The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Published: October 1st 2008 by HarperCollins

Word Count: 67,380

Source: audio book

My Grade: A+

Synopsis from GoodReads: After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

This story is about a boy named Nobody Owens, Bod for short. He is raised by Mr. and Mrs. Owens, a dead couple whose graves are in the graveyard that Bod wanders into after the murder of his family. Throughout the book Bod meets and befriends lots of formerly living people who live in the graveyard. But it is never, as far as I can remember, mentioned that they are ghosts, or even spirits. It is clear that their bones lie in the ground and that they each have a headstone with their name, birth and death dates, and short epitaphs on them, but they are simply referred to as ‘the dead.’ I think this is an important distinction, because these are the people Bod lives amongst. So to him, they are not ghosts. They are simply non-living people. They are the dead.

Furthermore, Gaiman successfully presents an inquisitive infant/toddler and then a thoughtful 5 year old as Bod grows. It seems like it would be hard to depict the mind of a toddler accurately or even logically, but the light-hearted tone of the piece makes you not mind it so much as a reader. Indeed, having a main character who is younger than your target audience for a large portion of the book is always considered risky (because kids don't generally want to read about characters younger than them) but Gaiman manages to not only pull it off, but endear the reader to the little protagonist in the process.

Despite the grim or gloomy premise, the book is actually delightful. It has a certain playful quality which might be present to indicate Bod's youthful age, especially in the first half of the book. It may also be present because of the way in which Gaiman reads it, and I have seen this remarked on various websites as well.

Speaking of – what's deliciously delightful about the audio book is that it is read by the author, and he does a fabulously enjoyable job. Also, it's great to hear Gaiman read it, because you know the exact tone of the piece and can gain another level of meaning through voice inflection. In essence what the dialogue is 'really' supposed to sound like (or at least how the author envisioned it sounding). You can gain so much meaning and subtext from the way things are said, and not just from what is said. This is one of the most unique qualities of books - that we all interpret what we read differently based on our own imaginations filling in around what's on the printed page. And I like being a little bit closer to the way the author truly envisioned it by hearing him read his work. I think listening to him read had increased my enjoyment of the story. Another enjoyable experience gained from listening to the audio book is the musical intro and ending to each CD. This music is the danse macabre, an eery little folk tune strummed on banjo and a bit of violin as well. It also gives the listener a very clear idea as to what it might have sounded like at the part in the book when the living and the dead gather together on one night to 'dance the macabre.' (pronounced MAC-a-bray).

Notable Feature:

       Very episodic. Save for a few details, each chapter could pass as a self-contained short story. In fact,     Gaiman published one of the chapters as such in a book of short stories before The Graveyard Book came out. While some critics fault this method of storytelling in books and movies as a lack of skill or a shortcoming on the part of the creator, I am partial to it. I am only against it when the 'episode' does not contribute to either our understanding of the characters and their world, or to the over-arching storyline. Unfortunately this happens a lot, especially in television shows. But it does not happen here.

Favorite quote:

       Silas is Bod’s mentor in the graveyard. He is a mysterious person, described only as neither alive nor dead. I love how Gaiman uses action to portray Silas’s enigmatic and ominous character traits here:

       “Silas began to call the boy back. Then he stopped, and stood there in the night, alone. At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten. In an alphabet unimagined. Silas wrapped the shadows around him like a blanket, and stared after the way the boy had gone. And did not move to follow.” (Disc 5 track 4 5:14-5:40).

At first I didn’t think the title fit the book very well. Yes, the story is set in a graveyard but it’s not about a graveyard. It just seemed a bit too general. Then I watched a YouTube video of the author explaining how he got the idea for the book, and he also explained that title is in homage to The Jungle Book, which is also about a boy taken in and raised by unconventional creatures in an unconventional environment. When looked at in this light – in comparison to The Jungle Book – The Graveyard Books suddenly seems a less strange and more classic concept.

