The Demon Girl’s Song by Susan Jane Bigelow

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an excellent novel which I fell in love with quickly and which I highly recommend. The main character is a lesbian who doesn't fully realize it to begin with, but this is not your typical LGBTQ novel. Nether is it an historical romance, although there is romance in it, nor your usual fantasy. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have liked it. It's not a ridiculous YA love triangle of a novel. Thankfully there are no triangles here! It's a novel about a woman who has an adventure, and she doesn't need to be validated in it by male or female. I was so pleased with that! Finally an author who gets it! This woman is my idea of a strong female character done to perfection. That doesn't mean she doesn't have moments of weakness or doubt. It doesn't mean she doesn't need friends or lovers. It means she can take it or leave it and she does just fine on on her own.

The story is set in the early twentieth century it would seem, but it's hard to tell because it's in a parallel world - one of magic and empires, and the world is nicely fleshed out. The main character, Andín is possessed by a demon - accidentally - or maybe not! (It's not remotely like "The Exorcist" as it happens!). This demon isn't outright evil - not in a psychotic fashion like in the Exorcist anyway. He's occupied the rulers of the empire for a thousand years, moving from father to son (or whoever is the heir) as the father dies, and expanding the empire with an iron fist, but now a wizard has tricked him into going into this peasant girl instead of into the emperor's son.

When the demon talks Andín into going to the capital and manages to wangle a meeting with the new emperor, he discovers he's been deliberately tricked by the palace wizard, and he's stuck inside this girl's mind. Even if the girl dies, he can't get back into the ruling family. But now the girl and her demon have been exiled from the entire empire, which meant a train journey of several days to cross the border into a mountain kingdom many miles from the capital. The oddest thing about this however is the weird empty shape they see in the wasteland as they cross the border - maybe it's a portal to somewhere. I have a feeling the girl is going to find out, and also going to meet the woman who sat beside her when the demon first occupied her. Yes, for the demons, it's occupy peasant week. They don't have a wall street, you see!

I loved the main character Andín - in a platonic way of course! She's only seventeen after all, but she's about to go on a life-altering quest, and she isn't the only one who will change. So, too, will the demon. Will she end up more like him, or will he become like her? Or will they meet in the middle? And if so, what then? Well, if this is any clue, here's how she responds to a noise in the night: "She checked around the bed and picked up the little pen she kept on her nightstand. If some strange man were to come at her, she could stab him in the eye with it." Shades of Jason Bourne!

The story is masterfully written! I'd say mistressfully, but that just doesn't sound right unfortunately! How sad is that? It's paced perfectly, relationships grow and change organically, it's very well-written, and the story never once got boring. There was always something new around the corner, and Andín's growth was perfectly reasonable.

On a technical level, and while this novel was well formatted for the Kindle app on my phone, there were a couple of issues with the chapter headers towards the end. It seemed like the intention was to use the possessive, but the titles ended up looking like this instead:
Chapter 20 Judyís Sword
Chapter 23 Shashalnikyaís Trail
Chapter 27 The Demon Girlís Song.

Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better fantasy novel, and I'm not really a fan of fantasy unless it's done really well. This one was. It was understated and nicely depicted. I was very pleased to have been granted a chance to read this advance review copy and I fully recommend it. I look forward to this author's next work. I hope it comes, like this one, with great expedition!

City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

Rating: WARTY!

I got this audiobook from the library, and having seen the movie a while ago thought it might be interesting to read - or listen to - the book. It wasn't. The movie wasn't that great, but I don't recall it being entirely without merit. This audiobook failed to grab my attention. It's the start of a successful series, but it's for younger children and it failed to move me. I'm not a fan of series, but I'm willing to make an exception for something exceptional, which this wasn't.

It's about an artificial city wherein live people who know nothing about the artifice, but the city is coming to the end of its life. No good reason is given why it has a lifespan. This is quite a short novel, but instead of getting into it, the story rambles and meanders and wanders around, and I had zero interest in following this drunken walk. if it had been an interesting or funny ramble, I might have meandered along with it, but no. I couldn't. I can't recommend this, but I experience very little of it, Your mileage on your drunken walk may differ!

Street Magicks by various authors

Rating: WARTY!

