Category: Reviewed by Chrissie

Karou is not your typical teenager.  Having blue hair, living in her own apartment, speaking many languages, and being an art student in Prague set her apart from many other 17-year-olds… but there’s much more to it than that.  She also travels around the world to collect teeth for a chimaerae named Brimstone who is, basically, her foster father.  She has no idea why he needs those teeth, but she is sure that his dwindling supply is a problem.  People credit Karou’s imagination with creating all of the fantastic creatures in her sketchbooks, and she is more than happy to let them believe what they want, but the creatures are very real to her.  In fact, these chimaerae are the only family she has ever known.  When angels mysterious appear all around Earth, using their scorched handprints to seal off the doors that act as portals between Earth and the land in which those monsters exist, Karou ends up locked out.  She has always been taught that the chimaerae were good and that the angels were actually horrible monsters, and now she has to fend off these killer angels without any help from Brimstone.  Karou can’t help being attracted to one of the angels, though, and wonders if there’s a reason why she has a strange feeling that she’s somehow connected to him already…

Although I don’t generally “do” the whole Twitter thing, I technically have an account through which I [supposedly] follow a few people.  One of those people is the amazing John Green and, because I actually read one of my Twitter digests last month, I read this Tweet [12/03/10 – Tweet is no longer available).   Though I hadn’t previously heard about this book, I trusted John Green to know what he was talking about and requested a copy from another library in my system.  I absolutely loved it, so I made sure to order a copy for my library AND bumped this book to the top of my “to review” list.  FYI, in case you were not aware, I am way better at reading books than following through with reviews, so my “to review” list contains no fewer than 5 books at any given time and often has books that I finished months ago!

You may be wondering, “What was so great about Poison?”  How about the fact that it had action, adventure, humor, magic, romance, AND strong female characters all rolled up into a unique fantasy story?  Kyra, a potions master, used to be best friends with the princess.  Until, that is, she tried to kill her.  Since no one seemed to understand that trying to kill the princess was a good thing, she had to run away to avoid being jailed/hanged for the attempted assassination.  And, while being the infamous “Princess Killer” made it rather difficult for Kyra to travel through the kingdom unnoticed, her bag of potions and the help of a cute little enchanted pig was enough to give her hope that she could find the princess and finish the job before it was too late…

The only thing I didn’t like about this story, to be honest, was learning that there won’t be a prequel or a sequel [since the author passed away before this book was even published].  I wish I could learn more about Kyra, but I guess it’s better to have loved and lost [a character] than never to have loved at all!

Liz was born female, but has always felt male.  Being Liz in public and being Gabe inside was very difficult, but Liz started to make the transition to Gabe in 12th grade.  Having an understanding best friend helped a lot, but having a family that still used female pronouns and refused to use the name “Gabe” was pretty hard.  When the next door neighbor, a fellow music nut named John, found Liz a radio show on a local community radio station, it presented an excellent opportunity for Gabe to come out…  But, it also meant that Liz would have to find a way to tell John about Gabe sooner rather than later.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children was not just a radio show.  It was Gabe’s chance to introduce himself to the world and to work through his feelings with music.  Before long, Gabe had fans — the Ugly Children’s Brigade — who would perform random acts of crazy art in honor of his show.  It gave him quite a confidence boost to know that people liked the “real” him.  Unfortunately, a casual date with a member of the UCB threatened to ruin everything when the girl recognized Gabe as Liz and spread the word on the UCB fan page.  I won’t ruin the ending by telling you exactly how things played out, but I am sure you can guess [based on real life] that Gabe’s life got pretty tough after that.

I loved the realistic portrayal of Liz/Gabe’s struggle, the supportive best friend, and the fantastic “soundtrack” throughout.  As a former college radio DJ, I especially appreciated the authentic setting of the run-down community radio station and Gabe’s trials and tribulations while he got used to being on air.  I had more than a couple of “been there, done that” moments as I read this book!  😉

First of all, I just have to say that I read this book a few years ago and only now realized that I never reviewed it…  Shame on me!  Second, I feel compelled to tell you all how much I love the complete/crazy-long title of this book — Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts — which is a lot!  It has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?  Seriously, though, I think it helps to set the tone for the book.  Because this is not your typical princess story!