Despite the central conflict ending favorably for our young protagonist, the ending is still bittersweet. It could be described as a type of fall from innocence, in the literary sense of the term. A young character departing from the only thing he has ever known in order to discover the reality of life and living. But to do this he must give up almost entirely that which he has known, and yet it is not as sad and devastating to him as it perhaps is to us, the reader. Bod is ultimately excited to embark on a new adventure and take part in experiencing life. Maybe if I was a teenager reading this book I would feel more the way Bod feels at the end too. But even only having ten years on the character, I still see him from the perspective of Mistress Ownes, his mother, and am sad to see him leave the comfort of his home. I am also sad to see him loose his unique abilities, the ones that have allowed him to live comfortably in the graveyard, like fading and slipping through locked doors and the ability to see in darkness. But the loss of these abilities is symbolic of his growth and his entrance into the living world. Which, in a sense, is an allegory for what we all must do – become a part of functioning society as we mature. And just like Bod, it is something we are so eager to do when we are young.

There are a lot of unanswered questions by the end, or loopholes in the central conflict. Why did the Jacks think Bod was the boy who would fulfill the prophecy? Why was his family on their radar when they were looking out for who it would be? It’s a bit cliché that the reason for the conflict comes down to a prophecy, but I shouldn’t talk because that’s what happens in my book too.

Find it on Amazon:  The Graveyard Book 

Visit the author's website: http://www.neilgaiman.com/

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Published: October 1st 2008 by Scholastic Press

Word Count: 99,750

Source: Hardcover library book

My Grade: A

Synopsis from GoodReads: In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

The Hunger Games is a jarring reminder of the true extent of human brutality. In a modern age where we think of ourselves as more civilized and humane than our ancestors – who used kill tactics that maximized human pain and humiliation – it is easy to think that we are not essentially of the same nature as those who lived in earlier times. In this book the author suggests that if certain factors that sustain our way of life were eliminated and the situation became extreme, we could easily revert back to a primitive scale of punishment and justice.

Problems:

There needs to be a reason for why our world has fallen into a dystopian existence. If the setting is supposed to be a completely different world, fine, but this story clearly sets up its history as a society split into twelve districts that used to once be the United States. The capitol of this new nation, called Panem, resides in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, and the district from which our protagonist hails, District 12, “was once a place called Appalachia.” The author briefly hints that the reason for the destruction of society as we know it today occurred mainly because of natural disasters and the chaos that inevitably follows (p 18). But she provides no back-story as to how the Panem configuration came about.

Fantasy and Science Fiction is supposed to be escapism. When I dive into this type if book I expect a combination of excitement, adventure, mystery, magic, and discovery.  Do I really want to read about starving children and squalid communities who exist on an illicit diet of squirrel and pig guts? Not really. It’s unpleasant and makes me think there are probably places similar to the one described in this book in reality somewhere. I don’t know if the author had to make the protagonist’s environment quite so deprecating in order to get her point across.

Things I liked:

I think the mockingjay is a clever invention. The image of the mockingjay pin on the book’s front cover is a striking and memorable image.

When Katniss and Peeta arrive at the Capitol for the Games they are met with an unexpected surge of glitz and glamour. But it is only unexpected on the part of the reader. Katniss knows in part what to expect from watching previous Games on TV. However, as the uninitiated, I found the celebrity, high-profile, glossy, showy pomp and circumstance to be quite irksome considering the true reason for the hullabaloo. You would think the ‘representatives’ from each of the 12 districts had gathered for the Olympic Games rather than what is essentially a death sentence for all but one of the twenty-four tributes who are participating. The idea of such brutality going hand-in-hand with frivolity is something very foreign to our modern sensibilities, where brutality and killing is seen as savage, low, and despicable. We see the Roman gladiators of the past as misguided attempts for glory and honor and yet, in this dystopian world, are the Hunger Games not another type of gladiatorial arena where the strongest survives? I think this ancient and tabooed way of thinking placed in a futuristic society greatly contributes to the appeal of this book. It is a universal quest – the effort to understand who we were and applying that knowledge to who we will become. 

In that sense, I think this story can serve as a sort of warning. What if we forget who we were? Do we then also forget our humanity and remain in a savage state, never learning from our mistakes and transcending to a higher level of existence? Perhaps this is the idealistic historian in me, but I would like to think that this is how human nature works.

The Hunger Games is the most imaginative type of speculative fiction and a type of dystopian vision that doesn’t seem likely to come about. It feels indulgent at times, using our current reality to form what is essentially a completely fictional setting. The extent of Katniss’s and her district’s hardship - eating raw fish and game, hunting daily for survival, living in filth and squalor surrounded by emaciated people – rankles satisfyingly next to the high-tech and fanciful miracle medications that heal a third degree burn in just a week, or can erase all a person’s scars after two days.

