The Awakening by Lisa M Lilly

Rating: WARTY!

Unfortunately, this is volume one of the inevitable "Awakening" series, which I have no intention of following, even though this volume wasn't entirely disastrous. The fact is that I'm allergic to most series! Why writers suffer this inexplicable chronic verbosity these days and cannot seem to confine themselves to the covers of one book to tell a story is a complete mystery to me. Well not quite complete. Obviously it's mercenary and driven by publishers (and writers) wanting to milk a story for all they can, even when the udder is running dry or turning out sour milk, and the hell with the readers.

I mean, why sell your readers one pair of covers when you can milk them for three or more? Three is where this series is at as of this writing, but I'm done with this one volume. Series are by definition derivative and uninventive and that's not me, especially if they're rather uninspired and a bit lackluster, as this one was. If I'd realized that it was part of a series I would probably have decided against getting this at all. As it happens, this story wasn't so bad that I immediately wanted to ditch it, but it had problems which did not inspire me to pursue it.

In some ways I can understand it, in an era where Amazon seems determined to make all writers charge the same price for a three-hundred page novel that iTunes charges for a thee minute song. Running to a series seems like the only way for most writers to make any money, but to me it's still a cheat - an easy and lazy out. I do like a well-written good v. evil story, but unfortunately they're so few in number that they're hard to find. I didn't find one here.

This story features Tara Spencer, a mature young adult, who discovers she's pregnant, yet she's never had sex. Her boyfriend. Jeremy, ditches her because 'she's been unfaithful'. Apparently he doesn't know her very well, and he's a hypocrite anyway because he's already having an affair on the side since Tara wouldn't have sex with him! I honestly don't get Tara. She was raised Catholic but it didn't take. She's at least doubting, and at best lapsed. I say at best, because I'm not a believer. I think religion is nonsensical and organized religion is predatory and coercive. It has nothing to do with the love of any god. Like a book series, organized religion is all about making money.

So Tara is evidently either the new virgin Mary or she's the mother of the antichrist, but since she's not really a Catholic any more, this business of her remaining a virgin, while there's nothing wrong with it at all, felt to me like it wasn't justified very well by the author, and especially so since her supposed forbear Miriam (commonly known as Mary in the West) was not actually a virgin. The Hebrew word used to describe her means 'young woman' - there's a separate word for virgin, but this is never used in connection with Mary. The virgin lie is nothing more than a ruse employed in a long history of Catholicism's abuse and oppression of women and the twisting of belief for its own mercenary ends.

The sad thing from Tara's PoV is that the only person who believes her is some oddball guy named Cyril Woods (I disown all relationship to this guy. I'll explain later!), who is a believer and is resolved to protect her. At first she doesn't trust him, but he proves as good as his word and Tara is left with no choice but to turn to him since she's getting zero support from anyone else, not her best friend (who happens to be Jeremy's sister) and not her parents, although her older brother is on her side, as is her doctor, Dr. Lei.

One sad thing about this story is how little the author knows about religion or about nursing - as in taking care of the ill, not feeding babies. When Tara faints and is in the hospital, we read, "Dr. Lei, white coat open over her gray pin-striped pants suit, stopped in around nine. She told Tara she was on an IV with nutrition and hydration and took Tara's pulse." No, the nurses would be doing this - orientating the patient and filling her in on her treatment plan. Doctors don't do this, and they sure don't come in and take the patient's pulse! They read the nurses notes. Often the nurses are telling the doctors what to do, if they're new interns, for example.

Dr Lei isn't an intern, of course, she's a seasoned doctor and she'd know that wandering in and taking her patient's pulse isn't going to tell her anything. She would have read the patient's 'chart' (file) before she went into the room, so this is just the kind of thing a writer puts into a story when they really have no idea what doctors and nurses do, and are too lazy to research it. It might pass by most people, but to me it was a glaring lack of fidelity, with nurses once again being criminally under-served by a writer.

My other main issue with this was the religious one. I said religion is nonsensical, but this kind of story, while fiction, is so true to life that it's laughable. The Bible predicts (and the prediction long ago ran out) the arrival of this "Antichrist" and foretells what will happen, yet every story about the Antichrist has the believers trying to short-circuit this Biblically ordained series of events in direct contradiction of their god's wishes! LOL! They're always trying to kill the mother or kill the child in direct contravention of the sixth commandment - you shall not murder.

The sad thing is that organized religion has so little control over its adherents that this is exactly what fanatical Christians would do in real life. It's not only a measure of how delusional and misguided they are, it's also one of how shockingly little faith they truly have in their god. The fact is that they're making it up as they go, as has always been done in all religions, and there are virtually no modern Christians who honestly follow Jesus. They follow Paul who has more effectively derailed the Jesus movement than anyone before or since. These people are Paulians, not Christians.

If they truly were Christians, they would follow Judaism! LOL! Jesus never was a Christian. He was a Jew. He followed the Judaic religion, and he stated quite clearly that he had not come to change one jot or tittle of the law. It was Paul, the fanatic who had some serious mental issues, who did all of that, and everyone fell for it. Jesus (if you believe he existed - I don't - not in the way Christians believe) also stated that he came only for the children of the House of Israel, so he'd have no interest whatsoever in gentiles, which makes this story false from the start: why would the Antichrist appear in the USA? And why now?

Nearly all modern writers, particularly in the US, and even more particularly in the young adult genre do this kind of thing routinely because they can't imagine any story of worth taking place outside of their own back yard, so blinkered are they. Nor do they explain why this appearance is taking place in this particular year or with this particular individual. It's a sad and provincial tunnel-vision which creates farces like this, and I have little respect for such writers even when the story isn't a disaster. No, if the Antichrist were not pure fiction, he (it's almost never a she in the three big monotheistic religions) would appear in Israel. Personally I'm rooting for the Antichrist because I detest the way organized religion is going! LOL!

The novel took a decided turn for the worst when this guy Cyril says to Tara, "...that you've had the strength of character to stay a virgin despite a sex-saturated world," like this is some sort of badge of honor. Excuse me? No, if a woman wants to have sex (and she's not dumb about it) then she's perfectly entitled to. It has nothing whatsoever to do with strength of character, because the obverse of that view is that if she had sex it would mean she was weak and easily manipulated. It offers her no voice in her own sexuality. It's her choice, dipshit, not yours!

The fact that Tara has nothing to say about this patriarchal attitude of this patronizing busybody lessened her in my view, too, especially since she's not so subtly starting to get the hots for him. It was then that I realized that if this was the way this book is going - weak woman rescued by shining knight and falling hopelessly in love with him, then I really didn't want to read any more of it because that story has been done to death, and making her pregnant with the Messiah/Antichrist doesn't accomplish a thing by way of improvement!

