Hook (audiobook) by Melissa Snark

Rating: WARTY!

Back in June I reviewed the ebook of this novel, and I don't usually revisit works (and usually not authors) where I've been disappointed. I judged the ebook warty for an assortment of reasons and those haven't changed in the audiobook - it's the same book! What I was curious about though, is whether I might perceive that same book differently if I heard it, rather than read it myself.

When you read a book it's between you and the author, but an audiobook brings someone else into the picture - so to speak! - and maybe it might sway perception? Since Chirp had the audiobook on sale for 99 cents, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to experiment. Yes, 99 cents! I'm guessing others are finding this book as unappealing as I did the first time around, and so the publisher is trying to move it by any means possible.

So, as I said before, this was yet another attempt to wring some value from the antique and ridiculous Peter Pan story. About the only one I've read so far that was worth reading was Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson which I reviewed several years ago. I'm currently working on a children's parody myself, skewing all the things that are wrong with the book and with Dipsey's antique and sad animation of it. The first problem with the book is that it's first person. For me it makes for an irritating voice to read because it's usually so unrealistic, and that's especially the case in novel like this one.

They hired an American voice actor to fake a British accent for Captain Hook's daughter - Jaden Hook - like anyone in Britain was named Jaden back when this story was written. Seriously? No marks for Mistress Snark! She could use a few though - to buy herself a clue. My problem though, was who is she supposedly telling this tired story to anyway?>/p>

While I like the idea of a female pirate captain, I don't imagine your average pirate was wont to prattle on about anything let alone a private vendetta between Hook and Pan, not even if there's a switch here and Pan is presented as a villain, kidnapping young children, and Hook as the 'good guy' rescuing them. Since I didn't finish either story, I can't even be sure if this Hook is a reliable narrator - maybe she's just as bad as her dad was, and Pan is still the spiteful, self-centered, narcissistic villain I've always perceived him to be.

The story takes forever to get going and in the end (and by end, I mean middle!), it never really does. That's one reason I quit it. The captain seems only half-hearted in her pursuit of Pan and quite lethargic about it. It takes them forever in trying to sneak up on the speedier Ariel ship, in their own lumbering Revenge, and they never do get there. Yawn.

The chapters are filled with Hook's tedious ramblings, and debates with her crew. What pirate captain debated with their crew? Doesn't 'captain' mean one who is in charge and who gives orders? I quit reading the ebook before I learned that Ariel got away, so I was wondering it if it had been a trap, but it evidently wasn't, according to what I heard here, which begged the question as to what the hell was going on? I have no idea, and worse, I didn't care any more the second time than I did the first!

As I'd concluded earlier, the plot which had initially intrigued me never seemed to have any substance to it. I need more than this in a novel, and this author refuses to stand and deliver! Consequently, I can't commend either the ebook or the audiobook.

Peter and Wendy by JM Barrie

Rating: WARTY!

This is a book based on an earlier work and a play by James Matthew Barrie, that debuted in 1904. The book was published in 1911. Naturally it's a product of its time: a different era, a different mentality, but by today's standards it's sexist and racist. Fortunately it's out of copyright so people can write their own updated versions of this - an advantage of not having copyrights being extended forever by corporations like Disney who want to protect a cartoon mouse, and who in 1953 perpetuated the abusive stereotypes established by Barrie in his original work. Believe it or not, they're planning on two live-action sequels. One for Pan, the other for Tinkerbell. I'll pass. The only thing Disney I have any interest in anymore is what comes out of Marvel Studios.

The story in the book ought to be familiar since the '53 movie follows the text pretty closely for the early part at least. We have Peter losing his shadow and having to return for it. Why he even cares is left unexplained, but in doing so he ends up taking Wendy, John, and Michael with him back to Neverland. Contrary to some stories, Barrie didn't invent the name Wendy. It was in use long before his time, but he was instrumental in popularizing it for about a half century, as a girl's name.

The problem with Wendy is that she's of the 'woman's place is in the home' stable, taken only to provide a mother for the Lost Boys and as someone who can cook and darn clothes. She serves no other purpose and has no other reason for her existence in Barrie's world. He writes: "Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for herself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting double pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on their knees." So Wendy's 'me time' was really 'them time', spent in doing chores for others, because evidentky she had not been raised to think she could have a life and neither was Peter Pan, nor anyone else interested in educating her otherwise. This sort of thing used to be known as slavery. No one ever did anything for Wendy.

Wendy was also very much a subject and adherent to the patriarchal society: "Secretly Wendy sympathised with them a little, but she was far too loyal a housewife to listen to any complaints against father. 'Father knows best,' she always said, whatever her private opinion must be." And this was as a grown-up. Yes, she does grow up and Peter, who supposedly forgets things easily, somehow remembers her. The problem with Peter though is his age. He's been failing to grow up for many years, so his actual age isn't that of a boy Wendy's age. He's much older than that, yet in the manner of modern pedophile YA vampire stories, despite being antique and someone who would have no need of a mother figure and no interest in anyone as young as Wendy, he appears for all purposes as a spoiled and still-young boy.

This is ridiculous even if you take into account his forgetfulness. He has not forgotten how long he's been around or the skills and tricks he's learned in those years. He forgets only people and the reason for this is that he's the most narcissistic and self-centered person outside of the White House. He's not a hero. He's just the opposite. He's Donald Trump. Everything is always about him and he has no thought or time for others unless those others benefit him somehow. He's supposedly rescued these 'Lost Boys', but he really doesn't care if they're in danger or what happens to them. Wendy at least steps up in that regard.

So much for genderism. The racism comes in as the 'redskins' are introduced. One of them is Tiger Lily - supposedly a princess and maybe based on Pocahontas. Hers is not a Native American name, and though tigers were mentioned as being on the island, lilies were not! While they are native to east and central North America, the American Indians, if they called them anything at all, would not have called them Tiger lilies! The real problem though is how Tiger Lily talks. Barrie seems to completely conflate Native Americans and Asians, and to employ the worst stereotypes of each. Tiger Lily speaks like this: "Me Tiger Lily...Peter Pan save me, me his velly nice friend. Me no let pirates hurt him." Seriously? Barf.

So no. The story is ridiculous and painfully dated, and there is nothing edifying or redeeming about it. I can't commend it as a worthy read. It's warty all the way through.

Girlwood by Claire Dean

Rating: WARTY!