This book came to me under false pretenses! Yes, I requested it, but it was listed on Net Galley under 'Comics & Graphic, Sci Fi & Fantasy', and it's not - it's not graphic at all, that is. It's actually a collection of short stories - all text and no illustration. I don't go in for such collections because they tend to be boring. I was only interested because I'd thought it was a series of short graphic stories, but now I'm saddled with it, and it did not disappoint: when I read it, I found it largely uninteresting as I've consistently found such collections. I have a theory about this.

About 75% of the way through the book, I realized that one of the problems with it was that I wasn't really getting into the stories. In a way, I was doing this on purpose because I knew the story would be over before I truly got into it, even if I liked it, and this wasn't doing me any good. I had no incentive to invest in the story or the characters, and this is precisely why I don't read collections of short stories! I had thought that a graphic version might be different, but of course this wasn't a graphic version.

In fact, in theory(!), a collection like this ought to have something going for it, because some of the author's names were impressive: Elizabeth Bear, Jim Butcher, Charles de Lint, and Neil Gaiman jumped out at me (not literally, Silly!). You'd think people who are doing as well as they are could afford to put out their short stories for free, just as a generous gesture to celebrate their success and thank their readers! I know I would. It occurred to me though, that the reason these well-known authors were scattered in amongst the lesser-knowns is that this was really a vehicle to get the lesser-knowns' stories out there by attracting people using the better-knowns.

On the other hand, maybe the better-knowns contributed their stories for free in order to give exposure to the lesser-known authors? That's a generous gesture if it's true, but I have no idea if it is and on a personal level, it still did nothing to make these stories any more palatable to me. Maybe others will have more success with them than I did. I hope so. For m, though, when reading a collection like this written by one author, you know what you're in for, and if you don't like it after three or four stories you can quit knowing you gave it a fair chance. You can't do that when every story is by a different author. You have to at least try each one. Here was my experience with this collection, edited by by Paula Guran:

Freewheeling by Charles de Lint struck me as a pointless story about a delusional kid who was shot by police. I read it the whole way through and found it had nothing new or particularly interesting to say. A disappointing start.

A Year and a Day in Old Theradane was a wizard fantasy by Scott Lynch which held no interest for me.

Caligo Lane by Ellen Klages was a story about a witch creating a map in old San Francisco, but it was not something that appealed to me. It rambled on with little to say and was far too obsessed with the minutiae of creating maps. The graphic novel format might have improved this, but that's just Format's last theorem. Talk about cart a graphic!

Socks by Delia Sherman was the first story to grab my interest. 'Socks' is the nickname of a young girl whose feet smell. She lives in a home for orphaned children where everyone has to pull their weight. A new girl arrives and fascinates Socks, but then the girl leaves, having cured her foot odor problem. That's about it. It doesn't sound very interesting when put like that, but it was an imaginative story well told, even though it really didn't have much of a place to go.

Painted Birds and Shivered Bones by Kat Howard is the story of an artist who thinks she might be going crazy when she observes a naked man transform into a bird. This man, it turns out is cursed to keep transforming back and forth and he becomes the artist's muse for a whole new collection of paintings, which bring her great success. The story wasn't bad, but it really didn't do much for me, and it was at this point I decided I was not necessarily going to read all of every story in this collection!

The Goldfish Pond and Other Stories by Neil Gaiman was the first one I skipped because once I began it, I found it to be deadeningly dull, and I had no interest in pursuing it. I've liked some works by Gaiman, but it would seem, overall, that he's not an author for me. This story was full of boring details about making a visit to Los Angeles to discuss making a movie out of a novel he'd written. It was purportedly fictional, but it felt like it was autobiographical and I wasn't interested in unoriginal observations of Hollywood. I took issue with this: "People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and more time and more work than you'd believe." Nonsense! if you're working that hard then writing isn't for you! Yes, I can see the value of research on some occasions for some novels, but then I'm not one of those people who adores the realism in Tom Clancy novels or the verisimilitude in David Weber sci-fi. I find it tedious. There's only one novel I've written that honestly felt like work, and that one is sitting on hold waiting for me to evaluate whether it's worth finishing! I think that if it feels like work, then you're either doing it wrong or you're in the wrong profession altogether.

