I Hate Fairyland Vol 1 by Skottie Young, Jean-Francois Beaulieu

Rating: WORTHY!

This graphic novel was just nuts. I am so glad I managed to get an advance review copy! This is over-the-top done right. This little girl gets sucked into fairyland one night and to get out, she has to go on a quest to find this key. Well she's not particularly good at following instructions, so she ends up spending 27 years there, and she's not happy. Although she has the body of a young girl, she has the mind of a woman in her mid thirties and she's pissed-off, so she goes on a rampage with a short-handled, heavy duty halberd. Now where she came by that, I have no idea, but she's soon taking out trolls, and giants and fairies, and whatever she wants. It's hilarious. After she takes down a whole village of zombie fauns, she wise-cracks about Faun of the Dead.

The writer and illustrator was Scottie Young, although someone else did the coloring. The whole thing was absurd and hilarious and very entertaining. This was a kick-ass female character in the commonly-employed sense the word. That's not a sense that I typically employ it for, but it does have its uses!

I loved how wicked and irreverent the comic was, particularly how wicked the humor was. Let's face it, fairyland had it coming. I recommend this one.

Golem by LRNZ aka Lorenzo Ceccotti

Rating: WORTHY!

This graphic novel, which is an advance review copy that I was very grateful to have had the chance to read, started out quite stunningly. After a brief message from the president of Italy, proudly listing the advances technology has brought to the Italian people - advances which, which superficially wonderful, nevertheless carried with them a vague undercurrent of threat - the scene changed to the countryside and the artwork was stunning. Truly captivating. This imagery comes in the dreams of Steno Critone, the young main character who has slept badly. He wakes after another first person PoV dream of this man being shot. His day begins with a commercial bombardment where some sort of AI, watching his every move, can remind him he's low on toothpaste and push a new toothbrush on him. The news greets him with more acts of terrorism. Wait, terrorism? In this ideal society? What's gone wrong? I'm sure we're about to find out!

The truly scary thing is that this society is exactly where ours is heading, even to the detail of too many personal vehicles on the streets causing bumper to bumper traffic. Not that vehicles even have bumpers any more. Table tops show video, Amazonian reminders that you're out of product A or low on item B, pop up routinely. Information overload is dire. I loved the detail of the ambulance personal saying, "You can't die here sir," and no one even pays any attention.

One thing which hasn't changed is bullying. The trope of Steno being bullied in the classroom and no one doing anything about it is a tired one. Luckily for Steno, his friend Rosabella Filagone speaks up for him. Shortly after this is when it all goes to hell. The terrorists kidnap Rosabella and her father and Steno is pulled along with them, but are they terrorists, or are they simply a group of people who have realized that society is out of control and the wrong people are in charge? Steno joins with them, but shows a surprising lack of concern over the fate and welfare of his mother, Edea. This group behaves as though they've rejected technology yet they use it more, and in more advanced versions, than people back in society do. This is where the story became very confusing!

I felt it lost a little from the middle towards the end. It wasn't quite as engrossing, and a bit confusing at times, but the overall story came through and made sense. I can see this kind of thing happening - not quite as fantastical as is illustrated here, but definitely down that same slippery slope in many ways. I felt that the last half of the story expended an awful lot of pages saying very little - a lot of minimalist pages, and black pages. I feel for the trees! But that said, I enjoyed this romp and found it to be a worthy read. The artwork especially was captivating, and I recommend it.

Paper Girls Vol 1 Brian K Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson

Rating: WORTHY!

Well this was a fun romp and definitely something I'd like to continue reading. It proves you can write a story with the word 'paper' in the title and not make a complete johngreen of yourself. I can't say much about the art because this was an advance review copy and it looked like the artwork had been 'de-rezzed' to make the file size smaller. This made for quick page turning, but it was hard to see exactly how the final art will look. In very general terms, it looked fine, though. It was reminiscent of older comics, not in the fact that it was pointillist (it wasn't, thankfully!), but in the general style, and this was fine because this was set in the late eighties, and there are a lot of eighties references, be warned.

It has four intriguing, amusing, and interesting female teens all of whom deliver newspapers in the neighborhood. Three of them hang out together and the fourth joins them and gets to know them over the course of the early morning delivery, but there's a heck of a lot more going on here than delivering papers.

It's the morning after Halloween, so there are some costumed people still around (although why they would still be around at that hour of the morning is a bit of a mystery). The girls have a run-in with some of them - in fact that's how they all meet - and then they split-up to finish their rounds quickly. This is when trouble starts as one pair contacts the other pair over a walkie-talkie (no cell phones back then, remember!), and when they meet up, it turns out some weird dudes in ninja costumes have stolen their other walkie-talkie.

The feistiest of the girls, Mackenzie, aka Mac, vows to take it back. Tiffany and KJ are on-board immediately, and the new girl, Erin, follows along. They end up in a basement where there is a machine which Mac erroneously compares with an Apollo space capsule. It's actually more like a Mercury capsule, but she doesn't know enough to know that. Some sort of power or force comes out of the capsule and the girls immediately beat a retreat.

Here's where it goes to hell. Now there are pterosaurs flying around, which I note some reviewers misidentified as dinosaurs. They're not. They were no more dinosaurs than the aquatic reptiles from that era were dinosaurs). The thing is that these pterosaurs were carrying armored "pilots" who seemed to be zapping everyone they found with sticks reminiscent of the weapons from the Stargate movie. With so many disappearing, people think it's the rapture! The new guys in the armor seem to be at war with the ninja dudes and the girls are, in the words of Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the middle with news." (That might not be what they sang!).

And that's all the spoilers you're going to get! Yeah, I know, I'm a mean old cuss, but I loved this story! There's feistiness, weirdness, time-travel, maybe parallel worlds, and it all starts with some girls delivering newspapers. I love that it's so different and, within context, believable. These girls don't do out of character stuff, and they don't act completely at random. They're totally believable in everything they do and say, and the story flows so naturally. My only complaint about this story is that, in the words of Queen, "I want it all and I want it now!" When's the next volume due out?! Sadly Queen doesn't get a mention in this graphic novel - and neither do any other bands, which is a bit odd, but no worries! I hold out hopes for some musical references in later volumes, and in the meantime, I recommend this as a worthy read!

Klaw The First Cycle by Antoine Ozanam, Joël Jurion, Yoann Guillé

Rating: WARTY!

This was an odd graphic novel and while I thought it was a good idea, I had too many issues with it and gave up reading it about two thirds the way through. This is what happens when I break my vow to never read any fiction with the word 'cycle' in the title! On another note, there are multiple stories titled "Klaw", believe it or not, and this isn't connected with any of the others as far as I know, so if you're looking for this particular one, make sure you get the creator's names memorized so you get the right book!

I was grateful for the chance of an early look at an advance review copy, especially one which had so much potential and with an amazing cover image, and while I recognize it was written for a younger age group than mine, I had some real problems with it nonetheless. One problem I didn't have was the artwork: it was beautifully done. Joël Jurion's drawing was decent - nothing spectacular, but nothing off-putting either, so that was a good start, but Yoann Guillé's coloring was magical. The plotting/writing left something to be desired however and that's a problem for me.

Angel Tomassini has a chronic bullying problem, but it's fantastical to the point of being ridiculous. He's chased in full view of everyone in the school and no one - not one single person, students or staff - does a thing about it. It's hardly surprising then, given how much fantasy we're already in, that he can turn into a huge tiger. He's not only bullied by the trope bullies, he's also bullied by the boyfriend of a girl he likes - a girl he was foolish enough to text. Her boyfriend Kurt saw the text and starts bullying him in full view of everyone at the pool, including the girlfriend upon whom Angel crushes. Again, no one does a thing about it, not even to raise a voice in protest, not even the girl in question. I sincerely hoped at this point that Angel was not going to end up with this lame, selectively blind, jerk of a girl, but that hope was forlorn.