When are book blurb writers going to treat people with respect? The blurb for this one asks, tediously, " Will Tara find answers before it's too late?" How pathetic is that? I detest book blurbs that ask this stupid question. Of course she will! Is she going to fail to find answers? No! Is the writer going to kill off this character? I'd respect her if she did, but no, that's not going to happen - not when there's a potentially lucrative series in prospect! Quit putting dumbass questions in your blurbs, morons! And for the record, I disrecommend this novel.

Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me by Meredith Zeitlin

Rating: WARTY!

Zona Lowell is fifteen and is halfway through her second year of high-school, which in Canada and the USA is known, sophomorically as the sophomore year. It's derived from a combo of the Greek words for wise and foolish! LOL! That pretty much sums up Zona. Why it has a Greek name and the other three years have regular English names can only be put down to pretension.

I have to ask where this girl's name comes from. Maybe the author thinks it's Greek, but it's not. In Serbian and Spanish, it means 'zone', so why a girl with an American father and a Greek mother would have a name unconnected with either lineage is a mystery. In Hebrew, it's worse: it means whore. That's not a great choice for a girl's name - not when there are so many wonderful Greek names (and of other nationalities, too).

For me it didn't work, and that sentiment pretty much sums up this whole novel. I made it a third of the way through, and it was so predictable that it was tedious to read. The author quite evidently downloaded a plot-point list from Trope (tripe?) Central and stuck to it rigidly. Can YA authors not have original ideas? On the whole they seem quite incapable, but I know for a fact one or two of them do, since I recently read an excellent story set in high-school, and a romance at that, and I loved it - so it's not impossible. I can only conclude these writers are lazy and/or unimaginative.

How shall I trope thee? Let me count the ways:

• ☑ Story is in first person because it's understood by the YA writing community that it's illegal to write a YA novel in third?
• ☑ Mid-teen girl, parentless, or half parentless?
• ☑ Girl has had very close female bestie for several years?
• ☑ Girl has very close male bestie who is gay?
• ☑ Girl has low self-esteem? (She's even named Lowell! LOL!)
• ☑ Girl thinks breasts are too small?
• ☑ Girl thinks she's not that great looking?
• ☑ Author thinks 'pretty' is actually a character trait?
• ☑ Author thinks 'pretty' is the most important character trait?
• ☑ Girl gets to go on trip abroad so it has to be France, Greece, or Italy since there is nowhere else?
• ☑ Story ends on positive note because you can't write a YA novel that has a tragic ending?
• ☑ Story makes frequent comparisons between two nations, and US is made to look trashy, violent, boring, and heartless?
• ☑ Author thinks jazzing-up the text with boring inserts is cool?
• ☑ Author thinks Greece is way south of NYC and therefore significantly warmer?

Lowell's year is smashed in two by her father who drops the bombshell on her that he's going to Greece for six months to write a story and she's coming with him. Mom isn't in the picture having conveniently died shortly after Zona was born. The Greek half of the family washed its hands of Zona and her father since they were not even in favor of the marriage, let alone any births and deaths. Now her dad suddenly wants to reconnect. He's older than most fathers of fifteen year olds, but not at death's door, so the premise was a bit weak, especially when the Greek side had been so overwhelmingly negative, so this premise failed for me.

It failed worse in that Zona is shown to cave to her father's precipitous demands far too quickly. I lost all respect for her at that point, but I'd already lost a lot of respect for the story-telling, so it mattered little by then. One big annoyance was the absurd newspaper clipping inserts. I'm sure the author thought this was cute and inventive, but the news articles - simply reporting everyday events in Zona's life, were monotonous and I started skipping them completely after reading the first two. I didn't miss them.

They were especially poor given that they were often not contained on one page, but overlapped to the second page. The problem with that, is that in order to facilitate reading, the story ran down column one, then down two, as it should, but on the second page, the story reverted to column one again, and finished in column two. They had to do this because of poor planning in fitting the articles onto one page, but the articles were so tedious they should have just omitted them altogether.

So, the story was poor one, with nothing new to offer. Going to Greece? How original! Why not try someplace completely different for a change? Child missing a parent or two? Yawn. Child supposedly unnaturally smart (but in practice really dumb) and has low opinion of herself? Been done a trillion billion times. Token gay best friend? Seriously? I ought to be commended for even getting as far into as I did. Could the kid not have both parents? Could the girl herself not be gay? Could the trip have been to Serbia or Chile or South Africa, or something instead of (yawn) Greece?

Could the girl not have stayed at a friend's home, and we followed her adventures there? Could the girl not have precipitously followed her father and the story been about her journey there rather than the destination? Apparently not when this author is at the helm, because she had a rigid checklist to follow in order to keep her name in good standing at the YA Club, and she was in no way going to deviate from it for anything, not even for the absurd purpose of telling an interesting story which is new and different from the rest of the flock. I am never reading another of her efforts. She has Big Publishing™ behind her, so you know there's no way she's ever going to be original.

A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson, Jeff Rovin

Rating: WARTY!

If I had known this was volume one of the 'Earthend Saga', I would never have picked it up. I don't do sagas, cycles, chronicles and any other of that pretentiously-titled garbage. Jeff Rovin is supposed to be (according to the book blurb) a New York Times bestselling author, but the problem with this novel was that it was boring, and Gillian Anderson's lethargic reading of it in audiobook format made it even more mind-numbing than it already was.

I get why, in this case, they chose an actor to read it since it was written by that same actor, but in general terms in my experience actors are the worst people to read audiobooks, and Anderson's flat and dragging recital proves it here. Her voice is slow and dead, and totally unappealing.

Worse than this, the story itself plods along at a snail's pace and the "action" isn't remotely interesting. I find it hard to believe that a story with this premise, that teenagers around the world are suddenly behaving inexplicably: speaking in tongues and setting themselves on fire, for example, could be made uninteresting, but this inanimate duo managed it with this story. I got two volumes from the library hoping that it would be a worthy read (or rather, listen!), but both volumes are going right back there because this isn't engaging me at all. I do not recommend it.

Toru: Wayfarer Returns by Stephanie R Sorensen

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy, for which I thank the publisher. It's been a while since I've fond something I really wanted to read on Net Galley and this was worth the wait in gold to coin a phrase!

It was an awesome novel - steampunk set in Japan (kinda)! But that's not why I liked it. I've read a few steampunk novels and found too many of them less than satisfactory, the author being far more in love with steampunk than ever they were in good story-telling. This is a different tack. This author clearly loves to tell a great and well-put-together story and steampunk is just an accessory.