One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King by Elizabeth Bear aka Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky

I didn't like the title of this story and would have avoided it purely because it gave me a feeling of mild nausea and powerful boredom. But I had to give it a try! I had read and liked The Jenny Casey trilogy: Hammered, Scardown, and Worldwired, but not enough to want to immediately chase down everything she wrote to read it voraciously. As it happens, I could not get into this one. It bored me from the start. I'm willing to give a novel a lot of pages to bring me in, but I feel no such compulsion with a short story. There's too little space to waste. If you don't get me in the first couple of pages, you've likely lost me, and especially so if your story starts out way overly dramatic. This one failed on both counts. I can't tell you what it's about except that it started on the Hoover Dam with an accident - or, given the title, perhaps a suicide.

Street Worm by Nisi Shawl
When I first read this title I thought it had said "Street Worn" and it smacked of 'too cool for school', like Lou Reed's Street Hassle title for one of his albums - same effect. Transformer was better! But I digress. The title isn't 'Worn', it's 'Worm' so this improved my perspective somewhat. The story did bring me in quickly. It's about a young rebellious girl who can see worms on buildings. Is she insane, or does she have a view of the world with which most people are not privileged - or cursed? I liked the story well enough but the ending was abrupt and rather odd given the build-up.

A Water Matter by Jay Lake
This was amusing because of the title and the author's last name, but then came the fact that no one in the story had a name - only a title. There was The Dancing Mistress, the Girl Assassin, the Duke of Copper Downs and on and on. I started feeling like I didn't want to be there pretty quickly, so this is another one which I largely skipped. The tone was too playful for the content, too.

Last Call by Jim Butcher was the one I was really looking forward to, but sadly, it was a Harry Dresden story. I have no time for the man. I loved Butcher's Codex Alera series, even though I typically refuse to read series with pretentious words like 'codex' in the title (or 'cycle', or 'chronicles', or 'saga', or other such names), but I can't stand his wizard series, so I skipped this one unread. I was hoping for something new and different in a short story but apparently Butcher isn't up to it. I have a theory about this business of slipping a short story based on your series into a collection like this, which I shall go into later.

Bridle by Caitlín R Kiernan
This one turned me off in line three when it mentioned 'unseelie'. Nevertheless, I skimmed the next few pages. It turned out to be the selfsame lost cause I'd feared. I'm not a fan of 'seelie' or 'faerie'. Actually I'd be more of a fan of the latter if the authors had the guts to call it 'fairy' instead of dancing away from it, like 'faerie' is something to take seriously, whereas 'fairy' is absolutely not! That this was first person PoV did not help.

The Last Triangle by Jeffrey Ford came next. Finally here was a story which took hold of my attention not because it was bizarre or quirky, but because there was a actually something going on. It moved quickly, too. Sadly, it was first person PoV, but I tried not to hold that against it given how much it had taken my interest hostage. In this one, a junkie crosses paths with a woman on a quest, and she offers him a place to stay, and food, as long as he keeps clean; then she asks him to keep a look-out in town for an obscure symbol which she has seen appearing on buildings. She has a theory that they come in threes and mark an equilateral triangle when plotted on a map. Maybe she has a point...! This was the most interesting one in the whole collection this far, but it still lacked sufficient gripping power to make it stay with me, I knew as I finished it that I would forget it quickly.

Working for the God of Love and Money by Australian author Kaaron Warren
This was very short and not very engaging. It was a about a man who was trapped into working for the god of the title - who had his 'boy' con coins out of people (paper money was no good). He would melt them down and immerse himself into the molten metal, after which he would rise up from it with a new suit covering him. There was no explanation given for why he did this. The boy, who is the man, comes up with a way to free himself from this god. That's it! It was much less than I had hoped for given how this initially began, and it quickly fell from grace with me. I wasn't sure, when I first started reading it, if the god was actually a god or if it was just a person whom the main character perceived as being godlike. This confusion didn't help the story.

Hello, Moto by Nnedi Okorafor
This is, unfortunately, a first person PoV story about magic. The weakness of the 1PoV approach is once again highlighted as the author switches voice so we can observe another character in third person. I am so tired of this sloppy technique that I quit reading this particular story at that point. It was a bit of a mess anyway.

The Spirit of the Thing: a Nightside Story by Simon R Green
The fact that this story was subtitled "A Nightside Story" suggested it was like the Jim Butcher story - a short story from a novel series, and since Simon Green evidently writes only series, this didn't bode well for this story. With very few exceptions, I am not a series fan, and I don't feel comfortable with an effort to drag me into a world with which I have no familiarity and little to no interest in, by means of a short story published in a collection. I skipped this story on principle. It was the same as the Jim Butcher story in this regard.