Polly is twelve. Her older sister Bree has fallen into the wrong crowd - drugs and so on, and one day Bree disappears. Polly is convinced she has escaped to the woods, but no one believes her. Given how everyone pitches in when a child goes missing, I found it hard ot believe that there was so little interest in organizing a search for her. Yes, Bree was older, and there is the drugs angle, but it felt wrong.

There is talk of fantasy and fairies in the story, and it started out well enough, but then it just dragged. Instead of getting into the woods and going along with the story I felt I'd been promised, it became bogged down in Polly and her wolly doodles all day, and it became a tedious read. I'm not about to expend more of my time on this when there is too much to read and too much to be written. I can't commend this based on the part I read.

The Christmas Secret by Donna van Liere

Rating: WARTY!

This is the first of a few seasonal stories I'm reviewing this year, and I wasn't impressed. It's really nothing more than a Disney princess fairy tale gussied-up for adults (and not well gussied, either), and the plot is more black and white than the ink on the page. This woman whose name I readily forgot, is a single mom. her husband is a complete villain, so we're given to understand, who has her neighbor spy on her and report back so he can call in frivolous complaints to child services. The worst one seems to be that there are children's toys all over the house, and this woman is unable to cope with that by offering simple instruction to her kids about cleaning up after themselves. She isn't poor. She lives in the family house. She and her kid are well fed and clothed. they're having no issues with payments on anything. Her biggest problem seems to be that she's completely inept when it comes to hiring a babysitter so she can work her job at a restaurant, because this is evidently the only kind of work she's capable of performing for reasons unspecified.

Enter her prince - the son of a wealthy business woman who passes out in her car at the end of the main character's driveway. It was crystal clear from that point onwards what was going to go down, so no mysteries to come. It's kind of pathetic really, but well representative of the kind of sap that seems to clog up Christmas like a lethal case of atherosclerosis. The novel was all over the place in terms of person, which didn't help it one bit. Why authors, who plainly admit that first person isn't up to it by the very nature of how they write, still insist upon using it and then clutzily switch back and forth is a mystery. This one jumped between first person PoV and third person omniscient, and it was right in the middle of chapters, which made it all the more clutzy and annoying, as well as a jolt every time it switched, This was really bad writing. First person doesn't make the character more immediate to me, and I certainly don't want to identify with someone as inept as this character was, nor do I want to read yet another story about yet another woman who can't make it without a man coming to her rescue. especially not at Christmas!

There seems to be a thriving trade in this kind of Christmas story, and even in this very title! Don't confuse this one with The Christmas Secret by George C. Bulpitt, The Christmas Secret by Wanda E. Brunstetter , The Christmas Secret by David Delamare, The Christmas Secret by Tesia Johansen, The Christmas Secret by Joan M. Lexau, The Christmas Secret by Jim Struzzi II, The Christmas Secret by Jeannie Watt, The Christmas Secret by Virginia Wright, to say nothing of variations like A Christmas Secret by Jim Cook, A Christmas Secret by Candace Hall, Christmas Secrets by Bayard Hooper, Christmas Secrets by Susanne McCarthy, Christmas Secrets by Ann Schweninger, Her Christmas Secrets by Breena Wilde, A Christmas Secret by Kurt Zimmerman, or even The Cowboy's Christmas Secret by Veda Boyd Jones. But you can't beat Noël's Christmas Secret by Grégoire Solotareff! Not that I've read it, but that title has it all, so it's the winner for me, only just beating out SANTA'S CHRISTMAS SECRET by John Kleiman!

Sheesh guys, get a friggin' original title for goodness sakes! You can see just from this what we're up against in trying to find a worthy Christmas-themed read. Not me. No more stories about Christmas secrets. I'm done!

The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber

Rating: WORTHY!

James Thurber died in 1961, and has largely been forgotten except for when someone makes (or remakes) a movie based on his best known story: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I've been a fan of Thurber's for years, so I'm pleased to be able to write a positive review of a children's story he wrote that I had never read before.

This story is delightfully full of Thurber's sly and dry sense of humor, and is illustrated in a style reminiscent of Thurber's own, by Marc Simont. There is a princess kept imprisoned in Coffin Castle, by the cold Duke. Within the castle are thirteen clocks which are stopped at ten to five (and the odds of starting them are much longer). Along comes a prince to try his hand after so very many others have failed, and as usual, he's given impossible tasks to complete for the princess's hand (and, presumably, the rest of her). The first is to gather one thousand jewels and deliver them to the Duke in nine and ninety hours. The second is to restart the clocks - if he has the time! Can he succeed? Only Thurber knows!

This delight of a story, with an introduction by none other than Neil Gaiman. The tale is charming, funny, irreverent, and well told with, of course, a happy ending. I recommend it.

Vögelein: Old Ghosts by Jane Irwin

Title: Vögelein: Old Ghosts
Author: Jane Irwin
Publisher: Fiery Studios
Rating: WORTHY!

Vögelein is a German word meaning small bird. The character in this novel is more like a large insect (based on the wings) so the name is a bit odd. It's a huge trope that fairies have insect wings, angels have swan's wings, evil angels have bat wings, but I liked this story, and was quite intrigued by the world the author has created.

This is evidently an ongoing series, and I, as usual, dropped right down in the middle of it, but when your local library has a book sale and the books are hard cover (which this one actually wasn't) and they're dirt cheap, you don't ask too many questions! You just buy as many as you can before someone wises up to the fact that they're virtually giving these away! Or until your wife wises up to the fact that you're spending too much money on books. Again....

So this tells the story of a fairy who has a bad history (presumably related in volume one), and who isn't dealing with it too well. She now lives in the city, and has one or two friends, but she misses the old days of country living with someone to whom she had became very close. Even as she revels in her new-found freedom, she reminisces rather more than is good for her.

This fairy is really unusual, which makes me want to read the previous volume. She's a clockwork fairy, and has to be rewound with a special key every once in a while. She did not, evidently used to own her own key, but now she does, but she cannot rewind herself, so the problem is finding a reliable person to do this since she's also being hunted by a girl who is desperate to catch herself a fairy - for reasons unknown.

So in short, I really liked this story. Kudos to Jane Irwin for coming up with a fairy tale which interests me - because I'm not a fan of such! This story is original, interesting and well drawn.