The story gets interesting when Kurt is killed - by something with claws - even though it's obvious who's done it. It gets dumb again when the cops haul Angel down to the station without benefit of counsel or even his parents. Seriously? Angel is the son of a guy who owns the biggest fish wholesale business in the country. Yep, his dad sleeps with the fishes, and he also has major league mob connections, so Angel is freed pretty quickly. This begs the question as to why he's so freely bullied by all and sundry. Either he's a kid with ties to the mob and people are therefore in some fear of messing with him, or he's viewed as a no-import little guy who everyone (including some cops) feels free to bully. It doesn't work both ways. And Angel has to be truly stupid to have never figured out that his dad is shady at best.

As if this isn't improbable enough, Lisa, the girl who Angel is crushing on, and the now ex-girlfriend of dead Kurt, calls Angel up out of the blue and invites him to attend the same dinner she had planned on going to with Kurt. Seriously? But it gets worse. The next day at school she greets him by name, hugs him and kisses him on the cheek. More seriously? But it gets worse! This girl knows he has mob connections and despises them, yet she still asks him out and then later dumps him because of his mob connections! Even more seriously?! This girl has psychological problems, and none of these characters make any sense. Not that any of this bothers shallow Angel who is about as one-dimensional as you can get and still manage to exist in three dimensions. Supposedly Lisa was threatened in order to force her to go out with Angel, but if that was the case, how come she was so enthusiastic about it? How come she doesn't feel threatened when she summarily dumps him? Again, it makes no sense.

The story became too ridiculous for me when Angel starts donning a super-hero costume to fight crime. On the one hand he supposedly loves his father, but on the other, he's committed to putting him out of business. Okay, I'll give that the benefit of the doubt, but why does he need a super hero costume? He's already disguised as a tiger! I'm sorry, but I can't go with this. I wish the creators all the best because I like to support foreign efforts. This was a lot of work, but it didn't seem to me like it was well thought-through.

Don't Juggle Bees by Gerald Hawksley

Rating: WORTHY!

The title of this book would seem to be eminently safe and useful advice, as is everything between these covers! Back in February 2016, I favorably reviewed this author's book which advised readers what to do if they have a hat, amongst other things. It seemed such a sensible book that I figured this one had to be of equal utility , and I am pleased to report that I was not wrong!

Juggling bees, however, is only one aspect of this fount of wisdom. Other useful tips include advice on whether it's wise to take a bath with a crocodile, balance an elephant on your nose, bounce on the bed with a hippo (parents might want to weigh in on that), or let monkeys drive your car. I can't find fault with any of the advice given here, and so I can do no other than to recommend this book! It's full of fun, frivolity and silliness in fine fettle, and it's probably guaranteed to make your child smile if not belly laugh (although this should not be deemed as an offer or representation for legal purposes. Or porpoises. It definitely amused me. That, I do guarantee!

Faith Vol 1 by Jody Houser, Francis Portela, Margerite Sauvage

Rating: WORTHY!

This is what happens when you put a bunch of women in charge: you get a great super hero comic! (Note that only two out of three of the above are female, lest I get any complaints!) Talking of which, my only complaint - it was too short for me! I got an advance review copy which was more like a sampler - just two episodes plus and really intriguing third episode consisting of line drawings with no coloring or speech bubbles, which was interesting to see - like looking at a skeleton before the flesh and organs are added. Very cool for anyone who's interested in how these things are put together (which I am as it happens), but I don't imagine it will appear like that in the published version, so get it from Net Galley while it's...not! I have to say that both the writing and the artwork were excellent. Nicely drawn, beautifully colored. I am really thankful I got a chance to review this.

This superhero goes by the name of Zephyr, and she borrows somewhat from Superman. In this case she's disguised with eyeglasses and a wig and looking rather frumpy. Definitely a better disguise than Clark Kent has. And she actually comes off rather better than he does base don his last movie outing as of this writing. Those of us in the know are looking forward to Wonder Woman busting loose next year. Does Zephyr work for a newspaper? Well not in this day and age! She works for some sort of a webzine, although it's a bit vague as to what, exactly they do. Nothing very exciting as judged by Summer's comments about it. She really blossoms, though, when she takes off the wig and eyeglasses and launches herself into the sky (she commutes to work from Van Nuys, which isn't so nice since her neighbors are noisy).

So what's with the 'Faith'? It's her real name: Faith Herbert. She's known as a "psiot" - someone who is psionically gifted. I have no idea what that means since it isn't really explained. I assume it means she has some sort of psychic control over her environment. Bullets don't bounce off her, but they do bounce off her psychic shield, which she can project rather like Sue Storm does, for example.

Faith/Summer was working with a team of heroes, but something happened between her and a more traditionally proportioned masculine hero to whom she was evidently about to be married. She moved away, and people who have seen her fly the skies locally are wondering what happened. I mention 'traditionally-proportioned' because Faith is not. Rather than your standard female egg-timer hourglass figure for super heroes, Faith looks more like the egg, and she's all the more charming for it. The best thing about it is that no one makes any apology for her being a big bodied woman. It's who she is and how she is and that's all there is to it. I was delighted to see this for a change, and especially in a super hero comic book.

The blurb mentioned aliens. We see little of them here. But that's not important. What is important is that there's a new and realistic hero in town and I want to read more about her! I recommend this one.

Orphan Black: Helsinki by Graeme Manson, John Fawcett, Heli Kennedy, Denton J Tipton

Rating: WORTHY!

I loved the TV show, so I was interested when it became possible to see an advance review copy of a graphic novel version. This is not a clone (yes, I went there!) of the TV series. It's a different perspective, set in Europe in 2001, which I appreciate very much. US readers in particular need to understand that there is actually a world outside the US border which is at least as important as what's inside - for example, Canada, where this entire series originated! And Europe, where this comic is set, but which doesn't feel like Europe - more on this anon. This focus on the US (or in this case what the creators took to calling "Generica") doesn't help a series supposedly set in Europe.

The question you have to ask, when something like this happens (extras for a movie, a prequel or a fractional sequel (1.5 or something) for a novel series, a graphic novel addition to a successful TV series) is: what's the point? What was it that you forgot to put into your grand opus which requires you to cobble on bits and pieces, Heath Robinson style, to make it what it ought to have been when you first released it? This is why I don't, for the most part, like novel series. This is particularly the case with young-adult trilogies, because every volume is an admission that the author is running off at the mouth and larding up their story by including every note they took, and piece of research they did, rather than cutting to the chase and getting a tight story told. They're great for Big Publishing™ though, aren't they? You have my word that I will never write a YA dystopian trilogy!

Back on topic! There are now two comic book series (and note that Orphan Black was created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, so these people have been in on it from the start). The first of these is The Clone Club, which I have not read. It had five issues covering the main characters in order: Sarah, Helena, Alison, Cosima, Rachel. The one under review is the second series, Helsinki. There was no cover or contributor information in my ARC, and the first section had no title, but the others were subtitled: Three by the Sea, Clones Anonymous, and Like Rats in a Cage. The fiery finale was the next section, but it wasn't included in the ARC I read.

In this particular case, the assumption is that the TV show is the whole story, so where is the need for an "extra"? Well obviously, it's in the fact that the cloning in Orphan Black was not solely a US phenomenon - it was much wider than that. This was evident from the TV show, but the entire focus there, pretty much, was on what went down in the US. We saw very little of what was happening elsewhere in the world. This is where this series is supposed to step up, which begs the question: does it?

I'm not convinced that it does, but I became convinced that it was a worthy read. Call me an addict if you like, but I love the TV series and so I have to confess a bias towards the conics. As other reviewers have pointed out though, it does try to do too much too quickly and ends up not really doing very much.

Unlike in the TV show, we never really get to know any of these characters in the comic. They come at us thick and fast and start multiplying like Harry Potters at the start of volume seven, until we have a plethora of them without knowing really anything about any one of the new girls. Set before the TV series begins, the story follows one of these young clones as she begins uncovering several others, and then they're in complete disarray about what to do next. It's not pretty. In fact, it's a mess, and sometimes hard to follow.