It is true that Princess Ben (short for Benevolence) has been hidden away in a tower by her overbearing aunt, Queen Sophia, since her parents and her uncle (the king) were assassinated.  Queen Sophia has plans to marry Ben off to the first mildly suitable man to present himself, but Ben is not the kind of princess who would be content to wait for a prince to come to her rescue.  Thanks to her inquisitive/mischievous nature, she manages to find an enchanted room in the tower and begins to teach herself some magic with the books therein.  Not only does this magic give her something to do with all of her “free” time, but it also buys her some freedom and increases the odds that she will be able to save both herself and the kingdom from Queen Sophia.

P.S.  If you like this story, I also recommend the sequel — Wisdom’s Kiss: A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure Incorporating Magic, Villainy, and a Cat.

Not only does this book continue the fantastic Cinder storyline, but it adds a few new characters into the mix!  The title character, Scarlet Benoit, is a teenage girl who has been raised by her grandmother on a small vegetable farm in Rieux, France.  Her grandmother recently went missing, and while Scarlet is sure something must be very wrong for her grandmother to have left home without her portscreen [or even her ID chip], no one else seems very worried at all.  Michelle Benoit is a kind and beloved, albeit eccentric, farmer who has no known enemies [as far as Scarlet believes, anyhow].  And because there is not any evidence of foul play, the police claim they have no choice but to dismiss the case.  Scarlet is pretty sure a street fighter named Wolf knows something that could help but, though she is inexplicably drawn to him, she isn’t sure if she can bring herself to trust him.  I can’t really say any more without spoiling it, but trust me when I say that this series just keeps getting better!  And, since The Lunar Chronicles will have at least two more installments — Cress is due out in 2014 and Winter is due out in 2015 — fans have plenty more to look forward to before the series ends.

In post-apocalyptic North America, two countries have replaced the former United States of America — The Republic and The Colonies.  Fighting against both of them is also a rebel group that calls itself the Patriots.  Though it isn’t clear if The Colonies are any better, readers can easy ascertain that The Republic is not so much a republic as a totalitarian regime.  This story is told from the alternating perspectives of characters named Day and June —  Day is an independent anarchist who refuses to work for the Patriots but still does everything in his power to sabotage The Republic in their war efforts against The Colonies; June is a military prodigy who got a perfect score on her entrance exams and has been fast-tracked through military training school.

I think the duel narration was a great way to make readers more sympathetic to characters on both sides of the spectrum and to gradually unfold details about what is happening both around the country and in Los Angeles [where both Day and June live].  The truth is, while life is clearly better for some people in The Republic, no one is truly free.

Guy Langman wasn’t really good at anything — quite the opposite of his dad who seemed to be amazing at everything without even trying.  Guy was rather thrown when his dad died (even though his dad was technically old enough to be his grandfather), and became suddenly intrigued by all things having to do with death.  So, it wasn’t exactly a stretch for him to accept an invitation from his best friend, Anoop, to join Mr. Zant’s Forensics Club.  (Especially since it provided a chance to impress some cute girls!)  For once in his life, Guy really cared about something and was actually good at it.  Which worked out rather nicely as some mysteries popped up in his own life…

American military personnel found Parvana in a bombed-out school building, so they brought her back to their base as a suspected terrorist.  Because she refused to speak, the interrogations continued day after day.  During that time, Parvana escaped into her memories — her flashbacks serving to provide readers with further information about her past.  With the information gleaned through those flashbacks, it was easy to see why Parvana didn’t feel comfortable talking to the soldiers who were interrogating her.  Between her experiences under the oppressive Taliban regime and the further struggles her family faced in the time after the Taliban was ousted, she learned that people in power didn’t always tell the truth and that speaking freely often made things worse.  Definitely an eye-opening book about what it means to grow up female in the Afghanistan and how the American military presence has both helped and hindered Afghanistan’s progress.

There are a lot of fairy tale retellings out there, but I was especially impressed by the fact that Cinder was both evocative of Cinderella and a major departure from the original story.  In this story, Cinder is a 16-year-old cyborg who constantly works to support and care for her evil stepmother and her two stepsisters.  She rarely has time for herself, but does her best not to complain because she knows her stepmother could easily “volunteer” her to be a test subject for letumosis [plague] vaccines instead.  While working in her booth at the market place one afternoon, she finds herself face-to-face with Prince Kai.  As it turns out, Cinder’s reputation as the best mechanic in New Beijing led Prince Kai to disguise himself so he could meet her and ask whether she would be willing and able to fix his droid, Nainsi, who suddenly stopped working.