It's not even really steampunk as such, but the story of an alternate-world Japan entering the steam age perforce to save themselves from falling under the thumb of an expansionist and capitalist USA in the form of Matthew Perry, not the actor from the Friends TV show, but a US Navy Commodore who also happened to be a belligerent bully who, in the real world, forced under threat of arms, a very feudal and unprepared Japan to sign a so-called treaty which treated the US and no-one else.

In this novel, things happen differently. Toru is the name of the mysterious "fisherman" who arrives back in Japan after two years of living in (and closely observing) the USA, and in this world the Japanese, because of Toru's efforts, are fully armed and very dangerous when Perry arrives in the last twenty percent of the novel.

So no, it's not a novel full of battles. Instead, it's a story of perseverance and bravery, and of hardship and ingenuity, where Toru has to overcome one prejudice after another in a very strict, very isolationist nation which rejects him to begin with because he's 'soiled goods' having lived outside of Japan. Rejection here, please note, means no less than ritual beheading. It's a story of codes of honor, of class separation, and of how barriers can be worn away with diligence and dedication. The story is one of change, and skin-of-the-teeth survival, and of a slow awakening (in this case militarily) of a nation which in the real world enjoyed a similar rise, but economically after World War Two.

The author quite evidently knows her stuff (or at the very least, fakes it beautifully, which is fine with me!), and while - now and then - I found the frequent use of Japanese terminology annoying, for the most part it was fine and even educational. Some readers who are seeking only a story of martial might, may find this rather restrained and slow-moving, but for me it was a comfortable, easy read which entertained, educated, and showed how non-violent change can come even to a nation as rigid as Japan was (and still is in many regards).

It's not all about the men, either. We have a strong female character who is admirably understated but very much to the fore. We also have a restrained love story which even I liked, so if you've read my reviews of not a few young adult stories, you must know that this one had to be well done to please me!

I had one or two minor issues, but nothing that put me off the story overall. For example, we're told that Toru meets Helmuth von Moltke at West Point, which is highly unlikely since he was stationed in Magdeburg in charge of the 4th army corps when Toru was supposedly in the US! Moltke is the guy who goes uncredited for saying "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy," when what he actually wrote was rather different: "No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force." I honestly did not see the point of referring to him or to what he supposedly said. This guy was an appalling racist and doesn't deserve to be remembered for anything.

While the author conveys a good feel for Japan, when it comes to preparations for war - in this case a huge build-up of steam power - the idea of powering steam engines is a bit too easily accomplished. Coal was not scarce in Japan in terms of being available for mining, but in order to mine it to power the steam engines, a lot more work would have had to be done than there was time for here! Perhaps this is why it gets so little mention, but I'm not convinced that there were enough trees to do everything they did either - not to do it and sustain it! The same problem exists for mining iron to build those engines and the tracks upon which they would run.

But I wasn't about to let minor quibbles spoil what was otherwise an excellent and very much appreciated read. I fully recommend this one.

Messenger: The Legend of Joan of Arc by Tony Lee, Sam Hart

Rating: WARTY!

This was a very disappointing graphic novel which I got from my wonderful local library about the woman the French know as La Pucelle d'Orléans. I think a woman like Jeanne d'Arc deserves a better memorial than this one because, deluded as she was, she did make her mark on history. This novel doesn't. It basically tells the same tale as everyone else does, so what's the point? The illustrations are indifferent and there was really nothing there to inspire me, which is sad given that Jeanne was said to have inspired an army to win a war!

Rising from an obscure childhood to become and legend and now, one of the nine secondary saints of France is quite an achievement, although it took five hundred years, all told. The problem is that the authors don't offer anything other than what you can read in Wikipedia - which for all I know might well be where they took their 'plot'. But apart from purely fictional and very trite conversations, they offer nothing more - just a by-rote, pedantic retelling of the facts, including several information dumps and much folklore unverified as fact.

I'll give just one example of how pathetic the invented dialog is. At one point the English drop a rock on Jeanne's head. She's in process of storming their castle when it happens. This evidently was a real event and she survived it. I suspect the real rock was a lot smaller than the one depicted in this novel, but in this story, evidently rather peeved, she says, "They throw stones at a girl? Show them what you think of that! To arms!" which is as pathetic as you can get and makes her look like a moron.

She's dressed as a soldier. She has short hair and she's waging war on the English dressed as a regular male warrior, and now she thinks she should be entitled to special treatment because she's a girl? I'm sorry but that line alone makes this novel total trash. The writer should be ashamed of himself for even thinking of writing it. I seriously doubt the real Jeanne said anything like that.

Michael, who is a Jewish archangel who supposedly communicates with her, is depicted as a long-haired muscular blond with white wings! In short, not a Judaic angel, but more like a Norse god named Thor. Pathetic. For this reason and others, this story doesn't seem organic. It doesn't seem life-like. It's more like reading a history book than ever it is a work which gives us the opportunity to enjoy and celebrate a living, thriving person exhibiting bravery you can rarely find in modern YA stories, and offering inspiration, and adventure.

That said it would be hard to repeat her story in any age (or in these days nation) other than one bogged down in religious strait-jackets and blind belief in ridiculous fairy tales. Only in such a world could someone so totally fool others in to believing they had a direct line to a god!

This would have made a much better tale had it been explored with a new light - that of a young deluded girl being elevated by men into a figure of inspiration when it served them, and discarding her callously when she was no longer of use, but that tale has yet to be told in this format, to my knowledge. I think this version cruelly under-serves her.

Another approach would have been to have shown how useless God is: in that he cannot do a thing for himself, always having to rely on mere mortal, weak humans to do his work for him, and then failing them repeatedly. I mean, is he an all-powerful god or merely another insane being no better than the Devil, whispering things in people's ears to make them do his absurd and contradictory bidding purely for his own entertainment?

I'm not a believer at all, but let's just pretend there is a god who for reasons unknown, wishes half a century later to reverse Agincourt, where the English soundly beat the French on their home turf, and who now wants the French to beat the English on that same turf. There's actually a whole other story right there about a schizophrenic god who doesn't know what he wants, but I don't want to pursue that here.

Set aside any quibbles about why this god even cares who owns France, when he's always been the "God of Israel," not anywhere else, and then not even the God of all of Israel, but a mountain god - a god of the hill tribes. Instead let's pretend he actually cares. If it's that important, then why pick an obscure girl from nowheresville? Why not pick the pope?

Better yet, why not do his dirty work himself, and de-materialize the English army? Instead, we're expected to believe that this purportedly all-powerful god cannot do the job and is forced to pick an illiterate and highly superstitious child, and force her to try and change history before abandoning her to misery and suffering. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and in effect means that this god murdered that child.

