with M.J. Rose. The two have also written a screenplay together. So far, these are Clegg’s only collaborations.

Title: Boneshaker

Author: Cherie Priest

Pages: 414

Recieved From: author

Summary:

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive

Three words: Zombies love steampunk.

At least, I'm assuming.

In an alternate world, the Russians' gold craze during the Civil War led to one of the most catestraphic outbreaks in history: inventer Leviticus Blue is commisioned to create a machine designed to drill through Alaskan ice for precious gold, dubbed the "Boneshaker". Not only does the Boneshaker carve out the ground beneath Gold Rush era Seattle, but it releases a slow moving gas called Blight that turns it's victims into "Rotters"--better known as the zombie (even better known as The Reason I Read). A wall is built around the city to keep the Blight in, leaving whoever left inside after the evacuation as Rotter's food. Blue's widow and son, Briar Wilkes and Zeke, live less-then-modestly in the outskirts, still shunned by society and barely skirting by. Fifteen year old Zeke, increasingly unhappy with his blasted family name, decides to take a trip into the city and clear his family name. And, of course, Briar is left to go after him.

Some back story--when I received this in the mail many moons ago, I had a short conversation with myself that went as followed:

Myself: Self, are you pulling tricks on me? This isn't funny dawg.

Self: I think this is the real deal, my man.

Myself: bullshit! YOU LIE!

Self: maybe we're hallucinating...

Myself: the packaging looks legit...

Self: open it up, see what's inside.

Myself: *opens book* my God, it's real.

Self: *faints*

Myself: *faints*

And Boneshaker was everything I expected. And more.

I love the alternating narrative between Briar and Zeke. It kind of leaves something for everyong; Zeke, sixteen and a little dense in the skull, could easily be a character in a more YA centered novel, while Briar releases a heavy dose of logic that will have parents nodding their head right alone with her. Briar is undoubtedly one of the strongest female protangonists I have ever read about, one of those Mother Lions that bite and stratch to protect their kids (no matter how much dumbassery they display--more on that later). Feministe, prepare to cry your tears of joy (or sorrow, if your one of those feminste who like to complain).

The first thing readers will notice about Boneshaker is the extreme liberties Priest takes with history--namely, the timeline of the gold rush...but, as she states in the afterwords, isn't that what steampunk is about?

Priest also accomplishes what few "steampunk" authors can--make me believe in the world she's building. She doesn't just throw in an airship for posterity, she puts several in, as well as a grey prose and bumpy rides over the wall. She also has a signifigant emphasis on the gas masks (characters are constantly conciouse about their masks cause, you know, they'll die if they forget...and, for some reason, steampunk authors forget this little detail.) The characters are gems--from eager and hot-headed (with only the slightest bit of angst) Zeke, to the no-nonsense Dr. Minnericht, leader of the brewing underground society. As I've said, Briar is a very strong female character--one might compare her to Ripley from Aliens.

Another huge success in Boneshaker is the world-building--possibly one of the best examples I've ever encountered. While at it's core this book is a character-centric, mother and son story, there is no lack of atmosphere and action. I was completly glued to the pages for three days straight, and I probably would have opted for an adult diaper had my mom not stashed my Rolling Stone magazines next to the toilet. I just loved the world Priest created and I can't wait for more.

Rating: 9 out of 10--at it's center, this was always about the fact that zombies and steampunk are put together into one novel and, really, how can you go wrong?

Also: check out the website.

I am always a tiny bit disappointed to receive a present that isn't book-shaped. And if you give me a present that's book-shaped but isn't a book... that's just cruel. My husband has been known to wrap books in oversize boxes so I'll be surprised, like the time he gave me the entire Andrew Lang fairy book collection wrapped all in a single box. (It was while I was writing Into the Wild, my book about fairy-tale characters in the real world.) That was AWESOME.

All the best presents I've ever gotten have been books. Once, my mom gave me a second set of David Eddings's Belgariad because I'd worn out the spines of my original set. (These were the books that hooked me on fantasy.) She'd also given me the first set. Not many presents you can get twice from the same person and have them be special both times.

I love to give books as presents too. Some of my favorite gifts to give this year:

For babies/toddlers... Blue Moo by Sandra Boynton, Lullabies by Fiona Watt and Elena Temporin, The Three Pigs by David Wiesner, and When Dinosaurs Came With Everything by Elise Boach.

For kids... Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George and the Unicorn Chronicles series by Bruce Coville..