Alice in Wonderland (Graphic Novel) by Lewis Helfland

Title: Alice in Wonderland
Author: Lewis Carroll, adapted by Lewis Helfland.
Publisher: Morphus VC
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Rajesh Nagulakonda.

I've posted a review of the audio book the same day I posted this review, so I'm not going to get into reviewing it again in detail here, except to talk about the graphic aspects of this version of the celebrated novel.

It's exactly the same as the audio book, but graphic! It was really fun to do this double-take because one version was purely auditory and the other was largely visual, so it was a charming and enjoyable way to experience a story as bizarre and oddball as this one.

Rajesh Nagulakonda's artwork is simplistic, really appealing and evocative, even as he has chosen to portray Alice traditionally, in her blue dress with white bib apron.

I have to say a few words about the caterpillar. I have no idea upon whom he was modeled, but he looks disturbingly familiar. Then there's the pig on page 32, although it is rather a handsome pig. And about that sheep on page 67? What the heck kind of an expression is that for a sheep to have on its face?!

So needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), I recommend this graphic novel.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Title: Murderess
Author: Lewis Carroll
Publisher: Macmillan
Rating: WORTHY!

Read Perfectly by Jim Dale.

According to wikipedia. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a writer, a mathematician, an Anglican deacon and photographer. He married Frances Jane Lutwidge, who was his first cousin, and he became a parson. He learned math from his father and after completing his schooling, he taught at Christ Church College. He was talked into writing Alice's adventures by Alice Liddell, one of three daughters of the Dean of Christ Church. He had told the girls, Alice, Edith, and Lorina, a story which at Alice's bidding he wrote down by hand, illustrated, and gave it to her in 1864. Its title then was Alice's Adventures Under Ground.

The story became his most popular work and lent fame to his pseudonym around the world. It begins with Alice sitting with her sister, slightly bored, when she espies a white rabbit running by, talking to itself and carrying a fob watch. She follows it down the infamous rabbit hole and falls almost endlessly until she lands in a room.

From this point onwards, the bizarre fantasy unfolds, with Alice almost constantly changing size by various means. Usually this is achieved by drinking a potion or eating cake or a bit of a giant (to her) mushroom, but at the end of the story she begins to grow again without intake of any food or drink.

The story is fantastical and oddball, with curious and amusing talking creatures, and weird events,but I have to say that the lengths to which some so-called scholars people have gone to try to "analyze" his nonsense is as laughable as it is pathetic.

It's just a nonsensical children's story written for the sake of it. Dodgson wasn't sitting in a boat telling this tale to the three Liddell sisters as social commentary, or a mathematical treatise. He was just telling a story for goodness sakes! It has no deeper meaning.

Yes, Dodgson was a mathematician and a product of his era, but that doesn't mean he consciously sought to imbue a whimsical children's story with profound concepts or societal commentary - it merely means that he is like all writers: they write what they know and they invent concepts out of this knowledge, more than likely unconsciously. It's more absurd than what Dodgson wrote to philosophize about something which had no deeper meaning than Dodgson's desire to amuse and entertain the children.

That said, I recommend this book for a bit of fun and nonsense. It's inventive and entertaining and worth reading at least once. The audio book was only three CDs which went by effortlessly. Jim Dale, who I praised for his inventive reading of Around the World in Eighty Days does a masterful job here, too.

As Luck Would Have It by Robert D San Souci

Title: As Luck Would Have It
Author: Robert D San Souci
Publisher: August House
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Daniel San Souci.

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.

This story is a comedy of errors, and not errors in the illustrating or in the telling - but maybe in the naming! B&N lists over twenty titles with this title!

It's the story of two bears, a brother and a sister, who are rather clueless about life, and seem to think that it's some sort of free ride. They don't apply themselves, they don't watch what they're doing, and they screw-up seriously when their parents cluelessly trust them to mind the house for a while when they go on a trip (the parents are clearly cubs supporters, so we all know where they went!).

It's one disaster after another, but to their credit, the children pull it together when they learn to pull together and take responsibility for their actions, bless their little furry socks, and they don't have to turn into bear-faced liars!

What began looking like an epic fail was reined in and mastered as the bears managed to get on top of problems even when the problems seemed to have run so far out of control as to be beyond salvage. That's why I recommend this story because it's got more tenacity than I have and we can always learn more, no matter how much we think we know already.

Fairylicious by Tiffany Nicole Smith

Title: Fairylicious
Author: Tiffany Nicole Smith
Publisher: (website unlocated) Twisted Spice Publications
Rating: TBD

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.

Errata in review copy:
The term "...pulling a rolled up piece of paper from her from her wand..." doesn't make sense (no page number to hand! It's at the point where the fairies first appear)
Smith repeatedly uses 'Huntsmen' when it looks like she ought to be using 'Huntsman': p17, p18, p34
p19 "I hated it when she was upset to me" - "…upset with me"?
p66 "This caused Angel to jump on the kitchen and…" should be "This caused Angel to jump onto the kitchen table and..."
p67 there seems to be a problem with the comma and the spacing after "(whatever that was)…"
p74 "Don’t hate because we whooped your carcasses…" should be "Don’t hate us because we whupped your carcasses…"
p82 "Where's she'd go…" should be "Where'd she go..."
p111 "Where are you-know-you" should be "where are you-know-who?"

This may haunt me for the rest of my blogging life, but you know what? I don't freaking care; I loved this novel! That's weird because I'm not a fairy story lover, and especially not when even the writers of such tales admit to their own embarrassment by re-naming their characters "Fae", the stealth term for "fairy". Delightfully, Smith doesn't do this, which is good because the only 'Fae' I actually tolerate are in the TV show Lost Girl which I adore. My love isn’t for main character - as per usual. Bo strikes me as boring. My love is for one of the secondary characters. Initially it was for Kenzi (who I will assert still has it, even though she's been going somewhat downhill in entertainment value lately) and Tamsin, who is completely kick-A, especially in her current "incarnation". She's definitely taken over as my favorite of the show, but of course, Lost Girl is very much a grown-up show, so it’s not likely to interest the same readers who would find Fairylicious appealing (not for some years to come at least!), but believe it or not, I found Fairylicious equally entertaining in its own way.