And for what? The war did not end with her. France did not become whole immediately because of her. Indeed, even after it became whole, it later fell to the English after Napoleon's depredations. Where was this god then? Where was his messenger then? France again fell to the Nazis, and in the worst way. Where was this god then? Where was the messenger then? What was the point? Why only one messenger in a suspiciously superstitious and ignorant time and then no more? Does this god not take a long view?! Or is the real story not that he's so petty and short-sighted, but that there really is no god other than what we sad and ignorant humans invent to delude ourselves with, and to satisfy our own petty needs of the moment?

It makes even less sense that he would then allow his savior to be burned, but he does have a history of throwing his Messiahs to the wolves, doesn't he? Even if he is real, he's not a god I want anything to do with. There's a far better story to be told about Jeanne than ever we've been given by those blinkered people who merely retell the historical plot points without any feeling or heart and add nothing new in the telling. I can't recommend this one at all.

Battling Boy by Paul Pope

Rating: WARTY!

I'm back again after taking a couple of weeks off from blogging to pursue illustrations for the print version of Baker Street, the e-version of which is released today.

This graphic novel was a bust for me. The most amusing thing about it was that when I first saw it on the library shelf I thought the title was "Pope Battling Boy" which I thought was hilarious. But no, it's just Battling Boy - the ''Pope part came from the author's pretentious conceit of putting his name at the top and the title below it, like this is supposed to mean something to me.

I'm sorry, but no! I don't borrow - and I certainly don't buy - a book for no other reason than that the author thinks I should because it's by him - or her. I read books based on whether they sound appealing, and I often get that wrong! I don't go by the title or by the pretty cover (yes, insanely melodramatic cover reveal authors, I'm looking at you!) and I really don't care who the author is, or what they've done previously. I'd hate to think people were buying my books just because my name is on them and for no other reason. People who think like that are morons.

I sure learned my lesson here with the confused and chaotic story and the indifferent illustrations I got. The basic story is that the super hero who protects the town in this purely fictional alternate world - but which looks exactly like ours - is killed by super villains whose sole purpose in life (other than dressing like mummies) seems to be abducting children - for reasons which are unexplained. A lot of things go unfortunately unexplained in this book because it's part of a series, which is one reason I thoroughly detest most series I've ever encountered.

The super hero has the absurd name of Haggard West. His replacement is his daughter who, again for reasons unexplained, has a different name from her father. But there's a second replacement. For reasons unexplained, it's a kid whose bar mitzvah is to be dumped into this world from the heavens by his Thor rip-off dad, so he can prove himself. He's given no instructions, no tools, and no training - for reasons unexplained. He's just left there to fight the monsters which invade this city routinely...for reasons unexplained.

For reasons unexplained, he has a set of t-shirts which are imprinted each with a different animal logo - mostly real, but in one case mythical. For reasons unexplained, when he dons a Tee, it doesn't give him the powers of the animal, it makes the animal appear and talk to him offering pretty much useless advice. For reasons which ought to be clear by now, I don't recommend this book.

First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen

Rating: WARTY!

I liked my previous foray into Sarah Addison Allen via The Peach keeper, but I literally could not get into this at all. It was an audio book and I listed to about a third of it, but it did not hold my interest. Half the time I honestly couldn't follow what was going on, and what I did manage to assimilate bored the pants off me.

Not literally, fortunately, since I was driving, and that would have been most unfortunate for all concerned, and even many who were totally unconcerned or who just worked at CERN. Seriously, I couldn't believe that this was the same author. It should have told me something that those who did not like The Peach Keeper were saying Allen's earlier work was better. I should have known I would see it the opposite way around!

It probably didn't help that this was book two in a series about the Waverley Family. Series are a no-no for me, generally speaking and this was no exception. It's a story wherein Waverley women are, the blurb tells us, rendered "restless by the whims of their mischievous apple tree." It's a magical tree, which I expected and would have had no problem with, but I honestly don't remember the tree being mentioned at all (it may have been). It seemed like every time I could stay tuned-in to the story, mom was lecturing her daughter, Bay.

Bay? Yes, Bay. Seriously? Yes, seriously. Who names their daughter Bay? What's her middle name? Watch? Does she stock only bikinis in her wardrobe? Does she have sandy hair? Can she be a beach at times? Does she run in slo-mo? Maybe her middle name is Gelding? She has a horsey laugh or a whinnying smile? I'm sorry, but no. I couldn't take that seriously, which is probably what tuned me out so much. So in short, I listened to relatively little, learned nothing, and disliked a lot. Not for me.

Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog

Rating: WORTHY!

I was so thrilled to read this book - an example of how to write a really well-done high-school romance. This book was amazing, and other writers of such works would do well to read this and learn from it. It was not perfect, by any means. I had a couple of issues with it, but those aside, the book was deep, well-written, passionate, amusing as hell, and amazing in how well the author controlled it, and brought it to closure.

Morgan Sparks is about to reach her sixteenth year and she gets to celebrate it with her lifelong partner, Cam Browne, who shares her birthday. That's the last great memory she has of the relationship, because almost from day one, things start going south. It turns out - hilariously, I thought - that macho football star Cam is a fairy. He was switched at birth with the Browne's newborn, and now he's about to turn sixteen himself, the fairies want him back. And Morgan isn't about to let that happen, but when he starts losing weight and growing wings out of his back, and Morgan is the only one who can see these changes, she starts to wonder if her dream romance is actually over for real.

A female fairy named Dawn arrives, and starts tutoring Cam in the ways of Fairy World. She's not supposed to be visible to anyone but Cam, yet Morgan can see her, which annoys Dawn. Dawn is, however, deadly. She has fairy magic and a mission not only to bring Cam back but to marry him and unite two fairy dynasties, and she is not about to let anyone get in the way of it, even if it means killing and maiming to accomplish her aim.

Morgan herself is psychic, yet she has a hard time seeing her own future, and has never seen future for herself and Cam. Her assumption has been that it will work out fine and they will always be together, but is it so? Or has she been so blind that she simply invented their future and now is about to find out the cold truth?

I loved this story and will look for more by this author. This story reminded me, a bit, of a story idea I have for a fairy tale, but fortunately this one is very different from what I had in mind, so I don't need to scrap mine! Phew! I did like this one. I liked that it was different, and that the author wasn't afraid to take a path less traveled. How sorry it is that far too many authors of this kind of story fail so dismally precisely because they're aping everyone else's stories? Kudos to Cyn Balog for blazing her own trail.

And kudos again for being unafraid to call it what it is: a fairy story. Nowhere in this book is there 'fae' or 'faerie'! It's 'fairy' all the way, and the author is proud of it; it's right there on the front cover. Good for her. If you're going to write a story like this and then let yourself be too embarrassed to use the word 'fairy' then I don't want to read your book anyway. And kudos to myself or being smart enough to recognize that this one might just be different! LOL!