I’m surprised this book is so popular given its graphic material and descriptions. Because of these it was not exactly my cup of tea, but I did enjoy reading it and cannot deny it is a compelling story.

Get it on Amazon: The Hunger Games

Visit the author's website: http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/

The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer

Published: May 23rd 2006 by Simon Pulse (first published 2004)
Word Count: 108,260
Medium: audio book

My Grade: B+

Synopsis from GoddReads: After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls. 

 This book could have been two-thirds or even half its length and still be satisfying. There are lots of good bits in this book that keep my attention: when Jack becomes an apprentice to the Bard, when the Northmen raid and sack Jack's village, when Jack and his little sister Lucy are captured and turned into slaves, when the Northmen Queen threatens to sacrifice Lucy to the goddess Freya unless Jack fulfills a quest. These and others are all great plots points, and they are even surrounded by little character aspects and descriptions that serve to create an idea of the world in which the book is set. However, surrounding these elements are lengths of doldrums that I could have skipped over. Like when Jack and the Bard are preparing for the Northmen's attack - it goes on for too long. They only thing that happens for a while is the waiting. Also when Jack is on his quest with Olaf and Thorgil - there is a bit much of nothing happening with lots of description. I found myself tuning out. Things like this slow down the pace and lose reader interest. I don't think I would have kept reading if I was reading the normal way instead of listening to the audio book.  

That said, there are many quality aspects to this book. First of all, the subject matter. When's the last time there was a young adult fantasy novel about Vikings and Norse mythology? And there is a lot of Norse mythology in here, which I love. The Vikings themselves are never mentioned by that name - they are only called Northmen - but that is fine, as I think 'Viking' was a late term. I'd have to look that up. Second, I appreciate the author's writing style. She consistently writes in a folktale-like style that I would think could only come from years of experience with folktales. This is subtle but undoubtedly present, and I think it serves the body of the work well, like we are in the middle of an ancient Norse epic or saga. Also, the blend of history, mythology and fiction here is seamless and very well done.

Most books I've read for this blog I've either liked very much or very much disliked. With this one I am strongly middle-of-the-road. I think it's because I can't decide whether to condemn it for its constant rambling or praise it for its seemingly effortless portrayal of Viking life. I suppose I've already done both, so I'd say in this book the pros equal the cons. The story is not complicated but a simple quest, after all. You can't go wrong in a fantasy or historical fiction piece with the classic quest, right? Well, as long as you keep the reader interested. I read one critic review that calls Jack's quest Tolkien-like. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I can see the similarity.

On a side note: only after finishing this book did I realize this is the same author who wrote The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, one of my favorite books when I was a budding young reader!

Get it on Amazon: The Sea of Trolls

Visit the author's website: http://www.nancyfarmerwebsite.com/

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Published: August 1, 2009

Number of Words: 94,502

Medium: paperback

My Grade: A

Synopsis from GoodReads: For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human ... until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

Reinvention is the rage. I guess it always has been, if you think about it. But especially now, in young adult fantasy fiction. This time it’s werewolves. It's amazing how ten short years ago; writing a love story about a werewolf would have seemed trite and corny. Now, teenagers can't get enough of them. In Maggie Steifvater’s Shiver, werewolves are paired effectively with a theme that’s been reinvented a million times over: star-crossed love. You'd think we'd get tired of it, but we don't. Myself included.

The present story twists the werewolf myth in a different direction from what we've seen before. No changing at will (like in Twilight), no changing with the full moon (like in Buffy or a number of other werewolf stories). Stiefvater's werewolves change with the climate. Freezing temperatures make them change into wolves; summertime brings humanity – but only for so many years. The werewolves change back into humans later and later in the summer as the years pass, and eventually they stop changing and remain a wolf. This is a problem for eighteen-year-old Sam, a werewolf who is in love with a human girl named Grace, because he thinks this is his last year as a human. Perhaps without meaning to, Stiefvater touches on essential elements of the human condition with this aspect of her story. Are we still ourselves in another form? If we 'change' in some way, do we lose a part or all of ourselves? And of course – what makes us human? Once Sam stops changing and remains a wolf for the rest of his life, is he still Sam? Is he still that sensitive guy who likes to mull over song lyrics in his head? Can he still be in love with Grace? Can a wolf even love? Or is it all instinct and survival?