I think the TV series would have been better served had this graphic series devoted each issue to following important players from the TV series, but confined to those outside the US. If Veera is important, let's have a comic about her. So far so good, since the first section was glued to her. The problem is that when she starts contacting others, we haven't really been introduced to them, and so we don't bond with them as we did with her. They're not really people; they're cookie cutters which move back and forth in front of the light casting shadows with little or no substance.

Other than Rachel (and one other!), none of the main characters: Sarah Manning, Elizabeth Childs, Alison Hendrix, Cosima Niehaus, Katja Obinger, or even Felix Dawkins appears in this graphic novel. The other one who does, Helena, is, along with Felix and Alison, one of my three most favored characters in this show, but we see her only fleetingly and disturbingly here. There are several European clones mentioned in the show, but we meet very few of them on TV. This comic introduces many of those , which was a highlight for me despite the sketchiness of the introductions: Veera Suominen, the main subject of this series, Niki Lintula, Justyna Buzek, Sofia Jensen, Faye and Femke ("twins"!), Jade, and Ania Kaminska are all featured in comic series 2. Others, such as Danielle Fournier, Aryanna Giordano, and Janika Zingler are not here.

The artwork was so-so, I'm sorry to report. There was no cover on my copy, but the cover I've seen advertising this novel was gorgeous. The interior artwork? Not so much! It's fine in a workmanlike style, but nothing to write home about. All-too-often, it's patchy: in some images, the characters looked very much like Tatiana Maslany, the central actor in the TV show. I was particularly impressed by Rachel Duncan, who was very much the one from TV, which I loved, but the others seemed to vary even within the same character. In some frames they looked just like the TV version, in others quite different. The characters here were younger, of course: they were of high school age and just beginning to learn of their peculiar place in the world, but the representations of them we saw in the art was not the best it could have been. It was okay and that's it.

I guess what bothered me most about this story was the feeling of hopelessness which pervaded it. Yes, these were teens and dis-empowered accordingly, but they were hi-tech savvy, and mobile. They had no problem taking the reins when they needed to, so it felt like a betrayal of the story when we got to the point where they had ample evidence of the cloning, but never went public with it. The excuse we're given is the September, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City - that this so preoccupied the news that their own story would have been buried. This is where my comment above - about "The US" not being the same set as "The World" - is relevant.

Yes, 9/11 made a massive impact on the world, but not everywhere is as self-obsessed as is the US. It happened in the US, not in Europe and while there was concern, even horror, and sympathy and focus on it everywhere, to suggest that it obliterated everything else and became the sole preoccupation of the Europeans in the same way as it did the US, to the point where this cloning issue would have been completely buried, is grossly unfair to Europeans, and in particular to European teen women who are startling in their ability to demonstrate and draw attention to a cause.

Take, Femen, for example, or Free The Nipple and the related Les TumulTueuses, or Pussy Riot. Even the Russians are not shy about it! 'Europeans' does not equate to 'Euro Peons' and more than it equates to 'Euro Paens'! This is a locale where we have seen teen girls make spectacular protests which have received wide publicity (maybe not in the US!). To suggest that they couldn't get this publicized is really an insult. Obviously if you need to keep it secret, as a writer, then you need a better excuse!

All that said, I'm still going to rate this a worthy read because I really liked finding out more. In general terms, I enjoyed it even as threadbare as it was. What Helsinki really needs is a novel, not a graphic novel, to put some real meat on the bones of this story. But until then, and if you love Orphan Black as I do, I think this worth your time.

A Lady in the Smoke by Karen Odden

Rating: WORTHY!

Erratum:
"How did they found out I wasn't at Anne's?" Find out?

This is an intriguing novel that perked my interest when I saw it offered for review on Net Galley. I'm thankful I was able to get it for review. Please note that since this is an ARC, any comments I make regarding the technical qualities of the writing may be irrelevant to the final published version of this novel as changes are made.

Set in Victorian times this is, unfortunately, a first person PoV story, which I generally do not favor. Indeed, I think they should come with a warning sticker! If I find an interesting novel in a bookstore or the library and see that it's first person, I typically put it right back on the shelf with very few exceptions. It seems that authors are obsessed with 1PoV these days, and they're becoming increasingly harder to avoid if you want to read at all. I find this sad.

With ebooks, you don't always get much of a chance to skim the first couple of pages (or sniff the paper!) and see what's what, but it had sounded intriguing and in the end I wasn't disappointed. This one wasn't bad at all to read. Some authors can write 1PoV without the main character becoming insufferably self-obsessed or self-important. I was grateful for that, too! On a personal note, rest assured that other than a single one I'm almost finished working on, I shall write no first person PoV novels (except for parodies!)! You have my word! And I promise you that mine will carry a warning sticker, which will make it the second novel I'm working on that will be issued one!

But I digress. Lady Elizabeth Fraser, of Kellham Park in Levlinshire, has had three seasons and has not made her match. Exactly why this is so isn't really explored, and I found myself wondering about it, but her mother is less than thrilled with her and makes it known as they head back north from London. There's a good reason for her mother's surly attitude which you might be interested to discover - but I ain't gonna reveal it! The pair don't make it home however, since their train runs off the tracks and they're lucky to escape with their lives. Why take the train? Well, the family fortune isn't what it once was - which is yet another reason Elizabeth's mother is not happy with her failure to marry. After three seasons and now a dip in fortune, Elizabeth is, so her mother believes, destined to end up an old maid, living off relatives. Then there's the accident, and the dedicated and charming Mr Wilcox, who is a railway surgeon, turns up. He doctors people who have been in train accidents; he doesn't do surgery on engines, just FYI!

This couple is thrown together as Lady Elizabeth helps him with the injured, and a whiff of scandal starts to rise, given how much time they spend together, he being an unmarried man and she a debutante (three seasons removed) from the nobility. As she grows to know him, she also realizes that he's into more than surgery. There's something going on with the railways, and it seems to be tied to Lady Elizabeth's shifting fortunes. That's all the spoilers you're going to get, but rest assured this is a satisfying and complex novel with many undercurrents and very little melodrama.

I liked the way the author captures the English. Some American authors do not seem to be able to do this right. The only questionable phrasing I found was "..and he'll come see you then..." which was missing a preposition and felt like it wasn't something that a Victorian lady of breeding would say. Aside from that (and maybe that's arguable), I was impressed by the feel of the novel and by the extensive research the author had done, which showed in what she wrote. It was very easy to become immersed in this world, which says a lot for me, not being a huge fan of historical novels, and less a fan of historical (hysterical?!) romances, but this is where I was most impressed.

I must confess that I don't really get why so many authors feel this urge to pair off their female characters at the end of the story. It's like there's an addiction to resolving every adventure by marrying off the main character at the end. Can a woman not stand on her own two feet? Can she not enjoy a friendship with a man (even in a Victorian novel!) without it having to be a romance? Yes, people do fall in love and get married, and/or end up between the covers, but between the covers of a novel it happens far more often than is realistic, and it happens with an unrealistic degree of expedition, which is what happened here. It would be nice to read more stories where women are not in need of validation by a male character all the time, but the romance here, while rather precipitous for me, was very understated, so it did not turn me off the story. The last chapter was, however, hard to stomach and the least enjoyable part of the novel for me.

One of the most interesting things about this novel for me, was that it's really a detective story yet it never feels like one, and it's a romance, but it doesn't feel like your standard bodice-ripper, either (last chapter notwithstanding), so kudos to the author for writing it this way. My blog is as much about writing as it is about reading, and it's really nice to find novels like this one, which deliver the goods, and in diverse ways, too. It made for an interesting read. I particularly liked the chapters covering the court case, which I think was brilliantly done.