Sophomore Switch by Abby McDonald

Rating: WARTY!

This is the third of three sorry reviews - sorry that I started reading the book in the first place! I read only a few chapters of each and was so disappointed that I DNF'd. Some idiots argue that you can't review a book when you haven't read it all, but they're morons. Yes, you can reject a book if it's garbage and or simply fails to move you anywhere other than irritation.

This one is your typical "let's switch places" story, and those can be fun if done right. This one wasn't. It started out brightly enough, but quickly devolved into serious dumb-assery and trope, and was so bigoted it was obnoxious. I've had quite enough of female authors who seem dedicated to degrading their female characters to maximal extent, and this seems to be de rigeur in far too many YA stories. I'm pretty much at the point where I'm done reading YA, although I have probably more of that genre still sitting on my shelf (real shelf of e-shelf, it doesn't matter!). Who knows, maybe one of those will restore my faith, and that's the whole point of ditching a badly-written and abusive novel like this: so I can move on to something better. I have no loyalty - nor should anyone in their right mind - to authors who are as clueless as this one is.

Emily the Brit and Tash the Yank are students who have switched colleges for a semester. The circumstances of the switch are truly dumb and lacking all credibility, but for the sake of the story, I was willing to overlook that. Emily is studying law (or pre-law, I guess) in Oxford, whereas Tash is studying film as a gut form in California, but now Tash is doing Em's classes, and vice-versa. None of this makes sense, but I was willing to let this fish play out of water for a good story.

The real problem was with the characters. They were boring and cliched stereotypes, and this switch between the two countries separated, as they say, by a common language, rather than being educational and fun, turned out to be a bitch-fest. Given that the author evidently moves between the two countries, it was shameful that she presented such a blinkered view of them.

At one point, Emily actually says to herself "Sam is...far more attractive than any boy I could find back in England." Seriously? How fucked up is that? It doesn't matter that the country named is England. You could put the name of any nation in there in its place and the sentence would still be as blinkered, blind, and brain-dead.

Worse than this it conflates 'attractive' and 'California beach bum' in the most stupid way possible. I lost all respect for this author and her characters at that point and ditched the novel It had been bad enough seeing Emily create bigoted twin stereotypes of Californians as being universally laid-back and the British being universally uptight, but really, why would I care about her opinion? She's clearly a moron.

This is the same hypocrite who just moments before has been perceiving herself as street meat under the ogling of the guys she passed, and who has just declared that she's not the kind of girl to rush into things, and yet now, with a guy she literally just met is "distracted by the heat of his torso," shes letting him have his hands all over her, and is about to let him kiss her. The only thing which prevents it is that she's an 'uptight Brit', apparently!

There's no moral code in play here; no question of impropriety. There are no thoughts of her allowing herself to be the very street meat she recoiled at earlier, and not only perpetuating, but also fostering the 'easy' stereotype. Nope, She should have let him have his way with her! She's too uptight. She needs to get over it and let boys get their hands all over her when she's just met them!

Does this author even read what she writes? Quite clearly she's utterly clueless about how to write a realistic, intelligent and conscientious novel. You know the worst thing about this though? The worst thing is that these two girls who are dishonestly presented here as totally different, are actually exactly the same! That's how pathetic this pile of garbage truly is. Normally when I'm done with a print book I donate it to the local library. That's the best kind of recycling there is, but this one? I'm honestly tempted to burn it in an effort to prevent this pernicious disease from spreading.

Rowan of the Wood by Christine Rose, Ethan Rose

Rating: WARTY!

Today I have three sorry reviews - sorry that I started reading the book in the first place! I read only a few chapters of each and was so disappointed that I DNF'd. Some idiots argue that you can't review a book when you haven't read it all, but they're morons. Yes, you can reject a book if it's garbage and or simply fails to move you anywhere other than irritation.

This is one of a pair of novels I picked up on close-out at a local bookstore. It was written by two fellow Texans, but I don't know the authors and probably would not have much in common with them if I did, they being evidently into to renaissance fairs and fantasy, and me...not so much! The books looked interesting, but when I finally got around to reading the first one, it was so loaded with fantasy trope that it turned me off. Tolkien did it all, so unless you have something really new to bring to the genre, what's the point?

This is my biggest problem with fantasy novels: they are so derivative and in a stagnating rut bordered on one side by the embarrassing lack of imagination prevalent in modern rip-offs, and on the other by a staggering absence of invention. Worse, in the case of this novel, the authors couldn't bring themselves to set the novel in is native Europe. I've seen this repeatedly in books and in so many movies. Gods forbid we should ever create a story set outside the USA. What's the point? There is nowhere else! Right?

So after an antiquated prologue so brief it may as well not exist (which I skipped as usual), we have another prologue in chapter one, which is fine. I advocate putting your prologue, if you must have one, in the first chapter. But then it skipped to the USA! Yes - let's get European fantasy and rather than set it in Europe, let's bring it to the US because really, who cares about anywhere else?>

And this from authors steeped in renaissance? You know there are plenty of third-world countries where people are perforce living lives of the same quality as those renaissance folks 'enjoyed'! Those who want to immerse themselves in that life can always move there if they really want an immersive experience. Yes I know, it's outside the US! Oh god what a quandary! Does even 'a place outside the US' exist in reality?

And do let us forget about the fact that the US has its own fantasy traditions abundant in Native American folklore. No! Those are simply not good enough! They're too primitive. Too childish. No, it must be genuine USDA grade A fantasy imported from Europe to count, but it must be set solidly in the good ole US of A to validate it. Sorry, but no, I don't shop there. The goods are tainted. This is why I quit reading this. There are many other books out there and more than a few of those get it right, I'm not going to waste time on reading any which are so very wrong-headed, and committedly-so right from the second chapter.

The Game by Terry Scott

Rating: WARTY!

Today I have three sorry reviews - sorry that I started reading the book in the first place! I read only a few chapters of each and was so disappointed that I DNF'd. Some idiots argue that you can't review a book when you haven't read it all, but they're morons. Yes, you can reject a book if it's garbage.

There's no law that says you have to waste your life gamely plodding through a book that isn't thrilling you, and even if there were such a dumb law I would resolutely break it at every opportunity. Life's way-the-hell too short and books are way too many, to squander your hours on stories that don't grab you from the off - or worse, stories that do interest you, but that let you down badly with poor writing choices, stereotypes, trope, and cliché.

Fine, they say, then at least keep it to yourself. You don't have to post what you claim is a review of a book you didn't read all the way through. Bullshit! If the book is lousy from the start, you have a duty to warn others of it! And so to this one, which was not well-written. It felt a bit amateur, like fan fiction, and it was telegraphed from the start that there would be your trope guy and girl love story which is tedious, pathetic in execution most of the time, and way overdone.