So why this novel when other fairy stories have rendered me completely uninterested? Well for one thing, this whole novel is so joyfully playful, and yet so determinedly serious about the fluff that I couldn’t resist it, and I appreciated the unabashed use of 'fairy' and especially the shameless title! I may endure regrets in the blogger world for admitting this, but this novel is a winner. It’s been a while since I've reviewed anything on the younger end of the reading scale, so I decided to blitz three such stories en suite to help make up the deficit. All three turned out to be worthwhile reads, but it was this one in particular (the one written for the most mature of the three audiences) which really impressed me. It just goes to show that you can write a technically deficient novel, yet still win my approval if you tell an entertaining story!

Perhaps I shouldn't use this phrase since I just started in on an audio book of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but my blood warmed to Fairylicious right from the start with main character Bex (never Becky!) and her six-year-old younger sister Ray (Reagan), and their intriguing back story: Bex loves her younger aunt, is estranged from her mother, the middle sister, and detests her older aunt. And there's much more to that back story, believe you me. This book is the start of a series and it looks like it’s planned to extend at least through book 4 of the Fairylicious world. Scarily enough, I am definitely interested in reading more!

Bex, a resident of Boston, USA, is described as a "preteen" (she's eleven). She's very smart and attends a school for gifted children called GATE (Gifted and Talented Education Center). Both Ray and Bex once attended "The Gate" but Ray was expelled for biting a teacher! Bex is also a redhead with a huge mane of tangled hair which she hates to brush. Shades of Neverfell! Bex & Ray's parents are nowhere in the picture. Her father is in prison, and he apparently gets letters from her mother, but her mother left for Europe for a month when Bex was nine, and Never Came Back. I suspect we'll learn much more of her in future volumes.

Bex suffers for her parents misadventures in the form of being teased, even harassed over her family, at school. That's one thing which bothers me about this novel: the endless harassment which never seems to be addressed, not only from other students, but occasionally from teachers. I see it in a disturbingly large number of YA novels and I can't help but wonder if the authors are writing about the school of their youth rather than about modern schools. I have two children who have been in three schools between them and not in any one of those schools was bullying and harassment even countenanced, much less passively tolerated. I can see how the outcast or misfit student can make for a good story, but it's becoming something of a cliché these days.

After an uneventful weekend, it’s "Mopey Monday" and Bex reunites with her friends Lily-Rose, a talented violin player, and with Chirpy (Beatrice) a swimmer, and Marishca, a Gymnast who had moved from Russia two years previously. Here's where I found a part I did not like: Smith seems rather condescending here towards Russians in having Marishca pronounce all her 'th' sounds as 'zee'. This doesn't work because, for one thing, the rest of her pronunciation is flawless! To me this just seemed insulting. If you visit You Tube and actually listen to Russians speaking English there, you'll see that the ones who speak English as well - as Marishca does - do not mangle their 'th' sounds. It's only the ones who speak very limited English who do this, so personally I'd like to see that aspect of the story disappear as though a fairy whisked it away!

Anyway, these four girls are "the Tribe" - the oldest girls in the school, and Bex is the "Biggest" of them, describing herself as "big-boned". At least two of the tribe hang with Bex because she's big enough to protect them from bullying by other students, but it doesn’t save her from being the brunt of jokes. This occurs, in one example, when the class is asked to tell everyone about their weekend, and Bex makes up a story about a trip to Hawaii because her real weekend was so boring. One of the three Avas in her class (Ava G, Ava M, and Ava T - there are are many more in the school) calls her on it because Bex doesn't know the name of the island she was on. This same Ava, after giving her seven kinds of grief, then demands to be invited to her birthday party!

Bex seems to have a real facility for somehow managing to impose her personal issues upon others by always managing to translate them into situations in which her friends become involved to their own cost! When she was unjustly punished for verbally retaliating on Ava G, she was required to write a list of twelve nice things about Ava to make up for the insult. Ava goes unpunished. Bex can think of only one item for her list: Ava is rich(!), so she surreptitiously passes the sheet around the class to have her friends fill in the eleven blanks. She reads it back to the class without perusing it first, and the list is hilarious. One item which really tickled me was: "If you put an 'L' in front of her name it would be Lava" There are so many instances of this kind of laugh-out-loud humor that I couldn't not love this story. Yeah, I know that these things may not find your funny bone the way they found mine, but I did get the feeling that Tiffany Nicole Smith is a person with whom you could have some really fun conversations.

Bex believes in fairies and she believes that a fairy dies when someone says they don’t believe in them (which is, of course, why fairies are so rare - I killed a dozen of 'em just now with a thoughtless chant….). This is on par with the remark which Gwen's friend Lesley makes in Kerstin Gier's Emerald Green which made me laugh. The thing that I found a bit odd here, given that this is a fairy tale (so to speak!), is that getting on for half of the way in, we still hadn’t met a fairy! Don't worry about that, however: when they arrived, they were truly worth waiting for. Yes, they! I honestly can't believe I'm saying this, but it's true, and they took me completely by surprise. I was definitely not expecting the hilarious fairies which Smith delivered, but I was thrilled to get these fairies and no other.

Because Bex's Nana (her grandmother with whom she lives) is on a fixed income, Bex doesn't get much in the way of luxuries or treats (I can empathize with that childhood, believe me!). The worst aspect of this is that she cannot even have her own birthday party - she has to share with the her triplet cousins, who are younger, and ill-behaved, not to say obnoxious. It's via a birthday wish that Bex summons her fairies.

I have to record at this point that Smith has an annoying habit of jumping, in time, in her writing without offering any indication whatsoever in the text (for example by leaving a blank line, or by adding three asterisks or something). She simply goes right onto the next line and a whole night, a week-end, even a week or more could have passed in the meantime, but she really knows how to write endearing characters which helps to gloss over this flaw. Nonetheless, a flaw it is. I hope it was corrected in the final version of this novel.

I found that even a fairy-hater like me was drawn into this story, starting to empathize with Bex, who is always trying to be strong and decent despite her personal misfortunes (and perceived misfortunes). That was something of a surprise, but the further I progressed into this novel the more I realized that it's seriously lacking a good editing job! At least in the review copy I have. Punctuation is sometimes poor. For example, there's more than one instance of there being a comma between two words with no accompanying space, or the space appears before the comma. There's also at least one instance of a question being asked with no accompanying question mark.