I have to question the use of Levlinshire which seemed like it was intended as a village rather than a county, although its usage was so vague that it might well have meant the county. I don't know why an author would feel the need to invent a county for a novel set in Victorian Britain. Goodness knows there are plenty available, some of which no longer exist. Any would be perfect for a fictional work. No villages, towns or cities in England have that kind of name to my knowledge; only counties end in 'shire', but it occurred to me that perhaps this was the name of the country home of one of Lady Elizabeth's acquaintances, so it was the home which was referred to, and maybe the village by association? It just seemed odd (not odden, just odd!) the way it was used, but I forgave all of those issues when I read this sneaky passage: "and the boy George is a good sort"! I don't think this was intentional, but I agree, Boy George is a good sort!

As you can see, my "complaints" are few and trivial, which was impressive to me. I liked the main character, although there were times when she was rather stupid, but people are stupid on occasion. She had her Victorian sensibility moments, and while these were few, they seemed at odds with her iron resolve on other occasions, so she was a bit of a mixed bag. I never really got this attraction between her and the doctor. To call it love seemed way premature, but for most of the story it was relatively innocuous, so it wasn't a deal-breaker for me. Overall I liked the main character and rooted for her.

Really though, when it comes right down to it, the only important thing about a novel is not the cover, or who the author is, or how slick the back cover blurb is, or whether the novel is a best seller, but whether it's worth reading. To me, a novel is never two-fifths worth reading or four fifths or whatever; a novel is either worth reading or it isn't, and in my view this one is well worth reading. I recommend it.

Becoming Naomi Léon by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Rating: WORTHY!

Published in Spanish as Yo, Naomi León, and read rather nicely by Annie Kozuch, this short story is about Naomi, of course, who lives with her "special needs" brother Owen, and her grandmother, after her own mother pretty much left them in the lurch. And now she's back, from outer space, she shows up at the door with that dumb look upon her face. They should have changed their trailer park, they should have fled upon a whim, if they'd known for just one second she'd be back to bother them! She's returned with her new boyfriend Clive, and a new name, to reclaim her kids, but Clive, it seems, has an agenda which is more tightly aligned with claiming dependent benefits than it is with wanting to love and care for two young kids. In fact, Mom wants only Naomi, not Owen.

At several audiobook web sites, Naomi's name is given as Naomi Guadalupe Zamora Outlaw, but in the actual book (which I take as canon over the blurbs!), her name is actually Naomi Soledad Léon Outlaw, the last part being her grandmother's name, and one which has brought her grief at the hands (or more accurately at the lips) of some moronic kids in school. The ordered and structured life they have in Lemon Tree, California (a lemon tree, my dear Watson!), where they live in a small trailer nicknamed 'Baby Beluga', might end up as a rather reckless road trip to find their father, Santiago, who evidently now lives in Oaxaca, Mexico. He was run out of their lives by mom, who might just now be pushing them back into his arms.

The kids' names didn't seem to fit, of me. Would a Santiago name his kids Naomi and Owen? It seemed just as unlikely that their mom would do it, given that she's just pretentiously changed her name to Skyla. I'm not sure what Skyla's motive is. Maybe she's just going along with Clive's plan, but after she slaps Naomi across the face, Naomi decides where she wants to be, and it ain't by momma's side.

There was one unintentional amusing moment when the narrator said "syrupy glaze" and with the Mexican element and the religious element to this story, along with my warped mind, I couldn't help but think of this as 'syrup igles" - but igles isn't the word for church, as it happens, it's iglesia, so it didn't quite work but almost! it works a lot better in French: syrup église!

The novel slipped a bit for me. It was interesting right up until they went to Mexico and we got bogged down in the radish carving festival, but that didn't last long, and it picked up again when Santiago arrived on the scene. Overall I liked this and felt it to be a worthy read (despite the fact that it has won some medals and honors!), and I recommend it.

Foiled by Jane Yolen, Mike Cavallaro

Rating: WORTHY!

This is the first volume in a joyous and nicely illustrated (by Mike Cavallaro) series. It's a small format graphic novel about a middle-grade girl named Aliera Carstairs who is the chosen one - chosen, that is, by the faerie world to protect them against the troll world, led by the Dark Lord. She meets a new guy in school named Avery castle, and despite the fact that he's hot-looking, he seems really uninterested in anyone but Aliera, although he doesn't say no to a kiss and a hug form whichever female wants to lay one on him.

Aliera is attracted to him but really not that interested. She'd rather go to her fencing lessons or enjoy an RPG with her cousin, who is sickly, but perky. This doesn't prevent her from accepting when Avery asks her out on a date - so it would seem. The venue is Grand Central Terminal, form which you rightly assume that Aliera lives in NYC. She;s late in arriving and wondering whether Avery is also late or has stood her up (her opinion of boys is lower than most). She has her fencing kit with her having just come from practice, and she puts on her fencing mask to protect her from a particularly bothersome bird (evidently the same bird which has been stalking her throughout the novel - something she would have noticed had she been more observant.

With the mask in place, color-blind Aliera, who sees more shades of grey than EL James, is suddenly aware of a second world superimposed over the first - a world of brilliant, rich color, which is focused entirely on fantastical creatures the like of which she'd only ever heard of in the more bizarre fairy tales. It turns out that Alierea is a defender of the Seelie - a faerie world which has chosen her as its champion. She can fight the bad guys with her épée, the one her mom scrounged up from a yard sale. That faceted blob of chromium infused aluminium oxide which Aliera had supposed was fake turns out to be, it would seem, a real ruby.

I really liked this story which I came to by way of volume two - so you can read them out of order without losing too much. I loved the story, I loved how feisty, relentless, and resourceful Aliera was, and I enjoyed the whole presentation. i recommend this and its sequel.

Curses Foiled Again by Jane Yolen, Mike Cavallaro

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a joyous and nicely illustrated (by Mike Cavallaro), small format graphic novel about a middle-grade girl who is the chosen one - chosen, that is, by the faerie world to protect them against the troll world, led by the Dark Lord. Yes, it's trope, but this is different enough and irreverent enough that I loved it. It's Seelie versus Unseelie here, and this is number 2 in the 'Foiled" series. While I am not a fan of series, this one might be one of the few exceptions I make, because I would like to read more of these adventures. I loved the way the chapters were titled after various fencing postures and strikes/defenses.

Foiled is a play on the fact that feisty and self-motivated main character Aliera Carstairs can fence something fierce, especially now she has a light saber. Actually it's a light foil. And the light is on the hilt, not the blade. So an anti-light foil is what she carries. Or something like that. Sorry, anti-light weapon! Never call it a foil! And especially don't refer to it as silver foil! (I added that bit!). Anyway, moving right along, in this adventure, she's trolled by a troll named Avery (he watches her like a clock?) who in daylight looks like a middle grader (or maybe a young, young adult), but in the dark, turns into a rather large troll-type dude with lower tusks rather like the Orcs in the upcoming Warcraft movie, and just like them, he turns out to be a good guy, who acknowledges that he's bound to Aliera, who he calls his liege lord.

Aliera doesn't trust him as far as she can throw him in his troll form, which is to say not at all. She rejects his every overture despite the fact that he seems desperate to impart important information to her. In the end they form a grudging (on her part) alliance to solve an problem, and she learns to trust him. A bit. I loved that she was so independent and not the least but fluffy instadore as we see far too often in stories like this. She was a strong character with a unique voice, who was self-sufficient and a go-getter and I was in love with her, disgusting as that is. Yes, I admit it. So seelie me!

This wasn't apparent to me form this volume, but evidently the main character is colorblind in our world and only sees color in the faerie world. Maybe I'm just slow, because now I think back on it, it seems obvious, but I'd thought this had nothing to do with the character's PoV! I thought it was simply an art trick to make our world look a drab gray, while the faeries looked almost psychedelic - which was a nice effect. Apparently not! Anyway, the immediate problem (in this volume) was nicely resolved with a sweet and satisfying ending, but the story remains open enough that more adventures could come, so it was a really good read with lots of promise and warmth and amusing bits and pieces. I recommend this as a worthy read.