For YAs (i.e. teens or adults with good taste)... Dreamdark series by Laini Taylor, Rampant by Diana Peterfreund, Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover by Ally Carter, and The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan.

For grown-ups... the Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom series by Julie Kenner and the Retriever series by Laura Anne Gilman.

And of course lots of people in my family are getting copies of my latest book, Ice. :)

As for those people who don't like books... I haven't the faintest idea what to get them. Socks??

Title: The Secret Year

Author: Jennifer R. Hubbard

Pages: 208

Received From: Around the World tours (hosted by Cindy of Princess Bookie fame!)

Summary:

Take Romeo and Juliet. Add The Outsiders. Mix thoroughly. Colt and Julia were secretly together for an entire year, and no one—not even Julia’s boyfriend— knew. They had nothing in common, with Julia in her country club world on Black Mountain and Colt from down on the flats, but it never mattered. Until Julia dies in a car accident, and Colt learns the price of secrecy. He can’t mourn Julia openly, and he’s tormented that he might have played a part in her death. When Julia’s journal ends up in his hands, Colt relives their year together at the same time that he’s desperately trying to forget her. But how do you get over someone who was never yours in the first place?

Colt and Julia are from two different worlds--Colt from the working class side of town, the flats, and Julia a trust fund baby from Black Mountain. But they have one thing in common--each other. Meeting secretly by a river every Friday, they have kept upn a secret relationship for an entire year. Until Julia is killed in a car crash just before school starts. Left to grieve on his own, Colt is finding it harder to move on then he anticipated, and now he has to wonder if Julia was really worth it.

Okay, so I was MAJORLY dissapointed by Hubbard's debut effort. Not just because of the slight shallowness of it all (though that was a huge contributing factor), but because it just lacked that emotional drive one would expect from a Romeo and Juliet/Outsiders/forbidden love/tragedy. You know, the gut-wrenching, sob-inducing lonlieness and sympathy for the main character. I felt Colt was such a tool--not in the d-bag sense, but in the way he didn't seem to live for anybody but his Girl of the Week (or Year?). First it's Julia, the girl that takes up his waking thought long after she's dead and buried, or Syd, best friend turned rebound girlfriend (for three pages) that Colt only goes out with cause omg her daddy left and now she's soooo lonely and dangit now he has to sleep with her SHITBALLS! and then it's Kirby, girl he hardly knows but somehow forms a relationship with even though she's dating Julia's little brother MICHAEL (and did I mention Julia had a boyfriend while they were doing their thing? Does this guy just go for the taken kind?) And then there's odd book references and some shallow emotional depth (oxymoron?) and little to no character devolpment. No one seemed to have a personality and, honestly, I found myself caring less and less with each topsey-turvy paragraph.

Julia, despite her deadness, seems to be the only character that truly shines. While seemingly the Rich Girl with a Secret Depth that you never really see but it's mentioned a lot, Julia proves to be a layered, fascinating chick who at once made me want to strangle her (for making Colt feel like dirt and saying she's gonna dump Austin but SURPRISE SURPRISE never gets around to it) and hug her (for being so poetic and so angsty and so sad in her journal entries). Colt himself seems to remember what he wants to until the very end, and I put the book down feeling like I'd been lied to in a very complicated way. He thinks of her as a a girl trapped in a beat-down situation, a girl who would gladly give up her country club membership and high society status to be with him. And, surprisingly enough, even Julia's own journal entries/letters to Colt seems to varify her longing to dissapear with him. But then reality happens, and memories of who Julia really was--both from Colt and his friends--prove to be too bold to ignore. It's a good plot device, whether intentional or not. Was she really this amazing girl Colt knew from those Friday nights in her car? Or was she just a snobbish trust fund baby slumming around and cheating on her boyfriend? The journal entries say one thing, but the memories of Kirby and Syd and everyone else in the school scream something completly different. I was kind of feeling bad for Colt, who was clearly being used and abused but his affectionate recollections of Julia deceiving the reader to believe otherwise. Plus, you know, secret girlfriend dying, and he's left with no shoulders lean on as everyone else. Kinda sucks.

But, honestly, any clever mind-games Hubbard delivered seemed purely accidental. Every character fell under the MC Flu. Just as Colt existed for his girls, everyone else seemed to exist for Colt. Despite shallow attempts at depth (i.e. Tom, Colt's brother, coming out of the closet to he and his over-worked parents during Thanksgiving dinner), it all seems to come of as corny and insincere (i.e. said closet-coming-out-of turning out to be a Lesson to Be Learned that secrets can't *gasp* last forever HOW CLEVER YOU GUYS!)