A Night in Electric Squidland by Sarah Monette
I have to confess a soft spot for writers named Sarah since it's one of my favorite names. As Bishop Goddard Larsen might say, "I've known several people named Sara(h) and been fond of them all." But that title? It turned me off to be honest. This story is about Mick Sharpton, who has clairvoyant powers. He can feel the personality of a person on things he touches, and can see some sort of aura over a person's head. He works with Jamie Keller for the Bureau of Paranormal investigations. Why is it always a bureau?! The two of them are called into a new case - a person has been found cut in half - longitudinally. It's connected with the Electric Squidland nightclub, where a person disappeared some time before. Evidently something weird and horrible is going on there. The problem was that the story kind of fizzled towards the end, and dissolved into attempts to shock with sex and gore, and horror which wasn't particularly sexy, or gory or horrible. But overall, the story wasn't bad. It just wasn't good, either.

Speechless in Seattle by Lisa Silverthorne
Okay, I admit this title amused me! And Lisa Silverthorne is a pretty cool name for an author, but the story was very trope magic - almost like it was lifted bodily from Harry Potter. It was a bit like reading a fanfic from someone who had morphed Seamus Finnigan and professor Quirrell together. The idea of a wizard who stutters and has to craft spells using language would have been an intriguing and entertaining material for a novel, but this was not that story. It was less a magic story than it was a romance, so I felt that the initial concept had been betrayed or at least sidelined by an inexplicable need to have the main character get himself a girlfriend. Why does this trope fill so many stories? Cannot men and women stand on their own? It's tedious and the story was too short for it, so I didn't like it on that principle alone, aside form any other issues. This 'love' had nowhere to go and no room to breathe.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M Valente
This was more of a poem than a story, and I have no idea what it is about even though I read it through (it was very short). It was really just a description of a place, so there really was no story there. I didn't like it at all.

Ash by John Shirley
This last story actually started out promising to be interesting, then it reached a point where I was convinced I knew what was going on. It reminded me of a play I wrote ages ago, but the ending was so unclear that I honestly don't know if I figured out what had happened or not. Either way the story wasn't holding my interest.

So overall, while I expected to at least like one or two stories reasonably well, in general terms, I found this whole collection to be less than desirable I'm sorry to say. I was disappointed that it wasn't what I expected, and then even more disappointed that these stories failed to really grab my attention. I cannot recommend this one.

Graphic Classics Romeo and Juliet by Gareth Hinds

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this to be somewhat rudimentary in illustration (and bizarre in parts, and unintentionally amusing in others), but very well done overall. It's a graphic novel based on Shakespeare's famous play, as written by Francis Bacon (yeah right! LOL!). One thing which hit me was that the appearance of the text in speech balloons and descriptive text boxes, really focused my attention on Shakespeare's words - and all the classic lines are here:

• Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
• My only love sprung from my only hate
• That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet
• O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
• But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun
• Parting is such sweet sorrow
• A plague o' both your houses!
• ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man

Despite it being in fair Verona where we lay our scene, there are few Italians on view be warned! The illustrations show largely dark-skinned and moderately dark-skinned people. Juliet is predictably lighter than is Romeo the rebel. Not that Italians can't be dark-skinned of course, but I'd wager they were a lot more scarce than depicted here in the era when this play is set.

Some obscure words were defined at the bottom of the page on which they appeared, but a lot of Shakespeare's wording/meaning also went uncommented, so this struck me as a bit patchy. Fortunately I'm familiar enough with Shakespeare that this was not a problem, but it occurs to me that it might be for people who are approaching this who are new to Shakespeare - the language is not modernized at all.

The story is well-known: Romeo Montague, pining for Rosaline, a niece of Lord Capulet, goes to a party at the house of his mortal enemies, where he meets Juliet Capulet, whose parents want married off to Count Paris. When she meets Romeo, all other priorities are cast from her mind as they are from Romeo's, too, who now has no feelings for Rosaline at all. That's how fickle he is! After knowing each other for five minutes, these two declare their love and plan to marry, despite Juliet being thirteen, and her own father having just talked Paris into waiting for another two years at least. Yes, Romeo and Juliet are morons, but that said, the play makes for a fun read, awash in Shakespeare's cheesy puns.