Tank Girl Carioca by Mike McMahon, Alan Martin

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an amusingly irreverent graphic novel with decent, if rudimentary artwork, and indecent text. It has a nice look to it from the coloring. Tank Girl, aka Rebecca Buck, is the feisty, criminal owner of a tank. She was originally invented by artist Jamie Hewlett who illustrated the first Tank Girl comic. TG lives in a post-apocalyptic Australia, although the novel has a much more Brit feel than it does Aussie due to author Alan Martin's origins. TG's boyfriend is a mutant kangaroo named Booga. In this volume, she has three other girls in her "gang", which are Jet Girl (who flies a Harrier jump jet and who at one point early in the series was certifiably insane, although in this volume she seems like the only one who isn't insane), and Boat Girl. In this edition there's also a foul mouthed critter of indeterminate species who is randomly dismissed as a lemming (a bitter lemming, in fact!) and a rat, both of which are rudely dismissed by the critter himself.

In this story, Tank Girl and Booga are at a game show and they get a chance to compete. They get all the questions right, including the last prize-winning one, but the show's host, who has taken a distinct dislike to them, lies about the answer and they lose everything. TG, who cares less that she lost than she does about the host's whispered insults aimed at her, decides that nothing less than hanging, drawing, and quartering will deliver adequate justice for this. She concocts an elaborate Heath Robinson plan to achieve her aim, but afterwards, she's overcome by remorse, and starts her own religion, named after the Carioca bar she frequents. Her changed life is doomed to failure, though, as you might guess.

I thought this story was hilarious. It reminds me of the ridiculous ideas I came up with as a kid and the even more ridiculous ones I came up with as a teenager. If you like Monty Python you might like this one, but don't expect a soup to nuts story or even logic! I recommend this.

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Rating: WARTY!

This audiobook started out well, but rapidly deteriorated into tedium maximum™! Seriously. The premise, of a young, purportedly intelligent orphan managing to get himself into a secret society, and discovering that this society is investigating subliminal messages being transmitted over the airwaves to come out into our minds through TV and radio isn't original, but it does make for a promising start to a middle-grade story. The problem was that once this set-up was put in place, nothing happened! I mean literally nothing happened. The story just rambled on and on and on and on with these kids whining and discussing, and arguing and contemplating, and cogitating and regurgitating, and NOTHING HAPPENED!

We're told that Mr Benedict has tried going to the authorities, but that they paid him no attention because the subliminal messaging is getting to the adults, too, because you know the only thing that all adults do is listen to TV and radio all the time. It was nonsensical. The question as to why Mr Benedict had not gone to the media or published his proof on the Internet was never even raised. No wonder this moron needed kids to help him. Any kid is smarter than he was, whether they had passed the weird-ass tests Reynard had to take or not! And let;s not even get into the evil twin trope which it takes these geniuses forever to figure out.

I quit it about forty percent in because I could not stand the dull story, and the voice of the reader was just awful. The guy who reads this, Del Roy, must have been in his eighties when he recorded it, and while that voice would have been great had the story been about political machinations or boardroom subterfuge, it was completely out of place here. There wasn't a paragraph went by where I wasn't yanked out of the story at some point because of the incongruity of this croaky voice trying to impersonate these kids. It didn't work, and neither did this story. I can't recommend it.

Little Girl Pink by Mary Lee

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a charming bedtime book for those little girls (and boys) who can't seem to get sleepy when they're supposed to. Little Girl pink is one of 'em, and she's the very devil to get to sleep because her grey bear is missing! Oh my! I can't tell you how many times that's kept me awake. Her industrious mom (who I suspect has dealt with these issues personally!) tries her best to help her with counting sheep (the sheep are asleep!), a nice warm bath, but now there's a storm outside.

That bear is out there somewhere, and if Fox and Mulder can't find it, it's up to you, mom! There is a happy ending to this story, rest assured, and finally little miss tear-away closes those sleepy eyes and nods off. There's also an object lesson here in making sure your kid hugs a different plush toy each night, so they don't get stuck on only one, but of course, she's a little individual, so maybe that won't work. I think it's worth a try! Warm milk might work too, assuming your kid isn't lactose intolerant in which case it would be a disaster. Maybe some soft classical music on the iPod? Anything is worth trying once, right?!

I liked this story because it was warm and fuzzy (yeah, I'm a softy despite some of my reviews!), it's nicely drawn and colored, and it tells a useful tale. I'm not going to say anything about the color scheme for girls (other than this)! I recommend this one as a worthy read. Assuming you can stay awake through it! Note that the book was readable on a smart phone, but it's probably a lot more enjoyable on a tablet or in the printed format.

Sea Turtles by Kay de Silva

Rating: WORTHY!

Who doesn't like turtles? This brilliant color story for young children goes under the ocean to look at sea turtles, and with the glorious photographs, we're right there with the divers. But it's not only gorgeous pictures! It's also an education as to how these turtles are built 9strongly!), how they live (peacefully!) and what they get up to (travel and food!). Most of their time it seems, from the pictures, is spent on vacation in warm holiday resorts! I am envious!

On the other hand there's a lot of travel involved. It's a lonely life, and unlike me when I commute, they don't get to listen to audio books! What goes on in their turtle minds as they swim thousands of miles? Plus if you're a turtle you have to eat sponges which, while I am sure is very absorbing, is not my favorite food! Other turtles eat jellyfish, which sounds tempting, but I'm guessing it doesn't really taste like Jell-O! Note that green turtles get their name not from their color (which isn't always green), but from the fact that they eat greens! Healthy little critters!

Then there's that laborious trek over the sand to lay eggs. I don't know about you but I dislike the sand sticking all over me after I come out of the ocean, but the turtles don't seem to mind being coated in it. Turtles are tough. They have to be to survive that mad dash over the sand after hatching, with predators on the look-out for them. No wonder they are survivors and live so long: eighty to a hundred years!

This book, part of 'an amazing world' series, was a joy: very informative, readable on a smart phone, and it talked about different species and was fill of information in small bite-sized pieces that kids can remember. I recommend it.

The Honk of Zagonk by Pat Hatt

Rating: WORTHY!

Yes, the name of the story, the name of the author? odd, huh? But this story - about finding your place and fitting it as well as standing out was a sweet one. In poetic quatrains with colorful pastel pictures, the story of Zagonk the dragon who couldn't blast fire, but could honk like a giant goose stands out as both amusing and informative. Zagonk doesn't have a chance of winning the dragon flame contest because he flamed out, yet when the frost giant comes, freezing all the flames the dragons can blow, only Zagonk can save them with his ice-crushing honking!

This was a sweet and entertaining story for young children which was amusing and encouraging and teaches that you can get where you want if you make the most of what you have. It was just about readable on a smart phone, but probably better on a tablet or in the printed format. I liked it and recommend it.

The Rejected Writer's Book Club by Suzanne Kelman

Rating: WORTHY!

While I haven't had great success with novels which revolve around books or librarians or book shops, I'm inexplicably always optimistic that I will find one, and this sounded interesting. In the end it proved itself a worthy read for which I was grateful (and thankful to the author and publisher for a chance to read this advance review copy)! Certainly it's a brilliant idea to pull in a readership of everyone who dreams of being a writer, or who has had an e-script rejected. Kinda makes me wish I'd thought of it first!

Suzanne Kelman is a fellow blogspotter, although I don't know her, but unfortunately, her blog seems to be nothing more than a promotion of this novel. I don't see any actual blogging going on which was disappointing! Her blog might have made for an interesting read. She's a writer of novels and screenplays, and also a film producer and playwright, so this novel isn't her first rodeo, so to speak. One of the things she also produces is 'blondie and the Brit podcasts' I have no idea what those are about, but they sound like they might be amusing.

I have to disagree with her comment in the acknowledgements: "When I started writing my first novel, I was under some strange illusion that just one person created a book." I've read this same thing from several authors. Those of us who have self-published are living proof that it takes only a dedicated author who is willing to put in the time and make the effort! The fact that we may not (yet!) have created a best seller (or any sales!) doesn't take a thing away from the work we did by ourselves to get this written and cleaned up, formatted, checked, proofed and published. Just one person can indeed create a book these days.