Maggie Stiefvater's style is subtly formal, almost like poetry. At the same time it is easily readable and the subject matter is accessible to young readers. Her style allows for beautiful imagery crafted from straight-forward words that results in some of the best description I've read in young adult novels. It can be as simple as something like:

"I crunched out across the brittle, colorless grass...momentarily dazzled by the violent pink of the sunset through the fluttering black leaves of the trees."  (p 18-19)

And yet it is vivid and memorable in the reader's mind. The author's use of the words 'violent pink' and 'black leaves' give us an instant picture of what Grace sees when she steps into her backyard. I find myself impressed by Stiefvater's descriptions over and over again. Not only are they striking and beautiful, they serve to add depth to the characters and the action, and therefore turn a good story into a compelling one. They compliment the story rather than act as filler.

However, while Stiefvater's descriptions are top notch, I cannot always say the same for her dialogue. It sometimes feels corny or fake, especially in group scenes. The supporting characters sometimes sound younger than high schoolers and some of Sam's lines don't sound exactly believable because they have the over-analysis of a girl's mind behind them. Walking the line between fulfilling our fantasy of what we wish a guy would say and what just sounds too unrealistic is a delicate dance. Being a woman myself, I find it harder to create convincing male voices on the page than female ones, and I doubt it comes easy to any woman writer. That isn't to say there are some who don't do a great job, but while this author's female sensitivities serve her well for her full embodied descriptions, they do her a disservice when crafting her male characters. But it's not enough of an annoyance to put me off the book entirely. Half of me wants to give into this fantasy of a sensitive guy and a stoic girl, and the other half of me wants to chide it for being completely opposite of reality.

I purchased and read this book because I absolutely loved Stiefvater’s debut novel, Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception. Despite my nit-picking, this author provides consistent high-quality storytelling and I cannot wait to read Linger, the sequel to Shiver.

Find it on Amazon: Shiver

Visit the author's website: http://www.maggiestiefvater.com/

Magyk

Magyk, Book One of the Septimus Heap Series by Angie Sage

Find it on Amazon: Magyk (Septimus Heap, Book 1)

My Grade: C-

The critic’s quote that you find most often associated with this book is: “Heads–up, Harry, there’s a new young wizard on his way up…”

Seriously? Are you kidding me? This book is light-years away from Harry Potter. Out of the 12 children’s fantasy books I’ve read so far for this blog, this one was by far the most painful to get through.

When I read this critic review I thought; awesome, a great children’s fantasy book I’ll really enjoy. Practically all the customer review on Amazon raved about the creativity of the fully realized fantasy world in which the book is set. They said the action held their interest and they couldn’t put the book down.

So I started to read with eager enthusiasm.  But this eagerness quickly fizzled away. The beginning is slow. There were quite a few awkwardly worded sentences and the writing style, in general, was mediocre. Some reviewers seemed to think the book’s merit lay in its convoluted premise, and, after explaining it, cheekily add on the end: “confused yet?” As in, “just wait, this book is going to take you for a ride.” Not. I kept waiting for the payoff, for the point where I was going to get sucked in and totally hooked the way every other reviewer of this book promises you will be. So, even though I wasn’t initially impressed, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and continued onward. Because besides, when I was a kid reading a fantasy book that my older sister or someone else had recommended to me, I didn’t always get into it right away. But I found if I persevered through the first few chapters I would find the place where I understood what my sister had been raving about, and I would end up loving it. Some of my favorite fantasy books start out really slowly. But by the end you appreciate the slow build-up because you get to know the characters better, and the story becomes more meaningful. So with Magyk, I thought maybe this is like that. And if it is, then it’s probably going to turn out to be really good. Imagine my disappointment. About half way through reading the book I started to search again for others who might have the same opinion as I did. I couldn’t find a one. Everyone gave this book stellar reviews! I didn’t get it! Was I missing something? Finally I found some people who agreed with me on some points, but there weren’t many.