It goes wrong, of course. Juliet is to take a potion which will give her an affectation of death. When she has been interred in the family vault, the padre will send Romeo to her and the two of them can run away together. Well, Romeo doesn't get the message and the padre is delayed reaching the church. Romeo thinks Juliet is dead and takes a potion he'd had prepared when he first heard of her 'death'. He dies, and When Juliet wakes up, she stabs herself with his dagger. Thus endeth the lesson. I recommend this for anyone who is interested in the Shakespeare lite version of this play.

Manga Classics Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Crystal Chan, Stacy King, Nokman Poon

Rating: WORTHY!

I've never read Great Expectations, and in a way I still haven't, since this is a necessarily expurgated graphic novel version, but I have to admit after reading this, I'm interested in the original - so this one did its job! I'd never been interested before, until this version came along. It was well-written (edited! The original story adaptation was by by Crystal S Chan, the English translation by Stacy King) and nicely drawn. The illustrations by Nokman Poon were black & white line drawings.

One thing I don't get about some manga is the backwards format. Yes, I get it that if we're taking a novel originally written for Japanese audiences, blanking out the speech balloons and so on, and filling then with English text, then it necessarily runs backwards, but when it's created for an English market it makes no sense. In this case this was a translation, but it was still odd, because at the back - where it begins - the header for chapter one appeared on the left, and the text 'following' it appeared on the right - completely contrary to the instructions that had appeared on the pages immediately before! After that, though, it followed the reverse format faithfully.

The story follows Pip, who despite being an apprentice for a blacksmith, has a chance to taste the high life at the manor of Miss Haversham, a twisted woman who wears her wedding dress - every day - so as not to forget how much she hates the man who left her at the altar having taken her money instead of her hand. She's raising her adopted daughter to hate men too - and to take revenge on them for the hurt Miss Haversham has suffered. Estella appears to be learning the lesson well.

Pip become involved with escaped convict Magwitch and helps to smuggle him out of the country. Later, he finds himself the beneficiary of a stipend which pays for him to get a higher education. He becomes friends with a guy he earlier did not hit it off with (so to speak) and learns to be a real gentlemen, but there are undercurrents pulling very which way in Pip's life and he has no handle on them. All is revealed over the course of the story, and he is surprised by how much his life is entwined with the lives of others whom he had no idea he was connected.

I really liked this, and I recommend it for people like me, who had no interest in the original novel, or were maybe nervous about taking it on.

Oxford Portraits Mary Wollstonecraft: Mother of Women's Rights by Miriam Brody

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this walking through the library in the entrance to the children's section, but this is way too dense and involved for young children - unless they're exceptionally precocious readers. It's more of a late middle-grade to young adult read. It details the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, who was a pioneer in women's rights at a time when women were held in Biblical-style ownership, giving up all rights to their husband upon marriage. They had no rights to property, no right to vote, and no money. If they were even lucky enough to get a divorce from a bad husband they were out of home and gave up their children, and probably would have been shunned by their parents, too,. for "bringing disgrace" upon the family name.

Wollstonecraft had an at best unhappy, and at worst miserable childhood. Her father was a drunk who squandered the family fortune. her mother was unsupportive, and it became obvious to Wollstonecraft that she was going to have to make her own way in life - something she had no problem with as it happened. She tried to start a school with her two sisters but realized quickly that while she loved her sisters, she could not stand to be in that close of a proximity to them for very long!

She eventually became known for her writing and became famous after she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects in 1792, but her life was never destined to be a completely happy one. She traveled in France during the French revolution and "married" Gilbert Imlay - an American. They were never actually married (she had written strongly against it in Vindication), and they were merely posing as married. He treated her poorly and abandoned her when she became pregnant. She raised her daughter Fanny, alone, but had the help of a servant/nurse whom she hired with her earnings

She traveled in Scandinavia and wrote a series of letters which were also published and won her more fans. It was after her return to England after this that she met (actually, re-met!) the man she would finally feel was her true match: William Godwin. Despite the fact that both of them has written treatises which derided marriage, they married and Wollstonecraft became pregnant with the girl who would grow to be Mary Shelley. But she died a few days after giving birth to Mary at the sadly youthful age of thirty eight.

This biography gives plenty of detail and commentary, and it pulls no punches. It's well researched and includes quotes from letters both written by Wollstonecraft, and written about her. I loved it and recommend it for both adults and young readers - but not too young!

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

Rating: WORTHY!