However, I'm reviewing the novel not the author, so here goes! I got into this novel right away, which is always nice. My biggest fear was that this would be yet another novel where an author creates a weird-ass assemblage of quirky characters and tosses them into this like it was a khichari, hoping for something to work without having an actual story to tell. For me, that modus operandi doesn't work and is just annoying, so I admit I felt some trepidation going in, but while there was some of this 'potpourri' business going on, I was glad to find that there was also a story that was worth reading.

Nor was the story confined to quirksville and stuck there: the location changed pretty quickly because it turned into a road trip, which itself had several diversions, so overall it was a fun read. There were joys and oddities, including unexpected ones which I'm sure the writer never had in mind. I loved the character Annie. Not so much Doris, who I really didn't like because she was stridently overbearing. I liked that when I reached Chapter Twenty-Three, my Kindle informed me that there were 23 minutes left in the book! Beautiful symmetry! I'm a big fan of print books (except for their murderous nature on trees), but here was something you don't get with a print book!

It wasn't all plain sailing, though. It seems to me that one thing a writer, especially one who writes about writers, should get right is the difference between' titled' and 'entitled', as in this quote "...entitled A Day Close to God..." While a book is entitled to be read, it is titled whatever the title is. I see this change in meaning more and more often, and with many different words. I guess it's foolish to think anyone can hold back this juggernaut of laxity in literature, though. Language is dynamic, and it has never been more so than it is in this era of tweets and texts.

It bothers me that in tossing every word into the same wash, we're squandering a rich literary heritage by mixing distinctive and colorful words, and bleaching out the fabric of our language, removing its subtle shades and hues. It's the same thing linguistically as we're doing to the planet with pollution and climate change: we're wiping out the unique, and the cute, and quaint, and charming, and above all: important, and the world will be a lesser place for it when we're done raping and pillaging. We need to stand together, keep our nose to the grindstone, our shoulder to the wheel, our backs to the wall, a firm hand on the tiller, and putting our best foot forward, march valiantly to the stirring bugle call of steadfast linguistics, and never lose our sense of direction. Now where was I?

Oh yes. Not plain sailing! My blog is as much about writing as it is about reading, so I tend to pick up on writerly things in novels whether it's a great turn of phrase or a weird one. There was the occasional oddity in phrasing here and there, or odd juxtapositions and so on. It was nothing major, but it was stuff which occasionally took me out of my immersion and made me realize I was reading. I think from a writer's PoV, it's worth looking at some of these and giving some thought to how me might have dealt with the same text.

At one point I read that a person "...was up and down like a whore's drawers." This for me was too much. It was out of place in the context of the story and I thought it was entirely unnecessary. It's not very kind to sex workers, either. If the novel had been a raunchy one, or one about rough and ready people, then it wouldn't have seemed so out of place, but it didn't belong here in this story. It would have been so easy to find a more appropriate substitute.

Another instance of a lesser nature was when I read: "bubbling brook." I'm very familiar with "babbling brook", but bubbling? Not so much! Maybe it's just me. Another instance was when I read, "These drugs were making me into a perfect floozy." Now a floozy is a loose woman, so this really didn't fit with the context since the character wasn't behaving loosely or immorally. She was simply out of it because of a pill she'd taken to calm her nerves about flying. "These drugs were making me woozy" would have made sense.

At one point I read of a character saying that she "...would appreciate it if it never, ever leaves this room...", 'it' being her secret past, but right after that I read, "...I will honor someone, someone who meant a great deal to me, someone I should have honored a long time ago before now." This struck me as odd - how is keeping it secret honoring him? I can see that if a Navy Seal earns a medal you don't want to go public with it and reveal their identity, but typically honoring someone means broadcasting what they're done so people actually can honor them. This felt like a contradiction, but it's no big deal. It's not going to destroy an otherwise worthy read, but this kind of thing is worth some thought if you're a writer.

At another point I read about Doris (yes, that Doris), one of the group of rejected writers who is a BBW. She was moving down an aisle and I read that "nothing stood a chance in her wake." that seemed to me to be, wait for it, ass-backwards! If she's moving through people like a snowplow, then surely it's what's ahead of her which stands little chance - the opposite of wake? On a related topic there was an issue of how many seats a passenger airplane has in a row. I read about four people sitting together, but one had a window seat. I may be wrong, since I'm far from an expert on air travel, but I'm unaware of any airplane which has four seats in a row together where one of the seats is a window seat. The four seat configurations (or the new five-seat configuration for the Airbus) are all in the middle of the plane, with only two or three seat grouped by the windows, and four seats are rare on inter-state flights. You usually only get them on the large jetliner trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific flights.

Again, this isn't a deal-breaker for me. We writers are supposed to write what we know, but I reject that nonsense. Did Bram Stoker actually take on a vampire? I doubt it! Did Mary Shelley create a living being from dead parts? Only in a literary sense. Did Suzanne Collins actually fight in a Hunger games in a dystopian future? No! It would be a sorry literary world if we wrote only what we know. We write what we're passionate about (if we're smart), and the hell with what we know, but that said, it can carry and expensive price-tag if we don't get it right.

In this case though, I wasn't going to let any of the above (or wondering how it was that Mary didn't know that her best friend couldn't swim), bother me or make me feel this book didn't deserve a worthy rating, because overall it was a great read. It drew me in and kept me interested, and that's all I ask for from a writer. I've always said you can get away with a lot with me if you tell me a good story, and this author didn't have to get away with a lot because the issues were few and minor. It was a good story, and I recommend it.

Helen Keller by Jane Sutcliffe

Rating: WORTHY!

I had no idea I had such a backlog of reviews to post. That's what happens when you get focused on writing and nothing else save for some reading here and there! So many of them are negative, too, which is sad, so it's nice to be able to post this last one of the backlog, and get caught up with a positive one.

I saw this in the library and thought it would make for an informative and interesting read, and I was right for once. Helen Keller was born about as regular and normal a child as you can get, although rather more privileged than many people in her time. Before the age of two, however, this all changed. She contracted some indeterminate illness which had the effect of rendering her both deaf and blind. This led to a life of acute frustration and anger for her until, through Alexander Graham Bell of all people, she learned to communicate. It was Bell who indirectly put her in touch with brilliant and dedicated teacher Johanna "Anne" Sullivan, who finally managed to break through these horrible barriers which had been erected by disease, and make a connection with the child inside the feisty Helen exterior.

Almost from that moment on (there was a certain period of frustration which this book glosses over rather!), Helen turned her life around and became dedicated to learning as much as she could about everything she could. She learned to read Braille and to write and eventually wrote her own life story. She and Anne stayed together for half a century until Anne's death. Anne became blind herself around the age of ten, but she was lucky enough that there was surgery to correct some of her problems, so she was with sight at the age of twenty when she came to work with Helen.

This short book with text and pictures is an ideal introduction for young children to these remarkable women. I enjoyed it and I can't imagine any child who wouldn't. I recommend it.

Awaken Me Darkly by Gena Showalter

Rating: WARTY!

I have no idea what that title means. It's nonsensical. Wake me without turning on the light? Wake me with a shocking revelation? That's what the blurb promises, but the blurbs always promise that, and it never is. Blurb writers are morons. This audiobook was read in the kind of purring chocolate voice that sounds intriguing to begin with, but runs a severe risk of becoming cloying, irritating, even nauseating with too much exposure. And it did.

Listening to an audiobook isn't like meeting someone at a function or a party, where you have a conversation with them and can move on at any time. In an audiobook, you're stuck with them for the duration! There is no conversation. You're lectured and expected to like it. The reading in this case was done by Justine Eyre. I had no idea who she was, and the impression I got was that she was a lot older than the character. Since this is told in first person, this seemed wrong to me. Later I learned that she is, very roughly, the same age as the character, but she still seems wrong for this voice. She eyred! The voice sounds too old and nowhere near appropriate to the character as depicted in the novel. It's not enough street for my taste, so the character, as read by Eyre, came off as inauthentic to me.