Here’s why I didn’t like it:

I didn’t like any of the characters. Jenna was annoying. Nicko felt one-dimensional. Silas seemed like a fool. Marcia Overstrand, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, just felt comical. The Hunter wasn’t scary, the Supreme Custodian wasn’t cunning. Even DomDaniel, the evil wizard, didn’t really have a personality. He gave no sense of foreboding like he was supposed to. Alther, the wizard ghost, didn’t contribute much to the tapestry of this fantasy world and was used mainly as a plot device. Aunt Zelda was ok, but I didn’t get the warm fuzzies around her like I think I was supposed to. The Heap’s dog Maxie was even more annoying than Jenna, and also didn’t contribute anything to the story. The one character I found slightly interesting was Stanley the Messenger Rat. Boy 412 was also a bit intriguing, but he would have been much more so if it wasn’t so blatantly obvious that he was Septimus. The big reveal at the end was extremely anticlimactic because of this.

The italicized and bolded words that are supposed to act as visual aids for when a wizard performs a spell are only distracting and obnoxious. Overall, the whole tone of the story is corny and cheesy. None of the characters are fully realized, and there are far too many than is needed. It was as if the author thought that stuffing her book full of quirky characters was a sign of a richly woven magical adventure. But it was quite plain that many characters had no purpose except to move the story along, and they just end up confusing the reader because we never get to know them enough to want to care about them.

This book just wasn’t clever enough for me. I knew the answers to the ‘mysteries’ before the book finished supplying me with the questions. The plot was predictable and, despite the mystery of the baby swaps in the beginning, lacked intricacy.

The map in the front of the book:

I really didn’t like the haphazard mingling of different cultural mythologies. Septimus is the seventh son of a seventh son, and therefore has great magical powers. The fantasy world is that of a feudal medieval town with a castle at its center and a wizard tower. Fine. These are Celtic and English devices that are commonly used in children’s fantasy. However, out of nowhere comes an ancient story of Hotep-Ra, hieroglyphs, and a Dragon Boat. Using Egyptian mythology as a backdrop to magic drawn from Celtic sources in a society that is clearly western European clashes unsettlingly and just looks messy. This element only supports the reader’s sense that this is an underdeveloped fantasy world, created by stitching a flimsy patchwork of bits and pieces and held together by a thin thread.

There are some strange incongruities in here, like how Sage describes how Jenna feels hugging Alther, who is a ghost, as “though a warm summer breeze had wafted through her.”

Really? Anyone who knows anything about ghosts knows that they feel cold. I don’t mean to sound like a know-it-all here, but inconsistencies like this only serve to disconnect the reader from the fantasy world. Fantasy only works so long as it is relatable to the reader. If it is so far removed from reality that it just feels stupid or bizarre, then it becomes impossible for the reader to suspend his disbelief in order to enjoy the story.

There is an interesting sub-plot squeezed into the corner of this book, and for me it was one of the most interesting parts of the story. I wish the author had spent more time on this plotline, which is the back-story of the evil wizard’s Apprentice and his unusual connection to Septimus Heap. The reader is supplied with critical information about this character only at the eleventh hour, and we end up feeling cheated out of a proper ending. The Apprentice’s story only acted as a deus ex machina to wrap everything up. I feel like there was a lot of potential here for his story to be more integrated into the main plot, or even mentioned in middle of the book instead of at the point where the story is practically over. If the Apprentice had been more involved, I believe it would have kept the reader guessing about the actually identity of Septimus until the very end. As it stands, it just doesn’t make sense to bring in a character that has such weight at such a late stage. For those of you unfamiliar with the deus ex machina plot device, it is generally considered to be a poor storytelling technique, for the simple reason that the reader feels cheated out of a proper ending.

Besides the six books in the Septimus Heap series, there is also a published Magykal Papers, which is sort of an appendices to the books, containing richly illustrated pages of maps, letters, documents, journal excepts, a restaurant guide, and other things associated with the characters and this fantasy world. I paged through it recently in the bookstore, and if I hadn’t read the first book already, this would have made the series appear more interesting than it actually is – which goes to show that clever marketing devices such as this work well.

Visit the author’s website: http://angiesage.com/

Evermore

Evermore by Alyson Noel

My Grade: C

Setting:

This story is about a girl named Ever who is the sole survivor of a car crash that killed the rest of her family: Mom, Dad, Sister, and dog. She moves in with her aunt and changes schools. She becomes withdrawn and antisocial, hanging out with a goth girl and a gay boy - the misfits. Part of the reason for this is because the accident gave her the ability to see people's auras, read their minds and know their life story by touching them. At her old school she was a popular cheerleader, but here the popular kids tease her. One day a new boy arrives at school and gives her a red tulip and silences the voices in her head. She is enthralled, and typical high school romance ensues. It's a good premise for a teen novel, even similar to Twilight's. But alas, it is leagues inferior to everyone's favorite vampire book. This turns out to be a copycat, trying to cash in on a popular trend but sadly is nowhere near as good as the original.