The story is one of those absurd dystopian novels of a dysfunctional society which could never actually happen in real life. In this case it's a world focused on video games. This is how kids get their education: through living a series of lives in a virtual reality world, each "life" taking only a few weeks, during which time the contestant is completely immersed in the world. Of course, the poorer kids have to go to public school, while the successful contestants can win fortunes from viewers and sponsors, and re-enter the game many times, emerging at age eighteen with a fortune.

I learned all of this from a tedious and massive info-dump which occupied the entire first chapter. It was a slog to get through, and so I was not inclined to cut the author any more breaks at that point, and when I learned this is really just a mis-named "reality" TV show where the reality is all manufactured and totally fake, and that a successful girl who fouled-out of the system was going to get her chance to go back in, and this girl is living on the streets collecting scrap metal and being bullied?? At that point my trope meter exploded and I ditched the novel.

It was totally unrealistic. People like this girl celebrity would, in reality, have been snapped-up as a commentator or adviser or at the very least made a fortune from doing the talk shows, writing a book, and getting paid a small fortune for tabloid interviews. She would never have ended up on the street - at least not so quickly.

The story made no sense and gave me the impression it was being written from a playbook rather than from the heart - and heart set in the real world rather than a ridiculous Nickleodeon world. The problem with this fiction was that it was too fictional, and so it was really a non-starter for me. It didn't help that the author quite evidently doesn't know the difference between 'benefactor' and 'beneficiary' which did not bode well for reading on. I ditched it and I don't recommend it.

Argyle Fox by Marie Letourneau

Rating: WORTHY!

My wife may leave me for confessing this in public, but I'm in love with Argyle Fox! But this is not one of those fatuous YA romances. No! It's based on understanding and respect! And yes, I confess a prior bias: I love not only foxes, but the entire concept of them and the mythology and folklore that surround them.

The day is very windy outside (as it whimsically illustrated by author Marie Letourneau), and as Argyle looks out of his window, he longs to go play in the wind. Argyle's problem though, is that he's not a very good listener. Every time he makes a plan - to play cards, pirates, knights in a castle, and so on - he's warned that it won't work in the high wind, and the warnings prove true and dire!

So while I would have liked to have seen Argyle learn the adult trait of being able to listen in place of his childish willfulness, I have to approve of three other things in this fox's tale. The first is his mature trait of steadfastness. He's determined to achieve his goal and is willing to work at it, even as he seems to fail often. The second and third are both tied to his thoughtfulness. When he finally realizes that his game plan isn't working, he first of all cleans up after himself without having to be told, keeping his forest neat and tidy, and then secondly, he sits down and gives the problem some hard thought - until he finally does come up with a plan that will work on a windy day!

I liked these traits and they way they were shown in this story. I also liked Argyle, and I recommend this as a worthy read, and a fun and instructive story that can be well made use of as a teaching tool, and a fine example (eventually!) of good behavior for children to follow.

Happy Animals by Gerald Hawksley

Rating: WORTHY!

This is another goofy Hawksley effort and it's simplistic, but fine for entertaining young children. It also contains a subtle message about animal cruelty of which I always disapprove, so I recommend this. There's a "bonus" book which consists of a stream of pages saying goodnight to the animals which appeared in the earlier story. On balance I think this will be entertaining for very young children.

There's a really irritating 'please review this book' thing that hijacks you at the end if you swipe one page too far. In this regard, the print book is a better investment - they can't manipulate your reading experience there! LOL! But I really wish authors wouldn't do this. It's desperate and pathetic, and serves only to annoy. Let me offer in passing my assurance than none of my books will ever do this to you. That aside, this book is worthy read for young children.

A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson

Rating: WARTY!

In yet another audiobook experiment, I decided to explore a novel by Ibbotson, whom I've never read before, and doubt I will again after this! It began a little shakily (I skipped the prologue, which isn't always easy to do in an audiobook, so I consider myself quite accomplished on that score!), but the book began growing on me. That lasted to twenty-five percent in, but the next ten percent was so boring and unnecessary, and irrelevant to the theme (assuming the theme is to get the countess below the stairs and the earl above them together), that I DNF'd the whole thing.

At first I thought that the young lord of the manor, Rupert, would immediately fall for the Russian countess, who is forced into work as a maid, but he's actually fallen for the nurse, Muriel, who took care of him when he was wounded during the closing overs of World War One. I was convinced that would change, though. The nurse, I decided, would probably end up being a gold-digger. In the end, I became more interested in her, and began to think that this story would have been a vastly-improved romance had it been about Muriel and Rupert, and Anna the countess left out of it altogether. She was tedious.

Why this countess is a maid rather than say, a governess or a lady's companion, or even keeps her title, is conveniently bypassed by the author, presumably the only reason being that it wouldn't work in getting her and the earl into close proximity. Anna is a young Russian Countess forced to flee Russia after the revolution. Now she's impoverished, and inexplicably forced into menial work to get by. The Earl of Westerholme's household takes her on temporarily, and she works hard, determined to do her best. Rupert was not destined to become the next earl until his older brother was killed in the war whence, in line with the British custom of Primogeniture, everything passed to the oldest remaining male.

But rather than take off when Rupert arrived, this story dissipated into endless rambling asides about an odd assortment of characters and the so-called romance never got started - not in the first third, which was all I could stand to hear. I dislike instadore, but this went in completely the opposite direction, offering no reason at all to imagine that these two would get together! On top of that, the author has the countess (as the maid) behaving so inappropriately that she would have been summarily dismissed without references had this really been England in the inter-war years. The author's approach misfires even more than Rupert's aeroplane engine, and that crashed and burned!

How to Catch the Tooth Fairy by Adam Wallace, Andy Elkerton

Rating: WORTHY!

Gorgeously illustrated by Andy Elkerton, this was a riotous book about a cocky and adventurous little tyke who people are evidently trying to catch to take all her quarters, but she gives no quarter! She's too smart for them and knows all their tricks. It also dispenses sneaky teeth health advice along the way.

Written in rhyme, we learn of this pink haired tooth fairy who collects an average of 300,000 teeth in a night. She wears old time aviator clothes and rides a toothbrush! And she's very fast. I can't predict whether your kid will like this or not, but I loved it!

Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garett

Rating: WARTY!