I also have to repeat that Smith's habit of skipping ahead in time or moving the narrative to a new setting without offering the reader an indication that things have changed (such as including a couple of blank lines, or separating the two sections with three asterisks or something) was common and grew to be as confusing as it was annoying. Hopefully that will be edited out of the final release! At one point (on page 86), for example, Smith has Bex going from talking with two guys as they exit the school drama room on one line to Bex and Reagan running downstairs at home to greet their favorite Aunt Alice on the very next line with no indication whatsoever of any transition. She does it again on the very next page. This novel is over 120 pages, and there are only nine chapters; splitting it up into more chapters - at these very points - would have been a good move. Had this novel been less entertaining, I would have considered quitting reading it because of this annoyance, but I have to confess that it's a real credit to Smith that she managed to keep a jaded fairy-phobe like me interested. The story is fine, wonderful even; it’s just the editing which needs some work!

I need to quit giving out spoilers, but let me just say here that Bex and her three friends each get their own fairy. The problem is that each fairy is like something from a second-hand store. They were like hand-me-down fairies, which I found hilarious. There's also a back-story here, which I very much appreciated. Bex's friend Lily-Rose Johnston gets Blush, an entirely pink fairy who is allergic to pixie dust. The entirely blue fairy is Iris, who belongs to Chirpy, aka Beatrice Martin. This fairy is rather acrophobic and suffers from air-sickness! Olive is, of course, the green fairy who belongs to Marishca Baranov. This fairy has mis-matched wings. Rebecca Carter, aka Bex gets the yellow fairy named Maize who is actually missing an entire wing.

Bex is depressed by her dad's incarceration, but Maize evidently can’t fix that; fairies don’t get involved in legal issues. That seemed a bit arbitrary to me since no real explanation was given, but hey, it’s a kid's fairy story, so let it ride. Actually, even that was somewhat amusing. The other three girls rebel and return their fairies to Bex! They can't stand the disruption that the fairies cause! Evidently they don't have the logic to work out that they must make very specific requests (they're kids, after all), and here's where the sorry truth comes out: the fairies themselves are rejects! They were kicked out of fairy land. I love this.

So the other three girls 'return' their fairies to Bex, not wanting them around any more, but Bex refuses to give up on them. The one thing I don’t get is why Bex never thinks of saving the school programs that are scheduled to be cut by asking her fairy to help. That might result in disaster of course, so it's as well that she doesn't. Instead, she takes the admirable tack of organizing a feisty rebellion (even if it's misguided)! She doesn’t seem to get that rebelling isn't going to make money appear (maybe that's a job for a fairy?), but it works out in unexpected ways. Unexpected is one of the attractions of this novel and made me keep on reading it. I have to include here a mention of the school show. As part of Bex's plan, the kids disrupt the school talent show and the "modern version" of Jack and the Beanstalk performed by Charlie and Santiago was hilarious. I don't know where Smith comes up with these notions, but I sincerely hope she doesn't lose the knack of it.

I love the notes going back and forth between Bex and one of her teachers, including her, um, creative spelling. There was an interesting episode on page 104 where Bex writes "fortay" and I was ready to add it to the errata when I realized it was a Bex note, intentionally misspelled. It should, of course, be "forte", which technically is pronounced 'fort', but everyone mispronounces it, including me. People tend to confuse it with the musical term which is spelled the same, and actually is pronounced 'fortay'. So let me just conclude with the one expected result of this novel: that things would work out in the end (but not everything - we need something left open for the sequels, right?!).

Anyway, I can't post any more spoilers much as I would love to keep raving about this. I highly recommend this novel and seriously plan on getting my hands on the series. Yeah, I can't believe I actually liked a (literal) fairy story, but I did! It was too much fun to not like, and it just goes to prove that you should never say never! I recommend this novel for appropriate ages and other ages, and I rate it a worthy read.

The Prophecy of the Stones by Flavia Bujor

Title: The Prophecy of the Stones
Author: Flavia Bujor
Publisher: Miramax Books
Rating: WORTHY!

The Prophecy of the Stones shortly to be followed by its sequel, The Prophecy of the Beatles! (I may have made that up). On a serious note, I also have reviewed Nancy Yi Fan's Swordbird which is another novel written by a young writer - in this case younger even than Bujor.

This is rather an amazing novel at least in the one sense that it was written by a girl who was thirteen at the time she began writing it. That's an impressive feat, so how could I not check it out? The story is actually a dream of a sick and perhaps dying girl in modern day Paris, and it relates the adventures of three girls (curiously all the same age as the sick Parisienne, and also as the author was when she began this novel!).

The three girls are named after gemstones. Amber, the girl who was raised on a farm, Jade, the girl who was raised by a duke, and Opal, the girl who was raised in a village by a rather feared old woman. There's no mention of whether they ever meet up with Ruby Red...! None of the girls was raised by her own parents. On the night of their fourteenth birthday, all are given the stone after which they're named and told that they must trust no one and must leave home that very night to meet the two other girls. Oh, and one more thing: everyone should be considered an enemy, including the other two girls! When they meet under the specified tree out in the wilds they must, after midnight, open the bag and take out their stone. Unfortunately, Opal has already accessed hers, not long before, and not even knowing what it was.

So oddly enough, even after all this, they do indeed meet, and they're suspicious of each other, but nothing odd happens and they eventually agree to work together to try and find out what the deal is with these freaking stones. They plan to spend their first night in an old barn which is frankly disgusting to Jade, so she visits the farmhouse and demands to be put up there! She also demands sufficient food for the next several days' travels, and she gets everything she asks for! The three of them decide they need to go to Nathyrnn to meet a guy who supposedly can tell them about the prophecy of the stones.

When they arrive at the city, they are in turn introduced to a knight from the land of Fairytale who they ask for advice. They decide that the only way to break the stranglehold of the Council of Twelve on the land is to get into Fairytale, a forbidden magical land which is walled off with a force-field. They proceed to breach the wall despite their government's dire warnings against such an action, and despite a virtual army waiting on the border. Nevertheless, they decide that fear is the enemy and they simply rush the soldiers, and almost all of them get through into Fairytale! Unfortunately, Opal dies, but fortunately, Death is on strike in Fairytale, and so Opal cannot die.

The trio continue with their quest to find a wise woman in Fairytale who will impart the knowledge they need to overthrow the council's iron-rule. Naturally, the council wishes to terminate the girls' power and so they launch an unprecedented invasion of Fairytale. The girls eventually find the woman and discover that they have to visit Death herself and talk her out of her strike...!