Immediately after this clandestine meeting, though, Cinder’s entire life is turned upside-down because her stepsister Peony contracts letumosis and is put into quarantine.  Not only is Cinder worried about losing one of the only people in the world who actually cares about her, but her stepmother is blaming her for Peony’s illness!  Trying to balance her regular responsibilities, her promise to help Prince Kai, and her desire to help Peony, nevertheless, proves extremely difficult.  And while many girls in New Beijing would give anything to dance with Prince Kai at the upcoming ball, Cinder couldn’t care less about attending…  She has too many other things to worry about.  Yeah — this is definitely *not* your typical Cinderella story.

If I didn’t know the horrible truth, I might have thought McCormick had gone overboard with the horror and tragedy in this story. I sometimes find myself asking, as I read, “How much can possibly happen to one character?”   In this case, though, I knew that the novel was based on the true life story of a boy named Arn Chorn-Pond. This novel was only fictional inasmuch as Arn couldn’t possibly recall every detail of every day and every conversation he had over the course of 4 years. The sad reality is that the general timeline and events of this story truly happened to him, to his family, and to his country.

It still boggles my mind to think of how much devastation the Khmer Rouge wrought on Cambodia, especially since people rarely speak of it. How does a militant political group wipe out nearly 2 million people in just under 4 years without getting more than a footnote in many high school world history classes? People talk about the Holocaust and vow to never let something like that ever happen again, but they make no mention of Pol Pot’s reign of terror or the many genocides [some still taking place!] in African countries since the 1940s. It’s disgusting how often these events will go unmentioned just because it’s easier *not* to talk about it, and I applaud Patricia McCormick for writing this book.

I hope this story will help bring more attention to both the unfortunate history of Cambodia and to the subsequent efforts Arn Chorn-Pond has made to help other “children of war” and to keep Cambodian culture alive. For a historical overview of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, check out the Historical Overview of the Khmer Rouge at the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor. To learn more about the humanitarian organizations Arn Chorn-Pond founded in response to his experiences as a child in war-torn Cambodia, visit the websites for Children of War and the Cambodian Livings Arts.

Being the new kid at school can be really tough.  But being the new, fat, deaf kid in a school without an interpreter or a captioning system?  I can’t even imagine!  Luckily, Will Halpin has an uncanny ability to lipread and doesn’t much care what the “cool kids” think.  He has surmised, though, that everyone else is practically willing to kill each other for an invite to the upcoming birthday party of an über-popular jock named Pat.  This story isn’t just about the difficulties Will faced with main-streaming and making friends, though.  The real story is about how Will and Devon Smiley forged their new friendship while trying to figure out how Pat ended up dead during a field trip to the Happy Memory Coal Mine.

I enjoyed this story for a number of reasons, but first and foremost is the fact that there a good mix of humor and mystery.  It was definitely more Castle than CSI, if you know what I mean.  The fact that Josh Berk even managed to include a lot of information about deaf culture in a way that was neither clunky nor didactic was also awesome.  The original book cover is honestly the only thing I didn’t like about this book.  Luckily, it has been re-released with a new cover that is more likely to appeal to teens and also hints at the mystery within.

When I read The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger, I thought it was a trilogy.  I had thought the story to be pretty well wrapped up at the end of Messenger, to be honest.  I was more than happy, nevertheless, to find out I was wrong.  Not only am I a big fan of Lois Lowry, but I have a major weakness for dystopias!

This story begins in the same society as The Giver, but Jonah is not the main character.  Instead, we see the society through the eyes of a young girl named Clair.  We are with Clair as she gets her work assignment — to be a birthmother — and also when the delivery of the “product” she was carrying goes wrong and results in a Caesarean.  Although she is made to wear a mask and can’t see the baby, she manages to find out that her baby, #36, was a boy.  A son.  Her love and longing for her son is unheard of in that society, so she has to pretend not to think about him and can never admit that she dreams about being able to raise him as her own.  I can’t say much more without major spoilers, but rest assured that this tale will reunite characters from all of the books in the series while demonstrating the lengths to which a mother will go for her child.