When you're reading a novel for yourself, you have the choice to picture the characters however you want, but when this is taken from you by a reader in an audio book, it can be a spark of life or a kiss of death. In this case I tried not to be lured to either extreme and just let this voice go by me. It wasn't easy! I am no fan of first person PoV and I cannot understand why so many authors are so compulsively addicted to it. Some writers can make it work in some cases, but for me it's too much "me" from the character: "Hey, lookit me! Look, I'm looking in a mirror and describing myself for you! Aren't I wonderful? Lookit what I'm doing now. Pay attention only to meeeeee! I own you!" Yuk!

Anyway, let's look at the plot, which makes little sense, but this is what we have to work with. At some point in the near future, interplanetary portals appear on Earth for no evident reason, allowing through several varieties of alien, all of which seem to be superior to humans. Feeling threatened, the humans fought back - literally - and were pretty much losing when a treaty was struck and an organization to police the aliens was formed. The main character, Mia Snow works for the New Chicago Police Department as an 'alien huntress'. I don't get why it's New Chicago, but this is sci-fi so you have to have the city renamed with the new prefix, right? It's the law! Why she's a 'huntress' rather than a 'hunter' I don't get either. Do women need to be especially labeled to pigeon-hole them as women rather than as people? Gena Showalter seems to think so. Why is she a 'huntress' at all? Why not a detective - or a detectivess in this case? LOL!

The story starts with an alien serial killer. The evidence points to a female Arcadian. Why the alien race is named after residents of the highlands in the middle of the Peloponnese in ancient Greece, I have no idea. I'm guessing Showalter doesn't either. The name just sounds cool, right? The body is a muscular male with dark hair. He's found naked and posed and tied with ribbons - which is why the idiot detectives insist it had to have been a female who did it. No male would ever use a ribbon, right? Genderism and pigeon-holing seems to be the order of the day in this future. "She" is identified as Arcadian by the fact that Arcadians have three hairs to each root as opposed to the single hair per follicle every other species evidently has. Et in Arcadia ego grew three hairs, apparently.

None of this could have been possibly, planted, could it? I'm sorry, but this story started out stupid and got worse. I ditched it DNF and moved on to something much better written and far more entertaining. I cannot recommend this one, and I'm done with this author!

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Rating: WARTY!

I should have known I would not like this book, but when I requested the audio book from the library, I didn't know it was a Newbery winner or I wouldn't have bothered. Medal-winning novels have been very nearly a consistent waste of time for me. I deliberately put them back on the shelf if they have some medal listed on the cover. This one turned out to be no different from nearly all of my previous experiences!

The biggest problem with dystopian novels is the utter lack of rational explanation as to how the world actually became dystopian in the first place. Most dystopian novels simply take it as a given - this is how the world is, and vaguely wave their hand at some tragic past, such as nuclear war, or disease pandemic, but this fails for me because while it explains that the world changed dramatically, it fails to explain why it changed in the way the author depicts it did. The author of the Divergent disaster, for example (who evidently borrowed heavily from this novel), simply took the brain-dead position that "Hey, it's perfectly natural that people would automatically migrate, like sheep, into one of five ridiculous factions, and we're expected to accept that all humans are alike, all conform readily, there's only one rebel, and no one else ever questions anything. That's major BS right there. Humans are not like that and it's an insult to the human race to suggest that everyone is.

In this novel, which is part of a connected series I'm sorry to say, everyone lives in supposed communist conformity, and children are assigned at age twelve into one of a limited number of assignments which last a lifetime. No one complains, no one rebels, and those who feel they don't fit will request to be forced into "release" - which is that they're murdered. Sorry but this won't work. It doesn't even make any sense.

In this world, all pain and hunger and suffering are taken away, but the "price" for this is the loss of music, art, and other human expressions of joy, such as love? Nonsense! They can't even see - or at least don't even know - what colors are? Seriously? It doesn't work in such a literal black and white manner, and it's not so much naïve to believe it would, as it's profoundly ignorant on the part of an author to even think that it does and that we as readers, would swallow this crap.

Perhaps a better writer might have made this work, but this author fails because the writing is utterly boring. It's so boring in fact that the audio book creators felt the dire need to inject irritating, jarring, monotonous musical interludes randomly into the text. Where those in the original novel? Did you open page 55 and suddenly a piano trilled forth? I seriously doubt it. So what is on the unimaginative brains of these imbeciles that - in a story where music is banned - a mind-numbingly mediocre musical measure or two are injected over the narration? You can't get that dumb naturally. You actually have to really want it and fight for it, to get it as chronic as these guys had it.

But even without that pain in the eardrum, even had I been reading it, I would have found myself skipping over paragraph after paragraph because it wasn't remotely interesting. Did I really want to listen to, in the space of four short paragraphs:

And today, now that the new Elevens had been advanced this morning, there were two Eleven-nineteens...Very soon he would not be an Eleven but a Twelve...Asher was a four, and sat now in the row ahead of Jonas. He would receive his Assignment fourth....Fiona, Eighteen, was on his left; on his other side sat Twenty...

I'd rather listen to paint drying. It's much more restful. I'm sorry but I can't get into a novel that plods the way this one does, with nothing happening save for one long info-dump of a set-up which occupied over half the story. Yes the novel - novella, whatever - is short, but it's still way too long for my taste. Any hopeful young writer who came out with this garbage as a first effort today would rightly have it rejected, yet it won a medal? For what?! The music?! It just goes to show how utterly worthless a Newbery is. I can't recommend it based on what I listened to, which was far too much. A real dystopian society would make you listen to books like this.

Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch

Rating: WARTY!

This audio book, poorly read by Julia Whelan, failed to get my attention despite my twice trying to get with it. It simply wasn't interesting, and the story made no sense. It wasn't even that original - it's another we v. they story, in this case scientists (The Colloquium) v. magicians (The unoriginally named 'Magisterium'), but the scientists, as represented by main female character, 16-year-old Glenn Morgan were so caricatured that they weren't even remotely realistic. The author would have us swallow the idiotic creationist position that science is blind and dogmatic and interested only in preserving the status quo, whereas the Magisterium is open to intuitive learning, which is nonsensical in real life. You can't "know" anything - not in any meaningful sense - without a scientific approach. You can blindly believe, and you can think you know, and you can fool yourself into 'knowing', but you can't really know.

In any story where magic is permitted, you're automatically throwing out the rulebook, which is why writers of such stories have to come up with rather arbitrary rules which the magicians have to follow, and unless they're done well, it fails. Usually there is no cost attached to performing magic in these stories, but then again it's magic, so why would there be? On the other hand, if there's no cost, then anyone can do anything and your story lacks any imperative, risk, or danger. There was no magic performed in the portion of the story to which I listened, so I can't speak to that here. I can only say it was boring to me, so I DNF'd it and moved onto something which turned out to be much more entertaining. Life's too short, y'know?!

Priceless by Nicole Richie

Rating: WARTY!

In which a spoiled-rotten rich kid discovers that her father is a crook and she's tossed out of house and home, losing everything except a few thousand dollars she can get from pawning her mom's jewelry. But she falls squarely on her feet anyway. I was hoping to be entertained by this because yes, it's that Nicole Ritchie, who has been there and done that in terms of living a spoiled brat's life. I thought she might bring some authenticity and realism to the story, but in the end all she delivered was exactly what every other author who writes in this genre delivers: a snotty spoiled-brat main character who is shallow and stupid, who falls into one lucky situation after another, who inevitably finds romance, and who learns nothing, grows none, and changes her perspective not a whit.

I have to say I really kind of expected that shallowness, but I was curious as to how a writer who had been there and done that would depict that life as opposed to a writer who really had no idea and was just wishful thinking, and dropping fashion names at every turn out of pure pretension. It turns out that Ritchie is just dropping fashion names at every turn, so there's no difference! I'd thought that maybe someone who was used to having that stuff around them would be less obsessed with it, but that's evidently not the case.