Erratum:
"After what felt like a millennia" should read either "a millennium" or omit the 'a' altogether. Millennia is plural.
"No I couldn't take let you do that." is confused!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I'm really sorry to post a negative review on this one because it had some good qualities and I think this writer is one to watch, but for me, this novel simply didn't make the grade. In the interests of full disclosure, this is the start of an intended series, and I am not typically a fan of series, especially not detective series. This one intrigued me, and while it started out interestingly and had some fun characters and a sense of humor, it quickly went downhill as the main character demonstrated an increasing level of stupidity and ineptitude. I don't mind a main character who starts out dumb and wises-up as the story progresses, but when it goes the other way, it's not a good sign.

The problem is that this main character, Dayna is going way above and beyond her initial purview and we're never offered any valid reasons for this. I do get that this is what these amateur detective stories do, and it wouldn't be so bad if we were offered even a half-assed justification for it, but we don't get any here. Her motivation was supposed to be that her father is at grave risk of foreclosure. There's a reward of fifteen thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest of the hit and run driver who killed this girl named Hayley, so Dayna starts thinking about how she can get that money. So far so good. This is perfectly sensible and reasonable, but it neither explains nor validates some of the ridiculous things she does.

Dayna is a little slow on the uptake in realizing that they have the offending vehicle on video, but this is forgivable, given that she was out partying with friends that night and wasn't exactly sober. Once she acquired the video though, she just needed to pass it on to the police and she was done, but she doesn't do this. She doesn't have to become a private detective, yet she does take this on in her own very amateur and bumbling way.

The problem here is that she ends up breaking the law and getting in the way of the investigation rather than helping move it along, blundering into situations where she's very likely to tip-off potential suspects and have them skip town or go into hiding rather than having them end-up being successfully fingered for the crime. This is where Le Stupide set in with a vengeance and I found myself cringing rather than laughing or being excited by the story, and it's where I began to lose interest in this character.

Whenever Dayna gets some information, she routinely fails to pass it on to the police - the very people whom she hopes will facilitate this reward so she can help out her dad. The police get it at best second-hand if at all, and this betrays her, because it makes her look less interested in helping dad than it does in being a busybody and a rubbernecker. She insists on following-up evidence herself without passing it on, or she withholds it from the police because in her very amateur opinion, it's never enough.

Because of this, by about sixty percent through the novel she's pretty much a bigger criminal than the one she's trying to track down - at least in terms of how many laws she's breaking. At one point she and some friends discover a robbery has taken place, and rather than inform the police right away, these idiots go trampling all over the crime scene, destroying any clues that the police might have found to help them track down the thieves.

In short, Dayna is moronic. She obsesses over leaving her prints on a baseball cap she finds, yet spares not a single thought for the entire crime scene she just destroyed, evidence-wise. She's thoroughly incompetent, yet never once did she get chewed-out by the police who in reality would have had this clown arrested for interfering with a crime scene, or perverting the course of justice, which she does repeatedly.

At one point Dayna comes into possession of security video tape which positively identifies one of the house burglars who is linked to the hit and run, yet instead of just passing it on to the police and letting them do their job, she takes off on another tangent on her own, all the time lying to her best friends that she's not pursuing this on her own. It was never explained how it was that these relatively amateur thieves knew there were no alarms at this particular house - which was in a very swanky neighborhood where alarms and high-level security were the norm, not the exception, so this robbery made very little sense to begin with except as a poorly-staged venue for Dayna to get a clue. Which she never really does in any meaningful sense, quite frankly.

Dayna herself was not a likable person, and she looked ever more dumb as the story unfolded. It's not surprising that the murderer targets her (so we;re told. I remain unconvinced, but this was around eighty percent in, when I had honestly lost interest altogether. I DNF'd this at ninety or so when the story, instead of smartly winding-up, devolved into an endless ramble. The novel was about a third too long and moved too slowly.

At that point I was wishing the near-miss traffic accident had not missed her. The driver would have done LA a service by getting this inept fool out of the way of the real police work. There are intelligent ways to write your character into places and situation she should not be -ways that don't make her look like a major buttinsky, but this story seemed bent on going the dingbat route every time, making Dayna look far more like dumbbell than some belle detective. Because this kind of thing was the norm rather than the exception in this novel, in the final analysis, I can't recommend this book as a worthy read and I will definitely not be following this series.

Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui

Rating: WARTY!

I can't give you a full review of this one because I grew tired of it so quickly and simply didn't want to read on when I have so many other books calling to me. I read about a tenth of it and I simply couldn't get interested in it. It moved so slowly and was so self-obsessed that it was tedious to read.

The basic plot is that psychiatrists are using a new device to invade dreams to try to help people with mental issues, but are being overtaken by the dreams and driven insane. Well yeah, since dreams are essentially meaningless drivel, it would be a nightmare for even the dreamer to try to unravel them - assuming that's even possible - let alone some stranger try to figure out what it means, so the premise wasn't exactly a charmed one and in the end, it just didn't appeal to me at all.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Rating: WORTHY!

The compiled results of a web comic, Nimona is possibly the best graphic novel I've ever read. It's certainly up there in the top five. I was quite blown away by it, for the artwork, the humor, the plot and the story. It's brilliant! Noelle Stevenson is of Lumberjanes fame. I reviewed a volume of that unfavorably back in May, 2016. I'm happy to positively review something else she has done!

Nimona comes off as a young and ambitious girl who is ready to get her feet wet in the world of villainy. She volunteers to work with the evil Ballister Blackheart in his endeavors against his old friend, now arch-nemesis, Goldenloin, but in the course of this story, the question arises as to who is really a villain here and who is the golden hero.

Lord Blackheart isn't interested in having an assistant, but when he discovers that Nimona is a shape-shifter - and can shift into any shape - animal or person, he realizes she might have some value as a hench-man...woman...wench? The problem is that he has a code of conduct to which she evidently doesn't seem very interested in adhering. She's all for havoc and chaos, whereas his villainy is less brutal and more structured.

Nevertheless, they learn to work together and they discover the government is hoarding jaderoot, which is a deadly poisonous material and very dangerous to work with, even in small quantities. But how is Blackheart to get word out about the government's villainy in hoarding large quantities of a mateirla they themselves had banned, especially when he's a well-known villain himself? Maybe Nimona can help with that!

I dearly loved this story, and I consider it well worth the eighteen dollar asking price in the hardback print version I read. I recommend it highly.

Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare, Matt Wiegle

Rating: WARTY!

No Fear Shakespeare is a collection of "translated" Shakespeare texts - in other words, delivered in modern English instead of in the antique lingo with which Shakespeare was familiar. A PDF of Romeo and Juliet done in this way with the original English alongside it can be read online here. I reviewed Hamlet done this ways back in January 2017, and liked that one. This one just didn't get there for me, but it is a simpler introduction to Shakespeare if you want to try to get a handle on him.