While Colt does seem pretty down-to-earth, this could just stem from his lack of personality and weird studly-ness (he's basically had four girls swooning over him within the course of his reccolections) and I've basically had it up to here with Kirby and her annoying nosiness. (she wants him to get rid of the journal and he's like, "ugh, bitch, please" and she's all like, "wah" and then doesn't speak to him pretty much ever again and it's just weird, you guys). Colt's parents are protrayed as lazy good-for-nothings that could care less about he and Tom, though, again, I was left crying "unreliable narrator" because I'm really sick of no one in YA literature having a stable home life. Can't you have a good, sympathetic character without bitchy parents? no? well, then your just stupid.

Hubbard also injected the strangest subplots that really had so little to do with Julia or Colt that I was just kind of in a bad mood because of it. There's a war-thing that's not realy violent as it is wimpy between the flat folk and the Black Mountain kids, plut the thing with Syd and all of Colt's friends being insensitive and pigish and Tom's gayness and Michael and Kirby and Kirby and Coly and Austin and tire slashing and I'm just like whut? The Secret Year had great potential and, really, Hubbard does have potential to be a fantatic writer. But she's got to decide what her books gonna be about and just write that, instead of sticking all these elements into 200 pages.

Overall, The Secret Year was a huge-ass dissapointment with flimsy characters and a mismatched plot. If your that interested, get it from the library, but don't write off this author completly. I will be looking forward to whatever else she has to put out there, but not with baited breath.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Also: I got this copy from Around the World Tours, hosted by Princess Bookie. You can sign up for some book tours, read it and review it, then send it along to the next person. A great way to get reviews out there without breaking the publisher's bank.

Title: Hack/Slash-First Cut

Author: Tim Seeley, ill. Stefano Caselli & Federica Manfredi, cover by Tim Seeley & Blond

Pages: 160

Received From: Amazon

Summary:

In every slasher movie, there's one girl who makes it all the way to the end. She's the survivor... the last girl. Meet Cassie Hack, the lone survivor of an attack by a vicious slasher called The Lunch Lady. Now Cassie, along with her monstrous partner, Vlad, travel the country, hunting down other slashers before they can leave a trail of blood and terror.

more in-depth summary:

Slashers are "Bad" because they're icky grotesques who hate people, especially horny teenagers, and like to butcher them. On the other hand, cute goth Cassie Hack and her huge, deformed partner, Vlad, must be "Good" because they go around the country killing slashers in various messy ways. Cassie, last survivor of the Lunch Lady killings, is aware enough of genre conventions to make sarcastic comments as she does her thing, but action is pretty standard. Seeley's scripts are efficient enough, and Caselli and Manfredi's dark, dark art gets the job done. In "Comic Book Carnage," set at a commercial comics convention, Cassie and Vlad really do get involved with their surroundings; for the first time, the supporting characters become slightly more than slasher-movie stereotypes, so that it matters somewhat whether they live or die.

When I came upon this little lovely on my Amazon recs, I LOLed for a good twenty minutes. I mean, it just looks so damn ridiculous. In the greatest way, mind you.

Cassandra Hack is dark, she's enigment, she's hot--but that doesn't mean she's a screaming ninny. Being the orphaned survivor of the Lunch Lady terrors, Cassie and her deformed lug of a partner travel around the country hunting slashers--you know, those evil dudes who lurk the eighties horror scene. Turns out, they're everywhere. And Cassie's good looks are just the thing to lure them in.

Oh, boy. Looks like Channukah came early for this Jew! I lovedlovedloved Hack/Slash with a burning passion. I would run away to Cabo with this book. I would marry it and have it's babies. I loved it!

Here we have a girl, connected to the slasher genre in a very personal way; her mother, the lunch lady at her school, noticed the other kids picking on her...and decided to serve up some justice. In the form of poisoned sloppy joes (as if sloppy joe's weren't toxic enough; I digress). When confronted, the lunch lady committed suicide by head in boiling gravy. She then came back to life to continue her rampage on school bullies until Cassie was forced to give her mother her final death. And now she's made it her goal in life to take down slashers--and any morally declined teenagers who get in her way.

I am so in freaking love with Cassie. If I were a lesbian, she would be my girlfriend, and we would travel to small towns and kill masked villains with baseball bats together and it would be so romnantic. (perhaps that's one to many declarations of love for one post?) She is deliciously, unforgivingly badass while somehow being sympathetic and cute. Ditto with Vlad, except Vlad is cute in a big ugly rotweiller kind of way (as in frightening).