I thought maybe she might offer a better or more realistic perspective too, but she's just as shallow and blinkered as every other writer on these topics. It's really sad, because on the back cover there's this gorgeous soulful portrait of the author, yet underneath that pretty veneer is the most disappointing underbelly imaginable. It's such a contrast.

Despite the fact that her father stole the savings of thousands of people, this character in the novel is more interested in going shopping than in having any real concern about it, let alone in actually trying to do anything about it. Plus the SEC guy is falling in lust with her and she with him. For about half the novel it was interesting in some regards, although less than I'd hoped for, and in the end it was less and less the more I read. I ditched it as a DNF and I cannot recommend it. I'm done reading anything by Nicole Ritchie.

The Obsidian Blade by Pete Hautman

Rating: WARTY!

Read by Joshua Swanson, who doesn't do a bad job, this library audio book started out very intriguingly. I found myself wondering how useful obsidian would be for a blade. It's a material rather like glass, and so is readily shattered, but there are finds of obsidian being used historically for arrow heads. It can be chipped to a very sharp edge, so maybe an obsidian blade isn't such a stretch.

I have to say that the story caught my interest right off the bat. This kid Tucker is out in the yard and his father, who is a man of the church, is on the roof fixing a broken shingle. When Tucker hears a cry, he runs out thinking his dad fell off the roof, but dad is nowhere to be seen. What Tucker does see is what appears to be a shimmering disk hovering at the edge of the roof. Hmm!

His dad shows up later with a young girl in tow, whom he says he found in town. He denies all Tucker's suggestions that he fell off the roof, which is odd to Tucker, who is used to telling lies to get himself out of trouble, but who isn't used to his dad doing the same thing. Dad says that the girl, Lahlia is in need of adoption, but she seems rather strange and doesn't talk other than to say Tucker's name. His dad has also bizarrely lost his faith, now no longer believing there is a God. It turns out that Tucker's mom was also adopted, and it seems pretty obvious from the start that that both she and Lahlia, the new girl, come from a parallel dimension, which means that Tucker is half from this dimension and half from the other. Okay, I'm hooked!

So far so good, but the novel began to go downhill, and I had a few questions. Take the girl's name, for example. If she isn't talking, then how does anyone know her name, much less the spelling of it? I actually didn't know the spelling myself, which is one problem with audio books, but why is it Lahlia, instead of say, Laleah? Did she write it down for them?! The way the reader pronounces it makes it seem much more like the latter than the former to me. Obviously it's that way because the author chose it to be that way, but this is a writing issue worthy of some consideration for budding authors. To me, names are important in fiction.

Talking of writing issues, there was another curious one. When Tucker's parents disappear with an oddly uninformative note (obviously they've gone back to the other parallel world from which Tucker's mom hailed, but he doesn't know this and takes a tedious amount of time to figure out), Tucker learns that his uncle, who is known as Kosh, will take care of him in their absence. Shortly after they meet, I read this sentence: "He walked towards Tucker, stopped about eight feet away, and peered at him closely." I am trying to figure out how you peer at someone closely from eight feet away. I think I know what the writer was trying to convey, but to me he did it in a poor way. Just a thought from a writing perspective! Plus this 'initial' meeting makes little sense given what's coming later.

That "peering" reminded me of a character from the TV show, Heroes and the subsequent miniseries, which evidently failed to launch successfully. Character Matt Parkman can read minds, but the actor's portrayal of this made me laugh. When he was trying to catch someone's thoughts, he would frown and cock his head and push his head forwards, and it just looked ridiculous to me - as ridiculous as the head twist the 'wesen' characters do when changing faces in the TV show Grimm, which I think looks equally ridiculous, although I love that show. I call it the Sergeant Wu show because he's the most entertaining character in it, talking of facial expressions. But I digress! I imagined this Matt Parkman act when I read that sentence about Kosh, so it made me laugh too. This was probably not the effect the author was seeking!

These shimmering disks or lenses of air show up wherever Tucker goes, which seems to me to be too much unless he is somehow causing, triggering, or attracting them. That was a possibility, so I let that ride, but the first time Tucker travels through one, he ends up atop one of the twin towers in New York city right before the first jetliner hits. What are the odds of that? I have to say I have little time for uninventive time-travel stories which have their characters arrive at critical points in history (typically US history for US stories, and so on) or have them meet famous and influential characters. What are the odds of that? It seems to me to be a lazy way to write such a novels - picking an easy target rather than doing the work of writing a more realistic and more creative story with unknowns from history.

Worse than this though was how Tucker came to be there. How did the wormhole (or whatever it is), link the top of his uncle's barn to the top of the WTC? He was nowhere near NYC geographically, and nowhere near the elevation of the towers vertically, so how did this work? And why were the disks always up in the air - and conveniently next to a roof? Why were the spiritual beings known as Klaatu? Was that short for Klaatu barada nikto?! Maybe an explanation would be forthcoming. I had to keep on listening to find out, but I soon grew tired of unanswered questions and nonsensical rambling about the Klaatu and the wormholes. The story made less sense as it went on, rather than more sense, and I ditched it after a while as a DNF because I couldn't stand to listen to any more. I can't recommend this one. And I never did find out what the obsidian blade had to do with anything - doubtlessly because I dropped this one. Worse, though, is that this is a series, and I'm not a fan of series, especially not ones which start out so badly!

Where Silence Gathers by Kelsey Sutton

Rating: WARTY!

This is a curious novel wherein the main character, Alexandra, can see emotions/impulses as physical beings which manifest mostly as white men for reasons unknown. This seemed rather racist to me. It's a companion novel to an earlier one set in the same world, but with different characters. I have not read the previous volume.

Alexandra's almost constant companion and pseudo-best friend for many years has been one named Revenge, who has been with her ever since her family was killed by a drunk driver. When Revenge tells her that Nate Foster has been released from jail for good behavior, she takes the gun she knows her uncle keeps hidden, and sets out for Nate's home, but she only spies on him through a window. She doesn't act. She does see a new emotion there, but cannot identify it, and she leaves. Are these things all really emotions? That's how they're described in the novel, but there is quite a variety, most of whom spend very little time with Alexandra. They seem more like fleeting impulses to me!

Anyway, when she returns the next night, Nate isn't home, and his wife is crying in the kitchen. This is when Alexandra meets the new emotion face-to-face and discovers that it's Forgiveness. She also learns that her father could apparently see these characters in the same way that she can. She had never known this before. Her life has been on a downhill spiral, and no one, not her aunt and uncle, not her two best friends in high school, nor anyone else seems to have any clue where her head is at, but now, with this new information, maybe she can turn herself around? Who cares, really? She was an obnoxious, self-obsessed, whiny-ass brat, and I sure didn't.

One thing which made little sense to me was the almost constant companionship which Revenge provided. There is supposedly only one of each emotion (at least from what I saw), and they arrive fleetingly when needed and disappear afterwards, so how come Revenge gets to spend so much time with her? Was he not needed anywhere else in the world? Maybe they have only white revenge in the US, but in Africa there is black revenge, or maybe one for each nation? One for each race? The novel never makes this clear. Maybe it's covered in the first volume. I really don't care that much.

I came across a writing issue here - obscure text. At one point I read, "I refuse to let how much his presence affects me show." It was so curious I had to read it twice more before I fully grasped what it was saying. Wouldn't it have been better to write, "I refuse to let show how much his presence affects me"? One simple change and it improves readability immensely. At least to me it does. This is the value of good editing, which is all on you if you're self-publishing. It's a big burden to carry.

The writing, though, wasn't the real problem, not from a technical PoV. The real problem was the unending tedium of listening to the main character's obsessive-compulsive wallowing, which made me detest her. I ditched this novel as a DNF. I can't recommend it and I'm done with this author.