Everyone knows the story to one extent or another, but to me this story has always been a really bad YA love story. In fact, in a way, if we include Rosalind, who despite being a no-show here, is an important player in the story, it's a bad love triangle. If John Green had written it (barf!), it would have had a truly pretentious title like, "The Absence of Rosalind" or some such trivial drivel.

Yes, Shakespeare does turn out a nice phrase here and there, but this is sadly canceled out for me by the sick bawdiness and the un-pc attitudes of every male character in the entire story, because they're omnipresent with their puerile attitude, and thoroughly out of place here. Yes, I get that this is what audiences wanted back in Shakespeare's day, but that's no reason to worship him today (or even toady). This is often praised as the love story to outdo all love stories, but it's not a love story at all. There's no love here, only a deranged lust and foolishness, shallowness and cluelessness. It's ultimately a story of the brain-dead and the vacuous, a Dick and Shame story, and if we can blame violence in society on video-games, TV, and movies, then we sure as hell can blame relationships gone wrong on Shakespeare's juvenile view of them.

I ask not "wherefore art thou Romeo?" but why Romeo & Juliet instead of Juliet & Romeo? The answer to that is that this isn't actually a story of a love, true and deep, between two people, it's about a mentally disturbed dickhead and his wasted life. Juliet is thirteen years old, and is nothing more than collateral damage here, not really a character at all, but merely a narcissistic mirror in which Romeo reflects himself in all his vainglory. Not that she has any more clue than Romeo, but he doesn't love her, he wants her only as an emollient for his rough and rudimentary lust and need.

Look how the story begins - with Romeo pining for Rosalind! He's all Rosalind all the time, and there never can be another until the instant - not after several weeks of growing to know her, but the very instant - he sets his reality-challenged eyes on Juliet. From that moment, Rosalind is out, passé, forgotten, so five minutes ago, and nothing but a flimsy fantasy. Now it's all Juliet. I call bullshit on that one!

Is this really how Shakespeare viewed love? Very likely. He married at eighteen a woman eight years his senior for no other evident reason than that he got her pregnant, so he was just as irresponsible as Romeo. Worse, he then turned into a deadbeat dad, and abandoned his family to head south to live a Hollywood life - or what passed for it back then. While he may have visited, he didn't actually return to Stratford until he grew old and retired. What did he know of true love? Nothing.

And what of positive influences in Romeo's life? There are apparently none. It seems that all he has known is violence, never love. He never talks to his parents nor they to him. He takes his advice (not that he really listens) only from kinsmen and "friends" who never once try to set him on an even keel, because they're just as shallow, belligerent, and moronic as he is!

There are no responsible women in his life, and no one at all in Juliet's - not close male family, nor female friends. She's completely isolated and essentially imprisoned, having to beg permission even to go to church and confess! What the hell sins does she have to confess? She never goes anywhere to commit any, and does nothing with her short life. She's thirteen for goodness sake, ripe for taking advantage of!

And what of their affair? They meet one evening and marry almost immediately. Instead of looking to how he can make his wife happy and how they can be together, he lets his temper get the better of him and without a thought for any consequences or for his wife, he kills someone from Juliet's own family - the very man he had sworn love and kinship to not an hour or two before! When Juliet says, "O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon" she should have used Romeo, not the Moon. The Moon is actually extremely constant, but Romeo is far from it.

For murdering Tybalt, Romeo is lucky enough to be banished, not killed, but even then he can't get his act together! At the same time as he's banished, Juliet's father pretty much threatens to banish her, so here's the perfect opportunity for the two of them to hit the road and start a new life somewhere, but neither has the smarts to see it! Instead, they both take the easy route out. In short, this story is a badly written one which could have been much improved. Not only did Romeo murder Tybalt, he also murders Paris. His behavior is one of constantly slithering away from taking responsibility for his actions. He won't own-up publicly to being Juliet's husband! paradoxically, he won't avoid a fight, yet he won't fight for his marriage. He's a train wreck not even waiting to happen and in the end the world is better off without him. The real tragedy here is that he derailed Juliet from her life, too. So much for love; try selfishness instead.

As for the graphic novel version, I can't recommend it any more highly. It does tell the full story - including the parts which the movies, even the definitive Baz Luhrman version, routinely avoid, but the artwork isn't very good, and apart from simplifying the story and making it somewhat more accessible, if that's important to you, it really doesn't bring anything new to the table.

As You Like it by William Shakespeare, Richard Appignanesi, Chie Kutsuwada

Rating: WARTY!

So when we're reviewing a graphic novel adaptation of a Shakespeare play, do we review the original work? This isn't the original work. It's an adaptation by Richard Appignanesi. So do we review the adaptive work? Well it's not original, so we can't ignore that from which it was adapted. So what about the graphic portion of it by Chie Kutsuwada? That's the only part of this work that's truly original, but even so it's still derived from Shakespeare's. Aye, there's the rub!

So, in fact, we have to review all three simultaneously. All of Shakespeare's a stage, and all the writers and artists merely players. They have their successes and their failures, and each play in its time fulfills many roles. There are seven stages. First there is the writing of the original, then comes the acting of it on the stage by the original players, then the adaptation by many other actors. Next the catch-phrases enter the lingo, and works of art take the field depicting renowned scenes form the play. Movies then come along in their various forms necessarily shedding much of the original work in order to conform to a silver screen chronology. After this come the novelizations, and the death of the play wrought by crappy YA adaptations which pay little heed to the original and, let's face it, less heed to intelligent story telling.

I have to say if I were reviewing only the Shakespeare portion of this particular story, I would have to rate it warty. The reason for this is the same reason I've rated so many YA novels negatively, because of instadore. Some reviewers call it insta-love, but the fact is that it's not love. Love is a lot more rational than writers give it credit, even as it might seem completely out of control, but what was depicted here not once, but four times, was insanity.

The truth is that what's irrational is this falling in lust (which I call instadore) and stupidly mistaking it for love. Instadore is shallow and far to fast to be meaningful. You'd have to be a moron to trust that. It doesn't mean it cannot grow into love, but the overwhelming chances are that it won't, yet endless YA authors insist otherwise. Fie on them, say I! And fie on Shakespeare's crappy, meandering, confused, and ultimately meaningless of usurpers and exiles and forest foolishness.

What I did like here was the artwork and the adaptation. Both were well done. The art in particular, which was gray-scale line drawings, was very well done, integrated with the text well, and went beyond mere panels depicting the text. It truly was worth reading. If you want to get a handle on Shakespeare and not get enmeshed in his absurd endless punning, and his clueless idea of love, his thoroughly un-pc attitude, and his boorish male characters pandering to the lowest common denominator in his audience, then starting with something like this isn't at all a bad idea. I recommend this one.