This audio book was a major disappointment. It began well and really drew me in quickly, but around halfway, when it ought to have been picking up speed for the David and Goliath-style grand finale, it just fizzled away into tedium and nonsense and became insufferable. I gave up on it. I have to say I would not have listened for as long as I did were it not for the excellent and talented reading voice of Carrington MacDuffie. Kudos to her!

This is book one in a series and I have no interest in listening to any more. I have no idea why it would even become a series, either, for that matter, but as I said, I did not finish it, so maybe there's something there at the end which gives some sort of reason for the book to go on to a second volume, however weak. I don't care what it is!

Here's one problem with audio books. If a word is unfamiliar to the listener - and this especially applies to names! - or if the word sounds like one you know but is actually a different word, there's no way to tell what word was used or how it was spelled, so I am relying on some research in Google books for the spelling of the character's names. Set in the period of the early days of the French revolution, this novel begins with a small troupe of entertainers being invited to the house of Marquis de Villeduval for a well-paid private performance. Yann Margoza, one of the three in the troupe, counsels against going, but the leader, Topolain insists upon it. He is signing his own death warrant by doing so, because also in attendance is and Count Kalliovski, who shoots Topolain dead by "accident" during his performance of his "bullet proof routine

This is the first thing which ticked me off about the story: I never did learn what it was between Kalliovski and Topolain which led to this. It may be that it was covered in the part I skipped, but I listened to a lot of this and it never came up. Either that or I was so focused on driving at the time it was revealed, that I missed it! Maybe the author kept this for volume two which would have ticked me off even more!

Topolain's death leaves Yann and the dwarf member of the troupe, Têtu (which is actually the French word for 'stubborn') running for their lives because evidently - again, I know not why - the Count is out for them too, and they'll be out for the count if they don't get away. Somehow, out of this, it winds up that Yann, who has started falling for the Marquis's daughter, Sido, ends up going to England. I have no explanation for how this happened. I'd been seeing this woman's name as Çideaux or Sideaux. Maybe Sido is short for Sidonie or maybe it's short for Do-si-do! I don't know!

The count has been loaning large sums of money to the marquis, but he knows he's not going to get it back. What he wants instead is Sido's dowry and eventually he forces the marquis to effectively sell her off in marriage, whereupon he will kill her and keep her fortune. Back then, women were essentially property. In some parts of the world this hasn't changed even today. They had no rights, no vote, no say, and could own nothing. Sido was money int he bank to the trope evil count, and nothing else.

The second thing which ticked me off was that the count is all set to marry Sido, and then suddenly two years are gone and we're with Yann in England. When we get back to France, Sido still isn't married! This made no sense to me, and again no reason was given for it - not in the part I listened to. It was at this point that the quality of the story began a rapid decline, and I lost all interest in it, so I can't speak for what happened after that. I can't recommend this base don my experience of it, despite the MacDuffie voice!

The Complete Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Leah Moore, John Reppion

Rating: WORTHY!

Originally published in 2005, this was adapted by Leah Moore and John Reppion, a writing team which has also adapted Dracula and at least one Sherlock Holmes story. I wondered what it means to title it "complete" if it's adapted in some way, but I don't know what adaptations were made. An interview in the back of the graphic novel suggests that there was some excision going on, but short of comparing this with the original novel, I can't say what or how much. The novel is complete in the sense that it incorporates Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (including the "lost" - at least until 1974 - chapter: "The Wasp in the Wig".

The original title for the first novel was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The novel is illustrated by Érica Awano, with colors by PC Siqueira, Ale Starling, and Jezreel Rojales. What a collection of fascinating names! The artwork here is very traditional, reminiscent of some of the original work, apart from a brief caesura between the two stories, which is illustrated in relatively drab colors and a different style. The colors are also appropriately muted in the main body of each story, each frame in a rigid box, old-style, and Alice is depicted in the now traditional blue frock with a white pinafore and Mary Janes on her feet. The dress seems to have originated in 1903 in Macmillan's "Little Folks" edition of the story.

The story follows the original faithfully, and appears to keep the important bits while dispensing with the chaff, but its been a while since I read the original (or rather, listened to). This compared favorably to Lewis Helfland's version, which I also read and liked back in September 2014. This version, however is much more traditional in style, so I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to read a graphic novel version, but also wants to feel like they're returning to the roots of the original.

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.