This is obviously meant to be a satire--I would worry if it was anything otherwise--and in that end, it succeeds only barely. While there is an honest attempt, there are so few actual parody aspects in the pages that it was more like reading a rejected script for Supernatural (aka the only show that I've become so disgusted with I make a point not to watch it). While I'm surely not expecting any sort of hard-hitting emotional depth, I'm sure Hack/Slash would have been more enjoyable had there been more...I don't know...heart. Again, there are hints, but it never really goes hardcore satire or hardcore heartfelt. So we're left with a comic that drifts in the middle, that can at times feel empty and unsatisfying.



Despite it's shortcomings, Hack/Slash is so entertaining I can imagine reading it several times over. Defintely reccomended for some good, macabre fun.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Also: I love the bit of tenderness the authors put in, as Vlad and Cassie wait for their next hit--

Vlad: Why do you travel to places…help people who are not nice to you?
Cassie: I guess it’s probably because if I don’t do this, I have to go the real world…you know…where they work 9-5 jobs, and find true love, and have sex…and…maybe I’m afraid I’d find out what a freak I really am.

Today, I bring to you one of the latest Pocket Book Releases, Over the Holidays by Sandra Harper!

Title: Over the Holidays

Author: Sandra Harper

Pages: 325

Recieved From: publisher

Summary:

It's only December 1, and Vanessa Clayton has been dreading Christmas since she spotted tinseled trees at her local mall in September. Thankfully, she and her husband, JT, can't afford to drag their twin boys across the country to New England for the annual celebration at her stuffy sister-in-law Patience's home. Not that Vanessa has prepared a proper Christmas for her family in years, and she has less time than ever since she agreed to consult on the script of a local play. Her older sister, Thea, is no help -- she'd rather make art and flirt with surfers than babysit her nine-year-old nephews. Then Patience drops a holiday stress bomb: Her family will come to California instead.

In between "baking" cinnamon rolls for the school potluck and overbearing Patience testing her patience, Vanessa can't stop thinking about the difficult but charming playwright at work. Meanwhile, Patience's teenage daughter, Libby, obsesses over a college boy she has met by the pool, and Thea searches desperately for the meaning of Christmas -- for her latest installation, of course. As their holiday plans go comically awry, these four women discover the true spirit of the season is hidden in every festive surprise.

I'm not sure what to say about Over the Holidays, as I've had very little (read: zero) experience with chick lit/holiday fiction. Reading the premise, I assumed it would be a quick little family dramedy that's meant to warm one's heart and, you know what? That's exactly what it was.

Vanessa as a character is pretty spot on as an overwhelmed mother of twins with a dwindling bank account and a dead-set hatred of the holidays. From the decorations, to the "charities" and the school potlucks and, most importantly, the annual get-together with her in-laws. Imagine her delight when she discovers--whoops!--she and her husband don't have enough money for the air-fare! After continously denying financial assitance from her loathsome sister-in-law, Patience, the family decides to fly over to LA and spend the holidays with Vanessa and her family. Wackiness ensues, my friend.

I'm sure we can all agree that this just screams bad ABC family TV movie. And, in a way, it sort of is. Compared to what I usually read, me reading Over the Holidays is like Satan slapping on a tutu (yes, I compare myself to Satan. Make of it what you will). In fact, bringing it to school brought perplexed stares and snorts of disbelief heading my way. But, really, I didn't care. You wanna know why? Over the Holidays was like my Santa Baby II. Not that I'm comparing Vanessa to Jenny McCarthy by any means (I am not cruel), but I am saying this book was like a guilty pleasure you can only indulge in ten days from Christmas in the midst of those manaquin tv commercials (or those creepy ones with the little girls dancing..."hey mom and dad, guess what? I love my comfy sweater...I love my comfy sweater" no? I digress) Some good, by-the-fireplace fun about family and all the dysfuncion they can bring, but you will never, ever admit to anyone you enjoyed (well, I won't, at least. I am dark and depressing and bahumbug, damnit)

In all seriousness though, I really did enjoy Over the Holidays. It was cute and sweet and perfect for the holidays. Though the fluxating female narrators (third-person, Vanessa, Thea and Patience) all came across as trite and a bit similar, I don't think Ms. Harper is really looking to make the Next Great American Novel. I loved the whole individual bitterness each narrator has edged in their thoughts, how Christmas at times seems to be nothing more then a buisness transaction. But it never quite made it into the "depressing" zone, which just might have been this book's greatest success.

Rating: 8 out fo 10