So what to do with this novel? Read it! This is a worthy read. Yeah, it's simplistically written and a bit bizarre, but I've read a lot worse novels by more mature writers who should know better. Those writers need not be encouraged. A writer like Bujor? She's needs to be brought on-board with all speed.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Title: Scarlet
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Rating: worthy

I review the first volume in this quadrilogy, Cinder and also the third volume, Cress. And you know what? If you like Scarlet, maybe you'll like Ruby Red?! Hey! it's worth a thought!

It was sooo good to get back into Meyer's Cinder-world (aka The Lunar Chronicles - not that any of this takes place on the Moon - at least not so far; let’s just call it Cinderama!). I don’t know what it is about this series, but I was definitely hooked after Cinder. Unfortunately, Scarlet left a few things to be desired. I am still on-board with this series, but not quite as enthused as I was after I'd read the original volume. There were a few rough bumps in the reading, and I only partly warmed to Scarlet the novel. I was willing to ride out the rough parts for the good parts, but I did not take to the Scarlet the character at all! She ain't no Cinder!

Scarlet Benoit lives in a small village in France, near Toulouse. Benoit is a name related to the religious order of the Benedictines. It appears that (as least from reading this volume) Meyer didn't choose this name because of that connection, but she does wear a hooded garment - although it’s bright red in color. I'm rather picky about my character names, so it was of interest to me to see if this choice went anywhere. It didn't; it was just a name pulled out of a hat, apparently. I mean, why a French last name, Benoit, but an English first name, Scarlet? Why wasn't it Écarlate?!

The real Toulouse, in the south of France, is the birthplace of Henry Russell, the explorer, and is currently a center of aerospace technology so it’s kind of appropriate to the story. Scarlet lives on a farm owned by her grandmother. Michelle Benoit, and she was extremely happy there, but this is no longer the case, since her grandmother was kidnapped. The police have given up on the case, considering her grandmother to be a crazy old lady who has simply wandered off. This infuriates Scarlet, who is as feisty as her red hair would suggest (if this were a cliché-ridden tale...but it's not, right? Uh-huh!).

Scarlet's father shows up at the farm unexpectedly, and is evidently searching for something. Upon questioning, Scarlet discovers that he was captured and tortured by the same people who kidnapped her grandmother. He complains that his mother - Scarlet's grandmother - let him be tortured rather than tell the thugs what they wanted to know. Evidently this secret is so big that grandmother is not going to reveal it even to save her son (and especially not since he abandoned Scarlet and her mom some time ago). Why Scarlet doesn't simply take her dad directly to the police at this point is one of many unexplained mysteries we will encounter in this novel. Why he was sent to do the search, rather than the wolves do it is another mystery.

The only thing her dad can tell her about his captivity is that one guy had, on his forearm, a tattooed alphanumeric sequence, which she'd seen that same day on a street fighter. When her dad passes out drunk, she tracks down this street fighter at a nearby illegal fight and confronts him. He says it wasn't him, promptly beats the crap out of an undefeated monster of a man who was hitherto undefeated, and then flees undefeated into the night. Scarlet hears a wolf howling, which is curious, since this guy's name is Wolf....

The next morning, the guy shows up at Scarlet's farm. She doesn't trust him, and at first he refuses to help her, telling her this is far too unsafe for her, but he does reveal who these people are with the tattoos: a dangerous Paris gang. Later, he agrees to help her, but rather than head off to their Paris HQ in her ship, they inexplicably take the train because it’s...faster? Another abrupt ejection from my tenuous suspension of reality. Clearly they took the train so they could have an adventure on it which is fine, but couldn't Meyer have written a better excuse for it?

Meanwhile, let us not forget Cinder; yes, she's in this novel, too! She's a prisoner in a Chinese prison awaiting the evil Lunar queen's disposal, but she uses her Lunar glimmer ability to persuade the guards to move her to a cell from which she figures she can escape. Why she simply doesn't glimmer them to escort her directly from the prison is unexplained mystery #3. Why she was left with her cyborg technology intact is unexplained mystery #4; the French evidently detest cyborgs just as much as the Chinese in this series, which is why that's an unexplained mystery. Hopefully this novel won't be a sad litany of such plot holes - or at least the story in general will outweigh these things.

Using her nifty cyber-parts given to her by Dr Erland, she drills down through the floor into a cell below hers, thinking it’s empty, but it’s occupied by a new character in this series, a roguish, self-obsessed captain Carswell Thorne, who conveniently has at his disposal a stolen US military spacecraft. Have you noticed how all these para military rogues are captains? They're never a private, or a colonel, or a major, are they? Having said that, if it were not for Thorne, I think I might have truly despaired about Scarlet (the novel, not the character, although Scarlet's account is definitely in the red at this point..). Once she learns he has this craft, Cinder takes him along with her and we follow the inevitably disgusting escape through the sewers into the ship and into orbit. So what are the odds that Cinder is going to end up in Paris, too?

Well it soon becomes apparent why Scarlet and Wolf take the train: it’s so they can get some quality bonding time together, which couldn't really have happened had they taken Scarlet's ship, but the bonding doesn’t really happen on the train either! Scarlet seems a bit slow on the uptake as an obvious bad guy takes the train with them; then next thing they know (no, it’s not the bad guy - at least not directly) is that some robot is knocking on their door wanting to re-scan their wrist chips; then it wants a blood sample!

I guess this is the norm for life in their century, because neither refuses or is even really outraged by it, but the odd thing is that none of this is ever explained in the story. We have no idea why this blood sampling happened - so we're forced to conclude that the sole purpose of it was a ham-fisted ruse to get Scarlet and Wolf off the train and into the forest; however, since there's no evident purpose for that either, this is yet another in an increasingly long line of mysteries.

When Wolf decides it’s time to get off the train, they jump through a window. Why maglev bullet trains would have opening windows is a complete and utter mystery, but there you go - or rather there they go. Remember how it's a bullet train? Meyer didn't. I'm not sure she even fully grasps the maglev concept, either, but we'll let that slide.