My thoughts:

Overall, this book is mediocre. I don't really know why it gets so much publicity over other better books geared for teenage girls. There was nothing particularly special about the story or the writing that stood out to me as something that makes this a really great book. In fact, I found the present tense format to be quite jarring. I don't think the author has the writing talent to be able to pull off a full-length novel written in the present tense. Since most narratives are written in past tense, it usually feels awkward reading in the present tense unless the author is skillful enough to make you not notice it after a while. This didn't happen in Evermore. Every time I picked it up the wording felt cumbersome.

I kept waiting for the 'good part,' as I call it. You know, the part usually just past the middle where the clues leading up to that point come together to tell you what's really going on, or where your suspicion that someone who looks like an ordinary person is really magical or mythical in some way are confirmed. But it wasn't there, at least not until the very end. And when it happened it wasn't very exciting, or not explained well. At least not well enough for me to remember it a few months after reading the book, which is when I am writing this review.

One part I really didn't like was how Ever had a relationship with her sister's ghost for a large part of the story. The way it was done seemed corny to me. There was too much of that and not enough of Ever's aunt's friend the psychic, whom Ever wanted nothing to do with. I wish that conflict had played out a bit more and the author had dug a bit deeper into the real nature of Ever's abilities. Having a psychic who was willing to help but never really did seemed like a wasted opportunity. She would have been a perfect character to use as a vehicle through which Ever could better understand and gain control of her abilities.

Another thing I didn't like was how I didn't see what Ever and every other girl at her school saw in Damen, the mysterious new boy. I couldn't get excited about him the way she did, I didn't even really like him sometimes. This could just be personal preference, but it made me disinterested in the story.

Overall there was no spark. The whole story felt dull, despite supernatural abilities and mysteries contained in the plot.

Alyson Noel's website has quotes from critics saying her Immortal series is "addictive" "beautiful" "haunting" and "mesmerizing." I guess they were reading a different book than I was. Or maybe it gets phenomenally better in the second and third installments. But based on the story structure and the style of writing, I doubt it. And besides, first impressions are the most important; you need to make your readers fall in love with your characters from the get-go, so they are hooked and yearning for more. But I know I sound harsh. This isn't the worst book I've read by any means. It's great for a high school girl who just wants some light escapism. All I'm saying is it didn't capture me and sweep me away the way some books do (Most recently, The Twilight Saga). 

The best thing about this book is its cover art:

I bought Evermore and its sequel, Blue Moon, at the same time as I assumed from the popularity of this series that it would be worth reading more than just the first book. Unfortunately I was wrong, and I have little interest in continuing to read the series.


Visit the author's website: http://www.alysonnoel.com/

The Alchemyst

The Alchemyst: Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott

My Grade: D-

In a nutshell: don’t bother.

This was the first book I read in my attempt to answer the question, “What’s popular in YA fantasy fiction right now?” Needless to say, my search did not get off to a good start and I finished the book feeling disenchanted and disappointed.  

There is tons of action in the book, but for some reason, it didn’t catch me. I struggled to push through it. I was afraid my quest to read new and riveting YA fantasy fiction would be over before it began.

The characters are flat. Not even hollow – there is no room to fill-in more character traits.

Another turn-off: mixing mythologies. I’ve seen this done well before even though I am not a fan. But Scott throws cultures and traditions together with little regard and even less consideration of their origins. He explains it away with cheap and superficial storytelling. The sad part is, if you are a young person and do not know of the traditions from which he draws his supernatural characters, you will either be contentedly ignorant of this problem or understandably confused.

The main characters, brother and sister twins, do not seem like 15 at all. I was surprised to hear that was their age. But maybe I am out of to uch with what young adult protagonists are like these days.

I know my view is in the minority – this book and it’s sequels have been extremely popular. It’s a New York Times bestseller.

I just don’t get it. It didn’t capture my imagination or captivate my attention.

Visit the author's website: http://www.dillonscott.com/