Meanwhile, Cinder installs her robot Iko's chip in Carswell's space craft, and decides they need to find Michelle Benoit.... They track her down to the farm outside Toulouse (where Thorne swoops up a girl who has fainted - not scoops her up. but swoops her up!), and they run into a wolf uprising while trying to get a replacement fuel cell for Thorne's ship. Cinder, who was a stalwart of capability in volume one, is also turning into a bit of an airhead, unfortunately because even though, on the ship on the trip down there, she had learned how to transform her appearance to look like any other human by sheer willpower using Queen Levana's trick, this trick somehow fails to intrude on her consciousness when she goes into town with Thorne, so she's instantly recognized and attracts the police. Why she has to go instead of letting Thorne's less identifiable face go alone is yet another unexplained mystery in a growing pile.

So Scarlet and Wolf jump onto the next bullet train which is running through the forest, and find their way inside - why nothing is locked and sealed on these trains is yet another mystery. And how, exactly, does one jump onto a bullet train? Did Meyer forget the bit about bullet again? The current speed record for a maglev, and this was set in 2003, was midway between 300 and 400 miles per hour! So they dropped onto a 300mph train? If we assume, just a for a quick calculation, a train length of about 500 feet (give or take, based very roughly on the dimensions of China's up and running maglev), this means at 300mph, the entire length of the train has gone past you in little more than 10 seconds. My math sucks, so I may have that wrong, but if not, then ten seconds is an abysmally short time to get two people successfully onto a train, who have never done this before.

Anyway, they get to Paris and find their way to the wolves' HQ, only for Scarlet to discover that she's inevitably betrayed (but not really) by this hunky white guy who has his hair tumbling into his eyes. Trope much? I'm sorry, but at this point I have not still warmed to Scarlet, who started out being strong and feisty, but became a complete limp rag as soon as a guy showed up in her life. I find Wolf as laughable as I found that worthless non-entity who is destined to be Cinder's boyfriend from the first novel. It's really sad that in an entire four-book series supposedly devoted to strong women, the women turn out to be such a bunch of plastic Barbies.

Wolf inevitably doesn't betray her but slips her a chip which enables her to escape from her cell, and find her grandmother, but this girl who routinely and easily hauls heavy crates of vegetables around in her day job is too weak now to haul her featherweight grandmother out of the cell? Seriously? So because this weak, limp woman (Scarlet, not her g-mom) can't free her g-mom, her g-mom is inevitably dispatched, and all this without telling Scarlet, inevitably, a single useful thing about what's really going on! And Scarlet is supposed to be some sort of hero? Not even close. Hopefully she'll redeem herself in the remaining two volumes.

The biggest problem with these scenes of the wolfish battles are that these wolves were born and raised on the Moon, where gravity is one sixth that of Earth. Meyer consistently forgets this, or isn't smart enough to consider it in her writing, or she thinks that her readers are so stupid they won't notice it. None of those options speaks well of her. No matter how dangerous, powerful and forbidding the wolves were on the Moon, here on Earth, effectively carrying six times their weight, they would be poor and sluggish, but we never see this reality depicted at all.

As I reached the end of this tome, I had to say that I was disappointed. After Cinder took off like a rocket, I found this one to be a rather damp squib. Precisely because it didn't engage me like the first one did, my mind dwelt far more on plot holes and poor planning than it ever had interest in pondering with the first novel in this series. The story moved along at a good pace but a lot of it seemed pointless, and I was reading it only for the Cinder/Thorne parts. Thorne was limited and cliched; in contrast with the rest of the story, he was definitely a highlight, but he had far too little 'screen time' in comparison with the sadly vapid scenes featuring Scarlet and Wolf. He was the real 'hero' in this volume even though he was far from a hero, and much more like light relief. I found myself wondering who Meyer will pair him of with - Rapunzel maybe? She is up next, although neither she nor Snow got a mention on volume two.

It was nice that it was set outside the USA (yes, Virginia, there is a rest of the world), but when you got right down to it, there was nothing in the story which made this a necessity. Both volumes one and two could have been set in the USA or anywhere else in the world and it wouldn't have made an ounce of difference to the outcome. That lack of engagement with the surroundings was far more noticeable in Scarlet because of the story's failure to immerse me whole-heartedly, so the setting was really irrelevant from that perspective.

The Scarlet/Wolf story held very little interest. It was the standard failure of this kind of story, whereby we're presented with a strong female lead, but she becomes a complete dishcloth as soon as a manly man steps into the picture, and from that point onwards she's nothing more than an appendage to him instead of being the girl we loved and rooted for when we first met her. To paraphrase the words of Obi-wan Kenobi: "This is not the hero you're looking for. Move along."

Cinder was still engaging, and we see her at the end finally embrace her destiny as the four of them (Cinder, Thorne, Wolf, and Scarlet) escape in Thorne's spacecraft, but even Cinder failed to move me like she did in the first novel. Now I'm left hoping that Rapunzel and Snow White are going to step up to the plate and not fall flat like Scarlet did.

Oh yeah, apparently there was a wet blanket by the name of Emperor Kai somewhere in this story. I must not have noticed him. For that (lack of the detestable Kai), and for Thorne, I'll rate this as a very conservative worthy!

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Rating: WORTHY!

I review the second volume in this quadrilogy, Scarlet and also the third volume, Cress. And you know what? If you like Cinder, maybe you'll like Ash?! Hey! it's worth a thought!

Cinder is a great departure from the usual tropes and clichés. Meyer is to be admired and commended for coming up with this idea when everyone else is imitating the popular sellers like sheep. This is the way to go if you want to make a name in the YA market: cut loose from the pack and stride out there boldly making your own path - and either publish the darned thing yourself, or be lucky enough to find that rare agent/publisher with sufficient wherewithal to roll with it. Cinder is the first of four in "The Lunar Chronicles" series, all in the same universe, using other fairy-tale characters: Scarlet, based on Red Riding Hood, Cress, based on Rapunzel, and Winter, based on Snow White. Cinder is, of course, based on Cinderella. There's an interview with Meyer in USA Today

In several of her interviews, Meyer describes how she entered a writing contest. There were only two entrants and she came second! But her story of a sci-fi Puss in Boots was so much fun that she decided to write an entire series of such tales. Here's where I hate her! Just a month or two afterwards, she had the idea of Cinder the cyborg come to her as she was falling to sleep! She left her bed behind and started making notes, and now we have this masterpiece (at least that's how it's looking as far as I've read!). I am sooooo jealous! Well, it's a masterpiece with a few flaws, so lets get those out of the way!

It's hard to imagine a society as advanced as this one which doesn't have the technology to get some kind of handle on the plague. But we can let that go for the sake of a good story which this is, despite the blemishes. I can also let go that Prince Kaito is such a spineless little wuss, who dare not speak out plainly in the face of Queen Levana's disgraceful attitudes and behavior. There were a few author issues: Meyer doesn't seem to know the difference between 'splice' and 'split' or between 'treaty' and 'treatise', and unless the pool in the palace garden really was coquettish as opposed to being stocked with Cyprinus carpio haematopterus, then she doesn't know the difference between coy and Koi! I found a handful of errors of that nature, but not enough to be annoying.

It was while I was thinking about these things, that I found myself wondering why I do love this novel despite the flaws? Why do I really look forward to volume two of this quadrilogy, but I can't work up the enthusiasm to read the next volume which will follow The Darwin Elevator? I can't give you an answer to that, which bothers me a bit. It's just that I knows what I likes! If I force myself to answer, I think the main reason is that I connected with the main characters in this novel - with Cinder and Iko - whereas I felt no connection to anyone in Hough's novel. Perhaps that's the only "secret" of getting people to come back for more, even if it's more of the same in a different package. Not that I expect Meyer's series to be more of the same: she has four different novels, but all connected. I think that's part of Meyer's genius, which will put this series up there with the Hunger Games trilogy, and with Rowling's heptalogy. Bring on the movies!

Linh Cinder is a cyborg living on Earth in "New Beijing" (no word on what happened to the old one!) at a future unspecified date. So again, props to Meyer for not setting this in the USA. She did this because the original Cinderella story is Chinese - as far as scholars can tell (a kind of Mulan Rouge!). There is a rest of the world and all too many authors in the US completely forget this. The only problem here is that Meyer really doesn't make New Beijing sound like it's Chinese - it's more like Chinatown than China.

Cinder is "only" 63.72% human, and that is far more than enough for her to be treated as a third class citizen subject to the most shameful and egregious prejudice. Her own parents being dead, and Cinder being a cyborg, she's effectively owned by her stepmother, who disdains her in favor of her two 'real' daughters: Pearl hates Cinder just as much as her mother does, but the younger Peony loves Cinder like a sister. These girls are zero percent cyborg. Cinder became a cyborg after being injured in a rare hover-car accident. And if you believe that, I have some land in Florida for sale at an amazing price....

In the bigger world, there is a local monarch, Prince Kaito, who is rumored to be looking for a wife. His mother is dead, and his father is sick from Letumosis, an apparently viral disease which is contagious and 100% deadly. The prince is spearheading an effort to find a cure. In other news, Queen Levana is considered a potential candidate for the prince's hand. She's the head of the Lunar colony, a breed of human who are reputed to be evil and have psychic powers of control over others. Another name which is bandied about in this regard is...Princess Winter! We'll meet her in volume four.

Cinder gets a visit one day in her little mechanic's booth down in the market place. It’s embarrassing because she has just taken off her foot, expecting her family bot, Iko to be along shortly with a replacement. The visitor is Prince Kai who has brought his old and favorite android, Nainsi, to be fixed. His palace mechanics can’t do a thing with it and he's been told Cinder is the best. He jokes that it carries secret information which he must recover (shades of Star Wars! "Help me Obi Wan Lihn Cinder; you're my only hope!"), but Cinder's cybernetic implants can tell that he's lying. The prince doesn't realize that Cinder is a cyborg.

On a trip to the junk yard that night, to retrieve a replacement part to fix something which her hateful stepmother, Adri has demanded she fix, Cinder takes along her younger step sister at her request. As she's examining a beautiful old gasoline-powered vehicle, Cinder notes that Peony has the tell-tale blemishes of the Letumosis plague, the Blue Fever, and she's forced to call the medbots. They test Cinder and she is free of plague, but Peony is quickly spirited away to confinement in a hospital.

This is the last, and for Adri the longest, straw since she can now justify selling Cinder for medical research. Cinder is stunned - literally - and taken to a research facility where she's injected with the Blue Fever virus. This ends part one of the adventures of Cinder!

Part two reveals that Cinder is immune to the virus and she makes a deal with the rather suspicious Dr Erland to voluntarily help him with his research - and hopefully her young step sister, if he will pay her, but put the money into her own account so her stepmother cannot get her sticky fingers on it. Cinder plans on buying that old car from the junk yard, fixing it up, and taking off! I suspect that both the doctor and the prince have other ideas on that score.

The Queen of the Moon comes to Earth with the sole intention of mooning it! She's an obnoxious objectionable piece of substandard work who has no hesitation in controlling and manipulating anyone she chooses in order to get her way. She notes that Cinder is in the crowd outside the palace, not knowing who she is, but knowing she is a Lunar, and very soon, Cinder knows this too. Doc Erland tells her. The doc assures her she is and that she will in time develop her powers. Meanwhile she must stay away from Queen Levana - who for some reason abhors mirrors - because the Queen would kill her if she got chance. The reason Cinder was up the palace was to return Nainsi which she fixed by the simple act of removing an inappropriate chip from her. This chip is of Lunar origin, and is designed for direct communications, outside of the usual networks. Cinder hooks it up to a screen, but gets no response.

The Queen brings with her one vial of antidote enough for one adult, but the Doc splits one quarter of it for Cinder to give to her step sister. Unfortunately, Cinder gets there too late, and her sister dies in her arms. She gives the antidote to another child she knows, who, despite being taken ill earlier than Peony, somehow outlives her. He gets better and becomes a sensation. Cinder, meanwhile has taken the ID chip from her sister's wrist and is seen doing so and pursued by the authorities. She escapes, but Adri disowns her and takes her foot, in "payment" for the 600 univs which she appropriated to buy it. Cinder now has to limp around on crutches, but she limps all the way to the car she has rebuilt, intent upon leaving that very night.

While she's packing her things, the screen to which the comm chip is hooked beeps at her, and Cinder answers to discover she's talking to a girl about her own age, who has the most amazingly long hair. We'll meet her in Volume three. The girls warns her that Queen Levana is planning on marrying Kai, then killing him and using her foothold on earth to wage war on everyone, taking charge of the whole planet and bring it all under her thumb. So off goes Cinder to the rescue!

I've posted way too many spoilers here, so let's leave it at that with a recommendation for this novel as a highly worthy read.